The Immunospheres.
preview chapter
Prologue.
Sharon was sitting on the toilet; in the latest test centre's cubicle, the sixth she had been to recently. Quietly sobbing to herself while taking another swig from the bottle of vodka she had stolen from the guard in the transport that had brought her here ("wherever here was exactly"). She could not help but play over the last few months in her mind; a global pandemic was killing off humanity at an alarming rate. After watching their community, country and planet collapsing into chaos as the death toll rose ever higher. Almost one-third of the world perished before any breakthrough came from the world's scientists; this had been the point where her family had become integral to the government's work on a vaccine. DNA from everyone had been screened worldwide, and her family are discovered to be the only people on the planet that are immune to the pandemic ravaging humanity.
How happy and lucky they had initially felt when government news, but that didn't last long when the government had come to take them for more advanced testing, they had been told they would get to stay together, which they had been at first. Still, after the more advanced tests, the doctors had asked to speak to the adults alone in the next room to discuss the results. All the doctors but one had hovered at the back of the room. The one that came forward introduced himself as Dr Edmonds and sat opposite them in what seemed like a very relaxed manner.
" Well, Mr and Mrs Keys, what would you say if I told you that your family is going to save humanity?"
Both David and Sharon looked at each other with equally puzzled looks.
"Sorry, I go too fast. Maybe I should explain what we have found first," said Dr Edmonds.
"That would be good, but please try and keep it simple and not baffle us with your big scientific terms, please", replied Sharon. At the same time, David gave a snorting snigger.
Edmonds stared intently at her for a moment before beginning his 'simplified' explanation of this fantastic discovery.
"So as simple as possible would be to say that you are both immune to the virus which you were both told a few days ago. We have found something very unusual. It appears that you all individually give off a type of aura that radiates an immunity to those around you. We are like the press calling this phenomenon an Immunosphere".
They both looked at each other in astonishment and, in near-perfect synchronicity, turned towards Edmonds and replied," Is this some kind of joke?" we quickly looked back towards each other, startled by their identical question.
That first interview happened the day after we were initially tested, which was only a fortnight ago! If she had known where and what it had led to, she would have fought somehow, done something differently. But here she was, still sobbing in the toilet, swigging away at her bottle to numb the pain. She suddenly stopped; someone was coming for her. She had to fight now. David was trapped on the other side of the facility about to be killed, drained, then autopsied to find out how we work. She had to save herself then find her family somehow before trying to escape. It was then she noticed the shadow across the floor and the smell of burnt rubber. She braced herself, ready for the door to open, ready for anything she thought and then it happened the door flew open.
A soldier was screaming at her to put her hands behind her head. Then suddenly she heard the gunshot, and for a split-second thought, it was the soldier's gun that had gone off and had shot her but only for an instant as the right side of the soldier's head exploded across the wall, and he crumpled to the floor with a clatter as his rifle hit the floor. Frozen solid, she struggles to deal with what had just happened when DJ suddenly appeared in front of her. He grabbed hold of her as her legs gave way from under her. She started gagging at the copperish aroma of the soldier's blood that was overwhelming her senses.
Chapter One
As I drove home from work that fateful day when everything changed, I never expected that I would only have two weeks to live, but then again, I do not think the world expected the change any more than I did. But as I said, I was driving home on my usual route, as I turned left into our estate, and all I could smell was Chinese food before I had passed the row of shops on my left with the takeaway next to a small shop. The smell was too much to ignore, so I pulled over into the car park and got out of my trusty red C4 and walked into the Chinese takeaway where I ordered a set meal for three then went next door to the shop while it cooked. I bought the kids some cola and two bottles of rose wine for Sharon. After collecting the food, I got back in the car and drove around the corner to my home. As I had got around the corner, I noticed DJ in the distance walking the dog. As I pulled up outside the house, Sharon and Josie pulled in behind me in Sharon's little white mini cooper.
"Hey, how are my gorgeous girls," I said as I climbed out of my car with a huge smile.
"Hi, babe, we are great. How was work?" replied Sharon.
"Same shit, different day gorgeous. How was your day?". I said as we walked in the front door of our three-bed terraced house.
"I have had a wonderful day, so has Josie. After I finished work, I picked her up from nursery. Then we went swimming where our little princess swam four lengths with no armbands on today," she replied.
I turned to Josie and scooped her up in my arms "oh my god, I am so very proud of you, four lengths with no bands at your age, sound like we could have a possible Olympian swimmer in the making here", I beamed at her. She gave a little shy giggle and went over and sat on the sofa and turned on the TV, which no doubt meant Peppa bloody pig again, so I went into the kitchen to where Sharon was sorting the plates for dinner.
"I am just going to jump in the shower quickly before dinner, babe", I told her before walking into the bathroom that is strangely just off the kitchen. I went in the shower and quickly washed while singing away at the top of my voice. I heard the front door open; then, suddenly, the bathroom door burst open. Timmy, the family's hyperactive dog, flew into the bathroom to jump on me before abruptly stopping and crashing into the sink when he realised I was in the shower, clearly not wanting to get wet. I could hear the others chatting in the kitchen when it happened, a blood-curdling scream from the living room that gave me such a shock I slipped in the shower and fell into the tiled wall with a sickening crunch of my nose against the wall, then sliding into the bath like a rock falling into a pool.
