My Only Familiar Is Me[A Late-Blooming Evolution Story]

The heat hit all at once the moment the adrenaline wore off. The humid, suffocating air of the alien jungle flooded my lungs, heavy with the scent of exotic vegetation and burned earth. Danny had done one hell of a job torching the undergrowth with his firestorms. Sweat poured beneath my helmet, stinging my eyes, and my combat suit clung to my skin, but I could not have cared less. We had done it. Another one of the Loz’an’s dirty traps had closed on empty air. Their entire strike team, awakened operative included, would rot in these jungles. And we had not lost a single man. A flawless victory.

The dazed, exhausted faces around me slowly came back to life. Relief rippled through the platoon. A few hesitant grins appeared as the same realization hit everyone at once: we were still breathing. We had survived.

But Leon would not have been Leon if he had let us enjoy that feeling for long. His heavy combat boots crushed the moment without mercy.

”Five-minute break! Park your asses, ladies and gentlemen, because you’re not getting a second more from me. And keep the perimeter secure!” His booming voice carried effortlessly over the fading sounds of the jungle. ”Tony, get moving. Find that goddamn electronics jammer and shut the damn thing down!”

”Yes, sir!” Tony, our Tech Sense specialist, brushed two fingers across the brim of his helmet, motioned to a pair of soldiers, and disappeared into the jungle in the same direction the Loz’an had charged from only moments earlier.

The tension finally broke, and the platoon spread out around the perimeter. Men dropped wherever they happened to be standing, trying to catch their breath. Ted, as always, was already waving his arms around, loudly giving anyone who would listen a colorful play-by-play of how he had personally turned the tide of the battle. Mary and the more serious veterans settled off by themselves, sitting back-to-back in silence while scanning the shimmering horizon with wary eyes. They were not ready to relax yet.

I watched Tony disappear into the thick brush before turning back to the commander.

”You talk about it like it’s just a regular signal jammer,” I said evenly. ”I thought the EMP completely fried our systems.”

”If it’d been an EMP, we wouldn’t be stuck out here with our thumbs up our asses. Our gear’s shielded against electromagnetic pulses, thanks to one arrogant bitch over in R&D.” Leon let out a cynical chuckle, clearly talking about Selina, as he pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket. ”The Loz’an are using something different. Works like a localized suppression field. They drop it from orbit onto whatever patch of ground they want, and every piece of electronics in that area dies for exactly one hour. If we’re lucky, Tony will find the relay beacon stashed under a bush somewhere. If not, the damn thing’s broadcasting straight from their base, and we’ll have to hike another couple hundred yards before we’re out of the dead zone and our armor comes back online.”

”I’ve never heard of technology like that.” I watched him flick open his lighter. ”None of the intelligence briefings on Loz’an tech ever mentioned it.”

”It’s new. Started coming through the portals a couple months ago. The analysts just haven’t had time to update your damn manuals.” Leon took a slow drag and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, his expression had hardened. ”And quit trying to change the subject, Ross. You want to tell me what the hell that little stunt was all about?”

”Colonel, with all due respect, you’ll have to be more specific.” I shifted half a step to avoid the bitter cigarette smoke drifting toward me.

Our eyes locked. My pulse stayed steady. Inside, I felt an odd, icy calm. Maybe it was because I knew Leon well enough to understand he would never resort to throwing punches. He was not that kind of leader. Or maybe after staring death in the face five minutes earlier, getting chewed out by your commanding officer barely registered as background noise.

”I’d really love to hear why you ignored a direct order.” Leon blew out another stream of smoke. ”I told you to report every awakened bastard the second you spotted one. And don’t feed me that ’it slipped my mind in the middle of the fight’ bullshit. I watched you run that goddamn flank like you’d rehearsed it a hundred times. You were reading the enemy like an open book. Guys like you don’t just forget things, Ross.”

”With our armor offline, we were in a highly vulnerable position while the enemy maintained sustained, aggressive fire,” I replied in a measured, regulation-perfect tone. ”I determined it wasn’t worth wasting precious seconds reporting something that was already obvious. Besides, sir, you personally spent half the briefing walking us through that Loz’an officer. I assumed someone with your experience would recognize those gold tattoos the instant you saw them.”

