Accidental Gender Swap

In today’s society, everyone’s ID is integrally linked to the biology. The installations of various biotech starts at birth, and continues even after their body has died. They range from important things like social security numbers and vaccines to superficial items like hair dye and waist enhancements.

The story believed by historians today is that a long time ago, before humans had access to interstellar space travel, vaccines were cured by people, strain by strain, with an individual shot per strain but as interaction with other species began, masses of the population began to die too fast. It’s for that reason that many of these biomechanics enhancements became legal requirements for a right to move off planet, and to exist at all soon after. Because things like the chemicals these new neighbors regularly emitted was a potential danger, tons of individual modifiers, for things like hormones, bone mass, blood, etc, became common place. They say that if a natural born human or if a baby’s biotech malfunctioned while coming into this ‘new’ earth of ours, they’d undoubtedly die in seconds.

Because of how sensitive this system is, any tampering of Biomechanical enhancements by any non-government sanctioned entity is punishable by life in prison. This, of course includes those who were being tempered with, assuming they are aware.

I know what you’re thinking! ‘What could possibly have brought you to have done something so stupid!’ And the simple answer is money. At the time, I worked at a cheap food chain that mostly acts as a cover for a black market trading company. One day, one of our regular secret salesman starts asking us if we want to make a lot of money. Most of us had the sense to say no, but I asked for some more info, and he says I’ll make 3k just for going and I might not have to do anything after that.

So, I went, and most of the room is asked to leave, with only a handful of us getting accepted into this clinical trial that they assure us is safe. They tell us they’re still not sure, So comeback and get 3k again next week. It goes on like that for another 2 weeks and I’m quite extatic about all this free dough I’m getting until they tell the 5 of us remaining that we passed all the requirements and they’ll start the clinical trials now. I tried to back out then, but they tell me that I’d have to return the money in full, and of course there is no way I can do that, so I go through with it. They tell us the goal of their experiment is to transform one person into another, atleast in societies eyes. A lot of new enhancements are installed into my body, and a lot of the old ones have their regulators removed. All of us were worked on at the same time but they nearly finished us all in 2 months. Nearly being the primary word, because before the first test could occur, the police broke into the lab, forcing us to run away. The lead doctor opted to clear all of the computers, instead of clearing the building, leaving the only evidence of the experiments, and his legally punishable actions, being us.

When I returned to my work the next day, I was careful about looking around corners, but I didn’t find any cops snooping around. Instead, I saw some henchman hanging around the corner.

‘Was the money worth it?’ I’m guessing your mumbling to yourself. Well, the net gain isn’t quite as bad as the start of the story would make you think...