"Sit down," Maya said, pulling out her phone. "I'm going full scientist mode on you."
Leon sat back on the couch, amused. "Should I be worried?"
"Probably." But she was smiling. Her hands had stopped shaking. The initial shock was wearing off, replaced by scientific curiosity. This was the Maya he knew—when faced with the impossible, she wanted to measure it. He was the same too.
"Okay. First, your pulse." She pressed two fingers against his wrist, eyes on her phone's timer. Her expression shifted from concentration to confusion. "Leon, your heart rate is thirty-two beats per minute."
"Is that bad?"
"Athletes can get down to forty when resting. Thirty-two is... well, it's almost too slow. Except each beat feels incredibly strong. Like your heart is pumping twice the normal volume per contraction." She made a note on her phone. "Your cardiovascular system completely restructured itself."
She moved on to his eyes. "Look at me. Don't blink." She pulled out her phone's flashlight and shined it in his eye.
Leon's pupil constricted instantly. When she moved the light away, it dilated just as fast.
"That's not normal," Maya breathed. "Your reflex speed is impossible. The fastest recorded pupillary response is around 200 milliseconds. Yours is maybe 2, almost instantaneously. You're processing visual information hundred times faster than a normal human."
"Everything does look slower to me now."
"Because your brain is processing faster. You're literally perceiving time differently." More notes on her phone. "Okay, temperature."
She pressed her hand against his forehead, then his neck. "You're warm. Warmer than normal body temperature. Maybe 100, 101 degrees? But you don't have a fever. This is just your baseline now."
Maya sat back, staring at her notes. "Your entire physiology has changed. Cardiovascular, neurological, metabolic. Everything's been enhanced beyond human limits." She looked up at him. "How are you feeling? Any pain? Discomfort?"
"I feel great. Better than great. Like my whole life I've been walking around with weights strapped to me and someone finally took them off."
"Can you still see inside yourself? Like you mentioned?"
"Yeah. Want me to describe it?"
"Please."
Leon closed his eyes and focused inward. His awareness shifted, and suddenly he could perceive his entire body in perfect detail. "My heart's beating slowly but powerfully, like you said. Blood flow is strong. My organs are all functioning perfectly. My bones are denser than before—I can see the structure, they're reinforced somehow."
"And the golden ring?"
"It's there. Circling my heart. It rotates slowly, counterclockwise. There are thin tendrils connecting it to my heart muscle. And with each heartbeat, energy pulses through those tendrils, into my heart, then out through my bloodstream to every cell in my body."
Maya was typing furiously. "It's like you developed a completely new organ. One that processes and distributes this energy—this Evolyx—throughout your system."
"The ring is hollow in the center. Like it's waiting to be filled with something."
"Filled with what?"
"I don't know. But I can feel that it's incomplete."
Maya set her phone down and looked at him with an expression he couldn't quite read. Awe, maybe. Or fear. Or both. "Leon, do you realize what this means? You've undergone a fundamental evolutionary change. In the span of hours. You're not baseline human anymore. You're something new."
"Homo superior?"
"Don't joke. This is—" She stopped. "Wait. Are you my research subject now?"
Leon laughed. It was the first time he'd laughed since the accident, and it felt good. Normal. Human. "If you want me to be."
"Oh, I want. I have so many questions. We need to run tests, document everything, figure out the mechanisms—"
His stomach rumbled. Loudly.
They both looked down at his midsection.
"Right," Maya said. "Your body burned through a lot of resources during the transformation. When did you last eat?"
"Before my run yesterday. So... more than 24 hours ago."
"Okay. Food first, science second. What do you want?"
"Everything."
Maya laughed, thinking he was joking. She stopped laughing when Leon went to the fridge and started pulling out everything inside. Eggs. Bacon. Cheese. Leftover chicken. Vegetables. Bread. Milk.
"Leon, that's—"
"Not enough, probably. But it's a start."
He cooked with frightening efficiency. His enhanced speed and reflexes made him move through the kitchen like a professional chef. Six eggs cracked simultaneously. Bacon laid out in perfect rows. Vegetables chopped in seconds.
Maya watched in amazement as he devoured his first plate in under a minute. Then a second plate. A third. He moved on to making sandwiches, eating them as fast as he could assemble them. The leftover chicken disappeared. The cheese. An entire loaf of bread.
When the fridge was empty, Leon looked up. "What time is it?"
Maya checked her phone. "You've been eating for twenty minutes."
"Well, I spent seventeen minutes cooking too and the remaining 3 minutes for eating. So twenty total minutes for two days of groceries."
