Day 7: A rose by any other name could be something else entirely

Mankind's mastery of genetic manipulation has destroyed any conventional sense of what it is to be human.

In the distant future, humanity has completely mastered the gene. Initial applications, such as replacing failing organs, accelerating industrial processes and casually changing one's appearance, swiftly gave way to more esoteric uses. Radical changes to a person's physical body became possible; permanent, true-breeding changes could be made in a laboratory. Six-plus digits on a hand, opposable thumbs on feet, even extra limbs -- these merely scratched the surface of what was possible to do to improve humans. Intelligent animals were well within the grasp of researchers, as were more exotic organisms. "Cloud intelligence" creatures could spread fungus-like feelers through the earth, unintelligently and unselectively gathering data, most simply in the form of chemical interaction, but also via sensory organs. This information could be relayed either to computer systems or it could be acted upon by a series of complex instinctual responses that mirrored computing logic. While many of these pseudo-intelligences couldn't think like humans, they could come to startlingly intelligent conclusions about the world.

Early in the genetic revolution, techniques were developed that allowed individual bacterial agents to act as role-players in a larger group. Bacteria could be engineered to do a very specific task; these role-players could be used to direct or change the functions of surrounding cells. These role-players, in turn, relied on a series of other role-players, each of which was engineered to perform a very specific task. An example -- bacteria were engineered which would form cement-like structures, similar to coral. Given enough time and minerals, these structures could grow to be very large and very sturdy; they could later be shaped and utilized as structural foundations by humans. However, short of clumsy, programmed cell death, there was no way to control how much these builder bacteria would grow. Enter the role-players. In this particular instance, role-players could be developed that would maintain a steady population in relation to the builder bacteria. That first role-players then would utilize a second role-player, again designed to grow in relation to the first role-player, to maintain direct, electrical or chemical contact with each other. When that chain took more or less than an engineered time to relay responses, it would trigger the first role-player to generate a chemical command to either encourage the builder bacteria -- or to cause them to die. The relay response could also be used to trigger cell death in the entire system once the sheer number of responses reached a certain critical mass, thus placing a relatively hard cap on the structure's growth.

These systems of bacteria could be used to produce effects similar to genetic engineering in living creatures; trivial uses included changing hair or eye color on a whim or regenerating tissue. Complex uses included creating whole cities using material mined and processed by microbes. The foundations of several large, modern cities were created in just this manner -- trillions upon trillions of microbes, each strain engineered to perform a specific and relatively simple task, were loosed into the soil. Within months, these systems would cause buildings to rise from the ground, then they'd utilize that coordination to end their own existence.

Between miraculous, biological creation and room for infinite self-improvement, humanity has become adventurous and open-minded. Ethical concerns that would have been pressing at one time have fallen by the wayside; cultural hang-ups over race and gender have become quaint bygones of an era that was too narrowly focused on a thin range of human possibility.

However, this isn't a utopian age. While it's possible to modify the avariciousness out of individuals, it's still a defining trait of humankind. Corporations and governments alike scramble to acquire data on citizens, each hoping to establish a link to each individual -- one to sell, the other to control. Those who work for either are paranoid to the degree of mania, but with good reason. Their world is one where plants can casually collect data; where the wildlife of the city -- pigeons and crows and rats -- could be intelligent agents of a foe; even where the very air, thick with engineered organisms, could seek to invade and alter a host, turning him or her to a tool for someone else's use or amusement.