The Last Human (a novel)

A Middle East parliament building came on screen. The anchor's voice continued.

"In the past week alone the number of deaths attributed to the Baghdad virus has jumped from under a thousand to almost twenty thousand."

The anchor's talking head reappeared on the screen. Just over the border, however, the Iranian Health Ministry is reporting some good news. While the reported BV cases there have also increased, the separate Baghdad-engineered virus which released hallucinogens to cause panic appears to have died off. No new "panic" cases have been reported for five weeks."

Idris, Adrian, and Lionel watched intently and without speaking. The anchor paused and then continued.

"CDC confirms that this virus was responsible for the bizarre behavior of people in Iran and Somar al Jadeeda over the last few months." The anchor looked away and another TV camera picked up a different angle on her image to indicate a different news story. "In this country, New York quarterback Vernal Flower, arrested last week for cocaine possession, has..."

Adrian hit the remote and turned off the television. The three viewers sat dejected for some seconds.

Idris cocked her head with an indication of anger. "If we only knew what those little religious worms in Baghdad had done — before they incinerated everything with their nuke.

CDC thinks they used genetic engineering to combine fragments of the AIDS and Ebola viruses with a common cold virus. The thing's highly contagious like a cold, highly lethal like Ebola, and totally shuts down the immune system. Kills in a week."

"And only people. Animals and plants are okay," Adrian noted. "Designer military weapon."

"They should have begun testing everyone entering the country when it started showing up in New Sumer. Not last month!" Lionel said. He paused, hesitated, then theorized. "The related thing people don't realize is the potential for economic disaster here.

If half the population of that area ends up dead or hospitalized, there goes about two-thirds of the world's oil production. Inflation could hit a hundred percent here."

Adrian firmly shook his head in admonishment at his brother-in-law. "Wouldn't worry about the economic effects," he said in a deeply ominous tone of voice.

All of them knew exactly what he meant. They sat staring, shocked at the implication, at the growing reality.

Still, the awful and scary events in the Middle East were agonizingly slow to stir concerns of government in North America and especially in the United States. After the election life continued pretty much as life had. In the long interim between the election and