Male Reduction Syndrome revealed...

The first three parts of this story can be found here:
Jack be nimble?
Jack won't quit?
Jack gets whacked by the candlestick

The last we hear from Jack
Written and edited by Myself

"Mr. President, I believe it may be time to address the country about this condition. The information is going to get out, but I think we need to control its release..."

"Listen Mike, give it to me straight. Pretend I didn't go to Yale... that... that I'm just some jackass the V.P. pulled in off the street."

"Well Mr. President, one of our guys in Atlanta got a call from a friend at Pasteur. He claims he's found a possible link between sexual activity and the emergence of MRS."

"And this French fella," the President interrupted, "he asked our guy to have our people look into it?"

"That's correct Mr. President. The CDC was in the process of issuing a bulletin to U.S. hospitals when I heard about it. I've had them hold the release because there's no telling how this information will play with the public; and you know if the CDC issues a bulletin it'll hit the news inside the hour."

"I can appreciate we're in a real bind here Mike. You tell the CDC to hold off for now. Lemme bounce this off a few more heads and see if this boat don't still float."

"Mr. President?"

"Thanks for bringin' this to my attention Mike. Lemme get back to you."

---

Jack and Stacy were on the road for an hour before they spoke.

"Where are you going?" Stacy asked.

"I... nowhere... somewhere else... "

Jack knew they didn't have enough gas to drive around very long. In their rush to leave the house they left behind everything... clothing, belongings, money, ID.... It occurred to Jack that they would need some of these things if they were going to get very far.

"Jack, you aren't going back are you?"

"We're going to need some stuff," Jack replied. "We're going to need money for gas, if nothing else. We've got less than half a tank."

Stacy sat back in her seat. What could she say? Jack was right. As the anonymous blur of houses whisked by her window, she wondered how many of the inhabitants would sympathize with her plight; or how many were similarly in flight? How would they get their stuff? Would it still be there? Could they replace it if it wasn't? Would they still have a job? Would there be lots of people out of a job? Where would they get money?

"Jack, we're in a lot of trouble."

"You don't say," Jack replied, with just a hint of sarcasm.

Ignoring his tone, Stacy continued, "There could be lots of people out there running. If they're not working they're not earning money. If they're not working something's not getting done. If they're not earning money they won't have as much to spend. If they're not spending, someone else is not earning as much. It's a downward spiral Jack, and it could be a rough landing... if anyone lets us land at all."

Jack drove past their house looking for signs of activity. Seeing none, Jack left the small suburban subdivision and pulled over on the highway, just outside. The plan was simple. Stacy would approach the house from the rear. Their house was along the outer edge of the neighborhood (a six foot wall separated the neighborhood from the highway), so Stacy would not have to pass within view of the neighbors' houses to gain access to their fenced in back yard. Both of them just assumed Stacy COULD climb the wall leading to their back yard, even though they had never before had the occasion to try. Jack and Stacy were in decent shape, for a married couple with kids. Once in the back yard, Stacy would not bother with finding an unlocked door. She would use the tire iron from the trunk, wrapped in an old beach towel, to punch out one of the small frosted window panes of the door leading from the back porch to the downstairs bathroom. (The house was built with a backyard pool in mind.) As it turned out, she didn't need the tire iron. Someone had already broken the sliding glass door leading from the family room to the back porch.

Stepping into the house, Stacy was surprised to see the interior relatively undisturbed. She assumed the house had been ransacked. However, while there were a few things tossed about, everything was largely untouched. She moved quietly upstairs, wary of anyone that might still be inside, and checked for her wallet in the master bedroom. It was there where she left it, along with Jack's in the dresser. She collected both and tossed them in a suitcase retrieved from the closet. She grabbed a few changes of clothes, taking shorts and shirts that would fit both her and Jack. She picked out some clothes for the kids, and then moved on to the bathroom. She collected a few toiletries. She got a thermos from the kitchen (filling it with water), as well as some snack food. With everything stuffed into the suitcase, she headed back to the porch, the yard, and towards her waiting family.

"Is that you Stacy?" It was their neighbor Jean, a middle-aged mother of three. "Don't worry. No one is here but me," she said in a sympathetic voice. Jean had always been a good neighbor; someone Stacy's family could count on for the odd, last minute favor. Their kids played together, despite slight differences in age, and had spent many nights at each other's house while their parents got away for the occasional evening retreat. Jean wasn't nearly the introvert Jack and Stacy had been, and served as their conduit to the rest of the neighborhood. Many people wouldn't know Jack and Stacy's names were it not for Jean.

Stacy stopped at the wall, holding the suitcase at shoulder level - clearly struggling to hold it there, but neither ready to throw it over, nor quite off guard enough to put it down.

"You know me well enough to know I wouldn't do anything to hurt you or your family, don't you Stacy?"

