The book Code Orange is about a student named Mitty Blake who lives in Manhattan who tries to find a really easy subject for his science project about infectious diseases. He takes his mother's medical textbooks and randomly flips it open to variola major. He also finds an envelope filled with variola major scabs. He sniffs them and puts them back in the envelope. Later, he learns that variola major is more commonly known as smallpox, and also finds out that there's no known cure. He also learns that period between infection and symptoms is 12 to 14 days. Then he remembers that he sniffed in particles of the scabs, but dismisses it as no concern.
However, when he goes to school, he starts considering the tragic effects that smallpox could wreak in Manhattan. He immediately starts a wild internet trawl of medical databases and also emails and advertises about the scabs. It has been 12 days. Later that evening, he heads outside and is mugged by bioterrorists led to him by the advertising. They keep him in a warehouse in the outskirts of town for a few days when smallpox spots appear on his skin. They try to transport him to another warehouse but Mitty fights them off. He had tricked them by using coal dust from the warehouse to make spots on his skin. He had faked his sickness.
He did not have smallpox. However, his tangle with the bio terrorists required a hospital stay. I think this was a very good story because in my opinion, it was a story that demonstrated the possible dangers that someone can create from a foolish mistake. Smallpox was a very dangerous disease and I feel better now that it has supposedly been eradicated. If smallpox got into the hands of a bioterrorist, it could become a huge pandemic.
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