Antihypoxiant por Andy Weir (aproximadamente 1.300 palavras - provavelmente leva cerca de 5 a 10 minutos para ler a história completa)
As seguintes citações são do site vinculado. Eu apenas cito coisas que mostram coisas parecidas com o que eu lembrava. Como esta é uma história muito curta, vou citar bastante do texto :
Melhor começo para uma história:
I am, simply put, the most brilliant medical mind in human history.
Ele é médico:
But it can’t be helped; you’re not a doctor. Or if you are, you’re not one of my caliber.
Ele inventou uma cura para o que ele descobriu é o que realmente mata as pessoas:
Hypoxia is what kills people. Whatever the “cause of death” may be, the actual reason they die is because oxygen stops getting to their cells. Most notably, to their brain.
Ele fez alguns experimentos com ratos:
I had a disembodied rat hamstring suffused with the compound, then I just let it sit for three days. By rights, it should have been completely dead, but upon examining it, I found that the cells were still very much alive and healthy.
Zombies (embora não seja tão óbvio neste ponto):
so long as there wasn’t physical damage to your brain, you won’t die for several days. [...] You can literally get shot in the heart and they will have enough time to perform a heart transplant to save your life.
Ele modificou um vírus:
The original virus was a harmless strain that usually causes mild vasculitis. It attacks the cells of arteries, veins, and capillaries. This was ideal, because it allowed my modified version to deliver the antihypoxiant to those cells.
Ele testou em animais:
I tested on cats, dogs, and eventually monkeys.
Mas ele teve um problema com as autoridades:
But the FDA was the next step. After animal trials comes human trials. First with a tiny control group, then with larger and larger groups and so on. Getting a drug through the FDA can take ten years and that simply wouldn’t do.
Ele era muito impaciente:
I was 57 years old at that point. Waiting another ten years would make me 67. Then, it would take at least another five to ten years before the Nobel committee recognized my genius and awarded me the prize I so richly deserve. There was a chance I wouldn’t live to reap my due fame! [...] No, the FDA was an impediment. It was time to act.
Então ele pegou o caminho curto:
I released the virus in several major population areas all over the world.
Há um certo efeito colateral que ele não levou em conta:
It turns out that the higher cognition centers of the brain have a slightly different blood-brain barrier setup. My compound, while transitioning into those parts of the brain, changes slightly due to the barrier and ends up malfunctioning.
Zumbis (agora bastante óbvios):
In any event, it caused people to slowly lose their higher cognition abilities. They retained motor control, sensory input, fight or flight reflex, etc. But they lost their ability to “think”.
Testes em animais não teriam ajudado, não importando o quanto ele testasse:
Cats, dogs, and monkeys don’t have that part of the brain at all.
Grande humor, se você me perguntar:
Some could argue this is my fault, but that’s absurd. Clearly the FDA is at fault. If it weren’t for their slow process, I wouldn’t have been forced to distribute the compound like I did.