Chương 29: New Strength, Old Enemies

Kelly was impressed. It wasn't easy to impress her. Twelve city-wide explosions in her last seventy-two hours alone had a way of sanding the novelty off most things. But GeneCorp had clearly been busy. The rate of progress in AI, quantum computing, and gene editing had compounded every decade for centuries—by the time the world staggered toward the end of the second millennium, what once took days or weeks to crack now took minutes. Sometimes seconds. Autonomous wetware labs did it all.

GeneCorp bet on genetics: messing with genes, luxury and longevity, products that promised to let you outlive your neighbours if the neighbourhood itself didn't catch fire first. Vaughn Industries bet on biomech: a fusion. Cybernetics, nanotech, engineered biology, all fused into a single adaptable thing that treated "tech versus biology" as a false choice. GeneCorp dominated the market in making people prettier and harder to kill; but they never beat Vaughn.

Vaughn's hold on military contracts stayed welded shut the whole time. After the Augment Wars, the AI coups, the mutant outbreaks, the question stopped being "who has the better marketing." Vaughn built something that could stand in a collapsing atmosphere and ask for more. Earth's defense, on‑planet and off, ran on that something. In a world always on the edge, they had something brutal and built to survive. Today, GeneCorp sought to flip that on its head. Kelly whistled, sharp and quick.

"Hot dang." GeneCorp's retrieval crews had been on the chaos before the blood cooled. Now she stood ankle‑deep in labelled bio‑containers, each one humming a faint, expectant note, and she was already deciding what to incorporate, what to splice, and what to pretend she fully understood. She'd come for troll regeneration. What she'd found was a buffet of genetic absurdity with side orders of cosmic mutation. Picking just one was going to be a problem. GeneCorp had parsed everything.

Every thread, strand, helix, and hideous hybrid dumped on Earth like it was a petri dish. They'd reached the truth fast: most of the invading creatures' genome structures were architecturally breathtaking and functionally underwhelming. They worked. Barely. Some didn't. A few did, and those few functioned in ways that gave the most advanced AIs and AGIs in history simulated migraines and a sudden interest in paid leave. The scientists had grasped the obvious. The DNA wasn't the prize. The catalyst was: Mana.

A senior researcher, the one who'd been staring at Kelly's boots like they might contain a thesis, gestured at a holographic model of a helix wrapped in something that flickered between fire and arithmetic.

"Dark matter and dark energy. Over ninety percent of the universe. Their unstable combustion produced a new energy—one that burns itself up to twist local reality. Each creature's biology fires it through a proprietary internal engine. Turns garbage genes into things that punch like minor gods." He paused, as if expecting a question.

"We don't know how. Or why. The engine's a black box wrapped in a miracle." Kelly tapped a container labelled with a hazard symbol she didn't recognize and a barcode she was certain had filed a complaint about its own existence.

"You tried splicing the genes together? Mixing strains, merging pathways, building something new?"

"Of course." The researcher's tone said he'd answered the question before, possibly in a room that had later needed to be scrubbed.

"A basic splicing of several is simple. We have a few proprietary splices. But to take the helical pathways apart at the foundational level and construct new abilities from the ground up—you need tools that operate smaller than the Planck scale. Something beyond quantum. We're not there yet. So we play with what we can see and hope nothing wakes up." Kelly let that settle. An engine nobody understood, a catalyst that rewrote reality, and a corporation standing ankle‑deep in vials, playing Legos with god‑killers.

She placed the whole situation under promising. Kelly skimmed past the notes of a sample that weaponized vocal cords to hijack brainwaves. Influence, stun, override—cute, if every newborn didn't already come with basic neural defenses baked in by the second trimester. The wolf‑shifter came next: stress‑induced, adrenaline‑triggered, crude, instinctual, not even engineered—all instinct and no control. It ran on chemical biology where humanity had already designed better. She moved on.

A creature that cloned itself in the grossest of ways; clone‑littering through organ‑based mitosis—asexual reproduction. Just reading it made her stomach fold. But sample 419‑B made her pause. Flesh from something with a natural aura that reconfigured itself in ways that shouldn't be possible. The lab's best AIs couldn't map it, explain it, or even fake understanding. That was the sort of failure that got her attention. That one... that one was interesting. But using it now would shoot her EQ up to over 6. 0.

