Anthology book with a short story about a genetically-modified person escaping alongside other captives from imprisonment in a genetic mod. facility

Question

I’m trying to find a book I read, possibly during 2018 or 2019. It’s a young adult book with a collection of short stories about bioengineering and genetic modification.

One of the short stories was about a boy that may have gotten kidnapped. He found himself in the possession of a rich guy running a underground genetic modification facility where he possessed people with abilities never before seen. she treated them as trophies and no longer human. There he saw many bodily horrors, such as a girl recovering from new pairs of arms being grafted onto her. The boy was then assisted by a modified monkey guy to escape with through a tunnel under a large tree in the courtyard. I also believe that the facility caught on fire in some way, which led to the escaping of other prisioners, which introduces us to the next character.

The following story is the most memorable for me; it followed the escape of another prisoner who was created using one person’s heart, another’s brain, and so on. Because of their origins, they constantly heard the voices of the people they were made of in their head. After they escaped, they wandered around seeking help and suffering from an existential crisis caused by the voices.

They soon found civilization yet were greeted by hostility and called a monster. Scared and alone, they were saved by a girl who helped them find a rehabilitation center designed to provide support and help modified people reintegrate into society. There they came to terms with their origins and became a beacon of hope for other vulnerable modified persons. A memorable scene from that short story in particular is them choosing a name for themselves out of a list of first and last names, names that were assumed to be the names of the people that were used in the experiment. The person chose their new name based on the positive reactions of the voices beside their own in their head.

Any sort of help would be nice. Thanks so much for your time!

Answer 1

Could this be a version of The Island of Dr Moreau by H. G. Wells? Or possibly Brian Aldiss' An Island Called Moreau, AKA Moreau's Other Island? Neither of these are short stories, rather short novel length (150-200 pages). Aldiss' story is available on Archive.org

Both of these stories are set on an Island in the sea and are the scene of modifications of animals into humans (Wells) or vice-versa (Aldiss). This work is carried out by Moreau (Wells) or a successor called "Dart" with the help of a lab tech/scientist called Da Silva in Aldiss' story. In the original Dr Moreau, the work is carried out by vivisection, grafting animal parts together to make a human-like person, but in contrast, Aldiss' story involves the use of genetic modifications to make humans into animals, with the aim of surviving a holocaust of some sort.

In Wells' story the protagonist escapes after the buildings are burnt down by the protagonist knocking over a lamp. In this process, Dr Moreau is killed and the protagonist escapes into the surrounding forest. He is helped during the story by an ape-man.

Aldiss' story has the protagonist helped by seal-people and a character called George, who is described as a cross between "boar and hyena", though ambulatory like a human and pictured on some of the covers:

Under a floppy leather hat was no brow, simply a great swelling face covered with stubble. The jaw was prognathous with no chin. A mighty mouth swept back, its corners almost vanishing into the absurd hat, its fleshy lips hardly fleshy enough to conceal large incisors in the lower jaw. Above this a formidable mouth was a snout-like nose, wrinkled in a sneer like a hyena’s and two almost lidless eyes.

He (the protagonist) is also helped by a couple of women, who I think are partially modified and I think he escapes with one or more of them.

I don't think in either of these stories do the parts of the animals contribute to the thoughts of the animal/person, other than a trend to think the thoughts of an animal/revert to animalistic tendencies/behaviours.