January 20th 2010
Leo Barnett walked into the building that housed the so called 'command center' of the Vermont colony, last night it had snowed almost thirty inches, which made moving around the colony's facilities difficult, here was were the senior staff met and daily activities were planned, two weeks had passed since the cabinet arrived at the colony, as the settlement was built in mere weeks, supplies started to become an issue, after he entered his small office, he turned on the radio which broadcasted news twice a day since the infection began, so far, almost half of the radio stations had stopped transmitting and the ones that remained only transmitted news, almost no music.
Good morning everyone, you are listening to the official government radio regarding the Krippin Virus, here we have Helen Davidson with today's news.
Thank you Joe, to all people out there, there are rumors of infected dogs being able to come out at sunset and dawn, they can stand a limited level of ultraviolet radiation because they lack hair loss, reports have being arriving from all of the world which claim that the casualty count from the epidemic has now reached one and a half billion people, there are rumors of 'colonies' set up on Germany, India, Japan and Great Britain in order to shelter people immune to the virus, so far the only countries that are confirmed to be infection-free are Thailand and Norway, we also now know that an Army virologist, Doctor Robert Neville chose to stay in what many people now call 'ground zero' in order to try and find a cure, although the chances are slim, people must keep hope, the army has ordered the complete quarantine of the American borders in an effort to keep the infection from reaching Canada and Mexico, the government believes that almost a twenty percent of the general population is immune to the airborne strain of the virus but that only a zero point five percent is naturally immune to both the contact strain and the airborne strain.
Now we have an interview with Doctor James Willimham, who is the head of the governmental team tasked with finding a cure to the pandemic.
"Thank you for the invitation Helen, as you know, my team composed of epidemiologists and virologists have been trying to create a cure and a possible vaccine for the Krippin Virus, however our attempts have failed so far"
"Okay, now that you are here, Doctor, can you explain us how the Krippin Virus works?"
"Well, as you might know, KV was developed from Measles and Ebola, we all know that Ebola is an hemorrhagic fever, combined with Measles it made what we now know as the Krippin Virus, which was initially meant to cure Cancer by destroying the affected cells, however the virus mutated, once the Krippin Virus enters its host, it starts destroying white cells, which control our immune system, once the white cells are destroyed, it induces a coma, after you enter the coma there are two options, neither you can die or you can be turned into the creatures we now call the dark seekers which have a painful intolerance to ultraviolet radiation and loose all or most human traits, that includes hair loss, their skin turns pale because they sleep at day and wake at sunset, they are some unconfirmed cases of them attacking uninfected people, we believe that when their food sources such as raw animals and other stuff like that run out, they will try to feed on humans, it is important to mention that they are extremely aggressive and dangerous and must not be approached, do not leave your house at night and leave all windows closed and covered with shutters, preferably of metal in order to stop them from coming in into your house"
"Thank you Doctor, now we can listen to some music to cheer you people up"
Then the famous "Three Little Birds" song began to play on the radio.
He suddenly remembered he had a briefing regarding supplies with the colony's military commander, Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Anderson; he quickly turned off the radio and headed for the main conference room.
"Good morning, sir" the Colonel saluted as Barnett walked into the room.
"Good morning Colonel, I think we had planned a meeting for today" Barnett answered.
"Mister President, as you know, supplies are starting to become an issue, the army has stopped their resupply flights since last week and we only have enough food to last us little over a month" the colonel said worriedly.
"Okay, so what can we do about it?" Barnett asked.
"We can either starve to death or we can start sending teams outside the colony's walls to try and search for supplies, our construction team has built a greenhouse and seeded the first crops, we should be getting the first harvest in three months, Captain Parker and I have planned to send teams of four Hunvees into a nearby town in order to get what food we can from the local supermarket, only with your approval, of course" the colonel explained.
"I give you the go-ahead with the plan, but do not risk those men's lives unless it is absolutely necessary, how much food do you expect to be there?" Barnett asked.
"We think almost a week's worth of food or ten days if we rationalize it on the civilians" the Colonel answered.
"How are we running on fuel for our vehicles?" Barnett asked.
"We have almost ninety percent of our fuel for the ground vehicles and seventy-five percent of our reserves for our birds" the colonel responded.
"Good, then we can continue our operations for the time being, I am giving you the go-ahead with the mission colonel, god speed" Barnett responded.
"Thank you, Mr. President" the colonel responded and left the large conference room.