Bioringer

Bioringer is a sci-fi thriller based on the Scrappers/Harvester’s storyline. Ether Chain and her partner Var rise from the underbelly of the Society to perform a dangerous robbery. DNA Shifts are highly sought after in the black market. There’s a pretty penny to be had if one is brave, or foolish enough, to sneak into a heavily guarded governmental laboratory and obtain the injection solutions.

Enjoy the story in written form, the artwork, and audio through the podcast with improv music.

Bioringer

Robbing a lab takes balls. For one, there’s a high level of security. Cameras, AI facial identification, biomech guards, and DNA-locked doors on multiple levels. This, of course, is a government-run centre that ups the security ten-fold. To get into one of these labs, you must be really desperate or are just daring enough to oversee the risks for the marvellous rewards.

“Load it up!” shouts the robber.

She’s drizzling in sweat from the top of her head all the way down. For good reason, as too many injections make the body unstable. She’s also nervous. Her hands shake ever so slightly, holding the gun at point-blank to the white lab coat. His body is trembling, and he may have pissed his pants. It’s hard to tell with his dark trousers, but the smell is there.

Moments ago, she bewildered him since she looks identical to his lab assistant. The AI facial identification cameras can see the whole altercation. Unless an unidentified person enters the lab, or guns fire, they aren’t manned by anyone. And so, she’s free to threaten the scientist to get the goods.

Threats aren’t her preference, contributing to the sweats. Sure, this is a cold-looking all-white interior, but it leaves her anxious. Her eyes aren’t adjusting well to the brightness, even with the DNA Shift. Her visual spectrum is bloomed. She’s far too used to the underbelly of the Society where the dark and cold are most welcoming to the scum and rejects. Like her, a robber.

Technically, a bioringer, since the DNA Shift has completely reworked her genetic makeup. This isn’t exactly the life she expected, nor did she think she’d be standing here in a government-run lab trying to get goods for the black market. But hey, when you don’t fit into the Society’s ‘perfect’ description of intelligent life, you become the very animal they deem unworthy. Everyone in the underbelly is. Unfortunately for the Society, there are more animals than there are of them – vermin are tough to kill. The basic game of life is survival and hence the underbelly exists.

“Ether,” says her partner, Var, in his gravelly voice. “What the fuck is the holdup?”

She looks at Var’s one blue eye – his real one – and the brown eye. He’s some alternative fusion of his real rugged self and the bald, fair-skinned scientist her gun is pointing at. Those DNA Shifts are a real mind twist if you are unfamiliar with the physical and mental changes they temporarily produce. Thankfully, Ether is seasoned, and the half-scientist, half-partner in crime looking at her is Var. They just need to keep their heads on for a little longer to make it out of this laboratory in one piece.

“Old man, move it,” Ether says, pressing the gun’s tip against the man’s skin.

The white lab coat cries, dropping one of the glass bottles from the steel counter. It smashes onto the floor, shattering liquids and spraying onto Ether’s boots. The old man keeps loading more medical bottles into the chrome hov-box, trying to act like he didn’t just drop ten thousand SCs worth of black market trade – because he did. Social credit is a sound currency in the Society and its underbelly which is even more reason why this robbery has to work for them.

“Fuck, Var. I’m trying,” Ether says. “This old shit is messing it up. The hallway still clear?”

“Yeah, but we don’t have a lot of time,” Var says. He lifts his lab coat sleeve, seeing his sweaty arms pulsate violently. “The DNA Shifts have seven minutes tops, and then those cameras will lock onto us.”

Great. Ether’s fear is correct. Her body, too, is mutating. The muscles are moving back to their original state. The injections got them into the lab and passed the cameras and doors, which could now be their grave. They didn’t come this far to be done in by some clumsy shit, technically named Dr. Mollberg, who can’t load some bottles into a hov-box.

“If you don’t pick up your pace, I’m going to cut your fucking hand off and grab the bottles myself.”

“The injections are distorting your minds,” Dr. Mollberg says. He grabs a couple of bottles at a time from the security drawer. His wrist, containing an essential fob cuff, passes a laser with each entrance, verifying his identity with a green light.

He continues, “The body isn’t meant for the intense level of modifications you’ve forced upon it. You need my aid.”

“Shut up, load the hov-box,” Ether says.

“I’m serious. You’re going to have withdrawals and long-term health repercussions. Let me help you.”

“That’s presuming we make it out of here, which we won’t with your slow ass. Move!”

“Do you have any idea what you are doing?” Dr. Mollberg says.

“Getting a shit tone of SCs for these solutions, and you can go back to your pompous Society.”

“Please. These bottles are only for governmental distribution. Unauthorized usage of DNA Shifts can be dangerous.”

