The Viral Archive (dream)
Twenty years into the future, I had bio-hacked my body to join an underwater life-exploration science expedition. The modifications didn’t just let me stay submerged for hours - they allowed me to interface directly with our experimental DNA-collection scanner. The device could non-invasively sample genetic material from ocean creatures, encode it into a dormant viral shell, and tag each sample by species. We could collect millions of genomes and store them in a single portable module, a library of life sealed inside a machine the size of a lunchbox. On the way back from the expedition, our private livery to the airport crashed - skidding off a crowded highway and plunging into the harbor of a bustling African coastal city. The driver died instantly. The rest of us, battered but alive, crawled out through twisted metal as seawater filled the cabin. Within minutes, a policeman arrived. He checked our IDs, the driver’s papers, the vehicle registration - then made a call. I watched his ...