The Dane Commission (The Dane Chronicles) (46 page)

Ryan walked over and began shaking his
hand, which then turned into a huge hug.

“You were excellent Ryan. I couldn’t
have hoped for better.”

“Thanks Jack, it was an adventure I’ll
never forget.”

“Perhaps we’ll get the chance to work
together again sometime,” said Jack with a huge grin.

For the rest of the morning they
celebrated.

They had done it, the beast was dead.

Then eventually, as always happens,
they left one by one, leaving Ryan to settle back into his own life. He flew to
Florida, and met Jean and Alex.

It was a wonderful reunion for Ryan. It took the better part of a day just to
tell the story, and the better part of the night to tell Jean the parts he’d
edited out for Alex.

And when they were ready, together, they returned home.

Another week passed, but Ryan didn’t go
back to IntelliHealth.
It seems that Jack Stevens was hired by the Federal Government’s Bureau of
Special Affairs, and he in turn had offered Ryan a job working on his team.

Ryan said ‘yes’ without even hearing
any of the details.

The days turned into weeks and then
months, as they continued to study SID’s database. It turned out that SID’s
data was useful, but only to varying degrees. The people like Alex who didn’t
take the last vaccination against Rn186, were the first to respond to the
fertility treatments. Nearly all of them became fertile again. The rest were
not so lucky. Ironically, the research was ongoing, but slow without SID to
help.
Finally years passed, but ultimately only about sixty five percent of the
world’s population had been restored.
But even so, humanity would survive.
Free of SID.
 

Ryan thought that SID and the events
that propagated from his coming, would forever change the people of the world.
Countries were smaller now, more dependent on each other and as a consequence
more interconnected. The population would grow smaller still before returning
to normal. People everywhere were united in their desire to survive.
There were times when Ryan wondered if SID might have actually won.

In a way, humanity
had
been re-booted
. People shared new faith in each other
and held new aspirations for their world.
 
A strong sense of connectedness permeated everything.
Ryan stood on his balcony and looked at the horizon.
The dog sat quietly next to him, he smiled.
‘Things are getting better.’