I am currently working on a speculative fiction novel with the working title, The Ruby Spider Conspiracy. I just completed Chapters 32-35 which constitute plot point two, the center of the novel expected to be 75,000 words long.
The novel is about Raisa Ilyushkin, a biochemist from Ukraine, educated in Russia, who is commissioned by a private foundation, with permission from the World Court, to study biological weapons using nanobots. The court’s reasoning is that understanding the weapons will prevent a cold-war style competition to develop them.
One of Raisa’s associates takes the research products out of the laboratory and turns them over to a cabal, the Ruby Spider Conspiracy (RSC) that believes mass genocide is the solution to overpopulation. Raisa is working to develop a defense that will overcome the nanobot plague. At the midpoint, humanity has suffered two attacks at a cost of one billion four hundred million lives.
The United Nations has disbanded, because some of the backers of the Ruby Spider have UN Security Council connections and the surviving nations have formed a new coalition, The International Council on Civilization (ICC). The newly formed ICC is backing Raisa’s efforts to find a defense for the nanobot plague.