There was no time to waste. They could be trapped in a blazing inferno at any moment now. The city spanned an incredibly wide area. It kind of had to, since this planet has housed approximately 17 billion people.
They could've used bicycles, but since Warrow is bound to a wheelchair, they opted for shopping carts instead. Dong Jun insisted that they should raid the shopping district once more and filled her cart with camping equipment.
Kahara attempted to break the ice on the nervous exodus from the dense city.
"If I wanted to have these augmentations before the attack, I would've had to work for 30 years. Everything has its upsides, I guess."
Dong Jun smiled.
"Girl, I would've hooked you up with the same or better for just 5 years of work. People think DRM'ed out, legislated to hell, and back garbage is better than biohacked stuff." Kahara stopped for a second and thought about something.
"Don't act like there are no risks in doing that. What if you just decide to enslave my whole bloodline?"
That touched a nerve with Dong Jun.
"Oh, please, the official gene modifications are just as dirty as the biohacked ones. They just have politicians and media in their pockets."
She was in an argumentative mood, ready to rip Kahara a new one. Kahara smiled a defeated smile.
"You are probably right. That doesn't matter anymore, though. The world is on fire."
Dong Jun wanted to argue. Arguing was one of her favorite things. With Kahara stepping back, her excitement was cut short. Dong Jun's eyes were filled with disappointment.
At that moment, a skyscraper crumbled in the distance with a loud boom. That startled everybody. Warrow started screaming his lungs out. Since his voice was gravelly, it had become a death metal scream.
It was quite the spectacle. The skyscraper fell sideways and knocked another one over. Which resulted in that one crumbling too. The four of them started running for their lives. They had to let a solid half-minute pass before they realized they were in no immediate danger. While running, they didn't notice the dog joining them.
It was a golden retriever with some weird thing dangling from its malformed tail. It was desperately wagging its tail at its new friends.
bark!
"Oh fuck!"
Warrow would've jumped up with sudden panic if he wasn't crippled.
Kahara squealed with joy.
"It's a dog! Oh honey, what happened to you?"
Where the scorpion tail began and the dog ended was pitch black, and it stank. Dong Jun crouched next to her and carefully examined the dog.
"The gene edit has malfunctioned, and morphed flesh failed to receive blood and went necrotic. It will get poisoned if left as is."
Dong Jun looked at her companions. She wanted to leave the dog as is and leave the city immediately. They all practically begged her with their eyes. There was no stepping back for her now. She sighed.
"Let's find a vet."
There was no enthusiasm in her voice. She was afraid she would be blown to bits without realizing what was going on. They put the dog in the shopping cart and arrived at a place they found on the digital map of the city. She put the dog to sleep using narcotics. It was a mercy not to have the dog awake during the procedure.
She cut the scorpion tail in the base. She made incisions and stitched like you would in every amputation. She cleaned the area with a betadine-iodine solution. She then applied a triple antibiotic ointment.
Another explosion.
Flakes of paint rained upon the four from the veterinarians. ceiling. She picked the dog up and ran outside. A fire had started somewhere nearby. The soot-filled smoke filled the neighborhood. The four were gripped with a whooping cough. They made their way away from the fire and into an opening in a park.
Dong Jun gave a resentful and annoyed look to the other three. They looked so apologetic that she didn't have the heart to scold them. Besides, the dog was cute. Among all the dog breeds, a golden retriever was her favorite. They were so friendly that it melted the hearts of whoever had the pleasure to interact with them.
Dong Jun had her heart melted once more. Dong Jun looked around to see three different pillars of smoke rising between the small openings between tall buildings. The fire was about to engulf the whole city. The fully automatic fire department drones were no match for the frequency of the fires.
"We lost too much time; we need to pick up the pace."
The trio ran and ran. Not only did they run, they pushed two shopping carts and a cripple while doing so. Needless to say, their spleen felt like it was going to burst.
"Wheeze"
"Cough, cough."
"Oh, shit."
A human being is a creature of endurance. They were able to get out of the danger zone. They were in the mechanic's district. The buildings here were optimized for servicing automobiles. They didn't need algae pits because the buildings were three stories tall at most. They didn't produce enough scat to justify an algae pit.
After this was the bus station, where people boarded buses to commute between cities. The rest was vast farmland.
"We need to reach the Harkinson Biolab. That building is powered by a cold fusion reactor. It's fully equipped with a medical center. It also has metamorphosis pods and copious amounts of pod liquid. That is the only place I could think of that has everything we need. "
Dwax scratched his head.
"How far is that lab?"
Dong Jun smiled.
"We are not in a hurry. We can stay the night and start moving tomorrow. It's a long way by foot."
Warrow interjected.
"We are in a hurry. My paralysis causes bedsores. Which are really painful. Dwax can't massage the bedsores away because I'm covered in chitin. My axolotl genes keep healing me just to let me suffer again the next day. Please put that chip in me as soon as possible, Dong Jun."
Warrow's eyes were beseeching everyone. He hated being a burden, and he had been nothing but a burden since he was paralyzed. He went through shame after shame just to survive.
"You are the first priority, Warrow. Don't you worry. I need a sterile environment to put that chip in you. On that note, I need to melt the rotten flesh away from its surface."
The dog woke up.
Bark!
"Oh, look who woke up! Goldie! How are you feeling, buddy?"
Dwax smushed the dog's cheeks.
Bark!
Goldie answered as if it knew what Dwax asked it. It furiously wagged the stump that was once its scorpion tail.
"Good boy!"
Goldie danced on its tippy toes in the shopping cart. It was excited to meet its new friends. Dwax picked it up and put it on the ground. It ran in circles and barked happily. Truly, it was men's best friend.
They lit a campfire on a hill overlooking the city. As the sun started to set, the severity of the fires became apparent. The once vibrant city lights had gone dim as the heat destroyed the transformer building and cut the city's access to the grid.
There was no food that wasn't going to go bad in a week without electricity. There was no shelter and no power. The city was not worth staying in anymore. It was heartbreaking for the four of them to watch it get ruined like that. The old world was dead. They were on their own from now on. Those who had come before them couldn't help them much anymore.
In the distance, the large governmental ziggurat stood firm over the burning city. The pyramid-like skyscraper was designed to put citizens in their place by merely existing. It now stood over a desolate pile of flaming concrete.
The charging station meal simmered in a pot over a fire. There was going to be a time when there was no edible food left to pilfer from the remnants of civilization.
The four of them weren't that worried. The planet was big enough to feed four people one way or another.
Dwax started singing a song. The rest of them didn't interrupt and listened. When he was done, Kahara couldn't hold herself back.
"Wasn't that a joke song from twenty years ago?"
Dwax sat straight and proudly puffed his chest. He blurted,
"Everything I know, I learned from my mother, and my mother didn't know much."
Dong Jun started laughing first. The laugh was contagious.
After the meal, Kahara and Dwax took one tent. Jun and Warrow took another. Jun lay next to Warrow and said:
"Do you know how bizarre it is to see someone who looks like a dark lord out of a cartoon dressed in t-shirts and shorty-shorts all the time? I could never get used to it."
Warrow smiled.
"You should find me a cape and a codpiece. I've become a dark lord. I think I should look the part."
Dong Jun smiled.