Leon narrowed his eyes, studying my face through the haze of cigarette smoke as if searching for the slightest crack. ”Sounds like you’d already planned all this.”

”You can’t account for every variable, sir,” I answered calmly, meeting his stare without flinching. ”I worked with the information available to me and acted according to the outcome I believed was most likely to succeed.”

”’Believed was most likely to succeed,’” the colonel snorted, nearly dropping his cigarette. ”Sounds like something out of a cheap romance novel. I’m the one running this operation, so why the hell did you decide to start running my people?”

”It appeared that my information processing speed exceeded yours, so I acted in the best interest of preserving the platoon’s personnel.”

”My information processing speed?” Leon frowned, deep lines cutting across his forehead. ”What the hell are you talking about?”

”If we compare the human brain to a multithreaded processor...”

”Whoa, stop.” Leon thrust up a hand, cutting me off. ”Spare me the computer crap. I got more than enough of that systems nonsense from you last time.”

”Very well. If we avoid the technical terminology and compare the human mind to vehicles...” I paused, studying his expression. The colonel said nothing, idly rolling the cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other. Since he did not object, I continued. ”Your mind operates at the speed of, say, a Chevrolet Malibu...”

Leon’s eyebrows shot up, and genuine offense flashed across his face. ”Do I look like some mama’s boy driving a grocery-getter like that?”

”Fair enough. Then your mind is more like the latest military-spec Humvee,” I corrected, catching the satisfied hint of a grin at the corner of his mouth. I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes at the childish correction, but outwardly I remained perfectly still. ”In that case, mine would be comparable to a Formula One race car.”

Leon slowly exhaled a thick ribbon of bluish smoke that quickly dissolved into the stifling jungle air. ”Those race cars of yours only shine on perfectly groomed tracks, Ross,” he said dismissively. ”Put one on an ordinary city street, and it’ll start rattling apart at the first pothole. Out here in these goddamn jungles, those fragile little engines would choke on leaves and mud after a couple hundred feet, and they’d never move again.”

”I’d call that specialization. My synapses operate faster, allowing me to react instantly whenever the variables change. Your Humvee, on the other hand, can cross an entire desert and haul the whole platoon on its back.”

The colonel fell silent, studying my face as though he could see straight through my skull. ”So you knew damn well I’ve got years of experience under my belt, and you still decided to take over?”

”Yes, sir. At that particular moment, it was the best course of action.”

”And where the hell does all that confidence come from, Ross?” His stare grew even heavier, as if he were trying to pry open my head and count the gears inside.

”I made my decisions based solely on the information available to me,” I replied calmly, holding his gaze. ”If things had gone sideways and my calculations had failed, I would’ve simply entered combat trance again.”

Leon frowned, a deep crease forming between his thick eyebrows. ”Your what?”

”The same state you saw twenty minutes ago,” I explained evenly, without the slightest hint of pride. ”When I cleared the Loz’an forward flank by myself without making a single unnecessary movement or wasting a single round.”

”Oh, right. Your Rambo-on-steroids routine.” Leon took another drag, the tip of his cigarette glowing faintly. ”That’s your little superpower, isn’t it?”

”In my case, it’s amplified by my awakened abilities, yes. But in theory, ordinary people can achieve something similar through intense mental focus. Bruce Lee, for example, could enter a comparable state, allowing his body to react through pure reflex even while he was asleep.”

”Bruce fucking Lee...” Leon spat onto the ground. ”Tell me something, Ross. You didn’t happen to take those private classes Sam was always trying to recruit people for back in training, did you?”

”I did.” I gave a brief nod. ”We found we shared an interest in Eastern martial arts and philosophy.”

”Yeah, I can tell. You’ve got that Shaolin crap written all over you.” Leon flicked the cigarette onto the purple grass and crushed it beneath his boot. ”You’re a hell of a piece of work, Ross. Can’t figure out what’s going on inside your head.”

He gave me a crooked, almost bear-like grin before turning away. The way his broad shoulders straightened told me everything. Somewhere in the mental notebook he kept on every soldier under his command, my name had just earned a bold new annotation. After all, this was not just another mission. It was our final training exercise, and he was evaluating every decision I made.

