Altastrofae

So I'm reading a really weird book

Ok, so it's the future. The limits of mother nature have been utterly bitch-slapped. Anyone (with one exception) can alter their DNA in any way they choose by installing a panel in their forearm at birth and loading various applications onto it. When you first get it installed, in a few months the system will be fully implementation into your biology, fully grown. Then, you need to be wired in with an SND (Standard Nanite Drive) to feed your panel these Nanites, small microbots that can alter you DNA. Your panel come with standard nanites, but generally you'll want higher end healing tech, and sensory upgrades which require specialized nanites. There's no limits to 'genehacking'. You can give yourself non-natural hair colour, a tail, fix mental problems like Autism, physical problems like Asthma, or even make yourself immune to all types of Influenza.

Back to that exception I talked about. These Nanites are partially organic. This means that certain people have an alergic reaction to the Nanites, called hypergenesis. They need to be outfitted with specialized hypergenesis-friendly nanites. They also cant overload their panel with too many high-energy applications because generally their healing tech and other hardware are lower end, so the energy required would exaust them to death. The main character happens to have this medical problem. She can't run VR from her panel, has clunky optical implants, and overall can't use most standard tech. Tried once and passed out for several days while her dad managed to completely uninstall the app (which is hard when the nanites fed this program were all around her body. Her mother actually died like this, ironically because the doctor accidentally gave her standard healing tech.

Now, there's a virus in this book that does several things in presice order:

1. Fatigue

2. Extreme Pain

3. Melting of small areas of ghe flesh

4. Expelling of a bad-smelling gas containing a neurotoxin which incites cannibalistic response in humans, though if they do eat of the flesh at the beginning of this phase (not too early and especially never too late) they will have immunity to the virus for 1 week

5. Cellular Bloating (yes you read that right

6. Explosion. Yes, Exlode in a big pink, fleshy mushroom cloud of cytoplasmic liquid which spreads the virus in a whopping 3 mile radius

Not pleasant at all. Oh yeah and if you take the antidote too late it blows up in your insides. Fun, right?!

If you're interested in that, the title is "This Mortal Coil"