Elite (19 page)

He made sure to maintain the current level of blood flow to keep himself at this slightly increased size without going too far.

Once he was certain he had a hold on things, he looked back up at Norma Jean. She now had suds from her body wash streaming down her body. Again, Daniel almost moaned aloud, but restrained himself. She was so
hot.

But nothing changed down below – he had control.

He grabbed his own soap and began scrubbing, making repeated, quick glances in her direction. Occasionally he thought she would catch him looking, but she never seemed to mind. He thought maybe she was just making occasional glances in his direction as well, but then decided he was crazy.

That was until he caught her clearly looking down at one point.

“Well if you get to sneak peeks so do I,” she said in a light-hearted, defensive tone.

Daniel smiled and inadvertently bit his bottom lip. Oh, he liked Norma Jean.

Then another agent passed between them on his way out of the shower area. He shot Daniel a look that had “creep” written all over it. Then he remembered where he was and realized this was no place for fraternization. For a moment he had forgotten that it wasn’t just him and Norma Jean in the room.

As Daniel and his new crush dried off in front of their lockers Daniel kept a firm grip on his blood flow and testosterone levels. He was turned on mentally, but physically he was able to avoid the effects.

They didn’t speak a word as they got dressed, as if to let what happened in the showers stay in the showers. Of course it was probably of no significance to her. She was just having a little fun teasing the new guy in the shower.

There was one thing he was curious about though.

“Is your name really Norma Jean?” He asked her as he slid a clean t-shirt over his head.

“No,” she responded as she pulled a pair of loose fitting sweats over her candy-striped panties.

“My name is just Norma, but one day one of the guys – I don’t even remember who – called me Norma Jean to be funny, and it just kind of stuck.”

Daniel made a face and nodded with understanding as he zipped up his gym bag.

“Have a good one,” he said as he started toward the door.

“You too,” she replied while putting on her right shoe.

Daniel walked out the door and turned to head toward his room. Another one of the guys was headed out the door at the same time, and turned to follow Daniel. Then the man put his hand on Daniel’s shoulder, and Daniel turned to notice that it was the same guy who had given him the judgmental glare in the shower.

This worried Daniel a bit, but the man now seemed to be in good spirits.

“She sure is something, isn’t she?” The man asked, a giant shit-eating grin on his face.

Daniel responded with a smile of his own, part out of relief that the man wasn’t angry with him.

The man just let out a sarcastic “Hahaaa,” and slapped Daniel on the back before turning to walk the other way.

Daniel hurried quickly down the hall to his room, unlocked the door, walked in and quickly closed it behind him. Then he focused on his control over the three different body functions he currently had voluntary command of, and one by one pushed his conscious mind away from each. It was much easier than before now that he knew how to do it.

As he relinquished control he felt the swelling go away as he no longer had Norma giving him reason to be excited. Now it was time for the test.

He closed his eyes and began remembering the shower he had taken just a few minutes earlier. He remember the contours of Norma’s body, replayed the look on her face as she made her playful comments. Then he decided to take things one step further and stepped into a world of fiction, where Norma walked over to him and turned to press her backside against him as the water flowed over the both of them.

Before his imagination could carry him any further he felt his body begin to react in the appropriate manner, all on its own. He involuntarily jumped for joy, throwing his fist up into the air. He now believed he knew how the first man ever to try Viagra must have felt.

Yes, this test of his abilities came about in and unusual and unexpected way, but it was a success nonetheless. He now knew how to gain control of his involuntary functions, and how to give them back to his unconscious mind.

He had done it. He had become
more
, just as Blank had promised him that night on Michigan Avenue.

Chapter 10

At first it seemed
Horchoff wasn’t quite sure how to react to Daniel’s story of controlling his natural biological response in the shower. He was happy to know that Daniel had successfully taken control of his functions, but the subject matter seemed a bit awkward.

Daniel had considered long and hard on whether or not he should even tell his story to the doctor, but he felt that it was important information to relay if he were to continue with his studies at a reasonable pace.
Horchoff was a doctor after all.

“Well that’s…impressive,”
Horchoff said after listening to Daniel’s shower story.

“Yeah, I know it’s a bit of a bizarre example,” Daniel admitted, “but it shows that I’ve learned to control it. I can get in and out without a problem now. I’m ready to learn more.”

Horchoff nodded as a smile began to spread across his face. He was pleased to hear such excitement and eagerness in Daniel’s voice.

“Well then,”
Horchoff began calmly, “let’s begin.”

The next few tasks Horchoff had for Daniel also centered around blood flow, only more localized. He challenged Daniel to find certain arteries and blood vessels and shut down circulation in certain areas of the body while maintaining steady levels of blood flow everywhere else. Once Daniel was able to find the areas of his brain and learn the command signal being sent from his brain to the corresponding artery or vessel, the task was relatively simple. He was also able to swell those areas of his body and in turn increase blood flow.

