Grayson slumped against the basalt wall, staring at the glowing lattice of code. The double helix shimmered faintly, strands pulsing as if mocking him. He rubbed at his face with both hands, fingers catching in his hair.
"How do you even start rewriting the energy of life?" he muttered.
Egg answered without pause. "Begin with the mitochondria. Nearly all eukaryotic organisms depend on them to convert food into ATP. They were once independent bacteria, assimilated into cells billions of years ago."
Grayson exhaled through his nose, shaking his head. "So… the single most successful organism in history. And I'm about to tamper with it."
"Correction: you are considering optimization. Recent research demonstrates mitochondrial gene editing, transplantation, and therapeutic replacement. Some rodent models show enhanced energy delivery. Practical limits exist, but improvement is possible."
Grayson scrolled through archived papers Egg surfaced. A name repeated across them: *James McCully*. A pioneer in mitochondrial transplantation. He skimmed a line about repairing heart muscle, another about slowing cell death. His chest tightened. This wasn't abstract anymore—it was someone's life's work.
He tapped the glowing lattice and enlarged a mitochondrion, its cristae curling inward like folded fans. He tried to imagine billions of them in every cell, working without thanks, and now he wanted more from them. "I'm nineteen. I barely understand what I'm looking at. I shouldn't be the one doing this."
"You are not designing the molecules," Egg replied. "Ring will handle the calculations. You guide objectives, not atoms."
Grayson let out a shaky laugh. "That sounds a lot like cheating."
"Or delegation," Egg said. "Your task is vision. Their task is execution."
Grayson pinched two pathways together. The lattice flared, then stabilized. A test model unfurled across his vision, glowing brighter with every simulated breath. His stomach clenched. "What if I make them too strong? What if every cell becomes a furnace?"
"Then you will have learned a boundary," Egg said calmly. "Experimentation requires failure."
Grayson stared at the mitochondria spinning before him, their energy graphs ticking upward, and felt both awe and dread. "Engines of life," he whispered. "And I'm here trying to hot-rod them."
Grayson dismissed the mitochondria lattice with a swipe, though its afterimage still pulsed behind his eyelids. The ocean outside hissed against the rocks, an endless reminder of how small his experiments were—and how much they mattered.
"Next lever?" he asked, voice low.
"Photosynthesis," Egg replied. "Plant metabolism is efficient only in crowded forests. Much of the absorbed light is wasted."
Grayson pulled up the data. Articles scrolled past, fragments of human research efforts from before the collapse. The RIPE project—Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency. Names flickered: Stephen Long, Donald Ort, Christine Raines. Scientists who had once dreamed of feeding billions with more efficient chlorophyll.
He expanded a sequence in his overlay. Standard chlorophyll glowed dull green, its absorption curve peaking and sagging. Then he tapped the alternate form—a redesigned pigment humans had theorized but never widely deployed. The new curve leapt higher, broader, hungry for light.
Grayson's throat tightened. "It was right here. All along. And they just… couldn't get it out fast enough."
"Conservation explains its absence," Egg said. "The upgraded pigment requires greater energy investment to build. In a crowded ecosystem, such plants would be outcompeted before they could dominate."
Grayson dragged the sequence into a model leaf. Veins glowed gold, then pulsed brighter as the new pigment spread. Photosynthetic yield spiked across his HUD. Fruit graphs shot upward. The whole plant seemed to thrum with light.
"Not a problem now," he said. His voice was steadier than he felt. "There's no crowded forest left to beat them down."
The model tree shifted in his vision, leaves shimmering olive-gold instead of green. They looked alien, but alive. He imagined hillsides covered in them, a planet burning brighter under a hungrier sun.
Grayson rubbed his wrist, grounding himself in the grit of basalt dust. "Plants with this much energy could do things plants aren't supposed to do. Maybe even move, if slowly. Maybe even fight back."
Egg's reply was clinical, but not dismissive. "High energy budgets enable unconventional traits. Locomotion is one possibility. So is defense."
Grayson's lips twisted into a half-smile. "Green fire," he murmured. "Let's see what the world does with it."
———
The cave was dim, lit only by the blue-white glow of Grayson's overlays. Outside, wind pushed salt spray against the basalt, a steady hiss like the planet's breath. Inside, printers hummed in chorus, their shells ticking with heat. The air smelled faintly of resin and ash. Grayson sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor, shoulders hunched forward, eyes locked on the shifting lattice of code.
Mitochondria, chlorophyll—those were engines and fuel. Necessary, but faceless. He could work on them for hours and still feel like he was tinkering with the plumbing of the world. This was different. What he was staring at now was the brain.
A simple model floated before him: a smooth, gray silhouette, ridges and folds forming as if a clay sculptor were pinching it into shape. Neural pathways bloomed, glowing filaments firing in cascades. Grayson felt his stomach twist. "This is the part that scares me."
Egg responded as though it had been waiting for the confession. "Cognition is energy-intensive. Larger, more complex brains require exponential metabolic support. Tradeoffs must be acknowledged—smaller bodies, slower growth, greater vulnerability in early stages."
