Seriously thinking to revise and edit and send to publishers.
The Golden Virus
Thinking back, I didn't know what I was doing. There was a moment when I was so certain I was doing the right thing. I didn't know then about the fate that hinges on instants, I didn't understand how much havoc one man's choice could unleash. You see, there are these moments in time, moments that have to happen either one way or another. They happen in each world, they are the points where existence comes together before webbing out again. Everything leads to these points. Unfortunately, my 33rd birthday was one of these points.
Is it clear now? No, I suppose not. Maybe if I tell you, it will make sense. Maybe it will alleviate my guilt just enough for me to open that door and walk from this prison cell. Or maybe nothing will change. But I must tell you, anyway.
The dragons were old. A dying race, resurrected but flawed. They had no way to reproduce once pulled from their stone crypts. This great people, just and noble, were dying, but they'd have a few hundred years, a span of time in which they aided humanity. We found world peace, we saw great advances. They taught us their science, we learned their art. And as we advanced, we saw hope, a way that the dragons might be able to live on after all. There was hope, and I was one of the hopeful.
I wish I could pinpoint the moment things began to change, the moment my faith faltered. But as I try, my thoughts go to her and the moment we met. And I suppose I could say that is the beginning.
Jennifer Isaac was one of those women every outcast nerd dreams of. Long red hair, science background, and she had a lightsabre on her keychain. And if I had known any better, I would have walked on down the street instead of stopping when I saw her. But there she was, that long hair obscuring her face as the wind tugged mercilessly at the waves of orange and the purple scarf she was wearing. She was trying, very intently but without results, to untangle a group of dogs from around a parking meter. The leashes, entwined and knotted, were trouble enough. That at the end of each one was a barking, yipping, or whining hound, terrier, or something that must have been a small game animal masquerading as a dog did not make the task at hand any easier.
"You look like you could use a hand," I called. The moment she shook her hair out of her face and looked at me, I was hopelessly trapped. I know it sounds foolish, but at least on my side, it was love at first sight.
"Mff, yes. Can you hold the two Russels? I think if I can get them to stop jumping around, ack! I might be able to get the rest of these beasts sorted out." Despite her predicament, she sounded humorous. Annoyed, but humorous, just that bit of laugh in the voice.
"The two that look like tiny fox hounds?"
"Those would be the ones. Just be careful. Saxon licks."
This was something I was already becoming well aware of as the tiny dog was eagerly smearing my cheek with enough saliva to dissolve a brick.
"So--" I dodged a long, curled tongue aimed at my nose. "You're a dog walker? Or are these all yours?"
"Neither, really. My friend's out of town and this menagerie-- lift your foot, there we go-- anyway, the dogs belong to her. She's paying me a hundred dollars a day to dogsit."
"Doesn't really seem worth it with this bunch."
"Tell me about it. Next time, I'm demanding tickets to the Bahamas." She grinned, and her nose crinkled in a way I'd later come to realize meant she was being especially silly at her own expense. "My name's Jennifer."
That moment, the leashes came untangled and I was suddenly caught in the midst of a furry hurricane complete with paws and tongues and lashing tails.
"And I really apologize for the dogs," she continued, attempting to haul them back. "Look, I hate to impose further, but do you mind taking a few of these leashes? My friend's condo is just around the corner." I found myself eager to agree and moments later, the dogs were safely home.
"Thank you so much. Er, didn't get your name back there."
"Kevin. It's no problem. I was just going to the coffee shop, anyway. Hoping to get some writing done." Her eyebrow lifted at that.
"You're a writer?"
A dog ran by, taking the coatrack down with a precisely placed tail. I managed to catch it before everything crashed to the floor, but several garments still made their leisurely way to the carpet. Jennifer bent to retrieve them as I righted the coatrack.
"I'm not the kind of writer you think. I write copy for the local radio station."
"Oh. Well, that must be an, um, interesting job."
"It pays the bills. I don't really have the talent to write the great american novel, but I got over that a long time ago." I decided not to mention the manuscripts gathering dust on my ancient desktop, a machine kept out of sentiment rather than necessity. The truth was that copywriting paid fairly well, especially for someone to whom advertising came so naturally. I had more gadgets than your normal geek, but that was something else I felt it best not to mention. Girls tend to react strangely to men who want to show them their toys on a first meeting.
Another dog dashed through, howling at the top of his lungs.
"Look, do you want to go somewhere a bit less noisy and hairy? The coffee shop, maybe? I can buy you lunch in return for helping me get these miniature jackasses home." She smiled again. I shouldn't have, but I found myself watching her mouth. It quirked a bit at the corners when she held her smile for longer than a second, and one curve of her upper lip arched a bit higher than it's match. Realizing I was fixating, I pulled myself back to reality.
