2030

by Albert Brooks

  The government was trying to help the physically injured, but mental illness was not on the radar. The thought was that if they could get food to people and keep disease away, that would be ninety percent of the game. But what happened when people lost hope and gave up? That was never really planned for, certainly not on a scale this size. Here were millions of people who had had the life literally shaken out of them, with no one to tell them it would get better. There was a general sense of chaos, except chaos was slowly being accepted as the norm. It was amazing how fast the unthinkable was taken for granted.

  * * *

  Walter Masters eventually made his way down to Los Angeles. He visited some severely ill people whose friends or relatives had contacted him, and he performed about fifty procedures to end their suffering. When word got out that he was functioning in the area, people started begging him. Some people who were physically okay but financially wiped out wanted to end their lives, but that was not Walter’s game. He ended genuine suffering, not horrible bad luck or going broke. My God, if I opened my practice to financial catastrophe, I would have the world waiting in line.

  * * *

  Brad Miller’s condo was finally red-tagged; he could no longer live there, even though his walls were still standing. He slept in the bedroom for almost a month, feeling the air at night that came in through the holes in the ceiling.

  One day someone knocked on his door, someone who looked like a cop or an army private, he couldn’t tell which. He informed Brad that he would have to go to the shelter that was closest to him, in Pasadena.

  “Pasadena?” Brad asked. “I don’t know anyone there. Can’t I just stay in my bedroom?”

  “No, sir. These properties are going to be leveled over the next several months.”

  “What happens to my investment?”

  “That will be handled by another department, sir.”

  “But it was a condo. I don’t own the land, just the building. Now it won’t be here. Do I get my money back?”

  “There will be people to talk to in Pasadena, sir. That is not my department. You are allowed to take one suitcase.”

  “One suitcase? I can’t fit my life in one suitcase. What do I do with all my memories?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. Pick out what is most valuable to you that will fit in one suitcase. I’ll leave you some information that might be of help. You will be moving on Thursday.”

  “That’s two days. I’m not ready.” But before Brad could say any more, the man was gone. He left a sheet of paper. At the top it said, One Suitcase Only. And there was a list of suggestions of what to put in his suitcase for the rest of his life. Brad threw it away. He didn’t need the government to tell him how to pack.

  He went outside and sat under the tree. There were only twelve people remaining in the complex and they met there each night at dusk and drank and cried and reminisced. They had all been informed that they were being relocated. Brad was surprised that they were not all scheduled for Pasadena. The army guy had made it sound like everyone from this area would go to that one place, but apparently their system was based on something else. Brad hoped it wasn’t Jews.

  As the folks sat under the tree for what might be the very last time, someone brought up Walter Masters. A woman’s sister’s husband had been relieved of his suffering just two days earlier, and Masters was talked about like some Pied Piper of death. “What did he do?” asked Brad.

  “Put him out of his misery,” the woman said.

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. Some kind of shot.”

  “What kind of shot?” another man asked.

  “A shot right to the head,” Brad joked.

  The woman said she didn’t know what the shot was but it was quick and painless. “Is that legal?” someone else asked.

  “Who gives a shit?” the woman answered. “Who would care? Do you think they want more of us to take care of?”

  She had a point. And Brad was glad he didn’t have access to the shot at that very moment, because the thought of going to Pasadena with one piece of luggage for the rest of his life—well, he just might have used it.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Mueller family was vacationing at their home in Vail, Colorado. They loved to ski there in the winter and bike around the magnificent pine trees in the summer months. Sometimes Dr. Sam Mueller looked at his children and thought they were spoiled. Patty was turning into a real beauty and Mark would have been a heavy child in another era, but with a simple pill each day he looked quite fit, if not as handsome as his sister was pretty. Their mother did her best to make sure they knew how fortunate they were and tried to instill a sense of “giving back,” but they didn’t really have anything of their own, so giving back was just watching some of their parents’ millions going to other people instead of them.

  Sam Mueller always admired the very wealthy who claimed they were leaving their children nothing so they would not lead a life counting on their parents’ riches, but “nothing” to these kinds of people meant fifty million dollars instead of a billion. Sam had not gone that route. His will left the bulk of his estate to his wife and children. But when he got very angry with his son, which was rare, he would threaten him with no inheritance. A thirteen-year-old boy doesn’t really respond to that, especially when the threat is issued on the family’s private island.

  The night before, in their eight-thousand-square-foot villa, had been a little tense. After being served dinner, the family decided to watch a movie. Before they did, Sam scanned the major news outlets and got immersed in watching footage of Los Angeles, which now had its own channel. “I hate seeing this. It breaks my heart,” he said, to no one in particular.

  “It’s their own fault for living there,” his son said.

  Sam snapped. “What the fuck did you just say?”

  “Honey,” Maggie said, “take it easy. He didn’t say anything.” Mark got nervous. He knew this side of his father and didn’t like to provoke it.

