Part 7

by Chris Oakley

From the logbook of the second New Zealand Special Scientific Expedition to North America, entry dated January 8^th, 1971(continued):

along! We’ve found a survivor here in the jungles of Hawaii, and he has after much

painstaking labor crafted a serum which may hold the key to finally ending the

nightmare the RDS plague has brought upon us. It seems he was a biologist at the

University of Hawaii’s Honolulu campus before the United States collapsed, and

after the short-lived Republic of Hawaii folded he went into hiding to escape the

ensuing chaos….

Supplement to above text:

inquiries, one of the first things we learned about him was that he appears to possess

a kind of natural immunity to the RDS germ. Using samples of his own blood mixed

with leaves from a rare mountain plant, he’s devised a medicine that seems to be

capable of stopping or at least greatly slowing down the onset of the virus. I’ve

advised him of the situation back home, and he has agreed to let three members of

our expedition-- myself among them --test the serum on ourselves to ensure that it is

safe for our fellow New Zealanders…

From the January 9^th, 1971 Auckland Daily Mail:

SURVIVOR IN JUNGLES OF HAWAII

Refugee Biologist Said To Possess Treatment For Lethal Virus

From Mr. L’s diary entry for January 10^th, 1971:

I feel great. If half the stuff I read in the paper today is true, it looks like we might

finally have this RDS thing licked after seven years. I’m keeping my fingers crossed....

From the logbook of the second New Zealand Special Scientific Expedition to North America, entry dated January 12^th, 1971:

the other two volunteers for the trial have experienced any adverse side effects. We

are scheduled to conduct one more round of trials tomorrow, and if all goes well we

should be able to transport a sample of the vaccine back to New Zealand in a matter

of days....

From the January 15^th, 1971 Auckland Daily Mail:

BACK SAMPLES OF ANTI-RDS SERUM

From the logbook of the second New Zealand Special Scientific Expedition to North America, entry dated January 18^th, 1971:

manufacture more bottles of the anti-RDS vaccine, which he has rather fittingly

designated Lazarus-2. I’ve radioed the PM with a report on the latest stage of our

work, and within the week I expect to receive his express consent to send scouting

parties throughout the rest of the Hawaiian islands and over to the North American

mainland to look for additional survivors…

From a letter by the New Zealand minister of defense to the prime minister dated January 22^nd, 1971:

From the January 24^th, 1971 Auckland Daily Mail:

RDS PLAGUE SURVIVORS IN HAWAIIAN ISLANDS

From a report by the New Zealand minister of health to the prime minister dated January 28^th, 1971:

the administration of the Lazarus-2 serum to our citizens strongly suggests that it is

indeed an effective treatment for the RDS virus. It is urgent that we not waste even a

minute in widening the serum’s distribution among the general population...

From the February 2^nd, 1971 Auckland Daily Mail:

From a letter found in a floating bottle by an Australian naval Patrol on February 8^th, 1971:

of Tonga since the collapse of the federal government in Canada nearly four years ago. I

am sending this message because I have attempted to make contact with the outside world

repeatedly by radio only to have those attempts fail because the signal was too weak...

From the February 11^th, 1971 Auckland Daily Mail:

From an editorial in the paper’s February 15^th, 1971 edition:

we can at last look to the future with some semblance of hope. The RDS virus, while not

yet fully conquered by any means, has been slowed down in its spread and the birth rate

of our country is for once staying ahead of the rate of deaths from the virus; furthermore,

the presence of survivors has been confirmed in islands like Hawaii and Tonga and the

second Special Scientific Expedition to North America is investigating signs of other such

survivors in the Aleutian Islands chain off the Alaska coast...

From the logbook of the second New Zealand Special Scientific

Expedition to North America, entry dated February 20^th, 1971:

human survivors there...further details to follow....

Supplement to above entry:

classified as the Attu settlement, we have so far established the following items:

1)the colony’s population is racially varied, with Eskimos and Russian émigrés

constituting the largest segments of said population; 2)the colony sustains itself

chiefly by means of gasoline-powered generators and regular fishing excursions

into the waters off the Alaskan coast; 3)the Attu settlement’s population numbers

roughly between 50 and 75 at any given time; and 4)the colony’s chief spokesman,

a former Soviet naval captain who fled here during the USSR’s collapse, believes

there may be similar outposts in the Alaskan interior…

From the February 22^nd, 1971 Auckland Daily Mail:

