It’s hard to be the villain. I mean, it’s easy to get everyone upset with you, but to be a real villain, that’s hard. Terrible decisions can have lasting consequences, but given the uncertainties of my story, terrible decisions are not always the fault of the person making them.

My terrible decisions possibly resulted in the deaths of over one billion people, but I really don’t know. I suspect I’m the villain here, the greatest single mass murderer in history. In one careless act, I killed more people than anyone else. No serial killer could ever match my numbers. My name would be remembered, dwarfing a pantheon of mass murderers; if people ever find out how I fucked up.

As a child I was interested in insects and birds, cats, dogs, fish, living things, anything living. When I got to school and started learning about the almost natural world around me, I was completely fascinated. Perhaps the most defining moment of my life was when I discovered how easy it was to extract DNA from fruit. I knew then I was going to focus on genetics. How did that stuff work? I wanted- needed, to know.

At University, I was enthralled by the possibilities of genetic engineering, by factors of diversity and the lack of it. I learned about viruses and germs; how genetic engineering had changed us as humans. We are conquering old diseases, bringing animals back from extinction and more.

I learned about the 1918 Pandemic, killing more people than the First World War. I learned about the 2019 Pandemic and the impact of stupid people on science. Then I learned how we, as a species, were using genetics to destroy ourselves.

Interest in the genetic development of viruses grew exponentially after the 2019 Pandemic. Most importantly, gene-based cures were developed and efficient health upgrades became commonplace. I’m not going to get too involved here, the technical details would likely bore the crap out of anyone not intimately associated with the field, but sufficient to say they were effective. There was, after the development of the SKRT (popularly known as the skirt system) process in 2081, an unexpected side effect. It wasn’t widely grasped as only one person cared to challenge WellGene’s SKRT technologies until the 2117 Pandemic, me.

What everyone knows is that the virus that caused the 2117 Pandemic was MERS #37, a virus related to SARS-Cov and SARS-Cov2, that mutated so rapidly it threatened the world for four years. What only I know, or believe rather, is that that mutation occurred as a result of the SKRT process and my humiliation. Let me explain.

There were two competing technologies to enhance the human immunosystem. The more efficacious and original tech was EIGA, which I was treated with, and the lower cost SKRT. They were widely adopted, making humans far healthier than ever before. The problem was that everyone was looking at the benefits, not the drawbacks.

The human genome is diverse, so diverse people often think of it as being infinitely different. Research has shown us this is just not so, genetic patterns repeat over generations. How many times have we heard tales of a medieval skeleton being found, then undergoing virtual forensic facial reconstruction with the result identified by friends and relatives as a living person? It may be unsettling for us to realize we are carrying the face of an ancestor, but in all likelihood, it’s more than one ancestor’s face.

These things mean that there is only a finite set of viable genetic variations in our DNA. And that’s what SKRT was damaging.

In my initial research, I found that the hominid DNA I was researching was similar; more than the 99+% common genes we find in humans and chimps. It disturbed me for some reason. In the years after graduation, I undertook more of this research, privately, in my spare time, initially to calm any misgivings I was feeling, but I couldn’t.

As my research continued, becoming more involved, I began noticing that all the people with so many similar markers had been treated with the SKRT process. I compared these specimens to the older EIGA process. SKRT was different, it was installing a set of uniform genes.

The key point here is that both processes are similar in effect in what they do, but EIGA enhanced existing genes, SKRT replaced existing genes. The SKRT process was making the genetic code uniform in one key area, the immune system.

I took my findings to an old lecturer from my University days, only to be told to stop wasting my time. There was a warning to go with this, that if the company selling the SKRT process, WellGene, was to hear about what I was doing, I would likely be blackballed from any genetics lab. They were too powerful and I was just one person.

I wish I could say that I took strength from this, being a true believer, ploughing ahead. I didn’t, I was an utter coward, dropping the entire idea of a project and a paper on this. My fantasies of being a lead investigator were dashed, reality crushed me. I didn’t know it then, but this was the first step on my road to great villainy.

I buried the idea, for about ten years. It sat in the back of my mind and if asked, I couldn’t say why I wouldn’t drop it.

I was working for GeneTech, the developers of a genetic treatment for Motor Neuron Disease. MND had eluded a permanent solution, killing you by destroying nerves that are essential to living; it takes years and is very debilitating. We were trying to treat it by cutting out faulty genes and splice in healthy genes, using an effective 100-year-old CRISPR technique, but we couldn’t properly identify the culprit genes.

