Keywords: Transformation, Scifi Species: Human, Seal Away From It All I've been reviewing over some of my stories. I seem to like the idea of transformation via genetic manipulation. Well, here is another one. :) ----------------------------- Away From It All By Wolphin. The premise was simple. Engineer a virus to safeguard and boost the body's natural immune system. A deceptively simplistic proposition. It took us many years of research to get even close. However, once we had unlocked the code, using it was easy. Getting it to work was another matter. It was not until the fourteenth year that we managed to achieve what we wanted. A normal virus invades a host's body. It attaches itself to various cells, inserting its own instructions into the cell's production mechanism, using the body's own factory against the host. We devised a way to combat this. Natural viruses attack once, then quickly spread, trying to overpower the body's immune system. Where the virus goes when in the body is usually random. It is at the mercy of the blood flow. Our virus however was different. Each individual spore worked by itself, but was constantly on the look out for similar spore's nearby. If two were in close proximity to each other they could communicate in a fashion. You put enough in a host, each one carrying out it's own individual instruction and pretty soon you had an almost conscious entity. Our first attempts were like schools of fish. We would infect a host, the virus would spread through out it, borrowing the body's cells to manufacture more of itself. The spread would increase exponentially and soon the host would be filled with a co- ordinated system of artificial cells, ready to rush to the point of any infection. Then we began getting technical. We decided that why not assist the human immune system if we could bypass it all together. By using the resources of the gnome project a human strand of DNA could be analysed. We explained to our virus how to read a DNA strand. It learnt how to examine the body, it knew what it expected to find and where to find it. If it came across an unexpected object within the body it would attack and remove it. With this achieved we were able to fight cancers. Our engineered weapon seeking out tumours, destroying them before they had a chance to appear. We began to run into problems when our virus began adhering to the DNA a little too rigidly. Minor heart problems suddenly became major because the DNA had a slight kink in it. Genetic diseases became a problem. Normally people would be treated with drugs, but the virus nullified the effects. More changes were needed. We gave the virus a syntax of a DNA strand. Not rigid enough to lock it in, but enough for our virus to identify what sort of things it could expect to find. The next stage of development came with the recognition of what we called psychic powers. It was discovered that brain-waves could interact with the behaviour of the virus, much in a way that when one fish turns in a school, all the fish turn. Through trial and error and many millions of dollars we managed to train the virus to lock onto certain thought patterns. For example, if you had a nagging worry about your heart, the virus could take steps to strengthen it, ensuring it remained in top shape. We deliberately avoided the virus being able to detect conscious thoughts, making it a more subliminal thing, ensuring people could not directly control it. This enabled the virus to act more like a hive than a school. It took orders from an individual even though that individual was unaware they were in control. This was the sort of thing we had set out to control. I can remember looking at the vial that started it all. A tiny sealed glass container about three inches long. It was the first time it was going outside the laboratory and we were not taking any chances. Our backers had demanded to see what progress we had made. They were not interested in reports, they wanted physical evidence. We had tried to explain you could not see it, but they still wanted to. Reluctantly were had made up this vial. It was packed in the strictest of biohazard requirements. The glass vial placed in a vacuum sealed Plexiglas container. This was placed into an unbreakable titanium case. The case was airtight with a negative pressure lock. A portable biohazard detector was built internally. If it detected a breach it would flash the insides. Instantly heating the contents to several thousand degrees. It was a very effective sterilisation measure. The case was effective, management was not. Before the meeting our illustrious director had decided a titanium case was a little dull to look at. He punched in the disarming code, removed the inner container, then removed the vial from that. This he placed on in the centre of the table, illuminated by a spotlight for maximum effect. It did not get the reception he had hoped for. The international team of backers had flown in. He gave his spiel, referring to the vial several times. My understanding is one particularly dense member of the board had picked up the vial for a closer look. Naturally he did not see anything, so he put it back down, but a little carelessly. There was a soft "clink" and a crack appeared. That was all it took. The director claimed he did not notice until after everyone had left. By this stage they had fanned out across the country. Most of them had boarded air planes, spreading out across the globe. Each of them had come into relatively proximity to over a thousand people. Two days later, when the director decided to tell us about the small crack it was too late. We had enough carriers across the planet to make this thing unstoppable. Tests revealed each of the board members were infected, their bodies filled to saturation point with our little virus, humming away, repairing years of bad eating, smoking, lack of exercise, balding. Each breath they breathed out, expelling over a thousand of the tiny airborne packages. All it took was for one virus cell to reach you and you were infected. We had thought injection was the only way, but through the lungs or nasal linings was just as effective. As was through the skin or even the eyes. It took the body a matter of hours to become fully saturated and once infected it was too late. We could not remove it. Naturally we called the right people, had the city declared off limits, quarantined the whole country. Once word got out, most countries closed their borders. But it was too little too late. We had deliberately made the virus independent of the DNA of the body it was in. This was done so it would not be locked into an individual race of humans. What we did not expect was for it to spread to the other species. The virus did not care. It just looked for a host. If it could propagate in the host, it was good. If there was something for it to fix, even better. A week after the soft "chink" noise, every animal we tested was infected. Cats, dogs, humans, birds, even a snake someone had bought in. At first the effects were