Average Joe - biological warfare

The Threat

Like every morning when his alarm clock struck seven, this stupid country song started playing. If there was one thing Joe really hated it was country music and everything related to it. That’s why his wife had given it to him. How much she laughed when he first heard this song one morning and, according to her, made a face like he had seen an alien. Now that she was so far away, he had actually grown to like it. After stretching out once more he got out of bed and threw an indifferent look out the window. Ever since Utopia threatened to infect US citizens with a deadly and highly contagious mutation of the smallpox virus, weather was something that could only be perceived from inside. He went to wake up his children, Bernard and Eve. Bernard was easy to get out of bed but with Eve it was a struggle every single morning. She was so much like her mother. “Dad, I hate this porridge, why can we only have fruit on Sundays? “, she complained. “You know why darling, fruit and vegetables are scarce.” She gave him a grumpy look and started picking at her food. While the kids continued their breakfast, Joe went to prepare their protection suits and their gas masks. They had to be checked for holes or any other breakages every morning. Joe also hated the artificially-prepared food, the gas masks, the countless blinking virus detection censors and all of the other safety regulations that had to be met after the Threat on the 2^nd of July in 2033.  This day had a huge impact on every US citizen but for Joe it was even tougher than for most others. At the time of the Threat his wife, who is a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, was working in Spain, covering the economic crisis. Then not even an hour after the Threat, US borders were hermetically closed. From this moment on the US government has been allowing 5 citizens per month to return home as part of the US Citizen Repatriation Program. His wife currently held the 124^th position. So if nothing else was going to happen, they would finally see each other again in two years. “Dad can you help me with my suit please?”, Eve was yelling from the other room. After they were both dressed up, looking like child soldiers, he went to unbar the front door. As he was just about to deactivate the viral screen door a deafening wail of a siren made him turn into a pillar of salt. “No, no, no, no please let this be a false alarm and not a real attack”, he thought but he knew that this wail just took his wife another couple of years away.