Chương 116: Playing the Long Game

The engineering center's cafeteria was completely empty, with only Selina and me inside. Despite the two dozen empty tables, we had settled right at the serving counter, facing each other like newlyweds setting up house in the freshly renovated kitchen of their new home.

"Not bad," Selina pronounced, spearing a piece of meat and holding it up to the light to inspect the doneness.

"Still a long way from culinary perfection, but I can see the progress. Keep cooking for me more often, and in a couple of years, you might be able to afford your own restaurant."

"I already work as hard as a Michelin-starred chef," I replied calmly, continuing to eat without putting on airs or pretending to be a restaurant critic.

"I'm always on edge, trying to please my one and only customer, the most demanding and expensive one of all. You."

"In that case, I propose a toast." She raised her wineglass with an ironic, mischievous smile.

"To always having the right customers come back."

"And never being stingy with their tips." I lightly tapped my glass against hers.

"You've given my culinary skills your seal of approval, and I've had my audience with the chef. Maybe we can finally get down to business, the reason I ran across the entire city. Crowley's transformations."

"Aren't you worried about bringing up a subject like that?" She gave me a searching look over the rims of her glasses, narrowing her blue eyes slightly.

"The old man clearly has no intention of advertising what he's capable of. And you're bringing this up in a building that was constructed under his direct supervision…"

"If there were even the slightest risk of a leak, you wouldn't have invited me here," I countered easily, without taking my eyes off my plate.

"I think too highly of your intelligence."

"Flatterer," she said coolly, though a pleased, triumphant smile tugged at her lips.

"But you're absolutely right. There are no prying ears on my turf. The microphones embedded in the walls as part of the standard security protocols are being suppressed by a jammer I built myself. No other agency on this planet has anything remotely like it."

"So we're back where we started. You know what gave Crowley tissues with that kind of structure?"

"Of course." She gave me a mysterious smile, lazily pushing a lone slice of onion around her plate with her fork.

"But you're not going to tell me for free."

"Why not? I'm always open to a mutually beneficial exchange. It's just that… the answer suddenly slipped my mind." With an unmistakable hint of suggestion, she stretched languidly, squeezing her eyes shut like a well-fed cat basking in the sun.

"This damn desk work at a microscope has left my whole back stiff. The blood flow to my corpus callosum has been compromised, and my memory is already starting to fail…" Without a word, I set my empty plate aside, got up, walked around behind her, and placed my hands on her tense trapezius muscles.

"Ooh, you have strong hands," she purred, her eyelids immediately fluttering shut.

"Right there, just below my shoulder blade… don't stop, Tom."

"Maybe you happen to have a professional massage table somewhere in storage?" I asked evenly, methodically working the knots out of her rock-hard muscles.

"I could warm up some massage oil, prepare hot towels, and give you a proper therapeutic massage."

"Ooh, that sounds a-mazing," she whispered, completely lost in bliss beneath my fingers.

"We don't have a table right now, but I'll make sure to buy one with government funds before your next visit."

"And nobody upstairs is going to wonder why engineers need a massage table?"

"They'll understand how important this acquisition is to the advancement of global science when they see my face."

"Looks like your circulation is improving and your memory is coming back." I took my hands away and stepped back.

"Hey, what are you doing?!" she protested immediately, tipping her head back to look up at me.

"Keep going!"

"Facts about the general first."

"You're a cruel, cynical blackmailer." She lowered her head with such theatrical despair that she looked as though she were giving up her mother's necklace in exchange for a stale crust of bread.

"Fine, have it your way. Just keep those fingers moving." I placed my hands back on her shoulders, easing the pressure so I would not interfere with her breathing while she talked.

"I can say one thing with certainty: his condition isn't the product of modern medicine, and it isn't the result of anything our laboratories have developed," she said in a near whisper, her eyes still closed.

"Humanity, even with all the alien technology we've acquired, still can't reliably produce super-soldiers of that caliber. Although I'll admit we're not all that far from our first working prototypes…" Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. She broke off mid-sentence and let out a quiet, brief moan when my fingers found another knot of tension near the base of her neck and worked it loose with surgical precision.

"And I can say with absolute confidence that our general hasn't been replaced by a replicant or an alien," she breathed contentedly, her eyes opening slightly.

"First, your own [Analysis] gave you a definitive identification. That's Arthur Crowley, not a double. Second, according to the basic principles of portal mechanics, no living outsider can enter our world until the current stage of the battle royale is over."

"So what does that leave us with?"

"Direct intervention by a superpower."

"Impossible. That contradicts everything you've ever taught me." I held my fingers in place, stopping the massage.

