Jason sits as far back against the seat as it will allow him to go. He stares up at the ceiling of the vehicle with a thousand-yard stare from feeling the same way he did five years ago after that incident at that hotel, and after he had discovered that he had sleepwalked all the way out to that inn. He snickers briefly with a wince of his lip.

"Th-That actually makes sense," Jason finally spoke in a distantly amused tone. "I-I mean . . . all those dead and dying people I saw were all male. There wasn't a single female amongst them . . . But," as he looks forward at Reito intently, "But out of the billions of males who died and the millions more in cryo," as his tone increases with incredulousness, "only five of us are capable of living in the world now?!" Raising his right hand ardently with fingers splayed. "A-And you and I just happen to be two of them?!" Gesturing rapidly between himself and Reito.

"I understand what you are feeling, Jeeson-san," Reito stated sympathetically. "I came out of cryostasis a few days ago after being in it for the past five years. I was just as scared and confused as you were after learning what had happened."

"So what did you have?" Jason asked. "Because it's usually people with serious health conditions who go into those."

"I had cellular sclerosis and it was going to take time for a cure to be made," Reito answered.

"Cellular sclerosis?" Jason winced as he sat forward in earnest. "I had that too."

"We figured that you must have," Mira said. "In fact, that is what links all five of you immune males: your treatment for cellular sclerosis. You did get the treatment did you not?"

"Well, yeah," Jason admitted, "but I didn't have to go into cryo for it. In fact, I got the cure a week after I was diagnosed."

The group stare at him in stunned silence.

"What?" Jason asked.

"When were you treated?" Mira asked.

"Back in Thirty-Nine," Jason answered.

Ehhhh, they all stated collectively.

"Th-Th-That was a year before the Outbreak!" Maria gasped.

"But I do not understand, Jeeson-san," Reito stated. "How is it that you got the cure before either I or any of the other three males when it was not even invented yet?!"

"Or maybe it already was," Akane suggested after taking another drink from her flask.

"What?" Reito inquired.

"Maybe it was already invented by some pharmacutical company and they did not want to reveal it right away until they could secure the patents for it," Akane theorized.

"But why give it to Jeeson-san before the others?!" Reito asked.

"Connections," Akane said, then takes another drink from her flask.

"Connections?" Jason asked.

"You must have had connections, Jeeson-kun," Akane continued after lowering her flask. "Powerful connections. Powerful enough to go to the inventors and encourage them to give the cure to a select few."

"My grandfather," Jason added intently. "He is, or was, the President of a bank."

"Well now there you go," Akane said casually, then takes another drink from her flask.

"But that only solves part of the question, not the question entirely," Jason said. "Because I'm pretty certain that there were plenty more men who were not only suffering from cellular sclerosis, but had those kind of connections too."

"My sensai was a very important man," Reito said. "He was the head of a hospital."

"Also cellular sclerosis was a very rare condition," Akane added after taking a drink from her flask. "Even I did not hear of it up until I learned about Reito-kun. It was something like . . . only one in fifty thousand people who had it. And there are something like a few million males in cryo." Falling silent while doing a mental calculation, then sits forward in revelation. "Yeah, you got a point there, Jeeson-kun. Statistically, there should be somewhere between ninety and one hundred more males in cryo with cellular sclerosis."

"But actually, there were only four," Rea called from up front, getting their attention. "Anyone who was going into cryostasis was thoroughly documented beforehand. A simple search of the database was all that was needed to find out whatever medical conditions they had. So there is your answer."

"Wait a minute," Jason said upon having an epiphany. "You just said that our treatment for cellular sclerosis is what makes me, Reito, and those three other males immune to this MK Virus, right?"

"Yes, that is right," Mira verified. "We theorize that it somehow charged your immune systems to combat the virus more effectively."

"Then why not give that cure to all of the males in cryo?!" Jason suggested ardently.

"Sorry, Jeeson-san, but giving that drug to a healthy person is dangerous," Reito answered regretfully. "Kind of like giving chemo to any healthy person."

"Oh of course it just can't be that easy now can it?" Jason stated sarcastically.

"So make the vaccine I must," Reito said.

"Wait? You're gonna try and make a vaccine for this MK Virus?!" Jason winced.

"Reito-sama is very smart, Jeeson-san!" Sui stated proudly. "He is a genius at medicine!"

"Is that so?" Jason mused. "Do you believe you can do it, Reito?"

"I have to," Reito said firmly. "And I have faith that I can do it."

"Well good luck to you then," Jason answered. "This MK Virus. Did it also infect animals?"

"No, only the male half of humanity was infected," Mira answered.

