My Only Familiar Is Me[A Late-Blooming Evolution Story]

I spent another three days pushing myself nonstop. Unfortunately, this time the progress report looked a lot less impressive than the last one.

S-Power: 709/709 [Control Level: Supreme]

There was nothing alarming about that. As Master Smith used to remind us during training, and as my handler Danny had casually mentioned before, exponential growth simply did not exist in our line of work. The farther you advanced, the more resistance the environment pushed back with, and the slower your numbers climbed. It did not bother me in the slightest. The audit painted a very different picture: I had increased my baseline reserve by roughly seven hundred times. Nobody in the Corps could match that kind of growth.

After wrapping up another session, I stepped out of the stuffy room and headed into the kitchen to shovel a fresh wave of calories into my exhausted body. Mom was already there, sitting at the table and eating lunch. The moment I looked at her, my breath caught, and a heavy rush of nostalgia hit me so hard it felt almost physical.

The gray hair was gone. Her hair now carried a rich, natural chestnut color without the slightest trace of dye. Her skin had smoothed out, leaving only faint expression lines near her eyes. Maggie looked forty years old again, healthy, vibrant, and full of life. The last time I had seen her like this was when I was taking my middle school graduation exams.

”Morning,” she greeted me, lifting a fork with a browned sausage on it. Even her voice had changed, shedding the rasp and shortness of breath that had become so familiar over the years. ”Just so you know, I feel great, I’m eating actual solid food again, and your protein concentrate is officially a topping now instead of something I’m chugging by the gallon like I was the last few days.”

”Makes sense. The acute energy-deficit phase is over, so your body doesn’t need insane amounts of raw building material anymore.” I reached for the stove and loaded a double serving of sausages onto my plate before the smell drove me crazy. ”How long ago did the stasis end?”

”About five hours ago.” She chewed thoughtfully before swallowing. ”I woke up feeling like I could run a marathon. Speaking of resources, the fridge is basically empty again. We’re going to need another grocery run.”

”We’re not going anywhere this time. I’ll order delivery through the app,” I said as I sat down at the table. ”Otherwise you’ll have to put on the thickest hoodie you own and pull the hood halfway over your face.”

Mom raised an eyebrow. ”What are you talking about? Why would I need to hide on my own street?”

”Mom, have you looked in a mirror lately?” I unlocked my phone, switched to the front camera, and held the screen out across the table.

She took the phone and stared at the display, tilting her head one way and then the other as though she were examining a stranger’s photo.

”Is that... really me? No sagging cheeks, no age spots, even my hair looks thicker... wow.”

”Exactly. Wow.” I nodded. ”And every busybody in the neighborhood is going to have the same reaction the second they see you. You’ve changed way too much, way too fast. Nobody’s going to buy the idea that this came from a nice vacation or some miracle skincare brand. The last thing we need right now is people asking questions.”

”I still want to get out and walk around, Tom. I need to move.” A stubborn note crept into her voice.

”I had a feeling that argument would beat security concerns,” I said with a sigh, knowing that keeping her locked inside wasn’t a real solution either. ”Fine. Bundle up, zip everything to your chin, and let’s hope we don’t run into anyone we know.”

This time luck was on our side. The roads were nearly empty, and the people working the registers at the supermarket were unfamiliar faces, probably college kids working part-time jobs who could not have cared less about the customers.

As we moved through the aisles, I kept catching myself studying her. Her gait had become light and effortless, her stride quick and confident, and the familiar stiffness in her knees was gone. I was genuinely happy about the results, but at the same time I could not ignore a very distinct uncanny-valley effect. Our brains are wired to see time moving in one direction. Watching someone you love rapidly shed decades of biological age felt fundamentally wrong on an instinctive level.

”You said we’d have to move eventually anyway,” Mom said after we loaded the groceries into the trunk and climbed back into the car. Only then, inside the privacy of the vehicle, did she finally lower her hood. ”Have you decided where we’re going to settle?”

”Washington, D.C.,” I answered without hesitation as I pulled out of the parking lot.

”The capital?” She turned toward me, puzzled. ”Why there? You’re making great money now, the Corps pays a fortune, and from what I understand your income is only going to keep growing.”

