The Virus

From Shifti

Vanatus-D story universe

This story is a work in progress.

This document has been compiled through various sources and mediums to catalogue the origins and lasting effects of The Virus, scientifically known as the Vanatus-D virus. Some parts may include transcripts from overheard conversations, video footage, firsthand accounts, and radio broadcasts. These mediums and sources have been assembled into a whole that seems acceptable. Please excuse any inconsistencies, and I apologize for confusing narrative changes. I have attempted to keep as low a profile in the account as possible, and not to insert my opinion, but there are views and some of them are definitely mine. I apologize, and urge you, the reader, to form your own views. Thank you.

GENERATION 1

Week 1- Day 1. Number Infected: 13, Number Quarantined: 12 distance of farthest case from origin: 1 mile

Kansas City, Kansas.

“I’m telling you man, this stuff we’re getting into is pretty scary. I don’t know what the heads up top want this for, but its got a ton of harmful applications.”

The workers huddled in line around the airlock, waiting to get their suits wiped clean of any contaminants. They were all happy to be leaving a high risk area, airtight suits or no. The Virus was a top secret viral strain being developed for the CDC (Center for Disease Control) in small fragments by many different companies. The Virus was meant to be a cure for many different incurable diseases, but the men and women at BioWave Corporation could easily see the military application, at least the smart ones. Transferable by air for the first twelve hours of infection, contact infection, lives on surfaces for two hours, the whole nine yards. The management at BioWave knew that other firms were working on The Virus, but they didn’t know if they knew that it was meant to be a military weapon. As a side project, and not having been instructed otherwise, a small group of geneticists and bio-weapons experts attempted to construct an antidote, a version of The Virus that had no effects and shut down the original. They were unsuccessful, as this narrative will show. The Virus was now in its final stages, being assembled from all the pieces from the other firms. Management wasn’t happy with hosting an unknown biological product in its building, but that’s the government for you.

As the workers filed out of the airlock, an alarm began to squeal. They froze in place and then rushed back into the lab, grabbing their suits. The fires came on with a rush of propane. The safety measure was one of the ways that The Virus was under lock and key. After a minute, they disengaged. The virus had been vaporized by the intense heat. Then things went wrong. A vial had not been properly treated, and had burst from the heat. Thinking the disaster was averted, one man had walked out into the area. When the fires returned, he was caught in the whirlpool of flame. By the time the emergency teams had arrived, the man was well beyond dead. The biohazard team was unsurprisingly augmented by military forces. What was surprising was the show of military power in the area for the next three weeks. The military immediately took command of the situation and cleanup. The men and women still in the lab were tested for the virus and showed up positive. They were immediately quarantined and locked in the lab.

When a tally was given, of the fourteen original employees, one was dead, twelve in quarantine, and one was missing, Rachel Culvert

Week 1- Day 2. Week 1- Day 5. Number Infected: 689, Number Quarantined: 47 distance of farthest case from origin: 1098 miles.

The military had looked high and low for her. They learned her address and stormed her house. They found nothing. They checked her mail, her email, and her answering machine. They were mortified by what it told them: “Hey, you’ve reached Rachel Culvert’s home phone number. I’m going to be on vacation in New York for the next two weeks. If it can’t wait, call me on my cell. Thanks.” The men instantly found her number and called, but it wasn’t turned on.

I recently obtained permission to interview her, and these are the parts of the interview pertaining to her vacation. The bold lines are my questions.

So the fact that your cell phone wasn’t working was the cause of the entire pandemic?

Yep, I was in a rush to get to the Big Apple. I had just gotten tickets to a rock concert a day before the event. I rushed through work and didn’t even hear the siren go off until I was outside the building. By then I thought it wasn’t my department, and drove home. In my rush to pack, I forgot a lot of things. I left behind my cell phone charger, my toothbrush, my iPod, my socks, and I only brought one pair of pants. I feel totally responsible to the entire world, and what for? For forgetting to pack properly the night before a trip. Stupid.

When did you first start developing symptoms?

That was… the day I arrived in New York. I had just checked into a hotel and crashed in my room when I felt really sick. The light and the sounds of the city just drove me crazy. I just fell asleep on the floor of my room, not even getting into bed. When I woke up, I felt better, but not perfect. I thought it was just some bug from exhaustion or airliner food, which has caused me constipation in past experiences. Anyway, I thought I was well enough to go to the concert. I gotta say, whatever happened after, I’m glad I went to the concert. It was totally awesome. The downside was, my twelve hours of transmission [the twelve hour period during which an infected person can transmit the virus through their lungs by simply breathing] weren’t up, so almost everyone at the concert was infected by either me or somebody who had talked to me.

Could you describe what you felt when the virus started taking hold?

