CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Pandora

THE announcement was broadcast live from the World Health Organization all over the planet.

People from Indian residential apartments tuned in to their TV screens; same with residents in South Africa; those living at the Favelas in Brazil; pedestrians bustling through the crosswalks who stopped to look up at the jumbotrons set at the highrise buildings at Times Square, New York; same in London; Tokyo; all the way to Kenya, where Tamana, Derek and Jim were all seated behind one of the monitors, watching the event.

"Another variant?" exclaimed Jim through a mouthful of doughnuts, apparently not noticing the revolting look that Tamana was giving him. "I thought we had enough vaccines for that. They even gave us these things that contain bombs in them!"

Derek's eyes drifted from Jim's bejeweled wrist to that of Tamana, recalling something he had noticed earlier when they had been at the tech store.

Tamana's bracelet had a rather unique design that Derek had only ever seen once.

"May I?" Derek asked, motioning Tamana to stretch out her left hand.

"What are you doing?"

"Your bracelet. Where did you get it?" Derek asked as Tamana stretched out her hand.

"I got it after being vaccinated. Same as everyone else."

"Are you sure?" Derek pressed, still scrutinizing Tamana's bracelet.

"What?"

That was when Derek saw it. The little cleft just next to the bracelet's serial number that was exactly like the one on his own bracelet.

"Take it off, " Derek demanded gently.

"What? Why?" Tamana asked, perplexed.

"Dude, what's up with you?" Jim said, wolfing down his last doughnut.

"I wanna try it on."

"You want to what ?"

"Bruh!"

"I know what I'm doing!" Derek insisted.

"But you'll blow up-"

"Trust me!"

Both Tamana and Jim exchanged glances, wondering if Derek had lost his mind but then Tamana looked back at him, studying his determined expression which she recognized from the time they'd first met; he had had that same look when he had helped her escape from the assassin.

"What's wrong with you two?" Jim cried after Tamana took off her bracelet and handed it to Derek.

Without hesitation, Derek slipped the bracelet around his right arm and the device attached itself together with a click, followed by an LED glowing on red, indicating that Jim was not the rightful owner but close to ten seconds later, the light turned green.

It was both relief and shock to Tamana and Jim as they had expected for Derek's insides to be blown apart but all of his body parts were still intact.

"How's that possible?" asked Jim.

"I don't understand," Tamana frowned, closely eyeing Derek.

Derek was about to elaborate before he was cut off by the news coming from the monitor. The Director of the WHO had just walked up to the platform and was already delivering the announcement of the new variant to the world.

". . .the war against COVID is still far from over as by now I am sure most of you--if not all--have already heard about this new variant of the coronavirus. The WHO and the CDC headquarters in the United States discovered this biological anomaly early this week, amid the ongoing investigation regarding the death of one of our own officials."

Now, I want to lay it out there that we are still in the early stages of understanding how this variant works which has now been taxonomically classified to be deadlier than any of the other variants we have encountered before. The variant itself has been given the name 'Pandora' and so far has taken close to five hundred lives globally."

The symptoms are vividly significant and hard to miss as it has been confirmed that the Pandora variant attacks the central nervous system, unlike its previous counterparts that go for the respiratory tract. You can identify an individual already infected by the variant when they start to exhibit nosebleeds, bleeding from the ears and eyes, extremely pale skin, darkening of the eye pigmentation to black, dental formula deformities and excessive aggressive and/or animalistic behavior."

Regarding how to protect ourselves against this variant; everyone is urged to continue taking the vaccine, maintaining social distancing as the variant has been found to be slightly airborne but entirely contagious in case of physical contact with an infected individual. Basically what I am saying is that we should all keep up with the prevention measures of COVID-19 and that the COVID patrol should amp the ante in dealing with anyone caught without a vaccination verification bracelet."

Lastly, at the risk of repeating myself, I urge everyone to stay safe. The Pandora variant is unlike anything we have ever faced before, given its infection rate and a recent study shows that the death toll is set to rise close to thirteen times higher in the next week. . ."

"Coronavirus causing substantial damage to the brain?" Tamana remarked at the end of the announcement, "how is that even possible?"

"Dental formula deformities and animalistic behavior?" gasped Jim, "it's happening! It's finally happening!"

"Don't say it," Derek sighed, shaking his head, apparently foreseeing the nonsense that was about to come out of Jim's mouth.

"The zombie apocalypse!"

"What?" Tamana frowned, her expression turning ludicrous.

"Told you not to say it," Derek muttered.

"That kind of pop fiction is an outright absurdity!" Tamana raged on, lashing out at Jim, "there's just no way a living organism can continue experiencing life after it loses its primal brain functions. It is dead! It cannot live anymore. The closest thing to zombies we've ever had is this species of bacteria that infects ants and—"

"Umeona The Walking Dead ?" Jim asked.

"What?"

"Have you even seen The Walking Dead?"

"I don't do well with horror," Tamana replied with distaste and Derek could not help but grin, to which Tamana added, "what? Those things freak me out! I prefer to live in the real world, thank you!"

"Well, you'd be surprised at how much horror-thriller movies actually mirror the real world," Derek said.

"Zombies are not real, period!" Tamana snapped, ending the argument.

The monitor that had displayed the variant announcement had then resumed to the window with the drive that Derek had finally managed to decipher and everyone was drawn back to the problem at hand (apart from a world-killing variant).

"Guys," Derek said, "we still haven't figured out the password.

The question was mostly directed at Tamana but just as any of them, she had no clue what kind of password her father had set and she silently cursed and marveled at him. He could really be good at something once he put his mind into it, which was apparently not what Tamana was doing.

Tamana shelved away those thoughts after realizing that Derek was still wearing her bracelet.

Derek followed her gaze and immediately embarked on explaining how he was not dead.

"Every bracelet is rigged with an element that sends a signal to the wrongful owner's brain, triggering an explosive reaction that causes the internal organs to rupture. So, I kind of tinkered with the element which actually works like a switch, altered the settings through this tiny opening that remains open after the alteration and I've been wearing my bracelet without, well. . . blowing up."

"So it's like an ON and OFF switch?" asked Tamana. "And you deactivated it?"

"Yes and yes."

"Wait," Jim added, "but that means you weren't vaccinated?"

Derek nodded, turning to face Tamana, "Which also means, you weren't vaccinated either."

"But how's that-"

"Who gave you that bracelet? Derek asked Tamana.

"I told you I got vaccinated and my father gave me. . .no. . ." she gasped, "my father gave me the bracelet and told me I had been vaccinated."

"Your father made the bracelet," Derek figured, an impressed look on his face.

"Okay, hold on," Jim cut in, making a 'time-out' gesture, "I'm not as great with science and numbers as I appear-

Derek snorted.

"-but if your dad made you a rigged vaccination bracelet and did not have you vaccinated, given his position in the medical field, doesn't that seem a little. . . odd?"

Both Tamana and Derek mused over that. It really was an interesting question. A question whose answer lay in the very file that was currently on Derek's computer. The answer was just a correct password away.

Jim then had to leave after a call from his mother and had just walked some distance away from the apartment building, failing to notice a tall woman dressed in black, her white face barely visible from the feathered beanie over her head and scarf around her neck.

The woman eyed him closely through her sunglasses until Jim had disappeared down the avenue then walked away into a crowd of pedestrians.