Chapter Two : Covference
As his subordinates wreak havoc across the globe with no signs of letting up, the King summons another meeting, this time with the world leaders, to get their status updates.
Date: April 1, 2020
The meeting on March 26, 2020 was adjourned abruptly as the King Korona went on an infection spree, as his host decided to hold a backyard booze party with a few more rogue boomers. Since then, he has infected and killed two from the party as two more have landed up in the ICU, all while the King experimented with different martinis in their bloodstream.
King Korona : Before we begin, I have some good news and bad news. Good news is our HR (Human Reconnaissance) department has figured out a way to infiltrate man’s most trusted and reliable news network, Reddit. The bad news, some humans at Reddit believe that Hantavirus is the next big thing that is going to destroy their world. I would like to make something very clear, we are not letting some random retarded cousin of ours who rely on rodents to survive take the glory for the work we are doing at the family dinner. So I better hear some good news from all you gentle-viruses here. We will begin with Bill.
Bloodshot bill, Representative of the American delegation : Sure chief. As you all know, cases in the United States are growing at a very exponential rate, and all that it is thanks to me. Humans report cases in excess of 175,000 and deaths have crossed 3000, surpassing the toll during some fight humans had with themselves on 9/11. Humans are so foolish hehe. No other virus leader in the history of viruses has accomplished as much as I have in the first hundred days itself. I am far ahead of our ‘friends’ (chuckles disdainfully) in China and even fake news CNN is singing praises of me. I don’t know much about genetics but I have had this inspiration to protect ourselves from Corona tests of humans. You know, I have a natural flair for these sorts of things. So, I want to mutate and build a beautiful wall around our protein capsids so that no one can touch us and I will make the humans pay for it. You see, I am keeping my side promise of making our race great forever…….
(murmurs and uproar from everyone)
Korona : Bill, that is enough. What the flu is happening?! I understand you are monitoring their president closely to make your moves. But you are making me think humans are capable of infecting us as well. I want Frank to investigate this. Meanwhile, you are sacked and I will personally oversee the operations in the US. As much as the human king here seems to be our ally, he is unlike any human we have encountered so far. But I don’t understand why there is so much gender disparity in your infection rates?
Bill : That is because i respect whamen, I mean women very much chief
Korona : No Bill, keep up with the trend. We are not the bubonic plague and even they were not sexist. We are woke now. Enough of your yapping, now. So all in all, the US seems to be incredibly hospitable to us and business is booming and I want everyone to work toward maintaining this. Now let me hear from my favorite Italian friend after Al Pacino… ciao Michael! How are things there?
Mass-murder Michelangelo, Representative of the Italian delegation : Grazie, your holiness. The scene is very ideal here in this side of the Mediterranean. Cases have crossed 100,000 We really hit the gold mine here. There is a very high proportion of the old people, our initial target audience, doing water acrobatics and playing bingo in the unbelievable amount of old age homes here. I guess old people must really love their pizzas and pastas. And oh yes I have made an important observation. Old broken down statues of semi naked men and women. Italy has a lot of them. I have no idea why humans are so fascinated by them, but they keep gathering in large numbers to visit them. We are currently exploiting this strange behaviour of theirs, though sticking to the armpits of marble statues does get gross sometimes. But some of these rocks even seem to be protecting themselves against us. This made us wonder whether there are some secrets that they hold. Hence, just out of curiosity, we have set up a side division to investigate how to infiltrate the Veiled Virgin….
Korona: That is very creative Michael, (hem hem) but I doubt that we will find anything positive there. If there is one thing I have learnt from Carl, (hem hem) it is that humans mostly busy themselves with pointless activities. Anyways keep up the good work, and….. (hem hem), who is this wanting to speak?!!!!!!