good. General health improved. People started living longer. Most were happy. Then the secondary effects set in. The ones caused by the virus's effects and not that itself. Optometry's began to close as people stopped needing glasses. Places began to get crowded because people were recovering rather than dying. There were radical lifestyle shifts as people did things the did not before, or things they could not do before. Some people were happy with these changes, others were not. Our offices were invaded on more than one occasion. We were branded as wanted and escaped, fearing our lives. Taking refuge where we could before creating a fake past and returning to society. About eighteen months after that the next round of changes began. We had never completed our tests. We were unsure what would happen in the long term. The virus picked up on the unconscious concerns of its host. It had sounded like a good idea at the time, but before we left we had all wondered exactly what it would mean. I had heard rumours about certain people. Their bodies changing, but the first time I saw it was when I went into town. There was the usual crowd of people, completing their tasks as normal. I was sitting in a cafe watching them pass when it suddenly dawned on me, some of them did not look right. Just small things, things you would barely notice, but once you saw them they began to become noticeable. That kid over there had ears that looked slightly too long. The woman by the shop had her hair running too far down her neck. That person walked in a strange way for some reason. My eyes flicked around. It was not everyone, only a few in fact, but enough to be of a concern. I finished my coffee and went to work, no one there knew I was the team leader for the virus, but I had managed to get myself work in a little medical lab. With the shortage of sick people around I could continue my research relatively undisturbed. On this day I went to the main storage refrigerator and took a few drops of blood from the newest samples. Returning upstairs I inserted them into the sequencer and went back to proposing theories. I had a couple about what would happen, but I was not sure I liked them. Up until now I had not been sure, but noticing the people today almost confirmed my suspicions. A few hours later, after looking at the results my suspicions were confirmed for once and for all. The virus had infected almost every living thing on the planet. Each host produced its own infectious cloud of viruses when it breathed out. In this way every person had been infected over and over again. We had thought that this would not be too concerning, but we had not counted on nature. Like all natural viruses, ours had mutated. Not a lot, only slightly in fact. A logical mutation. The desired DNA syntax we had programmed it with had changed to it now matched the primary host. That was responsible for the changes I had noticed today. That and the hive mentality of the virus. Very few people are totally happy with themselves. You may think you are, but deep down there is this nagging doubt, "What if...?" The subconscious part of the virus had begun to pick this up and naturally make small adjustments to the host to compensate. This involved some major reprogramming of the human body. It took about eighteen months for the first changes to occur, but once started it progressed quickly, usually completed in the following six months. The majority of the changes were minor, almost cosmetic. Maybe a person's nose got smaller, or a spurt of muscle development. These changes were completed in a few months. The longer ones only occurred on perhaps five to ten percent of the population, usually to the lucky few with a sense of imagination. The addition of wings seemed to be a popular choice. They usually grew from the shoulder blades, stretching out for a span of three or four metres. To compensate the bones became hollow and the person's stature usually decreased, making them more suitable for flight. Tails were also popular and there was a range of those as well. Varying from long prehensile things which curved elegantly behind people through to short stubby scaled reptilian things. One thing that caused a degree of embarrassment was the number of changes to genitalia, especially to young males. Changes to the mammary glands on females was less common, but did still occur. I was a minority in the minority. I received what they called a full body change. I suppose after the incident I had just wanted to disappear from public view and hide. I had noticed the changes, but I put them off, pretending they were not there. The slight hardening in the fingers. A stiffness in my walk. It was not until the fur showed, that I agreed I was changing. It was quick a luscious coat of fur. It had appeared one morning like a fine down, covering almost all of my body. In a few days it had grown quite thick and was increasing in length. My hands, feel and nose were the only parts of my body not covered by it and they began to darken in colour. I suppose I got worried when I woke one day and was unable to stand. My knees had apparently locked into rigidity. I could feel my fingers beginning to solidify and quickly called the hospital before my condition worsened. Like most during the change, I remember little of it. The transformation taking most of your strength. The hospital put me on a drip as I slept while they ran tests on my fur to see what I had become. The next two months I felt as if I was in a cocoon. I was dimly aware of people around me, but content to sleep and let my body do as it may. My hands elongated slightly, black webbing appearing between my fingers. A similar change passing over my feet. My legs slowly fused together, extending my body down to my ankles while my arms were absorbed in to my chest. My neck thickened, my head shrinking slightly as my ears disappeared. My face flattening before several large whiskers sprouted from my cheeks. When I awoke afterwards I looked around with my large black eyes. Nostrils clenching shut between breaths. My mottled hide slick against my body. The doctor arrived asking me a few questions, gauging my responses by waving flippers and horse barks. After that was complete he informed me I was now a Weddle seal. A juvenile one judging my weight and I was free to go. That left me a little stunned, but luckily a retraining group came by and picked me up. It was a group of volunteers who specialised in getting people like me who had undergone radical transforms back into the world. They were very effective at it. I learnt how to swim, dive and catch fish. I think I've retained my human intelligence, but it is hard to say exactly. It has now been over fifty years since the incident and the number of humans has definitely decreased, but the number of other creatures is on the rise. As for me, I spend most of my days lazing around the ice flows of Antarctica. Occasionally I help out with a research team or two, but most of the time I just lie back and enjoy the tranquillity...