Virus, Me

About the Book

This is the story of scientist gathered together to work on the development of biological weapons in the United States. Their mission is top secret and buried within the confines of an advanced cancer research laboratory. Glower is the secret agent who recruits and heads the team, and gives them cover. He provides the discipline and resources needed to perfect the weapons. Drake, obese, petulant, smelly and conceited, offends everyone, but squeezes every ounce of genius from his swelled head to solve the seemingly unsolvable. Anna, gentle and tender, brings an engineer' s practicality to the realm of microbiological experimentation, and a romantic's sensitivity to her relationship with Yves. Among the team, Yves is the least dedicated to the mission. Except for his lustful love affair with Anna, the secret lab is just another job to him, albeit a better paying one than his last gig. The lure of more money and intuition bring him together with Jill, the beautiful Asian researcher into the regeneration of brain tissues, to undergo an experiment with his own tissue. All goes with the weapons project and Yves's private experiment until the president issues an emergency order to preemptively deploy a biological weapon against China. Suddenly the team is pushed to rush an untested viral weapon into the filed. At stake are the bountiful oil fields of Persia, and the economic and military power which flows to the United States from them. Corners and red tape care cut to make a test run of the prototype weapon within the United States. A hybrid organism is released into the atmosphere via diesel-powered buses in three cities without having a vaccine or antidote in hand. The team assumes that the organism will engender debilitating flu-like symptoms and loss of cognition for a week to ten days among a small portion of the populace, but the hybrid unexpectedly spreads by finding nesting places in nearby waterways and automobile gas tanks, making it impossible to contain. America's national security establishment soon concludes that the country's people will be constantly and repeatedly bombarded by waves of toxic organisms, until their cognitive abilities are permanently damaged. Yves, anticipating the dreadful end awaiting him before the hybrid was deployed, intuitively calculated his only option for survival, and acts upon it.

About the Author

Richard Avila, A graduate of Occidental College and U.C.L.A., is an attorney and professor. His previous books include Adelante con Allende and Rabbi Beans, both published by Trafford.