  “That’s not what you say when people are devastated to this degree,” Sam shouted. “That’s a spoiled brat talking. Do you think people have choices like we do, that they can just live in any mansion they want?”

  “Dad,” Patty said, “I don’t think he meant it that way.”

  “Stay out of it, Patty. How did you mean it, Mark?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t think about it that much.”

  “You have to learn goddamn empathy.”

  “Honey, he has empathy.”

  “When? Where? I’ve never seen it. He feels sorry when one of his friend’s boats breaks down.”

  Mark got up and stormed out of the room, stifling a cry. He ran upstairs and slammed the door. Maggie got up and followed him. Sam tried to stop her. “Leave him alone, honey, let him think about it.”

  “He doesn’t even know what he did.”

  Patty was left alone with her father. She moved closer to him and took his hand, which was still shaking with anger. “I don’t think he meant it that way, Dad.”

  “Does he know what we have, Patty? Do you?”

  “Yes, of course I do. You know how grateful we are.”

  “I don’t want you to be grateful. I want you to care about people deep down. I don’t want my success to spoil you rotten.” Patty smiled at her father. She knew how to wrap him around her finger.

  “Dad, I didn’t come into this world expecting anything. I lucked out being your child and I always know that. Mark knows that, too.”

  Sam gave her a hug. All of a sudden he felt guilty. Maybe this had nothing to do with his son’s comment. Maybe if he had cured schizophrenia, he would not feel like a one-trick pony. Even though the cancer cure was the greatest trick there was, he was always amazed at how not following it up could make him feel like a failure.

  Sam came downstairs early the next morning and his son and daughter were having breakfast. He gave Mark a hug. “I lost my temper last night. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s ok
ay. I didn’t mean what I said to sound like I didn’t care. I just always thought it was stupid to live on a giant earthquake fault.”

  His father laughed. “I can’t disagree with you. It is pretty damn stupid.” They all had a chuckle over it, then Sam brought up a proposition to his son. “Marky, I have a speaking engagement next week. Do you want to take a ride with me?” Mark looked at his father. This was an unusual question, as his dad never asked him to travel on business.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Chicago.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “Of course not,” his father said, obviously disappointed. Mark realized he should have just said yes.

  “You know what, Dad, I’ll go. It might be fun.”

  “Don’t worry about it. You can decide later.”

  “No, no. I’ll go. It will be fun.”

  His father was pleased. “I think so, too. We’ll have a great time. Father-son stuff. We’ll have a ball.”

  * * *

  When Stewart Bernard came home from the hospital, he appeared to be making a recovery. But one Monday morning he got out of bed and fell on the floor. He didn’t trip; it was almost like fainting. He lay there for a minute and then got up and went about his day thinking that maybe he had just eaten something bad or had a cold or something. He decided not to tell Kathy because he didn’t want her to worry, and he also felt guilty that he had now become such a financial burden. The last thing he wanted was to dump more problems on her.

  Kathy was already up and sitting at breakfast when he walked in. She looked at him for a long time. “You don’t look well.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You look white as a sheet.”

  “No, I don’t. By the way, I have a job interview this week.” Kathy was surprised, and excited. Money was such a big problem now that additional income would be extremely helpful.

  “What kind of a job?”

  “Construction coordinator.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m not sure. Bob Seagram called me and said he heard of an opening and thought I had the kind of experience that would be a plus.”

  “I don’t remember Bob Seagram.”

  “Bob worked with me at Saturn and moved to Toronto five years ago. Loves it there.”

  “What do you mean, Toronto?”

  “What do you mean, ‘what do I mean’?”

  “The job is in Toronto?”

  “Apparently.”

  “You can’t move out of the country.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because what am I going to do?”

  “Honey, I’m a burden to you here. Financially and every other way.”

  “I don’t want you to leave this house. You can find a job here; you don’t have to move out of the country.”

  Her father loved her so much. She really did care for him. He got up to give her a hug and that was the last thing he ever did. He blacked out and fell on the floor, and Kathy became hysterical. She called Emergency and described the situation, and they said they needed to confirm a beating heart before they sent a resuscitation team. In the new world, if the patient was already dead, there was no hurry; they would just ask the caller to cover the body, leave the room, and wait. Only if the person had a real chance at surviving would someone come.

  Kathy was asked to put a transmitting device, a device that every residence was required to have, on her father’s skull. Through the transmission of medical information they would tell her what their decision was. After sixty seconds Kathy heard what she was most afraid of. A passionless voice told her that the person lying there was dead. She was told to cover the body with a sheet or a blanket and wait in another room. She started screaming and throwing dishes and smashing her fist against the wall. “What the fuck! What the fuck!” And then she started to weep uncontrollably.

  She covered her father as instructed and left the kitchen. And then the strangest thing happened. She looked up Max Leonard. She had not seen him since that meeting, but he was whom she wanted in her life at this critical moment. Her father had died less than a minute earlier and she wanted to be held and comforted and told everything was going to be okay by a man she’d only met once.

