2020 Read online

  The latest data on Virgilius Maro—which everyone was calling Virgil now—was everywhere. It was on CNN, VNN, running as an occasional window on the Obit Channel.

  A comet-related story was running on the wallscreen at Keiko’s house the next evening when I arrived for my promised dinner, the titanium urn and what remained of the judge’s ashes in my hands. Yes, I’d told Keiko that the chip inquiry had come to a dead end.

  I was feverish with guilt and lust.

  Unix, wearing a silver microdress decorated with signs of the Zodiac, met me at the door and took the urn from my hands. She set it on the foyer table. “Aunt Keiko’s instructions,” she said. “She’s taking your advice about burying the ashes and the urn in a regular grave. Burying what’s left of Uncle—my dad’s uncle, actually. Still, she’s been like an aunt to me.”

  “I’m just trying to make her happy,” I said.

  “I can tell.” she smiled. “She’s out back. . . .”

  I found Keiko outside in the neglected kitchen garden, hands dirty but cheerful. She was filling pots with soil.

  “Not much bigger than this,” she said, holding up a parsley seed. I realized she was talking about the chip. “Nothing to it, then?”

  “No,” I said. “Nothing at all. My technician still has the chip, but your husband’s ashes are otherwise intact. I wasn’t sure you wanted the, uh, since . . . No noises anymore.”

  She shrugged. “Something from an implant then, after all,” she said, shaking her head. She drained her glass of vodka. “Now let’s have dinner. I’ve got a fifty-year-old bottle of wine.”

  Afterwards, we sat by a fire in the living room, drank port and watched a bit of the comet special on VNN. Unix settled in with us. She’d had a falling out with her boyfriend.

  The special was interrupted, to my dismay, by a commercial for IMMORTALITY NOW! from Grateful Dead. Elderly men and women romped around a fountain in a cobbled square—Max had turned creative control entirely over to Fiat/Disney. The little cartoon animals splashing in the water of the fountain, the voiceover sales pitch, the promise of a Purgatorio sequel, made me burn with shame.

  The tacky part, though, cheered up Unix, and she cheered me up, and we started to chat, sunk so happily in the sofa by the Nomad firehearth that I didn’t at first realize that Keiko had been out of the room for some time.

  Unix blushed a little, smiled, and disappeared.

  It was getting late, and I wasn’t sure what to do. Then the lights dimmed, and I thought I saw someone in the hallway to the master suite at the rear of the house, hand raised at about the level of a console for a house computer. A moment later subdued harp music floated through the air. Then Keiko walked slowly into the room wearing a black silk robe.

  She stopped at the hearth, her hands resting on the slate platform, fingers splayed, her hair down around her shoulders, the fire reflected on her face. She had continued drinking—I could see it in her eyes, in her breathing, in the way she swayed, ever so slightly. I calculated the time since the judge had been cremated: a month, exactly. The grieving process takes different forms for different people; I had used my professional experience to read her precisely.

  “The kind of man he was, my late husband,” she said. “He would have wanted me to jump back in. You’re that kind of man too.”

  I cleared my throat. Would you believe me if I told you that I realized then that what I had encouraged in her was wrong, that things between us had moved too fast, that for her own good I was going to turn her down, hug her gently and lead her back to her bed and tuck her in and tell her to go to sleep? I’m not sure I believe myself either. Oh, I realized I’d been wrong, certainly, but the way she’d said jump back in I’d fallen completely, victim to my desires, victim to the silky curve at her waist, to the huskiness in her voice.

  Keiko and Unix, forgive me.

  As it was, I was saved by my pager, which hummed against my heart insistently.

  The message was from Lance, He was paging me from the mortuary lab in the basement of the GD tower. The message read: Highest Urgency.

  * * *

  When I found him, Lance was crouched over a jury-rigged assembly surrounded by a bank of instruments. I recognized a light-enhancing stereo microscope.

  “You’ll never know what ecstasy you interrupted,” I said dryly. “What is it?”

  “Uncle Coop,” Lance said, pointing to an eyepiece. “Look at this.”

  I put the bridge of my nose between the soft cups of rubber. At first I didn’t see anything but a mottled background, then discerned what seemed an aberration, a comic little figure, a smaller grid of red and white.