The tasks became easier with every repetition, until they were almost second nature. Eventually his conscious mind needed only to think about what it wanted accomplish and it would do so with minimal effort, as if telling the unconscious parts of the brain “do this,” and his brain would respond accordingly.

After a few days of practicing control of blood flow, which Horchoff assured Daniel would be the tool to unlocking the “talents” he would use most while on the job, the doctor decided that he would next teach Daniel about digestion, and absorption of energy.

“These next few practices will help you to look more like those other agents walking around downstairs in a relatively short amount of time,”
Horchoff explained.

The promise was enough for Daniel to give the doctor his immediate, undivided attention.

“You probably already have a general idea of how the digestive system works,” Horchoff began. “Once you ingest food and it is broken down by the acid and enzymes in your stomach, it begins its journey through your small intestine.

“Here, with the help of the pancreas, liver, and gall bladder, food is broken down further, and nutrients are absorbed into the bloodstream.”

Daniel closed his eyes and began to concentrate on his thoughts. He opened his mind to the neural pathways connecting the different parts of his brain and began searching for the signals buried somewhere deep in the back of his brain being sent to his digestive tract, telling it to carry out these operations.

Given that he had previously only worked with blood flow, it took a bit longer to find the command center for the, as of yet, unexplored process.

While he searched he continued to listen to Horchoff’s lecture.

“From here the waste and leftovers are sent to the colon and large intestine, and you can take it from there. You probably won’t have much reason to worry about what happens beyond the small intestine” he concluded, noticing the look of concentration on Daniel’s face.

Horchoff stood in silence as he waited for Daniel to find what he was looking for.

Daniel continued to explore his brain, searching high and low for something that he could interpret as one of the functions
Horchoff had just described.

At one point, he thought he had found the signal telling a part of his body to convert some of the nutrients in his bloodstream to energy, so he decided to explore further. Eventually, he found the signals being sent to his stomach, and he was able to follow the “yellow brick road of synapses” to the area controlling his small intestine.

He opened his eyes slowly. “I found it,” he told Horchoff.

Horchoff
pulled a chair up to the opposite side of where Daniel sat at the table and sat down across from him. He spoke to Daniel in a hushed tone, as he always did when giving instruction.

“Now I want you to concentrate on the last two-thirds of your lower-intestinal tract, where the nutrients are being absorbed into the bloodstream.”

Daniel waded through the different commands being sent from his brain to his digestive system – from the signal to contract, to the signal to release chemicals from the pancreas and liver, until he finally recognized the signal to absorb any nutrients and discard with the rest.

He nodded his head slowly, indicating he had completed the task.

“Good,” Horchoff continued. “Now, the reason I asked you to do this is that excess fat in the body is created when it absorbs more energy than it needs to expend. This extra energy is then stored as fat for later use.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Daniel said a bit impatiently.

“Sorry,” Horchoff responded with minor irritation of his own. “My point is that I want you to absorb only what you need, leaving nothing extra to be stored as fat.”

Daniel again nodded his head and closed his eyes, zeroing in on the signals being sent from his brain, telling his intestine to absorb the nutrients from his half-digested food. Before he could take conscious command of the function however, he realized that he had no idea what exactly he was supposed to tell his body to do.

“Well how much is that?” he said, opening his eyes.

Horchoff
reacted as if he hadn’t thought that far into it.

“Well you had a big breakfast, right? How about we say 200 calories for right now,” He suggested.

Daniel closed his eyes again and prepared his conscious mind to take control of his intestine. He began to sync his thoughts with the command signals being sent from deep within his brain, and he could feel himself take control.

But there was a problem. He shook his head and opened his eyes, realizing that the good doctor was in way over his head with this one.

“My body – or brain – whatever, doesn’t see calories!” He half-shouted in frustration. “It only sees potential energy and waste. I can’t define what types of nutrients the potential energy is either. I recognize them as different, but they’re impossible to define. The body doesn’t know the difference.”

Horchoff
sat back in his chair and contemplated a moment, knowing that he should have realized that would be the case.

“Well then, let’s say half – or three quarters – whatever.” He compromised. “The point is just to be able to control the amount of energy your body absorbs. I suppose over time you’ll find out how much is enough and how much is too little.”

This time Daniel went into his mind without closing his eyes, staring at the whiteboard over Horchoff’s shoulder.

His thoughts were already synced up with the correct part of his brain, and he began to warp the signals being sent to his body with his conscious mind. He periodically stopped the process of absorbing some of the nutrients from what had earlier been his breakfast, sending the rest on its merry way.

