2030_ The Real Story of What Happens to America - Albert Brooks [60]
“What the fuck!” Max said. “That was his goddamn kid!”
“No. Are you sure?”
“Of course. Same name. Backstage. I bet the creep was sending his own kid out to spy on us.”
“Do you really think so?”
“They’re not stupid. They have to wonder why anyone under a hundred would even attend this thing. That was pretty sneaky to have the kid try and dig up information.”
“Jesus,” Kathy said. “I never thought of that.”
As the auditorium filled, Kathy and Max were stunned by the age of the crowd. Even older than they had anticipated. “Do you see this?”
“I see it.”
“These people are dinosaurs. The last generation that had it all. Now we take care of them. What’s wrong with this picture?”
Kathy looked around. It was hard to hate older people she didn’t even know, but these people had had so much plastic surgery and had so many new advanced drugs coursing through their veins that they didn’t look as decrepit as she expected. They looked like they would live forever and keep taking and taking. Why did my father have to die young and these people don’t even look sick? That made her angry.
When Sam Mueller was introduced, he received a standing ovation. His lecture lasted about ninety minutes. He showed many visuals and tried to keep everything from sounding too technical. He told of the exciting advancements in longevity that Immunicate was working on, and when he said, “We are on the verge of keeping the human being alive for one hundred and fifty years,” the crowd went wild. This made both Max and Kathy the angriest they had been the entire night.
“That’s all we fucking need,” Max said. And yet as he sat there, he knew that being angry wasn’t going to change anything. But what could he do?
When the lecture was over they stayed in their seats, watching the old people file out. After everyone was gone they walked outside and saw Sam Mueller and his son exit the stage door. Sam did not see them, but Mark did. His eye caught Max’s and they stared at each other for a few seconds. Mark smiled. Max did not. And that was the end of their first encounter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The private jet landed quietly at Washington Dulles International. A car was waiting for Susanna Colbert, and it took her to the Hay-Adams Hotel, a hotel she was very familiar with. She even had a favorite suite. When she was CEO of HomeInc she would come to Washington often, acting as her own lobbyist.
HomeInc was a builder of gated communities, a soup-to-nuts organization that procured the land and constructed everything. It started out building retirement centers, but noticed there was a need for high-end security housing. Many areas where rich people lived were accessible to anyone who had a car, and as time went on, people wanted guards. It was always thought that if someone had enough money, they would shy away from developments. But HomeInc read the market right, and luxury communities with prebuilt ten-to-fifteen-thousand-square-foot homes became its bread and butter.
They would provide their own financing, and their genius was that each community would look unique. People would not know there was a plan behind it from visiting just one development. All the homes looked absolutely original. But in different cities the development was exactly the same. Instead of duplicating homes in the same area, like most developments, they duplicated the entire gated community, so unless someone went from his street in Long Island to the same street in Palo Alto, he would never feel as if he were living in a luxury tract. This way the company kept the design and building costs to a minimum and its profits were enormous.
Susanna stayed with HomeInc for fifteen years and then started The Card. The Card was a superexclusive credit card that required a high income level and came with a large annual fee. For that, owners received special treatment in the world’s finest hotels, restaurants,