In A Purple Haze at the Edge of Space: Part II

I could no longer see my pod or my blaster, just this vision of inviting lava coupled with the intense cold. I reached in the direction of my volume controls and feeling that familiar texture cranked it all the way up. Hendrix guitar riff filled my helmet. Now I could see it—

the black hole's event horizon, bleeding through my seductive hallucination. My oxygen monitor blared a warning but it was too late to turn back now. Jimmy's guitar and I would get what we came for or we'd die trying.

Blackness started edging into my peripheral vision, and my breath was coming harder. Not yet...

I had to wait for the exact perfect moment, and this wasn’t it. I struggled to get my breathing under control as the darkness began to take over more and more. And then, that was it. My chance. Just before the darkness overtook, in my last fleeting bit of vision, I clamped down

On the DNA scrambler between my teeth. The sour glowing ooze coated my mouth as the forbidden biotech started rearranging my cells. Better than suffocating alone in space, I hoped.

But soon it became clear I would not suffocate. My new DNA had already provided for me—I took my first natural breaths in space. Drunk with power I tore back into the vessel and growled at my captors, baring my new fangs. Ironic that their first creation would be their undoing.