The Viral Epiphany (11 page)

           
The Malaysian guard looked at Tommy then again at his passport. “Lim Pai Seng?” he asked.

           
“Yes, yes, that’s me,” he said putting his hand up to his forehead.
This is it. It’s over.
 
He knows.

           
The Malaysian guard nodded and studied his face again closely. “You don’t remember me do you?”

           
Tommy looked nervously at the man. He was Malay, about his age he guessed, perhaps thirty pounds overweight.
 
He looked vaguely familiar.
Who is he?
he wondered.

           
“No, sir. Sorry.”

           
“Samsuddin bin Abdul Bakar, you don’t remember? We went to secondary school together in Johor Bahru.” Samsuddin smiled at him, “You live in Thailand now, I see. Well…welcome home!”

           
Tommy could feel himself relax. This was going to be OK.
 
Then the phone rang inside the guard booth.

           
“Hold on,” Samsuddin said as he turned and started walking to get the phone. Tommy’s eyes widened.
 
He looked again in the rearview mirror. The Thai side of the border was now completely closed.

 
           
Suddenly Samsuddin stopped and turned around.
 
“Oh, never mind,” he said coming back to the car. “I’ll bet there’s another drill going on.
 
Here’s your passport. Go ahead. Hurry up!”

           
Tommy thanked him and put the car in gear.
 
He drove forward, but not too quickly, and then a minute later he looked again in the rearview mirror.
 
He could see in the distance that all of the steel gates at the Malaysian guard booths were now closing simultaneously. The Malaysia - Thailand border was closed.

Twelve

           
It was only two weeks after Sam had died in Bangkok when Jim Burton hurriedly walked into the twelfth floor conference room at the New York City headquarters of the United Nations. The head of the Agency for Population Safety, Dr. Charles Goodfellow, had issued a call for an urgent meeting only two hours ago and Jim, like almost everyone else at the meeting, had made last minute changes to his own schedule in order to attend.

Typical Goodfellow management stunt,
he thought as he took his seat at the conference table,
he always has to make things seem more important than they are.
 
What the hell is it going to be this time?

Charles Goodfellow stood at the head of the table waiting for everyone to take their seats. As usual he wore a dark pin-stripe suit with a vest, looking as if he were still the U.S. ambassador to Russia, a position he had held fifteen years ago.
 
Now nearly sixty-five years old, he was a close friend of President Cranston.
 
Not only had they gone to Harvard together as undergraduates, but their two families had long been the major stockholders, and the guiding force, of the Victoria Mining and Logging Company located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
 
He had scraped through Harvard with a bachelor’s degree in business, and it had served him well enough at times. It was his personal connections, however, the ones he had made at the college, that had really paid off throughout his life.
 
His title of “Doctor” was an honorary one.

“Gentlemen,” he said as he looked around the table, “thank you for coming on such short notice.
 
I have some very, very serious news to share with you.”

The ten men sitting at the table, each a section head of a UNAPS department, sat up a little straighter.
 
Dr. Goodfellow pushed a button on the table and a large projection screen lowered behind him. A projector in the rear projection room came on and the UNAPS logo filled the screen.
 
A few of the other men glanced at each other but said nothing.
 
Charles was known for his lengthy Power Point presentations that inevitably accomplished nothing, except to conclude that there was a need for yet another study.

The logo faded out and a map of Southeastern Asia filled the screen with the countries of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Viet Nam and China shaded in bright red.

“Gentlemen, we have a very serious problem developing in the area you see before you.
 
You recall from our UN charter that the goal of UNAPS is to ensure safety of the world’s population.”
 
He looked at the audience and received a couple nods of assent to his obvious assertion.

“Over the past ten years our organization has dealt with major disease outbreaks such as Ebola, and Malaria in Africa and most recently,” he looked at Jim, “an outbreak of Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever in Malaysia.
 
Jim, you’ll soon be receiving an award for your heroic work in the jungles, and Chuck will be receiving a posthumous award.”

Dr. Goodfellow bowed his head a moment as if in contemplation, then he looked up again at the faces around the table.
 
We have now received evidence of something extraordinarily serious and threatening that needs our urgent attention.” He took a green laser pointer and pointed it at China.

“Current estimates are that China’s rapidly growing population is approaching two billion people.
 
Although not shown on this map, India is almost the same.
 
This area here,” he said pointing to the smaller Southeast Asian countries, “make up a very large population center as well, perhaps three quarters of a billion people in total, and it too is growing extremely rapidly. Along with India, this part of the world is experiencing truly explosive growth. It currently has three quarters of the world’s population.”
 
He turned and looked directly at the audience but saw only blank faces.
 
This was not exactly new information for most of them.

“Gentlemen,” he said, almost in a whisper, “that is the problem. The population growth is out of control.”

Jim Burton momentarily put his hand over his eyes,
Oh, no,
he thought,
not this again.

