Virus Attack: Covid-20 What if ?

By Marek Laskiewicz

Biological terrorists may appear and threaten to release virus vials because of the world's disastrous medieval lockdown in Covid-19 has made it potentially vulnerable to terrorist demands. Bioterrorists could use a genetically engineered virus, termed Covid-20. Failed negotiations would to lead their releasing virus deathdrones to effect a new pandemic which the world will find difficult to cope with because it will be as unprepared as with Covid-19. Some future information operations will be via the internet, especially the dark web, as disinformation, fake data and cover-ups will abound. There might be a catastrophic megapandemic afterwards, possibly by a biowar during WW3 or by aliens.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781871771718

Book preview

I

EARLIER YEARS

Virus attack – why, the very notion of a virus attack had never struck you; it was not even science fiction, at least none you had ever heard of; it was a null possibility, a zero; it could never happen; it was a no-brainer; you had never given the matter even the slightest thought; you like everyone else, like before with Covid-19, were utterly unprepared.

II

BEFORE

Life was sort of normal. That what how you remembered the time just before it happened. A pleasant agreeable nice week’s holiday, idyllic.

Sure there had been Covid-19, but that was years ago and about as relevant to you as the Black Death, and sure things had changed because of it, but then there had always been change, so what was new about that? As a professor had written on a net thread the other evening in a post that went viral, Where there is life, there is disease.

And of course disease was an everyday occurrence, as you like everyone knew. You cared not: it was simply that every day someone fell ill and died, doubtless also on this day too, and that was that; it was a pity and all that, you thought – but there it was. Somewhere everyday someone just died.

III

NOW

It started: this was zero day and you did not even realise.

Day 1

You wake up in the morning as usual. It is a normal sunny day, a pity you think as you would like it dark and stormy like in a Gothic horror novel intro. It had been a good weekend, a party culminating in some enjoyable straight sex, a nice picnic and a pleasant evening meet-up with friends.

You go off to breakfast, drink your vitamin-packed orange juice, and sit down to your healthy muesli, with healthy soya milk, to be followed by a healthy caffeine-free coffee. Then you switch on your screen with a snap of your fingers and see-hear:

News report – a bomb had gone off without warning in New York, Paris or Tokyo or wherever it was as you neither heard properly nor cared overmuch, a group called VX19 claimed responsibility, the police stated that they were investigating, images of injured being carried into ambulances, and then onto the next report about a fashion show, which had just opened.

You finish your coffee and leave the television to switch itself off via the body heat sensor, mulling over for the umpteenth time whether you should have it switch on automatically when you came into the kitchen, ending with your standing private joke, ‘To click or not to click / That is the question’, and whether you should finally listen to that Hamlet radio play with Gielgud that had been been recommended in the internet English literature course you started but then abandoned when the super new Zombie Repulsion 15 interactive multi-participant video game arrived.

You drive into work. An annoying journey as the road was narrow and twisting for a while, and the truck in front obviously had a driver who had watched Duel over and over, for he had driven reasonably quickly before when the road had been wide enough for overtaking, so you did not feel like making the effort to shoot by, then had slowed to a crawl when he hit the hill, presumably savouring each moment another car joined the queue which he had created behind him, and attaining sheer bliss when it hooted its frustration.

Then past the cinema advertising its trailer on a huge outdoor screen for the latest film to be ‘Coming Soon Virus Assault’, a film based on Covid-19, which had been heavily criticised in the mainstream media as coming too soon after the actual pandemic, so awakening sad memories for those who had witnessed their family and friends suffer or even die from that ghastly episode in human history. You however had read the social media forums which had liked the thrill of being afraid once more – which an elderly politician had blasted as showing the young had no respect and no fear!, though he subsequently denied saying the problem is that too few damn youngsters fell prey to the coronavirus.

So the job. Not your first; nor you assume/hope your last. At work more interest was shown in the explosion. Hope they catch those goddam terrorists became the saying of the day as more news came in: two dead, five in intensive, scores injured, with talking heads also pointing out the mental trauma the countless who had survived would suffer – and the infomaniacs at work repeated each media detail to all and sundry. At least though everyone agreed it was only a bomb and not a bioweapon like in that coming film.

There was nothing else about the terrorism, but that was how it was now as ever since the Government in the name of protecting the vulnerable/promoting liberal values had succeeded in passing draconian all-encompassing laws such as the Firewall Bill preventing people from accessing unacceptable websites and utilising law catch-alls such as banning what is legal but offensive to somebody or some group or other etc so as to control the internet and social media whereby all unofficial views questioning the Government line or politically incorrect even if these were in fact true were to be taken down at once as fake news, the President sitting at a desk beside a huge flag when reading the first such Act openly declaring that a true media was a patriotic media that always supported the Government and its experts who knew what they were talking about and doing, unlike squalid subversive unknowns, so that news silence was to be expected – and many people liked this, even welcomed this, certainly preferred this soothing to being upset, this calming to being worried by something or other, a solid comforted lifestyle, especially as the Government repeatedly stressed how it supported ‘free speech’. You are one of the many in the middle, accepting all this, albeit not being enthusiastic about commie-style funerals etc about beloved leaders replete with endless eulogies whereas they had actually done nothing much all their lives.

However for once you are curious so hunt round the internet for news in the car on the way back as there were all the latest stories including those the mainstream media would not touch, but nothing and nothing, just the mainstream repeated until you accidentally surf into a station that asserts on the basis of a leaked government meeting – the group VX20 want money else they will release a virus on Day 7. So today is the first day, you think, of the final week before another lousy pandemic. God created the world in seven days, and now the terrorists want to close it down in like-time, you think wryly to yourself. Disturbing of course, but probably fake news as it is after all on the internet, Disinformation Inc. as someone in the global village called it the other year.

At home over dinner of a vegetarian lasagna dish found on YouTube, albeit cooked with fusilli, with whale singing music in the background, a Government spokesman appeared on MBCP News, denied anything about bioweapons or virus release, sternly condemned the ‘irresponsible’ internet report about VX19 as ‘fake news’, and asserted it was ‘unthinkable’ that terrorists would hold the world to ransom with a virus, a message echoed by another senior politician who sternly warned that bioterrorism, in whatever form, is completely unacceptable. Which was odd, you thought, as why would the Government wade in on the back of a small, unknown internet newspod? You try to find that internet station again to see what it says but cannot. Anyway perhaps it was another group altogether as you recall it was VX19 and then VX20 – and, you smile, doubtless VX21 coming later with another bogus virus claim! Still obviously a LOL

Day 2

Next morning, the second day, you think recalling the events of yesterday, the police are still only investigating according to the television news but state they believe the two VX’s are one and the same group, whilst keeping an open mind. Which was not reassuring for you as that meant the internet newscaster had been right about the name at least. You switch over to another official spokesperson reassuring everyone that There’s nothing to be afraid of but refusing to answer a meddlesome reporter’s question about virus rumours and reproving another for baseless speculation about terrorism.

On the journey to work, you flip and listen to several internet newspods as the mainstream media was doing its usual lauding of the Government and staying quiet about disquieting facts. The news, fake of course according to the Government, had nonetheless spread and there was a growing consensus amongst the reporter trolls that it was a virus, maybe based on Covid-19, hence the terrorists’ name; that the threat was real; that a new pandemic could come