As Ron walked through the park on his way home from work, he saw an odd flyer pinned to the community bulletin board. The picture at the top looked something like a slug without the tentacle things on its head. Next to that was the symbol for DNA. The flyer said researchers were studying planarian regeneration to see if they could regrow human limbs. They were looking for paid volunteers. All you had to do was get an injection.
He rubbed his chin. He didn’t know what a planarian was, but it sounded like easy money. “Just lie down and let them tweak my DNA? Why not? It’s not like I’m using it for anything. And if it actually works, I could play baseball again!” He sent a message to the phone number on the flyer and said he was interested.
A few days later, he got a phone call asking him to come to an address downtown. There were no signs outside, and it looked more like a generic office building than a high-tech research facility. “It’s probably fine though, right?” he thought. “Scammers don’t give people money. They take money from you. If they try to sell me a time share, I’ll just say no.”
When he went inside, the receptionist directed him to a room down the hall. The room had an exam table like a doctor’s office with a paper cover, but no stethoscopes or boxes of rubber gloves, and nothing on the walls. In the corner, there was a small video camera on a tripod. The recording light wasn’t on.
After a few minutes, the door opened and a woman in her mid-forties pushed a metal cart into the room. She had black-framed glasses and black hair pulled into a severe bun. The cart had a tray on top with disinfectant wipes and a syringe. The liquid inside almost looked like it was glowing, but it might have been his imagination. “This is a compound derived from flatworm DNA,” she said. “With any luck, it will be able to restore what you’ve lost.”
“It’s not going to make me green and slimy, is it?” he asked.
“No,” she said, “the slime monster is a different experiment.” He wasn’t sure if she was joking.
She had him sign a ninety-page waiver, then asked him to sit on the exam table and remove his jeans and prosthetic. “Comfortable?”
“As comfortable as I can be, considering I’m half naked on a paper-covered table. I feel like deli ham.” He looked down at his stomach, which had gotten much rounder since quitting sports two years earlier, and let out a sigh.
The scientist wasn’t listening. “Great. You’ll feel a pinch.” She injected him with the liquid and turned on the video camera to film the results. Addressing the camera, she said, “Human regeneration trials, attempt #117.”
His skin began tingling. It was almost painful, like the pins and needles sensation he got after sitting too long. As the cells divided, his thigh lengthened. A new knee formed. The lower leg grew in, then the foot. Tiny bumps appeared that gradually became his new toes.
After forty minutes or so, he got bored of watching this scientific miracle and watched sports on his phone instead. Three games later, the doctor told him it was over. He had a new leg.
“Hey, I just realized something,” he said, grinning. “I had two meat legs, a plastic one, and now I’ve got another meat leg. That’s four legs. I’m a centaur!”
The scientist raised an eyebrow. “I think centaurs have all four legs at once.”
“Oh. Well, you’re no fun.” He climbed down from the exam table and took a few experimental steps. “Looks like it works! Bummer that my tattoo didn’t come back.”
She frowned. “You thought it would…. No, that’s not how genetics works.”
“I loved that little bluegill. I had hoped to marry a tattooed woman and see our body art passed along to the next generation. Just imagine how adorable a bunch of little babies with ‘Mom’ heart tattoos would be.”
“You can’t inherit… ugh.” She rubbed her eyes. “Whatever. Just go see the receptionist.”
He walked up the hall to the receptionist’s desk. He signed a politely threatening nondisclosure form and was given a check and a piece of paper.
“These are some side effects to look out for,” she said.
He frowned, scanning the list. “Pain, headache, graft-versus-host-disease, Planarian Secretory Cell Nidovirus, limb fusion… Shouldn’t you guys have warned me about this stuff before you injected me with worm goo?”
She shrugged and put in her earbuds. “Have a great day, sir!”
He took the bus to a shopping center and stopped at a check cashing place. As always, once he had money in his hands, it vanished quickly. Walking from store to store, he bought some new power tools, a folding cart to carry them in, and a case of beer. He took his new things to the curb and used a kiosk to summon an automated cab.
While he was waiting for his ride, he called his friend Tom. “Hey, it’s Ron! Are you still the coach for the company softball team?”
Tom muttered something obscene under his breath. “Yeah. Why?”
“I know I had to quit after my motorcycle accident, but I’m all better now. I’m sure it’ll be on the news.”
“What are you saying?”
“I got a new leg. A meat one. You can let me play softball again.”
“Ron, I didn’t make you quit because you got hurt. I would never kick someone off the team for having a disability. My son has autism, for Pete’s sake. The other players wanted you to quit coming because you were getting drunk at every game.”
He huffed. “The company provides the beer! Everyone was drinking!”
“No one else ever drank more than three beers. And no one else punched an umpire. Twice!” He grumbled. “You know, Ron, some people would consider a near-fatal accident a sign to examine their lives and become better people. But you’re the same jackass you always were.”
“You are!” Ron ended the call and folded his arms. “Softball is stupid, anyway. Who wants to play a cheap imitation of a real sport? I’m a real athlete.” He put away his phone and adjusted his pants, which had started to slide off his beer belly.
A blue cab pulled up next to him. He loaded his things in the trunk and gave the car his address. On his way home, he suddenly realized he had left his prosthetic with the scientist. “Damn. I probably could have pawned that.”
By the time he got to the house, his mood had improved. He carried everything inside, grinning broadly. He had a new leg, great new stuff, and a whole weekend’s worth of beer, and he had won an argument with that jerk Tom. This was the best day ever.
He went to the garage and set up his new tools. “I should make a bird feeder,” he thought. “I could give it to Tom to show him there are no hard feelings. Hopefully it’ll bring lots of birds to his yard to crap on his stupid convertible. On a nice day, when he left the top down.”
He opened a beer and switched on the circular saw. The combination of excitement and alcohol was distracting, and after some drunken carpentry, he managed to cut off the tip of his index finger. It flew off, vanishing in a pile of junk. Thankfully, the genetic treatment was still working. He grew a new fingertip by dinnertime.
He spent the weekend drinking and working on the bird feeder. His first six attempts came out looking like abstract sculptures, so he burned them in the back yard. Number seven was close enough, so he painted it robin’s egg blue and waited for it to dry.
Early Monday morning, the junk pile shifted. A coffee can full of old screws clattered to the floor, followed by a stack of unread newspapers. At last, a second Ron emerged.
The first Ron was in the kitchen, finishing up breakfast. He stared as his naked clone stepped into the room. “Well, I’ll be damned. Looks like I can grow more than just legs and fingers. What am I supposed to do with another me?”
The clone was thinner, his body not yet bloated by drinking and too much fast food. They may have shared DNA, but the clone had a chance to be a new person. A different person. Someone better.
“Want to grow our own baseball team?” the clone asked.
“We should start with softball,” Ron said. “I want to see the look on Tom’s face when he gets beat by ten mes.”
The copy nodded. “You grab us some beer. I’ll get the circular saw.”
