The ending is because I normally write horror and take perverse delight in making small additions to wholesome things which totally subvert and ruin them. It's a compulsion at this point, lol.

I have noticed this tendency. Sometimes it's really well done though, I loved the ending for ||the ehancer story||. (spoilers for another one of Alex's stories)

Ah, I see. By the way, I didn't intend to sound hostile or condescending but I may have done so, in which case I'm sorry. I think it's evidence you have potential as a writer, and it's probably longer than anything I've ever written lol (I'm terrible at finishing things) - I just would have preferred you go through a revision phase or two before publishing it, and considered how to make the characters a bit more realistic. (For instance, it seems like he adjusts psychologically to the transformation much faster than a normal person would, and suddenly becomes a hero when previously he was just a kid.)

Another possible moral, btw, is that the freedom to develop oneself and experiment with alternative modes of being and organization is part of what makes us human - not our mere body plan. There is a case to be made that the people of Cloud Nine are more human than the people of the Founder's perfect city.