My name is Jovan, and I
am about to tell you one of the most unlikely stories you have ever heard. I
was one of the lucky Serbs, I live in a nice house in Dedinje, I go to a good
school, the French school actually and I have a family and a cat who love me.
This was all going to change soon. I woke up, it was a normal Saturday morning,
nothing special. Of course I had some schoolwork due Monday but, as usual I
simply put it off until Sunday. I plodded downstairs, along the way I was
greeted, happily by my cat, Budgie. I felt slightly sick for a moment, but then
that subsided and I thought nothing of it. I wasn't’ the first on up though,
dad was reading the paper, the Belgrade Insight actually, the cover saying in
large bold letters:
Serbia to scrap genetically modified food ban
I said something that
resembled “Morning” to him but I had only just woken up and my voice was a
little husky. I looked in the fridge and suddenly everything looked horribly
unappetizing. That was strange, I was usually somebody who loved food.
Suddenly, the strange feeling in my stomach, which I knew was there all along,
intensified, and it took all of my strength to not cry out in pain. Luckily dad
was still reading the newspaper, his eyes slightly glazed over, mumbling
something about taxes under his breath. I stumbled into the bathroom, groping
along the walls searching for something to hold onto, the towel rack, “well I
supposed it will do”, I told myself. I looked at myself in the mirror, I was
deathly pale. My eyes slightly yellow. I tugged off my shirt and examined my
chest underneath. There was a blue-green stain spreading underneath my skin,
slowly creeping along, slow but determined. I sat down on the cold tiles and
clenched my fists, once again trying not to scream in agony, this wasn’t just
any stomach ache, this was something different. But then, just as fast as it
had come, the pain subsided. I checked my chest again in the mirror, back to
normal, as if nothing had happened. I stood there, a look of bewilderment stuck
on my face. That was until my dad called from the kitchen, “fancy some bacon”,
now I forgot all about this curious happening and before I knew it I was
tucking in, suddenly hungry again. Everything was fine, that is until I went to
sleep.I had a dream, a dream I never wanted to have. It started off with me
walking along a deserted alleyway, searching for a hospital, that I knew
shouldn’t exist. I walked in, time sped up by the strange powers of dreams. And
suddenly I was in a room. A room with nothing on the walls, nothing at all was
there, nothing, except for a table and a small chair. Oh and a slightly
deranged scientist. He asked me a few questions, and I answered them, not
really realizing what I was doing. Finally he pulled out a syringe and injected
some clear blue liquid into the main artery in my arm. All the while talking
about the greater good. I looked forward and saw the bread, the bread made from
genetically modified wheat. I woke up, a cold sheen of sweat across my
forehead, I was sitting bolt upright breathing heavily.I remembered what
happened now. It was around three weeks ago that it had happened. I had taken
some money out of my account, it was a birthday present for my mother, who had
got rather annoyed with me a few days earlier, I felt as though I should pay
her back. So I took out around 20,000 dinars to buy her a beautiful necklace.
With all kinds of jewels embedded in it. The only problem now was getting the
money back. The answer to that question came a little later when I was reading
the newspaper. I was reading an article and when I turned the page I came to a
load of adverts. I was about to skip them, as I usually do when something
caught my eye. It was an ad saying, test subjects wanted, pay 2500 dinars, for
more info come to this address. So the next day I left, and travelled to the
centre where I found the address in a deserted back alley. In case you are
wondering, I told my parents I was going to a friends house. Anyway, I saw this
grotty hospital like building, so I entered. And you know the rest.
I was now sure that the
green spread on my chest had been an effect of either the injection, or the
bread, or both. The question was, why did it disappear? I decided to return to
the lab to see if I could find the doctor, he had a few questions to answer. I
trudged through the rainy Belgrade, it seemed as though the rain had arrived,
solely to make me miserable. The day before had been lovely and sunny. I
arrived in the alleyway. Everything looked the same, except for some extra
graffiti. But as I got closer I realized something had changed. Instead of
being completely bare on the front of the building there was a sign saying “The
Best tailor In Town” and instead of being unclean and stained on
the walls, they were spotless. I walked inside. There was a man sitting behind
a desk eying a shoe with a magnify glass, talking to himself under his breath.
He looked relatively old, around 60. He was surrounded by different suits and
dresses and all kinds of different shoes. He looked up, “May I help you?” He
asked. “There wasn’t some sort of lab or hospital here before, was there?” I
replied ”I don’t know about any hospital young man” he answered, “although
there is one around ten minutes walk away from here”. I shook my head “no,
there definitely was on, right here,” I said. “I’m sorry, but I need to ask you
to leave, now” he said, sharply. “But there was a hospital here”, i stuttered,
confused. “Leave now,” he said with something menacing in his voice. And just
like that, I walked out, bewildered, not knowing whether i was mad or I had got
myself into a whole lot more than I understood.
