After I snuck out of the ASMR warehouse with my Toblerone, I dropped by the front desk and left them a check. Toblerone is great and so I naturally would not disrespect it by not paying at least the market price for it.

Their front desk person was a really tall dude. Definitely outside of the normal height range. Seeing him reminded me of something important.

If I really unleashed a virus that turned everyone into parrots, what happens if it turns everyone into the same parrot! We’d all nearly be clones and that means inbreeding would make us go extinct!

That can’t work!

It was an extreme oversight. I needed to make sure that there would be enough genetic diversity among the new parrot population. But this is quite a tricky problem you see. It would be nice if the virus mutated a bit as it went about blessing people with parrot-hood.

“I’m going to have to redesign some bits of the virus. Or maybe I probably shouldn’t unleash the CID prototype right? That would be quite bad…”

CID, or chemically induced dimerization, is a system in which 2 proteins are unreactive when mixed, but will bond and interact with each other creating new functions once a third, usually much smaller molecule, is added into the mix.

By changing the human genome to function entirely on proteins that could do this, making polymorphism possible by simply adding a single compound. Rearranging a human into an avian is some pretty complicated work even with the basic concepts being clearly understood so building biological systems that would still allow humans to be humans is important.

The reason I call the CID system based ones a prototype is because it would be reversible, so as time passes the proteins separate, the third molecule degrades and the cells would go back to being human cells. And the process wouldn’t even be instantaneous. It would be gradual and probably activate the immune system. That could kill you very quickly.

Therefore, the CID system isn’t a good way to go. At least not without immunosuppressive drugs and powerful growth stimulators to regrow yourself to human size.

To solve these problems would require me to do more computations. But that would come with the risk of Wayfinder starting to believe that Ratine really isn’t me.

But if I abandoned Parrotise because of something like this I wouldn’t be Torra!

Despite having to make so many considerations and difficulties, I do want to save everyone. I'm not a genocidal maniac y'know!

…

“Dr. Ratine, very nice to meet you,” A strange man interrupted Dr. Ratine’s thoughts.

“Who are you?” Dr. Ratine was confused. He had only ever seen Captain Wayfinder come to the class 12 cells, never this strange person.

“I am here to set you free. We realized that you are really not Torra. The reason we thought you were was because you love birds and eat toblerone regularly,” the strange man explained.

Dr. Ratine shuddered. His late wife had said that he had an unhealthy relationship with Toblerone. He didn’t take it to heart then and simply laughed it off. He silently swore to never eat Toblerone, or any chocolate, ever again.

The strange man unlocked his cell door and beckoned him out.

The class 12s looked a bit sad to see him go. However they were also curious about the strange man. They too had never seen him before, but because Ratine didn’t react, they figured he had met him while he was getting arrested. Possibly a newly promoted officer?

Only later would they come to know that was the first time they met him.