”You’re right.” I nodded, thinking about the future royalties and licensing income from Selina’s medical patents that would eventually start landing in my account.

”Then why pick a gray bureaucratic city?” She studied my profile closely. ”With your resources, you could choose somewhere much nicer. Miami, for example. Or somewhere on the California coast. At the very least, we could just move to a better part of Los Angeles and live behind the gates in Brentwood.”

”Right now, all of my biggest career opportunities are in Washington,” I said honestly. Then, after a brief pause, I decided to play another important card. ”Besides, there’s a woman there I’m interested in.”

If Mom was going to end up spoiling grandchildren someday, it made sense to start easing her into the idea now.

A warm, knowing smile instantly spread across her face, the kind shared by mothers everywhere. ”Ah, so that’s what this is really about. Well, I can’t argue with that. I approve.”

”You don’t have to stay with me forever,” I added as I guided the car onto the highway. ”A couple more cycles and you’ll be in the best shape of your life. You won’t need constant supervision or to stay close to me anymore. You can pick any state you want, buy a house wherever you like, and live completely independently.”

”What about the legal side of things?” she asked, voicing a concern that had been sitting on my mental to-do list for days. ”If I keep getting younger at this pace, my IDs and Social Security card are going to become useless. Any cop who runs them is going to notice right away that the photo and birth date don’t match reality.”

”You don’t need to worry about that. It’s manageable,” I replied calmly. ”I’ve already checked. The Corps routinely handles legal support and identity registration for the family members of its operatives. New documents, clean records, whatever’s needed. For them, it’s standard paperwork that takes a couple of days.”

In reality, the system was usually used when an awakened operative needed relatives extracted from another country and legalized without getting buried under immigration procedures and bureaucracy. Considering my status and value to the organization, though, they would almost certainly make an exception here as well. And if for some reason the system failed, I had other options.

”By the way, once we finish your regeneration treatment, I’ll need to fly to Washington regardless. There are a few things that require me to be there in person.”

Mom stiffened slightly and turned toward me. ”Did you get an official mobilization notice?”

”No. It’s still quiet on that front.”

”So this has something to do with that professor? Selina, the one who came to see you last week?”

”Yeah.” I was mildly surprised by how quickly she connected the dots.

”And she’s the woman you’re willing to move us all the way to Washington for?”

”Yeah,” I said, deciding there was no point creating unnecessary explanations or alternate stories.

To her credit, Mom had enough common sense not to push. She did not turn it into an interrogation or start digging for details about my relationship with Selina. The rest of the drive home passed in comfortable silence.

”So what’s next?” Mom asked eagerly once she settled into her chair at the kitchen table. There was a spark in her eyes, the kind prospectors must have felt after striking gold.

”As usual, I’ve got a package deal for you. Two procedures at once,” I replied in the dry tone of a surgeon discussing routine work. ”First up is your endocrine system. According to your medical records, your hormone levels have been a mess for years. Conventional medicine doesn’t have many solutions beyond putting people on hormone replacement therapy for the rest of their lives. I dug through the research, and frankly, those synthetic treatments come with too many side effects, including increased risks of cancer and tumor growth. We’ll take a much more targeted approach.”

[Special Command: Maggie’s glands produce the ideal levels of estrogen and growth hormone, making her body both feminine and strong.]

”The second phase won’t be visible from the outside, but from a health standpoint it’s the most important one,” I continued. ”We’re going to upgrade your brain. As people age, the synaptic connections between neurons gradually deteriorate. That’s what causes slower thinking, memory lapses, and the brain fog people complain about.”

”You got me with the brain fog,” Mom said with a serious nod. ”The last few years, every morning started exactly the same way. I’d wake up, sit on the edge of the bed for five minutes, and try to figure out what I was supposed to do first and sometimes even what day it was.”

”You can forget about that,” I said. ”I’ve already instructed your neurons to accelerate neurogenesis and build thousands of new stable connections. Give it a couple of days and your processing speed will multiply. Your memory will be every bit as sharp and organized as it was when you were in college.”

