The five men who ran the world sat together. It was rare for them to physically meet like this. Generally, their absolute control of the world was cloaked by the divergence of their public stations in life.

Each of them wielded huge influence within their own acknowledged scopes but the truth of their grip on global matters was a carefully guarded secret. Their daily meetings were held electronically and the degree of security around these conversations was not known or understood outside of their tight circle.

Only once in a while, when the wire of crisis threatened to strangle society's precarious balance, did the five of them came together.

There was the man in the pinstriped suit.

There was the man, a king in his own realm, in robes, his head covered according to his land's tradition.

There was the other man in robes, a landless monarch, who nevertheless ruled over millions in many lands.

There was the man who always wore leather suits, a cravat, beautiful boots.

There was the silent man, who said little, whose steely eyes watched every nuance, every breath of the others, but his words, however few, carried as much weight as theirs.

"There are too many crummy babies being born," complained the monarch.

"We have you to blame for that," the king told him. "You and your prohibitions."

"We must stick to the Old Books," the monarch growled. "It's the only way they'll understand obedience. We must have continuity!"

"Not really," said the pinstripe, crossing his legs. "Only the fittest and best should be procreating. Your people-" and he turned to the silent man, "ought to remember that we actually need women to have the babies at all."

The silent man spoke with venom: "Bah! Women! When are those scientists finally going to make those test tube babies go the whole way?"

It was more or less a rhetorical question, not expecting an answer from any of the others. They shook or nodded their heads, according to their customs, in some degree or another of agreement.

One of them commented quietly: "If there were some way to keep the best of them for their eggs - harvested on a regular basis" - his voice became dreamy - "living comfortable but restricted lives."

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," the king called them back to themselves. There was no pecking order amongst them; any one of them could chair the moment. "I think we should deal with the big issue at hand here."

"No harm in dreaming."

"Perhaps on your own time."

The pinstripe concurred. "For the moment, we do have a serious and immediate problem."

They hardly dared name it but finally one man said it, said it in almost a whisper: "The Lemmings Syndrome."

They groaned and held their heads, all but the silent man who watched them carefully, trying to assess how weak they were going to be about this. Was this the time, he wondered, when he and his people would take over the world? It would be a better place; that was certain. Cleaner, more orderly, certainly less strife - strife was dealt with firmly and immediately in his land. No question about that.

The Lemming Syndrome was so called because, around the world, in every country, territory and town, the people were committing group suicide, but in the way of the lemmings.

The lemmings are rodents who, so it has been reported in Norway, charge together in large numbers and throw themselves off cliffs into the sea, drowning. No one knows why.

Similarly, none of the five men, whose minions told them everything, understood why humans were imitating those dreaded rodents.

The pinstripe reported: "Five hundred successful businessmen and women followed each other off the tallest office building in the city. They took the elevator in shifts to the roof and went off at the same time from every side. It was horrible."

Each of the others had a similar tale: of huge crowds of people, living in terrible conditions, or living seemingly idyllic lives, mindlessly charging to their shared deaths with no word of farewell, no explanations. Like lemmings.

"Some of them are running forward but some are running backwards - it doesn't make any difference and it doesn't make any sense," complained the monarch.

"Suddenly, you want something to make sense, after all these centuries," this sarcasm from the silent man.

"It's not the numbers that worry me," said the pinstripe, "what worries me is that we have not directed it." He paused to look at the other four, one at a time. "Well, have any of you surreptitiously incited these suicides? No doubt, some of your people would obey you - but not all of them would - not like this."

They all denied inventing the Lemmings Syndrome. They had instigated wars, promoted starvation by their policies; they had allowed lawlessness of all kinds: it was all to keep the populations weak minded and preoccupied with their own concerns. Death in large numbers, of course, was necessary to counter the global birth rate.

However, the Lemmings Syndrome was out of their control. They did not know what to do about it.

The man in the leather suit spoke for the first time. Usually loquacious, he had been quite quiet for this entire meeting. He jumped to his feet: "The human race has been driven by all of you to the brink of destruction. They have taken more than they can tolerate."

He leapt to the king and stabbed him in the heart. "You and your arcane tyranny, keeping your people in the dark ages." And the king gasped and died.

So speedily, no one could follow his intent, the leather-suited man jumped onto the landless monarch. "You hoard your wealth of resources, meting them out in small doses so as to keep people impoverished and always at your beck and call." And the monarch died also under the knife in the leather suit's hand.

Without hesitation, he drew his weapon to the throat of the pinstripe. "Your socalled successful business people never knew where their success really came from - it was like a fairy tale all the time and they never knew when it would all end. You kept them terrified of collapse so that they would always seek your approval."

And the pinstripe died as quickly as the others.

The silent man had run from his chair to a door, where he was met by an enormous creature who held him silently and firmly.

"And you!" sneered the leather suit, "you with your contempt for half of the world's people - so, you have no respect for anyone - you ..." He did not bother to finish - he simply finished off the silent man.

"Quite a mess," commented the creature. "Who will you get to lead now - who will be any better?"

The leather suit scratched his head, depressed. "I don't know," he replied. "Do you suppose we could bring back John Lennon..."