The End of the World has Never Been This Incompetent!
The Synchrotron
by Rain Hunter
Genre: Science Fiction Comedy
✔️A deadly virus.
✔️A
world overrun by monsters.
✔️
Six scientists on a dangerous mission to cure the world.
We are screwed...
They only wanted a Nobel Prize. Instead, they will have to save the world.
It was going to be the experiment of the year. Preparing to blast x-rays
through a piece of palladium at the most dazzling European synchrotron, Anna
and five of her fellow scientists expected a few hiccups
Not a horde of hungry spleen-eating zombies.
The world has succumbed to the virus, leaving only scattered survivors.
When Anna and her friends realise that the infected can be cured back into humans, they pledge to find a cure no matter the cost. Equipped with a lab wrench and questionable lab ethics, Team ID26 are humanity’s last hope.
But what is the price of saving the world?
Running out of time, Anna and her friends will face the
impossible choices between life and death, morality and cure. When the future
of the world is at stake, what will they have to sacrifice?
The Synchrotron
Day 17, 21st
of February, Wed
Steve didn’t call back. After I’d checked my phone for the millionth
time, Kay patted me on the shoulder and took my phone away for safekeeping. I
guess she meant my poor heart, not the phone.
“I heard that’s called ghosting,” Edsie told
me.
“I heard that’s called tone-deaf, Edsie,” Kay
bit back on my behalf.
Some say there are no heart wounds that a
bucket of ice-cream cannot heal. How about treating those with instant noodles?
No?
Our noodle supplies are running dry, and even
the chocolate bars we’ve hauled through the Ring back to ID26 won’t last us
more than a day or two.
On a positive note, we’ve progressed on the
spleen front.
After consulting Google Images, we agreed
that the blob we initially identified as the pancreas was the spleen, the key
to transforming people into blood-thirsty monsters.
We wrote and attached new labels.
“What do we do with the rest of it?” Tanya
asked after we put the spleen aside and packed the other Ali’s organs into
plastic sample boxes.
“Bin it. We’ve got the spleen,” said Dan.
“I’ll throw it into the biological waste,”
Tanya said, loading the boxes onto a small trolley.
She was going to wheel Ali’s remains back to
the wet lab. We could officially rename that wet lab into “Spleen-eaters’
Mortuary”. As one of them, Ali belonged there, too.
“I’ll help you,” said Edsie. “What if you
have another seizure?”
Kay, Dan and I stared at them in confused
silence while Edsie grabbed the trolley and rolled it out of the hutch. Tanya
picked up the hammer and followed him.
Okay. What have I missed?
Since Tanya started taking her meds again,
she seemed to be back to her usual self, no issues with her whatsoever, apart
from this unexpected feat of helpfulness from Edsie. Had he been bitten?
“What now?” Kay asked after the door closed
behind them.
“I don’t know. That’s weird. I’ve never heard
him offer help before,” I said.
“No. What do we do with that?” Kay pointed at
the chunk of flesh on the workshop table. It smelled rancid and unhealthy. Was
it a typical smell of a slowly rotting spleen, or did the presence of the virus
make it foul?
“If the virus is in his cells, we should find
and isolate it,” I said.
“No shit,” said Dan.
“Microscope?” I suggested.
“We have to cut it very thin for a
microscope,” said Kay.
“Not with a knife, I suppose.”
“It’s not a piece of meat, Anna, of course
not with a knife. With a microtome. I even know where we can find one,” said
Kay.
Quotes from
reviewers:
“Like The Martian meets Zombieland—serious
survival mixed with dark humour and fast action”
“surprisingly deep for post-apocalyptic
science fiction”
“a mix of science, survival, and zombie
action with added dark humour, this book will keep you hooked”
“a totally different take on the genre!”
“absolutely loved it!”
“surprisingly robust
contemplations on life scattered throughout this fast-paced book”
“Sad. Humorous. Suspenseful.”
Quotes from the book:
Sunday! What a holy day for our unholy undertakings!
Before I start hyperventilating, let me focus on the facts. Dan says
that when emotions are bigger than you, facts never are; they are short and
precise.
Octopuses have three hearts.
A day on Venus is longer than a year on Venus.
Although zombies are a fictional concept, there are “zombie” ants that
are infected by fungus and jump off heights, killing themselves.
Ah, crap, ignore this last one!
We didn’t see it, Dan! In the movies, zombies are always dead, right?
But our zombies – no, our spleen-eaters – they are alive. The virus doesn’t
kill them, so we can… cure them. Right?”
“We? As if, in us, the five chemists? Since when does a doctor in your title involve treating monsters back into people?
A couple of years after we’d dealt with COVID-19, the UN, WHO, and other
important people got together to prepare the world for the next outbreak. Their
plan, called “Lock and Block”, prescribed establishing a total area lockdown
within 24 hours. Isolate the area, move in the military, fence off the
perimeter, and shoot anyone who tries to escape.
The last one’s a joke. Sort of.
“How did you know they would make good samples?”
Have I told you about Louise’s proprietary stare? Here it was, telling
me all I needed to know about my level of intelligence.
“Good brain samples are the ones that you do not need to scrape off the floor,” she explained, in case the stare was not sufficient.
If something walked out on us in search of a late-night dinner,
I’d have to fight it off with only my charisma.
Zero chance, then.
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Book Links:
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About the Author
What is similar between science and postapocalyptic survival?
Everything that can, will go wrong.”
Rain Hunter is a writer of post-apocalyptic science fiction. Having spent years as a materials researcher, Rain intricately weaves scientific precision into the stories. “I’ve had a fun lab run over the years and might have picked some degrees on the way,” laughs Rain. "But the most important thing for my books is that the science has to be real. No more can-and-know-it-all characters! If I know how to cook meth from baking soda and cough syrup, I won’t be able to start a rocket engine, full stop. Even in fiction!”
Rain is a huge fan of the zombie genre, both in movies and books. “I’d kill to be a zombie extra in a film. Even if they smash my brains out in the first two seconds. Sign me up anytime.”
Dark humour and irony are the main ingredients in Rain’s novels. “I am sure the world will die laughing. That’s what I would do.”
Rain lives in Birmingham (England), which serves as a main inspiration for the goriest post-apocalyptic scenes. In their spare time, Rain plays a harp in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Nah, not really.
Website
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Website: https://www.rain-hunter.com/
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Thanks for the great blurb and excerpt. The book sounds fascinating. Great cover.
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