Nightmare Fuel, Day 21

“It isn’t right!” a female voice screeched.

“We need to feed the world.  After everyone is fed, you can dither about right and wrong,” a much calmer, quieter voice replied.  “These changes have the potential to increase crops ten fold.  All it takes is a little tweak, increasing yield per plant and decreasing disease susceptibility.  There is nothing wrong.  It’s all the same stuff, just boosted a little.”

“It isn’t right.”  The woman’s voice pleaded.  “There’s a reason you can’t find it in nature.  Adding DNA from bats to fruit trees is sure to have unforeseen consequences.”

“I’ll take my chances.”  The calm voice brooked no further conversation.

The door to the greenhouse opened to admit a tall man in a pristine white lab coat.  He took a moment, as the door closed, to survey the rows of trees filling the facility before pulling up his clipboard and walking to the head of the first row.

Calmly, he walked down the rows, taking notes on tree growth, fruit size and color, and fruit quantity.  Thinking back on his conversation with the strange guest geneticist, he shook his head.  She was seeing problems that were not there.  This facility alone had been testing genetic varieties for decades at this point and nothing terrible had happened.  They had found the pear that became poisonous when cooked before putting it out for sale, though that had been close.  They only found it because they were cooking one up for the marketing pictures.  The model had spent a week in the hospital.  That had only happened once though.  And they had learned from it, which is what this lab was all about.

Realizing he had finished this greenhouse, he tried to shake off the conversation as he entered the next greenhouse.  This one was designed to test the disease resistance of apple varieties to a new virus that was destroying crops across the west coast.  The control varieties were looking very sick.  Some of them may be dead.  The test varieties seemed to be much more resistant.  Walking up and down the rows, he found one variety that didn’t seem to have caught the virus at all.  They looked perfect.  They even had beautiful, ripe red fruit.  He ran a finger over one of the apples.  It was smooth and firm.  Making a note, he turned to leave.

As the door closed behind him, he did not see the fruit he had touched open a mouth full of sharp teeth.  He did not see the pink tongue lick the place he had touched.  He did not see it grin before closing into a perfect apple once again.

Prompt here