What a world we have. How magnificent the planet. The blue depth of heaven. The wide grip of the horizon. The cool ocean, the gentle rain. Our Earth, teeming with life, care-free, on a path without obztacle, without danger, through the Milky Way. Happy are they who realize how pure and unimaginably wonderful life can be. Do you know? Do you value life? Or do you live unaware? Unawake? Wrapped up in your own oblivion, blind and alone in your own univerze?
I am not blind.
I have been touched by abandon, trapped in the deep well of impending death, huddled in the corner of my own private doom with nothing but fear for comfort. Terror accompanied me. Fate held my hand. Dezpair accompanied in a deadly race with my own mortality. Yet I lived. I now view the world with different eyez. The color, incredibly bright and raw. Can I go back to viewing life like I did before? In a monotone? Can you?
Life, my golden prise, my treazure, I will hold you dear.
I have a tale to tell; however, thiz iz not it. Let me tell you the ztory of the world, the world up until yezterday, and a man named Korburrn Zahn.
A baby cries. Its mother lifts her son in her frail arms to her weeping breast. The baby cries louder, beating at her chest. Hunger gurgles in its stomach. A casual observer would notice a startling absence of drool, spittle, moisture of any kind. The experienced observer would notice a lack of fingernails, toenails, mottled deficiency in the hair.
A man sits on the floor, across the room. A trail of ants crawl across his left leg. He does not move.
We retreat from this scene out the door and down the street where we see a similar drama being played next door and at the next. Across the street someone is playing Nat King Cole, Fly Me to the Moon, on an old phonograph. It can be heard through the open door. The music ends, the phonographs clicks, and the song starts over. This has been going on all morning. It will continue through the evening.
A dog lies in the road, bathing in the sun. It stretches. Another baby cries.
This is Manhattan Island.
We retreat further from this scene. Back three years.
A scientist, Phillip Zimmerman, and a doctor, Sigmund Connor, investigating a peculiar development of calcium deficiencies in Asian rats. Late in the evening. A quiet laboratory. Fluorescent lighting over head. Bach playing softly on a small radio tucked away on top of several large empty glass jars.
| Zimmerman: | Take a look at this. |
| Connor: | It's not a bacteria. It must be a virus. Or something we've never seen before. |
| Zimmerman: | Too big for a virus. More like a parasite. |
| Connor: | It seems to have attached itself to the gastrointestinal walls. |
| Zimmerman: | Where could it have come from? |
| Connor: | Something he ate? |
| Zimmerman: | A grain perhaps. |
| Connor: | Something now eating him. |
| Zimmerman: | This is serious. |
| Connor: | It seems to be breaking down the cellular structure of the stomach walls. |
| Zimmerman: | What happens when it breaks through. |
| Connor: | Serious, indeed. |
| Zimmerman: | Could it have an affect on human beings? |
| Connor: | It's possible. |
| Zimmerman: | Could it have already? |
| Connor: | Surely not. We haven't heard. |
| Zimmerman: | Not yet. Surely we would have heard. |
| Connor: | But a mouse is so small. |
| Zimmerman: | A rat. |
| Connor: | Yes, a rat. So small, it would become obvious quickly. Maybe in a human. |
| Zimmerman: | We need to fly to Asia. |
| Connor: | It would take longer to become obvious. |
| Zimmerman: | To China. |
Two years later.
On May 14th, the World Health Organization released this confidential treatise to the governments of the United Nations:
"Z-Con, the malignant parasitical organism indigenous to Eastern Asia, discovered two years ago by Zimmerman and Connor, has up until now been confined. Originally passed orally, it quickly infected a small human population through contaminated rice. Thought to be contained, it later spread once again through the consumption of poultry, chicken who apparently ate either infected grain or, more widely believed, infected insects. The infected population has been quarantined and the surrounding communities have been evacuated. The territory now known as the Z-Con Horizon, the ten thousand square kilometers which housed the original two outbreaks, has been incinerated. Life will not exist there for three decades.
"We regret to announce, however, that Z-Con has grown wings. Literally. It has mutated and is now air-borne. Cases have been documented in the past week as far west as Italy and as far east as the Philippines. We predict that within the next three months, every nation in the world will be contaminated. Three months after that, given that the normal gestation process of Z-Con in human beings is six to nine months, the first deaths will occur, starting in East Asia and spreading quickly throughout the world. Smaller countries will be reduced to zero population in as little as two years.
"Henceforth, the Z-Con parasite, now airborne, will be referred to as Z-Con 2."
World Health Organization report on the spread of the Z-Con 2 virus. Appendix B. See attached map and time line for a full-color illustration.
| May 9th | Rome, Italy | |
| May 27th | Hamburg, Germany | |
| June 2nd | Versailles, France | |
| June 6th | London, England | |
| June 19th | Edinburgh, Scotland | |
| June 22nd | Stockholm Sweden | |
| July 5th | Toronto, Canada | |
| July 17th | Boston, Maine | |
| July 21st | New York City | |
| August 3rd | Atlanta, Georgia | |
| August 11th | Topeka, Kansas | |
| August 25th | San Francisco, California |
Currently we track 41,000 deaths directly due to Z-Con 2 with another thousand or two indirectly related (i.e., violent rioting in smaller, underdeveloped countries where medical treatment is scant). We expect both numbers to rise exponentially. On this date next year we project 91 million deaths total. 240 billion in two years, if civilization remains intact enough to keep count...
