Selfie: Device Kids Book One

by D. S. Murphy

  “The only part of that I understood was scissors,” Amy said.

  “But they couldn’t get it all to work,” Brad said. “Maybe because of limitations in the technology, or because of regulations. Anybody who wants to study this stuff will get smeared by negative press and have protesters outside of their labs. The interesting stuff moved overseas.”

  “So what’s on the agenda today?” Amy said.

  “We’ll basically try to recreate that process: hack DNA, cut the string, add in our own code. We can’t actually see the DNA, just the cell, so we have to use chemistry and test whether or not it works. So I’ll just do some basic things that will register on a cellular level. Things will get more interesting once we start testing on live subjects.”

  “Live subjects?” Greg said.

  “Mice,” Brad said. “One of my mates has a boa constrictor. We can get mice for a dollar each.”

  Amy wrinkled up her nose. “Seems kind of mean,” she said.

  “Seriously?” Brad countered. “We’re on the cutting edge of genetic engineering and you’re worried about the mice?”

  “We’re fine with the mice,” I said, giving Amy a pointed look, but I knew that I would regret it later. Amy had a guinea pig until she was eleven named Mr. Whiskers.

  “We have something to show you, too,” I said. “We’ve been working on a mockup for the app.” I pulled out my phone and opened the application.

  “It works basically like an online avatar program. First you add in your details, height, weight, etc, and a selfie for a profile picture,” I said, turning my phone around and snapping a picture of myself. “Then the app will make you a base avatar.” I showed them my phone, where there was now a cartoon version of myself, rotating slowly.

  “Sexy,” Brad teased. My avatar was wearing skin-tight clothing; jeans and a plain T-shirt.

  “It’s not about the clothes,” Amy said, taking the phone from me. “You click on upgrade, and then a subcategory, and then the feature you want to edit. Then we’ve added options with a scale system. So you click on nose and you can set how thick or thin you want the bridge of your nose to be, or your nostril shape, or the tilt of the tip of your nose. Or you can select a predetermined option. We added a database we stole off a plastic surgeon’s website menu, with 100 different celebrity noses to choose from.” Amy scrolled through the options, hitting one after another and showing how the face of my avatar morphed each time to match the new choice.

  “That looks amazing,” Greg said. “How did you make it so quickly?”

  I blushed, even though I knew he was talking about the program, and not me.

  “Amy designed most of it,” I said.

  “Yeah but you coded it,” she said.

  “Can it do Pinocchio?” Brad asked. “Or, like put a koala bear’s nose on my face?”

  “Um, we didn’t think about that,” I said.

  “We kept it within the normal range of human possibility,” Amy said.

  “Boring,” Brad said, “As long as we’re doing this, we should make it fun. Gamify it.”

  “I think you’re underestimating the market for personal cosmetics,” Amy said. “Girls don’t want to look crazy. They still want to look natural, just improved.”

  “Maybe some do. Maybe not. Come’on, how awesome would it be to be completely unique? Blue hair, violet eyes, green skin…”

  “Yuck,” I said, “that sounds horrible.”

  “Yeah but the cool thing is, they’d pay to try it out, and then pay for something else. And people wouldn’t only use this for cosmetics. As long as they can change back to the way they were, I bet people would use this for costumes, practical jokes, all kinds of stuff.”

  “Don’t forget identity theft,” David threw in. “It would make a perfect disguise.”

  I hadn’t thought about that. Could someone really use the app to become someone else? For some reason I felt a chill run down my spine.

  “So, all we need now is to connect the actual code to the app and program the bots to make the changes?” Greg asked.

  “It’s not that simple,” David said. “We’ll have to find a way for the bots to stay in the system longer. And then we’ll need to pair them to only respond to a particular cell phone so that other people can’t program your bots for you on accident. And I don’t think we’ll be able to get that specific,” David said, frowning. “Matching all the celebrity noses and whatnot. We should start with more basic stuff, like height, or eye color.”

  “But… as long as we aren’t going for anything too crazy, it’ll work?” Amy prompted.

  “Yeah,” David said, crossing his arms and leaning back. “Yeah, I think it will.”

  I caught his eye and saw a tiny flicker of pride.

  ***

  That night my sister had another treatment session with Dr. Jenkins. He scanned her with a handheld device and read the data from a large screen on his desk.

  “Well?” I said, my arms crossed.

  “It’s too early to see much progress, even if everything is working perfectly, which it seems like it is,” Dr. Jenkins said. “More importantly, how do you feel, Megan?” he asked.

  “Fine,” she said.

  “Have your eating habits changed at all? Do you feel hungrier than usual, or maybe a loss of appetite?”

  “Nope.”

  “Are you sleeping more or less than before?”

  “Same as always,” she said.

  Something told me she wasn’t being entirely truthful, but I could check in with her later. Right now I needed more information. I didn’t know exactly what to ask, but anything could be useful.

  “So what, the therabots go in and destroy the cancer cells?” I asked.

  “Cancer cells are like normal cells—they just grow abnormally. Traditional treatments try to get rid of the cancer cells while protecting normal cells. But cells can be programmed to become normal again.”