"So much happened so fast..." Stacy began.

"Mike was running out the door just as you and Jack were heading down the street," Jean said, referring to her husband. "Those folks in your house were out of control; but they were more afraid than angry. Mike told them the police were on their way and they scattered pretty quickly. They weren't... really, but those guys weren't around long enough to find out. Why don't you all come to our house?"

"But they'll come back," Stacy interrupted.

"Please Stacy, where else can you go? There's safety in numbers. We'll hunker down and figure out what to do next together. Besides, I don't think those guys were so out of it that they'd come back. I think Mike might've scared a little sense back into them. At worst, we can call Smith and Wesson for a little back up."

At that Stacy grinned. She didn't turn from the wall right away, but the suitcase made it's way to the ground and Stacy's shoulders slumped in a sigh of relief.

---

No one was surprised when the violence started, but many were surprised that it wasn't worse. Few people died as a direct result of the violence, although scores of MRS men were injured.

The large number of MRS cases reported in the news prompted a lot of men to take a closer look at themselves. Many of them discovered that they had lost weight too, although they had not noticed a change in their outward appearance... yet. It was in this way that the number of reported MRS cases exploded. News reports brought more attention, which brought more reported cases, which brought more attention.

Interestingly, most of these men were not terribly concerned about their weight loss, or the prospect that they may have MRS. This was a good thing, because in short order the number of adult men known to be affected by MRS (mostly by their own inspection) surpassed the number of men not affected. In a matter of weeks a sense of inevitability, or learned helplessness replaced anger (manifested by fear) among unchanged men. MRS was everywhere. There was no getting away from it. Everyone knew someone that had it, or strongly suspected they had it themself. MRS was too real - too personal, for too many, for the violence to continue.

The explosion of reported MRS cases produced a treasure trove of information, and health organizations began to ignore their governments in the search for a cause. It all began with a single researcher in France with a hunch. It spread overseas to his closest friends and colleagues. Together they learned it wasn't just those two French hospitals... it was the whole world: all MRS men had been fertile, sexually active, and were fathers. This information leaked to the public when scientists began surveying unchanged men. A new wave of anxiety, many orders of magnitude lower than the first swept the world... but quickly subsided. It turned out sexual urges are a powerful force, combined with the human ability to rationalize... and a shoe that had yet to drop.

With this new information, gathered from unchanged men, the world came very close to learning the cause. Although the specific mechanism was still unknown, it became apparent that conception created some kind of trigger carried by the mother and child. Subsequent casual contact with the father, by either the child or the mother, would cause MRS. Contact with the mother could trigger MRS in as little as 72 hours after conception. Complicating matters for men, something else seemed to be at work, beyond the trigger mechanism for MRS. It seemed that men displayed signs similar to addiction after sexual intercourse with women; even if conception did not take place. This phenomenon was specific to the woman. In other words, a man did not become attached to women in general; just to the woman they had sex with. It was subtle, so it wasn't noticed until after the news of MRS spread... and men began to leave their sexual partners in large numbers, hoping to avoid MRS. As it turned out, leaving didn't work. They felt emotionally compelled to return... and did... in large numbers. It's unknown when these signs of addiction first manifest themselves, but it is believed it may have begun a year to 18 months before the first case of MRS was reported. No one even noticed the sharp decline in divorce rates (other than a few attorneys) until someone thought to look.

A complete transformation into an adult, biological female finished approximately one year after the first signs of MRS appeared in affected men. Ovulation and menstruation occurred approximately 18 months after the first signs of MRS appeared.

Financial markets remained closed for six weeks. Local shortages of food and supplies began to disappear sooner, shortly after the outbreaks of violence stopped. A worldwide economic recession resulted from the disruption, but a total collapse of the world's financial markets was averted by the six-week closure. When the markets reopened prices fell, but not nearly as far as they could have.

---

Throughout history, human kind has grappled with the question of its origins. In modern times, the question boiled down to a debate between the scientific and religious communities - or "evolution" versus "creationism." Some members of the scientific community tried to assert that one could believe in God AND evolution. Some members of the religious community tried to mix in a touch of evolution with their beliefs, a kind of back-door creationism that came to be known as "intelligent design."

Naturally, I find this debate amusing. I like to think of myself as intelligent, but I'm no more so than my peers. Sure, I know a few things that others don't, but there's nothing mystical about it. I suppose one of their writers was right... technology beyond one's own capability is indistinguishable from magic.

One day, when the people of Earth are ready, they'll learn the truth... that the periods of rapid change throughout their world's development - which their theory of evolution has trouble explaining - does have cause. One day they'll learn their home is not the only home to intelligent life in the universe. When they're ready to set aside their arrogance, they'll find it just as interesting as we did to learn the stories taught in our religious traditions are startlingly similar.

With any luck, this latest tweak will get us all a lot closer to that day.

The End.