Antidote

The last details were being scrutinised. It was imperative that everything should be as per plan. There was no room for error. The scientists attending to the task all encased in white suits, protecting them from all dangers, floated around the sterile white and chrome lab like saints in Heaven.

The takeoff was due in a short time. Agent 108 was busy scrubbing and preparing to don the spacesuit. It was his solo flight and to be trusted with such an important mission, filled him with courage and pride. As he had bid farewell to his dear wife and children last night he had also prayed for Divine protection and guidance.

The doctors, medicos, scientists the world over had been relentlessly fighting the virus which had held the world to ransom since the last couple of years. The microscopic creature which didn’t even have a brain to plan or strategize had reduced the most evolved species on earth, mankind, to a helpless prisoner in their own homes. Many fought it and succumbed, many fought it and vanquished it but only for a short while. As it came back again and again in strategic waves, till people surrendered amicably.

That was but a ruse, hundreds of scientists kept striving, and a top-secret mission was to collect the samples from across the world and take it to the newly discovered planet XYZ009. It had been observed that life existed there, microscopic creatures, which seemed to have an organized hierarchy. Those that didn’t fall into place were treated such, that they changed. Their behaviour became pliant.

Now agent 108 was taking the virus to the planet XYZ009 and would hopefully return with the altered virus. That would be the end of Covid 19.

It was the year when things finally become ‘normal’ all over the world. No lockdowns! No ban on travel, work or play!