"Yes dear, that is true." The mother
answered, pulling the comforter up around to
her neck.
"Why can't we see all of the beautiful colors?"
She asked innocently.
"That's a long story my dear, why don't we
save it for another time." The mother
tried to stop the conversation.
"Please Mommy? Make it into a bedtime
story." Amber looked up, pleading.
The mother sighed. "All right.
It all happend about one hundred years ago, when
great Grandpa Niall was a young man. I'd say about twenty six
or so....."
Kieran Niall walked proudly into the building.
He had just finished getting his
PhD in Genetics and now here he was working at BioTech, the largest
reasearch company
in the western hemesphere. It was amost unbelievable. Once
inside he went over to the
front desk.
"Hello. My name is Dr.Kieran Niall.
I have a 10:30 appointment with
Dr.Gramm for him to show me around the building." He tried to
make himself sound
important, but to himself he still sounded like a college student.
"One moment Dr.Niall." The receptionest
presed a few buttons and wispered into
a mike before getting back to him. "Dr.Niall, Dr.Gramm will meet
you in the main
lounge. Go down the hall, take a right at the water fountin.
It will be the third door on
your left."
"Thank you." Kieran started down the hall,
admiring the bright polish of the floor.
A few moments later a tall woman in a lab coat walked in. She had long
brown hair,
graying at the temples and bright blue eyes which seemed to belie the
intelligence behind
it.
"Hi, you must be Dr.Niall. I'm Dr.Gramm."
The lady said shaking his hand.
"Hi. Nice to meet you."
"Shall we begin?"
"Lets."
And with that they headed down the hall.
The tour lasted about an hour. The last
set of rooms they stoped in was his research area.
"This wing is the Genetics Sector. This
is where you'll be working. Now, here is
your door pass" she handed him a small card that resembled a credit
card, " and your coat
with ID. That should be it. Today you'll spend with the
machines. Looking them over,
getting to know thier nuances and such. Tommorow I'll come back
with your first
project. We're working on genetic alterations in fetus's.
We're still in the computer phase
of it, but we hope to move to the rats within the next six weeks or
so. Maybe sooner if
you're as smart as they say you are. Well, I'll see you tommorow.
'Bye."
"Thanks for the tour. 'Bye." He waved
to her as she walked out the door.
The rest of the day went by fairly quickly.
There were many machines to look
over, and many of them were different than the ones used at his college.
He went home
tired but excited and satisfied. Today truely was the first day
of the rest of his life.
For the next three months Kieran worked like
the devil. He was assigned to work
on the project of breaking down the genetics of color blindness and
how to replace the
allele responsible for it with a non-defective allele. This was
a project that has special
meaning to him, for he was color blind himself. Just when he
thought he was getting
somewhere disaster struck.
The mother stoped for a moment. Amber
was looking up at her intently. "Now to
understand this part of the story I'll have to tell you some of the
history of that time
period. Iraq was a very angry country and had built many biological
wepons." Amber at
her mother looked confused "Those are wepons that make people very
sick. Now one of
the wepons they made was very effective. It was a variation of
the small pox genetically
altered so that it would kill the person in three days. They
had enough of this stockpiled
to kill everyone in the world three times over. But it wasn't
Iraq that set them. At this
time there was also a fringe enviromentalist group. They believed
that people were bad,
and that they were hurting the earth. They thought that the only
way to help the earth
would be to kill all the people, including themselves, and let mother
nature fix herself. So
they stole the wepons, and set them up all around the world.
They set them on a timer.
They would go off on earth day. All they did was release a oderless,
tastless gas that you
couldn't see. No one even knew it went off until everyone started
getting sick....."
Kieran whistled as he walked down the hall.
When he opened the door to the
main lab though, the whistle died on his lips. There was Dr.Gramm,
laying in a pool of
vomit. He ran over too her, picked her up, and lay her down on
the desk. Her skin was
burning to the touch, so he ran to the lounge and grabbed a small bag
of ice. Wrapping
this in a towl he lay it on her head. He used his coat as a blanket
for her to try and stop
her shivering. Then he called 911.
