Fic: The Beginning Of The End
Chapter: Two
Author: JR Boone
Rating: M for strong sexual themes and intense violence. Also I have the mouth of a sailor so every other word is a curse usually.
Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or anything having to do with it. I wish I did. LOL that would be awesome. It would be like The L Word only
musical.
A/N: This has nothing to do with my Leave Me Alone, I'm Lonely verse. It's just something that I had to get out of my system. I'm not sure if I'll continue it. I suppose it depends on the response I get to this chapter.
The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast.
The slow one now, will later be fast.
As the present now, will later be past.
The order is rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now, will later be last.
For the times they are a-changin'.
"The Times They Are A-Changin'" Bob Dylan
The Hope Virus started as most of these things do with the best of intentions. A special branch of the government had been working for years to create a viable cure for cancer in all of its many devastating forms. A young scientist by the name of Dr. Gregory Addams was in charge of the experiments until he was kicked off in a very humiliating public forum. His results had been…less than satisfactory.
Dishonored, disgraced, and now the laughing stock of the scientific community he swore he would redeem himself by continuing his experimentations privately. After months of working late hours out of his home he secured a contract with a major pharmaceutical company to continue his work on their dollar. The company was located in Cleveland Ohio.
With a renewed sense of pride Dr. Addams dove head first into his experimentations, and without the watchful eye of the government he began making leaps and bounds towards his goal.
Classified records found in the wreckage of his lab later showed that Dr. Addams had been bending more legal and ethical laws than could be counted. While his earlier controlled tests had been done on lab rats and mice he had found those results to be disappointing and often unstable.
As he continued to reach the same results over and over again the doctor began becoming more and more disassociated from the ethical vow he had taken. Soon after he began experimenting with primates, including chimpanzees and gorillas. The results had started coming out better soon after and with a complete disregard with the possible consequences of his actions Dr. Addams began using human subjects who were unaware that they were being injected with a cure that did not yet exist.
Had the events of that October evening not happened when it did Dr. Addams would have inevitably been arrested and labeled as a modern day Dr. Kevorkian for his unethical experiments.
But they did happen.
The original patients of Dr. Addams had been given doses of the Hope Virus, then called the Hope Cure, that were so minuscule that their effects were hardly felt. Common side effects included mood swings, semi-violent outbursts, and changes in diet and energy levels. The reason for this was because Dr. Addams was using these patients as his own personal lab rats and documenting reactions to the drugs in small doses.
It was years from being ready for wide-spread use at the intended dose.
On October 13th 2011 a janitor by the name of Willy Baker was cleaning up Dr. Addams lab at nine p.m. He was a twenty year old burnout whose mind that evening was not on the dangerous substances he was handling, but instead he was concentrating on party that would later take place at his house that night. Ignoring the large puddle of water that had not been properly mopped up he walked across it holding a bio-bag full of needles over his shoulders. Inevitably he slipped on said puddle and fell backwards onto the bag. A needle containing a full dose of the Hope Cure imbedded in his back and pumped the drugs into his system at ten p.m.
Fearful that reporting the accident would result in him losing the job that was supporting a very expensive crack cocaine addiction, Willy went home that night to his party, where he blanked the accident from his mind by using. Fifteen people at that party shared his needle that night between the hours of eleven p.m. and twelve p.m.
At two a.m. they slipped into a drug addled sleep, along with the other twenty three attending the party that night.
By three a.m. those who had shared a needle with Willy Baker all died of massive organ failure. At four a.m. they all came back to life.
By ten p.m. on October 14th 2011, twenty-four hours after the original infection, over three-thousand people living in the low income housing developments of Cleveland Ohio had been infected.
By ten p.m. on October 21st 2011, a week later, the virus had spread to one-quarter of the United States of America and global reports were coming in.
By ten p.m. on November 13th 2011, the Hope Virus had spread to every corner of the world and infected more than sixty percent of its population.
It was an experiment intended to change the face of humanity. All forms of cancer would be eradicated, saving countless human lives.
"We have had it wrong all along. The earth doesn't go out with a bang or a whimper. The world goes out with a shriek, and I brought it forth. My got what have I done. I just wanted to help."
Recovered from the personal journal of Dr. Gregory Addams
