Immortality

Начало книги

Sixty years.

Sweet Jesus, had it been that long?

But of course it had. The year was now 2023, and then—

Then it had been 1963.

The year of the march on Washington.

The year JFK had been assassinated.

The year I—

No, no, I didn’t want to think about that. After all, I’m sure he never thinks about it… or about me.

I’d been seventeen in 1963. And I’d thought of myself as ugly, an unpardonable sin for a young woman.

Now, though…

Now, I was seventy-seven. And I was no longer homely. Not that I’d had any work done, but there was no such thing as a homely—or a beautiful -woman of seventy-seven, at least not one who had never had treatments. The only adjective people applied to an unmodified woman of seventy-seven was old.

My sixtieth high-school reunion.

For some, there would be a seventieth, and an eightieth, a ninetieth, and doubtless a mega-bash for the hundredth. For those who had money—real money, the kind of money I’d once had at the height of my career—there were pharmaceuticals and gene therapies and cloned organs and bodily implants, all granting the gift of synthetic youth, the gift of time.

Читать дальше →