Chương 117: A Different Life

A five-story apartment building made of gray stone, the kind you see in any ordinary suburban neighborhood. Dry California sunlight glinted off the large windows, while rows of used sedans and crossovers filled the parking lot out front, the standard lineup for a middle-class neighborhood. Just a couple of months ago, I would have called this place home without hesitation. Now I stood on the sidewalk, staring at the familiar facade, and felt nothing but a dull, sterile emptiness.

The past month had been packed with too much to process: my first trip abroad, a step into the unknown through a spatial portal, contact with some alien insanity, the stark realization that our world was hanging by a thread, forced evolution of my body, and, to top it all off, a visit to the Pentagon with a brand-new medal pinned to my chest. With that kind of baggage, there was no going back to my old life.

I simply could not imagine putting on a freshly pressed suit again, dragging myself to the office, sneaking in little internet breaks whenever the boss looked the other way, listening to my coworkers drone on about their kids over lunch, cursing at the perpetually broken coffee machine, and staying late to reconcile someone else's debits and credits in accounting. Then I would come home completely drained and watch another forgettable TV series with Mom before bed. And the next morning, it would all start over.

I had no desire to go back to that chapter of my life. I just wanted to turn the page and move on. I was already mentally and financially prepared to do exactly that. But first, there were a couple of mundane things I needed to take care of. I went up to the right floor and slipped my key into the lock out of habit. The door opened, and I immediately took in the extent of the makeover.

The furniture had been pushed against the walls to clear out the space, while all the old-lady touches, lace doilies, porcelain figurines, and the like, had vanished without a trace. In their place stood a huge plasma TV and a brand-new game console. Apparently, along with her biological age, Maggie had decided to give the interior a complete makeover too. There was nothing left to suggest that an elderly woman and her grown son, an accountant, had lived here for years.

It looked like an ordinary teenage bachelor pad.

"Oh, you're back!" Maggie pointed at the game controller, paused the game, then got up from the couch and looked me over with the scrutiny of an art critic.

"You've changed, Tom. Definitely for the better... Hmm. I just can't put my finger on what's different. Wait... Did you shave your arms?!"

"You could say that. The hair below my head fell out on its own once my body no longer needed it." I calmly pulled my arm away from the bright-pink-haired girl whom my mind had already stopped recognizing as my mother.

"Seriously? Every girl dreams of that!" Without a trace of ceremony, she crouched down and hiked my pant leg up to my knee.

"Not a single hair! And they really won't grow back?"

"Never."

"Santa, make me like that too!" Maggie clasped her hands in prayer and put on the most angelic expression she could manage.

"I promise I'll be good all year!" Strangely enough, her goofy teenage manner did not annoy me. If anything, it was nice to see how quickly she had adapted and how naturally she behaved at her new physical age. Still, I could not shake a certain sense of dissonance. I imagined it was the same feeling teenagers got when they caught their parents smoking a joint. There was nothing particularly wrong with it, but the image of them they had built in their heads suddenly fell apart.

"And your skin is so smooth..." Maggie pressed her cheek against my forearm and let out a quiet gasp.

"Wow. It's like a baby's. How'd you even do that?"

"I got rid of genetic junk and restructured my cells so they could absorb vitamin D from sunlight more efficiently."

"Then why didn't you do that to me?" She narrowed her eyes and folded her arms across her chest.

"I want it too!"

"In that case, you'll have to forget about the beach."

"What do you mean?" Instead of launching into a long explanation, I quietly sat down on the little bench in the entryway, untied my sneakers, and took off my socks, showing her my feet without their little toes.

"Were you injured? Or poisoned, and they had to amputate them before the poison spread any higher?" Maggie cautiously, almost timidly, ran a finger along the edge of my foot.

"Holy crap... No scars, no stitches. It's like you never had anything there in the first place."

"Basically, that's exactly what happened. It wasn't surgery, Maggie. It was directed evolution. My body simply discarded unnecessary vestigial structures. Body hair isn't needed for thermoregulation anymore, and without the little toes, the foot works more efficiently. Better shock absorption, higher running speed."

"That sounds way more complicated than what you did to me." She stood up and gave me another nosy, appraising look.

"Do you think I should go through it too?" The question caught me off guard. I had not planned on subjecting her to evolutionary changes, but when I weighed the arguments objectively, there was some logic to it. I felt much better than I had before the forced evolution, and I would be glad if the person closest to me could feel better too. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"The procedure is quick, painless, and has no side effects," I said in the same flat, clinical tone doctors used when going over the information before a minor procedure.

"The benefits are perfect health, more energy and mobility, and automatic protection against every form of stress. The downside is that you'll lose a couple of toes. But at the beach, you can always say it's a rare congenital condition. People are born with stranger things."

"That sounds too good to be true," she said, narrowing her eyes, though a spark of excitement had already appeared in them.

"Fine, I'll think about it. Now get your butt to the table. And don't even think about leaving out the part about the portals. What's on the other side, who's there, and what do those aliens actually look like?" I had been preparing for this conversation ever since I bought my ticket at the airport. Everyone on the planet was dying to know what lay beyond the portals: elves, aliens, angels.

The government was, of course, keeping everything classified and forcing soldiers to sign nondisclosure agreements, but I had no intention of keeping the obvious from the only person close to me. Maggie knew how to keep her mouth shut, something she had already proven repeatedly since her rejuvenation. As long as she did not start broadcasting the whole thing on social media, we could consider the rules of the game intact.

