The Project (II)
Created | Updated Sep 24, 2008
Deep within a long, low, windowless building, of a military laboratory in the South of England, a scientist packs up for the day. He runs his eye over a bank of screens that display various scenes outside his lab and outside the building. On the monitor showing the western end of the facility, he sees a soldier patrolling inside the triple security fence, with a German shepherd. The soldier disappears out of range of that swivelling camera and reappears on the next monitor. The dog stops to sniff at the base of the flood-lit expanse of razor-wire. A rabbit burrow. Another monitor shows him that the front desk security guard's head has lolled forward. There is no other sign of life outside. It's late.
Seeing that the coast is clear, the scientist removes a box from a refrigerator, places it in his briefcase and leaves, locking the door behind him. He walks down the corridor to another laboratory and punches in a security code to unlock it. The room is in darkness. Everybody left hours ago. He doesn't bother to switch on the light but walks briskly to the refrigerator, that also requires a security code for access. By its light, he takes the box from his briefcase, removes two vials, then takes another box from the fridge and swaps his vials for two from this box. His hands are shaking and his heart rate has doubled since he entered the lab. With the lethal vials safely in the cold box inside his briefcase, he takes a deep breath and tries to slow his racing heart. He can't afford any slip-ups.
At the front desk, he eases past the sedated guard and sabotages the video recording for the biosafety level 4 laboratory building. It will look like a technical fault. No-one will suspect. Then he takes the coffee cup containing the barbiturate, bags it in polythene, places it in his briefcase and replaces it with an innocent one.
With three weeks holiday ahead of him, all the loose ends of his work projects tied and tidy, and the last few materials he requires for his personal project harvested, he leaves the premises.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Charlie waits on a crowded railway platform. The train is late, as usual. He clamps his teeth together and resists the temptation to push the jostling bodies away. Rats might enjoy this type of throng, but he detests it.
When the train arrives and they all pile in, it's worse. Standing room only. It feels claustrophobic, unnatural - all these strangers with their noses in other people's ears and arm-pits, breathing into each other's faces. Horrible. He thinks about diseases that spread in such conditions - plagues. He knows all about plagues. Such things are rare now. Overcrowded conditions made populations more combustible, before modern medicine helped to make this sort of nightmare common.
He clutches his case protectively and stares at the back of a head. It soothes him to think about the work he's doing: the penultimate phase of the project. His mind drifts away from the railway carriage as he retraces the steps of the journey so far, then rehearses the final steps in his head. He's going to hire a car and travel around the country, delivering samples of the agent, in a variety of forms, to members of the target groups. Like everything else that he has ever done, this is all planned meticulously, including backup plans to cover all contingencies.
It took years of careful consideration of the possible solutions before he decided what had to be done. He was only fourteen years old when he first conceived of the need to do something about the problem. That decision was followed by eight years of painstaking work, taking appropriate university courses and then getting a job (he didn't think of it as a career) at the laboratory. There were periods of despair, when the task seemed impossible. But the vision reasserted itself each time. He only had to read a newspaper or turn on the news and his sense of purpose returned with new vigour. Now everything was ready.
The press of bodies in the train normally fills him with hostility towards his fellow Man, but this morning it's different. He feels sorry for them in this suffocating crush, whereas usually, he only feels sorry for them when they aren't pressed up hard against him. They can't help themselves. It's not their fault. They're just normal animals doing what normal animals do. Any species that evolves a level of intelligence where they can develop a complex technology, will do the same. They'll over-populate, over-consume and make life a misery for their own kind and every other sentient life-form on the planet. They'll bring about mass-extinction in just the same way. They won't be able to control themselves. That's only too clear. It's silly to despise them for following their nature.
Mostly, he thinks of what he's doing as 'ending the madness', but then, sometime, he thinks it's not really madness, is it? You don't call plagues of rats, mice or locusts 'mad'. If the conditions are right - as happens when we cause an imbalance in nature - certain species over-populate, strip the environment of resources, then starve. In overcrowded conditions, diseases take hold and sweep through populations that may already be weakened by starvation, killing off great numbers. Occasionally there's cannibalism. A few even eat their own young. It's natures way. The animals are not mad. Having such an extravagantly high encephalization quotient, just allows my species to delay the inevitable consequences, whilst building their teetering house of cards ever higher and simultaneously undermining the foundations that support it.
Charlie feels a mixture of sorrow and pride, that he must be the one to end it. His eyes drift to the passengers in the immediate press. All are staring into space, the middle-distance, resting unfocused on the heads and shoulders of strangers. They probably hate this situation as much as I do. Poor bastards. Never mind folks. It'll soon be over. You can rest easy, though you don't know it. I'd like to be able to reassure you that no new generation is going to have to go through this misery. And once we're gone, then all the world's species will heave a great sigh of relief to be rid of us and able to get on with following their own natures instead of being perverted and side-tracked by ours. The mindless destruction and uglifying of the planet will end. There'll still be death and suffering, blood will still be spilled, but there won't be any more deliberate torture and heartless exploitation. Pain and suffering will fall to normal levels. He smiles to himself, looking forward to the end of his own schizophrenic confusion of sympathy and contempt.