"That'd be rather wonderful. Getting away from the dogs, I mean."
Ten minutes later, we were seated across from one another at a high table in the local college cafe. She had an oversized cup of chai with leaves of various types and their scientific names printed on it. I had my usual coffee cup with me filled with a nebula, the local drink that involved a shot of raspberry flavored cream dropped into white hot chocolate and espresso with a chocolate swirl on top. Of course, the full beauty of this caffeinated monster was hidden inside my bluest and nerdiest of travel cups.
"So... what do you do when you aren't walking dogs and watching condos?" That actually got a laugh. Better than I normally did.
"I'm a geneticist. Well, technically my specialty is sortiarius epigenetics."
I gave her a blank look with a hint of a goofy smile. I'm a writer, I have a splendid vocabulary, and I had no idea what those words meant. Well, at least not when strung together that way.
"I study the lasting effects of magic and magical exposure on genetics. How it affects heritable traits and silences certain bits of DNA. We know that ancestral experiences pass on through genetics, and we're trying to get a good feel for how psychic phenomenon, curses, dragon magic, all that affect heritable traits." I signalled for her to go on before taking a sip of my drink. "The original question was whether the magic exposure just caused stress to show up in the genetic record, like ancestral disease or poverty does. But it turned out to show much different effects. It seems to alter genetic expression to such an extreme that it is causing really strange things to happen. Keying off and on parts of the genetic code that we haven't even begun to unravel. Oh! I'm sorry. I got carried away."
"It's fine. It's nice to meet someone in a line of work they're passionate about. Most of the people I work with are completely dissatisfied. They thought working in radio meant being on air personalities and most of what they do is make sure the equipment keeps the songs properly randomized."
We talked for two hours before I realized how much time had passed. It didn't stop there, either. Over the next few weeks, I seemed to see her more and more, finally realizing she was making excuses to see me. Worried she might think me uninterested, I did the same, finding reasons to invite her to tour the station, help me come up with ideas for advertising remotes (I didn't need the help, or so I thought. She surprised me once or twice with gems of knowledge about some of the locations the station would be broadcasting from), and of course daring her to try out new drinks at the coffee shop.
It was during one of these coffee meetings (I'd gotten her to try boba tea and we'd spent the past ten minutes laughing at her reactions) that she first told me about the dragon research.
"It's amazing! We may be able to actually introduce a synthetic virus that will give them the capacity to reproduce again! We've been working with them for years on it, but obviously it takes a lot of time to create a tailored nanobot like this, especially one that can replicate itself. Well, with energy from the dragons' magic."
"So... this is a magical mechanical... virus?"
"That's honestly the best way to describe it. It'll replicate until it has made all the changes necessary and then the body itself should eradicate it. The dragons will have a high fever for a few days, but nothing beyond what humans would consider a swift case of flu."
I took a sip from my cup, ignoring the noises it made when tipped beyond a certain angle.
"So... how's the body going to kill something made of machine parts?"
"We're able to use three dimensional nanoprinters to make biological matter into precise machines. They will be very much the stuff of life, or as close to life as most people can consider a virus. So they'll have proteins that the dragon's leukocytes can break down into harmless bits."
And that was that for a while. She'd update me on her progress now and then, but more and more we spoke of other things, dreams of future houses and children, desire for closeness. I worked up the nerve to ask her out for something more than business and coffee. It was a wonderful evening but I hadn't the nerve to ask her out a second time. Unfortunately, at that time her work took precedent and I didn't see her for two weeks. I was despairing when she called me up and asked me to go to dinner with her at a very nice restaurant on the edge of town, something far out of her usual price range.
I sailed through my day, excited at the prospect of an extravagant dinner with a beautiful woman and of what might come after. I had missed my sweet Jennifer with the secret love of fandoms and the science brain. Tonight, things would be wonderful! I might even ask her to go on vacation with me when she had a chance.
Fate isn't kind, and though the night was beautiful, the food perfect, and the music romantic, there was no love in the air. She spent the entire dinner speaking in half whispers about progress on her project. I wore a strained smile and attempted to show interest long into the night, but we parted without so much as a kiss. I thought it was a fluke. I desperately hoped that things were not falling apart so soon when they had seemed so perfect. But as we began to meet again regularly and her words lingered on work, progress, and the dragons, I realized that what might have been had faded from a guiding torch to fading embers on a damp morning.
I thought at first, as I struggled to keep the friendship going, that it was another man. Surely she had left me for her true love, something I could feel martyr to at least. But there was no mention of another man, even when I dropped hinting inquiries. Then I wondered if perhaps her romance was with one of the dragons. But that made no sense, either, for when she spoke of them it was with passion, but the passion seemed directed more at progress than romance. I finally came to the conclusion that the passion was entirely for her work, her science. The word had become a curse, a sneer, a thing held in such derision that my usual science fiction fandoms lay forgotten and dusty in my apartment. Science, of all things, had taken my hope from me.
