PROLOGUE
Biowars overview
Imagine that there was a war going on inside your body and its outcome would determine not only your fate, but the entire world’s.
Imagine that danger surrounded you on the outside too, lurking around every corner, amongst even those who should be your protectors, leaving you with no place to turn and no one to trust.
You have no special powers, resources, or connections. What would you do? What could you do?
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s back up just a bit.
Every hero’s journey begins with a central character that is thrust onto a path that will take him away from the world he knows and into a conflict that can only be resolved using his own inner strength.
In the story of Biowars, that character is Alexander Hawking, a regular guy attending a city college in Manhattan. Alex has no super powers, has probably never been in a fistfight his entire life, and though he might claim otherwise, doesn’t exactly cause women to swoon at his feet. He’s a smart guy, but isn’t setting the world on fire with his grades. Like any college kid, he prefers to live in the moment, which usually means playing Xbox and hanging out with friends. He loves his father, but their relationship is strained, and Alex resents his old man’s constant urging to ‘live up to his full potential.’
There is, in short, nothing remarkable about Alex. But then his father inadvertently passes a germ to him, and with it, a destiny. It’s not just any germ, you see, but a microbe designed to annihilate the human immune system: a more efficient and untraceable version of an assassin’s bullet.
The engineers of this biotech weapon are a secretive group of elites called The Combine. Their assassination of Marcus Hawking, Alex’s father, provides the story’s inciting incident, changing Alex’s entire worldview in a heartbeat and sparking his hero’s journey.
With his dying breath, Marcus makes Alex vow to expose the ruthless cabal and save the world from their threat.
Not too much pressure, right?
Alex will only be able to fulfill this quest if his immune system can fight off the microbe that has invaded his body, inside which a parallel storyline takes place.
The inner realm of Alex’s body is a universe unto itself, as vast and complex as our own world. It is an alien setting where strange creatures inhabit living terrain and glide through pulsating corridors. To them, it is the BioCosmos.
As in human society, each of these beings has a role to play that supports the greater whole. The BioCosmos has its own supreme council, defenders, messengers, intelligence officers, and
healers.
These characters are known as the BioWarriors.
The BioWarriors are the heroes of the Nervous and Immune Systems. In the story of Biowars, they are given humanoid forms, but retain their incredible real-life biological powers.
B-Cells, with their gleaming bio-organic armor, are the Immune System’s high-tech Marine Corps, while the hulking, ruthless Macrophages serve as its infantry. They follow orders conveyed to them by Messenger Cells, who traverse the immensity of the inner world at the speed of thought; Alex’s Nervous System is their information super highway. Whenever a BioWarrior or a part of their living surroundings is injured in battle, Fibroblasts are the healers who tend to them. Above them all, literally and figuratively, is the Council of the Mind, a mysterious group of sages who alone have the ability to interpret Alex’s subconscious will.
The BioWarriors defend their world against invading microbes and other alien threats. These enemies are legion: countless strains of bacteria, fungi, and other organisms that invade Alex’s body. Worst of all are viruses, nature’s most efficient engines of destruction. A single virus microbe can create a plague army that grows exponentially with each new infection.
The BioWarriors are accustomed to unrelenting conflict. The term “Biowars” refers to the perpetual state of warfare that exists between them and the invasive life forms.
It’s a war that rages within us all; indeed, it’s been raging since the very dawn of mankind. As humans evolved, so too did microbes, and all the while they were continuously adapting new ways to attack the human body’s defenses.
What does that mean in practice? Why would this mysterious group go to such lengths to take out a scientist and hunt down his son? What is it that they want?
Ironically, they want the same thing Alex does – to save the world.
The Combine’s members aren’t your garden-variety, moustache-twisting bad guys. They are not interested in power for power’s sake.
They don’t employ bombs or bullets. They aren’t racist or sexist. Ethnicity and gender are meaningless to them; intellect is what they value most. What they refuse to tolerate is
ignorance, apathy, and dependence. To the Combine, these things, and the people who wallow in them, are a disease eating away at the foundations of society, holding back mankind’s progress and evolution.
Personifying the Combine’s threat and appeal to Alex is Doctor Ernst Kelso, his father’s erstwhile partner, and a man who’s been a part of Alex’s life since childhood.
Kelso’s sort of the Steve Jobs of the scientific world: a visionary thinker, bold businessman, and charismatic leader. The fact that Kelso is a member of the Combine makes them that much harder for Alex to confront, because he’s always known Kelso to be a good man.
In the course of his quest, Alex discovers that everything the Combine does, and they’ve been operating secretly for decades, is geared towards engineering a new Age of Enlightenment. If you think that goal sounds largely noble, you’re right! The problem is, achieving it involves a grand plan to eradicate humanity’s weaker elements, so that the strong can survive and thrive.
What if Earth could be populated by a race of Leonardos, Edisons, Einsteins and Galileos? What could we accomplish if our greatest talents were unfettered from the overwhelming challenge of preserving the weakest amongst us? The Combine’s vision for the future is one filled with undreamed of innovation, exploration, and creativity. And the key to it all is the very Z-Kron microbe Alex’s Immune System is fighting.
But as immense as the stakes of these internal and external conflicts are, it’s also the story of an ordinary college kid figuring out his place in the world. Where do a father’s hopes and dreams end, and where do the son’s begin? What’s the true meaning of friendship and love? Is it possible for one person to make a difference in an incredibly complex and evolving world?
If Alex’s BioWarriors keep him alive long enough to outrun and outwit the Combine, he may have the chance to answer these questions and fulfill his father’s last wish to expose the Combine. If not, humanity’s survival will be controlled by the will of the few.