2030

by Albert Brooks

  “No,” she said. “I expected this when I took the job. I have been preparing.”

  “Have you used the Nextron before?”

  “Yes. I love it. I was going to invest in it as a startup.”

  “Great. This will be hugely important. Obviously the better the terms you can negotiate, the more it will help us down the line, since we’ll be coming back to this trough often.”

  “I know. I believe I will have success there.”

  Then the President, for some reason he didn’t fully understand, blurted out a question that had no relevance to the topic. “Are either of your parents alive?” Susanna took a moment to change gears, but answered as if it were part of the discussion.

  “My mother died at ninety but my father is still living. He’s ninety- eight.”

  “That’s wonderful. How is he?”

  “He’s well. He had some problems with digestion, went on a feeding tube for a while, but it’s out now and he walks every day and still communicates his thoughts through a talk blog. He’s got a lot of opinions.”

  The President smiled. “Does he have a DNR?”

  Susanna looked at him for a second without answering. The President thought she didn’t know what the initials stood for so he started to tell her. “A do-not—”

  “No, sir, I know what it is. The fact is, I don’t know the answer. I know his wishes are for no excessive intervention. He certainly feels that if he is unconscious for any length of time he doesn’t want to be machined, that’s for sure.”

  “Trust me, Susanna, you should make sure it’s written down. Do it before you go to China. It’s quite something how people avoid putting that in writing. It’s as if they don’t do it, it will never happen.”

  Susanna knew exactly what was on the President’s mind. “Your mother has nothing like that?”

  “No, she doesn’t.”

  “When I get back from China, Mr. President, maybe you would take me to see her.”

  “You want to see her? Why?”

  “I would like to see what you’re dealing with. I know it’s on your mind.”

  Bernstein stood there. Look at this woman. Look at my new employee. A mother, a shrink, and hopefully the best Treasury secretary the country has ever seen. And even if she wasn’t, the first two were enough.

  * * *

  The next meeting of the—well, they really hadn’t given it a name yet—was going to be held at Kathy Bernard’s house. The house her father left her. The house still had a mortgage of half a million and that, plus the medical loan, put Kathy in the red for almost a million dollars. And she had no job. Her father did have a little money squirreled away, but all it would do was assist her in paying off the debts for a few months longer. Max wanted to help her. “I have the money,” he said. “Let me at least pay off some of the medical.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m in love with you, you know that, but it’s too soon to feel indebted.”

  “You wouldn’t be indebted. I have the money; it’s what I want to do with it.”

  “Let me just take the offer to heart and feel good about that. I don’t want you to do this right now. Maybe soon, but not now.” Max understood. It was why he liked her.

  “Are you sure you want to have the meeting here?”

  “Why not? How many people came last time?”

  “I don’t know. Fifty.”

  “So even if we double it, we can put them in the backyard. We’ll have hot dogs and drinks and it’ll be fun.”

  People were informed about the meeting through the usual channels and on a Saturday at noon, with a hundred people at the most expected, three hundred and fifty showed up. Max was blown away. Kathy was a bit panicked. People were everywhere, walking in every room, filling the yard, waiting for the bathrooms. Her small house was overwhelmed.

  It was an odd group—bikers and teachers and a lot of regular-looking people, more regular looking than last time.

  At least twenty people had on T-shirts with a picture of someone Max did not know. He was told it was Walter Masters. Someone had heard about Masters from a relative and looked him up and loved his face, so the person made the shirts and gave them out at the meeting. People wearing them really had no idea who he was. When asked, they would say, “He’s the exterminator of the old.” No one knew what that even meant, but it sounded great, and one could see how folklore gets started.

  “People!” Max yelled. “Could we get as many of you to come outside as possible? The rest, let’s get into the rooms that face the backyard and we’ll open the windows and try to have everybody participate.”

  Even though Kathy wasn’t thrilled that so many people were trampling through her house, she was impressed by the turnout. She wondered exactly what had caused it. What happened between the first meeting and now?

  Max started the proceedings. “I just want to make sure everyone is here for the right reason. We are trying to come up with solutions to make the spread of wealth fairer and give younger people the same opportunity as the olds.”

  “Who?” someone shouted. Someone else who knew yelled, “The olds. What we call the greedy old farts who take everything.” People cheered at that. Max continued.

  “Since we met last, a lot has gone down. I’m sure you know about the bombing at AARP.” The crowd burst into applause. “As far as we know it had nothing to do with anyone here, so obviously there are others who are just as angry and trying to figure out a solution. Today we want to hear ideas, real ideas, on how to change the world.”

  Kathy was quite amazed at how violent the suggestions were, at how angry the group was. One man in his thirties actually suggested a civil war. Not between the North and South but between the Young and the Old. The crowd loved this idea. Max even thought it was interesting, although he questioned how they would start it.

  The name of their group was settled on by the spontaneous chant that people burst into from time to time: “Enough is enough.” People yelled it over and over and the name stuck.