"I see," Jason mused. "But there is something strange about a virus that infects only males. A virus that infects only humans is one thing because there were just such viruses, like those that caused smallpox and polio. There were also genetic diseases that affected only males, like hemophilia. But a virus that infected only males is something that I've never heard of. It doesn't sound like it was a natural virus. Where did this virus first appear and how fast did it spread all over the world?"

"I-I-In Japan, Patient Zero was in Keimon City and it spread from there throughout all of the country in a mere couple of days," Maria answered. "B-B-But elsewhere, it started in multiple places and had spread over the world in three months."

"The Coronavirus didn't spread that quickly nor that thoroughly," Jason added. "This MK Virus must've been created."

Reito feels a spike of concern over Jason's deduction of the origin of the MK Virus.

"Y-Y-You think so too, right Jason?!" Maria stated. "Naturally occurring pathogens are parasitic in nature because a dead host means a dead parasite. They simply make them moderately ill so that they can spread more widely. Naturally occurring lethal pathogens tend not to lead to pandemics because they are too deadly; while an artificial pathogen that is designed to kill globally will at first have delayed symptoms to make the carrier asymptomatic for as long as possible. They will also be hardier in that they will not be so readily destroyed by external environmental factors such as ultraviolet radiation, heat, or cold. Then there is the vector of being airborne that makes a pathogen at its most contagious. Once the time comes that Patient Zero begins showing symptoms, then the rest of humanity also has it."

"Er, yeah, my thoughts exactly," Jason answered with humorous unease, then more seriously. "So why did you guys stop at that inn anyway? Was it because of that storm yesterday?"

"Yes it was," Reito answered. "And we were supposed to take a magnetic train back to Tokyo, but there was an accident on the line and it was not going to be cleared until today. So Katagiri-san phoned in this van. Along the way, the storm blew up and proved too much for us to continue onward so she drove us to the Hidden Inn because she once stayed there."

"The Hidden Inn?" Jason asked.

"That was the name of that place," Reito continued. "But once we got inside and looked around, Sui ended up seeing you."

"I know, she was looking right at me," Jason said.

"You scared Sui so badly, Jeeson-san!" Sui pouted furiously.

"She thought you were a demon and slam tackled Reito, sobbing and blubbering," Akane explained whimsically. "She even showed us in the dining room, but Katagiri-san dismissed it as her overactive imagination."

"Sorry about that, kid," Jason said apologetically. "I was scared too. I ran into the forest at the back of the inn and waited until it got dark enough to return and slept on a bench at the back. What is Sui anyway?!" His tone more intent. "She's obviously not a normal little girl!"

"Sui had . . . training," Akane said vaguely after taking a drink from her flask.

"I see," Jason said.

"But I figured that you must have been hiding out at the back of the inn underneath the eaves," Akane said after taking another slug. "Because I saw you last night."

"You did?" Jason stated.

"Yep, I woke up with the feeling that there was something outside and got up to look out the window. I peeked out through the curtain and at first saw no one, until I saw the top of your head as you went skulking by like a ninja. I was shocked and struggled to keep quiet. I thought you were a very tall foreign woman because I was not expecting another male. When we got up this morning, I told the others and we went outside, where I told Sui to go and get you."

"Why were you hiding, Jeeson-san?" Mira asked.

Jason sighs. "I was afraid that I would be attacked because I'm a foreigner."

"Your fears were not unfounded, Jeeson-san," Rea said from up front. "There were Japanese accusing foreigners of spreading the MK Virus."

"So when I saw you guys driving in, I was in the dining room and hit the floor then crawled away rapidly," Jason added. "My heart was beating like a drum and I was sure you saw me."

"I did not see you, Jeeson-san, because the rain was falling too heavily for me to get a clear view," Rea called from up front.

The rest admitted to not seeing him either.

"Actually I was thinking about leaving in the first place and taking my chances in Tokyo," Jason said. "My food situation had changed with no more food to find back at that abandoned village."

"That would be Crooked Brook," Rea said from up front. "I once visited that place."

"Tell us about that day you got to be at that inn, Jeeson-san," Reito asked.

Jason recollects his wits and tells them his story. The group sit there in silence as they contemplate what Jason had explained.

"In all those years nobody ever found you up until now," Reito marveled.

"Yeah, you had a huge lucky streak," Akane mused.

"Those graves out back must be the man and his son who owned the place, along with the men who worked there," Rea said. "The women working there had buried them."

"Th-That might cause a place to get haunted," Sui quavered.

"Now that you mention it, strange things did happen whenever I was over there," Jason noted.

"EHHH?!" Sui squealed.

"Quiet, you're scaring her!" Rea snapped from up ahead.

"It's strange that she is so strong and yet so timid," Jason mused at a fearful Sui.

"Do you have any other family back in Canada, Jeeson-san?" Reito asked.

Jason thinks for a moment.

