Pathogens, howe­ver, are no mere pro­ta­go­nists, bat­te­red to and fro by the tides of human his­to­ry. They also act of their own voli­tion, if you’ll excuse the anthro­po­mor­phism. They dis­play agen­cy. And they have by vir­tue of their evo­lu­tio­na­ry changes for­ced agri­bu­si­ness to the bar­gai­ning table, a place where that ilk, given their suc­cesses, think they excel. The resul­ting agree­ment is writ­ten as no trea­ty or contract nor even in any­thing we would reco­gnize as com­mu­ni­ca­tion. It is found ins­tead in a form of xenos­pe­ci­fic conver­gence. The two par­ties have maneu­ve­red into an agri­cul­ture of mutual inter­ests, at times reac­ting for­ce­ful­ly within each’s own domain in the other’s favor. One thinks per­haps such conver­gence could be at best uncons­cious. An emergent epi­phe­no­me­non, maybe. I dis­co­ve­red other­wise, and that’s the shock. No virus engi­nee­red in a lab, no plan to pur­po­se­ly spread influen­za, but a conspi­ra­cy of man and microbe none­the­less, with huma­ni­ty and many a wild­life popu­la­tion at stake.