Fog (Romance)

Synopsis

A toxic cloud, chemical weapon military fruit of experiment rests, forgotten, with several meters under ground. When this one is released accidentally following military tests, sowing died and desolation on its passage, the authorities are unable to organize an effective answer. The only man able to stop this fog proves to be the first victim of this one, cures and immunized.

History

Release

John Holman, civil servant with the Department of the Environment, returns of mission. After having spy the soldiers, it returns to submit his report/ratio to make it possible at its ministry in charge to know how the army uses the grounds which are allocated to him and thus to determine if it is possible to recover some for more peaceful activities. At the moment when it enters a small village, the ground starts to tremble, the ground opens and its car falls of 30 meters with half of the village and of its inhabitants. Crack to escape a curious orange cloud but, in front of the wide one of the catastrophe, anybody paid there attention. Holman extirpates its car after a fashion and, while trying to go up to save a surviving young girl, tries to cut through a path until the top. The father of the young girl gone down to help it goes up it éructant, violent one, and suicidal. While Holman fights against death at the hospital, the cloud continues its race, sowing the madness on its passage.

The first measurements

Holman recovers gently, cured thanks to a blood Transfusion which expelled last toxins, but all did not have this chance. The people contaminated and the criminal acts or suicidal are still too very few so that the authorities, with the large prejudice of Holman condescend to do something. And when his/her boy friend, Casey, are touched in his turn and that it must strike it to be denied his criminal heats, it is suspecté of violence and decree. Casey is taken along to the hospital, but in quickly left by his/her father who signs his death warrant thus. And during this time, the cloud continues its race, enlarging its voyage progressively.

Suspicion does not last within sight of the acts of madness, increasingly many and spectacular: the pupils of a school died in the fire of their schools after an orgy of violence and of sex, it quasi totality of the population of a small balneal city was thrown in the sea… One of the police officers having stopped Hollman, Bowman, becomes its bodyguard then. Gathered to try to find a solution, the various ministries try to put side their different in spite of the little from eagerness from the ministry for defense to recognize the military origin of the fog: this one proves to be the product of a military experiment, a mycoplasme nourishing carbon of the air creating the fog thus surrounding it. Holman, immunized after its preceding meeting with the fog is seen proposing by the scientists, represented by Doctor Ryker to bring back a sample of the purest possible cloud for them, i.e. in the middle same of this one. In spite of the evacuation of the city by the army, some plunderers remained and, demented person, attack Holman. It is saved of accuracy, but the mission is a failure.

Casey is awaked, healthy and saves, but the authorities are perplexed: the fog suddenly disappeared and the staff is unaware of his position completely. The soldiers left to research the cloud return bredouilles, are panicked too much to make another thing that to flee or victims are themselves.

London is touched

The Londoners, persuaded to be saved, do not suspect by awaking, that the fog is already there, recovering their city almost entirely. Requisitioned, Holman goes until the Pont of Wesminster where an armored vehicle must await it. After a way filled with difficulty and demented person, it finds finally the car which leads it to a secret atomic shelter reserved to the government, the royal family and approximately three hundred personalities. After short topo, it sets out again to try to recover mycoplasme a little. Unfortunately, the meeting with a bus driven by insane causes the death of its fellow-member and obliges it to move away from the vehicle time that the things are calmed a little. After having stolen a car and to try to flee, it decides to cross, via one of the tunnels envisaged for this purpose, the Thames. Well took some to him: the tunnel was used already as refuge with the lost mycoplasme.

The demented people are violent one but forget their prey quickly if this one succeeds in moving away sufficiently. That saves Holman and allows him to return towards the car and the radio to reassure those which, at the base, started to fear the death of their potential saver, and to ask them reinforcements to be able to recover an extract of the mycoplasme and to block using explosive the tunnel. If the first part of the mission proceeds almost without tear, the same does not apply for from there second: a tiny hole makes it possible the mycoplasme to be extracted from its prison and to take again its race, pousuivi this time not Doctor Ryker and a bomb disposal expert to a gas refinery. More serious, the soldier in charge of the protection of Holman is killed by a crowd in fury while this last finds refuge in the second tunnel.

It acts for Doctor Ryker of their last chance: to make jump the refinery to destroy the fog. Is this the mycoplasme which starts to make effect on the doctor or this one is it still lucid? No one will never know, always is it that, pretexting the lack of time, this one decides not to wait time to find a shelter before making jump the loads.

End

Holman is alone, flaring, but alive and reassured, the mycoplasme, it of with the certainty, is destroyed and the fog finally starts to be dispersed by the wind. It remains still much to make, but for him, the nightmare is finished. At least he believes it. While the authorities pulverize sleeping pills on London, to deaden the patients and to be able to act more quickly, Hollman leaves to join Casey, which awaits it, frightened, besieged by Bowman. The latter, touched by the fog, benefits from what Casey opens the door with his/her small-friend, to attack them, Hollman will have to kill it before falling asleep.

sources

Fog , translation of the novel by Anne Crichton, published by Pocket in 1990 ()

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