Two months later, he was one of the first victims of the second plague.
In the dining hall of a university, a biochemical student glanced up from his paper to his breakfast companion. "You remember Johnny, the mythical carrier that they told about during the first and second epidemics of Syndrome Plague?"
"Sure. Syndrome Johnny. They use that myth in psychology class as a typical example of mass hysteria. When a city was nervous and expecting the plague to reach them, some superstitious fool would imagine he saw Syndrome Johnny and the population would panic. Symbol for Death or some such thing. People imagined they saw him in every corner of the world. Simultaneously, of course."
It was a bright morning and they were at a window which looked out across green rolling fields to a towering glass-brick building in the distance.
The student who had gone back to his paper suddenly looked up again. "Some Peruvians here claim they saw Syndrome Johnny—"
"Idiotic superstition! You'd think it would have died down when the plague died."
The other grinned. "The plague didn't die." He folded his newspaper slowly, obviously advancing an opening for a debate.
His companion went on eating. "Another of your wild theories, huh?" Then through a mouthful of food: "All right, if the plague didn't die, where did it go?"
"Nowhere. We have it now. We all have it!" He shrugged. "A virus catalyst of high affinity for the cells and a high similarity to a normal cell protein—how can it be detected?"