"That's not normal, Leon."
"I know." He patted his stomach. "Still hungry, though."
Maya grabbed her phone. "I'm ordering takeout. What do you want?"
"Chinese. Indian. Pizza. All of it."
"You're joking."
"I'm really not."
She ordered from three different restaurants. When the food arrived forty-five minutes later, Leon ate it all. Three large pizzas. Enough Chinese food for a family of six. An Indian feast meant for four people. He ate steadily, methodically, his body demanding fuel.
Maya watched with her biologist hat firmly on. "Your body needs massive amounts of energy to maintain these enhancements. Your metabolism is running at an insane rate."
"Makes sense," Leon said between bites. "Energy conservation. Can't create something from nothing. If my body is performing at superhuman levels, it needs superhuman fuel."
Finally, after enough food for ten people, Leon felt satisfied. He leaned back on the couch, patting his completely flat stomach. "Okay. That helped."
"That was terrifying to watch."
"Sorry. I'll need to keep a lot more food in the apartment."
"We'll need a second fridge." Maya sat beside him. "Leon, what does all this mean? What are you going to do?"
"I need to understand what happened. Learn everything I can." Leon's voice was firm. "Whatever this gene lock is that broke, whatever Evolyx is, it's real. It's measurable. Which means I can study it. Figure out how it works. Maybe even figure out if there are more gene locks to break."
"More?"
"I felt it. When the first one broke. Like there were others deeper inside, still locked. I don't know how many, but this isn't the end of the transformation. It's just the beginning."
Maya was quiet for a moment. "This is revolutionary biology. If we document this properly, publish research—"
"No." Leon shook his head. "Not yet. We keep this secret for now. If people find out what I can do, what will happen? Government agencies will want to study me. Corporations will want to exploit it. And I don't think the world is ready for this yet."
"But the potential good—"
"I know. And eventually, we'll figure out how to share this safely. But first, I need to understand it myself." He took her hand. "Will you help me?"
Maya squeezed his hand. "Of course I will. This is the most fascinating thing I've ever encountered. And it's happening to the person I love, so yes. Absolutely yes."
"Good. Because I'm going to need your expertise."
"Where do we start?"
"Testing. I need to know my limits."
They started simple. Strength test first.
Leon walked over to their refrigerator. It was a standard full-size model, had to weigh at least 250 pounds when full. Except it was empty now after his eating spree.
He reached down and lifted it with his pinkie finger.
The refrigerator came off the ground effortlessly. Leon held it there, suspended by one finger, showing no strain whatsoever.
"Okay," Maya said faintly. "That's... okay."
Leon set it down carefully. "I barely felt the weight. My limit is way beyond this."
"How far beyond?"
"I have no idea. I'd need access to serious weight equipment to test properly. Maybe a vehicle."
"Let's not test with vehicles yet. What about speed?"
They moved to testing reflexes. A fly was buzzing around the kitchen—it had gotten in when they opened the door for deliveries. Leon watched it for a moment, tracking its erratic flight pattern.
Then his hand moved.
It was almost too fast to see. One moment his hand was at his side. The next, it was extended, the fly caught gently between his thumb and forefinger. He walked to the window and released it outside.
"You caught a fly mid-flight," Maya said. "Casually. Like it was nothing."
"It was moving in slow motion from my perspective. Easy to track."
They looked at each other, the weight of realization settling between them.
"You're fundamentally different now," Maya said softly. "Not human anymore. At least not baseline human."
"Does that scare you?"
"A little. But mostly it fascinates me." She smiled. "You're still Leon. Just... enhanced. Hehe."
"The question is, are there others like this? Other people who've broken their gene locks?"
"If there are, they're keeping it secret too. Or maybe they didn't survive. You said you almost died during the transformation."
"True. The breathing pattern was the key. Without it, maybe the breakthrough would have killed me."
"Or maybe you're the first," Maya said. "The first human to successfully break a gene lock and survive."
The weight of that possibility hung in the air.
"Either way," Leon said, "we keep this quiet for now. We learn, we research, we understand. Agreed?"
"Agreed."
They spent the rest of the evening discussing plans. What to study first. How to document his abilities. What equipment they'd need. By the time exhaustion hit Leon—the first time he'd felt tired since waking up—it was past midnight.
Sleep came easily. His body still recovering, still adapting to the changes.
---
Leon woke before dawn, feeling energized and clear-minded. Maya was still asleep beside him. He slipped out of bed quietly and stood in the living room, thinking.