"No," he finally answered. "Because I had only one sibling, an older brother, so he must be dead. And my mother died back in Thirty-Seven from cancer. Don't know about my grandmothers and aunts though."

"Perhaps you will learn the truth when you get back," Akane said.

"So how," Jason began, "how is this situation going to work from now on?"

"How is what situation going to work from now on?" Reito asked.

"This situation of there being only five of us males and five billion females," Jason asked. "Is . . . Is artifical insemination being used?"

"Artifical insemination will not work," Mira answered.

Mira next explains the reason to Jason.

"You get it now, Jeeson-kun?" Akane said afterwards in a provocative manner. "The only way women are going to have sons from now on is by getting pregnant the good old fashion way."

Jason has a wry look resulting from confusion and bewilderment. "That . . . I really don't know what to say about that, other than lesbians are out of luck." Then more focused. "But this MK Virus on the other hand must still be active, or else those baby boys that had been artificially conceived from regular sperm would still be alive today." His tone low, but intense. "And in order for this virus to still be active, it must mean that all you females are Typhoid Marys!"

"What are Typhoid Marys, Jeeson-san?" Sui asked.

"A long time ago in the United States there was a woman named Mary Mallon who had typhoid fever. She infected lots of people with it, some of whom died, yet she herself never displayed a single symptom. It was from her that we get the term, Typhoid Mary, to describe people who carry something that does not afflict them, but afflicts others instead."

"So does that mean I am infected with the MK Virus too?" Sui fretted.

"Yes, but it will not hurt you because you are female," Jason assured her.

"But . . . I helped spread it," Sui said meekly and abashedly.

"Aw, Sui that is not your fault," Reito assured her in English for Jason's benefit.

"That's right, it's the fault of the one who created it," Jason stated pointed. "And doubtlessly a woman because I cannot fathom a man having created this. But on to other matters. This having to do it the good old fashion way . . . ? How is that being carried out?"

"The Japanese Branch is engaging in a Mating Program," Mira answered. "The first male that was awakened two years ago has mated with one hundred women who have agreed to become mothers, hopefully to his sons, and has successfully impregnated twenty-eight of them."

"Ah, yeah, okay. Gotta start somewhere I suppose," Jason mused. "So what about you Reito? How many women have you done it with?"

"None," Reito answered.

"None?!" Jason echoed incredulously.

"I will mate with my girlfriend when I find her," Reito explained.

"Then where is she?" Jason asked.

"That I do not know," Reito answered. "But she is the one who I will mate with."

"What is this talk of mating?" Jason asked. "It sounds . . . bestial."

"Because using any other phrase makes it sound like you are not trying to make a baby," Akane answered.

"And it was the Japanese Branch who decided upon the word, mating," Mira said.

"It seems like this Japanese Branch of this United Women organization has put a lot of thought into this," Jason noted.

"That they have," Mira answered.

"So is Canada a part of this United Women?" Jason asked.

"Canada is, but had broken up into various organizations," Mira said.

"So I guess that means Quebec finally got their sovereignty," Jason said sarcastically.

"Kwee-beek?" Reito inquired.

"One of Canada's ten provinces," Jason answered. "Unlike the other provinces, they are predominantly French. In decades past, there were a minority of Quebecers who demanded sovereignty for Quebec, causing two referendums on the issue. But they lost both times."

"But the United States of America is still whole," Mira said. "I guess it has to do with the United Women headquarters being there."

"Would that happen to be the United Nations building?" Jason asked.

"Yes," Mira verified.

"What about the other nations now?" Jason asked. "What do they think of Japan's Mating Program?"

"They do not know about it," Mira answered. "We are keeping it a secret."

"But for how long?" Jason asked dryly. "The rest of the world will eventually start noticing that there are more baby boys being born in Japan."

"We will deal with that matter when it arises," Mira said.

"And five males are not going to be able to replenish the human species," Jason added. "I once heard that in order to have a long term community, it needs to have at least five hundred people."

"Don't worry, Jeeson-san," Reito said with assurance. "I will create that vaccine and all of the men in cryostasis will get it."

"You do that," Jason mused. "So . . . What's going to happen to me when we get to where we are going?"

"Well," Akane began playfully with a leer as she gently clasps his knee, "what would you like to happen to you?"

"Ah," was all Jason could manage while blushing and getting hard due to her touch.

"Would you like to make a contribution to our gene pool?" Akane continued provocatively while slowly and gently tracing her fingers up his thigh, getting ever closer to his groin.

"AH!" Jason would only attempt more loudly while blushing more profusely as his eyes go wide and his pupils shrink. His maleness getting harder.

"Akane-san," Reito warned, then more casually. "Anyway, Jeeson-san. I believe that the Ministers will send you back to your country."

"Are you sure they will not have me . . . mate?" Jason said, the word sticking in his mouth.

Reito merely shrugs.