The Laughing Plague - A "Crossed" TL

"Basingstoke is a write off" Home Secretary Priti Patel informed the Prime Minister via video link. The cabinet was meeting virtually these days so as to maintain social distancing. "They massacred the police checkpoint protecting the town and rampaged right across town. It's a bloodbath. We've had all remaining police units in the area retreat south in an effort to protect the routes into Southampton and Portsmouth."

Boris Johnson felt sick "I see. How many...um...how many dead, dare I ask?"

"Thousands no doubt. Many more infected. They had no warning. Most people were at home when they came rampaging through, whilst others were killed on their daily walk. They didn't stand a chance. The BBC has been running the footage on a loop. It's rather distressing."

"God, right okay what about Redding, what's the latest?" The PM asked.

"The southern approaches are lost. The police put up a strong fight but were forced back by 5 this afternoon, so about 3 hours ago. The outskirts are war zones. Riot police and armed response are fighting a delaying action to allow people to evacuate . The western blockades still hold for now but that won't matter if the defences in the south are completely routed. I understand the Army has now arrived in force on the western approaches into London and setting up serious firepower to protect the capital" the Home Secretary confirmed.

"Is this a dream?" Boris asked himself before pushing himself to carry on. "Alright, how long for some kind of treatment to be developed?"

The Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty spoke up "umm honestly don't hold out hope on any kind of vaccine or cure in the short or medium term. This is a novel virus, we have never seen anything like it. We don't know where to even start looking at how to combat it yet. From what my staff are telling me it is constantly shifting and changing. It's fascinating to see on an epidemiological sense. The fact that the incubation period is so incredibly short - in some cases as little as 30 seconds - is equally terrifying and fascinating from a scientific perspective. No virus in history has ever been this fast in showing symptoms. It should not be possible. It's very existence is counter to all known science."

"So, could this be a bioweapon ?" The PM asked.

"I don't think so. No government or group has the scientific know how or resources to artificially create something like this. Plus something so virulent would be likely to seriously rebound on the instigator especially if it's a state actor. I would not want to even speculate where this has come from. It's like it just appeared by magic."

"Well regardless of whether it's terrorists, magic or bloody aliens we need to be able to find a way to fight it." Home Secretary Patel grumbled.

"Copious amounts of firepower are the only option in the immediate future. It'll be several months before we can have a vaccine, if indeed we ever can create one. There appears to be no reasoning with the infected therefor the only way to combat this virus is to quite literally kill its victims. " Professor Whitty said in a tone of sadness.

"That's going to create some interesting legal hurdles." The PM said rubbing his head "we need to have parliament sit to hash out some kind of law allowing ...well...allowing wholesale murder of British citizens."

Nobody spoke for several moments as the grim reality struck them. They would need to kill thousands of UK citizens in order to save millions more.

"Everyone has seen what these people - if you can even call them people anymore - are capable of. We shouldn't have any issues getting emergency legislation passed to deal with them as we need to deal with them. That does bring me to a question for Professor Whitty : why are they so bloody evil?" That question was asked by Health Secretary Matt Hancock.

"Well, we have taken to calling it Inhibition Deficiency Virus, or IDV20 for short. It seems to affect the part of the brain that controls our inhibitions. Kind of like when you are very drunk and therefor you sort of "loosen up" and are more likely to do stupid things. Well imagine the bravery to do something you normally wouldn't do but 1000 times that. It takes away the fear of consequence whilst simultaneously increasing aggression and sex drive. Basically the infected are acting out the very worst fantasies or thoughts that people normally put right to the very back of their mind. This is why we are seeing not only murder and rape, but the infected commiting for lack of a better term an almost work of art out of the way they kill some victims. Some of the tortures are very inventive if you could call it that. The increased sex drive amomgst the infected appears to be a byproduct of the virus in an effort to increase its spread. Many of those infected are people who have been sexually assaulted. It's spreading much like AIDS albeit much, much faster."

"Thank for that Chris, I think i might go and throw up now." The PM said sipping on his wine. "Alright, let's call it a day there and we will meet again in the morning. I need to make a call to President Pence. Good night everyone."