The apartment was silent.  It was as empty as a stomach of a ravenous animal, as quiet as the Animal Genetic Testing Facility, or AGTF, in one of the only remaining areas of country besides the Dome Parks in the city.  A place where the air was clearer and the smog could only be seen at dawn and dusk.

The woman woke to the sound of the neighbor's Holovision, broadcasting the early morning news including another assassination of an ex-military officer-turned-politician, one that used to live in the very same AGTF building.  The robotic female voice of the reporter said that the man had scales running along his ribcage and arms along with webbed fee; a reptile, most likely a lizard.  The woman laughed as she got up from her sleeping den on the messy floor, stretching first her arms and neck, then her legs and back.  "Figures," she said to no one in particular.  "Though I thought that the saying now-a-days was that the government was run by snakes.  Or newts."

She rubbed an itch on one arm and cursed silently as the claw-like nails drew blood.  She looked at them in disgust, knowing that they needed their monthly cutting yet again.  But, as always, she ignored them completely after that one thought.  Those "claws" had saved her life, once upon a time.  She padded over to the run-down bathroom to study her reflection in the dirty, rusted-out mirror.  Unlike nearly everyone in the current age, her hair, face and body were not perfect.  She had so many deformities that even normal by 21st century standards were out of the question.

A calendar on the floor read the year as 2329.  It was old, grungy, and torn, but the holographic pictures were still readable.

"The responsible, genetically pure and perfect citizen will support the war against genetic impurity!"

"Help GEn An** Soldiers!  Send money for supplies and research!"

"You wouldn't drink impure water, so why let the disease of imperfection torment the world any longer?"

But now, this packet of holograms and paper would be considered a relic of an old, backward way of life.  No one could care less about the GEn An experiments...or the results.

She stared at one of the holos on the calendar, one of herself holding a gray wolf puppy that had her specific genetics.  It was on the page that talked about the Genetic impurities and water.  That pup was her daughter and sister.  Her loved one.  She started to cry out with loss, just like every morning before the sun rose with a fiery redness and the city-lit moon disappeared over the horizon.

Growling, she realized a few moments later that the sun had, indeed, risen again for the new day.  She dressed quickly in comfortable 20th and 22nd century clothing that hid most of her faults, most of what she was.  That genetic zit on the face of that genetically perfect and gaunt supermodel.  She walked towards her door.

As she stepped outside, her infamous landlady piped up.  "WHERE are you going, Blaire Wolfe?  Not to scrape up some more illegal pets, I hope."  It had been an old joke in the apartment complex, as most knew that she had done some sort of service for the Alliance as either a police officer, or in the military.  Automatically, Blaire grinned.  "No, De'ia.  I just need to go for a run, and to see some old friends."  De'ia just waved her on, hearing nearly the same excuse every time Blaire went out.

She went outside and called an aircab.  It was and old vehicle and free, as she wasn't considered a citizen in the city, but rather a tourist or visitor, no matter how many times she tried to get her address registered and get her status changed.  Even if it was a mere nickel to get a ride on the nicer ones, it was still worth getting the Citizenship status.

She commanded the hover-vehicle to take her to the AGTF building, like she always did.  She had friends that still resided there, that would always stay there due to the fact that they were hatred and despised when they had shown their faces to the world.

She could see herself putting her security code and thumbprint into the number/letter pad and scanned beside the titanium-reinforced doors.  There were faces all around her now- human, except for a feature here and there.  One, a woman, had soft, stiff, downy feathers growing along her cheekbones and her hair was a mass of black feathers.  She had wings growing from her back that made it possible for her to fly without any machine.  Her name was Kai.  Another had spots on his skin with raised, pointed, tufted ears and sharp canines.  His name was Jag.  The different faces around her, predator and prey alike, and smiled if they could while calling out her codename "Wolf", and she grinned.

It would've startled most people, that show of teeth.  Where normal humans had their pearly white incisors and fat, smooth molars she had an assortment of dogteeth.  She reaches out her hands without fear to reveal large claws extending form mostly normal, stubby human fingers.  There was a light dusting of white fur along her neck, arms, and on the tops of her ears.

She was a result for what the lab had stood for.  An ultimate soldier with the instincts, abilities and genetics of Old Earth wildlife.  The raven, the bobcat, the jaguar, artic wolf, spider, jellyfish, and many more variations of animals that no longer existed on Terra existed here.  They had been treated with respect during the war, and the ones like herself that could hide their faults in the genetically "perfect" world could still pass as and be treated like normal human beings.  But these people, these GEn An soldiers that revealed their animal heritage, people that had been created in test tubes and developed in psudo-wombs were the most hated, the most despised.  The people that had fought a long war for the Alliance were now treated with less respect than garbage in the bag.

Everyone had their so-called "perfect" world now because of the war, but what of the people that had fought for that perfection?  What of the creatures that had Man's intelligence and speech, but an animals genetics?  What of the experiments?

Blaire knew that, if she could go back to the beginning of the Genetic Revolution, she would show herself to all who would look, and tell them of what would happen if they tampered with genes for cosmetic reasons only.  That they would create a race of creatures not unlike herself so that they could prove a point to the rest of the world that anyone could live with genetic tampering and enhancement.  That, in the end, it would be their demise.

That there is such a thing as taking science too far.

That there is such a thing as too much tampering.

That this world can survive without creatures like her and her friends, even if they didn't despise their lives and actually loved the world itself.

And to think that 34 years ago she had fought to save the ways of genetic tampering, helping the same people that now hated and totally despised all that she was and represented.

As the sun went down over the western horizon, there was a lonely howl of a wolf on the plains outside the city limits where there used to be a building, but now only rubble stood; used to be nearly 50 GEn An soldiers, but now only dust remained.

They had been hated.  They had been hunted.