5 Fiction Fiction: The Daria Gene

Daria listened patiently while the very-excited-looking medical practitioner concluding his oh-so-credible speech.

"So, let me get this straight," she said after a moment. "It turns out that some freak coding of my DNA is why I have a high-intellect, intense cynicism and compulsive isolation. It couldn't have anything to do with unique family arrangement and life circumstances, or the conga-line of humiliating formative incidents that I've endured for the last sixteen years, or indeed anything suggestive of the idea of free will. It's just some random gene and I've been fooling myself I had any say in it. Gee, thanks Doc, you're wasted treating physical ailments when you could be healing the spirits of hurting angels."

"Daria," the doctor says, "I am telling you what we have discovered. These test results aren't a judgement..."

"Surely that's what all test results are. Unless you're asking for a bribe, in which case I should remind you I left my wallet in my other backless gown and if you're expecting a tip after using my ass as a dartboard for your syringes..."

"Daria, your hair, your eye colour, your height, your life-expectancy, all this is affected by your genetic makeup."

"Which is why I was hoping I had a say in the rest."

"But a discovery like this could change the world?"

"Oh? How? Are you going to fix the IQs of prospective presidents? Take down fundamentalist religions with a spiked punch full of cynicism? Will Microsoft and Apple pay for a disease that makes people stay at home and on computers..."

Jane elbowed her in the ribs. "Daria, you're giving the man ideas. Make him pay for them first."

"There goes the question of nature versus nurture," Daria said, glaring at her.

The doctor sighs and then looks to the shocked Helen, Jake and Quinn. "This is obviously staggering news, and I should give you some time to adjust. Er, any questions right now, though?"

Quinn held up a hand. "If you name it after Daria, can you just call it the Daria Gene, not the Morgendorffer gene? I don't want anyone at school to think I'm unclean or anything..."

***

The night watchman shouted and screamed through the gag at the black-clad figures that had stormed the facility. Animal-liberation nutters, obviously, and not one of them had realized that the test-animals in this particular lab were beyond help. Letting them out into the world would not make things better, but unleash an unstoppable and highly contagious apocalypse. If only he could be heard...

The monkeys looked up at the torch-beams shining into their cage.

Oh great, now it seems we're being experimented on at night too, one subject grumbled. There goes my hopes for an amazing double-life. Or at least one where I can sleep and dream of a less idiotic world.

They're not scientists, another subject replied. Unless the Casual Friday policy has been introduced and these idiots have forgotten where the light-switches are. Which, now I come to think of it, could be exactly what happened.

I think these are some kind of animal rights terrorists, mused a third. Wow, I bet that makeup they're using to hide their features has only been tested on the ugly, naughty bunny-rabbits. We should be honored that people of such high moral standing are taking time from their precious schedules to open a cage.

It would be very bad manners if we mauled them for their troubles.

Very bad manners. On the other hand, they didn't bring us pizza.

Good point. Let's waste these suckas.

Moments later the lab was full of screams and blood as the infected monkeys went amok. Slashed, scratched and bitten, one of the intruders managed to escape into the street outside. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, there was froth at the corner of his mouth.

He spared no thought for his fallen comrades. What a bunch of deluded, self-centred idiots. Probably doing the cause more harm than good. And he'd seen three of them eating hamburgers before the raid. He was better off without them. He felt like going home, lying on the bed and staring at the ceiling. But first pizza. Pizza was good.

The infected human, patient zero, stumbled off into the Lawndale night...


NEXT: TWENTY-EIGHT DARIAS LATER...