The End Specialist. Drew Magary

“You cannot avoid God’s judgment. Not even if you live for another hundred thousand years. This planet and the sun that keeps it alight are all fleeting. There is no ‘forever’ down here and to believe so is a blasphemy. That’s why, from this point forward, the Vatican officially condemns the taking of the cure as a sin and an excommunicable, unforgivable offense.”

      The pope’s words were met mostly with silent reverence from the crowd. But thousands protested outside the stadium, nearly all of them in their teens and twenties.

      “The pope hasn’t condemned us,” countered Sasha Delvic, a twenty-three-year-old student. “It’s his church he’s just condemned—to a life of obscurity. How can he expect the people of his faith to accept dying while everyone else out there goes on being happy and healthy? It’s insane. He’ll lose constituents by the millions.

      “No one should listen to him,” she added, “he’s just a stupid old man.”

      It is believed the pope chose to deliver his address in Budapest as an attempt to pressure the Hungarian government to begin drafting anti-cure legislation. But thus far, here in one of the youngest countries on the planet according to median age, very few government officials appear willing to speak out in favor of doing so.

      When I was a kid, I saw religion as insurance against death. It’s what the preachers on the TV used to say. You’re better off believing in God, they’d warn you, just in case. Because you’d hate to arrive at the gates of heaven a nonbeliever and find out the Christians had been right all along. It was a pretty ingenious line of thinking. It almost made me want to go to church. Not enough to actually go, but still.

      I wonder if we’ve completely flipped the script on that now. I wonder if the cure represents insurance against religion. Because what if the pope is wrong? If I forgo the cure and end up dying at seventy to please a Lord who turns out not to exist, I’m gonna feel like a real jackass. Isn’t it better to live an extra thousand years or so, just in case?

      I guess I’ll find out at some point. Some very, very distant point. Twelve more days till the cure.

      Date Modified: 6/8/2019, 7:05PM

      “I’m Always Gonna Get

       My Period”

      Until the other night, I hadn’t told anyone that I’m in the middle of getting the cure. I didn’t tell my dad or my sister or anyone at work—didn’t consult them either. They don’t know I’ve done it, and I sure as hell don’t know if they have. I didn’t even tell the banker friend who gave me the address. For one thing, I haven’t finished the process yet, so I’d feel a bit foolish telling everyone I was about to live forever, only to find out a week from now that my doctor was caught and thrown in Rikers.

      But more to the point, I have yet to meet a single person who has publicly admitted it. I think we’ve all collectively adopted the unspoken rule that you don’t mention it out in the open. Like getting a nose job. Every discussion I’ve had about it has been conducted strictly in hypothetical terms. “Would you get it?” “What if it were legal? Would you get it then?” “Would you fly to Brazil and do it? I heard about a bunch of people at work who are taking sudden ‘vacations’ to Rio.” Stuff like that. But no one has ever said to me, “Yes, I got it”—which is just so weird. Clearly, people are going to get it. If a random person like me can go have it done, I have to assume I’m not alone. But I suppose there’s just too much uncertainly right now to go around parading the fact.

      Anyway, I was more than happy to keep all this to myself. But Katy got it out of me. She’s an interrogator, my roommate. Aggressively interested in other people. Present her with wine, and she’ll pepper you with questions until you feel as if you’re under a hot lamp. She delights in extracting key information from you and then playing with it—stretching it out and bouncing it against the walls until she grows bored with it.

      We were sitting in our apartment, watching the news. They were doing their nightly cure story, and Katy turned to me, clear out of the blue. She was squinting one eye.

      “Did you get it?”

      “What? No.”

      “Oh, my God,” she said. “You are the absolute worst liar ever.”

      “I’m not lying.”

      “You fell dead silent when that report came on just now. Don’t try to hide it. I have excellent cure-dar.”

      “Cure-dar?”

      “Uh huh. Remember when I said Jesse Padgett had it done? She totally did. You could tell because she’d clam right up whenever the subject came up. Just like you did there. You should look in the mirror. Your face is so red right now. You look like a giant tomato.”

      “Aw, Jesus.”

      “You did it! You did it! You did it! I can’t believe this. You slippery bastard!”

      She got the confession in record time and beamed in delight at the accomplishment. Her eyes bugged and she smiled proudly. She has a snaggletooth and loves to flaunt it as a distinguishing feature.

      “Don’t go broadcasting this all over the place, all right?”

      “Oh, I won’t tell anyone,” she said. “I promise you that. But you’re gonna tell me everything.”

      “They haven’t even finished yet.”

      “They haven’t finished? What do they do to you? Tell me, tell me, tell me. I heard you get sixty shots, all in the armpit.”

      “No. They just took my blood, and then a week from now they give me three shots. That’s it.”

      “That’s it? Holy underwear. What did it cost?”

      “Seven thousand bucks.”

      “Seven grand?”

      “Shh!”

      “That’s nothing! That’s less than nothing! I once expensed a tab at Lusardi’s that was bigger than that! You have to tell me how to do it.”

      “I can’t.”

      “Oh, bullshit.”

      “This doctor will only take direct referrals from a small circle of people he knows, and one of them happens to be a friend. No extra degrees of separation beyond that. It’s like a drug dealer, I swear.”

      “So just give me your guy’s name and I’ll say I know him.”

      “I can’t.”

      “Oh, please. Who made you guardian of the fountain? What—is this like your little boys’ club? Do you all go get the cure and then take a naked swim together? Is that it?”

      “I just don’t want to get anyone in trouble. They asked me not to refer anyone.”

      “This is so unfair. Who’s the guy you know? Is it Schilling? I bet it’s Schilling.”

      “No…”

      Another crooked, triumphant grin.

      “It is! This is amazing. I don’t even need a polygraph. All I have to do is ask you a question and wait for your head to blow up.”

      “Regardless, you still need the address and phone number from me.”

      “Well, why hold it back? Honestly. Give me one good reason, apart from your little pinky swear not to, that I don’t deserve the information and you do. I’ve never known you to be timid about anything. But I ask you about this and you turn into a mute. Come on. Don’t be so annoying. It’s not like people won’t find out at some point that you’re having it done. In fact, judging by how quickly I found out, the whole city should know by morning.”

      “Okay. Fine. I will give you all the information. After I’ve gotten the final shots a week from now. And, you have to pay the cable bill for six months.”

      “What?”

      “Referral