READY TO BEGIN EXPLORATION OF ALASKA

From the logbook of the second New Zealand Special Scientific Expedition to North America, entry dated Februrary 27^th, 1971:

to the Kenai Peninsula. We are particularly keen to hear the results of the

Kenai expedition, since that region happens to be within radio transmission

range of Anchorage; if there are survivors in the Alaskan interior, the first

clues proving their existence will most likely be uncovered in the Kenai region…

On a somewhat related note, during our latest radio report to the PM, we

learned that small colonies of human survivors have turned up in the Marshall

Islands and arrangements are being made to distribute the Lazarus-2 vaccine

to them at the earliest possible moment…

From the March 2^nd, 1971 Auckland Daily Mail:

Lazarus-2 Serum Credited With Helping To Turn Back Tide Of Once-Incurable Virus

From the paper’s March 3^rd edition:

IN ALASKA INTERIOR

Radio Contact Established With Colony Situated On Outskirts of Anchorage

From Mr. L’s diary entry for March 7^th, 1971:

government’s recruited me and a bunch of other ex-pats for a third North American

expedition in the summer, so I’ll be pretty busy packing my stuff and settling some of

my affairs. I won’t have a lot of time to write, but that’s a small price to pay for getting

the chance to go home....

From an editorial in the debut edition of the Australian newspaper The Gazette, printed March 12^th, 1971:

Herald, it is our fervent hope and objective that in due time this publication may come to be

viewed as a credible news and information source in its own right. For too long now, many

of our fellow Australians have been deprived of the services of a regular daily newspaper, and

we intend to remedy that situation by any means available to us....

From the logbook of the second New Zealand Special Scientific Expedition to North America, entry dated March 18^th, 1971:

Tomorrow we commence our first survey of the Canadian Yukon. We have

recently picked up a faint radio signal from the area, a sure sign that we may find

human survivors there….

From the March 21^st, 1971 edition of The Gazette:

SURVIVORS IN WESTERN CANADA

From the March 24^th, 1971 Auckland Daily Mail:

SPECIAL SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION TO NORTH AMERICA DISPATCHES

SCOUT PARTY TO ABANDONED CITY OF VANCOUVER

From the April 8^th, 1971 edition of The Gazette:

SINCE 1963

From the April 17^th, 1971 Auckland Daily Mail:

CITY OF SEATTLE WITHIN 3-4 DAYS

From Mr. L’s diary entry for April 23^rd, 1971:

up for the third Special Science Expedition to North America. I’m excited, but at the

same time I’m kind of nervous too; I’m not sure if I can handle the shock of seeing how

bad the States got messed up after I split for New Zealand....

From the logbook of the second New Zealand Special Scientific Expedition to North America, entry dated May 6^th, 1971:

that a serious earthquake has apparently struck the Los Angeles area in the months

since the first Special Expedition to North America was forced to terminate its visit to

the West Coast of the United States...we have also found subtle clues indicating the

presence of at least one human inhabitant within the remains of the former Griffith

Observatory....

From the May 12^th, 1971 edition of The Gazette:

ROCKY MOUNTAINS BEFORE THE END OF JULY

ARMY RESCUE PARTY DISPATCHED TO JAVA WITH SAMPLES OF LAZARUS-2 VACCINE

From the transcript of a radio broadcast picked up by New Zealand Defence Ministry communications analysts on May 18^th, 1971:

My name is Thanh Le Khieu...I am a lieutenant in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam

and a survivor of the worldwide Morgan’s disease epidemic. Since the nearly simultaneous

collapse of my country’s government and the Communist regime in the North, I have been

living in the Central Highlands along with my family, a handful of trusted NCOs from my

former unit, and a dozen civilians who fled the cities during the collapse. If there is anyone

within the sound of my voice, please transmit a reply to this message at your earliest possible

opportunity. Co-ordinates for my present location to follow....

From the May 22^nd, 1971 Auckland Daily Mail:

MONTHS; PRIME MINISTER HOPEFUL SITUATION IN THIS COUNTRY WILL CONTINUE

TO IMPROVE

From the May 27^th, 1971 edition of The Gazette:

3^RD SPECIAL EXPEDITION TO NORTH AMERICA SET TO BEGIN BY EARLY JULY

From the logbook of the second New Zealand Special Scientific Expedition to North America, entry dated June 8^th, 1971:

advance parties into Arizona and Nevada….

From an internal memo by the Australian Department of Employment to the prime minister dated June 16^th, 1971:

of the Lazarus-2 vaccine going full-speed, we may well be finally turning a corner in regards to

lowering the intolerably high unemployment rate here in this country....

From Mr. L’s diary entry for June 25^th, 1971:

Just got the good word-- we leave in six days. Stopped by the local photo shop to buy an

8mm movie camera for the trip....

