Synopsis
This is the story of Craig Evans, an American expat living in Karachi, Pakistan. Craig is married to Insiya Zia, a Pakistani doctor. While on routine hospital rounds, Insiya is attacked by a patient and contracts a virus called MN-2. A devastating pathogen of unknown origin, the MN-2 causes uncontrollable outbursts of violence and rage. With no cure in sight, the doctors keep Insiya sedated with heavy doses of IV-delivered drugs, eventually putting her in a induced coma. Craig is helpless, reduced to looking on from the sidelines as her wife slips into a vegetative state.
Meanwhile, the virus continues to spread through the country. People infected by it are referred to as ‘carriers’. The only hope for them is a drug called Sedare. The drug is manufactured by Ingenec, a local pharmaceutical company, sold in the form of an adhesive patch, much like a nicotine patch. The drug is so ubiquitous that in the market it is simply called ‘the patch’. However, it is not a cure. All it does is control the symptoms of the virus for a few hours. The infecteds have no choice but to keep buying and replacing it in order to live a ‘normal’ life. And those who cannot afford it, are condemned to spiral past the stage of irreversible hallucinatory madness. This has a profound effect on the city, dividing an already-splintered city with even deeper lines of demarcation. It makes the poor quarters of city extremely dangerous with hordes of ravenous carriers roaming unfettered while the rich build higher walls, hire more armed guards and insulate their communities from the dangers of the MN-2 contagion.
Craig mental state also begins to worsen. With no real change in his wife’s condition and no permanent cure on the horizon, Craig is resigned to Insiya’s impending death. In fact, we almost sense Craig’s relief - he is tired of waiting for Insiya to wake from her comatose state, tired of living alone in one of the harshest, most violent places in the world. All he wants to do is go back home. But when the dead body of Shehzad Ameen - a reporter who was investigating the virus - turns up in a sewer, Craig is forced break out of his cocoon of complacency. Big, urgent questions loom large for him - how much does he love his wife; what is he willing to do get her back; is he willing to risk his own life? Armed with information from Shehzad’s distraught wife and various strands of evidence collected by Shehzad, Craig slowly begins to piece together the jigsaw puzzle. The domino of events finally leads Craig to the mystery behind the disease...and to the last chance at saving his wife.