His body was a mess. A scrappy, brilliant mess. Under the electron microscope, he looked like a blurry solar corona—a hazy halo of grey spikes protruding from a lumpy, asymmetrical core. Other viruses had crisp geometry; polio was a perfect icosahedron, rabies a bullet. Sketchy looked like a dandelion that had been drawn from memory by a child. His spike proteins, the famous “S” proteins, didn't even fit neatly. They were bent, some shorter, some longer, as if he’d stolen them from different viruses and glued them on.
On the screen, the 3D model spun. The spikes looked a little flatter. The core a little rounder. It was still him. But different. Always different. coronavirus sketchy micro
“I didn’t do this,” he whispered to a dying alveoli cell. “You did this to yourself. I just... gave you a bad blueprint.” His body was a mess