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Twisted Fate

Author	Linda Boroff

Twisted Fate

Linda Boroff

Twisted Fate Synopsis Linda Boroff lindaboroff2927@gmail.com Set in the late 2020s, the novel follows the struggles of young Silicon Valley worker Zoe Ohrbach and her boyfriend Brian Snyder, amidst an outbreak of a new prion (“Mad Cow”) disease that gradually turns people into psychopaths. Prions, discovered in 1982, are not alive like bacteria or viruses, but are instead twisted bits of protein in the brain. They cause “Mad Cow” or in humans the horrifying variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD). Prion diseases are incurable and have extremely long incubation periods—even decades. There is no vaccine. “Prions are like an enemy within, the alien in some B-movie that transforms people to an evil version,” says prion biologist Edward Hoover of Colorado State University. “The immune system doesn’t see them coming.” This particular prion has been spreading unsuspected for decades.

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Categories: Book, Century fox, Genre Fiction, Literature & Fiction, Medical thriller Tags: Dark Fantasy Horror, Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction (Books), Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction (Kindle Store)

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The world has entered a breathing space following the ravages of COVID-19. Since medical science conquered the pandemic with a cheap and easily administered vaccine, the world has rebounded swiftly and gratefully into boisterous prosperity.

But now a new and even worse catastrophe has emerged after stalking humanity unsuspected for decades. A new disease, APSS (Acquired Prion Sociopathy Syndrome) has resulted from a mutation in a prize bull imported from Switzerland in 2007.

Zoe and Brian are twenty-something Silicon Valley tech workers. During the early days of the epidemic, before its true impact was suspected, they had gotten tested to take advantage of a two-for-one dinner offer at local eateries for those showing a certificate of testing. To their horror, Brian tests positive. Although Zoe tests negative, the method of spread is still uncertain. As the gravity of the crisis deepens, the government ramps up Infection Control Squads to incarcerate and quarantine the infected.

When a military detachment arrives one morning to sweep their complex for carriers, Zoe and Brian go on the run. Their goal is one of several sanctuaries that rebels have set up in remote areas. After they are attacked, one of the attackers gets them to Destination Hope, the sanctuary.

But something is not safe in sanctuary. Instead, they find a cultish, shadowy research facility funded by the government, conducting experiments on living (and sometimes unwilling) subjects to find a cure faster since they are not hobbled by medical ethics and protocols. Brian and Zoe are now prisoners at Destination Hope—not only of their hosts, but of the unsurvivable Mojave. With Brian confined in the sprawling complex, Zoe pretends to accept the researchers’ goals. Playing for time, she integrates herself into the life and work of the facility.

When Brian refuses to remain at the facility as a human guinea pig, Zoe chooses to leave with him, and they drive off into the magnificent, deadly desert. Did the radical treatment he was subjected to succeed? And will human society survive this latest cataclysm and enter a future worth inhabiting?

Linda Boroff

Linda Boroff graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in English. Her humorous short stories, satires and feature articles have appeared in a broad span of noted publications, including McSweeney’s, The Guardian. Gawker, Hollywood Dementia, Epoch, Cimarron Review, Hobart, Crack the Spine, The Pedestal Magazine, The Writing Disorder, The Piltdown Review, 5:21 Magazine, Thoughtful Dog, Drunk Monkeys, Blunderbuss Magazine, JONAH Magazine, Eclectica, The Boiler, Fictive Dream, and Lifelines, the literary journal of the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth.

She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Able Muse Magazine and won first prize in The Writers Place fiction competition, as well as placing in the Top Ten or semifinals of numerous other contests including American Gem, the Chesterfields, and the Los Angeles International Screenplay Competition. She has written one one produced feature film and has two screenplays currently in development.