Operation Population Reduction

Dr. Greg Schneider sifted through the reports as he prepared to brief the president. A mysterious outbreak at an elementary school in a predominantly black neighborhood in the outskirt of Atlanta. Two days ago, this wasn’t even a blip on the radar.

Today, it sat on the desk of the head of the CDC. So far, this virus was isolated to one tiny community, but this had every indication it would grow legs and suddenly be a much bigger problem. After COVID, no one wanted to take a chance.

Carver Elementary in South Fulton was a low-performing school in a neighborhood that was 92% black. From the perspective of a “catch your attention” news item, this would probably go awhile without raising any concern, which is sad, he thought.

Preliminarily, it appears that the distance from infection to symptoms was a matter of hours. Dramatic physical response was measured in days, as in two to three days. Fever, coughing, runny nose, vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration, and difficulty breathing, all within hours of being introduced to the virus.

With the rapidity of spread — from someone or something on campus having been infected to there being no one left to attend the school, let alone run it — all within a matter of one day. It took a mere three days from the first possible exposure for half the population of South Fulton to show symptoms.

He checked the time on the computer and closed his laptop.

Showtime!

President Meera Khatri listened intently as Dr. Schneider made his presentation. Before she could respond, Chester Johnson, head of Homeland Security spoke up.

“Madam President, if I may, I have something to add to this. I would have skipped over it as having nothing to do with national security, but what Greg has shared here may be connected. May I?” he asked.

“Of course, Chester. You have the floor.” She placed her elbows on the table and tented her fingers to rest her chin as she prepared to listen.

“This just came to our attention. What appears to be a very similar outbreak has occurred in El Alto, Bolivia. Reports suggest that the center point for this outbreak may be the Metropolitan Bus Terminal, the second largest in South America, and the busiest by far. The timeframe follows the CDC’s presentation, only on a larger scale, given the size of the initial exposure.

“I would have written this off as something to monitor, but, and I’m no doctor, could this be something someone has done? Two points of exposure in two different hemispheres at the same time?”

President Khatri looked at Dr. Schneider.

“Greg?” she said. “Could this be man-made or at least man-driven?”

“Well, I am a doctor,” he responded. “And I would have to agree.

If this had been in only one location, we would spend a lot of time trying to locate patient zero and determine the source of infection, and we still will. But given that this has happened simultaneously in two disparate populations separated by continents, I would suspect that there are actors behind these events.”

“Recommendations?” she asked, scanning the faces at the table.

These were the best and brightest men and women her nation had produced, her Cabinet. “How do we respond to this…” she hesitated, then finished, “…threat?”

“The first problem I see,” General Bo Chang, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs, spoke up.

“Whatever it is, it is already here.

If it’s manmade or man-driven, whoever is behind it already has access within our border, so closing borders won’t accomplish anything except to instill panic.”

“Quarantine is normally suggested, but with the rapidity this has shown, even if we shut down the state of Georgia, it may already have crossed into other states,” Dr. Schneider said.

“This is sounding ominous,” President Khatri lamented. “Are you saying there’s nothing we can do?”

Before anyone could answer, an aide entered the room and whispered to Gloria Demopoulos, the White House Chief of Staff. She nodded and turned to the president.

“Madam President, I think you’re going to want to see this. May I?” she asked, holding up the TV remote.

Khatri nodded.

Clicking on the remote, CNN appeared on the screen. Demopoulos adjusted the volume. A video was playing, showing people lying on the ground in what appeared to be a large structure. The titling at the bottom of the image indicated it was the Metropolitan Bus Terminal in El Alto, Bolivia.

A reporter was saying, “…the number of infected persons is incredible. It seems the infection rate is nearly ninety percent.”

The picture changed to the reporter, nose red, eyes bloodshot. “I have to be honest, we’ve only been here two hours, and I’m feeling pretty lousy. The good news is that there have been no reported deaths, so far. But we are getting reports from other terminals connected to this one that symptoms are appearing with some rapidity. We’ll continue to keep you updated, for as long as we are able. For CNN this is Bob Spartan in El Alto, Bolivia.”

