Jornada del Muerto: Prisoner Days Read Online Free Page A

the
blood until some people and some farm animals transitioned on their
own, without intervention. Scientists and pharmaceutical companies
threw themselves at the problem. With so many copies of The 146 now
lodged within the human genome, there was no way to remove them.
The researchers found only dead ends before succumbing to The
146.
    The Great Human Transition was followed by
significant, but lesser, transitions until The 146 Suicide Project
eliminated great portions of the population. As far as I can tell,
human beings have either transitioned to wasps or killed
themselves.
    I, too, may someday succumb to The
146-protein.
    Before we lost electricity, we heard reports
of people who were a kind of half-breed like George. They’d lost
some amount of functioning due to the 146-protein, but their
deterioration had been arrested, at least for some amount of time.
The military was working on a formula that would do just that.
We’ve heard that they succeeded and that, now, these half-breeds
control armies of wasps on the large military bases. But we have no
evidence to suggest that this is true.
    Until I leave this prison, I simply will not
know. Right now, what we know is true is that every single person
who lived at the Santa Fe Penitentiary in 2046 has either
transitioned to wasp or been eaten. The entire city of Santa Fe,
New Mexico, stands empty. No human beings or livestock have
survived.
    Except me.

11/04/2056
    There’s a lot that we don’t know. Here’s an
incomplete list:
How much of The 146-protein has to be in the
blood for it to cross over the blood brain-barrier and cause the
person to transition to a wasp?
Are the children of 146-protein parents born
as wasps?
Has all livestock transitioned to wasp?
Have any livestock species survived?
Did any of our families survive?
What will we do if we see a family member
turned wasp?
Do the half-breeds control armies of
wasps?
Is it possible to control a wasp in any
way?
Have wasps killed every human on every
continent?
Have the wasps run through this country, and
then died out?
How long can a wasp live?

    I have this fantasy that we will leave the
Pen and everything will be normal, like it was when I entered the
Pen in 2021.
    During the Great Human Transition, people
took videos of the wasps and posted them to the Internet. They made
a sport out of setting wasps on fire or running over them in their
vehicles. I suppose they saw this in movies and wanted to try it
themselves. The first year or so, there were hundreds of thousands
of videos of wasps.
    There was an entire Internet video channel
dedicated to videos of people turning into wasps. After watching
all these videos, I’ve determined there are four stages to becoming
wasp.
Turn on 146: In defense of the original
scientists, the first four nucleobases of The 146 historically have
stopped protein synthesis. This was known to be true in every
species and most plants. The 146 DNA should not have created any
protein. This remained true for a long time. No one is sure how
long. And then The 146 was turned on and started generating
146-protein.
Build-up of 146-protein: Once turned on, The
146 created 146-protein. The body is unable to break it down or
excrete it. The protein disrupts higher brain functioning such as
decision making, planning, and some types of memory in three
distinct pathways:
Slow loss of brain function: According to
scientists, around 70 percent of the humans have an open blood
brain barrier which allows any amount of 146-protein to flood the
brain. Thus, their higher brain functions began deteriorating the
moment The 146-protein hits their bloodstream. It’s believed that
President Olymsteed’s higher brain functioning was destroyed in
2037 nearly two years before he ordered the nuclear strikes in the
Middle East. His handlers thought they could keep him in office, as
they did with Ronald Reagan after Reagan had fallen ill with
Alzheimer’s disease. Of course, we know now that they had to