I returned home,
determined to find out what had actually happened in the lab. Then I remembered
dad’s newspaper. “Maybe that had something to do with it,” I thought to myself.
I looked up GMO in Serbia, but all that came up was an article by the Belgrade
Insight. I was about to give up when I saw an article about a famous scientist
found dead in his car after a terrible accident. I recognized the face immediately.
He was the strange scientist who had injected me with the blue liquid. He must
have faked his death as the article was a month old, just to start a new life.
Then I put two and two together and worked out what he was doing had nothing to
do with GMO it was something much darker, nothing to do with food, but genes
alone. I returned to the home screen of the news website, and opened a new tab.
I looked up the scientist, called Dr. Ivan Curcic. He was researching how to
bring back dead genes, dormant genes that date back millions of years. After
looking a little more I saw that some different diseases could be awakened
through genes like Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy. According to the
news, when he died he was fixated with the Mayans. He believed that the world
would end on the 21 December 2012, and one of the last things he said to his
wife was if it didn’t happen, then he would put things right and make sure it
did. I returned to the news website. The latest headline was as follows “freak
virus outbreak, cause unknown”. I started to read the article, “The symptoms of
this virus, are green veins that stand out, the lack of logical thought and the
craving for human flesh”. I stopped reading at that point because I was
beginning to feel sick, who could do such a thing, and why. That crazy man. I
knew that, as I was the first test subject, it was my job to stop him.
3 weeks later...
Belgrade is a mess,
almost a third of the population has been infected and the authorities, or
what’s left of them still don’t know why. NATO has intervened but have not been
given permission to shoot the the...creatures, as there still may be a way to
save the people. Most of them are shambling around in the centre, everyone else
is trying to get away, but the roads are constantly blocked. We still don’t
know where the virus, or at least what we think is a virus has come from.
I am now in an abandoned
petrol station. I know I must find the authorities who are in a bunker
somewhere, unknown. I know the secret. I know what really happened. And I have
an antidote. During the three weeks that passed I have been doing research, to
begin with on the internet, until that was taken down, then came the power. Now
I rely on candlelight. I am armed with a small hunting knife which I have never
used and hope that I won’t need to. Thankfully Ivan Curcic wasn’t as clever as
he thought though. The second time I returned to the alleyway, around a week
after my first trip I found a business card. It read as follows.
Ivan Curcic
Genetic Engineering
Belgrade Institute of Sciences
So that was my first
stop. I left there the day after, it wasn’t so bad then. There were only a few
creatures zombies, and they weren’t very clever, they were easy to avoid. I
would move by the cover of darkness, although that often didn’t help as some of
the dormant genes that were awakened gave them an acute sense of smell. I found
his office, it wasn’t hard to get into as most of the buildings have already
been looted by the few groups of people who decided to stay. I found his office
in a few minutes and already knew what I was looking for. The day after
apocalypse started in Belgrade I had a dream. It was another one about me
having my injection. Except this time I remember seeing at he bent down to
inject me with the liquid, there was a second red syringe in his top shirt
pocket. I knew immediately that this was the antidote. It was in case it all
went wrong. Anyway I searched his office for around an hour but all I found was
boring files. Until, as I was about to walk out the door, I heard the
floorboards creak under my feet. Bingo! I went back to his desk and found a
screwdriver that I had previously unearthed. I unscrewed the floorboard and
there it was, yet another red syringe.
Back to the present. I
am still in the petrol station. I’ve got the antidote safely tucked away in a
satchel along with a survival handbook and some tinned food. I’m waiting for
the cover of darkness for me to go and find the government and hopefully save
the world. I wake up to the sound of someone knocking on the door to my
station. There are two of the creatures following him. He is shouting for me to
help him. I get up, after just a few weeks in a city like this I can wake up
and be ready in an instant. I unlock the door and quickly slam it behind him,
bolting it shut.
He introduces himself as
Dragan Curcic, Ivan’s brother. “To begin with, I didn’t trust him, but once he
told me his story, I had to believe him, I had no choice. I am Ivan Curcic’s
brother, we used to work together, in genetic engineering, I was more of a nano
tech person though. He was obsessed with it though, he would work well into the
night. Until one day, everything changed. He came out of his study, a different
man. And then two hours later he died in a car accident. Sadly now I know the
truth. I know he is actually still alive and that you where his first test
subject in this monstrous great plan of yours. I suppose you already worked out
most of this?” I nodded. “I don’t suppose you have got any tricks up your
sleeve do you?” He asked. I pulled out the red syringe and showed him. His eyes
lit up. “I remember these” He said “My brother stuffed crate fulls of them into
the boot of his car, he said it was another experiment but I was suspicious.