”I’ve got a question too, Colonel,” I called after him before he reached the scout. ”Why are we still here? We’re standing right on top of a fresh battlefield. From a tactical standpoint, that’s an unnecessary risk. The enemy could regroup, hit us with artillery, or send reinforcements while we’re standing around.”

Leon stopped and looked back over his shoulder. A cocky, almost patronizing grin spread across his face, the expression of someone who had spent far too many years fighting this war.

”You’re not seeing the whole picture yet, Ross. You just haven’t logged enough field time. The Loz’an are hunkered down on defense right now, and their resources in this sector are stretched thin. Their eggheads are sitting in some bunker staring at monitors, tracking our biometrics with high-frequency scanners. If we’d gotten chewed up out here and half the platoon had been wiped out, they’d already have a cleanup squad on the way to finish off the survivors. But since every last one of us is still standing, their analysts aren’t gonna throw away soldiers for a slim chance at a few kills. And thanks to their own electronics jammer, they can’t even send gunships into this grid and drown the place in acid. So relax, Ross. We won’t be seeing those bastards again until the next ambush they’ve had time to prepare.”

I nodded silently, accepting his reasoning, then glanced at the display on my wrist. Exactly five minutes. I had spent every second of that break standing at attention beneath the blazing sun while Leon turned it into an impromptu oral exam. Fortunately, my enhanced endurance and unusually stable nervous system made things like fatigue almost irrelevant. I did not need the extra rest.

”All right, ladies and gentlemen, get your lazy asses up! Break’s over!” Leon bellowed across the jungle. ”Tony! You find that alien piece of crap? Actually, judging by your face, I’m guessing you didn’t.”

”You’d be absolutely right, Colonel.” Tony spread his hands apologetically as he emerged from behind a massive fern. ”Nothing within a hundred-yard radius. Not a single signal.”

”Then the jammer’s sitting at their base.” Leon spat again as he adjusted the strap on his holster. ”So what the hell are we waiting for? Move out. Another couple hundred yards and we’ll be out of the dead zone. Our armor will come back online. Same marching formation as before. Let’s move!”

The platoon fell smoothly back into formation with the familiar rustle of gear and headed deeper into the dense alien jungle, heavy boots crushing the thick purple grass and smearing sticky sap across our shin guards. Mary slipped back into position just off my left shoulder, automatically covering her sector, while Ted immediately appeared on my right. The guy was practically glowing with excitement. One look at the fire in his eyes told me he was moments away from launching into another dramatic retelling of how he’d ”saved the platoon.”

I had no interest in his teenage excitement. I had something far more important to think about.

As I walked past the mangled body of the Loz’an officer, my eyes drifted over the golden tattoos covering his skin. A system notification immediately flashed across the edge of my vision.

[Warning! Humanoid life-form detected with a high S-Power Concentration Index. Consuming this biological material through your Familiar will unlock a hidden evolutionary branch.]

I narrowed my eyes ever so slightly. The system had remained silent every time I examined the bodies of ordinary Loz’an soldiers. Which meant the average alien was nothing more than raw calories. If I wanted a true evolutionary leap, I needed an awakened specimen. A highly concentrated source of alien evolution.

That immediately created a very real bureaucratic problem. Corps regulations required every alien body to be cataloged and transferred without delay to classified research laboratories... laboratories that, by one of life’s little ironies, happened to be run by my dear Selina. I smiled inwardly. A couple of professional-grade massages and the right amount of careful ego stroking, and I was fairly certain one missing corpse could quietly disappear from the paperwork.

Everything fit together into a simple, logical chain of cause and effect. But the moment I settled on that plan, a second notification appeared beneath the first, forcing me to reconsider.

[Warning! Your Familiar is strongly advised not to integrate the genetic markers of alien species before completing its natural evolutionary transformation within its native biological species (Homo sapiens).]

That changed everything. Hidden inside the dry wording of the system message was a clear implication. I had a path to evolve without turning into some alien creature or splicing extraterrestrial DNA into my own. I could become stronger, faster, more efficient... while remaining human. Or perhaps, more accurately, becoming something beyond human.