Earth, Year 2010
10 miles east of Houston, Texas
Private Airspace, Silver Stream Campus Grounds
The wind howled over the flat stretch of Texas scrubland, rattling the chain-link fences and scattering dust across the half-built runway. Above, the sky was clear—too clear—like it was holding its breath.
A sonic boom echoed across the horizon.
Then he landed.
Not with a roar, not with fire or engines, but with the smooth weight of practiced control. One knee hit the ground, then the other foot. Dust curled around him in gentle waves.
Elijah Bowie stood slowly, six-foot-two of quiet presence and absolute stillness. He wore a black compression suit, sleeveless, thin as paper but resistant to any heat the world could throw at him. His breath was steady. No sweat. No sign of effort.
He had flown for two hours straight. No craft. Just him.
He looked out across the land that would soon become something far more ambitious than any space agency had dreamed of—a launch site, training ground, and research academy rolled into one.
"Welcome back," a voice crackled through the earpiece in his collar. "ETA on touchdown was three seconds off. You feeling alright?"
"Felt fine to me," Elijah replied, brushing dirt off his shoulder. "Had a headwind off the Gulf."
"Right. Remind me next time to add weather control to the list."
Dr. Drew Phil's voice always came with that light sarcasm. In his mid-thirties, wild curls of silver in his dark hair, Drew was both scientist and schemer. He had the kind of restless mind that couldn't stop building things—even in conversation.
He stood by a control panel not far from the tower, typing into a holographic interface. "Still can't believe you can do that without frying your insides."
"S-E9," Elijah said. "The gift that keeps on giving."
He didn't talk about it much—not in public, and never on record—but Drew knew the whole story. Elijah had been one of NASA's youngest astronauts, decorated, disciplined, and on track to be a commander before the aneurysm hit. He'd nearly died. Lost months in recovery. And when traditional medicine failed, someone whispered his name into the right circle.
Not long after, he disappeared from the public eye.
Now, ten years later, he was back—and stronger than ever.
Temperature extremes didn't bother him. Sub-zero to flame-hot, his body adapted on command. His strength made lifting steel support beams a warm-up exercise. And then there was flight. Not wings. Not tech. Just his body, rewriting gravity like a polite suggestion.
He and Drew had spent the last three years planning Silver Stream. Quietly. Carefully. Funded by unknown channels, backed by private patents no one could trace, and approved with paperwork that passed every legal scan without a flag.
Silver Stream wasn't just a company. It was an idea: What if space exploration didn't have to wait for politics?
"We've got the first class of cadets arriving in two months," Drew said, tapping through blueprints. "All screened. All clean. And all curious. They don't know about you, of course. But they'll get the sales pitch. 'Elite space training, cutting-edge science, private sector dreams.' You know the drill."
"And what about the serum?" Elijah asked, his voice lowering just a bit.
Drew looked up, meeting his eyes.
"Still off the table. For now."
There was a pause. The wind kicked up again.
"William wouldn't want it spread too fast," Drew added. "You know that."
Elijah nodded. He did know. Even now, the original facility remained hidden—secure, encrypted, and mostly untouched. The world wasn't ready for what S-E9 could do. But Silver Stream? That was a first step. A bridge between the old world and the one they were building, quietly, beneath the surface.
"We'll train them," Elijah said. "We'll push them. And if the world calls, we'll be ready to answer."
"Or outrun it," Drew smirked.
The sun began to set behind them, casting long shadows across the dry earth. And above them, the stars blinked into view—distant, cold, and waiting.
But not for long.
The buses pulled in just after sunrise—two sleek, unmarked coaches rolling across the gravel lot like ghosts arriving from nowhere.
Elijah stood near the entrance to the welcome center, arms folded, watching as silhouettes filed out one by one. Thirty handpicked candidates. Pilots. Engineers. Physicists. Adventurers. Each with the résumé of someone who'd spent their life chasing something just out of reach.
They hadn't been told much—only that they were selected for a private, high-level aerospace initiative. No cameras. No interviews. Just an opportunity...and a wall of NDAs.
Inside, Dr. Drew Phil paced near a table stacked with clipboards. Candidates moved in silence, flipping through pages of confidentiality and consent forms that felt more like classified government contracts than job offers.
Drew leaned toward Elijah.
"They don't even blink," he muttered. "They'd sign away their shadows if it got them past the stratosphere."
Elijah didn't respond right away. His eyes scanned the room.
"We would've done the same."
Drew smirked. "Yeah, but we had better hair."
Just then, a soft chime rang from Drew's wrist interface. The screen flashed: Secure Line — Bonnet Labs.
Elijah's posture shifted. He recognized the frequency code. It was one of William's.
Drew tapped the line open.
"Dr. Phil here."
The voice came through clean, emotionless.
"This is Bonnet Labs. Direct message from Dr. William Bonnet."
Even now, hearing that name spoken in full made Drew stand straighter.
The voice continued,
"Three units of S-E9 have passed Phase 7 stabilization. No genetic drift. No cellular rejection. Readings confirmed across extreme environments. They're ready."
Elijah's eyes narrowed slightly. He had helped tweak that version of the serum himself—selective energy indexing, the E9 model. It wasn't just evolution anymore. It was refinement.
Then came the part they weren't expecting.
"Dr. Bonnet has authorized release. Decision of recipients is yours. You and Elijah. No one else."
A long pause. Then the line clicked off.
Drew looked at him, blinking. "That's it? No guidebook? No data matrix? No backup vote?"
Elijah's jaw clenched ever so slightly. He'd known this was coming—not when, but someday. And now it was here.
"He's trusting us," he said quietly. "Me."
Drew nodded slowly, the weight settling in.
"Elijah... that's not just trust. That's legacy."
They both turned to the recruits, now mingling in the courtyard. One woman stood out—a quiet type, tall, lean, eyes always scanning. Another, barely twenty, had already scribbled three algorithms on the back of a disposable napkin while waiting in line.
Three serums. Thirty lives. One future.
"We pick wrong," Drew murmured, "we risk the entire public future of this program."
"No," Elijah said, stepping forward. "We pick wrong, we risk proving William's faith was misplaced."
He turned, already calculating, watching how people moved, interacted, observed.
"This isn't about power. It's about what comes after power."
Drew raised a brow.
"And what's that?"
"Choice."
With a nod, Elijah pulled up the roster on his neural HUD and tapped into each candidate's private file.
It was time to begin the selection.
Not of heroes.
But of the ones strong enough to remain human... after becoming more.