World War-Z

Most people don’t believe something can happen until it already has. 

That’s not stupidity or weakness, that’s just human nature.

“And this is where I directly benefited from the unique circumstances of our precarious security. In October of 1973, when the Arab sneak attack almost drove us into the Mediterranean, we had all the intelligence in front of us, all the warning signs, and we had simply “dropped the ball.” We never considered the possibility of an all-out, coordinated, conventional assault from several nations, certainly not on our holiest of holidays. Call it stagnation, call it rigidity, call it an unforgivable herd mentality. 

Imagine a group of people all staring at writing on a wall, everyone congratulating one another on reading the words correctly. 

But behind that group is a mirror whose image shows the writing’s true message. No one looks at the mirror. 

No one thinks it’s necessary. Well, after almost allowing the Arabs to finish what Hitler started, we realized that not only was that mirror image necessary, but it must forever be our national policy. 

From 1973 onward, if nine intelligence analysts came to the same conclusion, it was the duty of the tenth to disagree. No matter how unlikely or far-fetched a possibility might be, one must always dig deeper. If a neighbor’s nuclear power plant might be used to make weapons-grade plutonium, you dig; if a dictator was rumored to be building a cannon so big it could fire anthrax shells across whole countries, you dig; and if there was even the slightest chance that dead bodies were being reanimated as ravenous killing machines, you dig and dig until you strike the absolute truth.”

But didn’t the plague originate in China? 

It did, as well as did one of the greatest single Maskirovkas in the history of modern espionage. I’m sorry? It was deception, a fake out. 

The PRC knew they were already our numberone surveillance target. They knew they could never hide the existence of their nationwide “Health and Safety” sweeps. They realized that the best way to mask what they were doing was to hide it in plain sight. Instead of lying about the sweeps themselves, they just lied about what they were sweeping for. 

The dissident crackdown? 

Bigger, the whole Taiwan Strait incident: the victory of the Taiwan National Independence Party, the assassination of the PRC defense minister, the buildup, the war threats, the demonstrations and subsequent crackdowns were all engineered by the Ministry of State Security and all of it was to divert the world’s eye from the real danger growing within China. 

And it worked! Every shred of intel we had on the PRC, the sudden disappearances, the mass executions, the curfews, the reserve call-ups— everything could easily be explained as standard ChiCom procedure. 

In fact, it worked so well, we were so convinced that World War III was about to break out in the Taiwan Strait, that we diverted other intel assets from countries where undead outbreaks were just starting to unfold. The Chinese were that good. And we were that bad. It wasn’t the Agency’s finest hour. We were still reeling from the purges . . . 

You mean the reforms? 

No, I mean the purges, because that’s what they were. When Joe Stalin either shot or imprisoned his best military commanders, he wasn’t doing half as much damage to his national security as what that administration did to us with their “reforms.” 

The last brushfire war was a debacle and guess who took the fall. We’d been ordered to justify a political agenda, then when that agenda became a political liability, those who’d originally given the order now stood back with the crowd and pointed the finger at us. 

“Who told us we should go to war in the first place? Who mixed us up in all this mess? The CIA!” 

We couldn’t defend ourselves without violating national security. We had to just sit there and take it. And what was the result? Brain drain. Why stick around and be the victim of a political witch hunt when you could escape to the private sector: a fatter paycheck, decent hours, and maybe, just maybe, a little respect and appreciation by the people you work for. 

We lost a lot of good men and women, a lot of experience, initiative, and priceless analytical reasoning. All we were left with were the dregs, a bunch of brownnosing, myopic eunuchs. 

But that couldn’t have been everyone. 

No, of course not. There were some of us who stayed because we actually believed in what we were doing. We weren’t in this for money or working conditions, or even the occasional pat on the back. We were in this because we wanted to serve our country. We wanted to keep our people safe. But even with ideals like that there comes a point when you have to realize that the sum of all your blood, sweat, and tears will ultimately amount to zero. 

So you knew what was really happening. 

No . . .no . . .I couldn’t. There was no way to confirm 

. . . But you had suspicions. 

