Project Silas - 4 The Carnivore of Cubicle 4
Routine is the best camouflage. If you walk with purpose, carry a clipboard, and sigh loudly at the coffee machine, nobody questions what you are. Even if you are technically a plant.
It had been three weeks since the injection. Henry had returned to work, sliding back into the rhythm of the continuous improvement department as if he hadn’t just rewritten his own genetic destiny.
He had learned to modulate the intake. He treated sunlight not as weather, but as dosage. The drive to the office was a calibrated exposure event: long sleeves, sunglasses, and the car visor pulled down to shield his face. The tinted windows of his sedan were enough to throttle the reaction down to a low simmer—a pleasant, steady hum of energy that felt like a caffeine buzz that never crashed.
The office was safer. The fluorescent tubes buzzing overhead were weak. Their spectrum was jagged and inefficient, barely enough to tickle his chloroplasts. Under them, he felt calm. Sated.
"Henry?"
He looked up from his monitor. It was Sarah from HR, holding a birthday card for someone he barely knew. She stopped, tilting her head.
"Are you feeling alright?" she asked, her voice dropping to that polite, concerned whisper people use for the potentially contagious. "You look… a little green around the gills."
Henry forced a smile. He knew exactly what she saw. Under the harsh office lights, the olive-gold undertone of his skin clashed with the cool white fluorescents, giving him a sickly, jaundiced cast. He looked like a man in the early stages of liver failure, or perhaps a recovering Vulcan.
"Just a touch of anemia," Henry lied smoothly. "My doctor has me on a new supplement regimen. Iron, magnesium. It messes with my complexion a bit."
"Oh," Sarah said, visibly relieved that it wasn't airborne. "Well, take care of yourself. We need you for the quarterly review."
She slid the card onto his desk and walked away. Henry watched her go, then picked up his water bottle.
He checked his watch. 12:00 PM. Lunchtime.
The cafeteria was a minefield of carbohydrates, but Henry navigated it with a new, predatory precision. He bypassed the sandwich station. He ignored the pasta bar. The smell of the bakery corner—warm yeast and sugar—didn't make him hungry anymore. It made him vaguely nauseous, like the smell of over-ripe fruit rotting in the sun.
He didn't need the sugar. His skin was currently manufacturing enough glucose to run a marathon. What he needed was mass.
He reached the grill station. "Three hamburger patties," Henry told the server. "No bun. No cheese. And three hard-boiled eggs."
The server blinked. "On a keto kick?"
" something like that."
Henry took his tray to a corner table away from the windows. He cut into the beef with mechanical efficiency.
He had spent the last week working out the stoichiometry of his new physiology. Photosynthesis provided the energy ($ATP$) and the fuel ($C_6H_{12}O_6$), but it couldn't create matter from nothing. He still needed nitrogen for amino acids. He needed phosphorus for his DNA. He needed lipids to repair his cell membranes.
He was a biological hybrid engine. The sun was the battery, but the steak was the spare parts.
He ate quickly, washing the protein down with water. As he chewed, he scanned the room. He saw his coworkers sluggishly picking at heavy pastas, their eyes glazing over with the midday slump. They were tethered to the sugar crash cycle.
He felt a pang of pity. He felt electric.
As he stood up to bus his tray, a shaft of unfiltered sunlight cut through the atrium skylight, hitting the back of his neck.
The reaction was instantaneous. A flare of heat raced down his spine. The sweet, cloying scent of maple syrup bloomed in the back of his throat—the warning sign. His blood sugar was spiking.
He grabbed his collar, buttoning it tight, and stepped quickly out of the light, ducking back into the safety of the fluorescent shadows.
"Hey Henry," a voice called out from the hallway. "You smell... good? Is that cotton candy?"
Henry didn't stop walking. "New laundry detergent," he called back over his shoulder, walking faster. "Brand new formula."