  “You may not believe me at first,” Lance said, his voice tight with excitement, “but I think that’s the Judge. Or some manifestation of him, like a homunculus. It was created by the chipset when I powered it up. . . . See, first thing it did was output a nutrient program, carbon high. I used my Pepsi. Next thing I knew . . . See, it was a sequence, started with the sound chip, to call attention to itself. . . .”

  “Christ!” I said. “It’s a little person. Those are plaid pants.”

  I continued to watch the figure in wonder as Lance brought me up to speed. The judge had bought into a duplication technology, he told me. “There’s a DNA info base in nanomemory, quark based, really something. Then a generator that kicks in when that program runs, comes out of a lot of compression. Well, he reproduces himself, see? This guy actually figured out a way to live forever.”

  “Guy? What do you mean, guy? This is some kind of bacteria.”

  “Yeah, that’s true, right,” Lance said. “There’s a bug in the scalar routine?”

  “Scalar routine?”

  “Formally it’s the function of two vectors, equal to the product of their magnitudes and the cosine of the angle between them? Anyway, if you get the dot point wrong . . .”

  “Lance, what are you talking about?”

  “What went wrong. It’s in the sequence for the scalar routine, what makes him this size. See, the chipset reproduced him all right, but the dot point got shifted. Got his scale wrong by a factor of one thousand. Poor sucker. I did the calculations. He’s one one-thousandth the size of an actual man.”

  So there he was, my rival, who less than an hour ago, in the strange complicated way of human affairs, had interposed himself between me and the consummation of my dreams. Who, I asked myself, stood between me and my dreams now?

  I started to laugh, but I swear I saw a tiny fist raised, shaking, directly at me.

  I sucked in a deep breath. “I’d better contact Mrs. MacPhee immediately,” I said, reaching for the vidphone.

  III.

  That was the beginning of the week you all remember, the week that changed all our lives.

  Later that Monday morning astronomers announced that Virgilius Maro’s course had unaccountably shifted. The large comet was now headed directly toward the planet Earth.

  Impact was expected in seven days, fourteen hours, and six minutes.

  I see I’ve barely touched upon the catastrophic possibilities impact presented, but I’m sure you remember some of them: how a comet V. Maro’s size had crashed into the Yucatan at the end of the Cetacean Era and ended the reign of the dinosaurs, how the current human casualty estimate ran into the billions. Alone in the glow of wallscreens and in groups from school auditoriums to cathedrals we contemplated the possibility of a conflagration that would produce rampant volcanism, sulfur clouds, an extended period of darkness, soaring temperatures followed by a new ice age, the extinction of species after species and eliminate most of the world’s biomass. Scientists were scrambling to turn the comet off its course with a thermonuclear explosion in space. NASA ran twenty-four hour shifts, and the Chinese mobilized their “factory-in-space” program to produce a delivery vehicle loaded and launched from the UN Station. Nukes were being readied and shuttled up, but as there were only a few hundred left on the planet, NASA was having logistics problems, and the decision
to go with the Ukrainian multiple warheads (the infamous “cabbage bombs”) made everyone nervous. As well, as we all now know, we should have been.

  As for Grateful Dead, Inc., the effect on the firm was paradoxical. With so much potential death on the way, suddenly lots of people wanted to make arrangements. They reasoned, and rightly so, that in the event of impact there would be a run on deathcare services, and that the average consumer would be best accommodated by the world-wide facilities of a full-service chain such as ours.

  Just after the President’s announcement, I finally found Max. He was up in the boardroom, sprawled in his captain’s chair at the end of the long slate table, transfixed on the Obit Channel running full wallscreen on the other side of the room. His little fax dish had pulled in a library of invoices, printed out balance sheets and ledger pages, all heaped around him. On his laptop was loaded a draft page from the upcoming annual report to shareholders.

  “Fuck the business,” I told him. “Go home to your wife and son. Nobody really knows about this, nobody knows for sure we’re safe until it’s deflected.” I was still shaken by the tic the President had developed half way through his speech.