I had .. . doubts. 

Could you be more specific? 

No, I’m sorry. But I can say that I broached the subject a number of times to my coworkers. 

What happened? 

The answer was always the same, “Your funeral.” 

And was it? 

[Nods.] I spoke to . . . someone in a position of authority . . . just a fiveminute meeting, expressing some concerns. He thanked me for coming in and told me he’d look into it right away. The next day I received transfer orders: Buenos Aires, effective immediately. 

Did you ever hear of the Warmbrunn-Knight report? 

Sure now, but back then . . . the copy that was originally hand delivered by Paul Knight himself, the one marked “Eyes Only” for the director . . . it was found at the bottom of the desk of a clerk in the San Antonio field office of the FBI, three years after the Great Panic. It turned out to be academic because right after I was transferred, Israel went public with its statement of “Voluntary Quarantine.” Suddenly the time for advanced warning was over. 

The facts were out; it was now a question of who would believe them.

Do you understand economics? I mean big-time, prewar, global capitalism. Do you get how it worked? I don’t, and anyone who says they do is full of shit. There are no rules, no scientific absolutes. You win, you lose, it’s a total crapshoot. The only rule that ever made sense to me I learned from a history, not an economics, professor at Wharton. 

“Fear,” he used to say, “fear is the most valuable commodity in the universe.” That blew me away. 

“Turn on the TV,” he’d say. “What are you seeing? People selling their products? No. People selling the fear of you having to live without their products.” 

Fuckin’ A, was he right. Fear of aging, fear of loneliness, fear of poverty, fear of failure. Fear is the most basic emotion we have. Fear is primal. Fear sells. That was my mantra. “Fear sells.” 

When I first heard about the outbreaks, back when it was still called African rabies, I saw the opportunity of a lifetime. I’ll never forget that first report, the Cape Town outbreak, only ten minutes of actual reporting then a full hour of speculating about what would happen if the virus ever made it to America. God bless the news. I hit speed dial thirty seconds later. 

I met with some of my nearest and dearest. They’d all seen the same report. I was the first one to come up with a workable pitch: a vaccine, a real vaccine for rabies. Thank God there is no cure for rabies. A cure would make people buy it only if they thought they were infected. But a vaccine! That’s preventative! People will keep taking that as long as they’re afraid it’s out there! We had plenty of contacts in the biomed industry, with plenty more up on the Hill and Penn Ave. We could have a working proto in less than a month and a proposal written up within a couple of days. By the eighteenth hole, it was handshakes all around. 

What about the FDA? 

Please, are you serious? Back then the FDA was one of the most underfunded, mismanaged organizations in the country. I think they were still high-fiving over getting Red No. 2 out of M&Ms. Plus, this was one of the most business-friendly administrations in American history. J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller were getting wood from beyond the grave for this guy in the White House. His staff didn’t even bother to read our cost assessment report. I think they were already looking for a magic bullet. They railroaded it through the FDA in two months. Remember the speech the prez made before Congress, how it had been tested in Europe for some time and the only thing holding it up was our own “bloated bureaucracy”? 

Remember the whole thing about “people don’t need big government, they need big protection, and they need it big-time!” Jesus Christmas, I think half the country creamed their pants at that. How high did his approval rating go that night, 60 percent, 70? I just know that it jacked our IPO 389 percent on the first day! Suck on that, Baidu dot-com! 

And you didn’t know if it would work? 

We knew it would work against rabies, and that’s what they said it was, right, just some weird strain of jungle rabies. 

Who said that?

 You know, “they,” like, the UN or the . . . somebody. That’s what everyone ended up calling it, right, “African rabies.” 

Was it ever tested on an actual victim? 

Why? People used to take flu shots all the time, never knowing if it was for the right strain. Why was this any different? 

But the damage . . . 

Who thought it was going to go that far? You know how many disease scares there used to be. Jesus, you’d think the Black Death was sweeping the globe every three months or so . . . ebola, SARS, avian flu. You know how many people made money on those scares? Shit, I made my first million on useless antiradiation pills during the dirty bomb scares. 