“Okay,” he said in a very anticlimactic fashion. “I did it.”

The ease in which he achieved his goal made him feel almost annoyed by the entire episode.

He proceeded to push his conscious mind back into his frontal lobe where it belonged, ready to move on with the day.

Horchoff
sat contemplating from across the table.

“Well I guess there’s really no way to tell for sure,” he finally said. In typical
Horchoff fashion he had clearly not thought out the smaller details of this particular lesson.

“No worry,” he
said, both mentally and physically picking himself back up. “I suppose since you are exercising regularly, not to mention about to start rigorous training, you’ll have no need to monitor your calorie intake. The more important part is what we move onto next – how to control where you expend that energy.”

Before
Horchoff could go any further, Daniel felt an unexpected feeling inside of him. One that he currently had no control of, and even if he did he wasn’t sure it would have made much difference.

He quickly stood up and hurried his way toward the door.

“What’s wrong?” Horchoff asked him.

“I have to use the restroom,” Daniel said, throwing the door open and scurrying down the hallway.

From outside the classroom Daniel could hear Horchoff let out an audible laugh. He couldn’t help but chuckle himself, seeing the humor in the situation.

Much of the second week of class time was spent teaching Daniel all of the different things he could do by managing how and where his blood circulated through his body. This made Daniel realize just how much almost every function of the body was tied to his heart. Every muscle and organ relied on the heart to pump fresh oxygen to it via the bloodstream to keep it functioning, including the brain.

Daniel learned other skills that would help to assist his heart to keep up with the rigorous demands he would be putting on it in the coming days. He learned to expand his lungs to their maximum capacity, absorbing high amounts of oxygen into the bloodstream.

He found he could hold his breath for over ten minutes. He thought he was Superman until Horchoff told him that the record was actually nineteen minutes and twenty-one seconds. Daniel didn’t know how that could be possible, but Horchoff assured him that if he needed to, there was no reason he shouldn’t be able to beat that record. He’d just need to slow his heartbeat enough to preserve the oxygen he had taken in through his lungs.

Daniel was also able to start putting what he learned into practice, and it showed in his workouts. After learning about oxygen intake and proper blood flow, he found that he could run further and faster than ever before. He was able to run five miles at a six-minute mile pace on the treadmill, and he knew that if he wanted he could do even more.

His body was starting to show drastic improvement as well. After the lesson on digestion, Daniel discovered with guidance from the doctor that while lying in bed he could increase his heart rate and contract his muscles in ways that continued to burn the carbohydrates and proteins he had taken in throughout the day, as if he were working out. This served not only to burn fat, but also build and tone muscle.

He still continued to work out the old fashioned way of course, and every day he found the intensity of his workout getting closer and closer to that of the other agents. For the first time he began to recognize that he would soon surpass them in physical prowess.

By the end of the second week Daniel had lost fifteen pounds, and much of his body fat had turned to muscle, and he began to see definition in said muscles. He had not yet become what he would classify as a “stud,” but for the first time ever he was happy with what he saw in the mirror. He would not yet allow himself to be completely satisfied however, as he knew a Captain America-like physique was well within his grasp.

On the first day of the third week, he would finally be given the key to unlocking his strength, and like everything else, it centered
around blood flow.

When he walked into the room on that third Sunday, Richfield was standing in the room talking to the doctor in a hushed tone. Judging by their mannerisms, the conversation seemed casual.

After finishing what he was saying to Horchoff, Richfield turned to greet Daniel.

“Daniel my boy,” he said uncharacteristically. “How are
ya?”

“Good,” Daniel said for lack of anything else to say.

It wasn’t until that moment that Daniel realized he had barely seen Richfield the last two weeks. Mr. Blank would occasionally join him for lunch in the cafeteria, but it was rare that Richfield was seen out of his office.

“The doc here tells me that things have been going very well with your training. That’s excellent,” Richfield said. “We’re all very excited about it.”

By “we’re all” Daniel supposed he meant Blank, Horchoff, and Richfield himself. None of the other agents seemed to pay him any special attention.

“I’m pretty excited myself,” Daniel replied.

Richfield looked the same as he always did. His thick black hair, streaked with grey was slicked back over his scalp. He wore faded khaki pants and a plaid button up shirt, and he always seemed to maintain a look as if he had forgotten to shave that morning – always having some stubble, but he never had more than a shadow.

“Well today things are going to get really exciting.
Doc?” He said, turning it over to the doctor.

Taking Richfield’s cue,
Horchoff walked around the front of his table.

“Daniel, today we are going to work on physical strength,” he said, clasping his hands in front of him.

Daniel had to do all that he could to keep himself from jumping out of his seat and shouting with glee. This is what he had been waiting for.