“Thank you, Bob. We hope you the best. Take care.”

“Thank you, Sarah. Good day.”

“We have breaking news! Apparently, there is a group calling themselves the Earth Liberation Front, who have released a video claiming responsibility. I believe we are going to play a portion of that video here in just a second,” Sarah Goodman said. She looked off-camera and nodded.

“As they get that ready I’ll give you a little background. The Earth Liberation Group or ELF, is up to now, and I’m quoting Wikipedia, “ the collective name for autonomous individuals or covert cells who use “economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment.” If they are behind this, then it would appear to be a change of tactics and an escalation of action. Are we ready?

“Okay folks, here’s that video,” Sarah said.

A hooded figure wearing a Guy Fawkes mask appeared on screen, the voice was distorted so as to be unrecognizable.

“I speak for the Earth Liberation Front and we are letting you know that we are responsible for the viral assaults in Kaokoland, Namibia, South Fulton, Georgia, and El Alto, Bolivia. We have released a disease for which there is no cure, no vaccine, and no time to intervene.

“What you have seen is only the beginning, a dress rehearsal, as it were. You know the saying, practice makes perfect. Even as you are watching this, we are releasing this virus in major population centers the world over.

“What you don’t know is that this virus will kill almost every human it infects and it will infect nearly every human on the planet. The time from infection to death is seven days. God created the earth in six days. We will depopulate it in a bit more than seven days.

“If you are not currently infected, gather your loved ones to you and say your goodbyes. That is, if you are unprepared. Those of you who have been diligent, who have read the signs and taken precautions, now is the time to initiate your plans. Take cover. Put your head down and keep it down.

“We don’t know how long the virus will stay active. If you are lucky, you will be able to come out of hiding to a freshly scrubbed world. May you do better with it than we have to date.”

With that, the speaker reached forward and shut off the camera. The screen went momentarily black before Sarah Goodman returned and began haltingly to respond.

President Khatri waved for Demopoulos to shut it off.

Everyone sat in silence for a long moment.

Finally, the President spoke.

“Greg, could this possibly be true, what this terrorist has said?”

“From everything we know, and we know so little at this point, it could very well be the truth. At the speed it spreads, and if they have, in fact, released it or are releasing it to the degree they claim and if it leads to death in such short order, there isn’t much we could do about it,” he replied.

“Except take cover, Madam President,” Demopoulos said. “I suggest we initiate a full nationwide lockdown, starting with you. We need to move this underground and hit whatever alert state you recommend.”

After much debate, the Cabinet decided to follow the Chief of Staff’s advice. They called for a nationwide lockdown—hazard suites issued to emergency workers and security forces, curfews established , all travel shut down and the entire country ordered to take cover.

As would be expected, all hell broke loose, stores looted, traffic everywhere, shootings, vandalism, and riots.

The President and her Cabinet took their families with them into government bunkers. The preppers took to their shelters and hunkered down for the long haul.

Across the globe similar actions were being taken by every nation on earth, with varying results, mostly abject failure, given such little time to prepare.

As promised, the major cities got hit by another release of the virus, at the same time ELF took credit for it. Before a week had passed, not a soul on the planet dared walk outside.

The virus found its way into many of the shelters, carried there by infected individuals before they knew they were infected, there being no test for the sickness. Some had natural immunity and only got severely ill, but ultimately survived, others carried the disease without symptoms but passed it on to others.

In the end, ELF got their wish. The United Nations estimated that the global population had been reduced by eighty percent, from nine billion people worldwide to less than two billion, a pre-1927 number.

Humankind has received a second chance. This isn’t the first time around. We’ve had some practice now. Maybe this time, We’ll get it right.

This piece first appeared here.

Lead photo by Fulvio Ciccolo on Unsplash.

Read more science fiction by huffhimself here.