Paul sat there in his study and took a deep breath. This was a different ball-game. The rules had changed. The power had changed. The whole world had changed. All that had been was blown away in a hurricane of rampant RNA. No longer could money make the slightest difference. There were no bribes that would be effective, no people who could be brought in, no protection that could be hired. The new world had no markets to manipulate, no people to exploit. That selfish, greedy world of callous indifference and mindless violence orchestrated by faceless people who parasitically creamed off all they desired and more, was gone for ever. The people at the other end of that communicator were holding hands in which all the aces and kings had suddenly transformed to twos and threes. They no longer had a winning hand.
It was very clear to Paul. He did not like them. He was seeing them for what they were – cruel, vicious, calculating thugs. They were the robber barons who had roved down through the ages using their force to take what they wanted. They accrued the land and wealth and lived off the fat of the land while the peasants were left to rot in the filth. All Paul had been to them was another useful peasant to manipulate.
Paul knew that even if Angus Blythe came up with an effective vaccine there was one place that vaccine was definitely not going.
For Paul Shank it was something of an epiphany.