This Is the End Read Free

say about it?—I wait for the eventual “ How are you going to treat it? ” question. It comes from a representative of MSNBC, state-run media if ever there was one in this country. Everyone thinks that Fox News is the GOP-run television network, which, of course, they are, but nobody ever questions where MSNBC gets all their funding from. Let me put that to rest: your tax dollars. I’m rich—I don’t pay taxes.
    “I’ve decided to freeze myself,” I say, and a very literal hush falls over the crowd, even the protestors have shut up at this point.
    Someone starts laughing. I don’t know who it is exactly or else I would have called them out on it personally, so I look out at the crowd and smile.
    “I’m sorry, I don’t find any of this funny. This isn’t a joke; I’m going to freeze myself until they find a cure.” People stop laughing. Instantly fingers move across touchscreens. I can feel the zoom lenses coming in on my face like planes on King Kong, but I’m the emperor, I have the last laugh.
    “You can’t be serious?” asks one of the microbloggers, who I absolutely know for a fact wasn’t shit until my app’s advertising feature catapulted them into the big time.
    “No, I’m very serious about all of this. I’m going to freeze myself until they find a cure, and then, when you’re either all too old or all too dead to report on it, I’m going to wake up and live out the rest of my filthy rich life.”
    I look right into the microblogger’s face and smile. I want him to know he may have a couple million, but I have nearly half a trillion in capital, liquid-fucking-capital, to do whatever I want with.
    “What about your company?” asks one of the manicured plastic surgery beauties from Fox News.
    “Look, everything will continue on. We have more than enough money to continue to destroy your brains with our apps for years to come,” I say. People chuckle.
    Then I start hitting them with big fucking atom bombs of truth. This was the plan all along. Okay, not all along, but at least since I found out I have cancer. I let the cigarette drop and grind it into the composite concrete steps that run under the small platform the podium is set up on.
    “In fact, we’re working with both the DHS and NSA on a project right now that will totally compromise the intelligence of generations to come.”
    I smile again and then let my face go serious. They smile back, but then start to get it. I’m not joking. I’m not having a laugh with them; I’m laughing at them.
    “Are you being serious?” asks someone else from the megacorporations. I look right over to the Prison Planet.com guys.
    “Yes, Alex Jones and his staff had it mostly right. I couldn’t be more serious. Though, to tell you the truth, Alex works for the CIA as well. I mean, hasn’t anyone wondered why he’s still on the air if he’s exposing real secrets?”
    The crowd across the street goes wild with venomous joy, some of them even applaud. The journalists representing Prison Planet.com aren’t having fun anymore.
    Everyone else begins to yell. It’s a feeding frenzy of questions. My security guys become restless. A cop puts another frail-looking student, this one appears to be a man or boy or whatever, that was attempting to reach our side of the road into the pavement.
    “He was right about my corporation working with the two agencies; he was half-right about the facial recognition and biometric scanning software that allows you to tag your ‘friends,’ and almost right about my whole company being propped up by the government.”
    Fingers are moving at speeds that are probably not supposed to be possible for jointed appendages. Someone yells my name and I look over and point.
    “Why should we believe any of this?” they ask.
    I let that one sit for a minute. And then, when I’m ready, I smile and flash the five thousand buck beauties at them and say, “Because…I’m fucking dying.”
    * * *
    The news conference lasts