The Junkie Quatrain by Peter Clines

ran his statements back in his mind. ‘There is?’
    The director nodded.
    ‘Do you have different estimates for how long it will take to produce the serum?’
    ‘We do, yes, but that isn’t what I meant. I’m not talking about moving forward.’
    Sam went over his conclusions again. ‘I’m sorry I don’t understand.’
    Another fingertip drum solo echoed in the room. ‘When I asked you about triage, it wasn’t about moving forward. I’m talking about how we got here.’
    The younger man shifted in his chair. ‘I... I still don’t understand.
    ‘I think you do, Sam. As I said, you’re a very bright, logical young doctor. One who’s written several papers on the global effects a pandemic can have.’
    Bradbury stood up and moved to the window. He had a view of a military graveyard and part of the 405 freeway. ‘Look at how the world was a year ago,’ said the director. ‘Energy crisis. Food crisis. Medical crisis. The world was... well, it was pretty messed up. And it all tied back to population.’
    Sam blinked. ‘You can’t be serious.’
    ‘Think about it,’ said Bradbury. ‘Eliminate a third of the world’s population and how many problems does it deal with? Resources are no longer a concern. Smaller population density means fewer infectious diseases. A great boom for the economy. Heck, this even took care of global warming issues. India and China are two of the biggest atmospheric polluters on the planet. Carbon emissions reduced by fifty-eight percent, just like that.’ He snapped his fingers.
    Sam ran his hands through his hair. It was a bad habit for a doctor but he’d never been able to beat it. ‘You’re telling me...’ He had to stop as the madness of what Bradbury was saying boiled through his mind again. ‘You’re saying you’ve had a treatment all this time, but you held off distributing it for political reasons? For some kind of... global triage?’
    ‘Not quite,’ said the director. ‘I’m kind of surprised you don’t see where I’m going with this, Sam. It’s something you advocated yourself in your papers.’
    Sam tried to think of anything radical or controversial he’d ever hinted at in his work. One phrase drifted forward in his mind. ‘When I said a major pandemic wouldn’t necessarily be destructive,’ he explained, ‘I was talking about one that has already run its course. I wasn’t suggesting someone should actually hold back treatment or a vaccine and allow the virus to—’
    He stopped. Another thought, a corollary, had crossed his mind. He looked at the older man, saw his patient stare and his quiet sense of superiority.
    ‘No,’ he said. ‘You didn’t.’
    Bradbury nodded. ‘Fortunately, there were a few people just outside the government, some key policy people, who weren’t scared of doing what needed to be done. The Freedom Medical Foundation was founded nine years ago to help fight world hunger and epidemics. That’s true. Most people just don’t know the path we were following.’
    ‘You made this? H1B6 is an engineered virus?’
    The director nodded again. ‘The FMF recruited some of us from the science and medical fields. People who understood the path the world was heading down and the steps that needed to be—’
    ‘You made it?’ Sam repeated. The death tolls swam in his mind. He shot a look over his shoulder at Hogan. She stared back.
    ‘— the steps that needed to be taken,’ continued Bradbury. He gave Sam an eyebrow that was all-too-much like one an interrupted college professor would use. ‘Not everyone was going to survive, so the goal was to make sure the right people survived. Just like weeding a garden.
    ‘At first the people behind the FMF had thought about using an existing super contagion,’ continued Bradbury. ‘Marburg. Ebola. Hemorrhagic fever. We convinced them those were too dangerous, though. Population densities have already hit the point that a disease of that magnitude would wipe out whole