”Well, I can’t say I suddenly feel like a genius,” she said, rolling her eyes theatrically as if she were trying to inspect her own brain from the inside. ”What I do feel is hungry enough to eat a box of nails.”

”That makes perfect sense. Rebuilding gray matter takes enormous amounts of glucose and protein. The process is already underway.” Without another word, I filled a glass to the brim with a thick protein shake and handed it to her.

The next few days settled into a routine. I did not waste the time. I squeezed another hundred points of S-Power out of my training, worked my way through every legal resource I could find on joint-custody issues, and scheduled a meeting with one of Washington’s top attorneys.

Meanwhile, Mom completed another major cycle of cellular regeneration. The results were remarkable. The woman standing before me now looked thirty years old: fit, healthy, and composed. That was how I vaguely remembered her from the earliest years of my childhood. Back then, retrieving those memories required a trip through my memory palace. Now the original was standing in front of me in the kitchen.

”We’re almost done. Just two procedures left,” I said, raising two fingers across the kitchen table. ”First, the cosmetic one. I’ve activated fibroblasts deep within your skin. They’re already producing large amounts of healthy collagen. You can forget about Botox, fillers, and all the other questionable cosmetic procedures out there. Within three days, the rejuvenated tissue will smooth out expression lines from within, restore facial definition, and bring back a healthy complexion.”

”That’s incredible!” She shot out of her chair with a spring in her step that I honestly could not remember ever seeing before.

”That’s just the surface level stuff,” I said, motioning for her to calm down as my tone grew more serious. ”Now we move on to the important part: immunity. In most adults, the thymus, the central organ of the immune system, gradually shrinks and becomes little more than a biological relic. As that happens, the body’s defenses weaken. I’ve already regenerated yours. It’s fully functional and producing millions of fresh T-cells. The problem is that those cells are still inexperienced, like recruits fresh out of boot camp. They could struggle against something as ordinary as seasonal flu. Mine wouldn’t.”

I set a sterile syringe filled with thick, dark blood onto the polished tabletop.

”My biological systems have undergone extensive upgrades. My immune defenses are as close to absolute as anything in nature gets. Deadly toxins can’t penetrate them. Engineered combat viruses can’t either. I could walk your body through the entire enhancement process from the ground up, but that would take far more time than we have. A direct transfer is faster and more efficient. Your system will read the template from my blood and replicate it. I ran the chemistry and the mathematical projections in hyperfocus mode. For your genetics, this is completely safe.”

Mom looked from the syringe to me. There was a hint of confusion in her eyes. ”Tom, honestly, I think I understood maybe half of what you just said. But if you’re telling me it’s good for me, I trust you.”

Without the slightest hesitation, she rolled up the sleeve of her robe.

”Appreciate the cooperation,” I said with a brief nod.

The procedure took less than thirty seconds. Thanks to my training in tactical medicine and emergency care, the motions had long since become automatic. My hand never wavered. The needle went in at exactly the right angle, smooth and painless.

Three days later, Maggie Ross’s biomodification was complete. Standing before me was a tall, flawlessly built young woman with perfect posture. Her biological age had stabilized at roughly twenty. I had never seen her look like this.

”Incredible...” Mom stood frozen in front of the full-length mirror in the hallway, staring in amazement at her long, elegant legs. ”I don’t think I looked this good even when I was twenty.”

”That actually makes sense,” I said calmly, leaning against the doorframe. ”Forty years ago, you were simply a young woman with the usual collection of genetic imperfections and nutritional deficiencies. You’re young again now, but your biological systems have been optimized to peak performance. Your body runs like a precision-engineered machine.”

”Hmm. Maybe I should try modeling,” she said with a faint smile, running her hands over cheeks so smooth they looked almost unreal.

”That’s entirely your choice. Spend your time however you want and enjoy your second youth. As for me, like I said before, it’s time to move on.”

The project to upgrade my mother was officially complete.

I pulled out my phone, found the contact I needed, and placed the call.

”Selina, it’s Tom,” I said when the connection clicked open. ”Everything on the home front is taken care of. I’ll be in Washington in exactly twelve hours. Get Omega Plus ready for injection.”