ADAM'S POV
The transition from the laboratory's regulated circadian lighting to the natural solar cycle of the Vance farm was, by all logical metrics, inefficient. At exactly 06:00, a localized beam of photon radiation—sunlight—pierced through the thin glass of the guest room, striking my retinas with uncalibrated intensity. In the lab, the transition was a gradual 10-minute fade. Here, the world simply "turned on."
I sat up, my internal sensors immediately scanning the room. Eve was still submerged in a deep REM cycle, his Black Impulse occasionally sparking against the handmade quilt, charring microscopic fibers of cotton.
"Eve. Wake up," I said. "The primary inhabitants are active. We must establish a presence."
"Five more minutes, Adam," he groaned, burying his face in a pillow. "The pillow is soft. Let me enjoy the softness."
I ignored him and dressed in the denim and cotton Father had provided. The fabric was coarse and lacked the friction-reduction properties of my tactical suit. It felt like wearing a layer of low-grade sandpaper.
We descended the wooden stairs—which groaned under my weight, a clear sign of structural aging—and entered the kitchen. The air was saturated with a high concentration of aerosolized lipids and proteins. Martha Vance stood at a cast-iron stove, while Silas sat at the head of a scarred oak table.
"Sit," Silas commanded. He didn't look up from a ceramic mug containing a dark, bitter liquid.
We took our positions. Martha placed a ceramic disk in front of me. My processors immediately began to catalog the contents:
• Three porcine strips (Bacon): High sodium, high fat, approximately 450 calories.
• Two avian embryos (Eggs): Over-easy, yolk viscosity medium.
• One flour-based leavened cylinder (Biscuit): Saturated in churned milk fat (Butter).
"Eat," Martha said. Her voice lacked the clinical neutrality of the lab technicians. It was heavy with an emotional frequency I couldn't quite map—a mixture of pity and desperation. "You're both too thin. He didn't feed you, did he? Just kept you in those cold rooms?"
I looked at the plate. "Our nutritional requirements were met via a precisely calculated intake of synthetic—"
"Use your teeth, boy, not your brain," Silas interrupted. He pointed a fork at me, his eyes sharp and unforgiving. "In this house, we don't talk like we're reading an instruction manual. You've got names. Use 'em."
I paused. He was requesting a shift in linguistic output. "Understood, Silas Vance."
"It's 'Grandpa,'" Martha whispered, reaching across the table to touch my hand. Her skin was rough, mapped with a network of fine wrinkles. My Divine Light sensed the heat of her blood, the steady but aging rhythm of her heart. I didn't pull away, but my logic centers flagged the contact as an unnecessary variable.
Beside me, Eve had begun to consume his rations with a velocity that suggested a sudden metabolic spike.
"This is..." Eve spoke, his speech garbled by unchewed protein. "This is significantly higher in flavor density than the gray paste Father makes."
"Typical," Silas grunted, his gaze hardening at the mention of my father. "A man who thinks he can improve on a hog and a hen. He tried to turn you into machines, didn't he? Thought he could edit out the parts that make you human."
I looked at Silas. "He succeeded in optimizing our efficiency. We are capable of processing data and energy at a level—"
"Efficiency is for tools, Adam," Silas said, standing up. The wooden chair legs screeched against the floor—a sound that registered at 85 decibels. "I don't need tools. I need men. And men work."
He grabbed a hat from a peg by the door. "Adam, you're with me. We've got a fence line down in the north pasture. Eve, Martha's got chores for you in the garden. And listen close: if I see one bit of that 'glow' in your eyes—that light your father put in you—you'll be sleeping in the barn. We don't use magic to fix what sweat can handle. Understood?"
I stood up, adjusting the coarse denim of my sleeves. "I understand the parameters, Silas."
"Grandpa," Silas corrected, though his voice was a low growl.
I followed him out the door. The air outside was unpurified, filled with the scent of damp earth and hay. My internal map showed Father's signature was now 42 miles away and moving south. He was gone. The experiment had moved into a new phase: one where the math didn't involve rifts or energy, but the slow, agonizing friction of being "normal."
The north pasture was a sea of tall, golden grass that swayed in a rhythm I found unnecessarily chaotic. Silas walked with a heavy, rhythmic stride, carrying a bag of metal staples and a heavy spool of barbed wire. I carried the post-hole digger.
"Well? Start digging," Silas said, leaning against a tree.
I looked at the tool. I looked at the earth. I could have focused my Divine Light into a singular point and vaporized a hole three feet deep in milliseconds. Instead, I gripped the wooden handles and slammed the blades into the dirt.
The impact vibrated through my bones. It was a dull, primitive sensation.
"You're doing it wrong," Silas said. He walked over, took the tool, and showed me the leverage. "It's not about power, boy. It's about the earth. You don't fight the ground; you work with it."
I took the tool back. I mimicked his movement. I held back my strength, forcing my muscles to work at a human capacity. Within an hour, sweat was stinging my eyes. My palms, usually protected by tactical gloves, were beginning to blister.
"You've got a look on your face," Silas said, wiping his brow. "Like you're trying to calculate the weight of the dirt."
"I am," I admitted.
Silas laughed. It wasn't a kind laugh, but it wasn't hateful either. "Life isn't a sum, Adam. It's a struggle. Your father tried to make you perfect, but he just made you brittle. You hit a rock with a machine, the machine breaks. You hit a rock with a man, the man learns to go around it."
We worked in silence for hours. By noon, my shirt was soaked. I felt a strange, throbbing heat in my shoulders—not the heat of Impulse, but the heat of exertion.
"Look at that," Silas said, pointing at the five posts we had set. "That'll hold for twenty years. You did that. Not a machine. Not a lab. You."
I looked at the fence. It was crooked. It was rusty. It was completely unremarkable.
And yet, as Silas clapped a rough, calloused hand on my shoulder, I felt a surge of something that didn't fit into my internal database. It was a quiet, heavy warmth.
"Come on," Silas said. "Martha's got lemonade. And don't tell her I said this, but... you're a better worker than your father ever was."
I followed him back toward the house, my blisters stinging in the sun. For the first time, the "math" of the world felt like it was finally starting to change.