2020
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
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