COMMANDMENT

In my past professional career, I was a research scientist working in the fields of chemistry, drug discovery, and electrochemistry. I published many technical articles and books on these subjects. This book is my first attempt to write a novel, a science fiction novel at that.
This book came out of my interest in the incredible properties of microorganisms. Numerous scientific publications on these ‘aliens’ among us capture the imagination and read themselves like science fiction.
The microorganisms that ‘infect' us are a miracle of nature, numbering in the trillions, yet our immune system does not destroy the beneficial kinds. They are vital to our existence! We are in a close symbiotic relationship.
Microbes train our immune system. They help protect us against dangerous pathogens, vital for digestion, provide us with necessary hormones and other life-sustaining chemicals, and remarkably communicate with us in many ways affecting how we think. They are involved in our decisions and emotions. In return, we provide them with nutrients, protection, and mobility as far and wide as our horizons take us.
They evolved on EARTH billions of years ago shortly after EARTH cooled sufficiently. They are our ancient ancestors, and we continue our evolution with them.
They are not the simplest of entities we long believed. The methods of their communications with one another and with other life forms, including us, are highly sophisticated. The chemical and biological agents they produce to signal their kind and others is what scientists call ‘Quorum Sensing,’ The control they exert on the environment, on us, and other life forms is incredible!
In this novel, I began imagining the future of microbial science and the applications genetically engineered microbes might have in the hands of a highly advanced alien civilization. I started writing this novel in 2016, about microorganisms, called RED and a Pandemic they cause. I could not have predicted at that time that the coronavirus, known as COVID-19, would become a Pandemic infecting and killing so many.
Microorganisms Are Everywhere!
Microorganisms are significant characters in this novel. By definition, microbes are invisible, at least to the Naked Human Eye. They are everywhere! You and I exist within a cloud of microorganisms that permeates us!
Microbes include vast kingdoms of bacteria, archaea, protozoa, algae, fungi, viruses, etc. They outnumber us and everything else in the UNIVERSE, and the more we understand them and our humble position in the tree of life, the more we learn how truly amazing they are!
Realistically, you and I could not exist without us having descended from ancestral microorganisms appearing on EARTH billions of years ago.
And, this story would be impossible to write without them!