  Max realized that a group by itself was meaningless. Sure, they could picket or even get violent, but they would be shot down quickly unless they had a coherent plan. He appointed three people in charge, ones who were at the first meeting along with himself. They decided to meet in smaller groups over the next few weeks to try to give the organization a real direction. But everyone agreed that today had been a good start. Enough Is Enough was born.

  During the afternoon Kathy looked around from time to time to see if Brian Nelson showed up. He didn’t. She’d kind of hoped he would, just so she could put a period on the whole thing, but he didn’t give her that satisfaction. The truth was, she didn’t think about it for long—she was too preoccupied trying to keep hordes of people out of her closet.

  At the end of the day, as the last few people left, Max turned to Kathy and gave her a bear hug. He was so happy. “This was fucking incredible! Could you imagine how many people we would get if we had the space and the resources to let the world know? I bet a million people would come to this. The anger is everywhere.”

  “You were great,” Kathy said. “You’re a natural leader. Now you just have to decide what you want these people to do.”

  “I know. That’s the hard part. One thing I was thinking, maybe we should contact that guy on the T-shirt.”

  “Who is that?”

  “Walter Masters.”

  “What does he do exactly?”

  “He puts old people out of their misery.”

  “He murders them?”

  “I don’t know. I think he does it with their consent, but obviously something is going on there. Maybe he would join and have some ideas. I’m going to get one of the people who know him to put me in contact.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Kathy said, and she meant it, even though murdering large numbers of old people was not something at the top of her to-do list.

  * * *

  Walter Masters was ba
ck in his Kern County home after an exhausting trip to the earthquake zone. He had helped a hundred and ten people transition in Southern California, and now he was spent and a bit depressed and wondering what to do next. He couldn’t really make a living out of this; people paid him for his expenses and a nominal fee, but it was never meant to be a business. It was born out of a need to help others, and now he was tiring of it.

  He tried to keep up with his correspondence while traveling, but when he got home he had hundreds of E’s waiting for him. He had standard one-key replies that thanked people for contacting him but graciously told them he was unable to help for whatever reason he chose, distance, type of illness, age of patient, and so on. He even had a reply for when he sensed the sender might be someone trying to make trouble; it simply said, “You have the wrong person.”

  He finally got around to an E from Max Leonard, who introduced himself, gave plenty of references, and asked if they could have a face-to-face at his convenience. Not a screen meeting, but a real one. Masters was not used to people Max’s age asking for help, so he contacted him.

  “Hello?” Max said, looking unshaven and almost as if he were asleep.

  “Walter Masters here.”

  “Oh my God, hello.” Masters saw the screen go blank for a few seconds and then Max came back with a clean shirt and his hair combed. “You caught me unprepared.”

  “Sorry, do you want to do this another time?”

  “No. Not at all. I wanted to sit down with you and talk in person if you would do that.”

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing. It’s not about that. I just wanted to talk. I’m an admirer of your work and I wanted to meet you.”

  “Where are you located exactly?”

  “I’m in Indianapolis.”

  “Gee, I’m in California. I have no plans to travel east at this time.”

  “May I come and see you?”

  Masters thought a moment. He was a bit confused. “May I ask what this is about?”

  “Mr. Masters, I am head of a group called Enough Is Enough.” This was the first time Max had used the name and it sounded great. “We are concerned about the ongoing expense of allowing people to live beyond their natural lives, and you have many fans in this group. I want nothing more than just to sit in person and talk to you. I could be out there in a day.”

  “What do you mean ‘allowing people to live beyond their natural lives’?”

  “Please, I don’t want to explain everything like this. Let me come see you. Just for an hour. I promise it will at least be interesting.”

  Walter stared at Max’s face. The guy did seem smart and sincere and he had changed his shirt just to talk to him. “Come on Friday. I’ll meet you at a restaurant in the town where I live.” And Walter proceeded to give him all the particulars. He felt it was best not to invite Max to his home, but what could the harm be to meet him for an hour in a public place?

  “Thank you, sir! Thank you!” And Max disconnected and let out a cheer.

  “What is it?” Kathy asked.

  “He agreed to meet me.”

  “Who?”

  “The hero on the T-shirt. Masters.”

  “Wow. That’s great. Should I come?”

  “It’s in California. He was so hesitant that if I bring another person he might freak out. Let me fly out for a day and see if I can make him comfortable.”

  Kathy understood. It made sense to her. “That’s great,” she said. “He sounds like a genius or something. Maybe he’ll join the group.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  As the Air Force jet touched down in Beijing, Secretary Colbert was, if anything, overprepared. She knew every trade agreement the Chinese and Americans had executed in the last forty years, all the way back to 1990. She knew how much debt the United States borrowed, at what true interest rate, not just the rates published for public consumption; and she knew her counterparts—their public and private lives, everything about them. She was to meet one of the vice premiers, Hu Lanchoi, someone she was quite familiar with and someone very high up when it came to matters of finance.

