Dong Jun has been buried in work for the last three weeks. There had been an uptick in newcomers due to the cellphone alert from the government building.
The biolab had a botanic department, within which was a three-dimensional agriculture facility. The facility had enough capacity to feed a lot of people. Most of the survivors were distant cousins of Dwax, for his genes were the key to surviving the calamity. The other survivors were the ones whose mutations were benign.
Dong Jun had everyone gather and listen to her speech.
"The catastrophe took almost everything away from us. We must protect whatever little we have left. The calamity ails the land still. We must strive to survive."
Dong Jun knew how to talk in front of crowds. She has been studying "Politics 101" videos on the internet.
"The calamity has mutated beasts as it has mutated us. As it amounted to an ailment for us humans, for the beasts it was adaptation. They became monsters. We need to know what they are, what they do, and what kinds of risks they carry. I humbly request your help in battling them. We need their genes to figure out what exactly has been done to this planet."
Murmurs spread out in waves. They had no idea what awaited them in the future.
"We need to mold ourselves and be bold enough to survive. Do things we were not able to do before. As you all know, the corrupt held us down; the masters of industry humiliated and broke us on a genetic level. No more. We will ascend and undo this humiliation. We will unshackle men and give his destiny to his hand."
Dwax was listening to the talk, impressed. This was what he had always thought. Dong Jun observed the crowd for their response. She was going to change her rhetoric according to what she had seen on their faces.
"We will cram this entire lab into your body. We will break encryption and become unbound. We will implement a system where the participants collect genes and get improvements in exchange. We will all rise."
The man near her yelled again.
"We will rise!"
Emotions were high. People have been suffering since the catastrophe hit. Not everyone was like Dwax. Their quality of life fell sharply after the catastrophe. They weren't too happy about that. Dong Jun, after seeing their response, decided to press further. She started chanting.
"We will rise! We will rise!"
The next day, the number of people who took missions outside the lab town skyrocketed.
The trees were starting to be filled with those cottony parasites. There were no birds to cleanse them of those. A terrible explosion in bug populations was bothering people to no end.
Dwax had acquired the habit of cataloging every animal he could find in his gene-harvesting organ. He would take some samples and give them to the researchers too. The mission was to catalog all the genetic edits and give them to the lab for decryption anyway.
Kahara and Dwax have grown closer during this time. They were like a married couple now. With the food and shelter-related anxiety gone, they were searching for fulfillment and looking forward to tomorrow for once.
Dong Jun started printing out various bird populations to combat the bug problem. Upon learning about the bug nest in the garage, Dong Jun sent people to investigate the scene and destroy the eggs. However, it was too late. The garage wasn't the only nest that these bugs had built for themselves.
The worst were the sap-drinkers. The trees were covered with them and were being sucked dry by them. Normally, ant colonies, predator bugs, and birds would handle them on their own, but they were dead by a large margin and in no position to eat that many sap-drinker bugs. These sap-drinker bugs also had genetic modifications borne from the catastrophe. They would sometimes become poisonous and thwart efforts to keep their numbers down by killing their predators. Since their predators didn't have enough numbers to battle that poison through evolution, Dong Jun had to resort to cloning these animals over and over.
Warrow started studying botanics. He had to. He was the kind of man who thought expertise was everything. According to him, if a man had to do something and had to do botany due to his clumsiness, he ought to do it right and near perfect. Which translated to his yearning for expertise.
He has been crossbreeding plants the old-fashioned way. He would graft one plant onto another to see if they matched. More often than not, the plants would do horizontal gene transfers with each other. A horizontal gene transfer means a genetic transfer between two species due to circumstances. Grafting plants provided ample opportunity for that to happen.
He wanted to create something immune to the sap drinkers. He created an apple tree with small,hair-like protrusions to keep the bugs away. Such an irritant has reduced the bug infestation on the trees by a large margin. As a side effect, it made the people who wanted to pick up the fruits itchy.
The trees were able to grow quite fast in the lab environment. Normally, plants would grow at a balanced pace with their environment. By creating an abundant environment and tweaking the genes for growth, researchers can create plants as fast as possible.
He took pride in what he had done. He was also lucky. What he accomplished didn't have that much of a possibility of happening. He was being congratulated left and right. He had become a man who commanded respect. It was quite a stark contrast to the man he was a while ago. The man he was before soiled his pants uncontrollably and needed constant care. Now, everyone was thinking, I'm glad Warrow exists. I'm glad he does what he does. A man who looked like a dark lord had become everyone's favorite.
The world was slowly changing. Quickly multiplying animals started inheriting the earth. Some of the mutations were set to show themselves generations after the initial corruption during the catastrophe. Some even had their lifecycles quickened. Faster breeding species consumed more energy, and the environment failed to provide that energy and biomass. They would die and, if not, cannibalize. It was the survival of the fittest, and since the mutations were actually designs that tended to err for the extreme, it was the survival of the most horrific.
There was an event where a man got stung by a frog's tongue, and his leg had to be amputated to get rid of the rotting flesh. He had to regrow the leg through axolotl genes.
Dwax, after seeing that, decided to bring in mutated beasts in exchange for honey badger genes. The first target was a hoofed dog. The dogs were usually in suburban areas. The goat-dog was no exception.
Dwax had to coerce the beast with meat. He wasn't able to get near it for hours when it hopped around from roof to roof.
The other encounters were not so peaceful. There was a bunny with tusks-like knives who charged at Dwax like a boar. There wasn't enough mass behind the stab, so the attack failed to penetrate the skin. It was still not a pleasant experience to get stabbed by something as cute as a bunny rabbit.
The second instance was a colony of bioluminescent bugs down in a cavern. These bugs made a trail to the surface, and after soaking in the sun and creating molecules that stored that energy, they went back into the cavern to farm a rock-breaking moss. It's a digging tool that requires no initial investment. Unlike most of the mutations out there, this wasn't something that an AI came up with. This was someone's artwork. They were pretty. Some genetic artists took pride in things like that.
Another gene target was underwater. He used a drone from a fishing shop in the city. Every animal needed a different strategy for hunting. Some simply needed waiting, some needed clever solutions, and some needed bravery.
Dwax understood the essence of hunting. At its very core, it was about match-ups. He understood that he must confront a creature with its weaknesses firmly within his grasp. Otherwise, he might get outplayed by a mere beast. Being made a fool by a deer wasn't a pleasant experience for him. He had to stalk that thing across the whole industrial district. Not only that, but it stirred up predators to inconvenience the hunter chasing him. It knew it could run off with its superior speed, leaving Dwax to deal with the raging coywolf.
When he finally caught up with the deer, he was exhausted too. His spear struck true and took the deer's life. He cut its liver and cooked it to consume on the spot. The liver was the first thing that went bad. It was the most delicious thing he ate.
Life was good, and he loved every second of it.