“Do I look like someone who cares?” Ether says, sweat drizzling down her face. Her cheek begins to pulsate, then her eyelid twitches.

“Ether!” Var calls out, loading up some vials from another cabinet into his utility belt.

Dr. Mollberg says, “you’re going to- “

Ether cuts him short by saying, “stop buying yourself time. Work.”

Ether doesn’t want to have a small chit-chat about her health. If she cared about that, she wouldn’t have gotten into bioringing. Robbery isn’t meant for long-term health, clearly, as both hers and Var’s bodies are experiencing an unnatural trauma morphing from one DNA makeup to the other. The lab coat is right about one thing, it certainly mangles the mind. The robbers have made enough DNA Shifts in the past to understand how to navigate their ever-changing minds. And even then, her thoughts are never really her own. As it is now, she’s never been this afraid. The neurological makeup of Dr. Mollberg’s lab assistant – whom Ether is bioringing as – is messing with her clarity and courage. Now, being locked in this oven-of-a-room is leaving her paranoid. She needs to get out.

“Okay, time’s up,” Var says, closing the cabinet and tapping the cuff on his wrist.

Ether lets out a deep sigh. Thank God he said something; it snapped her back to the now. She’s Ether, not Lia Catch, the lab assistant.

The hov-box slides its lid closed, locking the goods inside. The seamless device floats off the counter before the scientist can drop the remaining two bottles. It hovers a few centimetres off the ground and stops beside Var, ready for them to get the hell out of here.

“Thanks, asshole,” Ether says. She spins the gun around, pistol-whipping the man on the noggin. He drops the two additional bottles as he falls headfirst onto the counter. Ether snags them, checking the labels: GID SOLUTION. Genetic Injection Dose Solution. Perfect. She tucks them into the utility belt underneath the lab coat and holsters her gun. Those are why they are here. Not to mention, helpful in making DNA Shifts if you have a source sample of someone.

Ether and Var have planned this robbery for months and got their hands on Dr. Mollberg’s and Lia Catch’s DNA. Any sample will do to make the injection work. If you understand the underbelly of the Society, you can work your way through the sewer system, and well . . . it doesn’t take a scientist to figure out how the robbers made it work.

Go time.

Var pulls out a couple of syringes from his lab coat, inspecting their labels. One states Doc and the other Assistant. Perfect, the final injections to save their skins. He hands one over to Ether for her to inject as he inserts the needle into the pulsating vein of his sweaty arm. She’s hesitant to retake the solution, primarily due to the personality changes they induce. She doesn’t like being scared. It’s not her. Sadly, it is the only option.

The current injection is diminishing, and they’ll shift into their authentic selves sooner than their clarity of thoughts will return. Var is looking more like his real self. That solution will morph him back into the fair-skinned whiner Dr. Mollberg within five minutes, and no one will ever know the difference. Ether injects her solution. She will become Lia Catch once more.

The lab doors open, sliding vertically into their hidden sockets. A young brunette woman walks in and sees Ether and gasps. The lab doors close. Var has already ducked underneath the island counter. Ether is too slow, and she locks eyes with the lab assistant who is struck with fear, looking at Ether – the half-version of herself.

They’ve been caught. There’s a chance of recovery. Ether isn’t going to be responsible for the fuck up. She whips out her gun, aims, and fires! The lab assistant presses the touchscreen fingerprint identifier to open the door as a blue plasma orb soars over the laboratory counters and burns into the girl’s chest. The plasma soaks into her flesh, diminishing into nothing. The orb leaves a gaping scorched hole where her heart should be.

The lab door opens as the Assistant collapses to the floor.

“Damnit, Ether!” Var shouts, hurrying around the counter, snagging the dead girl’s body by the ankle. He presses the touch screen as well, closing the door. “I told you the cameras flag plasma orbs.”

“I-I-I had to,” Ether says. Fear is returning – the natural state of Lia Catch.

“You should have ducked.”

“Fuck, Var. I can’t take it back, Var. Hide the body.”

Var moves the body around the island counter and out of view. He takes a glance up at the small black dot on the ceiling. “It’s over. We run.”

Var dumps the body and taps his cuff wrist, initiating the hov-box to follow him. Ether follows close behind, and the three hurry out into the hall. Neither of the robbers wants to bite it today. They got the goods and want to get paid. They never will if they don’t make it out of here now.

The bright chrome hall flashes blue and red while rows of tiny black dots on the ceiling lower, deploying small eight milometer-wide turrets. Come on, injection – work! Red dots start appearing on Var’s and Ether’s bodies.

The camera’s weapons fire up with a high-pitch hum for half a second and then pause. Ether and Var keep running. They can’t stop, even though running is pointless for how accurate those lasers are. It’s an illusion of hope. The injections have fully taken effect, and the guns start to power down. Their DNA has transformed. It’s dumb luck or proof of God. The barrels of the turrets raise upward, still deployed. The red and blue lights keep flashing with a loud beep echoing.