The train gradually empties. He sits by a window for the last couple of miles, still clutching his case, and looking out at the dirty streets. At the next station he disembarks to collect his hire car.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's almost all up with Charlie. He's visited airports, railway stations, hospitals, conference halls, markets - wherever crowds gather - all over the country, distributing the agent. He tested the virus on himself several months ago, accidentally. It's working more quickly than he anticipated, but then, it was a massive dose - and he's modified it slightly since then, to slow it down.
At a crowded market in the Midlands, the closely packed shoppers ooze slowly around the stalls. Charlie avoids this area and goes straight to the livestock pens. He has some treats for the pigs. Early on in the project, he discovered that pigs are an exceptionally fine vector for one of the viruses he employed in the making of this new disease, and he built on that. The virus is designed to be rapidly reproduced in pigs and chickens, as well as humans - though most other species are suitable carriers. The pigs become highly infectious within a couple of days, but show no symptoms at all.
A couple of farmers are haggling on one side of the pig pens, so he goes to the other side and walks slowly up the row, throwing a few small cakes into each pen. When all the cakes have gone he strolls to the market and mingles with the shoppers. He doesn't look well.
People try to make a space around him as he pushes his way through the press of bodies, coughing and spluttering. It takes him a couple of hours to go round the whole market. By the end, he's stumbling and coughing up blood. When he finally collapses, there's a smile on his face despite the pain. It looks like a bloody, grinning death mask. His work is done.
He will not be present to witness the final result of his work, but he knows how it will end. People and pigs will radiate out from the places he's visited. A few of the people may have some mild, short-lived symptoms. People will go on holiday. The animals will go to farms, markets and abattoirs. Some will be exported. The disease will spread all over the planet.
He is not carrying any form of identification. All traces of his work have been cleaned from his home laboratory and it will look like an ordinary basement store room to anyone who examines it. By the time they suspect anything at all, it will be far too late.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The disease is a real slow-burner. He has taken sections of DNA from adeno and avian viruses, ebola, small-pox (which everyone supposed had been completely destroyed - every last virion) and foot and mouth, and spliced them together into something new and virulent: a patient, selective stalker, a psychopathic misanthrope, that can be carried by almost any species of animal, but will destroy just one species. Its first serious symptom, irreversible damage to the reproductive organs and infertility, will not be recognised for what it is. Only in a matter of years, when most of the human population has succumbed to the later and more dramatically lethal effects of the disease, might the truth be recognised. By then, the population will be too small and sick to sustain itself.
That is the plan.
Diseases mutate of course. So only time can tell whether the plan will succeed.
Seeing that the coast is clear, the scientist removes a box from a refrigerator, places it in his briefcase and leaves, locking the door behind him. He walks down the corridor to another laboratory and punches in a security code to unlock it. The room is in darkness. Everybody left hours ago. He doesn't bother to switch on the light but walks briskly to the refrigerator, that also requires a security code for access. By its light, he takes the box from his briefcase, removes two vials, then takes another box from the fridge and swaps his vials for two from this box. His hands are shaking and his heart rate has doubled since he entered the lab. With the lethal vials safely in the cold box inside his briefcase, he takes a deep breath and tries to slow his racing heart. He can't afford any slip-ups.
At the front desk, he eases past the sedated guard and sabotages the video recording for the biosafety level 4 laboratory building. It will look like a technical fault. No-one will suspect. Then he takes the coffee cup containing the barbiturate, bags it in polythene, places it in his briefcase and replaces it with an innocent one.
With three weeks holiday ahead of him, all the loose ends of his work projects tied and tidy, and the last few materials he requires for his personal project harvested, he leaves the premises.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Charlie waits on a crowded railway platform. The train is late, as usual. He clamps his teeth together and resists the temptation to push the jostling bodies away. Rats might enjoy this type of throng, but he detests it.
When the train arrives and they all pile in, it's worse. Standing room only. It feels claustrophobic, unnatural - all these strangers with their noses in other people's ears and arm-pits, breathing into each other's faces. Horrible. He thinks about diseases that spread in such conditions - plagues. He knows all about plagues. Such things are rare now. Overcrowded conditions made populations more combustible, before modern medicine helped to make this sort of nightmare common.
He clutches his case protectively and stares at the back of a head. It soothes him to think about the work he's doing: the penultimate phase of the project. His mind drifts away from the railway carriage as he retraces the steps of the journey so far, then rehearses the final steps in his head. He's going to hire a car and travel around the country, delivering samples of the agent, in a variety of forms, to members of the target groups. Like everything else that he has ever done, this is all planned meticulously, including backup plans to cover all contingencies.
