Bonesaw- Blueprints

“I’ll, uh, keep that in mind.  I was being tongue-in-cheek, just so you know.  I don’t really believe anything like that.”

“Good to know,” she said.  She pulled out the tube and drew a canister out of her pocket.  She began loading in a fresh solution of the same dual-state biomatter.

Tongue-in-cheek was such a fun turn of phrase.  She knew what it meant, but it sparked ideas.  A hole in the cheek so the tongue could stick out, the tongue would obviously have to be extended for best effect, but that was basic, easy.  A five minute job.

As she thought on it, it was like there was a three-dimensional blueprint unfolding before her eyes, pulling her driver’s head apart into its constituent pieces and layers.  She could imagine the interactions, the mechanisms, the machine made of meat, and how each part would relate to other parts if they changed in dimension or orientation.

There were other possibilities.  If tongues grew out of each cheek, that’d count.  The subject would bite it, which would necessitate other changes.  If the change happened by way of a DNA rewrite, delivered by a custom viral payload, then she could also make the molars fall out.  To keep the subject healthy, they’d need modifications to their front teeth, to be more all-purpose…

Which didn’t even get into the practical considerations, like the fact that people tended to take drastic measures when their heads and the contents of their heads started changing shape.  It’d have to happen overnight, which would mean a set load, a catalyst, maybe a certain threshold of melatonin hormones, and the infection vector would have to be secret.  The good thing about viral payloads was that if the virus was strong enough, it didn’t need much.  A needle thinner than a hair…

“Everything okay?” her driver asked.

She’d been staring.  She returned her focus to her work.  “Everything’s great.”

- Ward, Last 20.e4