The video that changed everything wasn't supposed to exist.
Someone in Sector 7 had filmed Sarah putting Jayson through hill repeats at dawn—twenty rounds up crumbling concrete steps, each one uglier than the last. But at the seventeenth repeat, when his form completely shattered, when any enhanced athlete would have stopped, Jayson found something else. The camera caught it: the moment when suffering transformed into something like joy.
"Holy shit," the voice behind the camera whispered. "He's smiling."
By noon, the clip had three million views. By evening, #RunningHuman was trending worldwide. By the next morning, Jayson couldn't leave his apartment without cameras following.
"This is insane," Maya said, showing him the analytics. "Twelve million views. News outlets in forty countries. Someone made a remix with that old song—'Eye of the Tiger'—and it has more views than the original."
Sarah arrived at the apartment looking murderous. "Who leaked training footage?"
"Does it matter?" Maya pulled up more screens. "Look at this—running clubs forming in Mumbai, Lagos, Detroit. All natural athletes. Kids who gave up on competitive running are lacing up again."
"Kids who are about to get their hearts broken," Sarah snapped. "This isn't a movie. Inspiration doesn't close the enhancement gap."
Elena emerged from the kitchen with coffee. "But it's closing something else. Watch." She turned on the news.
On screen: a enhancement clinic in Dallas, surrounded by protesters. Parents holding signs: "Let Them Choose." Children running laps on the sidewalk. The reporter looked confused, trying to explain why families were suddenly postponing enhancement procedures.
"The Jayson Effect," the reporter said, like naming it would contain it. "Markets are calling it temporary sentiment, but enhancement stocks dropped another 8% this morning..."
Jayson's phone hadn't stopped buzzing. Interview requests, sponsorship offers, messages from kids who'd started running. He'd turned it off twice; Maya kept turning it back on.
"You need to see this," she insisted, pulling up a message. "It's from Chen."
Not Sarah Chen. Marcus Chen.
Factory compromised. Security footage attached. We need to meet.
The video showed Endure's Portland facility at 3 AM. Three figures in enhancement company jackets—logos digitally blurred but recognizable to anyone who knew the industry. They moved with enhanced precision, too fast for security cameras to track clearly. Four minutes later, the building was in flames.
"Corporate sabotage," Sarah said quietly. "They're scared."
"Of what? I'm running for 40th place."
"Of what you represent. Enhancement is a trillion-dollar industry built on the premise that human isn't enough. You're suggesting maybe it is. That threatens quarterly earnings." Sarah's phone rang. She listened, face darkening. "Marcus is flying in. Says we need to discuss security."
"Security for what?"
"For you, idiot. You think burning his factory was the end? You're the symbol now. Symbols are targets."
Marcus arrived that evening with two people Jayson didn't recognize—a woman with the kind of alertness that came from military service and a man whose augmented eyes tracked every movement.
"Enhanced security?" Jayson asked. "Ironic."
"Practical," Marcus corrected. "Lisa served with Thompson in Afghanistan. Kai's enhancements are defensive—threat detection, pattern analysis. They're here because the game just changed."
He spread documents on the table. Insurance reports, chemical analysis, footage from other cameras nearby. "The fire wasn't random. They used thermite charges on specific equipment—the machines we were retooling for natural athletic gear. Left the enhancement production lines untouched."
"So rebuild," Maya said.
"With what money? Insurance is calling it 'suspicious circumstances,' refusing to pay. Banks won't extend credit—suddenly our loan applications are 'under review.' Someone's squeezing us out."
"Who?"
"Does it matter? Atlas, NeuroPrime, Sakura—they all benefit if natural athletics dies quietly." Marcus pulled up market data. "But here's the thing—we're getting orders. Thousands of them. People want Endure gear, want to run like Jayson. We just can't make it."
"So make it somewhere else," Elena suggested.
"Where? Every manufacturer is locked into enhancement contracts. Nobody will risk—" Marcus's phone buzzed. He read, and his face changed. "Holy shit."
"What?"
"Chen Wei's widow. In Beijing. Her family still owns the last natural athletic gear factory in China. She's offering her production lines."
Sarah leaned forward. "Chen Wei who beat your father in '44?"
"His widow's been holding out against enhancement conversion for twenty years. Says she just saw footage of Jayson training. Says..." Marcus had to steady his voice. "Says her husband would want her to help Miguel Rodriguez's son."
The room went silent. History folding in on itself, old races creating new alliances.