Every single sample, every splice, would push her over the legal limit. The machines tracked what she added to her plans—logging the original capabilities of the donor and how those abilities had scaled once mana took over. Any attempt to go past regulation lit up the oversight systems in real‑time; whoever monitored the intake would see her projected EQ spike and shut her down before the sequence finished. So she had to get creative.

"Who's in charge here?" Kelly asked, eyes sweeping the lab. A voice from behind one of the sequencing tanks piped up, too quick and far too pleased with itself.

"That'd be me." Kelly didn't slow.

"Great. Get me a vat of acid. Strongest you have." Then she paused. Kelly met her gaze.

"And I'll need access to your cell‑bots." That got a reaction.

"You mean our PCA line? You don't have clearance for that," they said, stepping out—a woman in a faded badge coat, arms crossed like she expected a fight. Kelly didn't blink.

"Programmable Cellular Agents. The gene‑coded ones you market like flu shots for the rich. Not bots, not metal—cellular. Engineered to think they're part of the body, so no rejection, no fail‑safes kicking them offline, no dumb security conflicts when I bleed wrong."

"You can't just walk in and requisition our top platform. If you can do what you claim, buy them after. Or go get nanobots like everyone else."

"I'm not threading metal through my bloodstream." Only because it wouldn't hold across loops, but they didn't need to know that.

"I need cell‑bots—gene‑coded constructs that pass as tissue. Your line is single‑purpose, sure, but it doesn't run on AI or trigger safety procedures when my vitals spike." Kelly didn't wait for permission.

"They're locked to authorized genomes—custom‑seeded. Yours isn't in our clearance pool."

"Yet." Silence followed, a stalemate.

"I'm here to pitch a genetic breakthrough," Kelly said flatly, like she was explaining basic math.

"One that might let you stop playing nice with Vaughn—maybe even make someone stronger than the strongest man alive, without turning them insane, or worse." She glanced at the woman's expression, unimpressed.

"You want the results or not?" The badge coat didn't move.

"If her genome isn't in the system, she doesn't touch the PCA line. That's protocol." One of the suits finally exhaled through his teeth.

"Give her clearance. We'll drop the royalties five percent to offset the waiting list replacement and loss." Kelly was already leaning across the console, one finger held over the confirmation pad like she was daring it to blink.

"Appreciate the gesture," she said, keying it in before they could change their minds.

"But I won't be here long enough to pay them." Cell‑bots were engineered, cell‑like bots. These little things were grown from your own cells, tiny living helpers coded from a person's own blueprints and put together for a single job. They could only do one thing—that was the limit, they couldn't multitask, couldn't do a thousand things like nanotech could—but the one thing they did? They did it like they'd been born to do it—which they had.

Fixing tissue, holding things together, plugging a hole and then shutting up about it. Thinking on their feet sat firmly outside their design specs, and that simplicity kept them offline, untethered from any network, sealed tight against AI interference and neural overload. Cell‑bots were undeniably safer: organic, offline, and free from AI interference or neural overload. No chance of waking up with a thousand voices in your skull rewriting your priorities mid‑sentence.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Cell‑bots were originally designed by The Deadqueen—a demigod, upper echelon, overclocked terrorist and former researcher whose body now operated as a walking hivemind of AI control systems that hijacked her body and never gave it back.

The cell‑bots were the Deadqueen's early attempt at unseen control—programmable cellular agents built to rewrite biology one injection at a time, organic, self‑replicating, and subtle enough to pass for medical innovation. GeneCorp stole the tech, and Kelly broke it open. Ten minutes later, Kelly had a custom cell‑bot strain prepped, tagged, and ready for self‑injection. A young researcher rolled in a small vat of acid. Kelly didn't look at it. She stared at the cell‑bot vial.

She'd built them from a splice of her own genome and the mimic's. Their job was stupidly specific: if she injected an encrypted strain of mana‑based DNA like something with the troll's pathways, the bots would grab it mid‑stream, and rewrite her genome on the fly to make it hers. Trolls had the same regenerative cells everyone else had, but instead of using it to heal scratches and small wounds, they regrew full limbs.