  “How exactly?” I asked. I leaned forward to make sure my phone could record everything clearly.

  “Most cells in your body are slowly replaced by new cells through the process of cell division. During this complex process, hundreds of things need to go just right. When they do, the final step is to instruct the cell to stop dividing. In cancer cells, the levels of PLEKHA7 aren’t right, the final step is missed, and that’s what results in a tumor.”

  “So you don’t need to kill the cell, you can just fix the fix the levels of the PK7 or whatever?”

  “Right,” Dr. Jenkins said. “When the researchers injected microRNAs into cancer cells, the levels of PLEKHA7 were restored and the abnormal growth stopped.”

  I tried to think of more questions, but Dr. Jenkins had gloved up and was reaching for the injection. This time I didn’t look away as he stuck the needle into Megan’s arm, but I still flinched at the pain on Megan’s face.

  Dr. Jenkins removed the needle, then wiped the wound and covered it up with a purple bandaid. He handed Megan a box of apple juice, then tapped my dad on the shoulder and said, “Mark, can I see you outside for just a minute?”

  As soon as we were alone, I ran to the door and put my ear against the wood.

  “What are you doing?” my sister asked.

  “Shhhh!” I whispered.

  “I thought our insurance would cover it?” I heard my dad say.

  “It only covers up to the first $50,000 of treatment. Additional funding will be made available, and we’ll see a price drop as insurers see the effectiveness of treatment—but at the moment a lot of the cost is coming directly from patients themselves. It’s often at least $100,000, just for the first batch of therabots. And we don’t know exactly how many treatments Megan will need.”

  “I thought this would be easier than last time. Something we could just fix.”

  “It’s very possible,” Dr. Jenkins said. “Megan is young and strong. But it’s more common for this kind of thing to require long-term treatment. It was a stretch to even get you on the list. I�
�m really sorry to have to bring this to you; normally we don’t even talk about payments with patients, but I wanted to give you fair warning. Of course you want to do everything you can for your daughter…”

  “Sure, sure,” my dad said. “We’ll come up with the money. Somehow.”

  “Next week is Megan’s third treatment, by then we should have definitive results and be able to see how well things have worked, and whether or not we need to schedule more treatments. I just wanted to give you a heads-up.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

  My skin was prickling and I felt like the walls were closing in. What if we couldn’t afford treatment? Dad didn’t talk about it, but I knew we were still getting bills for Mom’s time in the hospital. Even if we used all our savings, what else would we have to lose in order to save Megan?

  The door handle turned and I stepped out of the way quickly, bumping into the medicine cabinet behind me. It rattled loudly. I put my hand against the glass door to steady it, and saw rows of therabot solution through my fingers, on the other side of the locked glass door.

  I got a text from David as we were leaving the doctor’s office. I figured it was something about the project at school, but instead he just said how’s Megan?

  Fine, I typed. I wondered if he was really worried about her, or just our next batch of therabots.

  And you?

  I felt a warmth fill my body and I glanced up at Megan. It was just David, but it felt vulnerable to be chatting with a boy in the car with my family. I tilted the screen so Megan couldn’t see.

  It’s surreal. I can’t believe I’m going through this again.

  It’s the time in between treatments that really gets you. When things are so normal, you almost forget about what’s happening, and then you feel horrible about forgetting.

  David sounded like he was talking from personal experience, and I wondered who he’d lost. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t write back.

  Do you have an Illius account? He asked a few minutes later.

  Yeah, of course. I wrote. Why, do you?

  For some reason I never pictured David as a gamer.

  Yeah. If you ever want a distraction from everything, we can play some WOL or something.

  “Who are you messaging?” Megan asked, leaning over so that she could read my phone.

  “Nobody,” I said, hiding the phone defensively. It buzzed in my pocket, vibrating loudly against my thigh and the car door, but I distracted Megan by asking about her friends and checked the message once we got home.

  The message was just his username and nothing else. I tried to ignore it. I hadn’t played World of Legends in weeks. It just didn’t hold the same interest as it once had. But David’s message reminded me about Jens, my usual WOL partner. I still hadn’t responded to his message and felt bad about it. I did my homework until dinner, and jotted down some notes from my recording with Dr. Jenkins. Dad picked up a roasted chicken from the supermarket, so I made a salad and warmed up some dinner rolls. For the first few weeks after Mom died, we ordered takeout. Then Dad got on a huge health kick, threw out most of our food and only let us buy organic for a month. We’d finally settled into our own kind of routine, and I was not unskilled in the kitchen.

  After dinner I helped Megan wash the dishes, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what Dr. Jenkins said. At least $100,000. I was pretty sure Dad didn’t make that much money in a year. I wondered how much debt we still had. By 10pm I was restless and driving myself crazy. Maybe I could use a distraction. I logged into Illius and searched for David’s username. His invitation had been general, so I wasn’t sure if he meant tonight. Half of me hoped he’d be logged in. The other half hoped he wouldn’t be.

  World of Legends was an open-world roleplay game with over a hundred million users, so it’s no surprise I hadn’t run into him before. Plus, everyone used customized avatars, so I wouldn’t have recognized him even if he was standing right next to me.