  She and her party were met at the airport with dancing girls and beautiful flowers and taken to a private residence that was used for foreign dignitaries. Susanna had been to China more times than she could count. She even spoke the language fairly well, although on this trip everyone used the Nextron.

  The Nextron was the breakthrough in translation that people had been waiting for forever. It made learning another language almost obsolete. Decades earlier, software was introduced that turned many devices, like cell phones, into translation machines, but they all had their share of problems. People had to speak slowly and carefully and do voice training, and the devices still made too many mistakes. The Nextron was the first stand-alone device that was error-free. People spoke normally, looking directly at the other person, and the small box, half the size of a paperback book, not only translated without mistakes but could project images, play music, record video, and do everything else one would need to do in a business environment. Travelers carried them around like a credit card, and in restaurants and hotels and meeting places all over the world one could hear the din of people talking in their native language, with one of six different voices that were available to choose from, translating perfectly.

  When Susanna entered the meeting, along with her undersecretaries, the table was filled with Nextrons, supplied by the host country for those who didn’t bring theirs, but people never forgot. It was the one true “Don’t leave home without it” device. Susanna impressed her host by speaking Chinese in her initial greetings, but once the meeting started in earnest the Nextrons began whirring away.

  After the perfunctory hellos and small talk, Susanna wasted no time. “I’m sure you have been following our great troubles in Southern California. Even you, who are used to earthquakes, can understand that such a magnitude in a city as populated as Los Angeles is something that can never be comprehended until it actually happens.”

  Lanchoi listened sympathetically, but he was thinking, You should have been prepared for this; we are.

  And the Chinese were. They had suffered massive destruction over the last century by several devastating earthquakes in their smaller villages, and even though fault lines were less likely to erupt in their big population centers, the Chinese initiated retrofitting of buildings to an extent not attempted before by any nation. Every structure over three stories high had rubber joints and bearings fused to the foundation. When retrofitted, a building could sway up to four times more than it could with its original design. The friction would eat away at the rubber and leave the building itself intact.

  All Chinese skyscrapers erected after 2017 had foundations and floor joints that could twist and bend like straws. They were built to withstand a 9.0 quake, which was something that was never expected in Beijing or Shanghai, but they did it anyway. Lanchoi wondered why Los Angeles, which was on a known major fault, would not do the same, but then again, the two countries operated in a totally different manner.

  As Susanna made her case, which was basically, “We need three trillion dollars today and more later,” Lanchoi smiled and nodded, and everything looked as if it were going to be a fait accompli. But when Secretary Colbert finished her “plea speech,” as one of her assistants called it, they were all shocked at what came back to them over the Nextron. Hu Lanchoi spoke very, very fast, faster than a human translator could ever keep up with, but it was no problem for the machine. And the entire time he was talking he had a smile on his face.

  “First and foremost, we understand the disaster that has befallen you, and if there is anything on the humanitarian side that we are not doing, let us know and we will fill in those gaps immediately. However, we can no longer lend the United States this kind of money.”

  When Susanna heard that, she didn’t flinch. Maybe he meant they would only loan two trillion, which would be a disappointment, but at least it w
ould be a start.

  He continued. “We feel connected and close to your country, but the time has come to end the borrowing of these great sums. As you know, your debt to us is bordering on fifteen trillion dollars, and yes, you pay back with fair interest, but you are a bottomless pit and we no longer feel comfortable feeding it. There are other countries in the world that may feel more comfortable with such a large loan, but we do not. And we beg you not to take this personally. If any country came to us at this point in time and asked for three trillion dollars, we would be unable to accommodate them, so please, do not think this is just about you.”

  Susanna had to laugh. As if any country other than the U.S. would ask China for three trillion dollars, and as if any other country but China could loan that kind of money. The United States already owed India a trillion dollars and had even borrowed five hundred billion from Indonesia in 2022. Without China, there was no one left.

  Susanna really didn’t know what to say. She felt angry and would have lashed out if this was just an old-fashioned economic discussion, but it wasn’t. She was representing the United States as its Treasury secretary and she had to be careful not to antagonize what was slowly becoming an unpleasant situation. “So let me be clear, Mr. Vice Premier. Is the number too large, or is the whole idea of further lending now soured? What exactly is the issue?”

  “I would say both.”

  “Both? So China has made a decision to no longer be the lender of choice to the United States?”

  “No, I would not say that. There are smaller amounts, a hundred billion here or a hundred billion there, where I am sure we could work something out. But for the amounts you are now talking about, I would say this is no longer viable.”

  For the first time Susanna looked visibly shaken. Lanchoi smiled in sympathy. “Madame Secretary, I am not saying we cannot offer help, just not in this fashion.”

  “Yes, I know what you said. You would be happy to offer more humanitarian assistance, but that is not what we are looking for.”