DarkWing (Final Editing in Progress)

Prologue

It’s funny. I think back to when this was all just… I had never imagined my life, no, I had never imagined the world would go down this road. I still remember how it all began. Cancer.

Every single street you walked down, every store you walked into, every television channel you watched, you could not go a single day without hearing or seeing the slogan, “It’s 2092, and cancer is not a part of it.” On the occasional poster you would see this slogan with some dime a dozen scientist’s picture on it. They were always holding some award, shaking some hand, or kissing some baby. On tv, they always managed to do all three.

Whenever I saw this crap, I always wondered, “when did science become politics,” and then I would think back to spring of ’90. First it was all about funding. Now? They are just cleaning up after the mess he made.

For the better half of a century, humanity believed that the answer to curing cancer lied in nanotechnology. Around 2040, with advances being made in the field, people began to pour their hearts and souls into this idea. Out of pure desperation came billions. Billions of people, billions of hours, billions of dollars, billions wasted, all in a matter of 10 years. But I guess it wasn’t a total loss, or well, it didn't look like it at the time.

While no more than maybe half a step was achieved on the path to curing cancer, miles were run on the path to advancing nanotech.

In the food industry, preservatives were enhanced with nanotech along with overall food taste due to improvements in farming.

In entertainment, television screens, laptop screens, every single digital picture was enhanced. Also in entertainment, portable computer’s processing power and speed as well as memory size and access were improved.

In energy, nanotech improved the fuel efficiency of solar power as fossil fuels had become a thing of the past.

In clothing, nanotechnology strengthened the vibrancy of colors as well as the texture and fabric.

In transportation, trains once again became a quick and cost friendly ground travel system as modern mag-lev technology fused with nanotech increased speeds and energy efficiency.

In sanitation, nanotech would be dispersed into large water reserves and they would seek out bacteria or any other harmful toxin and kill it. In literally every single field, nanotechnology had improved life, every single field, except finding the cure to cancer.

In the mid 50’s, two important events took place. One: people began noticing a rise in cancer related deaths. As scientists took a closer look, the number of cases of cancer had been rising sharply ever since the 40’s. Staggering and confusing, scientists would devote people and funds to find the reason for this spike in cancer cases, hoping to find a cure to it by working backwards. It wouldn’t be until the mid 80’s that these scientists would discover what was truly happening.

Two: A small group of scientists broke away from the idea that nanotech could cure cancer. These rogue researchers, known as the “correctors,” began researching a new field, gene splicing. In the entirety of the world, there has only been one animal that has been immune to cancer, naked mole rats. The correctors believed that the naked mole rats were immune because of something in their genetic code, and planned on finding this gene sequence and implementing it into humans. They took to calling this genetic code “the messiah.”

With the birth of any movement or idea comes with one opposing it, but in this case, the percent population of people that were pro-corrector was almost non-existent. The religious community took to accusing the correctors of “playing God.” The scientific community called them “anti-humanity.” The political community, ironically, labeled them as a “cancer to humanity.”

Polls taken in the early 60’s showed that 98.7% of everyone asked was against the corrector movement. People were scared of them. All these sci-fi movies and books centered on gene splicing and how it could go wrong plagued the mind of the public.

They were all biased before they gave the Correctors a chance. They hated the idea of no longer being "human," of getting some disease through gene splicing, of becoming something they don't recognize in the mirror. It wouldn’t be until the mid 80’s that this would change. It should've never changed.

“No. This can’t be. It’s… It’s our fault. It’s all our faults.” The mid 80’s was a time of… distress, to say the least. Scientists uncovered, while running radiation tests on some unknown space material, what was causing the rise in cancer cases. Nanotechnology.

What the scientists were striving to use to cure cancer, was actually increasing the number of cancer-related deaths each year. When engineering nanotech, the creators did not realize that what they were creating released unbelievably small amounts of radiation. Alone, these radiation waves were more than harmless, but as nanotech was implemented into every single field of study, every single commercial product, every single food item, the radiation build up was inescapable.

The same year, the correctors began human trials on cancer patients, and were surprisingly successful. The subjects that were deemed lost causes by modern medicine professionals were completely rid of any and all traces of cancer with almost no side effects in only a few days. These two events coupled together caused a change in the eyes of the public.

People were lost as they learned that nanotech, the product that they had poured everything into, ended up backfiring. They were so lost and overcome with desperation, many turned to the correctors. They ignored every ounce of faith and sense they had because they were let down and scared. More and more scientists joined the correctors’ cause, more and more people donated and helped fund the corrector research, and a poll taken in 2087 showed that more than half of everyone asked was now in favor of the correctors.

It wasn't until spring of '90 that human trials with the messiah gene had ended and it was opened to the public. Corrector Corps (with all the new support and funding including millions from the government, the correctors soon became an official corporation with branching research centers all over the United States) began nation-wide dispersion of the cure. But as with any project this large, it takes time and money to give each and every citizen this gene.

Soon, Corrector Corps implemented a plan on how they would distribute the cure: the first people treated would be those who had donated large amounts of money in the past, or were willing to donate at that time. They claimed they had to do this because the treatment was expensive, and with the money they collected from these patients, they would create more of the cure for the less fortunate. The second people treated would be the people who were willing to sign up for human testing.

Although the cure had already been created, Corrector Corps said that they were planning on continuing their research in order to create a more economical way of creating the cure, or curing other diseases. If a friend or relative was diagnosed with cancer, you could submit yourself for testing in their place and they would still get treated.

Finally, the cure would be distributed to the rest of the nation through something similar to a draft. Birthdays would be chosen at random, and on their specified day, people born on this date would have to travel to the nearest Corrector Corps research building/hospital to receive their treatment.

Here is where my story begins.