"The Good Virus is a tale replete with humor, adventure, science, and mystery. Through the well plotted narrative, Govind Mattay instills a certain believability in every situation his heroes face. No moment or action is wasted, propelling the reader towards the climactic end." -Us Review of Books One year after Samir Gupta's mysterious disappearance, his son Veer starts school at Medley Middle. Like many other middle school kids, Veer is worried about bullies, being late to class, and angry gym teachers. He did have one thing to look forward to: winning the end-of-year Medley of Talents competition. But little did Veer know that preparing for the competition would lead him, his brother Jai, and his best friend Vidya on a perilous journey. The journey begins as the trio notices strange signs. They see figures lurking near the house and find small surveillance bugs implanted in their phones. Suddenly they surprisingly overcome their greatest weaknesses and start to uncover fascinating clues. Can their newfound strengths help them with their search for Samir and their attempt to stop the diabolical plan of one of the world's most powerful corporations? The Good Virus By Govind S. Mattay Trafford Publishing Copyright © 2014 Govind S. Mattay All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4907-4683-8 CHAPTER 1 Veer was miserable. He stared at the yellow and red tiled floor of Medley Middle School while walking to his locker on the second floor. Today was his first day of junior high. Many kids were excited about this, but not him. Middle school just meant more bullies to watch out for, more kids to embarrass himself in front of, and worst of all, a grueling gym class every single day. First, he had to walk to the other side of the school to find the stairs. Veer paid close attention to where he was, for Medley was a huge school, and he didn't want to get lost on the first day of the school year. As he walked, he noticed all the colorful signs posted on the bulletin boards beside classrooms. Some read "Welcome 7TH and 8TH graders!" Others said "We are going to have a fantastic year!" A huge influx of kids came storming down the once empty hallway like a herd of buffalo. The mere force of them knocked Veer off his feet and he fell to the cold floor. They didn't even bother to move around him, but just trampled right over him. "Bus number 52 has just arrived," the monotone voice of the school secretary boomed through the speakers. "You could have told me earlier," Veer muttered to himself while getting up and brushing the dirt off his new and now stained collared shirt. His first day of school was already a disaster. "Aww, a little sevy got a boo-boo!" a voice called from down the hall. Veer looked up to see three eighth-grade boys in ripped jeans and black leather jackets marching toward him. Just the thing to make his day worse: bullies. "Do you know what today is, punk?" the tallest eighth grader asked him. "Tuesday?" Veer responded. "Wrong, idiot. It's Sevy-Bop Day!" With that, the eighth grader smashed him on the head with his fist and walked away laughing. Veer was slow to recover, rubbing his head to soothe the pain. This day was just getting worse. His first days of school were always bad, but this was a new record: two catastrophes in a matter of minutes. After slowly collecting his books off the floor, Veer set off once more to find his locker. Soon he reached the stairs and started to climb them one at a time. As soon as he reached the double doorway, Veer turned left and headed down a hall lined with old rusty lockers. It was just Veer's luck for his locker to be in the only part of the school that wasn't refurbished in the recent renovation. As he approached his locker, the very last one in the huge hall, he dug deep into his pockets and pulled out a tiny piece of paper that contained his lock code. Veer strained to recognize the numbers that were scribbled upon the paper in his messy handwriting. He luckily managed to figure out two of the numbers, but wasn't sure if the third was a 2 or a 3. He'd just have to try both codes to get his locker open. Now how did it go? Turn left to 33, then right all the way around and back to 17, then left again? No that wasn't right. It was the opposite. Right, left, right. Yeah, that was the way. After trying the first code, the locker didn't open. Veer had better luck the second try as the lock clicked loose. But now there was a different problem, the locker was jammed stuck. It took another three attempts before the locker suddenly flew open and Veer fell to the floor. He pushed himself onto his feet and deposited his books in the ancient rusty locker. Now it was time for the beginning-of-school assembly. After traveling through the hallway and down the stairs, Veer once again heard the nasal monotone voice of the school secretary from the speakers. It squeaked, "All seventh and eighth graders report to the gymnasium for the beginning-of-school assembly, all s