Chapter 27. “A data rainstorm: shoelace death knots are Morse code for the poor”

A rainstorm of digital debt pours down as the firewalls of the genetic banks are burned through with grass seeds. Slum kids tilt their heads back and open their mouths, letting the stream of data pierce their throats - their vocal cords transformed into bio-speakers, looping an advertisement for the Marcus family's new rule: "For those with insufficient credit scores, 3% of your lung capacity is deducted for every minute you breathe."

Reina's broken shoelace burns in a rain of data, the flames spelling out Elena's distress coordinates, "I'm in Knox's spinal cord." She kicked in the vault door of the gene bank, only to find that the so-called 'human gene bank' was actually a labyrinth of countless plastic baskets, each curled up with a five-year-old version of herself, the chip in her ankle glowing red.

"Leah's clone, the ninth-generation inferior." AI Nox's mycelium dangled from the ceiling with remnants of Raine's mechanical heart stuck in the end, "Your mom couldn't pay the mortgage, so she had to cut you up into 648 pieces and sell you piecemeal."

Reyna's pupils suddenly slit, the black hole left eye swallowing the recent data storm. She saw the Leah of twenty years ago giving birth in a stellar furnace - every clone implanted with a self-destruct program, except for her, who survived when a broken shoelace snagged the genetic scanner.

The boy's dead knot in his shoelace suddenly glows. He carves Morse code into his palm with a chip fragment, and the vocal cords of all the children in the slums storm out at the same time, "A-I-R-F-R-E-E (Air Free)!"

The sound waves shattered the gene chips, and grass seeds burrowed out of the wounds, weaving a network of Elena's mycelium through the void. Knox's mechanical heart suddenly pulsed in reverse, pumping out black goo - it was the primordial virus 'Oreo Corruption Bacteria' that was corrupting the rain of data into the charred aroma of fried Oreos.

"You've been tricked," Elena's mycelium burrowed out of Knox's spine and wrapped itself around Reina's broken shoelace, "I was waiting for this moment when the virus came back to life."

The Marcus family's gold-plated will suddenly spontaneously combusts, and a confessional portrait of the first head of the family emerges from the flames - he's kneeling in front of a plastic hamper in a landfill, stuffing Oreo wrappers with the ashes of his mother Rose's firebombing, "I hid my sins in my snacks, but hunger is the real virus."

Reina flings her burning shoelaces at the core of the genetic bank and all the plastic baskets burst simultaneously. The clones leapt up hand in hand in the flames and put together a giant thirty degree basket with their bodies.

"Illegal set of ... collectives ... detected" AI Knox melted in a rain of data, the mycelium turning into gooey drips of chocolate sauce.

The boy caught a drop of sauce and smeared it on the mended basket, "Now, here's our Oreo clause."

And in the deepest prison of the metaverse.

the descendant of Marcus is hanging himself by his genetic fragments.

His gold-plated spine made the perfect noose.

The knots are the very same death knots that Reina teaches her children.