The primitive craving for survival is universal in all things capable of dying. Now imagine if you could isolate the basic element that drives all animals to fight for survival? What would you do with it? I already had my own ideas when I started my search for an entity I eventually dubbed “The Determination Gene”.

Mr. Gweta looked ten years younger than Professor Khupe had expected. His jet-black hair was trimmed so neatly that it would make a manicured golf course look scruffy. His face was exceptionally smooth, giving the impression that he had been born without skin pores and transitioned through puberty devoid of any facial hair to pockmark his countenance. Mr. Gweta’s face was perfectly symmetrical. An ant walking from one side to the other would experience a serious case of déjà vu.

Professor Khupe felt his chest swell with pride. It was doing so without his encouragement. If an electrical fault had stopped the elevator from rising, his inflating ego would have powered the remainder of their journey to the twenty-second floor.

As he was about to press the button to shut the doors, a young woman stepped in. She had that sort of beauty that deserved to be prosecuted for appearing without notice. Professor Khupe was confident that an appropriate law existed for such a purpose. However, no prosecutor could remain undistracted for long enough to find the said law in the criminal code. The young lady would enjoy a life of impunity.

Professor Khupe rubbed his hand along the sand dunes of her windswept form. The static charge made her skin feel like the surface of a cactus. He recoiled. How he wished he had gone into the priesthood when he had had the chance. Embracing celibacy was far easier than battling the consequences of shunning it.

... eloquence is merely the product of intelligence. History is not shaped by men of genius. It is shaped by men of unwavering will. Men who focus whatever brains they have on the savvy application of power. In the end, brawn will always do the heavy lifting. Brawn will always win the war.

Mr. Gweta and his daughter were the cosmetics camouflaging an infected blackhead. The rest of the ugliness ran deep into a world where plants ate people and botanists lay at the bottom of the food chain.

... the only difference between carnivores and plants is that the latter eat meat through ‘translator’ organisms. Maggots and bacteria ‘pre-chew’ dead animal matter, which plants then absorb as nutrients. So if eating pre-chewed food does not change the fact that a baby is human, why should a plant be any less of a carnivore because it out-sources the digestion of animal protein to organisms of decay?

As they say: A baking man will grasp at a hangman. Whoever gets the job will be dragged into the heat, forced to wear a massive pair of iron shoes, and frogmarched across the minefield at gunpoint.

... the successful recruit must be empathetic. This condition rules out the sadistic, the vengeful, and the enthusiastic. Therefore, many of the garden-variety killers who applied so far have had no chance of success, especially those who are already behind bars.