After checking his condition, Evan went into the washroom, turned on the tap, and splashed two handfuls of cold water onto his face.
Water dripped from his chin as he raised his head and looked at himself in the mirror.
Still thin.
His cheekbones still stood out, and his cheeks were still hollow. He was nowhere near sturdy.
But compared with the ashen face in the mirror yesterday, which had looked as though it had just crawled out of a coffin, the change was plain to see.
His limbs were noticeably thicker. His forearms, where the outline of his ulna had once been visible, were now covered in firm, even muscle. Nothing exaggerated, but the definition was clear.
When he clenched his fists, the tendons in his forearms drew taut like strings, and something pulsed powerfully beneath his skin.
"One day, and the change is already this big. The boost from the magic potion is terrifying."
After washing up, he put on his gray shirt and patched tweed jacket, then slipped into his repaired leather shoes. At last, both feet rested at the same height.
He popped two Mercury Pills into his mouth.
[You reversed the side effects of the Mercury Pills.] [Your digestive tract ulcers have eased! 10% → 9%] [Your cranial nerve damage has eased! 15% → 14%] [Your mouth has been strengthened. Physique permanently +0.001.]
The magic potion took only twelve hours to digest.
But Pulis had told him to take it once a day. Evan did not dare take more and invite unnecessary suspicion.
He shouldered his schoolbag and left for class.
Today, he did not stop to help the old Italian man with his food cart on the corner.
His ravenous body needed more fuel.
He turned onto a slightly wider cross street at the north end of Gooding Street and pushed open the door of a cheap diner called Lucky Bee.
The bell above the door jingled, and a thick wave of cooking fumes and hot food hit him.
The diner was small, with a dozen or so wooden tables crammed together. Their greasy surfaces had been wiped again and again, but never quite came clean.
It was crowded, mostly with dockworkers who did heavy labor. They wore overalls and canvas shirts, their sleeves rolled to the elbows to reveal thick, sun-darkened forearms.
They bent over their meals as if tackling a job. Forks and knives clattered against tin plates amid muffled conversation and occasional bursts of rough laughter.
The smell of sweat mingled with the aroma of food. It was hardly pleasant, yet it made the place feel oddly reassuring.
Evan stopped at the counter and glanced at the chalkboard menu on the wall.
A large chunk of brown bread, a cup of black coffee, two sausages, two tomatoes, and a glass of milk.
Sixteen cents.
More than three times the price of his old five-cent breakfast, but his body was now a boiler running at full tilt. It needed enough coal.
When the food arrived, he dug in.
He broke the bread in half, dunked one piece in the coffee, and stuffed the other into his mouth with a sausage.
He bit into a tomato, its sweet-tart juice bursting across his tongue, then washed it down with milk.
He was not a pretty eater, but no one in this diner would give him a second glance for it.
Five minutes later, his plate was empty.
Evan used the last hard crust of bread to wipe up the grease on his plate, popped it into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed.
Then he stood, shouldered his schoolbag, and pushed through the diner door into the cold morning air.
He crossed two alleys and squeezed onto a tram heading through the city.
As usual, the carriage was packed, but today his hand held the overhead strap steady, and the crowd's jostling could not budge him.
The tram rattled along the main road. Early November sunlight pierced the buildings to the east.
Golden shafts slanted across the street, lighting the fine dust floating in the air.
Evan stood in the carriage as sunlight fell through the window onto his face, warm and bright.
He narrowed his eyes, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly.
"The sun is rising, and I've been born again."
He stepped off the tram and passed through the stone-pillared gates of Sage University.
Today's Evan was a different person from yesterday's.
His stride was calm and steady, with none of that unsteady feeling that he might fall at any moment.
The heel Old Tom had repaired finally put both feet at the same height. Every step landed firmly, the soles of his leather shoes striking the stone path in an even, forceful rhythm.
He crossed the sports ground, passed two teaching buildings, and pushed through the doors of the main teaching building into the ground-floor hall.
The hall was a high-ceilinged rectangle with a polished marble floor. Oil portraits of past headmasters hung on the walls to either side.
In the twenty minutes before morning class, it was the students' main social battleground.
Young people gathered in small groups throughout the hall, chatting, exchanging notes, and showing off new tie clips. The air was thick with hair wax, cologne, and the restless energy of youth.
Evan had barely entered when a flippant whistle came from his right.
Sharp and grating, as though someone were calling a dog.
"Hey! Whore-disease boy!"
The voice was not loud, but the marble walls carried it across the entire hall.
The students fell silent for a second, then burst into laughter.
Some covered their mouths. Others pointed openly at Evan. The laughter spread from that corner like ripples.
Evan's expression did not change.
