Transformations

It's a pretty common staple of fiction to have characters change gender or transform using DNA-based magic. Sometimes it's called science, but it's always magic. Books like Animorphs, comics like El Goonish Shive, a bunch of anime all revolve around transforming characters. El Goonish Shive is the best example and my favorite, because author Dan Shive describes the mechanics of it in minute detail. Whether this is to fend off Nerd Criticism or simply love of describing it is unclear, but it gets me thinking. Lots of things get me thinking. Of course, my thoughts on the matter might not be as smart as I think; I'm not a biologist and my understanding of genetics is mostly limited to National Geographics articles I've skimmed, a couple of bio lectures in college, and the very material I'm discussing here.

Generally in these pieces of fiction, a character will imitate someone's DNA and they'll produce a mirror-image clone; the original and the copy look identical. Animorphs was pretty unique in its recognition that DNA does not store physical injuries and as such a DNA clone would not share any scarring or injured limbs. That means that a magically generated copy made purely from DNA would not share any injuries the original has. On the surface, that means obvious things aren't imitated; tattoos, the various nicks and scars people go through life getting... but there are other things. Some are definitely going to be noticeable in the correct context, others I'm less sure about. Most American men are circumcised, to start, so a completely genetic copy of a man would have an easily identifiable turtle neck. Belly buttons are another example: the size, shape, even presence of the belly button isn't defined genetically.

DNA is not a blueprint for the body, only it does not have a lot of power to specify the materials used. Nutrition vastly impacts the way your body is built from DNA. Malnutrition can and often does have a permanent effect on the way your body looks--someone who did not have enough calcium growing up is going to have different bone structure than someone who had enough. Muscle and fat aren't genetic, either. In the last year my weight has fluctuated about fifteen pounds in either direction of 170. On any given week my weight changes by five pounds depending on how recently I've been to the gym.

The Tiles

I was sitting in the bathroom, which is never a good place for a story to start.  It was a small personal bathroom--really just a toilet and a door; the sink was outside. It was like a closet, I guess, with a toilet in it, tiled with what I assumed was meant to be a masculine mix of baby blue and mint green.

With nothing to distract me, I sat quietly, minding my own business. I fiddled with my phone for a minute--it was 10PM. I couldn't believe I was still at work. Zero bars; I couldn't text anyone. Sitting quietly, I finally resorted to looking at the tile to pass the time. I made patterns; there's an S tetris block. There's another a straight skinny Tetris block. There's a Z tetris block. I'm not very creative. The patterns blurred into a kind of zen meditation, with the patterns becoming part of the wall, then the wall become a lattice of burning black points.

That's completely normal, of course. Watch bathroom tiles long enough and an optical illusion will start to happen as the rods and cones in your eyes struggle to keep up with the sustained images. Pulses raced between the dots and slowly the lines pulled out of focus and seemed to rise up off the floor. The blood was starting to pool in my brain, I suspected. Slowly I shifted my perspective, blinking, then closing my eyes to clear away the visions and adjusting my posture to try and normalize systolic pressure in my head.

I sat, eyes closed, watching as the black points shifted to white to remain visible against the inside of my eyelids. That was when the noises started. A soft scraping; a normal bathroom noise. I listened to it curiously, wondering who had walked into the bathroom. Probably somebody hitting the urinal. The scraping was joined by a faint sigh, like the shift in pressure that happens in a partially opened breezeway. Somewhere little columns were being tallied and I realized that there weren't any urinals, or other toilets, and there was nobody in the bathroom.

I opened my eyes. One of the tiles had come loose and lay on the ground beneath a square, tile-shaped hole. The stall filled with scraping noises as another tile came loose, hovering an inch off the wall, then slid sideways and clattered into a corner. All the tiles were moving now, shifting. Some jerked forward and spun horizontally, others impressed themselves into the walls. They moved in a pastel tide, exposing a rapidly growing hole.