It took years of careful consideration of the possible solutions before he decided what had to be done. He was only fourteen years old when he first conceived of the need to do something about the problem. That decision was followed by eight years of painstaking work, taking appropriate university courses and then getting a job (he didn't think of it as a career) at the laboratory. There were periods of despair, when the task seemed impossible. But the vision reasserted itself each time. He only had to read a newspaper or turn on the news and his sense of purpose returned with new vigour. Now everything was ready.
The press of bodies in the train normally fills him with hostility towards his fellow Man, but this morning it's different. He feels sorry for them in this suffocating crush, whereas usually, he only feels sorry for them when they aren't pressed up hard against him. They can't help themselves. It's not their fault. They're just normal animals doing what normal animals do. Any species that evolves a level of intelligence where they can develop a complex technology, will do the same. They'll over-populate, over-consume and make life a misery for their own kind and every other sentient life-form on the planet. They'll bring about mass-extinction in just the same way. They won't be able to control themselves. That's only too clear. It's silly to despise them for following their nature.
Mostly, he thinks of what he's doing as 'ending the madness', but then, sometime, he thinks it's not really madness, is it? You don't call plagues of rats, mice or locusts 'mad'. If the conditions are right - as happens when we cause an imbalance in nature - certain species over-populate, strip the environment of resources, then starve. In overcrowded conditions, diseases take hold and sweep through populations that may already be weakened by starvation, killing off great numbers. Occasionally there's cannibalism. A few even eat their own young. It's natures way. The animals are not mad. Having such an extravagantly high encephalization quotient, just allows my species to delay the inevitable consequences, whilst building their teetering house of cards ever higher and simultaneously undermining the foundations that support it.
Charlie feels a mixture of sorrow and pride, that he must be the one to end it. His eyes drift to the passengers in the immediate press. All are staring into space, the middle-distance, resting unfocused on the heads and shoulders of strangers. They probably hate this situation as much as I do. Poor bastards. Never mind folks. It'll soon be over. You can rest easy, though you don't know it. I'd like to be able to reassure you that no new generation is going to have to go through this misery. And once we're gone, then all the world's species will heave a great sigh of relief to be rid of us and able to get on with following their own natures instead of being perverted and side-tracked by ours. The mindless destruction and uglifying of the planet will end. There'll still be death and suffering, blood will still be spilled, but there won't be any more deliberate torture and heartless exploitation. Pain and suffering will fall to normal levels. He smiles to himself, looking forward to the end of his own schizophrenic confusion of sympathy and contempt.
The train gradually empties. He sits by a window for the last couple of miles, still clutching his case, and looking out at the dirty streets. At the next station he disembarks to collect his hire car.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's almost all up with Charlie. He's visited airports, railway stations, hospitals, conference halls, markets - wherever crowds gather - all over the country, distributing the agent. He tested the virus on himself several months ago, accidentally. It's working more quickly than he anticipated, but then, it was a massive dose - and he's modified it slightly since then, to slow it down.
At a crowded market in the Midlands, the closely packed shoppers ooze slowly around the stalls. Charlie avoids this area and goes straight to the livestock pens. He has some treats for the pigs. Early on in the project, he discovered that pigs are an exceptionally fine vector for one of the viruses he employed in the making of this new disease, and he built on that. The virus is designed to be rapidly reproduced in pigs and chickens, as well as humans - though most other species are suitable carriers. The pigs become highly infectious within a couple of days, but show no symptoms at all.
A couple of farmers are haggling on one side of the pig pens, so he goes to the other side and walks slowly up the row, throwing a few small cakes into each pen. When all the cakes have gone he strolls to the market and mingles with the shoppers. He doesn't look well.
People try to make a space around him as he pushes his way through the press of bodies, coughing and spluttering. It takes him a couple of hours to go round the whole market. By the end, he's stumbling and coughing up blood. When he finally collapses, there's a smile on his face despite the pain. It looks like a bloody, grinning death mask. His work is done.
He will not be present to witness the final result of his work, but he knows how it will end. People and pigs will radiate out from the places he's visited. A few of the people may have some mild, short-lived symptoms. People will go on holiday. The animals will go to farms, markets and abattoirs. Some will be exported. The disease will spread all over the planet.
He is not carrying any form of identification. All traces of his work have been cleaned from his home laboratory and it will look like an ordinary basement store room to anyone who examines it. By the time they suspect anything at all, it will be far too late.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The disease is a real slow-burner. He has taken sections of DNA from adeno and avian viruses, ebola, small-pox (which everyone supposed had been completely destroyed - every last virion) and foot and mouth, and spliced them together into something new and virulent: a patient, selective stalker, a psychopathic misanthrope, that can be carried by almost any species of animal, but will destroy just one species. Its first serious symptom, irreversible damage to the reproductive organs and infertility, will not be recognised for what it is. Only in a matter of years, when most of the human population has succumbed to the later and more dramatically lethal effects of the disease, might the truth be recognised. By then, the population will be too small and sick to sustain itself.
That is the plan.
Diseases mutate of course. So only time can tell whether the plan will succeed.