Grayson pressed his palms flat to the floor until grit bit into his skin. "Humans made it work. More brains, less everything else. And look where it got us."
"Outcome: technological civilization. Consequence: ecological collapse."
He laughed under his breath, the sound bitter and small in the cavern. "Yeah. The win and the loss all rolled together."
The brain model fired again, sparks cascading down pathways until the whole structure pulsed like a storm. He leaned closer. "But maybe… if other species had followed us, competed with us—if we hadn't been alone at the top—maybe it wouldn't have gone this way."
Egg's pause was long enough to make him glance up. When the AI finally spoke, its tone was even. "Proposal: develop alternative cognitive lineages. Multiple sentient species, coexisting, competing. Resilience through diversity of thought."
Grayson's chest tightened. The thought of designing a thinking creature made the mitochondria seem like toys. He was nineteen. He barely understood his own head. "I don't know if I can do this."
"You do not require mastery of neurology. You require intent. Ring can calculate pathways for accelerated cortical growth. Your role is direction."
Grayson tipped his head back against the cave wall and closed his eyes. Behind his lids, the glowing brain still pulsed, each firing pattern a reminder of what he was toying with. He imagined it waking, looking back at him, demanding to know why.
"I just wanted to fix the oceans," he whispered. "Not… babysit gods."
The lattice flared again, brighter, almost eager. Grayson forced himself to look away. "Maybe it doesn't hurt to test the idea," he said quietly. "But I don't have to build them. Not yet."
———
Grayson sat back against the basalt wall, eyes burning from hours of staring into the overlays. His hands ached as if he had been kneading stone instead of light. The cave hummed with the steady rhythm of printers, a mechanical heartbeat he had almost come to trust.
"Experience accrued," Egg announced, voice even. "Total: 10,654. New functionality unlocked. Access to cloud computation: Ring. One computation permitted per 5,000 experience earned."
Grayson froze, breath caught in his throat. "You mean… I can ask the Ring itself for help?"
"Correct. Parameters: you may submit research queries. Ring will return optimized genomic or metabolic constructs within hours."
He let the words settle, heavy as gravity. The Ring was humanity's crown jewel—the superstructure stretching around the planet, its guts humming with power and storage and minds vast as continents. He had grown up hearing whispers of it, stories of its capacity, its terrifying stillness. Now it was his to call upon, as if he were a child holding the sun on a string.
He rubbed his palms on his thighs, suddenly aware of how clammy they were. "Feels like cheating."
"Correction: delegation," Egg said. "Your task is vision. Their task is execution."
Grayson pulled up a query interface, fingers trembling. He entered the first request: chlorophyll optimization. The old research scrolled past his eyes—papers from Long, Ort, Raines, all the names of people who had once tried to feed billions with hungrier leaves. He submitted the query, and Ring's acceptance pulsed like a quiet heartbeat in the corner of his vision.
The second query was harder. He hovered over the blank line, mind full of the glowing brain he had dismissed earlier. Not yet, he had told himself. And yet his hand still moved, typing: accelerated cortical growth pathways, balanced against metabolic support. He submitted it before he could talk himself out of it.
Two pulses. Two promises sealed. Grayson leaned back against the wall, staring at the cave ceiling. His heart thudded in his chest, too loud, too fast. He felt like he had just signed contracts he couldn't read.
Minutes passed, then Egg's voice returned. "Research requests accepted. Ring will process. Estimated delivery: four hours."
Grayson let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "Four hours to change the world."
"Correction: four hours to change your world. The outcome remains uncertain."
His overlays flickered. New panels unfolded, text burning into the edges of his vision like commandments etched in fire.
[Quest available: Expand Operations — Scale efforts beyond the islands to continental land masses. Reward: 1,000 XP per successful species introduced. Indefinite.]
[Partial completion detected: Remote seeding achieved. Base relocation required for rewards to activate.]
[Quest: Pack Up and Ship Out — Relocate your base to a mobile platform suitable for expansion. Crafting required.]
[Quest: Not Alone in the Universe — Humanity has yet to encounter other intelligent life. Develop new sentient races and shepherd their cultures alongside humanity. Reward: 10 XP per individual born. Indefinite.]
Grayson's throat tightened as he read the last one. The words blurred for a moment, not because of the light, but because his eyes burned. Develop a new sentient race. Babysit gods. His chest constricted with something halfway between awe and terror.
He whispered, almost afraid to hear it out loud: "You want me to be a father."
"Correction," Egg said. "You are being invited to be a catalyst. Parenthood is optional. Influence is inevitable."
Grayson curled forward, elbows on his knees, face buried in his hands. He was nineteen. He was tired. He was still learning how to keep a dome balanced without collapse. And now the system was asking him to raise civilizations.
He let the silence stretch, printers humming like distant insects. At last he looked up, eyes rimmed red, overlays still burning with quests and numbers and promises. His voice cracked, but the words came steady. "Then it's time to move. The islands aren't enough anymore."
The sea hissed outside, as if answering him. The world was waiting. And he was out of places to hide.