Turns out I was right. By now the (let’s just call them zombies) zombies had
lost interest and shuffled away. We ran for it, staying as silent as we could.
Next stop, the scrapyard.
We walk in, making sure
to tread silently as to not attract attention to ourselves. Almost at once
Dragan spots it, lying on it’s side in the corner, a light green Saab. We
opened the boot and sure enough there were three crates full of the syringes.
Dragan does some calculations. After a minute he looks up and smiles, “there
will be just enough” he says. The next day we find the Serbian government
bunker, where all the politicians were fretting about making impossible plans.
Something that Dragan didn’t tell me was that he was also a computer hacker and
we passed the security systems in minutes. WHen we entered the bunker we are
greeted by a look of surprise, followed by embarrassment followed by anger.
That is until Dragan showed the resident scientist the blueprints for the gun that
would launch the antidote that would reverse the effects and return everything
to normal. At first he looked at us in disbelief but then I saw a hint of
curiosity in his eyes, and I knew we had won him over. Of course they had to go
through all sorts of processes to check to see if the antidote was toxic or
not, they even brought in a specimen to test it on. But in the end it all
worked out. Within the year life returned to normal and the decade after that
changed into merely a bad memory. What I learned from this experince is this:
There are some crazy things that life throws at you, that you just have to deal
with. I’m not saying that tomorrow a group of genetically modified zombies will
arrive on your doorstep, what I am saying is that whatever life gives you, be
it lemons or a coconut you need to deal with it and conquer the problem as well
as you can. And something else that you scientists, who think you are so
clever, should keep in mind.
Don’t mess around with powers you don’t
understand.
Before you even begin to get your pi set up, you need a few things, the first of which is the actual device. You can get it off of the foundation’s website or Amazon for 25 pound, or 35 for a slightly better version. It’s not all cheep and cheerful though, you also need to buy an HDMI display to connect your the pi to, although if you don’t want to fork out a couple of hundred quid you could hook it up to a monitor or TV screen. And something you may not have expected, a micro SD card, this is where the computers operating system will go. This makes it a rather versatile device because there are loads of different operating systems to put on. Some doing simple things like controlling the air con, to more complex things like running a full computer system.. The rest is rather self explanatory, a mouse and keyboard which can plug into the little USB ports on the side. And also a micro USB plug that comes with practically every smart phone these days. The raspberry pi needs power of course.
Now you need to choose what operating system your Pi will run on. It won’t run on anything though, you will need to find an operating system designed to run on a raspberry pi. Sadly neither Windows or Mac OSX run on the raspberry pi, so you will need to resort to the third most popular OS on the planet, Linux. There are thousands of different versions of Linux and most of the big ones are available on your pi, however if you’re a beginner then you’d better go with the one recommended by the foundation, it’s called Rasbian. It’s the most popular OS on you new mini PC, it has all the things you’d expect from a normal computer, a browser an appstore and all the little utilities like calculator and Python for programming. In the appstore you can find games and office suites as well. And there is a version of Minecraft, the popular blocky PC game. If you don’t think Linux is your cup of tea then you do have a whole load of other OS’s to choose from, such as Chrome OS, XMBC a customized version of the Xbox media centre and even Android Ice Cream Sandwich.
So now you’re all set you can finally plug everything in. Starting with the SD card. Slide it in with the logo facing up. Don’t push it in too hard as there is supposed to be a bit sticking out so you can remove it later on. Now connect your mouse and keyboard, on to each USB port, or if you feel you need more ports, connect a powered USB hub. It must be powered though although it will sap power from the Pi and may make it malfunction. Now connect the HDMI port, plug one end in to the Pi and the other in to your monitor or TV. And finally plug the power in. The micro USB must be plugged in to the Raspberry Pi. Once again, be gentle. It is a delicate machine. Now you should see an orange LED come on your device. If it is booting you should also see a flickering or solid green light come on too. 
So, your pi is booting up for the first time? I will run you through how to get Rabian set up, the most popular OS for the Pi. First of all be patient, it takes a few mins for the first time. Then follow the onscreen instructions until you get to a terminal. Now type in your username, which is raspberry press enter. Then type in pi as the password. Then type startx and press enter. Now this will launch Rasbian in a graphical session, which is similar to what you are used to on Windows or Mac. Use your mouse and keyboard to navigate the OS. You can also use the Ethernet port to browse the Internet or connect a USB wifi dongle and use the built in app to set that up. If you gain access to the Internet, you can browse the store for apps or do everyday things on the web. You can also use Python or Scratch to do some basic coding, enjoy!