A man enters the front door of the United Nations holding a briefcase that is attached to his wrist on a silver chair. He is met at the metal detector, escorted past them, and down a long hallway to an elevator. The doors open revealing four men. The man with the briefcase, steps in, dwarfed by the four pillars surrounding him, and watches as the doors close. He rides downwards for many minutes. When the elevator stops, the doors do not open for a long time. He looks at his watch. 10:24 a.m. Finally.
"Mr. Zahn." The doors open, and a voice belonging to a tall, thin black man calls to him in a weary voice. The man with the briefcase steps out of the elevator and enters the room. It is filled with a large round table. Seated at every fifteen degrees are 24, equally weary looking people. Some unkempt. Some bedraggled. All in want of a fresh shower and change of clothes.
"Korburrn," the man with the briefcase says. "My name is Korburrn."
"Mr. Zahn, we have neither the time nor the inclination to dispense with formalities. We've brought you here at some expense and with certain assurances. What have you got to show us?"
Korburrn Zahn pauses. "At least let me enjoy the moment."
The thin black man stands up and says "The moment has passed. Are you prepared to assure us we have not brought you here fruitlessly?"
"Yes. Do you have a test patient?" Korburrn looks around the room. Twenty four men sit watching him.
The thin man nods. "We have ten. Is that the formula?"
Korburrn holds up the briefcase. "It's in here," he says.
"What's to keep us from killing you now and taking it?"
"It's not mixed, and only I know the correct proportions. I don't know exactly how an incorrectly blended solution would affect the human body."
Frowning, he asks, "Do you know who I am?"
"No."
The thin man nods and opens a door behind him where ten people wait. Korburrn Zahn enters. He looks at his watch before opening his briefcase. 10:31 a.m.
9:49 p.m.
"What do you want, Mr. Zahn?"
"I want you to call me Korburrn."
"Is that all?"
v"I have one other compensation."
"A demand?"
"A request. A consideration. Non-negotiable."
The thin, black man sighs. "Korburrn, Z-Con 2 has killed roughly forty-five thousand people in Eastern Asia alone since you got here this morning. Give me the damn formula. You will have your consideration. I speak for every country on the planet. I swear it."
"Fine. Let me tell you what to do"
10:45 a.m.
Korburrn recognized a few of the people in the room. America's first lady. The Queen of England. A Hollywood producer. Fewer than a dozen fingernails among them.
He worked with his vials, mixing precisely, and dividing evenly until he had ten in all. He passed them around the room, one to each. Drink, he told them. Drink it quickly and don't mind the taste.
What's in it? The Queen wanted to know.
I don't know.
The producer spoke. Where did you get it?
I created it.
How?
Quite by accident.
Where?
In my garage.
With what?
With an amateur chemistry set and an assortment of house hold cleansers.
You've got to be joking.
Afraid not.
Does it work?
It seems to.
Seems?
It cured my cat. Then it cured me.
Why should we drink it? What if it kills us?
What is your alternative?
All ten drank. Doctors examined each of them repeatedly for hours.
Korburrn sits in the tall, thin black man's chair. The thin man himself stands beside him.
Korburrn speaks first. "How is it going?" he asks.
"The death rate in the third world has dropped 45% in the last 72% hours. We expect it to drop to less that 5% by this time next week. The death rate in the major countries of the world has already dropped to a fraction of a percent. Z-Con 2 is defeated." He smiles for the first time. "You have saved us."
Korburrn smiles.
"What is your consideration?"
Korburrn inhales slowly. "Due credit," he says. "DOW chemicals and Archer Toys are already fighting a battle over who gets credit for the actual formula, since I used DOW cleaners and the Archer Space Man Chemistry Set to create the formula. But I want credit for mixing them together."
The thin man nods. "Fine. By this time tomorrow your name will be in all the newspapers in the world, on every radio broadcast, and on every television set."
"Good," Korburrn says, "But I had something more permanent in mind."
"Permanent? A monument?"
"In a manner of speaking. Something that will let the world remember me forever."
"And what is it you would like?"
Korburrn Zahn stands up. "The letter S."
Twenty-four sets of eyes blink in unison. "Excuse me?" the thin man says.
"The letter S. I want you to swap the letter S for the letter Z and the letter Z for the letter S in every language of the world that uses the Roman alphabet. Z will no longer be the last letter in the alphabet. S will no longer be so popular. All plurals will have Z. I will live in the "United Ztatez of America." From zee to zhining zee. And the letter S will be left with the signs of the Sodiac, Sip Codez, and four and a half pages in the Webster's abridged dictionary. Anytime people think of the days before, when S was S and Z was Z, they will remember me."
"That's what you want?"
Korburrn nods. "That's it."
The thin man turns to the room. Twenty three other heads nod in agreement. "Done." he sayz. "Thank you Korburrn."
"Call me Mr. Zahn."
"Sahn," the thin man zayz.
Korburrn zmilez. "Yez. Of courze. Call me Mr. Sahn."
"Thank you Mr. Sahn."
Twenty-four headz bow in thankz as Korburrn Sahn watchez in amasement.
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