Professor Puke, The Spanish Front: (bursting to speak) Oh it is I my King. El Professor. I just couldn’t resist myself as you were talking to Michael, as I really want to bring to your notice, our exploits here, lest you forget. You very well know that I work quietly and efficiently and reflecting my leadership, Spain has quietly grown from strength to strength and we seem a few days short of surpassing Italy!! Humans have been easy pickings here, which is not surprising, considering the rich legacy infections have had here since the Spanish Flu. Of course, I have researched all this for months, noting the locations where humans would be most vulnerable, and delving into each and every possible response they could possibly make. The diffuse political system here has been extremely slow to react despite having Italy to learn from. The result is there for you all to see. But the humans here seem to be becoming a bit more intelligent. They had an idea to convert this huge place called a ‘Skating Rink’, where they all just walk quickly and people come to watch, into a medical facility. Of course I have anticipated these moves long back, with several contingency plans discussed…..
Korona: Ok Professor, everyone knows how good you are at planning. We would all do well to take some notes (voice dripping with sarcasm). Let us now move across to some grim news, I wish to hear from Shao Tsung
Slow-torture Shao tsung, head of the chinese delegation……………… is missing
Korona: Excuse me, but can anyone here explain what exactly is happening over there? One day it was all death and despair with our numbers skyrocketing beyond our wildest dreams and then it is all sunflowers and butterflies in china? Where is Shao Tsung? Is this an attempt to steal my glory? Did those hanta fools capture my beloved prodigy?
Contagious casper, coordinator of UNGC (Unified network of global corona communication and not your friendly neighborhood ghost) : My lord, currently all communications with china are unclear. Everyday we keep getting different data from them, data that makes no sense. The problem is with the nation itself. Our viral spies from their health organisation WHO report even they are refusing confusing data and it might be false. We still do not know whether indeed the chinese have thwarted us or not, but their economy seems to be recovering. The last I spoke with Tsung, he spoke about a new strategy involving infecting the cured again. We have no idea whether it was implemented or even if indeed it was, whether it worked. Right now I have deployed another wave of soldiers to China from Europe, it will take some time before we get any concrete news from them.
Korona: We shall get to the bottom of this soon, meanwhile let us move down a hemisphere. Noah, your reports if you will.
Nightmare noah, head of the Australian delegation: Yea mate, nothing much to report actually. Kangaroos and koalas are all right, the humans are not. We did infect the one you wanted us to. Our people are working on Tom hanks to find out what exactly cloud atlas is.
Korona: Yes you do that, I really need to understand the point of that movie, it’s been on my mind for far too long. Anyway, moving on to India. Now I keep hearing all sorts of rumors about what’s happening there. Somvanshi, what do you have to say?
Sore-throat Somvanshi, head of the Indian delegation: Halo everyone, it is way too early to decide the outcome of our Indian operations. We’re adopting cluster warfare techniques. Our agents were deployed in strategic places canvassing events and places well before their curfews began. We are seeing the outcome of the initial surgical strikes now, but the success has been of varying degree. In some places it has worked while in other places not so. On the other hand the government has been adopting all kinds of techniques to stop us. In order to strengthen morale, their leader had asked the people to clap hands and bang plates at specified time. I do not know whether the human medics felt happy or grateful but our soldiers appreciated the gesture very much. Some very enthusiastic citizens came out in masses to celebrate, bringing out drums and trumpets, creating a whole lot of ruckus. What exactly I do not know, but any chance of public gathering is an opportunity we won’t miss. I wonder what is next, a firework show maybe?
Korona: Alright now, I think we are almost done with the reports. There only seem to be a handful of remote places on Earth which we have not yet infiltrated. Tonga, Solomon Islands, Marshall Islands, Turkmenistan….
Fatigue Farhan, head of Turkmenistan delegation: That is Berdi news my King. I in fact have very Berdi news here….
Korona: Wait, who is this? And what is Berdi?
Farhan: Oh sorry my King. I am the representative from Turkmenistan and unfortunately some human habits have gotten to me. The human king here is a dictator, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov and he has recently banned the use of the word coronavirus!! Even though we have proliferated decently here, humans here seem to be taking no action against us. They seem to be completely ignoring us, which is brilliant. However, I have got to say, living here is quite tough, even for a virus….
Korona: Oh that’s great, err….what is your country’s name again? Anyways do what you will, I have nothing to say to you. Let us wrap up this meeting shall we?
This episode was co-authored by Karthick Ramanathan and Arun S