"This circut is busy at the moment.
Please hold on and an operator will be with
you as soon as possible." Music started playing over the phone as he
waited. A full fifteen
minutes later an operator finally came onto the line.
"911, what is the nature of your emergency?"
The operator said in a tired voice.
"I have a woman here in my office who is very
sick."
"Let me guess, vomiting, chills, and a fever
right?"
"Yes, how did you.."
"It's been going on all over the city.
Some sort of outbreak. Giver her some
tylonal, keep her warm and giver her lots of liquids. If she
gets dehydrated bring her to
the hospital, otherwise please don't. They're overcrowded as
it is. Thank you sir, have a
nice day." A dial tone rang in his ear.
With nothing else to do he decided it would
be best to bring her to his appartment.
Luckily most of the vomit was on her lab coat, which he took off of
her before they left.
The halls were eerily quiet as he left the building. He sat her
up in the passenger seat,
buckled her up and headed out. During the ten minute drive to
his house she didn't stir.
She was out like a light. He had to carry her up the steps and
into the elevator. Finnally
he got her into his appartment and put her on the bed. Since
she wasn't awake right now
he couldn't give her the tylonal, but he did cover her up to keep her
warm. Then he went
out into his living room and collapsed on the couch himself.
He woke up an hour later to the sounds of
moaning in his bedroom. He got up
with a start and ran in. She was awake but just barely. He went
and got some tylanol
from his bathroom and a tall glass of water. He sat her up, put
the pills in her mouth and
gave her the water. Weakley she swallowed the pills and the water.
When she finished
he lay her back on the pillows and looked up at him.
"Where am I?" she asked weakly.
"I found you sick at work. They said
the hospitals were overcrowded and that I
should take care of you myself. So I brought you here,
to my appartment." He motioned
around with his arm.
"Thank you" She lay back and closed her eyes
again. Quietly Kieran left the
room. He made himself some lunch and sat down to watch some movies.
It was one of
the few times he'd been home for an extended period of time.
He'd put so much time in at
the lab that he rarely ever saw his home.
After the forth movie he started to get board
so he logged online. He checked his
email quickly and then logged his chatroom. No one was there.
This was odd. Oh well,
he'd try another one. Still no one. What was with this?
The whole world could't be sick,
could they? Finnally he tried one of his color blindness support
groups. This place was
crowded. 359 people logged in. What was going on. He started typing.
GeneMan 'Hey, sup.
Anyone here sick?.
Angel359 'No, but my mom
is. Real bad 2. She threw up everywhere and is
shivering.'
Vampyregrl 'My boyfriend is sick 2.'
KornFrk666 'I think my whole town is sick. No 1 was
at work 2day.'
He thought about this for a few minutes.
GeneMan 'Have u seen
any1 who is color blind and sick'
KornFrk666 'Nope'
Angel359 'No'
Vampyregrl 'Not here either.'
SysOp
'EnviroCare has just logged on'
EnviroCare 'Hey everyone. was'up'
Vampyregrl 'Everyone but the color impared
is dying.'
GeneMan 'We don't know that
they're dying. they're just sick. we're trying to
figure out y.'
EnviroCare 'Well I can help you with
that. We did it.'
Korn666 'U did what?'
EnviroCare 'Made everyone sick.
To remove the hand of man from the earth
and let mother earth heal herself.'
Vampyregrl 'And how'd you do that. Did you
pray to Gia and hold rituals?
EnviroCare 'No, we set BioBombs.'
GeneMan 'How many did you set?'
EnviroMan 'How many people are there
that need to die?'
SysOp
'EnviroCare has logged off'
Korn666 'Shoot. He's
gone.'
Angel359 'Do you think
he's telling the truth?'
Vampyregrl 'How else could everyone be
sick'
GeneMan 'More importantly,
what are they sick with?'