"Arthur was born long before the first portal anomalies appeared. There's no way S-Power energy could have formed in his cellular structure. He isn't Awakened."

"So someone else worked on him." Selina caught my hands and firmly guided them back to the muscles around her collarbones, clearly demanding that I continue.

"Think about your mother, Tom. Wasn't it your abilities that made her look like a college freshman?"

"Logical argument." I nodded and resumed working deeply into the tissue.

"But it's still just a working hypothesis. Do you have any concrete data, or a name for the Awakened who rebuilt Crowley's physiology with that kind of precision?"

"What, you already want to book a consultation with him?" There was an ironic edge to her voice.

"More like study the methodology. Maybe I can adapt some of the principles to my own system. Although I seriously doubt this unknown Awakened can mass-produce upgrades like that. Otherwise, we'd already be seeing platoons of titanium infantry. Most likely, his ability has a hard limit on the number of slots, just like my own limit on familiars."

"What are you planning to do next? Break into classified archives to find this Awakened?"

"Don't bite the hand that feeds you." I shook my head.

"I'm still new to the Corps. I barely know how things work here, and I'm not about to piss off the most powerful man in the organization by launching an investigation of my own. I'll quietly look into the Awakened and collect whatever rumors I can. Naturally, I won't turn down your help, but I'm not going to pressure you into it."

"Tom, are you really this oblivious, or are you just pretending?" Selina covered my hands with hers, stopping my fingers, and slowly turned around.

"There's a beautiful woman sitting right in front of you. Warmed up after a great dinner and a professional massage. And you're still enthusiastically dissecting the anatomy of an old general. Take me already." I doubted I would ever get used to the unpredictable way Selina's thoughts jumped from one subject to another, but there was no point denying the obvious: spending time with her was both practical and thoroughly enjoyable.

After dinner and its rather intense sequel, I still had an entire list of practical questions for Selina. In particular, if she ran Crowley through her [Engineer] ability, could she isolate the exact formula behind the Omega Plus steroid upgrade? But the night had its limits. Unlike my enhanced stamina, Selina's body needed a full eight hours of sleep to recover. And her laboratory schedule was not going to take care of itself.

We exchanged brief promises to get in touch as soon as the current workload eased up, then said our goodbyes. By morning, I was back at the hotel.

"Your key, Mr. Ross." The porter behind the desk politely handed me the plastic key card.

"Just a reminder that your room is paid through tomorrow. You'll need to check out by noon or arrange an extension."

"I'm checking out tomorrow morning." There was no practical reason to stay in Washington until the official orders assigning me to my new duty station arrived. Selina had her own work to deal with, while the biomaterials I had requested from the deceased Awakened of the Loz'an race were running late. The scientists at the Corps' central vivarium were still extracting the initial data from them.

All I could do was hope that by the time the samples were transferred into my custody, there would still be something usable left for further-evolution testing. I opened the app and booked an evening flight to Los Angeles. It was time to settle the mortgage and housing situation and check on how Mom was doing. Her relationship with Stephanie had been bothering me. With the remaining hours and the hotel Wi-Fi at my disposal, I started researching higher-education programs for veterans.

Despite Selina's skepticism, this remained a priority on my list. The academic coursework itself did not interest me. I could absorb theoretical material from quality video courses several times faster than I could sitting through lectures. Campus life was even less appealing. I had already been through that once, and going back now felt like a step backward. The degree, however, came with guaranteed points toward evaluations and accelerated career advancement.

New stars on my shoulders meant higher pay, broader clearance, and a more comfortable life. Remaining a second lieutenant among twenty-year-old captains while people my age were already holding the rank of major or higher made no sense from a career standpoint. As Leon had recommended, I did not bother with complicated academic tracks. No rocket science or spacecraft programming. Those programs would reasonably require full attendance at lectures and advanced practical courses.

They were somewhat interesting, but I did not have the time, and my priorities lay elsewhere. I settled on a field that would let me earn a degree without excessive effort while still looking respectable to the military personnel office: International Relations. A substantial portion of the program consisted of foreign-language courses. With certified credentials in Spanish and Portuguese already in hand, I could have those requirements transferred automatically without taking any exams.

Once I had settled on the field, I filtered the universities down to those accredited to participate in Department of Defense benefit programs. I needed a school accustomed to serving active-duty officers, with fully remote exams and the ability to count actual combat experience toward academic credit. I called a special Corps number that handled unofficial requests and ordered a record of my existing service achievements for my online university application.

Summarizing my combat history without mentioning portals or aliens was standard work for their administrative office. The preparations were complete. I could head to the airport.