The dark secret

Taking a break from work, I was in a coffee shop, sipping my flat white and passively listening to the muffled sound of the news coming from the TV on the wall. The news was about the recent interest hike and its impact on ordinary people. “Homebuyers like me who have to downsize their life to meet their next mortgage payments. If the interest rate rises again, I may stop having coffee outside,” I thought with dread.

The news moved on to a tropical storm in the southern part of India, the war in Ukraine, and so on until I lost my interest. But the following line snapped me out of my thoughts- Dr. Jason Patterson, a promising pharmacologist, died in an unfortunate explosion at one of the Elixir Pharma labs. Upon hearing the sad news, my heart filled with overwhelming sorrow. Jason and I attended the same university. He was exceptionally bright and wanted to make a difference by working on new medicines and vaccines. That was why he chose to become a pharmacologist and not a pharmacist. “How did it happen?” I asked. But I strongly suspected that the explosion was no accident and that he was killed, which frightened me.

“My lips are sealed,” those words echoed in my mind as I sat in that crowded café grieving the death of my old friend, my university classmate- a pledge I gave Jason. Suddenly, the secret Jason told me felt like a heavy burden. How did I find myself in this predicament? To understand the story, I must return to where it started.

I received an unexpected message from Jason about a year ago asking to catch up. Talking to an old friend about the silly things we did at school was a welcome break from the boring everyday life of adulthood. So the following weekend, we met at a pub we used to attend as students. But our meeting didn’t go as I expected. Jason’s face betrayed the weariness of a man who had seen more than his share of trouble. His desperate eyes glimmered as he spoke. “I need your help, my friend. I must tell you something, but it has to stay between us.”

“My lips are sealed,” I responded.

Jason began his story with a question. “How much do you know about my job at Elixir Pharma?”

“Nothing much. You’ve always aimed to help people, especially those in third-world countries. So, you are likely working on new medicines and vaccines, am I right?”

“It was my intention!” he said and went silent, sipping his beer, musing.

I was wondering what he was going to reveal. He was working out how much of his dark secret he should tell me then. “Aren’t you working on new medication and vaccines for existing diseases?” I asked.

“Not really.”

“How come?”

“Elixir Pharma is conducting experiments on viruses, modifying their genetics to maximize their strength.”

“For what reason? Are you making biological warfares?”

“To an extent, yes.”

“What do you mean?” I was shocked to hear that.

“We have created a formidable Ebola virus. It is over a hundred times more contagious than naturally occurring Ebola. If set free, it can kill lots of people. It can cause a significant decrease in the population. In such a pandemic, hundreds of millions, and perhaps billions, of people could be wiped out in a short time.”

“My god!”

“And we have already developed a potent vaccine against this super virus.”

“So, what’s been bothering you? You have a vaccine for it.”

“My day was going great until I stumbled upon a top-secret paper I was not supposed to discover. It showed that the virus had been created to lower the world population when it grew too much.”

“What number of people is large enough?”

“Ten billion, that’s the number.”

“Oh, my god. We are just about eight billion. When the world population will reach ten billion?”

“2050, plus and minus three years.”

“Oh, my god.”

“The plan is to reduce the world population to an acceptable level of two and a half billion. It means seven that a half billion people should die.”

“And the vaccine…?”

“Vaccination is reserved for the selected few.”

“Who came up with this terrible plan?”

“Certain people high in the hierarchy, a few in the highest echelon of authority. And it has been endorsed by WHO, the World Health Organization.”

“No way! The World Health Organization can’t be part of this evil plan? WHO’s motto is ‘Health for all!’”

“Similarly, the idea of democracy is ‘government of the people, by the people, for people,’ however the wealthy and powerful are in control. So ignore what they’re saying.”

“I see where you’re coming from.”

Jason handed me the tiny USB drive and said, “I saved the document on this. Please keep it in a safe place.”

“Sure, but what should I do with it?”

“Keep it in a safe place for now. Then, if something happened to me, release the document to the press anonymously,” Jason said. “This stays between us, right?”

I repeated my promise that I wouldn’t tell anyone. I could see the worry on Jason’s face, but I wasn’t very concerned at the time.

The days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, and I stopped thinking about Jason and our creepy talk. I left the flash drive in my desk’s messy drawer among my belongings without even looking at the file it held. But the news of Jason’s death brought our conversation to life. I thought about what he said. “Was Jason killed for the knowledge he shouldn’t have had?”

I felt a chill run through my body when I opened the file and read the fifty-page PDF document. The document went into detail regarding the process of how the disease spreads. The plan was to infect people at several big international airports. So during the virus incubation period, the infected travelers, who show no symptoms, would easily spread the virus worldwide. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization had vaccinated certain individuals, the selected ones, mainly those from affluent nations, since a year before the launch of the virus.

Reading the document made me feel scared for my life. I even imagined the six o’clock news announcing that I, Thomas Pullman, a pharmacist and an employee of Sunshine Pharmacy, had been brutally killed during an armed burglary. “What should I do?” I thought. “I will be in serious trouble if they discover I have the document.” The thought sent a chill down my spine. “It’s time to erase the memory stick and concentrate on my life,” I thought. “But how about Jason? He trusted me. How about the people who are going to die? I deserve to be blamed for their demise if I don’t act. I will be as guilty as their murderers.”

After a lengthy internal dialogue, I eventually made up my mind. So I made fifteen copies of the document and anonymously posted them to ten top newspapers and five popular TV stations nationwide.

The document caused a stir in the media. Every newspaper and television channel went over the document and Elixir Pharma’s malicious scheme. The government launched an inquiry regarding Elixir Pharma and its vicious plan. The company’s CEO appeared on the news and stated that the document was not genuine and was the work of their rivals. Yet a few days later, he stepped down from his position. The document also wreaked havoc on the United Nations and the World Health Organization. At a press conference, the director general of the World Health Organization denied having any knowledge of Elixir Pharma’s murderous scheme. “Our goal is to vaccinate individuals worldwide against contagious viruses to avoid further pandemics. In response to Elixir Pharma’s request, we just extended our help to vaccinating people. But we had no clue about their evil plan,” he stressed. Yet numerous high-ranking officials in the WHO, including the director general, stepped down in the following days.

I was proud of my action while observing the chaos. I felt Jason’s pride in what I had done. “But did I prevent future slaughter?” One voice told me, yes, you did it. You put a stop to their evil plan. But then another voice in my head said no. You had changed nothing. The mob quickly forgets. The present turmoil will be forgotten as the days pass, and those in control will eventually implement their malicious plot. Time would show if I had been successful or not. All I could do was to pray for the best outcome.