A rare astronomical event—a sudden global pandemic—a coterie of stymied scientists who can find, not only no treatment, preventative, or cure, but not even a cause—a group of world leaders eager to blame someone, or some group—siblings separated by disagreement over sexual orientation now regretting their actions.

Dr. Mbuto Ngaseke, UN High Commissioner for Epidemiology, has established what he calls a Rapid Response Team, eminent virologists and infectious disease experts from around the world: France, Germany, England, Gabon, Australia, China, Japan, and the U.S. They handily manage a new virus, Atlas Fever; they consult on the annual flu season; but when confronted with something totally new, unprecedented, unidentifiable—their frustration knows no bounds.

Authoritarian politicians in the U.S., France, Germany, and Spain, have been shifting opinion and policy to the far right. Now, unexpectedly, nature has given them a weapon to attack one of their most detested groups. Or has it?

Unknown to one another, pairs of brothers, in the U.S., in Germany, and in Spain, estranged by strife about sexual orientation, each now fearing the death of the other, suddenly find their separation meaningless and yearn to restore their fraternal love. But will they be able to locate one another? Will people all over the world, the few that are left, learn to embrace rather than to distance, to accept rather than to classify, to love rather than to hate? Will homo sapiens manage to become better, homo melior—before it is too late?

This novel first appeared in short story form in Fraternal, Book 3, released in 2017. It seems remarkably prescient, given the state of the world in 2020.

LGBTZ, by Michael Scherperel, ISBN 978-0-9995979-9-6. (Kindle edition--available free to Kindle Unlimited members). (Kindle Store Entry)