He kept his eyes ahead and walked straight toward the stairs without breaking stride.
During his years working in sales on Earth, clients had told him to get lost to his face, and security guards had hauled him out of office buildings.
The mockery of a bunch of university students born with silver spoons in their mouths could not even scratch the surface of his composure.
Just as he was about to step onto the first stair, a tall figure came in from the side and blocked his path.
"Hey, Arkham."
His voice carried a carefully manufactured friendliness, like a thumbtack wrapped in candy.
"Thanks for your performance yesterday. It saved the rest of us from having to copy out lines as punishment."
Evan turned to look.
A light-blue shirt, a gilded collar pin, and golden hair combed neatly into place.
Kevins Lebon.
The student Professor Mons had called on first yesterday, the one who had stood up and recited the second rule incorrectly.
His father was said to be a fairly successful importer in Bolton City's East District, and his family owned a detached house with a garden in the suburbs.
Evan looked over the young man, who stood half a head taller than him. "What do you want?" he asked flatly.
Lebon smiled with the easy condescension of someone teasing an animal in a cage.
"I'm throwing an amazing party this weekend. I've invited the whole class."
He lowered his head and leaned closer, dropping his voice to a taunting murmur.
"Guess who didn't get an invitation?"
Evan tilted his head without answering.
Lebon straightened and threw back his head in laughter.
"You! Whore-disease boy!"
He spread his arms as if delivering the punch line to a brilliant joke.
"Everyone thinks you're cheap and filthy! Hahaha!"
Seven or eight male students and several female students nearby joined in. Someone even applauded, as though watching a comic skit at a vaudeville show.
Evan looked at their grinning faces. Inside, he was as still as a stagnant pool.
Classic American bullying. Here it was.
At a prestigious university like this, the hierarchy was rigid, and the competition between students was openly ruthless.
The wealthy and middle-class students fought hard to protect their status and their circles.
Fraternities, private parties, bullying, exclusion—they were as much a required part of university life as Latin and chemical equations.
Clearly, standing out in Professor Mons's class yesterday had struck a nerve.
A poor student in a patched jacket, a lowlife with syphilis, had dared stand up and speak with confidence when they could not answer?
That was less forgivable than cheating on an exam.
The moment Lebon finished speaking, Evan felt a rush of air at his back.
Someone lunged at him from behind.
A thick hand seized the strap of his schoolbag with enough force to yank him off his feet.
Evan had already sensed him.
Two reversals of Aspirin had sharpened his hearing beyond that of an ordinary person.
He could just make out the sound of leather shoes approaching over marble and the rhythm of heavy breathing behind him.
Instinctively, he jerked his schoolbag back.
Rrrip!
The opposing force tore one of the straps clean off.
The sound of canvas ripping cut sharply through the hall. Gray-white threads showed at the torn edge.
Evan turned.
A blond young man built like a wall stood behind him, clutching half the broken strap. A vicious grin still lingered on his face.
Thompson.
A celebrated first-year American football rookie who was said to be able to push a training sled by himself.
His shoulders were as broad as a wardrobe, his neck nearly as thick as his head, and the buttons of his uniform shirt strained across his chest.
"What are you doing?" Evan shouted, quickly pulling the schoolbag behind him with both hands.
Snatching a schoolbag and tearing up notes and textbooks was one of the most common ways to bully someone here.
To a poor student, a notebook represented half a semester's work. Once destroyed, it was gone. He had neither the money to buy replacements nor the time or connections to copy it all out again.
Surprise flashed across Thompson's face.
He had not expected the sickly boy who had vomited after a run just days ago to be strong enough to wrench the bag out of his hand.
The force behind that pull did not seem like something a drug-trial student could produce.
But clearly, they had come prepared.
They were determined to humiliate Evan in public today.
As Evan took a step back, two more people suddenly lunged at him from either side.
A shabby blanket dropped over him, covering his head.
The rough, stiff fabric enveloped his head and upper body, plunging his vision into darkness.
It reeked of mildew and sweat, and its fibers scratched his face.
He lost his sense of direction.
Then three pairs of powerful arms closed around him from three directions, locking him and the blanket in place like iron bands.
The arm strength of American football players was no joke. Evan felt as though he had been stuffed into an iron barrel, unable to move.
"Hahaha! Lebon! Now!"
Laughter came from outside the blanket, excited and malicious.
Evan struggled violently in the dark. Then he saw it.
A tube slid in beneath the edge of the blanket.
Copper, long and slender, like the stem of a pipe.
Evan's pupils contracted. He knew at once what it was.
The next instant, he held his breath.
Thick smoke poured from the tube and quickly filled the enclosed space beneath the blanket.