Just then Dr.Gramm walked out of the bedroom.
She looked perfectly fine. No
shaking, no lethargy, no glaze over her eyes. Nothing that would
ever have indicated that
she had been sick. Kieran got up quickly and went over to her.
It was then he noticed the
lesions on her face.
"Dr.Niall, what's wrong with me." her voice
wavered a little as she spoke.
"I don't know." he said simply. She
looked at him for a moment, then turned back
into the bedroom. A moment later he heard the TV in there click
on. He went back over
to the computer.
Vampyregrl 'Yo, G'Man, where are you'
GeneMan 'I'm here.
The woman who I found sick just got up. She doesn't
seem to have a fever anymore, but she has lesions all over her face.
Korn666 'That's
not good. It sounds like small pox to me.'
GeneMan 'That's impossible!
They eliminated small pox.'
Korn666 'Small
pox as we know it. If EnviroCare was tellin the truth and
they set this stuff up it could be a mutated strain of it that the
vaccine doesn't cover. It's going a lot faster than it should too.'
GeneMan 'Then they
don't stand a chance.'
SysOp
'GeneMan has logged off.'
At this rate everyone would be dead in a matter
of days. Kieran sat down on his
couch. What would happen to everyone left. Five percent
of the population is color
blind. If you figure the world has about four billion people
on it right now, that leaves
two hundred million left after the plauge. If there was a link
between the allele that
causes color blindness and the one that gave them immunity. It
could just be a fluke. But
just in case it wasn't he needed to find all the color blind people
in america. Was there
some sort of directory, or would he just have to go town to town when
everyone was
dead. God this was morbid. He already counted Dr.Gramm,
his friend and associate as a
corpse. But the truth was, that was what she was. A walking
corpse. He logged back
online.
Vampyregrl 'Most religions base thier
ideology around the fact that they want
their God to be humanoid. He this or She that. Should be an it.
God is an energy that is in all of us.'
GeneMan 'Sorry to inturupt
this philisophical conversation. Do any of you
know if there is a listing of all the color blind people in the US?'
DrEvil13 'Sure.
Go to www.colorblind.com. Anyone who has registered
with the site should have contact info. Like email and stuff.'
GeneMan 'Have a lot
of pple registered?'
DrEvil13 'It's
got over one hundred thousand people listed under the US.'
GeneMan 'Thanks.'
DrEvil
' Ur Welcome. What did you want it for, if you don't mind my
asking'
GeneMan 'Well, if in
a few days everyone else will be dead.
Latino69 'Why
will everyone be dead?'
Vampyregrl 'Havn't you noticed everyone
around you getting sick?'
Latino69 'Yeah.'
Vampyregrl 'Well, they've got a strain
of the smallpox and they're all gonna die.'
Latino69 'Why
arn't we dying.'
GeneMan 'Some sort
of immunity linked to the gene for color blindness. It's
not uncommon. The gene for sickle cell anemia gives those pp
immunity from malaria.'
DrEvil13 'If
only color blind people are left though, than what about our
kids.'
GeneMan 'What about them'
DrEvil13 'Won't they
all be color blind too. I mean, right now it's a low
percentage of people who have it, but if all the other people are
gone won't that leave us with just the color blind gene?'
GeneMan 'If it only gives immunity in
the homozygous condition than yes.'
Latino69 'What about government
and stuff. They'll all be dead.'
GeneMan 'That's part of the reason I want to
get ahold of pple. We'll have to
get all the people left alive togther and reform society.'
Wulf21 'How'
GeneMan 'Well, I'd like to start by letting
people know what's going on. The
possibly all move to one area for awhile at least so we can keep
things running. That is unless you want the electricity and
telephone to die with everyone. So I'll contact everyone and set
up an online meeting to begin with. Until then.'
SysOp 'GeneMan has
logged off.'
The mother looked over at Amber. She
was fast asleep. Tiptoing over to the door
she whispered, "So grandpa got everyone organized and we build a new
world. Just with
a little less color than before."