Kyle had learned the rules of restraint.
Not because restraint was safe — it rarely was — but because the universe revealed more to patience than to impulse.
His workshop had become a lab, a sanctuary, and a trap all at once. Machines hummed quietly. Metal filings lay in organized piles. Every surface carried data he could read: scratches, bends, stains, residues — all telling a story of material, energy, and entropy.
Sarah watched him from the corner, her arms crossed, notebook in hand. She had begun documenting what he allowed her to see, though he suspected she didn't yet understand half of it.
"Why do you focus so much on the little things?" she asked. "A spark, a seed, a drop of water… it's not going to matter in the real world."
Kyle didn't look up. "Everything matters if it has a reaction. If it changes. If it learns to respond."
He began with dust — iron, copper, and traces of silicon collected from his scavenged metal piles.
The first experiment was simple: observe.
No touch. No energy manipulation. Only attention.
The particles quivered. Not from wind, magnetism, or vibration. They aligned themselves along invisible axes, forming a lattice that collapsed the moment his focus shifted.
Kyle scribbled diagrams in his analog notebook, marking axes, angles, and particle density. Patterns emerged, subtle but undeniable. He began to see rules, a hidden framework for how energy could be influenced without touching matter directly.
"It's like teaching," he muttered. "But the student is space itself."
Next came water.
A shallow dish, filled with rainwater, placed near the window to catch cosmic radiation.
Kyle traced his awareness above the surface, feeling molecular alignment subtly shift. Ripples formed, not from touch but from the interaction between residual cosmic fields and his intent.
"Predictable," he whispered. "Repeatable… but unstable."
He adjusted variables: light intensity, container angle, temperature. Each small change produced measurable differences. The energy field reacted differently to metal nearby, to plant matter in the vicinity, even to Sarah's presence.
She noticed it, hesitantly. "It moves differently when I'm here."
Kyle nodded. "You affect the system. Everyone does. Even your presence carries energy, whether you know it or not."
The first living trial came with seeds.
A sunflower and a corn seed, each lightly coated with metal filings and embedded in water. Kyle observed without touching. He measured growth, root alignment, stem strength, and leaf curvature over hours and days.
Patterns emerged:
Iron stabilized cellular structures.
Silicon promoted alignment along axes that enhanced nutrient absorption.
Copper mediated oscillation between growth speed and structural integrity.
The seedlings were stronger than normal. Their cells appeared to store energy differently, subtle luminescence tracing veins. It was the first concrete evidence of something new: Omega.
Kyle leaned back, heart hammering. "It's… working."
He moved cautiously toward a more complex model: animal tissue samples. Small, isolated, inert fragments — nothing alive.
Injected with minimal Omega precursors derived from his earlier experiments, they began showing structural changes at the cellular level. Mitochondrial activity increased. Membrane alignment became subtly geometric.
"This… this can translate energy into biology," he whispered.
Sarah shivered. "Is this… dangerous?"
Kyle thought about the government disposal orders, the abandoned research facilities, the whispers of secrets better left buried. "It could be," he said. "Or it could save us. It depends on how it's used."
By the end of the month, Kyle had refined his first stable Omega synthesis:
Cosmic energy could be converted into a form usable by biological matter.
Metal, water, and light acted as conduits and catalysts.
Seeds injected with this energy grew faster, stronger, and with altered internal structures.
He stored all results in a spatially offset analog notebook, ensuring no one could accidentally recover the information.
Sarah watched silently, realizing she had stepped into something far larger than a mere laboratory experiment.
Kyle closed his eyes, feeling the faint pulse of cosmic energy surrounding the workshop. He thought of the world outside — unaware, vulnerable, unprepared.
"If the world ever knew what this could do…" he whispered, "it would destroy itself."
He knew then: Omega was not just a discovery. It was a responsibility.
And the first rule of responsibility: it must be controlled.