  * * *

  Max Leonard had just turned twenty-eight. He was born into a lot of money, raised in Maine, and the irony was that his parents, who were still living, were rich enough to take care of themselves and would never be a burden to him. But he had always been different. He was rebellious before he even knew what the meaning of the word was. And he wasn’t like his other friends who had dough. Most of them were either spoiled or drugged out or in business with their families. Max thought it was all bullshit.

  When he quit college, much to his father’s dismay, he had joined CareCorp, a group of young people who worked for a year with underprivileged families within the United States. He was sent to a town in West Virginia. He had had no idea when he was summering on the beaches at Bar Harbor that people lived like this less than a thousand miles away, and Max became very close to his adopted family.

  He learned about life in a way that schools didn’t teach. For example, it appeared to him that people who came from great poverty seemed closer. Less divorce, no screwing around, more loyalty. It seemed that luxury brought with it a type of behavior he abhorred.

  Max was with this family when the father died of cancer, having no access to the cure. The mother was never well, drank too much, but still tried to take care of four children, and Max wound up being their surrogate dad for a period of eight months. After his year was up, the mother had gotten worse and the kids were now living with relatives. Max felt as if he had accomplished nothing, except that he had. He had changed forever. He officially rejected the destiny his parents had planned for him and vowed to be one of those people who made a difference. And he was serious.

  Instead of going back to college, he traveled. He worked with several community organizations and became a charity bum, helping out groups in different cities, seeing the world, and trying to find out what was in his soul.

  He worked in Indianapolis for a charity that helped underprivileged children, and he liked it there. The vibe felt right. So Max bought a small farm on the outskirts of town, did some sculpting and painting, and spent time with the underprivileged kids, basically living like a retired person, but it suited him. At twenty-one he inherited enough money to last him a lifetime and all that was left was to find his passion. He knew one thing: The children he was working with had lost all hope. They were not excited to grow up. They felt overwhelmed, and at such an early age. Max knew this was wrong and it had to change. That was why he held that meeting, the meeting where he met Kathy. He could get any girl he wanted, but he had never really fallen for any of them. Until now.

  Max was lifting weights when he heard her voice. He was listening to music in his earpiece and it was interrupted by the call. “Did I bother you?” Her voice was so clear, he actually looked around the room to see if she was there.

  “Who is this? Kathy?”

  “Yes, how did you know?”

  “I just did. What’s wrong?” She didn’t get much out before Max left to go to her house. In what seemed like ten minutes, he was standing at her door and she was crying in his arms. Her father was still in the kitchen.

  “How did it happen?”

  “He stood up and that was it.”

  Max walked in and took off the blanket. He stared at her dad. “He was handsome. He was a good man.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You. I know because of you.” And then they kissed. Right there, with her father on the floor. How insane, she thought. She was madly in love with this man, his tongue deep in her throat, and her father lying there, dead. She almost laughed.

  “What a strange way to ask for permission to date,” she said.

  Max looked in her eyes. He didn’t laugh or frown or make any facial expression. He just knew that this was the person he was wa
iting for. And at that moment the doorbell rang.

  “Dead body?” one of the men standing in the doorway asked.

  “In the kitchen,” Kathy said.

  The other man took all of the relevant information. He asked Kathy if he could take a quick brain wave from her. It took five seconds and nothing had to be worn, just something passed over the temple. The PTS, or Portable Truth Scanner, had been in use for almost five years. It was not admissible by itself in court, but if you failed you would be asked to take an old-fashioned lie detector test, which was admissible. And if you refused the PTS, you were thought guilty by that very fact. Even in the product’s literature they pointed out how in ninety percent of the cases that people refused to be scanned, they were lying. Refusal equaled deception.

  Kathy passed her test. They removed her father and told her he would be cremated unless she had other plans. “Other plans?” she asked. “Can you bring him back to life?”

  “No, ma’am. Of course not.”

  “Then cremate him. That’s fine.”

  Kathy went into the living room and sat down next to Max. She put her head on his shoulder and cried. One man was gone and another man had arrived. God, life is strange sometimes.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  These were the meetings the President hated the most. Anything to do with budget issues always ended badly. When he entered the room, everyone was already seated: the secretary of the Treasury, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and twelve others who always looked like the sky was falling.

  A decade and a half earlier, in 2016, the dollar’s run as the world’s reserve currency ended. It was not replaced by another, but instead a complicated shared currency went into effect in which the banks of the world, which previously held their reserves in dollars and euros, now used the renminbi, the rupee, the dollar, the euro, the pound, and a rising star, the Korean won. It was not only a complicated mess, allowing shrewd traders to profit from trading one currency against another, but Bernstein always felt that it weakened the United States. As long as the dollar was being diluted so severely, why not get rid of it in favor of a world currency?