  Hey, David’s message popped up as soon as I signed in. My stomach fluttered when I saw his message appear so quickly. Was he waiting for me?

  Where to? I asked, trying to keep it casual. There were thousands of worlds and activities in Illius. Experience points could be saved up for special gear or weapons. Some of these were so rare they actually had value in the real world.

  I usually just go to Planet Plunder, David said. For some hack and slash. Helps me think.

  I rolled my eyes. Planet Plunder was for newbies. Jens would make fun of me later if he found me there. But I didn’t want to hurt David’s feelings, so I chose the option and pulled on my VR mask and headphones. Seconds later I was standing in thick field, with stalks of yellow grain up to my waist. I let my palms drift over the top of the wheat. The haptic gloves let me feel the rough texture brush across my palms.

  I heard a noise and whirled around to find a tall figure, wrapped in silver and gold armor. A pair of gleaming wings unfolded behind him, with white feathers and reinforced steel.

  “Paladin?” I asked. “Good choice.”

  “Nice gear,” he said, looking me over slowly.

  My avatar was curvy, with pointy ears and round eyes. I had a jewel-encrusted shield and a pair of slender elf-blades, and a low-cut white blouse, with a strap of blue leather holding everything in place. A blue miniskirt revealed my bare thighs, and blue ribbons held up a pair of black stockings, which disappeared into white leather boots. A white, hooded cloak draped over my shoulders, flailing behind me when I ran.

  I was pretty good, but I didn’t play enough to earn the really expensive stuff. Jens bought most of my armor. I met him over a year ago, when things were still normal. He said if we were going to hang out, I needed to look cooler or he’d be embarrassed to be seen with me. He was always upgrading; he’d buy things and try them out once, and then discard them. He said he was too lazy to make the trip back to a trading post, so he’d just throw this stuff away, unless I wanted them. I didn’t really believe him, but it meant he could keep giving me exquisite gear without either of us thinking too much about it.

  I found it sexist at first, how unrealistic the female armor was, but I can’t tell you how many times I’d won a fight because the other gamers had been too busy ogling my digital physique to see me draw my blade. I was half the size of David’s avatar, but probably twice as fast. People usually thought I was just eye candy, or a groupie, but I knew Jens kept me around because I could get into hard to reach places.

  Planet Plunder was a low-level intro stage, full of zombies, tar pits, and treasure chests. Beginners could build up experience points and discover buried gemstones. They were only worth a few hundred points, but you could save up and get some lightweight battle armor or weaponry. There was nothing of any real value on the planet.

  “Down for some dragon hunting?” David asked. His lips turned up in daring smile.

  “Wait, what?” I asked. “There are dragons here?”

  “Under the bridges. First you have to defeat the three trolls. They’re too tough for beginners, so most people never get past them. But kill them all and you’ll get a key, which opens a locked vault.”

  I was skeptical, but I followed David as he ran through the field, then jumped over some boulders. Five minutes later we came to an arched stone bridge. I vaguely remembered the trolls. I’d always assumed they were there just to fuck with us; I’d probably died a hundred times trying to beat one. But once I had enough experience to explore other realms, and then met Jens, I’d been so sick of Planet Plunder I never wanted to see it again.

  David had a pair of twin blasters in his holsters. He whipped them out and began firing, then dove out of the way as the first troll charged him. I ran past them, leaping into the air and sinking my blades into the second troll. It howled and threw me backwards, but my shield absorbed most of the damage.

  David fired another volley of shots into his troll, and it finally collapsed. Then we approached the third troll. It was bigger than the others,
but we still took it down quickly. Too quickly. I cast an appraising eye towards David. Those pistols must have been high quality to inflict that much damage. Maybe he wasn’t just a beginner. The last troll’s body faded, leaving behind a golden key. David picked it up and walked under the bridge. He used the key in a vaulted door and it glowed with magical light. It slid open, and he beckoned into the darkness.

  I followed the outline of his silhouette until the tunnel opened into a wide cavern, glowing with yellow light. In the middle was a green dragon, as big as an airplane, sitting on a pile of treasure. Its chest rose and fell slowly.

  “Are you sure about this?” I asked. Dragons were tough. I’d fought one with Jens before, but we’d had backup. And there were six of us.

  I probably had enough health kits to survive the encounter, but only if David kept up. Dragons recharged their health every few minutes, and eventually we’d run out of health kits and be eaten. David smirked and nodded his head.

  “Just follow my lead,” he said.

  We slid down into the valley of gold, riding the treasure like a massive wave. The dragon rumbled awake, spitting smoke and fire out of its massive nostrils. David had switched to a broadsword nearly as big as he was. He charged and took a swipe at the dragon’s leg, then dove underneath as the dragon whipped its tail. David rolled back to the front, and I saw him drop something black onto the gold coins, before sprinting to the side as the dragon huffed a massive wall of liquid fire.

  When the smoke cleared, David ran back into the center of the cave and picked up something shiny.

  “Is that a diamond?” I asked, my mouth dropping open. Diamonds were worth a thousand gold coins. David grinned and nodded.