The moving tiles were so fascinating that it took me nearly a minute to realize that the hole wasn't right. Rather than cracking grout and wood base separating the bathroom from the hallway and external sink, a shaft of warm sunlight fell across my lap. I stared through the hole at rolling green meadows and a golden sky full of fluffy pink clouds.
 

The Augmented Reality Day Planner

Sid woke up with the angry buzzing from his nightstand. Feeling around in the dark, he set down the silent cellphone and unplugged alarm clock. The AR glasses buzzed again, tiny gyroscopes shaking it noisily against painted wood, its lenses flashing. Groggily, he put on the glasses, wrinkling his nose to get them to the comfortable place high on the bridge of his nose. For a moment, he squinted in the darkness.

He held his hand out in front of his face, and flashed the hand gesture to activate the heads up display. A glowing tablet popped into existence, offering three icons bearing the time, date, and weather. He tugged on the bottom of the weather icon, and it rolled up with a flap-flap-flap, displaying a window onto the street outside. He tilted his head back, looking at the clouds; it was raining. He waved his hand and the display vanished, then flashed the hand-sign for "directory".

Glowing tablets representing his suite of apps lined up in his room. He tapped on one, his "Stiki" app, then closed the directory. A softly glowing note hung on his wall: "Buy eggs."

The Hall of Human Experience

Kingsley hauled himself up onto the ledge, and took a minute to catch his breath, surveying the fresh hell he'd stumbled into as the coppery taste began to leave his mouth. The zombie that had chased him stood on the edge of its balcony for a moment, its arm raised as it shouted. The piles of paper served to muffle everything, and the only audible sound were the stacks of green-bar paper slithering in streams where Kingsley had disturbed them. Apparently satisfied with its lecture, or resigned to its fate, the zombie let its hands drop, then it shuffled dumbly away.

Feeling comfortable and relaxed, Kingsley surveyed his surroundings. The zombie, the mysterious machines, and the hole he had entered from were all in a single structure at the far end of a courtyard, which was hemmed in with unremarkable mouldering buildings. Banners of continuous-feed paper fluttered from inward-facing balconies, and as he looked Kingsley could see eyes glowing orange in the gloom. Whatever the building was, it was staffed entirely by zombies.

Kingsley picked up a scrap of the paper and regarded it curiously. It was covered almost exclusively in easy-to-recognize Eblonian numbers, which Kingsley could not read but which he also suspected would not have been helpful anyway. A sheet full of numbers wasn't exactly a novel, after all. Pocketing the sheet, he decided that perhaps finding a new exit was his biggest priority. Zombies were naturally unpleasant, but the idea that they had been enslaved postmortem... he found the idea disquieting.

The Prophecy

Celie awoke with a start. She had had an epiphany, a dream of an echoing sound so familiar she was sure she'd been hearing it her whole life. A sound that made her want to listen closely. For a moment she forgot where she was and stood, mystified as she reached for the journal on her nightstand.

In the darkness, Kingsley's wide open eye reflected the moonish half-light, his body tensed and taut. He watched her for a moment and, sure that there was no cause for alarm, sank back onto his jacket, his arms cradled around his ruined eye. Past him, a narrow column of tobacco smoke and a barely-arched eyebrow insinuated that the Kark was awake. The cigarette shifted momentarily, and he nodded. The eyebrow uncreased and his chin tucked slowly to his chest. 

Celie sat then, alone in darkness, trying to recapture the sound. A deep two-note followed by a pause beat over a wavering, dull whistle. She pulled her transceiver from her bag and sat with it in her lap, the antenna extended. Slowly, she turned the dial and held the headset to her ear, surfing through a universe of garbled hums, broken signals and useless noise. She clicked through the higher broadcasting frequencies, although of course there was nothing to hear. There wouldn't have been, even if she'd been on the other side of the mountain; the broadcasters had only recently begun building towers even in Kinsbourne. She dipped into the communication channels, but the towers in the camp were incomplete and most of the crew had died back in the mine. There would be no chatter on local communication frequencies until they could be replaced with new conscripts in Kinsbourne.

