Chương 46: The Engineer’s Vision

"What's your superpower?" After my question, Selina went quiet. She studied me with a long, probing look that sent a chill crawling across my skin. The classroom became so silent that I could hear the steady hum of the fluorescent lights overhead. Had I seriously said something inappropriate? It felt strange. My handler, Danny, had always told me that among the Awakened, asking about abilities was completely normal. Like asking a guy at the gym how much he could bench.

Danny had freely told me everything about his own talents, and the guys in the barracks were not exactly secretive either. But Selina… maybe female Awakened treated it like something personal. Like asking about a woman's age or weight.

"Did I ask something wrong?" I finally said, unable to endure the drawn-out silence any longer.

"I'm just trying to figure something out." She gracefully rested her chin on her palm. That same feline smile curled across her lips, sly and faintly condescending.

"Four days ago, I mentioned that our powers come from the same root. And you only worked up the nerve to ask now. What took you so long, Tom? Were you scared?"

"I was looking for the right moment." I let out a silent breath, feeling the tension ease from my shoulders.

"You run your lectures with military discipline and only allow questions related to the topic. And after class, you disappear into the officers' dorms, where I'm not allowed to go."

"If there's even the slightest chance of new knowledge on the horizon, manners won't stop me." She adjusted her glasses, the frames clicking softly.

"Fine. What exactly do you want to know?"

"Everything," I answered as briefly as possible.

"We wouldn't have enough time for everything, even if we spent an entire day on it." She cast a quick glance at her phone screen.

"You've got less than thirty minutes before your S-Armor piloting class starts. I doubt your instructor would appreciate you showing up late, even if you blamed it on a very important conversation." She had a point. Ruining my reputation and earning penalty laps around the parade ground was not part of my plans.

"Then give me the basics. The main idea."

"If we simplify it as much as possible," Selina straightened up, her tone turning businesslike, "your system is [Trainer]. Mine is [Engineer]." I frowned as I processed that.

"What does that mean? You can influence the structure of machines the same way I influence muscle fibers?"

"Exactly. Any gadget, any piece of hardware I touch becomes stronger, more precise, and more efficient. I can achieve results that ordinary technicians could never replicate, no matter how many MIT diplomas they've got."

"So," I said, unable to resist a hint of sarcasm, "if you built a toaster, it'd never burn bread?"

"I don't waste my talent on household trash like toasters." She lifted her chin with truly regal arrogance, but the mischievous spark in her eyes betrayed her a second later.

"But if I ever lowered myself to kitchen appliances, my toaster would make the best toast in this part of the galaxy."

"I hope you had a hand in designing our armor."

"You bet I did." She snorted so sharply that her blonde bangs bounced in an unexpectedly cute way.

"Tom, in case you still haven't grasped the scale of the disaster we're living through, let me remind you that there's an interplanetary war going on. One miscalculation, one defective valve, and humanity turns into biomaterial for the Loz'an. This isn't the kind of situation where you cut corners on rivets. Under a UN agreement, I even had to share the S-Armor blueprints with Moscow and Beijing." I looked at the fragile girl differently after that.

Beneath the coldness and irony was a level of responsibility that would have crushed almost anyone else.

"That's… incredible. But how do you manage production across three superpowers at once? You can't physically be in three places simultaneously."

"It's not like I tighten every bolt by hand." Selina rolled her eyes as though she were explaining basic arithmetic to a first grader.

"I designed and calibrated three automated production lines. One for the States, one for Russia, and one for China. With my modifications in place, those factories will keep producing perfect results for decades, even if I never visit them again. My power is built into the logic of their operation."

"That's impressive," I admitted honestly.

"But you said you see data in interface windows. How does that connect to improving objects?"

"Tom, I'm not just an Enhancer. I'm an [Engineer]. To perfect technology, I have to see straight through it. When I look at a device, I see everything: the electrical current in every microchip, heat dissipation coefficients, energy consumption, critical stress points…" Her voice became quieter, more focused.

"The moment I activate [Blueprint], an endless stream of data unfolds in front of my eyes. I can spot a flaw in a circuit long before it fails." I nodded thoughtfully, comparing it to my own ability.

"That sounds far more useful than my gift. All I get are dry numbers for strength and endurance, and half the time they seem completely useless." The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"It's probably a matter of levels." Selina nodded toward the folder clutched in my hands.

"The higher your level becomes, the more data you'll receive. Your recommendations mention it briefly. I don't have a leveling system, which is probably why I gained access to the full package immediately."

"That makes sense. Can you use your [Blueprint] on people too?"

"I can," she said with a shrug, "but it works… differently on living beings. The information becomes dry and purely anatomical. I can tell you exactly how many bones you've got, how many liters of blood are circulating through your body right now, and how much S-Power you've got left. It's basically a full real-time medical atlas. And I can also see the durability of objects. Even biological ones."

"Durability? What do you mean?"

"Every body has a material resistance threshold." Selina leaned forward, her gaze turning professionally cold.

"It depends on bone density, ligament elasticity, and dozens of other factors. You know how one person falls off a roof and walks away shaken, while another slips off a couch and ends up with multiple fractures? My system measures that difference numerically." I swallowed, feeling a strange surge of excitement.

"So what's my durability?"

"Your durability's the highest I've ever seen." The lenses of her glasses gleamed predatorily in the cold fluorescent light.