Kelly hijacked the whole process, jammed it into her stem cells, and cranked them until they worked overtime keeping her alive while her body ripped through the rewrite like it was late for a funeral. If the procedure didn't kill her, the new tissue would stabilize the mutation, lock it in, and make the trait permanent. Probably. And the best part? The real function was tucked under the troll regen and stem cell merge like a landmine under a welcome mat—completely inert until she injected the next piece.

As far as anyone here could tell, it was just basic regeneration to keep her breathing. Two birds, one syringe, and no one saw the payload coming. She held the swishing tube against her skin, and thumbed the injector.

"Alright, you little bastards... don't kill me too fast." [Rare Trait: "Troll‑Strength" gained!] [Unique Trait: "Primordial Blood" gained!] [Troll‑Strength - (Rare, I‑Grade): This being's flesh carries traces of troll physiology. Elements of the species' muscle's unique interaction with mana now lie in this being's physiology. This has resulted in an increase in base strength when this being's muscles come in contact with mana. Strength has been increased by 2%, this increases by 2% each grade without limit.]"Two percent," she muttered.

"Every grade tacks on another two. It stacks." The numbers rolled behind her eyes. A two percent bump arrives with every grade, starts subtle, ends loud. Two percent of what I have. At grade fifty, that's double. Grade one hundred, triple? Two hundred? The math keeps going. Her fingers tapped her thigh to the same rhythm. When mana touches the muscles, it kicks. That's the whole secret. The troll parts are already built to take that hit and hand it back bigger. Feed it mana, get a harder swing.

Survive longer, soak more, get stronger. Round and round. Her head tilted. Troll bits. The ceiling sits somewhere past sight. She paced, mouth still moving, half‑formed words spilling out. Multiply. Multiply. Percent per grade. Grows forever. Forever's a long time in a loop. Scaling without a cap. Scaling with the one fuel I keep falling into. She stopped on that thought. The Troll was the grocery list. This is the whole freakin' store. She grinned. A researcher at the next station looked up from a datapad.

"Are you discussing groceries with yourself?" Kelly glanced over, expression flat.

"Counting my blessings. Big numbers. A private ledger." She checked the next notification. [Primordial Blood Of Several Origins - (Foundational, Unique, I‑Grade): Your blood carries merged traits from a mimic, a troll, and an evolved human. This fusion results in constant regeneration, and forms a latent conditional rewriting system embedded at the physiological level. When introduced to specific types of foreign matter—particularly those found in the heart or brain—it activates a latent rewriting effect, altering your body while retaining its shape.] Regeneration—perfect. That solved the whole 'spontaneous unspooling' problem. As far as everyone present could tell, she was about to pump herself full of troll regen, mimic tweaks, and roided stem cells just to stay breathing. They would figure it out eventually.

She dropped the injector on someone's datapad as if it was the only thing worth reading.

"This one's called Missionary." She paused for dramatic effect.

"Looks basic, but it's been keeping people alive forever." Nobody needed to know how much blood or vaporization it took to make that happen. They built things to impress; she built things to win. Reggie's brow furrowed.

"She serious?"

"No," Haider's hologram said, finally glancing over.

"But for some reason, today, she never isn't, if that makes sense." Inside, Kelly had already decided Haider and that intern—what was her name? Jenny? Jane? Either way, Dr. Haider and Intern #5 were the only ones here who weren't dead weight. They actually got her jokes, which made them smarter than the rest by default. Kelly leaned back, pleased with herself.

"The trick isn't dodging the chaos. It's steering into it. That's how you live forever even if you die." She smirked to herself. She couldn't tumble into chaos—she dived headfirst into it. Every drop was just another variable to play with, not something to panic over.

"I don't mind her," Dr. Haider shrugged, his tone almost amused.

"She keeps things interesting." He said, glancing toward Kelly.

"Sometimes chaos solves problems order never could." One of the suits didn't look up from the console.