She signed, turning finally to the command frequencies that necromancers used to control their zombie charges, scrolling through them. Squeals and clicks parted the static, but nothing

The Dream

Sharon grinned. The party was going wonderfully. She was a success, and she was popular. Beautiful people in gorgeous costumes swung casually back and forth in time to airy classical music; a sonata by Brahms. She surveyed the crowd as she descended the ornate grand staircase, slowly descending the red crushed velvet and rose petals. Swirling dresses parted as she crossed the floor, revealing a tall, handsome man with blue steel eyes, wearing a perfectly-pressed tuxedo. His eyebrows waggled charmingly as she approached, and a jocular smile revealed perfectly set, sparkling white teeth.

"Sharon! I'm having a lovely time. You really do throw a wonderful party. The Countess is so impressed she's asked if she could consult with you on her daughter's wedding plans. Oh! And the President has been looking for you. He said your plan for improving bipartisanship in the Senate is inspiring, and I believe he mentioned that you look rather fetching with the pearl necklace."

He paused to adjust his backpack
"Although I must say, I haven't been seeing you in class lately."
"What?" Somewhere in the distance, there was a sound like a violin string breaking.

"In class? It's finals week. I mean, you haven't been there in weeks. I wish I had your confidence, I mean, this is really hard material. If I wasn't studying eight hours a day I'd be totally unprepared, and you don't even come to class."
"Oh my god! Graduate-level Advanced Philosophical Calculus! I have it every Thursday, and I haven't been going! I'm screwed!"

She covered her mouth, leaning on the chalkboard. Her tooth was loose. Gingerly, she tugged on it, and it gave easily. It clattered to the ground, and she looked in the bathroom mirror. All of her teeth were loose! She tugged one out, and another, staring in horror as the sink slowly filled with her teeth. Her adult teeth, and she'd never get them back!

"Ms. Sharon?" It was the President. "I... oh. I see you're busy."

Nick sat innocently in the next seat on the bus, watching Sharon with interest as she groaned, her face pressed against the glass. She was furrowing her brow and biting her lip, and she looked cute. Scared out of her mind and confused, but cute. Carefully, he glanced around. The girls were in the back, reading magazines to kill time. Philo was chatting with the bus driver. Lisa and Kris were playing euchre, and everybody else was asleep. It had been a long bus ride.

Satisfied that everyone was busy, Nick carefully placed a hand on either side of Sharon's head, and lifted the headphones off her ears. He then slung them around his neck and lowered his hood over them. Notebook in hand, he watched as her expression calmed. The flush left her cheeks, and she relaxed. He made a note, adding "Malevolum" next to her reaction, then checking his playlist.
"Yup. Malevolum seems like a success."
"Huh? Nick? Is that you?" Sharon stirred, then shook her head as she woke up.

The Police Force

Rodney Rourk rolled over in bed and glared at his alarm clock. It was 12:59AM. Before he could move, the digital face flickered, and his apartment filled with insistent buzzing. A bolt of lightning arced across the room, missing the clock and leaving a fourth scorchmark on the wall. The clock continued to buzz aggravatingly. Struggling out of bed, he stalked over to the clock, and wrenched it out of the wall.

Sitting on the side of his coffee table, he began getting dressed. The leotard was a trick because it was too tight--he was due for a new one, but he couldn't afford it. The heat wave had broken, but it was still too early to switch over to the combat boots. He was tired anyway; the climbing shoes would have to do. He tugged the strap of the Dynamo Trigger and tightened the utility belt over his blue and yellow jumpsuit. He surveyed his apartment as he straightened up. Empty takeout containers covered the kitchen table, a stack of crumpled letters and notices were beginning to spill out of the cushion of his favorite chair. A spider hung smugly from a poster of a handsome man in a mask. "Yeah. Really clever. My life is full of subtle metaphors." Standing, he pulled on his lightning-bold smile balaclava, and it was the Lightningrod Kid that climbed onto the fire escape.