Instinct, however, wholly took over, and I race out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, blood pouring from my nose to find the others huddled on the sofa watching the breaking news update that has taken over every channel in a public service announcement. For a moment, I thought that the queen must have died, but that moment came and went quickly with the fear on my family's faces only then noticing the headline. PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS, PANDEMIC OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN in red letters across the bottom of the screen. This took a moment to sink in before I registered the newscaster talking about this crisis and giving the viewers the latest government updates, which were far-reaching, to say the least. The armed forces are being prepared to help the police keep the peace and enforce the closure of all borders, all public transport shut down indefinitely and mass road closures with roadblocks and checkpoints put in place to try and slow the pace of this pandemic. The Prime Minister has recently appointed an official pandemic minister to oversee the public health response for this and any future biological threats we may face. We stared at each other totally, gobsmacked at what was unfolding on the TV in front of us, with vacant, slightly lost looks on our faces. It was like we had lost our ability to speak. Several minutes went by before Josie finally broke our silence, "daddy, what is going on? Why isn't Peppa Pig back on yet?" She asked, bringing everyone out of their fantastic gaze at the screen with a nervous giggle. I gazed at my daughter with the biggest smile I could muster and said, "why don't you pop up to your room and watch it on DVD while we try and find out what's happening, princess?" "Okay, daddy", she replied before skipping up the stairs. I sat down on the sofa with Sharon and DJ. It was a few moments before DJ broke the silence, this time with the question we were all thinking, "How can this be happening all over the country, and we haven't noticed anything? He asked with a puzzled look on his face. Neither Sharon nor I could answer. We had not seen anything either, none of our friends or neighbours was sick. None of our colleagues or classmates had noticed anything. This was just getting downright strange, I thought, before saying, "clearly whatever this pandemic is, it hasn't got here yet, but we should assume that it will reach us sooner or later, so we should think about stocking up on food and sealing this house up just in case this thing is airborne. Then we can try and assess what on earth is going on out there.DJ go and lock all the windows upstairs and seal them all the way around with duct tape, Sharon you do the same downstairs, including the back door, and I will go to the shops and get some more food and supplies to keep us going until this disaster is over."
"You are going to the shop for supplies?" laughed DJ", when have you ever said that in your life, dad? Supplies. Oh my god, you are so funny, we are ten minutes into this, and you are already talking like you are a character on the walking dead". He was totally creased, rolling around giggling all over the floor by this point if I am honestly thrilled this threat to the country had not taken his sense of humour away yet, that, unbeknown to everyone, was only a few weeks away. I stood up, grabbed my car keys, and headed to the shops while the others set about securing the house. When I sat down in the car and started it, the radio came on with another breaking news report, this time with more information on the virus, so I just sat and listened as she spoke.
"The world "initially" thought that the pandemic warning was another United States Regime in their propaganda against the Russian government and with the news agencies that had been deemed corrupt and fake news by the President of the United States that no one knew what to believe until it was too late. The Russian government had weaponised this ancient virus by combining it with strands of other more resilient viruses to become airborne. And so, it was the beginning of the pandemic of our lifetime, the so-called Pandora Pox. This virus in the lab and real-world test conditions is one hundred per cent lethal and on a contagious level to be beyond anything ever seen in the scientific history of humankind.
The Pandora Virus was discovered in 2013, a prehistoric virus released from melting Arctic permafrost in Siberia. Russian scientists experimented on the Pandoravirus and worked on combining this terrifying virus with other dangerous diseases, viruses, and pathogens. Luckily for humanity, they were unsuccessful 'for a time, but now in 2019, these scientists made a breakthrough with the virus humanity had already defeated in 1977 'Smallpox'. They found a way to insert the smallpox gene into the Pandoravirus, which they weaponised into a vapour that was easily administered from an aerosol can onto the designated target. Tests on this weapon 'that would later be named as the Pandora Pox' was done in labs, and it was found that symptoms began to occur two hours after exposure with a rash over half of the body, after six hours, the affected half of the body will be covered in orange pustules which pop explosively and are highly contagious if they make contact with the skin.
Eight hours after exposure, all initial test subjects were deceased; their remains were destroyed within two hours of death because of lab quarantine procedures. The problems officially began during the first real-world test in a small settlement of farms in southern Russia near the Chinese border, which was five hundred miles in all directions to any form of civilisation. They sent in a black ops agent to administer pandora pox to one individual, which was conducted expertly with no issues by going in at the dead of night and spraying it on the farmer's wife as she slept and then evacuate the area without being detected. The live test worked as predicted, killing the first subject in eight hours, but things took an unexpected turn. Everyone in the area had been infected and died within five days. After the test, the drones flew over and picked up seventy-three bodies scattered over the region. By the time those numbers reached the heads of government, the damage was done, the virus was airborne, and the infection rate had risen dramatically, beyond anything ever; seen in history." I turned off the radio; I could not listen anymore. I pulled away in the car and headed for the shops. Still, I only got around one hundred yards before getting around the corner to find an unbelievable cue of traffic trying to get through to the shop, obviously having the same idea of stocking up. I abandoned this plan as I realised I was doubtful to get anything anyway and would be better served to help my family seal the house, so I spun the car around and drove back around the corner and up the road to my house. As I got out of the car, I noticed the army at the top of the road putting a checkpoint in,' now this shit is starting to get concerning', I thought to myself as I walked back into the house.