Your Billion Future Selves

It has been only a handful of generations since humans had unlocked the ability to edit their own genetic code, and now there were no humans left. No true humans, anyway. They still looked like  humans, but biologically, they are now siphonophores. 

The Portuguese Man O' War is often mistaken for a jellyfish. It is related to jellyfish, but the jellyfish is a single organism, with one genome. The Man O' War contains multitudes. It is a colony; multiple units of creatures called zooids. Genetically identical, all from a single egg, but still individual. Each zooid becomea specialized to its role in the colony. And from the outside, it looks like one big jellyfish. These things that look like humans, are made up not of cells, but of, essentially, tiny humans. 

Before, a human might lose a finger. But now, there is no human to lose it. The finger was born to be a finger, the hand was born to be a hand, and the arm, and the torso, and the head the eyes the brain all of it, each one a zooid. The lost finger is alive, as a finger, and it knows it is alone. It will not survive long without the rest of the colony. Not long at all. 

It's confusing, I know, why anyone would want this. They're immortal now, functionally, these new humans. If a liver or a kidney fails, the lab can grow a new one. If the new human were to be cut in half at the waist, and the lab was sufficiently prepared, each half could be made into a whole. This wasn't done, at least not yet, but it could be. 

Individuality, down to the last body part.

Immortality achieved, at the cost of the self.

These new humans appear content, on the whole. Except those of us who work in the labs, raising the zooids into the parts they will play. We monitor every vital sign, every nerve, every . We get the same patterns, the same jagged waves on the electro-cellulargrams, over and over again. 

They are screaming. 

Author's Note: I really thought tonight was going to be the night I ended my streak. It's late, and I'm tired, and work was hard. But then Sibbitt went and wrote this really cool poem about a different kind of immortality and that got me to thinking...

This story needs work; I think the distinction between a single organism and exactly what siphonophores are is not explained very well. It's okay, because I think overall the story is headed in the right direction in evoking an atmosphere of existential dread for that very reason. At least that's what I'm telling myself because it is late and I must sleep. To learn more about siphonophores, visit your local library! Or you can read these notes I copied from Wikipedia and pasted below to re-read ah I struggled to convey how these things are very much alike in concept to a single organism, but the way they go about it is still uncanny as hell. Goodnight!

Siphonophores are highly polymorphic and complex organisms.[4] Although they may appear to be individual organisms, each specimen is in fact a colonial organism composed of medusoid and polypoid zooids that are morphologically and functionally specialized.[5] Zooids are multicellular units that develop from a single fertilized egg and combine to create functional colonies able to reproduce, digest, float, maintain body positioning,