The AI responded immediately and without emotion. It was no more capable of being frustrated at the persistent refusal of the Council to acknowledge the problem than it was of caring when it was being asked to provide information that would refute its own argument. <The number of incidents that have been reported by the CDC in America are fifty-seven. Other disease control centers do not have as accurate information and are limited to isolated cases.>

Shahim threw his virtual arms in the air and several others joined him in expressions of skepticism, but both John and Shahim knew that it was a cheap trick. To have fifty-seven reported cases was actually a very significant number. Only fifteen years beforehand, Great Britain had slaughtered and burned four hundred thousand cows because of only fourteen fatalities from Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. And reported recoveries, like reported cases, are always only the tip of the iceberg. Fifty-seven represented a relatively significant threat. These things always started small, but for now the Council did not know that the immunity was actively spreading through the population, and they could only hope they remained ignorant long enough. With less than two-tenths of a percent of the American public living with AIDS, that meant that nearly one tenth of a percent of that population was already seeing the effects of the antigen. And that was just the cases that had been reported. People may go months without blood tests if they were not showing symptoms. The antigen appeared to be moving quite quickly.

But any good debater knows that statistics are far from infallible, they are a tool of the politician, and John took Shahim’s lead and ran with it.

“My friends on the Council, with seven billion humans on Earth, such a small number of cases are hardly relevant. This is a waste of our time. I propose that we move on. Is there a second?”

Shahim did not have to offer up his hand as several of their colleagues were equally unimpressed with the AI’s point.

But they both knew it was only a matter of time now. They were getting close. The cases of miraculous disease recovery were only going to increase and that was going to translate into media coverage and eventually someone was going to discover what was causing it. While that meant they were getting close to being ready to openly attack the satellites, they were still hobbled by the fact that the last few weeks of the antigen’s spread were going to be by far the most important. Once the spread reached critical mass, it would go like wildfire through the population. But between now and then they were at their most vulnerable. So few were already immune, and once the AI saw the antigen up close, events were going to snowball fast.

Chapter 47: Little Dutch Boy