I was back in my hotel, after spending lots of money at various clubs. My stomach started to ache, and I had a killer migraine. I just went limp and fell onto the bed. The next morning, I felt like I had sprayed all my organs out through my nose, but I felt better through the day. The day after that, the changes started becoming visible. My feet and hands ached when the claws came in, even more when the retraction muscles grew. My spine extended more slowly than the muscle and skin surrounding it, leaving a kind of bag for my tail. My ears crept up the sides of my head; my groin became covered in dense hair, later fur. My legs became digitigrades and my feet became paws. After that the transformation became rather painless because the virus had reached my skull.

I also managed to get hold of Arnold Vannings, the leading expert on The Virus today. He gave me an explanation of The Virus’s methods and a blow by blow of its effects.

First the body becomes infected through one of three ways: one, The Virus is inhaled from an already infected person who has not shown symptoms, or blamed them on something else, Two, you come into contact with the Virus by touching a contaminated surface (the virus can survive on metal surfaces for up to two hours, and on wood for three). This is the least common form of contracting it because there are only two ways of getting The Virus onto the surface: a victim in their twelve hours breathes on the surface, or a bodily fluid of a completed victim is smeared on the surface. That is the third method of transmission, saliva, blood, mucus, semen; any bodily fluids accept stomach acid, which kills The Virus

Then the body breeds the Virus, and becomes very open to attack by outside forces. The white blood cells are mostly used for reproduction, opening up the body to any other viruses or bacteria that happen to float by. This stage was really quite lethal. Before scientists knew what was happening, especially in the early stages, almost 45% of the infected died due to common illnesses such as the common cold, flu, etc. when this stage of the illness is complete; the physical characteristics of the illness emerge.

The third stage is really what makes the Vanatus-D Virus unique. Once the victim has shrugged off any residual illnesses, the interesting bit starts. The cells of the body, in half of the cases excluding the pigmentation in the eye cells, now are carrying the virus in them. These cells are capable of assimilating nearby DNA into the cells’ own. This means that the first contact with another species or gender as in around ten percent of cases, the victim starts taking on physical characteristics of the assimilated species. A complete victim transformation takes anywhere from twelve hours to two months, depending on the amount of DNA available and the age of the sample. Rachel Culvert owned a cat. She now is under house arrest for evading police during an investigation. She runs a small internet company, called CreatureFeature.

Week 3- Day 1 Number Infected: 2980 Number Quarantined: 1216 distance of farthest victim from origin: 3,896 miles

To explain the Virus’s remarkably swift spread across the United States, I interviewed Mark Baldric, a professor of pandemics at Boston University.

The time that really kicked off the spread was when Rachel Culvert walked into the airport. Until then, the worst that could have happened was Kansas City gets quarantined and the military takes over until the mess is sorted out. But as soon as she set foot in the airport, it was hopeless. Recycled air carries airborne viruses around an area very quickly. Most likely, everyone on her plane had it only halfway through the flight, and countless others contracted Vanatus-D in the airport. They then would get on their own planes and give it to everyone on their plane. This is why airports are called the Network. They are a web that links distant places with rapid connections, making them ideal for the spread of infectious diseases. The Vanatus-D was ideal for release into the Network; it is airborne, it takes twelve hours for any symptoms of illness to appear, and it lingers on surfaces touched for hours. Public spaces are almost never cleaned to the fullest extent, making them full on breeding grounds for bacteria and other pathogens.

The Virus had reached Hawaii in days. By then, the New York outbreak had begun. The local police were called off any other assignments to begin rounding up suspected victims. A state of martial law was declared, and the media, of course, panicked. This had an actually positive effect on the citizens of America; people began cutting down on human contact, those who could worked from home, and increased awareness for the benefits of hygiene could be seen. But it was too little too late. The really isolated areas had very little exposure to the virus, but they still slowly became infected. Crime slowly became the dominant practice as panic set into the people. Gunshots became commonly heard in urban areas as frightened crowds massacred transformed victims, unaware that they had contracted the virus by the drops of blood from their victims. Religion was an escape for many, and a mission for others. The following radio broadcast was not sanctioned by the NRBA and does not express my opinions, my editors’, my publishers’ or the broadcasters.

“These half human abominations are a punishment of God! They must be destroyed for the survival of the human race to continue on its quest for eternal salvation! The church’s duty to God and the human race is one of the shepherd’s, guiding his flock towards the better land, and to help maintain that goal and the flock, killing the evil things that prey on it. The Lord has ordained to purge the land of evil, and, to help us on our way, He has unmasked the sinners, the corrupt, the unclean, for what they are; animals, masquerading under the guise of the human form!”

GENERATION 2

Week 5- Day 1. Number Infected: 32,047,115

The first recorded case outside of North America is found. In Sydney, Australia the airport is flooded with media as an American plane is piloted in to land in an emergency maneuver when the passengers started experiencing migraines. The pilot landed the plane on the runway and, thinking quickly, did not taxi it to the terminal. Instead, she cut the engines and coasted to a halt on the runway.

This plane was given fuel, supplies, and anything else it needed, but was unconditionally barred from unloading any cargo or passengers. The plane dumped its waste and was sent back to America. Three days later, several cases were reported at the airport and a nearby sanitation facility. It’s suspected that the urine and feces from the plane contained virus samples.

