7.What someone's genes say about them
"We will be up there in a jiffy."
Dong Jun was dancing in her room. If everything went right, she would be able to step out of her apartment complex. Dwax split from the group and went to the apartment floor, where the man who was supposed to have a spinal prosthesis resided. Dwax quickly started to try and pry the door with the crowbar. All he accomplished was to bend the metal around the lock a bit. He realized he needed a different approach. With a sigh, he put the crowbar back in his bag and went back for his shotgun.
He had to blast the door twice until it finally gave in and opened. The very moment the obstruction of the door was no more, a terrible stench assaulted Dwax's nose. Just like everywhere else, someone was rotting in there. This one, however, didn't have the alleviating factor of being in the open air. The bloated carcass had emptied all its gaseous glory into the tiny, cramped space.
Dwax gagged and ran to the bathroom. He almost vomited. He picked up a towel from the shelf and wrapped his face with it. He found some gloves in the tool shed and hauled the corpse to the balcony. Oh, what a terrible stench it was!
Luckily, the metal device was still on his head. He now had to find the spine counterpart. He had to take good care of the movements of his knife so he wouldn't destroy the device there. He gagged and belched, but he kept going. He was able to pull the device off of him.
He was feeling a weird sense of pride. Not anyone could do this terrible thing and be alright at the end of the day.
Happy, Dwax made his way to Dong Jun's apartment. He showed the headpiece and the chip to Kahara and Warrow. They were quite disgusted too, since Dwax didn't dare wash the chip because it might've broken. He didn't know if the chip was waterproof or not. Sure, it was within a man for a long time, but he didn't want to take any chances. There were still rotten chunks of nerve and flesh dangling off of its electrodes.
Warrow made a miserable face, while Kahara was having a hard time hiding her pity. The dirty hobo had done the dirty work, but he was happy about the fact that he was doing something useful. That was enough for Dwax. He has been living as a burden to society for long enough. There is a drive to better the lives of their fellow men within most men. Dwax wasn't devoid of such drive. Since he lacked both brains and brawn, he decided to compensate by being ready and willing to do more.
He was unaware of the fact that he was making a terrible impression on Dong Jun. Dong Jun has been told that he is a homeless youngster, and on top of that, the person in question turned up with a corpse-looted electronic device.
"I know, I know. It's disgusting. But if I didn't do this, Warrow might never walk again."
Warrow smiled genuinely this time. It was not easy to find a friend like Dwax. People mostly looked out for number one back when civilization was still running. Dwax was asking for nothing in return.
Dong Jun interjected into the conversation. Since she was a biohacker who operated out of her apartment, she used a glass box that connected to the outside of her apartment on her side. That glass box had two plastic gloves coming in. On the customer's side was a compartment that washed the box beforehand. That way, contamination was minimized and proper procedures were attained. It was her diligence in her work that saved Dong Jun from her certain demise. Someone who can read genes and design genes had to keep her sample pure to avoid any accidents.
With Warrow's blessing, Dwax took a drop of blood from Dwax's lips. He put the blood-soaked cotton into the box and pushed it into the compartment. After a mixture of chemicals washed over the box, Dong Jun picked it up and pushed it into the sequencer. The sequencer sequenced five hundred different spots on the sample, and if it was a common contaminant, the computer deleted the data. That way, she would have her full genome to work with, in no time.
She got madder the more she looked at Warrow's genome.
"Motherfucker! Fucking Corpos! Who do those bastards think they are? Not only did they put such trash out there, they dared to even encrypt it! Like, anybody would want to put this crap in their body willingly. What kind of moron would put this much muscle control into each muscle group? Don't they know more nerves result in diminishing results? Of course, he is paralyzed. Why wouldn't he be? There is not enough brain to manage all those nerve endings. Fuck, they probably had this synthesized by AI.
I fucking swear, there is no respect for the arts!"
Kahara asked Dong Jun,
"Is there any way we could heal him without putting this corpse-loot in him, Jun?"
Dong Jun was having a nervous breakdown from anger. She put her palms on her cheeks and pulled down. Her lower eyelids were lifted, and the red underneath was visible.
"It would've been easy if they didn't encrypt every goddamn gene they pushed onto this poor man. He can't even sweat; look at him.".
Warrow's chest was rising and deflating at quick intervals.
"He is panting like a dog. Whose bright idea was to take away a man's skin? If you are so into defense, why don't you code woven spider silk protein underneath the skin? It would fare far better than stupid-ass chitin."
She looked at Warrow and said,
"I'll have to fix you by adding things rather than taking things out. That makes my job a thousand times harder. Sorry, pal, the chip is your best bet. Luckily for you, I know a thing or two about implants. Once I'm out of here, I can install it for you."
Dong Jun then turned to Kahara.
"Let me look at your genome too. I highly doubt it's you who chose to be green. Am I wrong?"
Kahara pricked her finger and doused a piece of cotton with her blood.
"You are not wrong. This happened to me after the catastrophe."
The muscles on Dong Jun's jaw moved. She was gnashing her teeth. The context clues on Kahara's genome were pointing at only one thing.
"Someone is trying to make a slave race. Everything in your body is aimed at being cost-efficient without giving up on performance. Also, you are vulnerable to certain substances. Once you are hooked on them, it's essentially impossible for you to kick your habit. I suspect the plan is to gather a bunch of people and turn them green. After that, they plan to control them by using illicit substances as bargaining chips. Truly diabolical."
Kahara fell into deep thought. She was a prototype slave. The people who did this to her were going to do a lot worse to others after they worked out the kinks of the system with her. It was a damn shame.
"Also, you might want to stock up on vitamin D supplements. Sunlight loses efficacy on your green skin. You will feel chronic vitamin D deficiency."
Dong Jun gestured for Dwax to take the test too. She didn't expect much from Dwax. He didn't look like he had anything substantial compared to the other two. She was, however, desperate to try anything. Despite looking like your average Joe, he was still someone who survived the catastrophe after all.
"Hmm… Housefly eyes, some rat adaptations, pigeons, cockroaches… Damn, how poor were you? These are all animals you could find in the streets except this one. It's naked molerat. A NAKED MOLERAT!"
The molerat nearly got hunted to extinction by pharma companies when it came to light that when somebody splices the right naked molerat gene into them, they become immune to cancer, just like the naked molerat is immune to cancer.
Well, that isn't lucrative, is it? One meeting with a small animal, and you aren't profitable anymore. What a tragedy. The pharma companies tried to become the sole suppliers of the molerat genes. They tried to make timed molerat genes where you were safe from cancer only for ten years. After ten years, you would need to reapply for the molerat gene therapy.
Thus, the classic molerat gene became like a holy grail for the biohackers.
Icing on the cake, Dwax's molerat gene had gone through the human evolutionary selection process. That meant that it was far less likely to cause unforeseen problems.
Incidentally, this was her way out of this godforsaken room. Thanks to this augmentation, she wouldn't become a ball of cancerous growths the moment she stepped out.
"Thanks, Dwax; I owe you one."
Dwax was confused.
"But I didn't do anything."