The patient's name was Adel, a small but notoriously ruthless property builder who made a specialty of slum clearances and high-end imported automobiles. His request had been typical of the new patients: not a cure for an existentially dangerous illness, but an upgrade. "Make me stronger," he'd commanded, spilling an envelope of bills onto the black tabletop. "Less. weak. I have enemies.".
Dawud, his vital force spent and his Reserve of Energy low enough to be hazardous, had performed the edit with a kind of mechanical detachment. It was a redoing of the 'Controlled Strength' path he'd observed in the Genome Map after the catastrophe with Khalid. He was careful, precise, using the skill of Stabilization to keep it a balanced rise in bone and fast-twitch response—a slight 25% rise, somethi