  “Coop, we’ve completely sold out Paradiso,” Max said with barely controlled excitement. “It’s damned amazing. Purgatorio’s half committed as of an hour ago—Purgatorio, where clients gotta shuffle around these circle things admitting they ate too much or slept too much or whatever turned them on. Fiat/Disney’s even working up an Inferno segment. We got couples buying adjoining units as gifts, we got groups who want to tape on the last day, like have a comet party and tape their segments.”

  “Max,” I said, “all of us may only have a week to live. Don’t you understand? The comet could hit the planet. Even a near miss . . .”

  Max blushed red. “Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled. “I’m no rocket scientist, but hey, Coop, I figure, it turned, it’ll turn again, see?”

  “How can you talk like that?”

  Max pushed away from the table, got up, swung around and pulled his baggy suit coat off the back of the chair. He shoved his arm into a coat sleeve. “Gotta go. I got a presentation to give to FEMA. You wanna come? I know you’re not up to speed these days, Coop, but I always feel better if you’re there. Backup?”

  “FEMA? Who’s FEMA?”

  “Federal Emergency Management. You know. We’re cutting a deal on a pre-need thing. See, they got a mandated formula for disaster preparation. The front money on this one alone gets us back up over three bil. Ain’t that ironic? Just when we get IMMORTALITY NOW! workin’ better than expected? You dance for a drizzle, you get a hurricane. And look at you. Who am I to say you haven’t been up to speed? Who gave us the comet?”

  “Max, what’s the fucking funeral business worth if the whole world ends? You may never have another night to bounce on your bed with Dorothy. You may never have another Monday afternoon to spend with Lance. Live a little, for Christ’s sake.”

  As if on cue, Lance himself rushed in, his pale face flushed pink, waving a sheaf of figures that turned out to be estimates for the FEMA meetings. He told his father in clipped tones that they were going to be late if they didn’t get going. Max jammed papers into his briefcase, folded his battered old computer, and the two of them ran off as I stood there, still scolding.

  Even as I ranted on, I could see the error of my ways. There Max had gone: busy with the company of his son, awash with business, fulfilled. Do you want to know how desperate I was? I tried to get in touch with Harriet. She has a new hyphenated name—no, not just a hyphenated last name, but a hyphenated first name as well. NuKiwi-Harriet Finney-Boyd. There’s no going back at all in life, is there.

  * * *

  At the request of Unix, I checked in on Keiko.

  “How’s your aunt taking it?” I asked in the foyer when she answered the door.

  “She’s doin’ great. She is, anyway. You know, Coop, Aunt Keiko always went for those short-man-syndrome, power-trip guys. The Napoleonic types? I mean, really, now the judge is as short as you can get, right?”

  I looked at her with surprise.

  “I don’t mean to disrespect Uncle,” she said. “He’s my father’s favorite uncle; I do love him, and I’m glad that he’s . . . back, sort of back. But he’s always been a real tyrant, little dictator bossing everybody around. Now he’s even worse than he was before.”

  I laughed. “I don’t mean to disrespect him either,” I said, “but I could tell by the way he dressed.”

  “Myself, I prefer taller guys like you. Fewer insecurities.”

  I blushed. “Ah, Unix, I just wish I wasn’t too old for you.”

  She giggled. “How old do you think I am?”

  “Nineteen, at the outside,” I told her.

  “Try twenty-nine. Uncle bought a bunch of that life extension stuff for me too, bless him.” She was wearing that tight green microskirt again, turned and walked away with a provocative wiggle. It is extraordinary how a bit of information can change your point of view.

  The threat of the end of the world aside, I remember thinking then, we live in wonderful times.

  * * *

  A miniature life-support unit, consisting of racks of equipment sent over from GD Inc., and two exotic consoles from Switzerland, had been set up around a lab table in the living room, a nest of tubing and thin wires terminating in a light-enhancing stereo microscope. Keiko was there, apparently keeping a constant vigil. The judge had grown but he was still quite small, inhabiting a heated area on a textured slide.

  Keiko was a feverish specter. After I had politely put my eye to the microscope eyepiece for a moment she gave me her hand. An understanding had developed between us.

  “How can he live like that?”

  “He can’t,” she said. “His doctors tell us that he’ll survive for seven days maximum.”