"I reviewed the database for every Awakened in the United States. Only a handful of people in the entire country can compare to your bone density and joint structural integrity. You're an anomaly, Tom." I felt uneasy under that dissecting stare. There was something in her words that sent ice crawling down my spine, as if I were not a person at all, just a successful specimen sitting in a Petri dish.

"I'll take that as a questionable compliment," I muttered, trying to steady the slight tremor in my fingers.

"I've got the agility of a professional athlete and the strength of a heavyweight. I figured something inside me had changed, but I didn't think it was this serious."

"Oh, you've got no idea how serious it is," she practically purred, leaning closer. A spark of pure scientific fascination lit up her eyes.

"You remember that medical exam at the draft office, right? I spent several nights studying your scans. On the outside, you look like an ordinary guy, but inside… you're a real Frankenstein, Tom. Pure biological patchwork. Your musculature looks like it was painstakingly stitched together from the best muscle fibers of elite athletes to create the perfect balance."

"Very… flattering." I tried to change the subject before she started discussing my internal organs with even more enthusiasm.

"So your power's basically limited to seeing the details of machines and making them a little better?" Selina pressed her lips together in annoyance, and her gaze instantly turned cold. She looked at me as if I had just suggested using a quantum computer as a coffee coaster.

"Were you even listening to me? I'm an [Engineer]. My power isn't just upgrading things. I can design and create completely new, unique devices. But my mind doesn't generate ideas out of thin air. I need a foundation. I need a spark to build from."

"Like how Master Smith became the spark behind S-Armor?" I guessed.

"Exactly. I'm constantly analyzing the technology our teams pull out of portals. Alien lifeforms, their devices… but that alone isn't enough. You see, physics and biology have far more in common than people realize. Every known species, no matter how bizarre it is, has its own equivalent of radio communication, for example. Patterns repeat themselves."

"So alien tech pushed your work forward that much?"

"That's the problem, it didn't." She waved the thought away irritably, like an annoying fly.

"Technology's just repetition of what already exists. It only gives my gift the tiniest push. Awakened people are completely different. Your abilities… half the time they outright ignore the laws of thermodynamics and gravity. Just watching one of you use your power gives me blueprints that sound insane until I turn them into reality."

"Like that molecular bomb you mentioned?"

"Think bigger." Professional pride crept back into her voice.

"In official reports, it's classified as S-Nova. And by the way, I designed it just by observing your handler." I nearly dropped the folder in shock.

"Danny? But all he does is control fire. No molecules, no supernova explosions. Just standard pyrokinesis." Selina slowly shook her head, looking at me with genuine pity.

"Tom, your sense of scale is catastrophically underdeveloped. You do understand the difference between the flame of a match and the temperature of the Sun's surface, right? They're both fire, but the way they affect matter is completely different."

"Well… yeah," I mumbled, not wanting to sound like a total amateur in front of her.

"Now imagine a flame so hot that it tears apart interatomic bonds!" She gestured excitedly, completely oblivious to my hesitation.

"Fire that doesn't simply burn matter but disintegrates it on the subatomic level. See where I'm going with this now?"

"Sort of," I admitted.

"You're telling me Danny can actually do something like that?"

"Only under exceptional circumstances. It's only happened once, under very specific conditions. But that one moment was enough for me. My system recorded the process, analyzed it, and produced the completed blueprint for my masterpiece."

"Damn. So did Danny at least get some kind of bonus or patent for becoming your muse?" Selina looked at me as though I had asked whether an apple tree gets paid when an artist paints it.

"Of course not. Danny was just a source of data, an inspiration. I calculated the entire operating principle, stabilization process, and assembly myself."

"So your power doesn't just hand you a finished solution in a gift box?"

"Tom, you're seriously starting to annoy me." She crossed her arms angrily over her chest.

"Yeah, [Engineer] makes it easier to understand insanely complex processes and speeds up construction, but it doesn't do all the work for me. I still have to run thousands of tests, gather data piece by piece, and take risks experimenting with new materials. If it were that simple, I'd already be mass-producing immortality elixirs and antigravity engines for anyone willing to pay."

"Okay, okay, I surrender. I was wrong." I raised my hands defensively against her sharp stare.

"But listen… Danny's barely in his twenties. Portals have been opening for forty years. How'd humanity survive all this time without your S-Nova?"

"You're asking that like humanity only had bows and arrows before I came along." Selina rolled her eyes.

"We bombarded portals with missiles, used nuclear warheads, and basically threw anything at them that could make a really loud explosion. But the results… the results were always a gamble." She bit her lip for a brief moment, and a shadow of old anxiety flickered through her eyes.

"Some alien creatures are so advanced that even a dozen nuclear warheads won't do a thing to them. In those situations, they sent elite Awakened squads into the portals. And if half of them came back alive, that was considered a good outcome." I wanted to ask something else, but Selina suddenly glanced at her phone screen. Her expression instantly became businesslike and unreadable.

"That's enough, Tom. Conversation's over. You need to run. Your armor training starts in less than two minutes."

"Shit." I jumped out of the chair and bolted for the door.

"Thanks for the information. And for the folder!"

"Make sure you read it tonight!" she shouted after me as I burst into the hallway.

"You've got the highest growth potential in this entire group. Don't waste it!"