Terminus (Patreon)

I don’t think any of the smart money was on the human race ending like this. Shirtless and showered in Fierce™ cologne. It was quite the surprise to the researchers that the virus had mutated to be airborne, and when the discovery was made it had long since escaped the lab. The long incubation period made it so an estimated 85% of earth’s population was infected by the time of the discovery. That in itself didn’t become public knowledge for almost two years. 

Geopolitically what followed was easy to predict. Congress refused funding to halt “Gods will”. EU, UK, Canada and Japan worked together and raced against China to see who could find a cure first. Most of the rest of the world reverted into ultimately meaningless border protection or superstition, save for Russia who was found actively infecting western water supplies.

In the end the virus turned out to be too novel for any of the sharp minds who tackled the problem. It’s telomere extending features and stem cell production prompted for age regression and body development, the original intent of the virus in gene therapy. It however carried over way too much genetic material from the original donors, slowly turning everyone into male fitness models.

Everyone.

Women had a more traumatic transition than most men did. It didn’t actually replace one X chromosome with a Y chromosome, but it did sufficient replacements that the end result was the same, without the color blindness. 

What was realized too late, but in hindsight shouldn’t have been a surprise, was that the donors of the original genetic material were chosen for their looks, not their mental capacity. Unfortunately that carried over as well, so progress of finding a cure eventually ground to a halt.

Despite the record levels of sex on a global scale, there will not be a next generation. This one appears to be lasting quite a while though.

Read my commentary.