In my mind at night, I replayed numerous scenarios where she would fail and fall into despair and come cry on my shoulder, where I would welcome her back and our love would rekindle as we grew closer than ever. But always the part of my mind that spoke for the freedom of others would set her free and the musings would turn to images of her sudden new discovery that threw her back into the scientific limelight. She would cure the dragons. She would become an icon, gain all the funding she could dream of, and found new centers of learning. She might win a nobel prize. She would be happy and I would be alone. The thoughts drew anger around them like a cloak.
More weeks passed, and as my birthday neared, it was clear I would be spending it as a single, lonely, and bitter man. My writing had taken a turn for the sarcastic and dull, appealing to the median of humanity instead of trying for the clever and bright half. I was actually published in a digest of short stories, but found no joy as the story that was published was hackneyed and without any evident soul. But then, soulless seemed to be what the market wanted. I wondered if my soul was what drove women away, what had caused me to be alone.
I found myself online chatting with some of my friends when I happened to mention my romance troubles to a few in a private room. One of them, I soon discovered, was a professor in epigenetics at a rival school. He said from what I relayed that her ideas sounded feasible, so long as she timed the viral attack properly. That is, so long as the viruses were defended just well enough to alter the dragons without killing them.
I've always been a quick learner when I put my mind to it. I'm good at teasing out enough knowledge to seem well versed in something, to solve a problem or pass a test without learning the whole subject. I knew I'd never earn a degree in a matter of weeks, but it struck me that if I could end this project badly that she'd return to me. My evening thoughts grew into mockeries of my plan, but I persisted. I didn't need to know genetics. I just needed to know how to alter a three-d printer's readout. And that, it turned out, was simpler than I thought.
I only needed to put on a readout that reflected the numbers entered as they were while the actual computers moved the thickness of the viral shell variable up by a power of three. It was simple, so simple to claim I was going to leave a gift for Jennifer. I switched the panel out easily enough following instructions I'd downloaded into my tablet and a few tools I'd borrowed from a friend. I didn't have time to stay and see if it worked. I had no real way to test it. Tests had been run and the actual application of the project would be tomorrow. It had been intended to be the next year, but with two dragons dead of old age and only one female remaining, it would have to be soon. Either my alterations would work or they wouldn't. It was in the hands of fate.
I felt oddly calm that night, as though a great weight were lifted from my shoulders. I turned on my television and watched old sci fi movies, reveling in the sight of experiments running amok and how I would prevent one more from happening. No dragons would mutate and devour humanity. Somewhere along the way, I'd convinced myself that I was doing this for all of humanity. Deep down, I knew it was a petty, manipulative act with the sole purpose of regaining Jennifer. But I could not let myself believe that it didn't have a higher goal.
I suppose you know now what happened. The virus, which would, by all predictions and tests, work perfectly, did not die as easily as expected. The emergency antivirals had no effect on this somehow mutated creation. The last she-dragon died in agony and the males soon followed from heartbreak. I went to console my Jennifer, knowing she would need me.
She was gone. She'd left with only a note to her department head that she was leaving the country to live with a distant relative who'd offered to shelter her from the backlash she was facing on all directions. I was informed that she had left in a state of despair and depression over her role in the death of the dragons. It was my birthday and I was alone.
Over the next few weeks, world peace and the golden age imploded. The nations of the world struck from their pits like coiled vipers, attacking without mind for what had been and could have continued. Scientific progress ground to a halt for religious leaders were able to grab the dragon tragedy as a reason to distrust all science and education of scientific principles. With one act, one treacherous and horrid act, I slew the last of the dragons and eradicated world peace. I destroyed the golden age.
I couldn't live with the guilt. Could you live with this? I was in the cafe when it happened, when I broke down in tears and yelled of my faults and misdeeds. The police were called, I was taken to the hospital. But when my stories were corroborated by evidence that had not been released to the public, I was arrested. I forget what all the charges are. It doesn't matter. I'm guilty.
I sit here, telling you this. I feel if I could just forgive myself, I might be able to fight for my freedom, claim insanity, explain myself away to lesser charges. But I cannot forgive. You see, I'm guilty. I'm guilty of destroying the world as it was. And worse than that, I'm guilty of destroying the woman I loved. I cannot forgive myself. And I should not. I know my guilt, I know my sanity, and I will await my punishment.
Telling you lessens not one whit of guilt, one straw of emotion. I don't want your forgiveness or your pity. Just remember this: when next the golden age arrives, don't destroy it because you can't let go of what was.