Initially developed as a treatment for cancer, CRISPR uses a protein and RNA to slice target genes out and put healthy genes in. This is a vast oversimplification, but the SKRT process used this technology.

I threw myself into my work, weekends, late into the night, sleeping in my office on many occasions. At one point, I was running a series of experiments and hadn’t slept for several days, nor eaten a decent meal. Sounds like the obsessed, dedicated scientist, but I was being irresponsible. Tired, I pressed the wrong key on my computer deleting months of test results. There were backups, which meant I didn’t lose anything, but it did get my immediate supervisor off her ass and ream me. She told me to go home, get some sleep and I could work from home for a couple of weeks. This was the second step in my downward spiral.

Many of my developmental experiments could be done on the computer, in virtual reality with the right software. I had access to that, as a researcher. A quantum computer was out of my reach, but I had already purchased fifty low-cost Raspberry Pi 12Cs, a powerful little single board computer; wire enough together and make a supercomputer. I was able to conduct a whole range of virtual experiments, deeply researching something without the need for a Biosafety Level 4 Laboratory. As long as I was meeting my employer’s requirements, they were quite happy for me to continue working from home.

It was here that I made the fatal decision to return to my data on the SKRT process. For me this was an innocuous decision but it prepared the final stage for my infamy.

What came next was worse. My mother was an insightful and clever investor, my father inherited a number of properties, his family’s wealth, and together, they proved to be unstoppable in their money-making achievements. Their only bad decision was where they chose to live.

Newtown Grange was an old National Trust listed property they owned in England. The land had been sub-divided but they held the old mansion, refurbished it, modernizing where they could without compromising National Trust rules. Unfortunately, none of that protected them when an aircraft fell out of the sky, destroying a large part of the old estate, with many deaths. Seems aircraft maintenance was insufficient, according to the UK Air Accidents and Investigations Board.

My parents knew my indifference to money making and had taken the precaution of preparing a trust for me; my downfall was complete. It took a couple of years, but I now had the resources to pursue my own dreams. I started by quitting my job and setting up my own lab in my own barn, funded by the income generated by the Trust and life, property and other insurance payouts. Coupled with a healthy compensation payment from the aircraft company liability funds, I had all the resources I would ever need.

Within two years, I had completed my research into what I saw as the failings of SKRT technologies. I presented a single authored paper to a number of scientific journals, only one of which was brave enough to print it. I was on top of the world, I had names contacting me, names of renown. People wanted to talk about my research. Some called me brave, some called me dumb, but my paper caused a stir, then it all turned sour.

First, WellGene, developers of SKRT technologies, denied my claims. They were telling the public my conclusions were based on erroneous data. They presented alternative findings, saying I was fudging results. They published a counter paper, then it heated up. I argued the point, and I had the data to back me up.

It was demanded that I present the full, original data to support my findings, so I did. The problem I had was that the data on my supercomputer didn’t match my original paper. I had printed copies, in my fireproof safe, and again, those papers didn’t match what I had published. Unbelievable, and I didn’t understand why at first. WellGene’s lawyers delivered a cease and desist order, threatening a lawsuit if I didn’t stop talking. They would sue me for everything I had and sequester the income from the Trust to pay their legal fees and further damages for years to come.

I was so fucking angry! I don’t know how they did it, but I know why. I was costing them business. I had damaged them so they damaged me, my reputation. The journal that published my paper sacked the sub-editor who approved my paper and they publicly apologized for printing my “fraudulent rubbish”, as it was called. This was the spark exploded into a rage that made me a villain.

Shakespeare wrote “…since I cannot prove a lover…I am determined to prove a villain…” I wasn’t going to play nicely after this. Quietly, slowly, I rebuilt my supercomputer, taking it offline, making sure there was no way anyone could hack into it. I found a forgotten, small hard drive that had my original SKRT data on it that had been stored earlier as I hadn’t needed it. All my external doors had bio-locks put on them, I replaced the safe with a timed bio-lock as well. Each door had both palm readers and retina scanning, run by my supercomputer, now inside the lab. In short, the house and lab were more secure than a bank vault.

I began playing around with virtual viruses, tracking the impact on the SKRT repaired systems responses. I hunted for three whole years, through little successes and large failures. Then in 2115, I found a virus that was still deadly in the real world, one with a low infection rate, but a high mortality rate, the MERS virus.

