"A Chinese scientist named Li Chen defected to the United States, carrying a diskette record of China's"most important and dangerous: new biological weapon in a decade. They call the stuff "Wuhan-400. "
These are the words in《The Eyes of Darkness》published in 1981. Although the author declared "This is work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locals is entirely coincidental. ", it's too coincidental as we're in the present global pandemic.
Here is the story.
Tina Evans has lived and worked in Las Vegas for fifteen years. Ever since she was eighteen years old, she has a career as a dancer in the Lido de Paris, a gigantic stage show at the Stardust Hotel. But on her twenty-eighth birthday, she decided to establish herself as a producer to avoid being washed up as a dancer ten years later. At that time, her son was only five years old, she struggled to keep the balance between her career and family. But she failed. Michael, her husband, can't stand Tina's ambition in career. They got divorced. Tina lived with her son, Danny. She loved Danny with all her heart. And she still struggled for her career. Tina has ever taken the position as a choreographer for a two-bit lounge revue, then larger lounges, from small showrooms that seated four or five hundred in second-rate hotels to other and yet another. She was steadily becoming a respected name in the closely-knit Vegas entertainment world.
But almost a year ago, Danny went with a group of scouts to northern Nevada, came across a terrible bus accident, torn and crushed, never back again.
At that time, Tina had just been offered a directing and co-producing job on a huge ten-million-dollar extravaganza to be staged in the two-thousand-seat main showroom of the Golden Pyramid. Fates were so shallow and insensitive. Tina almost had not time to mourn her boy. But maybe Fates were so considerate at the same time that they help Tina out of sorrow with the job.
With no suspense, Tine made a great triumph.
In the premiere, Tina knew Elliot, her co-producer's attorney, who in her eyes was both intelligent and amusing. They fell in love swiftly. A hit show... lots of loyalty checks to look forward to... an infinity of new opportunities made available to her... and now a new and exciting lover... Tina was astonished at how much difference one year could make in life. From bitterness, pain, tragedy, and unrelenting sorrow, she had turned around to face a horizon lit by rising promise. At last, the future looked worth living. Indeed, she couldn't see how anything could go wrong.
But something is going wrong.
In Danny's room, something weird happens again and again. The entire room has always been exactly as he left it. Unlike many boys his age, Danny had been concerned about orderliness and cleanliness. The bed was properly made, and several science-fiction-movie action figures were posed on the deep headboard. His desk occupied one corner; tubes of glue, miniature bottles of enamel in every color, and a variety of model-crafting tools stood in soldierly ranks on one half of the desk, and the other half was bare, waiting for him to begin work. But the easel was not in its place. It toppled. When Tina stood it on its legs, two words crudely came into her sights:
Not Dead.
Tina furiously thought that someone played pranks on her maliciously. The message appears again and again, even on the New Year's eve, when Tine prints some documents in the office alone, the printer suddenly went wrong and printed:
Not Dead.
Not Dead.
Not Dead.
.
Danny has gone. It was such a horrible accident that the coroner and undertaker said the body was in terrible condition, horribly mutilated. They didn't think it was a good idea for a mother to see it. So it was a closed coffin funeral. Tina began to doubt herself. Is it she who left the message while walking in her sleep? Does she suffer temporary amnesia of which she was unaware? Either possibility was unacceptable. Tina decided to reopen the grave. Only seeing Danny’s body by herself, can she accept the truth that Danny is dead. And all the nightmares and the weird things will leave. Tina has got the support from Elliot. After all, Elliot is a famous attorney. And one of his old friends is Judge Kennebeck. At a New Year's Party, Elliot told Kennebeck about the things of Tina. Kennebeck hesitated and he told Elliot that he needs 4 hours to think about this case.
Elliot drove back home. While he was preparing dinner for Tina, two invaders broke in. At the same time, a fake Gas-company emergency crewman fixed a bomb in Tina's house. Someone wanted to kill Elliot and Tina. It turned out to be a great conspiracy.
The U.S. has been secretly developing bacteriological weapons in the case of the threat from China. Unfortunately, the scouts of Danny's came across the leak of the virus incidentally. The boys other than Danny infected by the virus all died. Only Danny survived. Then, the researchers infect Danny with the virus again and again to get the antibody. During the infections, kind of mysterious tissue, a result of the parietal spot caused by his repeated exposure to Wuhan-400, has been developed in Danny's brain, which enables Danny to have psychic abilities. All the weird things are the way that Danny tells his mother he's still alive and instructs her to save him.
The story has a sound ending. But it has still dismayed the readers like me. Why so many researchers use their high intelligence to develop such a lethal weapon that their purpose is to kill human beings themselves! And why the U.S. began to take China as the enemy in imagination even 30 years ago!