Prologue
Jacob was tired of checking paperwork, he was tired of doing the same thing every—single—day. As he stood in a hot gate booth at the end of the long drive leading to the CDC building in Aurum, he spat on the ground out of frustration. He knew he was capable and meant for more than this mundane existence. His wife Kelly told him that all the time, she wanted him to make more money and be more ambitious. His mind started trailing off into his daily daydream where he marched into that fancy building to his boss’s large office and demanded a raise and more responsibilities, so he could prove he was better than this job.
“Excuse me, Sir. Sir? EXCUSE ME!” a man with wiry disheveled salt and pepper hair was looking up at him from a vintage BMV with a crazed look in his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a very long time.
Jacob eased the window of his booth open slightly with an uninterested look on his face. “Papers, please,” he said in a monotone voice from route memory.
“I don’t have papers. I need to speak to the head of the CDC, it’s urgent.” The man shifted in his seat clearly antsy.
“I can’t let you in without papers, Sir. Please turn around and come back when you have the proper paperwork.” Jacob gestured with his arm out of the booth to indicate the direction the man needed to drive to turn around.
“You don’t understand, Sir. I am a scientist with information that the CDC needs regarding a disease that’s been confined to animals and minimal at best, but I have reason to believe that humans will be affected very soon.” The wiry haired man put his head in his hands and then ran his fingers through his hair nervously.
This could be it, the moment that Jacob could get noticed. If he let this guy through, or even escorted him to the boss’s office and this guy’s information saved the human race, then he would definitely get that raise he deserved. “OK, just calm down and pull around to the exit side of the booth and give me a minute. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you, Sir. You have no idea how important this is,” the man said.
Jacob tapped on his forearm to contact his boss. “What is it, Jacob? I am in the middle of a meeting, this had better be important,” his boss said with a huff. He chose to ignore his boss’s attitude and push forward with the request. “My apologies Mam, but I have a scientist at the booth without paperw—,”
His boss interrupted with an exasperated sigh, “Let me guess, some crackpot ‘Scientist’ thinks they have discovered some rare disease that will kill us all? Send them on their way now,” she said while abruptly ending the call.
Jacob turned to the man with sympathy, “I am sorry Sir, unfortunately you will need to obtain the proper paperwork and meeting in order to gain access to the building.” The man peered at Jacob through flared nostrils, gripped the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles turned white, took a deep breath and peeled out of the parking lot like his life depended on it.
Three months later, that nervous man with the wiry salt and pepper hair was the most important man in all of Innovia and a quarter of the world’s population was dead from a disease that no one paid attention to, a little known disease that only affected a small number of animals. It was called RINS.
