The Perfect Pathogen (30 page)

For so
it had come about, as indeed I and many men might have foreseen had not terror
and disaster blinded our minds. These germs of disease have taken toll of
humanity since the beginning of things – taken toll of our prehumen ancestors
since life began here. But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind, we have
developed resisting power…

H.G.
Wells, War of the Worlds

EPILOGUE

In time the survivors of the Great
Dying came to call themselves Syndromians. They would face a new struggle for
survival only the fittest among them would survive. For future unborn
generations that would eventually follow, the Syndromians’ coming ordeal would
come to be called the Survival of the Syndrome.

About the Authors

Mark Atkisson has
been in government service for more than 40 years serving in the U.S. Navy, Federal
and Local Government. He was born in New York City to an Air Force family and has
been on the road ever since. He has two teenage children and is married to
Kathleen Atkisson. At time of this publishing they live in Paris, France while
he works for the U.S. Department of State at Embassy Baghdad.

David Kay is a
veteran of over 34 years of U.S. government service in the U.S. Army and the
Federal Government. He was born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina. He has
four grown children and is married to Irene Kay. Their home is Spokane,
Washington when they’re not out on some far-off assignment. At time of this publishing,
Dave and his wife were also posted to Embassy Baghdad.

.

The Survival of the Syndrome

Mark
M. Atkisson and J. David Kay

Rhino Air, LLC, Spokane, Washington

Prologue

For the better part of two
centuries the earth had been overdue for a prolonged cold spell, both in the
northern and southern hemispheres. The modern scientific view that the planet
was in an interglacial period was greatly mistaken. In fact, because of the
solar system's rotational position within the Milky Way Galaxy, a half
million-year rotational cycle in fact, the earth was in a position for an exceptional
cold spell within its Milankovitch cycle. But because of the insulating effects
of global warming, brought on by the industrial revolution and the decades that
followed, the full onset of a deep cold was delayed.

But that would now change. With the
complete collapse of most of human society from the Great Dying in the spring
of 2016, the earth returned to its natural state in a remarkably short period
of time, faster than anyone would have guessed. As the giant commercial jets
flew for the last time, and millions upon millions of fossil fuel-driven
engines across the globe fell silent, Mother Nature’s giant carbon-scrubbing
machines, the oceans, the massive forests, and the Tibetan and Colorado
plateaus, did their work very efficiently. In the space of a few short years,
the atmosphere's year 2015 composition of 401 ppm of CO2 and methane, dropped
to 23 ppm by 2025. And as greenhouse gas levels fell, the planet naturally began
to rapidly cool. The combined factors of the earth’s position in the galaxy and
the dramatic drop in greenhouse gases in the planet’s atmosphere would bring on
a perfect storm of the chilling kind.

The meandering jet streams of the
northern and southern hemispheres began to adjust their seasonal patterns accordingly
as they revolved around the two poles. With each winter season, the jet streams
began to creep ever closer and closer towards the equatorial regions. The
tropopause, that part of the atmosphere where temperature decreases with
altitude, also dropped lower and lower in elevation with each passing year
because of less atmospheric heat. The cold-core low-pressure areas around the
earth's two geographical poles spawned stronger and stronger polar vortices,
those polar cyclones of the winter seasons that bring in their wake longer
sub-zero temperatures, increased ice formation, and strong, blinding blizzards.

The result of these changes
produced a large increase in snow cover and sea ice. These, in turn, reflected
more sunlight, thereby decreasing evaporation and altering atmospheric pressure
and temperature gradients with the polar vortices even further, causing the
polar cyclones to strengthen dramatically. In trade for weaker hurricanes and
storms in the tropical areas, the earth saw again the arrival of monster cold
storms from the Polar Regions. Had climatologists been present to measure and
monitor the changes, they would have been astonished and frightened at the same
time, as the previous natural variability in the weather suddenly changed
across the planet for the worse. 

The upshot of all this sudden
change was that a new ice age arrived very rapidly; this would be the earth’s
sixth ice age, bringing with it a long-term reduction in the earth's average
surface temperature and increased glaciations. Most of North America above the
Mason-Dixon Line,  Europe north of the Rhine River, and much of Argentina,
Chile, and New Zealand now remained covered in ice and snow year-round. Ready
or not, the sixth glacial period, based on historical geological, chemical and
ice core sample records, was here for a prolonged visit.