Let's Get Cracking

The moment I stepped into the room, the lights flickered on, revealing an expansive and well-lit laboratory.

The room was wide and cold with white walls, polished white tiled flooring, and overhead lights that were embedded into the ceiling, illuminating every inch of the place.

The place was clean and well-maintained with sleek silver modular workstations equipped with state-of-the-art scientific instrumentation and equipment, as well as cutting-edge technologies, arrayed along the length and breadth of the room.

The equipment ranged from highly advanced mass spectrometers, DNA sequencers, chromatography systems, microscopes, laser systems, refrigerator units, to centrifuges.

There were also safety stations like eyewash and emergency shower stations, sinks, etc., and air conditioning and filtration units strategically placed across the room in case of any scientific hazards.

"Aria, engage all systems," I called out and ordered calmly as I grabbed a clean lab coat off one of the racks at the sides of the door and slipped it on. The door behind me slid closed.

Immediately, the air whirred with the sounds of machinery activating and numerous holographic screens blinked into existence all across the room, showing high-resolution three-dimensional images, schematics, and the scientific data of myriad biological systems both alien and native to this planet.

"[Voice analyzed and recognized,]" a mechanical voice that had feminine characteristics said as I stepped towards one of the workstations. "[Welcome back, Michael.]"

"Thank you, Aria," I smiled and nodded, tracing my fingers along the pristine and cold surface of the workstation, my eyes skimming through a holographic screen projected in front of me that had an image of a blue green crystalline shard together with detailed reports on it's structure and makeup.

This was my personal laboratory. A lab with the best tools, equipments, and technology money could buy on this planet. One of the most important places in my mansion and also one of the places I spent most of my time.

This was the second place I had dedicated to uncovering the secrets and workings of this alien universe and myself, for that matter, the latter being the most important.

My body had a lot of secrets that, when put together, made it almost difficult to classify it as human. In simpler terms, I and those before me who had this superpower were mutants, mutated human beings.

We were mutants that had the power to absorb all forms of energy and digest or turn it into bioenergy that we can manipulate at will for various effects.

It was a very powerful ability that had nigh unlimited potential and could have put my family at the top of this world, but nature had other plans.

There were a lot of troublesome shortcomings or weaknesses my power had that made it more or less unstable and dangerous to use, and also served to put my power in check.

One of them was the fact that not everyone in my family inherited the gene that allowed the manifestation and usage of this superpower.

So far, in the past two hundred years, only my father and I were the ones who managed to inherit it. The gene that controlled the expression of this superpower was very elusive.

But this wasn't as serious as the other flaw. The flaw in this superpower was a cycle. A cycle of hunger and feeding. Basically, the more energy I fed on to become stronger, the hungrier I would get.

This hunger would then drive me to seek out larger quantities of food or energy and would slowly multiply exponentially until I'd be so starved that I'd lose my mind and eventually destroy myself.

It was very terrifying to think about and it nearly destroyed my family centuries ago when one of my predecessors nearly drained an entire town due to his madness and had to be put down by the English army.

As someone who loved being in control of himself, the thought of me going on a hunger rampage was enough to give me a nervous breakdown.

This made me obsessed with understanding my body and finding a cure or something for this flaw since the time I found out about it from my father's journal.

So by the age of thirteen, I'd managed to impress my father and the academic world so much that I was accepted into Harvard to study a special and applied program of Biochemistry and Bioengineering for five years.

At the end of which I'd be to graduate with a bachelor's and master's degree. It wasn't easy but with hardwork, determination, and my high intellect gotten from either had reincarnation or genetics, I was able to accomplish it.

I would've have even liked to continue until I got a doctorate but no university offered five year programs that gave bachelor's to PhD degrees.

But the amount of books I'd read back at Harvard and the ones I'd purchased were enough to give me the knowledge on that level. I was a doctor in all but name.

I did all this to get the necessary skills and knowledge that would give me a chance of finding a way to eliminate the flaw which could be traced back to the supergene.

My father didn't even bother to research into the gene or do anything about his weakness while he was still alive.

He was content with his power level and how far he was in life so he kept himself from absorbing bioenergy or any energy for that matter, allowing him to keep his hunger in check.

He was unambitious and I respected him for it but at the end of the day, it wasn't enough. He got himself killed in space, on a foreign planet, in a foreign part of the galaxy.

If he was stronger, he would've survived whatever took his life but he was content with being weak when he had every opportunity to be strong.

Not me though. I wasn't satisfied. I had never been and I didn't think I'd ever be. My life has always been filled with ambition and that wasn't going to change.

That was the reason why I got into politics in my former life in the first place and almost became the Mayor of New York at the young age of thirty-five.

I knew what it meant to be powerless and what it meant to have absolutely no control over your own life. And I vowed never to let that happen again.

I'd kill, cheat, betray, eat, and do whatever it took to not let that happen again. And I'd do even more not to die again.

If my predecessor slaughtered a whole town to gain power, I'd do him better and slaughter a whole planet or even a whole galaxy if I had to. But I'd do it on my terms and no one else's.

If my DNA was the lock preventing me from accessing the door of my goals, then I guess I'd just have to unlock it. Worst case, I'd just have to break it...

"Aria, prepare the laser biopsy system. It's time to get cracking..."