H5N1
an excerpt

Prologue

There is a battle waging in the world today that most people are completely and blissfully unaware of. The conflict is fought with biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction that if fully deployed could bring about the extinction of one or both of the combatants.

These modern-day weapons are the result of an arms race that has been run since the beginning of time. Without realizing the full impact of his work, Charles Darwin described this battle as a survival of the fittest. As in any war the advantages of one side often appear random as the tools of death of one opponent leaps ahead seemingly spontaneously in fits and jerks. But as quickly as the initiative is gained, it can be lost in an instant as the other side develops a more sinister instrument of destruction.

Throughout most of history the balance of power has remained relatively stable, but sudden shifts in the pendulum have resulted in wide-spread death. The Black Death of the middle ages wiped out half of the worlds population in less than a generation, and it took hundreds of years for mankind to recover. By the twentieth century, advances in sanitation, immunizations, and antibiotics gave rise to the feeling that deadly diseases would soon be nothing more than a faint memory. Then in the 1970’s, out of the depths of Africa came the deadly scourge of Ebola and HIV. The hemorrhagic fever of Ebola caused the body to decay in a matter of days before the victims mercifully succumbed to the disease. As terrifying as the effects of Ebola is because of the severity of symptoms and randomness of outbreaks, the virus is so virulent that it flares uncontrollably as a wildfire and burns out before it can spread… as long as the victims are isolated before they can get on a plane. HIV and AIDS is a more controlled virus that slowly and methodically subverts the infected body to its own goals before the victim dies from complications of the disease. However, after an initial flurry of fears based on a lack of understanding or misconceptions the spread of the disease can be limited with known precautions.

Still mankind teeters on the brink of disaster, waiting for the impending outbreak of disease that will fester throughout the world and rock the foundations of civilization. It may not be an exotic, unknown condition that wipes out man but something simpler, and deadlier, and already silently spreading throughout society.