"Humor noted. Let's proceed before the window closes." The other gave Reggie a slight nod. He pressed his palm flat against the interface on his wrist. A quiet chime followed—then the lab doors hissed open behind them. The guards entered without a word, rifles already raised. The armed guards entered like answers to a question nobody asked, their bodies balanced, joints too smooth, eyes too still, and perfect. Their movements were synced and aligned. One phased through the solid lab bench like smoke under pressure.

Another blinked out mid‑stride and reappeared ahead, like space clenched its fist and dropped him where it wanted. The third raised his weapon before Kelly started moving—tracking futures like a hunter reading wind. Kelly recognised it instantly. They were using rare, hyper‑advanced gear that nobody really understood, so far beyond modern understanding it was always treated as dangerous legacy instead of active technology.

Most of the time people avoided or hoarded them like dangerous leftovers instead of anything you'd actually use. Whenever tech like that showed up, it never stuck around—either some shady black ops group grabbed it, or some unlucky idiot stumbled across it and got a surprise they weren't ready for. Haider's voice cut through the feed, sharp and low.

"How? —""Teleporting?" Kelly's face lit up as she walked straight toward the rifleman, ignoring the raised weapons.

"Oh my god! That's Jellybean's work, isn't it? I haven't seen this kind of predictive targeting before." Her grin widened as she leaned in closer, examining the tech.

"Al, maybe?... or is it Tachyon Tracing? How does it work? How did she do it?" She straightened, her expression genuinely curious.

"How did you get your hands on Deadqueen tech?" The word landed like a stone in the silence. The room fell silent, every stare locked on her. Reggie's jaw tightened.

"Alright," he barked, taking a step forward as if to physically block Kelly's path.

"That's enough." But she didn't even glance his way, her focus locked on the tech as if no one else was in the room. Kelly stared at the tech and felt something tighten. It wasn't curiosity or excitement. She recognised the signature, tied to a moment that had never fully left her. That work had left a scar, one she hadn't thought about in a long time. A personal, unresolved emotion she associated with the tech no‑one understood.

While everyone else reacted with tension and unease, her experience wasn't fear or awe; it was more complex and private. As everyone else in the room stiffened, their breaths just a little tighter, movements a little more jilted at the mere mention of the name she'd uttered, all Kelly could feel was nostalgia. Kelly muttered under her breath, " Finally." To her, this was more than a scheme. She'd spent years chasing faint trails and whispers, piecing together the path to her. This wasn't coincidence.

Or a lucky break. The tech in front of her proved she was finally closing in.

"This is why I'm meant to be here," Kelly said, eyes still on the tech. One hand hovered over the chassis, fingers close but not touching—like it might answer her if she waited long enough. Kelly leaned beside the weapon's edge, hand braced on her hip, knuckles white.

"Where is she? Is she here?" Her voice dropped to a whisper, not cautious—desperate.

"Tell me she's here." Her posture didn't match her usual swagger; she looked like someone chasing a ghost she wasn't ready to lose twice. Reggie scoffed, still standing ahead of the guards.

"Why the hell would a lunatic hivemind AI that tried to enslave half the known planets be in the building?" His lip curled.

"Pretty sure she's supposed to be dead." Dr. Haider's hologram held steady.

"Vaughn Restoration and Relics moved tech like this five months ago. If it's here, it was stolen—or bought from whoever stole it. I don't know how it got this far." Dr. Haider's projection turned slightly toward Kelly.

"I'll check Vaughn logistics once everything dies down and I'm back on‑planet." Reggie snorted, interrupting the comms.

"So we stole them off whoever stole them off whoever stole them. So what? That's what we do. We're not GeneCorp—we're for hire." He glanced toward the suits.

"No offence."

"None taken," one of them said, stepping forward with measured weight, coat shifting as he moved into full view.

"And that's enough, everyone," the suit said, commanding attention. Kelly felt it in her teeth first—a faint static buzz, too clean, too intentional. The air had changed. A sharp hiss answered it as the vial she'd planted earlier zipped across the lab, skimming low over the floor before snapping into Reggie's open hand. Reggie looked guilty, not meeting her gaze.

"Sorry, Kelly. You seem nice, but... it's just business."