"Anything tonight?" The Reticent Rodent settled into a folding chair next to him. The Lightningrod Kid shook his head.

"Just, you know. Some drunks. It's bar time. I was going to spark a guy, but I don't need another lawsuit, y'know? He only tipped over a moped." The Rodent nodded.
"You bring the Mother's Ear?"
"Yeah." The Reticent Rodent dropped the cheaply made ham radio onto the table. There was a hand-stenciled J on the lid, an artifact of the machine's original owner, the Justice.
"Don't know why I bother with the damn thing. Most places can't even use the Crybaby any more. You know I found out that Behnke Insurance will drop anybody with a working model Crybaby in-house? They don't want customers that deal with us." They lapsed into silence for a moment.

"Hey, you hear about the Detonatrix? She got off. Turns out half the evidence was contaminated because Captain Justice collected it and he refused to reveal his identity. He even stole a crucial piece of evidence so he could 'examine it on the Justice Computer'. Without all that stuff, they couldn't convict her of anything. Not a thing."
The Rodent snorted. "She's been involved in a dozen heists in the last two years. Heck, last week I busted her for blowing up parked cars down on Second Avenue. She said she just needed to unwind after the preliminary trial."
"I know, man. She's been operating a long time. I can't believe they can't pull any usable testimony anywhere. I mean, I was there when she worked for the Hurtful Stereotype and crashed the East High prom."
"You went to East back then? Holy crap, I bet you knew my... uh." The Reticent Rodent ran his hand across the back of his cowl.
"Nah, it's okay. I didn't go there; my girlfriend did. She broke up with me, though. I ditched her to fight some of the 'type's goons, and she thought I rabbited. It was ridiculous. I almost told her my secret identity just to get her back. "

The two superheroes sit in silence for a minute, leaning over the roof. The Reticent Rodent wiped his eyes.

"This sucks, man."
"What, about my ex or the Detonatrix going free?"
"No, yeah, that too. It's just that I got fired two days ago."
"You got fired? From what?" The Lightningrod Kid grimaced behind his balaclava. Obviously he wasn't getting fired from hanging out on rooftops in the middle of the night. C'mon, Rodney.
"My job. I mean, I was out here almost every night. I haven't gotten a good night's sleep since that kidnapping attempt of my-- of that woman I know. So my performance at work started suffering. I've been doing six hour patrols for three weeks because I can't sleep. I knew it was coming, and that just made it worse. Last week I caught a drug dealer and I hung him over the side of a building until he cried for his mommy, and the only reason I didn't drop him anyway was because Foxtrot pulled me back. I'm so tired, man."

The Lightningrod Kid looked at him. He had known the Reticent Rodent for as long as either of them had worn the mask. They had foiled bank robberies, museum heists, and more than one inexplicable plan to hold the city hostage with a weather machine. He'd never thought of RR as having a job or anything. Nobody asked--it was rude. No, it was worse than rude. It was suspicious, and capes were paranoid and violent. Most of them had tons of psychopathic personal enemies, not to mention lawsuits, summons, and probably a couple warrants. The less other people knew about you, the better, and it held true for what you knew about them. After all, if you knew something about someone else, you were a target, right? Psychopathic enemies and all. The Kid realized he'd never even wondered what RR might do for a living. That he might even have a life outside. Unsure of how to respond or what to do, he just clapped RR on the shoulder.

"You'll figure it out, man. This stuff passes."
"No, it doesn't. I thought about it, and I'm out. Done with this bullshit. I wanted to tell somebody. Let 'em know I'm okay before I retire."

There was a shrill cry, and a light on the Ear lit up. The Reticent Rodent slumped in his chair. "You kidding me? My last freaking night and we get a robbery in progress. What're the odds."

The robbery was the type that the Lightningrod Kid had gotten used to. Punks smashed in the window in a third-rate jewelry store. No evidence of planning, lots of yelling and ski masks.