Aman turned the corner and came face to face with a large white building.

All over the building, there were DNA motifs scattered around.

The railings on the roof were made of twined steel rods, the gates had twined reliefs and even the large circular logo that was displayed on the front had a border with twined lines.

It was a gene hospital.

Like regular specialized hospitals, it only dealt with medical procedures related to genetics.

Actually, there were only three.

Gene Analysing, Gene Extraction and Gene Fusion.

The so-called gene trinity.

The Gene Analyser was an extremely common machine that could be found anywhere. Just like the weighing machines of yore, they could even be found on the roadsides.

Just pop a card in and a drop of blood and you’re done.

Actually, the Gene Analyser had its roots in the Human Genome Project which ran from 1990 to 2003.

Even now, in 2080, the research results from that are relevant.

Using more optimised algorithms and more powerful hardware, along with extremely efficient chemical gene extraction techniques, the Gene Analyser could easily read the genetic profile of an individual extremely accurately and fast.

They weren’t particularly impressive, though, once upon a time they belonged to the realms of science fiction.

The actually impressive machines were the Gene Extractor and the Gene Fuser.

As their names suggested, the former extracted genes from a patient and the latter fused them with another individual.

What’s impressive about that you ask? We could do that even in 2003.

Take a tissue sample and you can easily get someone’s DNA fingerprint. Didn’t tech progress in the intervening 77 years?

If you really think that way, then you are vastly underestimating the complexity of genetic operations.

Let’s talk about Gene Fusion.

Say you want to add a gene that increases muscle density in your body. For that, you would have to replace the DNA of EVERY single cell in your body otherwise, you would die from an auto immune response where your white blood cells would mistake the cells with the altered DNA for foreign pathogens and start attacking.

Basically, causing your own body to destroy itself.

Could you do THAT in 2003? Hmm?

No, you couldn’t, but now you can. The only reason for that is, you guessed it, nano-photons.

What the Gene Extractor extracts is actually the nano-photons associated with the required genes. In other words, it extracts a bit of the subject’s soul.

Using special methods, this portion of the soul is stored in containers called gene ampoules.

The Gene Fuser basically takes a gene ampoule and fuses it with the subject’s soul.

Thereby achieving the transfer of stats.

Some Fullmetal Alchemist fan actually dubbed this as the Law of Equivalent Exchange. The terminology became so widespread that the scientific community formally accepted it.

Now, you would expect there to be a method of cheating this law.

Take for example the height genes. By the age of 20 everyone stops growing taller so, one would think that even if the height genes were extracted after the age of 20, the height would be retained.

They would be wrong. The soul is much more fundamental than one realizes. The removal of that portion of the soul means that the entire individual has transformed.

The structure of the body slowly changes until it matches the soul, even if it takes a few months to do so.

Thus, the Law of Equivalent Exchange is always upheld.

Aman made his way to the extractor section and drew a token with the number 10 on it. This meant that there were nine other people who had applied to have their genes extracted before him.

Really, if there was a market, people would sell anything for quick bucks.

He settled down to wait for his turn.

After nearly two hours of flipping through magazines and fidgeting in his seat, Aman was finally called upon.

He walked up to the helpdesk and submitted his token.

Then he was escorted to the back room where he was asked to strip out of his clothes and then pass through a decontaminating room.

As he stood there, letting jets of foam sterilize him followed by blasts of wind drying him, he remarked again how superior the facilities of this hospital were to the ones at the government gene hospitals.

Which was to be expected, after all, this one was for the rich.

In the government hospitals they would pay the gene donors something less than the market price and make up the difference with merit points.

Then when someone went to buy genes then they would be placed in a queue for the available genes. This was reminiscent of the practice of ranking the ones who needed kidneys based on the urgency of their cases.

As the supply was less than the demand, the order in which the genes were sold off was based on the merit points of the person.

Well, selling genes wasn’t the only way to get merit points but the government was basically taking a slice off the money of the donors and returning a pseudo-currency.

Not only did they profit financially, they could shrug off the responsibility for providing shoddy service.

What? You had to wait for six months to get your genes and you could have gained a lot if you put that in the bank instead? Your fault. You’re not meritorious enough. Look at that guy, he has a million merits so he gets first pick.

Political economy at its finest.

So, what would you do if you had a ton of money and wanted genes NOW?

Go to the grey market gene hospital of course.

The hospital was a win-win situation for all the tree parties involved.

The government was happy because they got a hefty sum as bribes from the owners to let them run it.

The donors were happy as they got hard cash instead of some bullshit pseudo-currency.

The guys with the gold were happy as they got to save their valuable time. Time which was much more expensive than the cost difference of the genes they got.

As Aman came out of the sterilizer, he was handed a sterile hospital gown by the male attendant who was standing there.

Even though it wasn’t Aman’s first time in the Gene Extractor, he was awed by the sight of the huge pristine white machine as always.

If he had to compare it to something, he would choose a antique MRI machine which he had seen in a technological museum once.

First, his Soul sensor was switched off to prevent any interference. The sudden lack of a sense organ was disorienting as always. It was like he had suddenly become blind to half the spectrum. He felt less.

There was a bed in which he was strapped down and then the bed slid into a tunnel like aperture of the machine.

With a smooth whine, the machine turned on and the erstwhile dark tunnel was lit up in a stark white light.

He felt that the light was a kind of liquid that was seeping into his pores. Even though his Soul Sensor had been switched off, he had grown up for five years sensing his soul after all.

He could faintly feel the light latch onto a portion of his soul and with a sudden sense of emptiness, it was gone and he was less than he had been.

The machine slowly powered down and grew silent. The extraction was over.