The breathing pattern. That's what had triggered everything.
Could he replicate it? Could he use it to absorb more Evolyx?
Leon lay down on the floor, positioning himself awkwardly, trying to remember the exact pattern from the accident. It had been instinctual then, born from necessity. Now he had to recreate it deliberately.
Slow breath in through the nose. Two counts. Hold. Two counts. Slow breath out through the mouth. Two counts. Pause. Two counts.
The rhythm fell into place.
And suddenly, those floating specks of light moved.
Leon's eyes widened. The tiny golden motes that had been drifting aimlessly through the air were now flowing toward him. Drawn by his breathing. They entered his nose with each inhale, flooding into his body.
He could feel them. Warm but neutral. Neither hot nor cold. Peaceful. They flowed through his lungs, into his bloodstream, spreading through his entire body. Into his blood, his cells, his bones. Everywhere.
The golden ring around his heart pulsed. It seemed to draw the Evolyx in, concentrating it. The hollow center filled slightly—just a fraction—before the energy dispersed through his body.
But the process was slow. Incredibly slow. Like trying to fill an ocean with an eyedropper. The Evolyx in the air was so sparse that even breathing it in constantly barely made a dent.
Still, it was something. Progress.
Leon practiced for an hour, maintaining the breathing pattern, feeling the tiny trickle of energy flowing into him. His body absorbed it greedily, using it to fuel his enhanced metabolism.
"What are you doing?"
Maya's voice made him open his eyes. She was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, hair messy from sleep.
"Absorbing Evolyx from the air," Leon said. "The breathing pattern pulls it in. But it's really slow. The energy is too sparse."
Maya sat down next to him. "Energy? Like ATP? Mitochondrial energy?"
"I don't know. That's why I need to learn. I need to understand what Evolyx actually is. Where it comes from. Why it's so sparse here. Everything."
"Then let's start learning."
They spent the day downloading every biology textbook, research paper, and journal article they could find. Leon started reading.
His perfect memory meant he absorbed every word, every diagram, every equation. But more importantly, he understood it all. The concepts clicked into place effortlessly. Complex biological processes made intuitive sense. He could see the connections between different systems, understand the underlying mechanisms.
By the end of the first day, he'd completed the equivalent of a bachelor's degree in biology. And engineering. And several other science fields.
Maya tested him that evening, quizzing him on random topics. He knew them all perfectly.
"This should have taken years," she said, amazed.
"I can't stop," Leon admitted. "Every answer leads to more questions. I need to understand everything."
The second day, he moved to master's level material. Chemistry, physics, advanced mathematics. His brain devoured it all, making connections across disciplines, seeing patterns that weren't obvious.
By the third day, he was reading PhD-level research papers and understanding them completely. Multiple fields. His knowledge was expanding exponentially.
Maya watched him work with a mixture of awe and concern. "You're learning faster than should be possible."
"I know. But I need this. If I'm going to figure out what happened to me, I need expertise in every relevant field."
A week passed in a blur of study and research. Leon read constantly. He also noticed something else—as long as he maintained the breathing pattern, he never got tired. The constant trickle of Evolyx was enough to keep his enhanced metabolism running without fatigue.
He made the breathing pattern automatic. 24/7. Asleep or awake, his body maintained the rhythm without conscious thought.
Side effects emerged. He needed less sleep. Maybe four hours a night instead of eight. And even that felt optional.
His typing speed became a problem. Three keyboards broke in the first week, keys snapping off under the speed and force of his fingers. He ordered reinforced mechanical keyboards designed for professional gamers. They lasted longer but still showed wear.
Maya handled the logistics. Shopping for massive amounts of food. Cooking huge portions. She'd come home from her lab to find Leon surrounded by books and papers and screens, completely absorbed in learning.
Their apartment transformed into a research center. Books stacked on every surface. Papers scattered across the desk, the coffee table, the floor. Multiple laptops running simultaneously. The space looked chaotic, but Leon knew where everything was.
And through it all, he was happy.
This was what he loved. Learning. Understanding. Figuring out how things worked. The gene lock transformation had given him the tools to learn at speeds he'd only dreamed of. Every question led to answers. Every answer led to deeper questions.
By the end of the week, Leon had expertise equivalent to multiple PhDs. Biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, engineering. His knowledge base was encyclopedic.
But it wasn't enough. There was still so much he didn't understand about Evolyx, about the gene locks, about what he'd become.
He needed to go deeper.
And he would. One question at a time. One answer at a time.
Until he understood everything.