"It's a sixteen-hour flight," Marcus continued. "Customs will be complicated. Enhancement companies have influence at borders. But if we can get there, set up production..."
"Go," Jayson said. "We'll keep training."
"That's the other thing." Lisa spoke for the first time. "The training needs to move. Sector 7's compromised. Too many people know your patterns, your routes. We've secured a facility in the mountains. Altitude, isolation, security."
"I'm not hiding."
"You're not hiding," Sarah corrected. "You're preparing. The media wants a circus. Enhancement companies want you distracted or damaged. We're giving them neither."
Kai pulled up a tablet showing social media analysis. "Fourteen separate groups claiming to represent 'natural athletics.' Three of them are fronts for enhancement companies, trying to control the narrative. Two more are extremist, calling for violence against augmented athletes. You've started something you can't control."
"I didn't start anything. I just ran."
"Exactly. And that's what you'll keep doing. But now you'll do it somewhere they can't turn you into content or target practice."
That night, packing for the mountains, Jayson found his father staring at the TV. News footage showed riots in Munich—enhancement clinics vandalized, "HUMAN FIRST" painted on walls. The movement was metastasizing, growing ugly in places.
"This isn't what I wanted," Jayson said.
"Revolution never is." Miguel turned off the TV. "You lit a match. Others are choosing what to burn. Question is whether you can run fast enough to stay ahead of the fire."
The mountain facility was a ghost from another era—a 1960s Olympic training center, abandoned when altitude chambers made real altitude obsolete. Sarah had trained here as a young coach, knew every trail, every gradient, every place where the thin air taught brutal lessons about efficiency.
"2,400 meters," she announced as they unpacked. "Your blood has four weeks to adapt. Then we go higher."
The center was austere—concrete buildings weathered by decades of mountain winters, a track that was more patches than original surface, dormitories that smelled of ghost athletes. But the air was clean, the isolation complete, and the mountains didn't care about corporate politics.
"First rule," Sarah announced at dinner. "No news for the athletes. Lisa and Kai will monitor threats. Maya handles media. You"—she pointed at Jayson—"just run."
But the world wouldn't stay away. Even at 2,400 meters, reality intruded.
Maya burst into the dining hall three days later, laptop clutched like a life preserver. "You need to see this."
Despite Sarah's protests, she pulled up footage from São Paulo. The girl who'd sent Jayson the video—Ana Clara, they'd learned—had organized a race. Not sanctioned, not official, just kids running 5K through favela streets at dawn. The footage was shaky, handheld, but the joy was unmistakable.
"Seventeen hundred kids," Maya said. "No entry fees, no enhancement checks. Just running. Local news picked it up, and now—"
She switched feeds. Similar races in Delhi. Detroit. Nairobi. Kids who'd never dream of affording enhancement, running together, timing each other with ancient phones, celebrating every finish like victory.
"This is what you started," Lisa said quietly. "Not the riots, not the politics. This."
Sarah stood abruptly. "Inspiration doesn't make you faster. Track. Now. 8x1000m at threshold."
The intervals hurt more at altitude. Everything hurt more—lungs burning for oxygen that wasn't there, legs heavy with lactate that wouldn't clear. But Jayson found rhythm in the suffering, the strange peace that came from simple purpose: run the next repeat, trust the process, ignore the noise.
Between sets, gasping in thin air, he caught Sarah smiling.
"What?"
"You're not checking your watch anymore. Two weeks ago, every repeat, you'd check splits immediately. Now you just run."
"The time is what it is."
"Exactly. Enhancement athletes run to hit numbers their systems calculate. You're learning to run by feel. Old school. The way we did before every stride was data."
That evening, Marcus called from Beijing. The connection was poor, his face pixelated, but his excitement carried through: "Production starts tomorrow. Chen Wei's widow—she's incredible. Still has her husband's training logs from '44. Says your father pushed him harder than anyone. Says it's time to repay the debt."
"What debt?"
"Competition. Honor. The thing enhancement killed." Static interrupted, then: "...orders for thirty thousand pairs. We can't fill half of them, but it's a start. Natural runners want gear that honors what they're doing."
"Any more sabotage?"
"Security's tight. But..." Marcus hesitated. "There's something else. Chen Wei's grandson is here. Wei Chen Jr. Enhanced athlete, qualified for Neo-Singapore. He's not happy about our arrangement."
"Because his grandmother's helping natural athletics?"