We made our way into the kitchen, and I was hit by a second wave of shock at the apartment's new layout. For starters, our once-stern gray refrigerator with its stainless-steel door was now covered in elaborate graffiti art: a cartoonish pink princess with a lit cigarette between her teeth and scrapes on her knees, holding a skateboard. The inside, meanwhile, was packed to the brim with sweets.

"Maggie, you used to cook real food. Soup, pasta, meat. I liked it," I said, staring at the mountains of cakes, pastries, and whipped cream.

"And now you've decided to buy out the entire dessert section in the county?"

"You wouldn't understand, Tom." She tossed a couple of colorful candies into her mouth and closed her eyes.

"For the last ten years, my doctor wouldn't get off my back about my blood sugar. All I did was watch what I ate and deny myself everything I liked. But the moment you took that burden off my shoulders... let's just say I decided to make up for lost time."

"Until your liver goes on strike?" I looked at her blissfully satisfied face, smeared with frosting. She was definitely going to need to evolve if she wanted to avoid developing diabetes again while I was gone.

"All right. Your life, your rules. I was worried it was something worse, like you'd gone into some kind of second childhood. Candy everywhere, video games, colorful stickers on the refrigerator..."

"You think this is too childish?" Maggie ran her fingers over the refrigerator's glossy side, tracing the painted princess.

"Maybe you're right. I was never a princess fan. But when Stephanie offered to have a friend of hers paint it for free, I just couldn't say no to free."

"Speaking of our pink-haired neighbor..." I cut myself a generous slice of chocolate cake covered in M&M's.

"Looks like you two hit it off pretty quickly."

"Let's just say we're on the same wavelength." She poured me a glass of ice-cold Coke.

"Steph wants to live life to the fullest, and I want to make up for nearly thirty years of drab routine."

"I guess that's why we didn't exactly hit it off." I gave her a crooked smile.

"By the way, did she ask about me?"

"Only on the first day we met." She sat down across from me with an equally huge slice of cake.

"Steph is always looking for new experiences. You're old news to her, no offense."

"I was thinking the same thing about her today." I took a sip of Coke.

"She isn't trying to get close to you just to learn more about the Awakened, is she?"

"I thought about that, and I don't think she is. Steph is still interested in the subject, but no more than everyone else is."

"You'd know better than I would."

"Tom, Steph is having some money trouble right now, and you..." She stopped, looking as though she were about to announce a plan to rob a bank. I silently popped another piece of cake into my mouth, savoring the artificial, unhealthy, but ridiculously delicious flavor.

"Anyway..." Maggie clenched her fists and looked straight at me, her expression suddenly defiant.

"Would you mind if Stephanie stayed in your room for a couple of months? She really needs to pay off some debts. If she rents out her apartment for that long, she'll be back on her feet."

"This is your apartment. Do whatever you want with it." I pulled out my key ring and let the keys clink against the countertop.

"I'm moving to Washington. So the place is completely yours. And yes, the bank won't be bothering you anymore."

"You paid off the mortgage?" She immediately put two and two together.

"But where did you get that kind of money...?" Instead of answering, I pulled a small velvet box from my jacket and set it on the table. Inside lay a Bronze Star with a V device on the ribbon. Maggie froze, seemingly forgetting to breathe as she stared at the medal.

"It's an award for demonstrating leadership in the portal," I explained calmly, before she could pass out from lack of oxygen.

"And that piece of metal comes with more than just a raise. There's a pretty substantial check attached to it, too."

"I don't even know..." She shook her head, overwhelmed.

"I'm torn. I'm incredibly happy, but I'm sad too..."

"Why?"

"I'm proud of you, Tom. Every mother dreams of seeing her son recognized for what he's accomplished. But..." She ran her palms over her smooth, youthful cheeks.

"Looking like this, I can't even brag about you to the neighbors. Nobody's going to believe me."

"All the better." I grinned and popped another piece of cake into my mouth.

"I'm not allowed to share the details anyway. If anyone asks, I'll have to tell them stories about special operations and fighting international terrorism."

"Like the neighborhood's very own James Bond." She narrowed her eyes with amusement.

"Are you absolutely sure about moving to Washington?"

"Absolutely. There's nothing keeping me here anymore. Not my job, not the apartment."

"What about me? Maybe I should go with you?"

"So I can introduce you to everyone as my weird distant relative? It doesn't make any sense. It'd just raise questions and give me a headache." I shook my head.

"You're young, healthy, and free. Go enjoy your life. I'll take care of the financial side." Silence settled over the kitchen for several minutes, broken only by the ticking of the wall clock.

"I always knew the day would come when I'd have to push the baby bird out of the nest. I just never thought I'd be the baby bird." She snorted, then laughed softly.

"All right, I get it. I'd feel weird calling a guy who looks ten years younger than me my son, too. But we're not saying goodbye for good, right? You'll call me?"

"Of course." I answered sincerely and pushed my empty plate aside.

"Speaking of helping each other out, I actually need your help with something."

"I'm in! What do you need me to do?"

"Put on some workout clothes and come to the gym with me." Maggie stared at me in undisguised amazement. And I was only more convinced that I was right. If the [Trainer] class gains power from increasing my familiars' stats, why not put those reserve resources to work?