I proved by a virtual model that a mutated virus would be able to overcome the defences of SKRT tech. I tried to get it out there, for people to listen, but as soon as they saw my name, they refused to talk to me. Publications, all sorts of publications, refused to even consider anything I submitted. This ratchetted my anger upward and I was determined to prove these idiots wrong, I was being ridiculed, not listened to. There was only one option left. I would make the virus to expose the SKRT process as fraudulent.

Rather quietly, I began my purchases and remodelled my lab. Most equipment and materials are easy to buy from your local hardware store. Some equipment needs to be purchased quietly, online, I had several addresses I could easily use and did. I kept my eye out for online auctions, created a number of fake accounts. buying some equipment anonymously. I picked up a gene sequencer for less than a hundred dollars at an auction. The one piece I needed though, a Durling Gene Constructor, I could not find anywhere. This was critical to making a new virus, as it would provide the environment for a virus to be naturally grown.

I started researching how a Gene Constructor was actually made, and it turned out to be very tricky, but not impossible. It took a year of trial and error to get it right, but I built a crude one. Modelling showed the right virus to construct, and its many variations becoming even more deadly.

What happened next was not deliberate, it was accidental. Believe me, I wish I could undo it, but it happened. I didn’t build a Level 4 bio-research lab, that would attract far too much unwanted attention, but I did construct a closed environment, fully secured lab behind my bio-lock doors. It was idiot proof, except if the idiot was already inside.

I worked on the virus and it didn’t take long at all. I was amazed at how rapidly the virus began to grow, but more importantly, how it mutated so quickly.

The new year came and went. I genuinely believed that 2117 was going to be my year. I knew by years end I would be lauded as a saviour. Self-deception is always harder to perceive than recognising someone else’s bullshit.

In the self-contained environment I was working in, I foolishly allowed the place to get more than a little cluttered. I knocked my elbow on a pile of that clutter and dropped a vial full of the virus.

First, I panicked. I know, dumb, but if the virus got out, there would be hell to pay, and I would be expected to pay it. I started full sanitation procedures, washing and showering as soon as I was through the sanitation station set up in the first airlock. All my PPE and clothing went into a sealed burn bag. I scrubbed and scrubbed while my heart was in my mouth.

When satisfied I was clean, I got fresh clothing and complete PPE suit, checking myself thoroughly. I cleaned-up every shard of broken glass, washed down everything with bleach and disinfectant, everything that could, went into burn bags. Air filters in both the intake and outtake vents and the Corsi-Rosenthal boxes were all changed. Took me two days to get the lab back to pristine condition and I made quite a bonfire that night. If I was infected, I would likely have another five days before symptoms showed.

I ordered online deliveries, I wanted complete isolation. I had no social life or date nights, so it was all good. Not wanting to do anything in the lab until I was sure I was fine, I revisited the original SKRT data and calculated that the current version of the virus showed a minimum thirty-five percent mortality rate, with a further forty percent suffering long term impacts. This was appalling. Three quarters of SKRT recipients were at high risk because of the carelessness of WellGene.

After a further week, and apart from a small sniffle with a bit of a cough, I had not been unwell, my EIGA worked. I believed I was safe and so were 75% of WellGene’s clientele. I can’t describe the happiness I felt at being sufficiently cautious so as to dodge an incredibly dangerous bullet. I needed a break.

I have an SUV, no idea why I bought it, but now it was going to come in handy. It has a great range so I fully charged it, making sure I could travel. Okay, it’s winter, I rugged up really well and headed south with plenty of snacks.

I didn’t want to talk to anyone on the way, using self-charging stations every stop. The driving was settling, and the trip mostly pleasant. Being a weekday, there were big trucks, but not a lot else and I got to the next big city in a little over 15 hours, tired but not overly so. Couldn’t help interacting with people here, but it was a first-class hotel with rooms available. I stayed the night, eating in the dining room, a couple of drinks at the bar. A rather good-looking hooker was giving me the eye, but I was pretty indifferent, she moved on quickly.

Next morning, I headed even further south. Never been this far south before, was a lot warmer and no snow when I pulled into the next big city about seven hours later.

Slept in this large room, comfortable bed, and being a five-star hotel, it had the works. Spent the next day being a tourist somewhere I have never been before. Went to sleep that night tired from the day’s exertions. Up early, showered, where I was hit with another brainstorm. ‘What if…’ I thought. I had a quick breakfast and, shelving any further travel non-plans, headed for home. I only stopped for recharging my car. I was so excited by what I was thinking, I ran on nerve, making it home in less than twenty-three hours, then slept for the next five.

