Germ

Germ

by Robert Liparulo

                    To my boys—

Matt, always thoughtful and a joy to know

                          and

Anthony, who keeps me young and smiling

                                                            IF YOU BREATHE IT WILL FIND YOU

The list of 10,000 names was created for maximum devastation. Business

leaders, housewives, politicians, celebrities, janitors, children. None of them

is aware of what is about to happen—but all will be part of the most

frightening brand of warfare the world has ever known.

The germ—an advanced form of the Ebola virus—has been genetically

engineered to infect only those people whose DNA matches the codes

embedded within it. Those whose DNA is not a match, simply catch a cold.

But those who are a match experience a far worse fate. Within days, their

internal organs liquify.

                                                            DEATH IS THE ONLY ESCAPE

                               The release of the virus will usher in a new era of power where countries

                                                       are left without

defense. Where a single person—or millions—could be killed

                                                       with perfect accuracy and  zero collateral damage. Where your own DNA

                                                       works against you.

                                                            THE TIME ISN'T COMING. IT IS NOW.

                                                           PRAY THE ASSASSINS GET YOU FIRST.

Facts

Ebola is one of the most lethal viruses known to man.

 With each outbreak, a higher percentage of people who contract it die. In 1995, an airborne strain of Ebola was discovered. Even thirty years after the first Ebola outbreak, no one knows where it came from or where it resides when it is absent from humans or monkeys.

The Guthrie test, also called a PKU test, was developed by Robert Guthrie in 1962. It involves drawing a sample of blood from a newborn's heel and helps diagnose certain genetic diseases, such as phenylketonuria. It is routinely administered to all babies born in industrialized nations.

Most Guthrie cards, with these blood spots, are stored in warehouses and never destroyed.

The blood on these cards contains DNA that identifies the donors.

With the advent of gene splicing, scientists are capable of encoding viruses with human DNA.

Theoretically, this gives viruses the ability to find specific DNA to find you.

In the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he

outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery

all the slaughter of plague, pestilence, and famine.

—George Bernard Shaw

"Let there be light!" said God, and there was light!

"Let there be blood!" says man, and there's a sea!

—Lord Byron, Don Juan

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms.

It means a strong desire to live taking the

form of a readiness to die.

—G. K. Chesterton

one

Hardly resembling a man anymore, the thing on the bed jerked and thrashed like a nocturnal creature dragged into the light of day. His eyes had filled with blood and rolled back into his head, so only crimson orbs glared out from behind swollen, bleeding lids. Black flecks stained his lips, curled back from canted teeth and blistered gums. Blood poured from nostrils, ears, fingernails. Flung from the convulsing body, it streaked up curtains and walls and streamed into dark pools on the tile floor.