But if someone discovered . . . 

Discovered what? We never lied, you understand? They told us it was rabies, so we made a vaccine for rabies. We said it had been tested in Europe, and the drugs it was based on had been tested in Europe. Technically, we never lied. Technically, we never did anything wrong. 

But if someone discovered that it wasn’t rabies . . . 

Who was going to blow the whistle? The medical profession? We made sure it was a prescription drug so doctors stood just as much to lose as us. Who else? The FDA who let it pass? The congressmen who all voted for its acceptance? The surgeon general? The White House? This was a win-win situation! Everyone got to be heroes, everyone got to make money. Six months after Phalanx hit the market, you started getting all these cheaper, knockoff brands, all solid sellers as well as the other ancillary stuff like home air purifiers. 

But the virus wasn’t airborne. 

It didn’t matter! It still had the same brand name! “From the Makers of . . .” All I had to say was “May Prevent Some Viral Infections.” That was it! Now I understand why it used to be illegal to shout fire in a crowded theater. People weren’t going to say “Hey, I don’t smell smoke, is there really a fire,” no, they say “Holy shit, there’s a fire! RUN!” [Laughs.] I made money on home purifiers, car purifiers; my biggest seller was this little doodad you wore around your neck when you got on a plane! I don’t know if it even filtered ragweed, but it sold. Things got so good, I started setting up these dummy companies, you know, with plans to build manufacturing facilities all over the country. 

The shares from these dumbos sold almost as much as the real stuff. It wasn’t even the idea of safety anymore, it was the idea of the idea of safety! 

Remember when we started to get our first cases here in the States, that guy in Florida who said he’d been bitten but survived because he was taking Phalanx? OH! 

[He stands, mimes the act of frantic fornication.] 

God freakin’ bless that dumbass, whoever he was. 

But that wasn’t because of Phalanx. Your drug didn’t protect people at all. 

It protected them from their fears. 

That’s all I was selling. Hell, because of Phalanx, the biomed sector started to recover, which, in turn, jump-started the stock market, which then gave the impression of a recovery, which then restored consumer confidence to stimulate an actual recovery! Phalanx hands down ended the recession! I . . . I ended the recession! 

And then? When the outbreaks became more serious, and the press finally reported that there was no wonder drug? 

Pre-fucking cisely! That’s the alpha cunt who should be shot, what’s her name, who first broke that story! Look what she did! Pulled the fuckin’ rug right out from under us all! She caused the spiral! She caused the Great Panic! 

And you take no personal responsibility? 

For what? For making a little fuckin’ cash . . . well, not a little [giggles]. All I did was what any of us are ever supposed to do. I chased my dream, and I got my slice. You wanna blame someone, blame whoever first called it rabies, or who knew it wasn’t rabies and gave us the green light anyway. 

Shit, you wanna blame someone, why not start with all the sheep who forked over their greenbacks without bothering to do a little responsible research. 

I never held a gun to their heads. They made the choice themselves. They’re the bad guys, not me. I never directly hurt anybody, and if anybody was too stupid to get themselves hurt, boo-fuckin-hoo. Of course . . . If there’s a hell . . . [giggles as he talks] . . . I don’t want to think about how many of those dumb shits might be waiting for me. I just hope they don’t want a refund.

“And hey, what about pushing Phalanx right through the FDA? 

But Phalanx didn’t work. 

Yeah, and do you know how long it would have taken to invent one that did? 

Look how much time and money had been put into cancer research, or AIDS. Do you want to be the man who tells the American people that he’s diverting funds from either one of those for some new disease that most people haven’t even heard of? Look at what we’ve put into research during and after the war, and we still don’t have a cure or a vaccine. 

We knew Phalanx was a placebo, and we were grateful for it. It calmed people down and let us do our job. 

What, you would have rather we told people the truth? That it wasn’t a new strain of rabies but a mysterious uber-plague that reanimated the dead? 

Can you imagine the panic that would have happened: the protest, the riots, the billions in damage to private property?