I went straight to my lab and started work on developing a model for a vaccine. I’m not going to kid myself, making a virus is easy, but there was no way I could actually make a vaccine. I could design it though, based on the model I used to make the virus.

Days, then weeks passed while I immersed myself in my work and the world was passing me by. The whole project was going really well, I had base structures in place and so far, there was nothing that was being overwhelmed by the virus, theoretically. There was a long way to go still, but I was headed in the right direction.

Work is always occupying my attention. My cell phone rang several times, which I ignored, just carried on working. I placed an order online for supplies and learned deliveries would be a week away. Surprised, I went to my normal shopping precinct, noting there was very little traffic for this time of the day. Delivery vans were around, but not a lot else. When I got there, my local favored shopping precinct was shut down, completely. There was nothing open. What the hell?

I headed straight home, turned on my Tri-D and hunted the channels for a news bulletin, something I hadn’t done for weeks. There it was, the news. A virus was sweeping the entire country, an emergency had been declared. Cases had already been found in the east, and internationally.

The really scary part of it, according to the news presenter was the speed at which it was spreading. Airports and shipping had already been shut down, but that hadn’t contained the spread. The epicenter of the virus, was on this coast. I began to hunt the ‘Net for more information.

Patient Zero was an Argentinian woman who had landed in the country, stayed on the West coast for a few days, at the same hotel I had, then flew East. There were two recorded outbreaks in the cities I had visited within days of each other. A photo of the woman did not ring any bells. I had stayed isolated for two weeks. I traveled for four days and just weeks after I was in those cities, people started dying. I could not ignore this, was I responsible for this?

I tried to contact my former boss at GeneTech and couldn’t get through. I sent an email with the simple statement “If the symptoms are similar to MERS infection, check the immune enhancement. The common link is SKRT. Call me!” There was no response. I sent it again, and again, five more times, then came the response, “So it seems. What do you know about it?”

I couldn’t express my role in this tragedy, so replied “Been working on a potential solution, a vaccine model, based on the MERS virus. I have my original data to build it. Call me!”

He did. All I could tell him was that when WellGene made me look like a fool or a liar, I knew I was right. Any successful assault on SKRT enhanced systems would have to be a relative of SARS- with the MERS variation being the most likely. I have been working on a model that could work but it needed completion. Within 30 minutes I had an escort to take me to GeneTech labs, it took me minutes to convince them to look at my original data and my latest models.

It took another nine months to create a viable vaccine, in a rushed program. By this time deaths around the world had reached hundreds of millions. The North and South America, England, China, India were hardest hit. India surprised me, but it seems that WellGene had a deal with the Indian Government to provide low cost widespread immune support in return for unlimited access for their other products.

The virus continued to mutate; while my vaccine played catch up for two years, the virus outdid us at every turn. Eventually, we aimed it at those parts of the virus that didn’t mutate, its basic structure. Every time a new variant arose, another 50 million people would die. It was deadly but the numbers started falling.

Four years after the first outbreak, we finally got on top of it. My role in creating the vaccine was widely acknowledged, as was my original paper concerning the issues with SKRT. A lot of WellGene people went to prison, some were stoned by angry mobs. I was approached by the Nobel Committee, but referred them to GeneTech. In all conscience, I didn’t know for sure if it was my virus that started this pandemic, or if it was a naturally occurring mutation. Didn’t matter, I wasn’t going to say anything, there was no satisfaction for me in any of this.

The reality is that 1.37 billion people died of the virus and its mutated variants. Over 90% of those who died had used SKRT immune-technology. The vaccine I had started developing slowed it, until it mutated again. Subsequent boosters to vaccinate against mutations worked then stopped working. The sad truth was that there was absolutely nothing that could be done to help anyone with the WellGene SKRT immunosystem gene splice. If they got the virus, vaccinated or not, they had a 35% chance of dying and we had no idea why.

This was the same flaw that afflicts any species without sufficient genetic diversity. All it took was a too similar immunosystem. This is what I railed against, this is what I was made to look like a fool and a liar over. Well, if I was a liar, then I would lie about something much bigger.

Richard III said it better than I ever could:

Alas, I rather hate myself
For hateful deeds committed by myself.
I am a villain. Yet I lie. I am not.