The Happiness Variant

The Happiness Variant

Author: Vern Hume March 2, 2026 Duration: 35:42

Hana Grabowski, a genetic engineer with a failing gene-mod business, takes a secretive contract to restore humanity’s appetite for impulsive behaviour. When her staff threatens to revolt, she uses a variant to alter their attitude. However, the mosquitoes she uses to infect them escape, unleashing a fast-spreading contagion that rewires human reward centers. The world slips into a pandemic of happiness, and no one cares except Hana.

CONNECT WITH US

makeshiftstories@gmail.com

SHARE THE PODCAST

If you liked this episode, tell your friends to head over to Apple Podcasts and subscribe.

CREDITS

Written by Vern Hume (AKA Alan V Hare).

Read by Cathleen Connelly.

Opening and closing were composed and created by Matthew Erdmann.

Produced by Vecada Studios.

Makeshift Stories is released under a creative commons non-commercial attribution, no derivative license.


Step into the world of Original Science Fiction-Makeshift Stories, an independent audio drama crafted by Vern Hume. This podcast is a monthly expedition into the vast territories of speculative fiction, blending elements of sci-fi and fantasy into original, self-contained narratives. Each episode is a new story, a fresh exploration of uncharted futures, strange realities, and the rebellious technologies that might define them. Listeners will hear fully-produced audio fiction, where character-driven plots unfold against backdrops of both wonder and warning. The focus is on immersive storytelling that asks "what if?" and follows that question down unexpected paths. It’s a podcast for those who crave thoughtful, original worlds built from sound and imagination, offering a regular escape into possibilities just beyond our own horizon. Tune in to discover what tomorrow might bring, one makeshift story at a time.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

Original Science Fiction - Makeshift Stories
Podcast Episodes
The Klotho Factor [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:10
Kenzo Tanaka, a washed-up intellectual property rights enforcer turned PI, takes a “lost dog” case from a woman he believes to be a dazzling biotech heiress. However, he soon discovers that the dog is a human-canine chim…
316 Builder of Monsters [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 37:17
In exchange for the chance to reunite with his family, roboticist Sebit Deng has spent years on an isolated island in the South Pacific, building an android clone for aging industrialist Gregory Vance. As Vance approache…
Senescence (Part 2) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 23:55
When Surya, a hardware engineer, buys an old NASA computer at a garage sale, she uncovers lost Voyager 2 data. She tracks down a retired scientist named in the file, who claims the data indicates a killing wave of cosmic…
Senescence (Part 1) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 37:43
Surya, a tech historian, buys an old Sun workstation at a garage sale, expecting a working example of a CPU her grandmother designed, not secrets. Accidentally left on the drive are two files of NASA’s lost Voyager 2 dat…
Solitude of the Deep Dark [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:04
During a dive to repair a submersible mining robot, Rohan, a deep-sea specialist, discovers the true cause of the machine's malfunction: the metallic nodules it was harvesting are alive, ancient, and lying in wait. Too l…
From Wonder Valley to Nowhere [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:31
Forced into Wonder Valley, a holding facility for seniors needing care, 83-year-old Ellie resists her cheerful AI handlers and their synthetic paradise. She finds solace in the company of Aura, an aging, fuzzy robot dog…
Anima Incognita [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:11
After living off-grid for forty years, Shane is drawn back into society when his former best friend—now the political leader of the territory—announces plans to develop the wilderness area that Shane calls home. While wa…
No I in AI [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 8:38
Salvini, an out-of-work programmer, uses a hidden backdoor in her former employer's system to create an AI called Bandhu, which hunts for jobs and outsmarts the hiring platforms. She asks it to find a position that won't…
Utopia Base [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:48
Faraday and Quinn arrive at a remote mining site on the far side of the moon that supplies helium-3 to Utopia Base, where they have lived their entire lives believing the Earth has been devastated. Faraday soon realizes…
Personal Detritus [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:50
Liam, a laid-off tech worker turned scavenger, lives a double life—by day, a conscripted worker in a waste recycling plant; by night, Rupert Hudson, a venture capitalist, mingling with the elite using forged credit cards…