Elite 2: The Wrong Side of Revolution Read Free Page B

this all goes horribly wrong? This is unnatural!” Daniel protested.
    “Daniel my boy,” Horchoff said as he placed his hands on Daniel’s shoulders and pushed him back down onto the table, “everything about you is unnatural.”
    With that Horchoff turned and scurried out of the room, closing the door behind him.
    Daniel let his head drop on the table. “For fuck’s sake,” he said to himself.
    He closed his eyes and sent his conscious mind back through the lab-grown neural pathways Dr. Horchoff had surgically placed into his brain. He knew attempting this was dangerous and stupid, but that was quickly becoming the norm for him. To this point he had yet to fail, why not let it ride?
    Taking conscious command of so many neural impulses at once required immense focus—so much so that he needed to lose his conscious mind completely to his nervous center, leaving him without any concept of self. He paid attention to every command he sent from his nervous system to the cells and chemicals of his immune system, monitoring their status through the signals being sent back from his immune system to his nervous system. It was not unlike someone instructing another person how to diffuse a bomb over a radio.
    He was able to differentiate antioxidants from oxidants because he was absorbing all that he could from his breakfast through his digestive system and directing them towards the damaged region of his face. He did his best to make sure the oxidants never outnumbered the antioxidants, maintaining the chemical balance Horchoff had cited as being so important. Meanwhile his healthy cells were regenerating on command and replacing the damaged ones as they were being dissolved.
    Just thinking about the process was exhausting, actually orchestrating it was a chore. It was extremely difficult trying to control and monitor so many functions at once. Daniel thought of it like learning to play the guitar. Learning how to make your strumming hand work in unison with all four fingers pressing down on different strings on different frets in order to create the desired sound did not come easy, but once you’ve spent hundreds of hours playing the same song it becomes almost second nature.
    Once he had absorbed all of the nutrients from his breakfast Daniel had the neural capacity for a split-second of conscious thought. He decided that he had probably spent enough time healing himself and could let his immune system run its own show from here. He relinquished control of his nervous system and withdrew his conscious mind.
    Daniel opened his eyes and sat up from the bed. There was a mirror on the wall to his left. He examined the area around his eye which had been a dark shade of purple when he’d walked into the room. The bruising and swelling had now almost completely disappeared. He had been successful in speeding up the healing process within himself.
     
    At the time he had absolutely no idea how long he had been lost to his nervous system, working to heal his face. It turned out he had managed to almost completely heal his damaged tissue in just over three hours. He spent that night and the next healing the other areas of his body while he lay in bed, the process each time becoming easier.
    “Another perk of being a biological freak,” Daniel said, referring to Titan’s comment about his healthy appearance.

 

    Chapter 2
     
    The warm sun beat down on Daniel’s face through the car window. It was a brisk fall afternoon, but the insulation of the town car held captive the heat from the sun and shielded its passengers from the cold air on the other side of the glass. He gazed out at the Chicago skyline as the tall buildings in the window grew bigger as the car neared the downtown area.
    The Demérs assignment was slated to last a total of four days. Daniel would arrive at Demérs’ penthouse at five o’clock on Friday afternoon and would stay with he and Jordan through Monday night. After Daniel arrived that evening he would