Deep in the forests of the Talanor mountain range, Liam laid in a hammock. Around him a hundred felinids watched a ‘dead’ woman rise, sitting up as her sobbing brother wrapped her in a hug.
“The last thing I remember, was… Ah, I'm dizzy.” She said.
“Hey, what’s your name? I took off your collars and didn’t realize there were side effects, uhm, sorry bout that.” Said Liam, rising from the vine hammock.
“My name is Tara, and this is my brother Kata, our collars can’t be removed…” She said, eyes going to the two bands at Liam’s feet before her fingers ran across her neck.
Her eyes widened, feeling a million emotions at once, terror of death, anger, annoyance, deep relief. It was too much, tears started to roll down her face, with no end in sight. Nekohiro went to her, rubbing against her and meowing until she found a place in Tara’s lap.
“I think you’ll need some time to adjust, Leandry, can we make arrangements for those two, I want to check on them in a few days, just a follow up to make sure nothing else goes wrong. These cursed collars are new to me, but I’ve got to get back to the- uh- the thing.” Said Liam, wondering how much he should let slip about a world altering genetics lab.
Eugenics was a vicious topic for civilized folk, and would be an especially touchy subject to a race who had not been given a choice in their partners. To mention what he planned to do could easily –and cataclysmically– be misconstrued. So Liam kept his mouth shut, and spent the next few days in the genetics lab, working through every possible unintended consequence of altering the felinids and gorgons.
Though to call the process ‘difficult’ was to overstate the question. The tools automated gene encoding, as well as developed a sequence by which the felinids could interbreed with humanity. Something he should have expected, since this was clearly the same laboratory that had created the nonhuman races in the first place. And probably humanity too, although how the machine found its way to this world, or what its mission was, couldn’t be guessed.
But now the gene lab was finishing its work, completing the steps that Taloc had forced it to skip an aeon prior. Unlike Liam, he hadn’t understood cells, or genomes, or genetics, he had only comprehended cute ears and magic. Taloc’s folly had granted the machine’s free reign and they’d figured it out. A single alteration on a single chromosome had rendered the genome ‘locked’ to anything that did not share the same chromosome. An alteration that was so simple it transcended stupidity and became elegant.
Too elegant.
“Computer, show me the alterations you made to produce the species currently known as umbraquins.” Said Liam, activating the gene wright’s assistant interface.
The terminal he was working on minimized, and a new window appeared, containing a handful of alterations to the felinid genome. All were encoded on a recessive gene that left Liam speechless. Somehow the system had created a triple helix on certain genes, maintaining their primary function while also adding an entire new instruction set. And they had no spleens. Apparently the system had deemed those superfluous and erased all spleens, replacing them with an organ that originated from another creature.
“Details on that creature?” Said Liam, tapping on the note.
Another interface appeared, this time with two languages. A common enough occurrence for the gene wright’s assistant interface. The first set of characters seemed to be some kind of weirdly sideways stretched chinese, while the righthand side was english.
“Shadow Panther”
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A naturally occurring predator of this world, the shadow panther hunts like most big cats, except it is perpetually active, it seems to be able to sleep while performing mundane actions. With portions of its brain activating as needed, instead of on a timer that corresponds to the diurnal day night cycle.
“Sounds a lot like the split mind skill.” Said Liam, skimming the rest of the description until the last paragraph.
The decoupling from the diurnal cycle seemed to coincide with the Shadow Panther’s ability to use concealed ‘dark’ magic. As the ability elevated them into the position of the best armed animal by virtue of being the stealthiest.
Aint no sloths gonna dodge an invisible panther. Nor would any deer, or humans.
This power seems related to a gland that grows on the interior edge of their pelvis, when removed the Shadow Panthers lost all ability to regulate their dark affinity, often resulting in a loss of all magic, or an explosion that destroyed the beasts.
“Exploding umbraquins… Oh man. I hope that blew up whomever performed these experiments.” Muttered Liam, picturing Blackwood being blown apart during one of his –once common– executions.
But all these alterations left Liam confused. If Taloc had once held total dominion over this technology, where did magic come from? Why bother with something so dangerous if he could have made a bioweapon that reset the world?
“Hey, Gene, if I asked you to make a targeted biophage that only killed humans, could you do it?” Asked Liam.
A list of sixty four diseases appeared on screen, ranked from those that would be most effective with the least side effects down to diseases that would be ineffective and messy. Number sixty two –one of the least effective options– was Ebola, altered to transmit via airborne spores and have a month long incubation time. Then it would be 99.999% lethal.
“Gene, lock this list behind the highest restriction I can enforce. These should never see the light of day.”
Liam exited that window, taking a moment to breathe. There were sixty four genocides literally waiting at his fingertips. The amount of power he held, the absurd responsibility made him queasy. Not even lightning, the very power of heaven, had felt so violent. Raina saw the color leave his face. She was sitting across from him, working on a translation program that Gene had cooked up for her, it was explaining mendelian genetics currently, specifically recessive and dominant genetic traits.
“Tufan? Is everything alright?”
“I just found sixty four nukes… Uhm,” Liam corrected himself, “A uh- it’s something like strategic magic, I mean, global magic. We could cast it here in safety, then affect every human on the entire world.”
“Will it make them like cats?” Asked Raina, totally sincere.
Liam blinked, his mind grinding to a halt.
Sure, lets just nuke Aldric til he likes cats!
Laughter rolled from his mouth, rising in volume until he was howling so hard his ribs began to ache, then he howled some more, laughing until he fell out of his chair. All while Raina looked at him as if he were a man possessed.
“It wasn’t that funny…” She said, watching Liam crawl back into his seat.
“If you knew what a nuke was, it would be. Nuclear kittens? Exploding cats?” Said Liam, thinking of a nuclear cat-love bomb and wondering if this feeling was exactly what ran through Dr. Strangelove’s mind. “Don’t look that up, some things should never have been invented. Besides, the portal plague is killing enough people.” Said Liam, thinking of the tragedies nuclear weapons had invented.
Mass casualties, on a scale this world had never seen before, couldn’t even comprehend. Not even Pandora herself, in full dragon form, equaled the might of the smallest atomic weapon. It wasn’t as lethal as malaria, but this world didn’t have that specific disease.
… Liam paused, cocking his head.
“It can’t be that simple… Gene, if you limit yourself to a vector, what changes can we make? A vector like an insect borne or airborne pathogen. Can you recode the common cold and malaria to be nonlethal and convey the changes to the felinids? Something that can convey our desired changes?”
A list with one hundred and eight two vectors appeared, all of the options fully compatible with the changes to integrate the felinid race back into humanity. One hundred and eighty two avenues for peace. He’d found the cure and the distribution network. Peace wasn’t just an idle hope, human and felinid parity was here, total integration. A unification of the species was possible.
Now if only he could convince the humans.
And their mom.
Pandora