Amygdala Hijack - A Genetic Engineering Sci-Fi Story of Impending Dystopia

EP. 19 - NUCLEATOR

MOLLI REMAINED SHAKEN THAT evening by Oort Cloud's graphic descriptions of the genetic mishaps he was increasingly seeing at his hospital. Most off-target tech stories had been pushed to the back pages of the news media over the last few years, a victim of overexposure that finally became aged and uninteresting, similar to any bad news that continues droning on. She had all but forgotten about the less fortunate in the geedee community, those who were irreparably damaged.

But she understood there was more to the story. So many small-time entrepreneurs were developing their own concoctions and offering them for profit to the less fortunate. These thousands of black-market labs created unapproved and unlicensed geedee tech to meet the burgeoning market demand while staying one step ahead of the police and regulatory authorities in the various countries.

In a sense, geedee tech was simply an extension of underground products that had always existed in society, like fake designer luggage or pirated movies. One thing was different, however. It had the ability to maim or kill.

"Ears," she pondered, "was one of the lucky ones, perhaps even the 'genetic one percent.' Due to his family's money and societal position, he had the wherewithal to pay for the most highly tested therapies."

Today's geedee was all about the new ease of creation, the lowering of the bar using mail-order lab systems and genetic material such as natural and synthetic amino acids. Open source software from the cloud enabled immediate proficiency, even allowing novices to fabricate unlimited recipes of both human and non-human genetic material.

"Indeed, grade school kids are some of the most innovative at this," she laughed, feeling a bit uncomfortable at the thought.

She couldn't get Oort Cloud's last reference out of her mind: the example of the man who checked into the ER with three partial legs and open nerve bundles protruding from his shin. It prompted her to investigate the many untold horrors of home-grown geedee tech, confirming her worst fears about the pace of social and technological changes that were actively clashing head-to-head.

And it wasn't like it was just happening in Boston. She knew Oort Cloud's description was the iceberg's tip of what was occurring elsewhere in the world.

Particularly upsetting were the human-animal varint experiments. Human and insect DNA were being combined and then rubbed onto or injected in the human donor, creating all manner of hybrid horrors. The freakish results ranged from serrated, bug-like appendages sprouting from various parts of a person's body to head antennae or translucent wings growing from the back.

She wondered about humanity's ability to adapt quickly, maybe too quickly, sometimes allowing abhorrent deviations to forever swivel the realm of normalcy.

"It started innocently enough," she thought, staring at the small yin yang symbol on the underside of her left wrist. "Even I experimented with a minor geedee skin tattoo, right there. Twelve years old. You can't blame me."

It was in her early days of interest in all things Chinese and Buddhist, which eventually led to her commitment to Chinese martial arts.

"Funny. Mom let me use rub-on geedee tech for that, but she strongly opposed tattoo parlor needles. If she only knew then which one ended up being more dangerous."

She thought of her many friends who made similar decisions while in the impressionable years of youth. It was the yearning desire to be different, the willingness to take a risk, an unknown and possibly life-changing risk, if only to differentiate oneself and stand out with daring. Geedee tattoos were so easy that they had become the norm across a wide swath of society. They were painless and often beautiful additions to a person's skin, with few side effects.