“Keep moving,” Var says as they reach a fork in the hall. “The turrets will be manually overwritten at any moment.”

Fast, loud thudding comes from around the corner – the left side – their exit. The clanging metal stomping continues as tall, half-human monstrosity shadows appear – biomech guards. They’re not going to make it out of here the same way, clearly. Var pulls out his pistol as the two hurry back the other way.

Ether fiddles with the bottle of GIB strapped in her utility belt. She’s fear-ridden. The DNA of Lia Catch is overthrowing her mind. She’s got the solution. Even though she doesn’t know much, she knows that too much GIB without enough source DNA will water down the effects, even after injection.

No, she thinks. Trying to remember who she is. Ether Chain. My name is Ether Chain.

Several half-human and half-mechanical guards appear from around the corner. Their lean blue metal legs act as springs, giving them impressive speeds with each stride. The arms have been replaced with built-in plasma rifles, raised up, aiming at the two robbers who sprint away from the hall. The rifles light up with blue orbs, highlighting their pale plastic skin. The plasma orbs soar from the chambers and down the hall with deep pulse blips reverberating.

One of the orbs hits Var in the shoulder. The power of the blast spins him on his heel several times, and he’s about to tumble to the ground. Ether catches him and gets a good look at the bone sticking out of his scorched shoulder. Her mind runs two possible outcomes of this scenario. One is obvious and likely to occur if she doesn’t take the second. The two of them will be captured by the biomech guards and taken to the Society’s mediators, where their biological makeup will be extracted from the flesh and repurposed to make more GIB.

She’s thinking about her options. Lia Catcher. Ether Chain. End up dead or feed Var to the biomech guards. Who is she? Ether has the GIB solution in her hand right now, with the lid popped off. She’s at a tipping point.

“IDENTITY. INVALID. CORRUPT.” Comes the disjointed inhuman voices from the metal vocal boxes of the biomech guards on their throats. “DOCTOR MOLLBERG AND LIA CATCH. VERIFY IDENTITY”

“Let’s go!” Var grinds his teeth, trying to hobble away. His face is so alien, as is Ether’s. His voice is unfamiliar, and yet the words are his without a doubt. This is Var, her partner.

“VERIFICATION REQUIRED.” The biomech guards are several meters away, holding the charge in their plasma rifles, their metallic legs stomping.

“I’m sorry,” Ether whispers and pours the GIB solution onto the open wound. She slips the bottle into her lab coat, hiding it from view.

Var’s eyes widen. He musters enough strength to push himself up. “You fuck! What the fuck?”

“Bioringer!” Ether cries. “Dr. Mollberg is back in the lab.”

The solution seeps into the open half-burnt wound on Var’s shoulder. His body sweats, veins pulsating, as the skin begins to tighten and sag in different areas, morphing into Var’s. The irises shift from brown to blue, sealing the deal.

“INVALID.” The biomech guards release their plasma bullets. One orb shreds through Var’s leg, blowing the kneecap away. Another rips into his gut, and the third blasts the lower half of his leg off, throwing him to the ground.

“LIA CATCH. THREAT NEUTRALIZED.”

“Thank you,” Ether says, buttoning up her coat, further concealing her robbery equipment. “Please take proper procedures of his arrest.” She leans down to Var, swallowing regret while taking his cuff, giving her command of the hov-box. Var looks up at her with heavy breaths, unable to talk from the pain.

She says, “he tried to take the supplies from Doctor Mollberg and me, taking me hostage.”

“CONFIRMED. VIDEO EVIDENCE REQUIRES FURTHER ANALYSIS FROM MEDIATORS.”

“Of course,” Ether says.

The biomech guards aren’t the swiftest and simply function as intended: Protect the scientists and neutralize foreign entities within the perimeter of the building. Var was just that. Ether is not, at least for now while the DNA Shift lasts. The real brains of security will be here soon, and she can’t stick around to try and convince them that she is Lia Catch. They’ll eventually find the actual corpse in the lab with the unconscious Dr. Mollberg.

She commands the hov-box to follow her as the biomech guards take the mangled mess of Var down the hall to the security sector. There, one of the Society’s mediators will come for him, and he’ll be made into GIB.

As for Ether, she’s getting the hell out of this mess. In the back of her mind, her real memory is feeding the screaming phantom. She betrayed Var, one of her own kind. The DNA Shift overpowered her own thoughts, and she will have to live with the regret for the rest of her life. No one said bioringing was a walk in the park. Var, like her, and every vermin in the underbelly of the Society, is forced to fight for survival. Turns out Ether is the real deal, and her own skin came first.