  “How tragic,” I said, searching my professional vocabulary for the right thing to say.

  “What’s it matter?” a strange elderly voice said. I looked around me, startled. By the expressions on Keiko’s and Unix’s faces I realized we were listening to the judge; apparently his voice was picked up by sensors on the microscope stage and piped through the home quatro sound. His voice seemed to come from everywhere. The effect was eerie; my skin tingled and I felt myself tremble with momentary fright. The voice spoke again: “Those goddamned NASA bunglers, we’re all about to die anyway.”

  They were behind schedule, it was true. But even given their failings, nothing could quite justify the acid criticism, the savage personal insult, the vitriol that filled the room for ten minutes as the judge described NASA’s response to the crisis. And the rest of the world’s. I spare you the details.

  In the end, the judge told me, his one regret was that he’d wanted to go out big.

  Unix rolled her eyes.

  I had to bite my tongue.

  “Put me back now, goddamnit,” the judge said.

  “What does he mean?” I asked.

  “He goes with Aunt Keiko,” Unix said. “Has to do with body temperature.”

  “We’ll rest now,” Keiko said. “Thank you, Cooper, for coming by.”

  I held out my hand forlornly, and Keiko touched it briefly before turning to be alone with her husband. The look in her eyes confirmed that I had lost her, absolutely, to a 117-year-old man the size of a tomato seed. And a mean-spirited bastard besides. Perhaps that’s what it took to cling so tenaciously to life.

  Keiko opened the top of her hospital gown and slipped him down into her bosom. Out of respect I tried not to stare.

  Unix looked at me with raised eyebrows. “For him, it’s the adventure of a lifetime.” Then she swallowed and looked alarmed at having let slip an off-color remark.

  Embarrassed for her, I blurted out, “Finally conclusive proof that size isn’t everything.” It was really a stupid joke, but Unix looked at me gratefully while Keiko pretended not to hear, turned with dignity to leave the room.

  Unix put her
hand on my back. “Say, Coop,” she said.

  * * *

  It must have been the comet.

  Unix walked me out to my Lotus with a shy batting of her green-lined eyes and thanked me for the way I’d helped her aunt.

  “If you only actually knew,” I said.

  “I know. Look, what counts is, you did the right thing in the end. My aunt’s happy; little Caesar is back on his throne. Frankly, I think she’s missing a bet. I’ve thought so from the beginning. Especially now, with your comet in the sky.”

  Then Unix kissed me, really kissed me.

  I kissed back.

  She slipped her tongue between my teeth and wiggled it around.

  We fell against the car, shamelessly groping at one another, sliding down the hood and along the fender and over the headlight, pulling at one another’s clothes, half naked by the time we rolled onto the soft lawn.

  What can I say of that first encounter that could do justice to our passion, to the bliss that mixed with relief down through my bones? No words can quite describe the sensation—but oh, the touch of her flesh, the warmth of her breath, that moment of slippery joy.

  * * *

  We went everywhere together for twelve hours, having sex. Like a lot of people. We wound up in the boardroom on the eightieth floor of the GD Tower. I felt wonderful, lying there on the slate table, my black Italian wingtips unlaced on the floor, a cashmere sweater rolled into a pillow beneath my head, Unix’s thigh inches from my teeth.

  On the wallscreen new infomercials for our Purgatorio offering produced by Fiat/Disney were running. I hadn’t quite understood the attraction of appearing periodically throughout eternity suffering one of the punishments of Purgatory, but when I saw the actress Candy Candiotti jogging around the Fourth Cornice to show her victory over Sloth, I realized that Purgatorio would sell out completely, too.

  Later that morning I showed Unix around corporate headquarters; for all the volume Max said we were doing, you’d have thought GD Inc. was shutting down. The business floors were almost deserted, the Angel® Imaging Center on skeleton crew, all but one of Resurrection Chapel’s Dial-a-Faith windows dark. The usual staff was working in Preparation, but the Motor Pool was quiet, and there were only two girls down in Floral. I’d called off my franchisee classes. I took Unix through the Professional Education wing, looked into the great room. When I saw the clock on the wall at eleven, I felt a pang of guilt, felt I ought to be working.