World War Z_ An Oral History of the Zombie War ( PDFDrive )

attractive to Breckinridge “Breck” Scott.
We meet in “The Dome,” the reinforced, geodesic greenhouse that draws
power from the station’s geothermal plant. These and many other
improvements were implemented by Mister Scott when he leased the station
from the Russian government. He has not left it since the Great Panic.]
Do you understand economics? I mean big-time, prewar, global capitalism. Do you get how it
worked? I don’t, and anyone who says they do is full of shit. There are no rules, no scientific
absolutes. You win, you lose, it’s a total crapshoot. The only rule that ever made sense to me I
learned from a history, not an economics, professor at Wharton. “Fear,” he used to say, “fear is the
most valuable commodity in the universe.” That blew me away. “Turn on the TV,” he’d say. “What
are you seeing? People selling their products? No. People selling the fear of you having to live
without their products.” Fuckin’ A, was he right. Fear of aging, fear of loneliness, fear of poverty,
fear of failure. Fear is the most basic emotion we have. Fear is primal. Fear sells. That was my
mantra. “Fear sells.”
When I first heard about the outbreaks, back when it was still called African rabies, I saw the
opportunity of a lifetime. I’ll never forget that first report, the Cape Town outbreak, only ten
minutes of actual reporting then a full hour of speculating about what would happen if the virus
ever made it to America. God bless the news. I hit speed dial thirty seconds later.
I met with some of my nearest and dearest. They’d all seen the same report. I was the first one
to come up with a workable pitch: a vaccine, a real vaccine for rabies. Thank God there is no cure
for rabies. A cure would make people buy it only if they thought they were infected. But a vaccine!
That’s preventative! People will keep taking that as long as they’re afraid it’s out there!
We had plenty of contacts in the biomed industry, with plenty more up on the Hill and Penn Ave.
We could have a working proto in less than a month and a proposal written up within a couple of
days. By the eighteenth hole, it was handshakes all around.
What about the FDA?
Please, are you serious? Back then the FDA was one of the most underfunded, mismanaged
organizations in the country. I think they were still high-fiving over getting Red No. 2 1 out of
M&Ms. Plus, this was one of the most business-friendly administrations in American history. J. P.
Morgan and John D. Rockefeller were getting wood from beyond the grave for this guy in the
White House. His staff didn’t even bother to read our cost assessment report. I think they were
already looking for a magic bullet. They railroaded it through the FDA in two months. Remember
the speech the prez made before Congress, how it had been tested in Europe for some time and
the only thing holding it up was our own “bloated bureaucracy”? Remember the whole thing about
“people don’t need big government, they need big protection, and they need it big-time!” Jesus
Christmas, I think half the country creamed their pants at that. How high did his approval rating go
that night, 60 percent, 70? I just know that it jacked our IPO 389 percent on the first day! Suck on
that, Baidu dot-com!
And you didn’t know if it would work?