From the July 2^nd, 1971 Auckland Daily Mail:

GREAT FANFARE

From the July 6^th, 1971 edition of The Gazette:

Search Continues For Survivors In Arizona and New Mexico

From the logbook of the third New Zealand Special Scientific Expedition to North America, entry dated July 13^th, 1971:

they in turn have received and answered transmissions from a colony of RDS survivors

camped in the vicinity of the former White Sands Missile Range….

From the July 22^nd, 1971 Auckland Daily Mail:

NEW ZEALAND AND AUSTRALIA

AUSTRALIAN JEWISH GROUP PREDICTS RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF STATE OF

ISRAEL WITHIN THE NEXT DECADE

From Mr. L’s diary entry for August 3^rd, 1971:

population out West has gotten since the last time I was back in the States. It’s like the

old Bronx Zoo multiplied times five...

From the August 8^th, 1971 edition of The Gazette:

SIGNALS FROM MANITOBA

From the August 16^th, 1971 Auckland Daily Mail:

WELLINGTON WITHIN 6-9 MONTHS

From the August 24^th, 1971 edition of The Gazette:

ONTARIO BY EARLY OCTOBER

From Mr. L’s diary entry for September 5^th, 1971:

out they’re sending me and four other ex-pats into Chicago tomorrow to see how the

Windy City’s holding up these days, and we’ve got a lot to do to get ready for the trip...

From the September 9^th, 1971 Auckland Daily Mail:

N.Z. SPECIAL EXPEDITIONS TO NORTH AMERICA REPORT SIGNS OF HUMAN LIFE

From the September 18^th, 1971 edition of The Gazette:

MEXICO’S PACIFIC COAST

From Mr. L’s diary entry for October 3^rd, 1971:

Looks like my exploring days are done, for a while at least…The 3^rd Special Expedition’s top

Brass wants me to take charge of a resettlement outpost back in California, near San Diego.

I leave first thing tomorrow. Personally, I was hoping it’d be St. Louis or Detroit, but San

Diego’s not a bad alternative, especially if you like fishing....Bet I could catch plenty of fish

over there....

From the logbook of the second New Zealand Special Scientific Expedition to North America, entry dated November 16^th, 1971:

complete our examinations of Montreal and Quebec City. In one sense this is welcome

news, as we are all greatly in need of rest; in another, however, it means the end of a

rather exciting chapter in our lives individually and as a whole-- we had hoped that

 we might link up with our counterparts in the third expedition somewhere near Boston

at the start of the New Year and compare notes on what we found on our respective

explorations of the North American interior….

From the December 8^th, 1971 Auckland Daily Mail:

MONTHS

COLONY OF JAPANESE SURVIVORS REPORTED NEAR OSAKA

From the logbook of the second New Zealand Special Scientific Expedition to North America, entry dated Christmas Eve 1971:

home in two days; shortly before dismantling our radio transmitter in preparation for the

journey back to New Zealand we got word from our base camp in Hawaii that upon

our return home we’re to debrief the members of the fourth expedition on what they

can expect to find when they reach North America….

From Mr. L’s final diary entry, written on January 13^th, 1972:

do running the resettlement station near San Diego there just isn’t time to keep it up

anymore. But I’m not complaining; I can still remember all those times when I thought

the world’s goose was totally cooked by the RDS bug. Who knows, I might donate this

to a museum one of these days....

From the March 3^rd, 1972 edition of The Gazette:

From the June 15^th, 1972 Auckland Daily Mail:

OF UNITED NATIONS

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SCHEDULED TO RETURN TO WELLINGTON BY 1^ST OF

NOVEMBER

From an editorial in the February 23^rd, 1973 edition of The Gazette:

ravaging the earth these past nine years, the wounds are steadily healing and just as

civilization arose Phoenix-like from the ashes of the Black Death in the Middle Ages

the survivors of the Rome virus today are working to reclaim the scientific and cultural

legacies that were threatened by the RDS plague’s rampage....

Excerpt of a test broadcast by the Australian Television Communications Service on May 3^rd, 1975:

Service, a broadcast network which has recently been established by federal legislation in hopes

of filling at least some of the void left behind after the old Australian Broadcasting Corporation

collapsed. In the upper left corner of your screen you may notice a telephone number; please call

that number immediately to let us know if you are able to see this picture....

From the introduction to the book Second Black Death: How A Microscopic Virus Nearly Destroyed The World, copyright 1989 by Melbourne University Press:

extinction; while much of what was lost during the plague years can never be replaced, we are

more fortunate than the people who had to cope with the aftermath of the Black Death in that we

have more records from the past to guide us as we continue struggling to rebuild human

civilization. One important contribution in this regard has been the personal diary kept between

1964 and 1972 by the American expatriate known only to modern historians as "Mr. L"...