Consciousness returned in fragments. First, the smell—damp concrete and ozone. Then sound—a steady drip of water, the hum of machinery. Finally, light—fluorescent tubes flickering behind wire cages.
Kael opened his eyes. He was in a basement or bunker. Stone walls, low ceiling. A medical cot beneath him. His chest ached where the laser had hit, but when he lifted his shirt, the skin was smooth, unblemished.
"Welcome back."
Aris sat on a folding chair nearby, her tablet on her knees. She looked exhausted, her usually impeccable hair escaping its bun, lab coat stained.
"How long?" His voice was rough.
"Eight hours. The sedative was designed for elephants. It should have kept you under for two days." She offered a water bottle. "How do you feel?"
"Hungry. Really hungry." He sat up, took the water, drank half in one go. "Where are we?"
"Safe. For now." She didn't elaborate. "Your metabolism is extraordinary. I've been monitoring your vitals. Your body burned through that sedative like it was sugar. Your cellular regeneration rate is... impossible."
Kael swung his legs off the cot. The room spun for a moment, then stabilized. "The drones?"
"Disposed of. Along with the van." Aris stood, pacing the small space. "Kael, we need to talk about what you are."
"I know what I am. I'm a construction worker from Madrid who got lucky when a building fell on him."
"It wasn't luck." She tapped her tablet, brought up a DNA helix. "See this sequence? It's in your genome, and in the genomes of 146 other people worldwide. It's a cascade mutation. A biological switch that was flipped, probably by some environmental trigger we haven't identified yet."
He stared at the rotating helix. "What does it do?"
"From what I can tell? It reprograms your entire biology for extreme survival. Enhanced cellular repair, density, neural plasticity." She zoomed in. "This section here? It's instructions for what I'm calling 'cellular hibernation.' Under extreme trauma—like being hit by a laser or crushed by rubble—your cells don't die. They enter a suspended state, then regenerate from surviving nuclei."
Kael absorbed this. "So I'm... what? Invincible?"
"Nothing is invincible. But you're orders of magnitude more durable than any human being in history." She met his eyes. "And that's not all. Look at your telomeres."
She showed another graph. "They're not shortening. They're maintaining length, even elongating. Do you know what that means?"
He shook his head.
"Aging is caused by telomere shortening. Your cells can divide indefinitely without hitting the Hayflick limit." She took a breath. "Kael, if my models are correct... you might not age. Not in any meaningful way."
The words hung in the damp air. Kael tried to process them. Not age? Live... forever?
"That's impossible."
"So is surviving a direct hit from a military-grade laser." Aris sat again, her energy spent. "The world is filling with impossible things. There are reports from everywhere. A woman in Mumbai lifted a flooded bus off children. A man in Reykjavik survived twelve hours submerged in freezing water. A child in Nairobi walked out of a house fire without a burn."
She pulled up a world map on her tablet. Dozens of red dots glowed. "They're calling you 'Titans' in the media. 'Longevos' in the scientific community. 'Abominations' in certain religious circles."
Kael stood, testing his legs. They felt strong. More than strong. He felt... energized, as if he'd slept for a week. "What happens now?"
"Now?" Aris's tablet chimed. She looked at it, her face going pale. "Now they've found us."