“We have all agreed in the past, at least in principle, that one of the greatest dangers to the world’s population is the population of the world itself. Correct?” he looked for confirmation from the group and several of them nodded.

“Recent computer projections clearly show that this area of the world has entered an even more unstable growth pattern than in the past.
 
Projections are for an exponential increase in the number of babies born in the next several years, no doubt due to the failure of the people to use birth control methods, either because of religious objections or just because they interfere with their own personal pleasure or some such thing. The attempts by these countries to control their population growth by means of birth control has been a failure despite their governments’ propaganda to the contrary.”

Jim had heard similar discussions before and couldn’t see why this was being brought up now.

“Gentlemen, the numbers don’t lie.
  
With population numbers in Asia reaching into the billions, they will soon leap to the tens of billions and the lives of everyone worldwide, including us, will be altered, inevitably, for the worse.
 
We simply cannot allow this to happen.
 
That is why we have, reluctantly and certainly only out of the direst necessity, decided to activate at the earliest opportunity a very secret but necessary population-culling program.” He looked at the audience for comments then quickly added, “I must emphasize that this is truly only for the overall good of people everywhere.”
 

Jim looked around the table but everyone was looking downward and no one met his glance. “Culling?” Jim asked, “Did you say culling?
 
I never heard of any such program.
 
What are you talking about?”

           
Dr. Goodfellow looked at the others and then at Jim. He gave him an indulgent smile. “No, Jim, of course you haven’t heard about it. You’ve been out in the field and you haven’t been able to attend some of our prior meetings.
 
Culling is not a word we use publicly.
 
Perhaps it’s not a very accurate description of the idea anyway. Usually the concept is simply referred to as risk and financial prioritization.
 
After all, we are budget limited and we really can’t do everything we might like to do.”

           
“I still don’t get it.” Jim replied, “What do you mean by culling?”

           
“Of course.” Dr. Goodfellow said gently. “Let me explain.
 
In the natural world all species are subject to various threats, either from environmental changes, predators, disease, famine, you name it.
 
In some cases the population of some animal, or even plant groups, drops by ninety percent or more when these natural disasters are encountered.
 
It happens all the time. Some species even become extinct.”

           
Jim nodded but said nothing.

           
“In general these phenomena cull out the weakest members of the group and only the strongest members survive.
 
In the long run it is a necessary and natural process that strengthens the remaining members of the group and actually helps them to survive.”

           
“OK,” Jim said, “I’ve heard that many times in the past.
 
It’s certainly not new.
 
It’s called survival of the fittest. Right?
 
How can this possibly apply to our mission? We’re here to protect the world’s population aren’t we?”

           
Dr. Goodfellow looked around the room and paused before he replied. He enjoyed moments like these.
 
It reminded him of his days as a student at Harvard when a professor was about to share a profound thought with his slow-to-understand undergraduate students.
I could have done that
, he thought to himself.
 
He allowed himself a slight smile.

           
“It’s really quite straightforward,” he said at last, “left alone, nature will perform selective culling when a population group becomes too large.
 
This is good, not only for that particular population group, but for all groups in general.
 
In our case we would determine if a particular group became too large for its own welfare, for example, the group I was just talking about.
 
Now, let’s suppose some sort of natural calamity were to strike this group. It might be a disease, or it could be an earthquake, volcanic eruption or some other disaster. It might even be a manmade disaster such as warfare in a neighboring area that spills over into this population center.
 
If the circumstances were appropriate our culling program would be enabled.”

           
“How would that work in practice?” Dave Thomas, a member of a different First Strike group asked. “I must have missed that meeting.
 
I thought all the previous meetings were just hypothetical discussions.”

           
“Hypothetical, Dave? Oh, no…not at all, not at all.
 
You see, in the simplest terms, we would really do nothing.
 
It’s a passive culling program you see.
 
We simply let the disaster take its course. Our explanation to the world would be that our limited budget prevents our taking effective action.
 
Then, as the natural culling action continues, the population of the affected group is reduced and the world population returns to a normal balance. It’s a very natural process and it has worked very well in the past.”

           
“It has?” Jim asked, “Where?”

           
“Well,” Dr. Goodfellow replied, “I don’t think it would be appropriate to be too specific in this meeting. Let us just say that it has worked well before in both Asia and Africa. You’ll have to use your own judgment to determine the specific countries.”

           
Jim thought about this for a few moments before he slowly nodded his head. “I see.
 
“So, if this culling thing is to happen again in Southeastern Asia how does it happen?”

           
Dr. Goodfellow laughed for a moment.
 
“My goodness, Jim. I don’t know.
 
We have to watch and see what develops.
 
There are always threats to populations coming along.
 
We just need to carefully monitor this area and see what happens. We will still step in to help out with the smaller disasters but when the right one comes along…well, we’ll let nature take its course. That’s all.
 
Sometimes, the natural way is the best way to protect the Earth’s population as a whole. Don’t you agree?