A rather strange side effect of the Virus is an increase in the victim’s sex drive. This may be due to instincts from the animal DNA filling in, or something caused by the virus itself in another effort to spread. That is why, in many cases, married couples show identical animal species. I remember the first case abroad. The world panicked. We all just shut off all contact with civilization. People fled into the wilderness, and those who couldn’t, stocked up on survival gear and ammunition. Of course, it was all hopeless. The Virus is non lethal, and the victims would be more concerned with themselves than with infecting other people.

On the other end of the spectrum from the religious extremist movement, God’s Anvil, there was the religious extremist movement, Eden’s Return, which saw the virus as a reward. They made it their duty to become infected and spend the entire twelve hour period in incredibly public places, like airports, zoos, concerts, etc. they are responsible for the negative view the victims gained in the beginning. People thought that they were at risk for being attacked and infected. But there were also positive aspects, The Virus cured all other diseases, and strengthened the body against new infections. This was never noticed until an infected person was tested for disease.

Week 6- Day 4. Number infected: 204,568,920

The march of the disease across the world was relentless. In less than a week since Sydney, the virus had overtaken little of Australia, due to the difficulty of getting between areas, but it had also exploded through Malaysia and up through eastern Asia. China instantly took measures to stamp out the virus within its borders. China reputedly had massacred around 100,000 infected men women and children by the time it reached Beijing. The Chinese government denies the incident, but we can’t really be certain because, as China states, they may have just panicked and left for the wilderness when they changed.

This was a major problem, once people changed; they sometimes proceeded to live in the wilderness as they thought their animal counterpart would live. These generally lead to death. The truth is that many human stereotypes about animals are generally incorrect. Many of the stranger cases were persecuted, or treasured, depending on the area and the species assimilated.

The really interesting cases were the bi-species cases. These must have been deliberate attempts to create some kind of Chimera (A term for genetic mixes of animals or organisms). Possibly the most amazing case of a bi-species cross was found in Mill Valley, California, a small town just above San Francisco. Noah Janis was released from the hospital only last year after suffering the serious side effects of his astounding transformation.

I talked to him about how he achieved what he did.

So, first off, how did you accomplish such a challenging feat as making your body equine, but grow wings out of your back?

Well, the main thing was I had plenty of time to prepare. I had heard about the virus from when it first hit New York, and just kept up as it overtook the nation. So I just started preparing for when I would change, ‘cause I knew I would eventually, and I didn’t want to end up as something I didn’t like. I’m an artist, so I learned how to manipulate the system that the virus used. It didn’t transform tissue that was already transformed. First, I collected DNA samples from what I wanted: A black horse from a nearby farm, a raven from the pet store, and a fly. Next, I went to Genentech for help, ‘cause I knew that I couldn’t make this work all by myself. I got them to isolate the DNA fragments from the various specimens and create a kind of cocktail full of the DNA fragments, and the various vitamins and minerals that would help.

What was the fly DNA for?

Well, obviously, neither horses nor birds have six limbs, and since I didn’t want to lose my arms or legs, I had to use something that had the extra two limbs. The fly was the first thing to come to mind, it still had four legs, but had two wings stuck on its back, like I wanted.

So then what?

So I went home and got to work. I cleaned every inch of my house with bleach, went on a strictly vegan diet, and never went outside. I set up my sculpting studio as my transformation room, practicing the moves, researching the timing, and triple checking my facts. There was no room for error. I had to wait it out, sitting at home reading the news online. Then I stumbled upon the answer. Some weirdoes were mailing around the virus to anyone who paid. I signed up, and within the day, there was a cardboard package on my doorstep, waiting for me to use. I got everything set up, and prepared the room again.

What I had done with the people from Genentech was isolate the part of the fly DNA that related to the wing limbs, placement and number of limbs. I had made a kind of paste that the DNA stuck to, and applied it to my back in exactly the right spots. It was made of two rings, each containing different DNA. The outermost ring was the horse, so it could spread over the rest of my body from the point that it touched. The second ring was the raven DNA, for the wings. The fly DNA was mixed in with the other two rings. I took the Virus, and waited until symptoms appeared. When they did, I put the patches on my back and waited. Then I simply waited and ate, knowing that there would be side effects and I had to deal with whatever came up, it was too late to back out now. It worked; you see how well I turned out.

He fans his black wings out behind him, the black stallion stretching out his extra limbs. He really does look magnificent.

Sorry for not updating the story for such a long time, I've been super busy.

I've been thinking...(I know, a dangerous pastime) and I just wanted to know the average distribution of us readers and writers.

I'd appreciate it if anyone who sees this could just post what country they live in on the discussion section of my page. If you feel extra revealing, look on Google maps or Earth to measure the distance between the nearest large city in your country and, oh, lets say... Mexico City. That would be awesome.

Much obliged.