2020 by Robert Onopa Read Free Book Online

calling to tell me that Max Sczyczypek was dead, of massive cardiac arrest.
    * * *
    You of course know all about the near miss’s unexpected effects—that tidal thing, the way the ozone layer was restored to pre-1900 levels, the way the lower atmosphere cleared. I remember the day after we returned to California, waking up and gazing through the clear, crisp air that had been with us since the comet passed. The rapid ionization of the atmosphere had picked up the particulates and plopped them on the ground, where they were washed by heavy rains; the world seemed fresh and new. It changed all our lives, that near-death experience.
    Max, as I’ve mentioned, got a little nearer than most.
    His funeral was one of the most spectacular and professionally accomplished in the modern history of deathcare management. It was understood that I would handle the basic interment, though I left the stainless steel instruments, the needles, the gloves and the fluids to Preparation. I dressed Max in his best black suit, picked out a casket, and laid him out, setting his features with a number six Mona Lisa® smile. Dorothy helped me with his obituary; the Sierra Club managed the flowers and the stands of virgin Redwood offered in his name, Espagio’s did the catering, Fiat/Disney produced the wake and the procession. The High Mass was held at St. Christopher’s, with a little virtual hookup to all GD Homes. Burial was at St. Mary’s: Digger O’Donald was there, an orchestra, celebrities by the hundreds, with a special presentation by the union of professional mourners Max himself had helped found.
    That was when I first spotted the chemistry between Unix and Lance. I was surprised but then it seemed to me a good thing. I wasn’t sure I could keep up with her, and she needed someone who looked further ahead than I do these days.
    Lance and I run the company now. Max left us very well off. We have all that front money from FEMA in the bank, all those fees from IMMORTALITY NOW! without the liability to produce it as advertised. Since the comet had been redirected by the Government under an action classified by the courts as an Act of God or War, our warrantee must exclude any mention of “comet.” No comet, no signal. The broadband noise that had been converted into holounits from The Divine Comedy would continue to be broadcast by the redirected Virgilius Maro , but only in the path of the M31 Galaxy for the next four hundred million years.
    We own the Obit Channel now—under a dummy corporation, however those things are done. All of the Angels® have been dusted, the Fleetwoods shine, and our new South American division is expanding at the rate of two new Homes per week.
    I still feel deep satisfaction with the image I’d grabbed of Virgilius Maro up on Mauna Kea. During the final edit I doubled the length of the hololoop. The finished piece hangs in the boardroom these days, replacing an image of Mars. The now half-minute loop, bright silver with a banded spectrum in slo-mo, opens and turns like a timelapse flower bathing in quasar light against a backdrop of deep space.
    I see Keiko a lot. It’s a bit unreal. Lance and Unix are a couple. We’re all into life extension. Lance is working with those Swiss engineers you’ve been hearing about on the news. I mean, why not stick with a good thing?
    * * *
    One more thing I need to tell you about.
    After all the dust had settled, Keiko and Unix and Lance and I took what remained of the judge’s ashes and placed them into a crypt. He had refused to take his ashes up with him to Vandenberg; he’d called it a morbid idea. The left-behind ashes had been moved to GD Tower, but Keiko understandably wanted closure. Burial was my advice, a small traditional service; I was glad to see my thinking confirmed by Keiko’s therapist and the MacPhee family counselor. The obsequies were set for a Friday afternoon.
    I set out driving alone in my Lotus from downtown to meet the rest of the funeral