One of the greatest scientific accomplishments in human history, and its most common use was vanity bullshit for the rich and famous. If Allison had been more philsophical, she'd have laughed her ass off.
Instead, the brunette was rather somber as she sat in a sterile, white-walled medical room, awaiting to see who the client would be. Her fingers nervously drummed against the plastic armrest, solely to try and add some noise to this place; it was always so eeriely quiet, the myriad machines and computers in the walls soundproofed to preserve the ears of wealthy customers. So many luxuries afforded to people who saw other human beings as mere playthings.
But then again, she had agreed to the genetic overwrite. It was so bizzare to even think about the term - when she'd been a kid, the whole idea would've been utterly insane to her. Taking people and rewriting their DNA, everything about them save their memories and personality, with the genes of another? Total science fiction schlock. At least, it had been until a decade ago, when the technology suddenly appeared on the market.
Overnight the world turned upside down - in those early days, anybody with the money could make themselves into anyone else. To your average person, the idea of this technology becoming accessible was thrilling, opening up the possibility to become any celebrity you loved, to instantly lose weight or gain muscle, to experience a body you never could have had. The trans community especially was over the moon - with one little injection, changing your biological sex could be done in minutes.
To the upper class, though, and to the entertainment industry especially? It was a goddamn nightmare. Every single day when she was a teenager, she'd heard about lawsuits over illegal genetic overwrites to look like actors or public figures, or about raids on facilities illegally storing tissue samples for use in overwriting. There was a flurry of laws passed, restricting who could do overwrites, what genes you could use, what you were allowed to do after receiving one.
Pretty soon, this miracle technology was at the exclusive use of the rich and famous, simply because it was too expensive and restricive to be used by the average person. But a regular working-class stiff like Allison... well, they could still get an overwrite. People with the means to pay for one had developed a whole cottage industry around getting people overwrites and then hiring for some job or another. Some wanted beautiful assistants; some were engaging in what amounted to elaborate prostitution; still others wanted the ugliest people imaginable at their beck and call, just to be sneered and laughed at.
You never knew what you were getting into when you agreed to receive an overwrite on behalf of a rich client - and Allison wouldn't have taken the risk, were circumstances not so dire. Crushing student loan debt, failure to find a decent job with even an engineering degree, and the failing health of parents had all combined to leave her with little other choice. Reluctantly, she had signed up to be overwritten and put under contract to a client for three years, turned into whatever they desired in exchange for enough money to ensure her family was taken care of.
Even now she had her regrets, but it was far too late to back up. She tensed up as she heard the door opening, the doctor entering first, followed by the client who had paid so handsomely to make her into god knows what. She only hoped that whatever it was this person desired, she wasn't about to live through those horror stories you sometimes heard about ovewriteees.