"Because he's been raised on corporate contracts. Sees this as betrayal of his father's legacy. Thinks enhancement is evolution, not erasure." More static. "Just watch yourself. The divides are getting personal."
After the call, Jayson found Kai on the perimeter, scanning darkness with augmented eyes that saw heat signatures and movement patterns invisible to natural vision.
"Anything?"
"Wildlife. Wind patterns. Nothing human for twenty kilometers." Kai glanced at him. "You know this won't last. The isolation. Someone will leak the location, or enhancement companies will pressure local authorities, or the media will charter helicopters. You've got maybe three more weeks of peace."
"Then we use them."
"For what? You can't hide forever. And you can't outrun the story you've become."
Jayson thought about Ana Clara's race, about kids running in cities he'd never see. "Maybe I don't want to outrun it. Maybe I just want to run fast enough to make it mean something."
Week two in the mountains, Sarah added twice-daily sessions. Morning runs on trails that climbed forever, afternoon track work that left him dizzy with oxygen debt. The altitude tent became redundant—every breath was thin, every step an argument with physics.
"Your body's adapting," she said, reviewing Maya's data. "Hematocrit up 4%, VO2 improving despite altitude. You're becoming efficient in ways enhancement can't replicate."
"Still won't be enough."
"No. But it'll be more than anyone expects." She pulled up race footage from the latest enhancement competitions. "Watch. See how they move? Perfect form until it isn't. One system fails, whole thing collapses. You're learning to run broken. When they break at kilometer 40, they stop. When you break, you've just begun."
Messages still reached them, filtered through Maya. The extremists on both sides growing louder. Enhancement supremacists calling Jayson a "regression to primitive genetics." Natural purists calling enhanced athletes "corporate slaves." The middle ground—where most people lived—getting drowned out by edges.
Then, three weeks into mountain isolation, Thompson called.
"You need to know what's happening," the military athlete said without preamble. "Enhancement companies are organizing. Not officially—plausible deniability and all that. But there's talk."
"What kind of talk?"
"The kind that ends with you having an 'accident' during a training run. The kind where you show up to Neo-Singapore with stress fractures that 'just happened.' The kind where natural athletics dies with its symbol." Thompson's augmented face showed real concern. "I'm not part of it. Most athletes aren't. But money's scared, and scared money does stupid things."
"Why tell me?"
"Because my nephew started running. Because you stopped to help me in Denver when you couldn't afford to." Thompson paused. "Because maybe the divide isn't as simple as human versus enhanced. Maybe it's about choosing what kind of human we want to be."
That night, the team held a war council. Lisa and Kai presented security scenarios. Maya showed social media analysis—the movement growing, splintering, evolving beyond anyone's control. Sarah sat silent, calculating training loads against time remaining.
"We could make a statement," Maya suggested. "Jayson could call for calm, discourage the extremists—"
"No," Sarah interrupted. "He runs. That's his only statement. The moment he becomes a politician, he stops being a symbol. Let others fight their battles. We're here to prepare for ours."
"Even if people get hurt?"
"People are already hurt. Enhancement debt, surgical complications, kids told they're worthless without upgrades." Sarah's voice carried decades of anger. "Jayson didn't create these problems. He just reminded people they exist."
"So we do nothing?"
"We do everything. We train like the future depends on placing 30th instead of 40th. We prepare like those ten places matter. Because to someone, somewhere, they do."
The mountain moon rose over peaks that had stood before humans learned to run, would stand long after they'd forgotten. Jayson stepped outside, breathed air that taught humility with every inhale.
His phone, usually silent, buzzed with an override message from Elena: Factory opened. First shoes shipping. Chen Wei's widow says to tell you: "Run like the wind argues with mountains."
He didn't know what it meant. Didn't need to. Tomorrow would bring 40 kilometers on trails that climbed 1,000 meters. Next week, Sarah promised, they'd go higher—3,000 meters where even walking felt like sprinting. Ten weeks until Neo-Singapore. Ten weeks to find minutes that didn't exist.
Somewhere, enhancement companies plotted. Somewhere, kids ran in streets that had never seen races. Somewhere, fire was catching in ways no one had predicted.
But tonight, in mountains that made humans small and dreams smaller, Jayson Rodriguez laced up prototype shoes built in a factory that honored old debts, stepped onto trails that predated enhancement by millennia, and ran.
Because the fire was coming anyway. Might as well meet it with legs that knew how to burn.