It's in the Genes

Pondering

I don't know whose idea it was to engineer humans with animal DNA, or entirely why. I think at the time, there was a rich guy who got enough curious scientists together who just wanted to see if they could do it. By the time my generation came around, I think they started to form ideas: military use, toys, slaves, labor, sex, weird status symbols, medical advancement. That's when they started to specialize us, anyway. But before that, we just kind of existed.

Niall and I were part of the first cohort that seemed like it would actually live a while. The others died early in life—the DNA of humans and other animals just doesn't mix well. Getting it to even stay together required a huge effort against nature. Luckily for me and Niall, the lab had found out how to manipulate the HIV virus to re-program DNA in the specific ways they wanted. By the time Sybil and then Parker were created, the scientists had figured out how to seamlessly sequence the genes they wanted during conception. For Niall and me, our own cells are still constantly being reinfected to keep us alive, but Sybil and Parker are entirely new creatures.

It's weird to think about.

My DNA is mixed with a fruit bat; Niall's is mixed with a barn owl; Sybil's is mixed with a rattlesnake; Parker's is mixed with some sort of spider. I'm the only full mammal among the bunch.

I lived in the lab for sixteen years. In a lot of ways, it wasn't a bad time. In retrospect, it was definitely abusive—a human rights violation for sure. But while I was there, everything seemed normal. We were cared for. I felt loved. I felt like I belonged. We had school. Our cohort, people that were created within a three year period of one another, was extremely close. In many respects, we were raised to be healthy, happy children—but then again, how can a child really be healthy if their rights are being violated every day of their life?

As "good" as we were raised to be, I don't know that anyone who cared for us at the lab really recognized us as humans. Perhaps we came close to being pets. But you can't recognize that someone is human and then decide it is acceptable to do whatever you want with them simply because you can.

Around the time I was eight, they started to train us and test our aptitudes in different areas: combat, different types of work, technical skills, "erotic" shit. I thought it was normal then. They gave us some ridiculous story about how we were made to help the world and they were teaching us to do that. More than likely, they were seeing what we were good at so they had a selling point for the highest bidder.

I probably would have stayed longer and been thrust into whatever they deemed I was best at, if it weren't for the hurricane. I don't know category it even was, I just know that the area was evacuated and all the staff left. Us—the experiments—had to stay.

As well equipped as the lab was, it wasn't much of match against the hurricane. It started to flood. The first floor filled up quickly with water, and then the second. On the second, some of the electrical equipment was damaged. There were still four kids down there when that happened. One of them was in my cohort, the rest were younger kids he was helping. They writhed in waist-high water until their convulsions slowed to twitches and they sank below the surface. I was on the stairs then with some of the other children and had to hold back one who was in their cohort. I'd never heard screams like hers before that day, and I've yet to hear worse since.

It was then I realized the scientists didn't actually care about us.

The water stopped at the second floor, and the rest of us that were left holed up on the third, fourth, and fifth floors. The problem was, food and drinkable water were stored on the first floor. A day passed, and then another. The water was barely draining. We looked out the barred windows to see if anyone was coming. No one ever was.