“What do you mean?
They aren’t human?”
A cold light rose in Aldric’s eyes.
He had seen xenos wearing human skin before.
He had seen xenos who called themselves hybrids.
He had even seen xenos that started human and stopped being so somewhere along the way to adulthood.
“They are human.
hybrids humans.
Their genes have undergone benign mutation.”
(Benign means gentle, harmless, or not dangerous.
In a medical context, it specifically describes a tumor or growth that is not cancerous, meaning it will not spread to other parts of the body.)
“Both sides of her ancestry belong to different human lineages.”
The cold light in Aldric’s eyes faded.
“That kind of hybrid?”
Septimus continued.
“She is of multi-race hybrid.
Her genome has undergone multiple mutations, but all of them were guided toward benign outcomes.”
“Approximately forty percent of her genetic sequence has been altered.
Most of the changes are environmentally triggered mutations that were then artificially stabilized, with some sections having been directly edited.”
“The optimization present in her genome varies significantly in quality.
Some modifications are fairly advanced, but the majority are low-grade.
The optimization targets are scattered across many directions.
Portions of her genome have also degraded from prolonged exposure to harsh conditions and are now at risk of collapse.
The vitiligo patches on her skin are a symptom of this.”
“So at their core, they are still human.”
Before his transmigration, Aldric hadn’t had much warmth for mixed-bloods.
The Earth Federation’s mongrels had cured him of that particular bias.
Because hybrids, at its root, meant a blend of human lineages.
Whatever else you said about it, the result was still human.
What the Earth Federation was producing, though, had long since stopped being hybrids.
That was crossbreeds.
You couldn’t even tell they were human anymore.
Some of them looked like the kind of thing that ate people, and they still had the nerve to call themselves human.
After that, Aldric found he had a much easier time looking at hybrid humans.
“As long as they qualify as human in the strict sense, that is sufficient.”
Genetic mutation wasn’t unheard of in the Federation either.
It fell under the umbrella of genetic optimization, a way of adapting human biology to specific environments without altering what made a person fundamentally human.
Lung tissue modified to resist mild toxins, for instance, with a resistance gene spliced in.
Once a civilization crossed into the early interstellar age, genetic selection accelerated geometrically.
Every new environment demanded adaptation.
Before terraforming technology reached the point where any world could be reshaped into a garden planet, genetic modification was simply the more practical solution.
A heavily altered genetic sequence was a common feature of most human civilizations in their early periods.
“Her stomach sustained trauma, which prevented it from processing foreign matter already present inside it.
This caused gastric spasms.
Combined with pre-existing internal organ damage, this triggered an internal injury outbreak.”
Septimus’s diagnosis left Aldric momentarily lost.
“What do you mean it couldn’t process foreign matter in her stomach?”
“What did she eat?”
“Gastric contents have been analyzed.
Industrial chemical byproducts detected, trace radiation present, minor industrial contaminants present.
“Huh?”
Aldric paused.
“That doesn’t add up.
She only just ate a bit of that canned food”
“The canned food?”
Aldric suddenly thought of the tin Marcus had handed him.
Premium Starch Product.
Provides complex nutrients and high-quality protein.
“Septimus, scan it for radiation.”
“Trace amounts of radiation detected.”
“It really was that stuff!”
The corner of Aldric’s mouth twitched.
A treacherous subject is trying to poison me!
Then he reconsidered.
Marcus didn’t seem like that kind of person.
A man willing to strap explosives to himself and charge a war machine wasn’t the sort who went in for subtle scheming.
The problem was probably with the supply chain itself.
Aldric walked to the workbench and set the tin down.
“Septimus, analyze the contents.”
The compounds found in the girl’s stomach closely matched what was in the tin.
With some differences.
Just…
“What do you mean this tin contains tissue from seven distinct biological organisms?”
“What do you mean eighty percent of it is industrial byproduct that theoretically substitutes for starch and protein?”
“What do you mean it contains a micro-radiation source?”
“What do you mean human tissue is among the components?”
“Is this supposed to be food?”
Aldric sat on the couch and stared at the tin on the table.
He had survived the Earth Federation’s hardest days.
He had clawed through what felt like a hell difficulty starting zone.
And yet right now, looking at a ration tin, he felt genuinely lost.
“Theoretically viable as a food substitute.
The energy yield per unit volume is three times that of equivalent grain.”
*Snap*, A cigarette clicked to life.
He hadn’t smoked in a long time.
Smoking was for when the weight got heavy.
That almost never happened anymore.
When was the last time?
He only knew when the first time had been.
Back in the Earth Federation.
He had smoked through an entire night, and by morning he had made up his mind.
He rounded up a group of pureblood humans from the bottom of the social ladder, killed the xeno that had been trying to get its hands on him, stole a ship, and ran.
That night, all he had felt was despair.
The Modeling Optimization mod had been the first module Aldric ever activated.
He had used it to navigate the Earth Federation’s brutal social hierarchy, but it had drawn the wrong kind of attention.
He wasn’t the type to play along with a xeno that looked seventy percent lizard, and the creature, desperate to get what it wanted, had pushed him past the culling threshold and stripped him from the welfare system entirely.
The destination was a labor farm.
He had looked at the other humans being processed alongside him and felt the bottom drop out of his world.
Now, years later, he was feeling something close to that again.
Over a can of food.
The younger sister had already been healed.
Nanotechnology handled the tissue repair directly.
Federation medical technology required no introduction.
As long as you weren’t completely dead, they could bring you back.
The older brother watched his sister come back and wept with relief.
“Brother, did the angel save me?”
The younger sister’s eyes rolled around toward Aldric’s direction.
“Shh.
Yes.
The angel.
Don’t disturb him.”
He pulled his sister close.
Tears fell silently.
He didn’t dare make another sound.
Because the man on the couch did not look well.
He looked like someone one moment away from snapping.
Growing up at the bottom of a mining settlement had made the older brother very good at reading a room.
He pulled his still-staring sister behind a shelf, peeked out from behind it, and quietly produced a ration tin.
“You must be hungry.”
“Brother…
I don’t…”
*Gurgle*
She was starving.
Her stomach announced it plainly.
The medical pod’s tissue repair had drawn on her body’s own energy reserves in the process.
“Alright, eat up.
I’ll ask the logistics department tomorrow.
I should be able to get a few more canned food.” The older brother opened the canned food, handed his sister the spoon, and ruffled her hair while he was at it.
“Brother, you eat too.”
He looked down.
“I already drank my fill just now.
I found something good!”
He pressed a hand gently against his stomach, which was noticeably full.
“It might have been clean water.
I’ve never had clean water before, but it didn’t burn going down.
That has to be what legendary cleansing water tastes like.”
“It’s over there, in the angel’s bathroom.”
He gestured toward the wash room beside them.
“Eat quickly.
I brought some back for you.”
He reached into his shirt and produced a small bottle.
Aldric looked up at the sound of determined swallowing.
The younger sister was hunched over the tin, working at it with effort.
The dried starch pressed into compact blocks was a struggle to get down.
The older brother held a cup of water in one hand.
“Brother, it’s going down easier now.”
“It doesn’t taste as bitter anymore…”
“So canned food can really taste this good?”
Honestly reading this shi made me want to retch.