AS PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED, humanity is not entirely self-destructive. We won’t put ourselves in jeopardy for no reason. And we’re not going to! The good news about the incentive phase of a biotech apocalypse? You’re going to be able to do some pretty cool shit.
• Carnaval
• Naked disco
• Hard-core gay sex with a bunch of other dudes (all the time)
The most alluring field of biotechnology right now is that of athletics, and for good reason: Athletes have been looking for new and undetectable ways to cheat since ancient times, when the very first Olympic wrestler greased himself up before a match. (Greek wrestling, much like its modern contemporary, professional wrestling, was the most socially acceptable way for butch men to get naked and grope each other with lubricant.) And ever since that first naked, cheating man-orgy, we’ve taken a big cue from their example. Genetic experimentation owes a great debt of gratitude to brave, unethical souls like those ancient Greeks, whose modern equivalents are competitors willing to risk shriveled testicles and crippling bacne just for a leg up on the competition.
A chief problem is that of “gene doping.” It’s the biological equivalent of pimping your ride, and it will soup you up in every way short of painting flames on your chest and installing monitors in your ass. In general, the term “gene doping” refers to any modification of the human body through enhanced DNA. It’s used for a variety of therapies, but in the field of professional sports there are some specifically desired uses: Injecting extra copies of naturally occurring genes, like those that create endorphins, might render you essentially immune to pain and fatigue. Or perhaps you’d rather have some extra testosterone, making you larger, stronger, and substantially more entertained by NASCAR. Before the prospect of gene doping, there was simple blood doping: Some athletes prefer injecting themselves with erythropoietin, or EPO, to boost their own red blood cell count. This enables better, faster, stronger oxygenation of the blood and therefore better stamina, fuller lung capacity, and less recovery time. But in the realm of modern science, that’s practically caveman shit. Why, all the way back in 1998, an entire cycling team in the Tour de France was expelled for EPO abuse, despite the fact that it’s nearly impossible to trace, because evidence of almost any kind of gene doping can be explained in other ways: There are disorders, birth defects, or just different genetic profiles that could be responsible for unusual genes, thus allowing any athlete to dismiss accusations of cheating by attributing it to a tragic birth defect that rendered him substantially more awesome than the average man. With gene-doping technology, we’re looking at the same essential effects as blood doping; we’re just going to make them permanent. By altering DNA to increase the production of EPO in athletes’ bodies, they no longer need to inject untraceable superdrugs to up their performance; they’re already producing it. You’ve got little drug cartels up and running in your bloodstream.
If you find yourself struggling to tell the difference, here are Some tips to help you differentiate between the two.
• EPO can also be called “blood doping.”
• ELO can also be called “dope” by people who own BeDazzlers.
• EPO is used to better performance.
• ELO will never be followed by the term “better performance,” unless it’s meant ironically.
• EPO is an illegal substance, and very hard to come by.
• ELO is not yet illegal, and can be found in yard sales across the country in the box marked FREE CRAP, next to broken He-Man toys and a single ski boot.
Consider vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). It covers the other end of the spectrum from EPO’s stamina-enhancing effects by stimulating the growth of new blood vessels, increasing blood flow, thus improving burst-style muscular strength. Its intended use is for treating muscular diseases, allowing patients with conditions that constrict their blood vessels to regain their muscle mass and, most likely, will eventually wind up helping old white men get boners—because pretty much all drugs end up in that shriveled-boner category. The thing so devious about VEGF is that, even if you manage to track this one, the gene that produces it is delivered to cells in the body in the first place by piggybacking on the common cold virus. So finding modified VEGF genes in the herculean superman who just hurled the Lithuanian swim team out of the coliseum will at best just prove that he had a case of the sniffles at the time. Which, if anything, just makes him look all the more impressive, doesn’t it?
But that’s only for the obsessed athlete, right? How could this possibly benefit the common man?
Well, for one, consider the elderly: Typically regarded as frail and easily knocked around for one’s amusement when you’re desperate to compensate for your microscopic manhood (not that I would know anything about that), their weak constitution is largely due to the natural loss of muscle mass. That’s just genetics, of course, and thanks to advances in biotechnology, there are experimental drugs in testing right now that help restore that lost muscle. They could restore enough, some say, to even equal those levels found in healthy young adults. That’s not just halting one of the worst aspects of aging; it’s turning it backward! The drug is called MK-677, and so far it’s been proven safe, effective, and able to restore up to 20 percent of total muscle mass in the human body. That’s a full fifth of the total human potential, effectively taking senior citizens back to the same overall body strength as a healthy twenty-year-old, according to Michael O. Thorner, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Virginia Health System.
• What’s with this Twitter thing? In my day that was called a sentence.
• Kids will stay off your lawn if you sprinkle it with cayenne pepper. That’ll give ’em something to cry about!
• Why don’t more places, serve rice pudding?
That’s a real thing now: geriatrics with the bodies of twenty-year-olds. That’s not science fiction. It’ll probably be commonly prescribed well within your lifetime if you’re reading this book (because hey, let’s face it, the elderly are probably not the key demographic for a book full of dick jokes about cutting-edge science).
So you’re already one-fifth immortal and possess nigh superhuman stamina just by taking pills, but wait! There’s more!
If you call now, the future will throw in super strength, absolutely free!
Scientists have discovered that disabling a protein called myostatin can double the overall size of musculature in most mammals. This has only been verifiably proven in mice so far, but theoretically it should work on virtually any mammal. There’s a naturally occurring condition in several species that’s quite similar, where the animal’s myostatin is genetically suppressed. Whippets—those malnourished junkie-looking dog-rats—can suffer from a hypermusculature disease that creates “bully whippets”: Genetic freaks that are gargantuan, absurdly muscled even without exercise, and overall resemble nothing so much as a canine Incredible Hulk. It’s not a debilitating condition, either—that muscle mass is fully functional. Bully whippets have double the strength of their normal counterparts, and as a result can run at double the speed. There’s even been one recorded case of this condition occurring in a human. A German boy was recently diagnosed with the disorder. He’s been monitored from the day it was first discovered he had the condition, and all subsequent tests have verified that he is indeed in perfect health. This means that, theoretically, an artificially induced muscle-doubling disorder should also be entirely safe. Of course, the second professional weight-lifters heard of this development—a procedure that could render them roughly twice the terrifying abominations of nature that they already are—the researchers were swamped with offers to volunteer as test subjects. It’s not like the appeal of strength in a pill is limited to the Buick-
