Even if people believed me, the first thing they'd want to know is: What poem?

Show it to us. Prove it.

The question isn't, Would the poem leak out?

The question is, How soon would the human race be extinct?

Here's the power of life and a cold clean bloodless easy death, available to anyone. To everyone. An instant, bloodless, Hollywood death.

Even if I don't tell, how long until Poems and Rhymes from. Around the World gets into a classroom? How long until page 27, the culling song, gets read to fifty kids before nap time?

How long until it's read over the radio to thousands of people? Until it's set to music? Translated into other languages?

Hell, it doesn't have to be translated to work. Babies don't speak any language.

No one's seen Duncan for three days. Miller thinks Kleine called Duncan at home. Kleine thinks Fillmore called. Everybody's sure somebody else called, but nobody's talked to Duncan. He hasn't answered his e-mail. Carruthers says Duncan didn't bother to call in sick.

Another cup of coffee later, Henderson stops by my desk with a tear sheet from the Leisure section. It's folded to show an ad, three columns by six inches deep. Henderson looks at me tapping my watch and holding it to my ear, and he says, "You see this in the morning edition?" The ad says:

Attention First-Class Passengers of Regent-Pacific Airlines

The ad says: "Have you suffered hair loss and/or discomfort from crab lice after coming in contact with airline upholstery, pillows, or blankets? If so, please call the following number to be part of a class-action lawsuit."

Henderson says, "You called about this yet?"

I say, maybe he should just shut up and call.

And Henderson says, "You're Mr. Special Features." He says, "This isn't prison. I ain't your bitch."