Seconds later my world fades to black.
61HARRISON
The future is looking a lot brighter all of a sudden.
I heave the suitcases into the trunk of the Mini. One is much heavier than the other, and I have to shove them hard to make them fit. Then I squeeze myself into the driver’s seat, wishing I could take my own car to the airport instead. I can’t because the police might be looking for it—and with cameras everywhere these days checking license plates, they could find me in no time—but I’m going to miss my Porsche. Eden was upset when I bought what she called my midlife crisis car without talking to her first, but I earned it. Along with everything else I own. I worked bloody hard for all of it, and I won’t let the countless sacrifices I have made be for nothing.
I turn on the engine and pull out of the driveway. A few minutes later I’m on the winding country lanes that are like veins throughout Blackmoor National Park. There are no streetlights and it couldn’t be any darker tonight. The car’s headlamps struggle to light the way in the thick mist that seems to have descended over the whole area. What I wouldn’t give for a decent stretch of road right now. I should be driving in the other direction, toward London Heathrow and my ticket out of here, but there is just one more thing I need to do.
Death comes for us all but we waste time wondering why insteadof when. Finding out how young I might die made me question everything about the life I had lived. All the highs, the lows, the regrets. I have been addicted to ambition my whole life. Working, but not living, my eyes fixed on a lonely prize. Because that’s all success really is, it’s all it can ever be. There are winners in life, and there are losers. Nobody ever remembers the runner-up.
I thought my work was my greatest achievement, but then life held up a mirror and I finally saw all my mistakes. My wife was my biggest regret. My daughter was my best accomplishment, and yet I had let her down, over and over again. I don’t know how I managed to miss seeing that for so long. I realized that all that really mattered to me was my daughter: everything else had always been about and for her.
And yet I’d let them lock her up in a glorified prison.
I had this moment of clarity where I finally understood I’d spent my whole life looking the wrong way. I’d wasted almost all the time I’d been givenworking. And for what? For who? To make a dead mother proud? My work had made me a wealthy man, but I might have had a richer life had I spent more time with my family and less time on my career, and understanding that too late made me miserable.
I tried all the normal things men my age do when faced with a midlife crisis. I bought an expensive car, but it didn’t make me happy. I had an affair, not even my first, but it didn’t make me happy. I thought about quitting my job, and that thought didn’t make me very happy either, until I realized how much I could sell Thanatos for. If I could just gather enough evidence to prove my theories, there were bigger companies out there who would pay a fortune to provide a reliable date-of-death service. Because everybody wants to know when they are going to die, right?
Wrong.
Once I knew how little time I had left I wished I didn’t.
And I didn’t find out my end date from Thanatos. I died, withoutwarning, when I had a heart attack while sitting at my desk working late, running a company that should have predicted it. Ain’t irony a bitch. I was clinically dead for ten minutes. It was only luck that a colleague walked past my office door and saw me slumped over my keyboard. I was resuscitated, brought back to life, but I was never the same.
The doctors who treated me afterward said if I didn’t reduce my stress it was only a matter of time until it happened again, and that my chances of survival would be dramatically less. Eden begged me to quit my job and move out of London, but how could I abandon Thanatos? I’d accomplished big things after a somewhat small start in life, I was so close to achieving my dream, but the things I believed were important changed overnight.
I thought knowing how long we have to live would be a good thing.
But I was wrong.
Knowledge is power but there are some things it is better not to know. Besides, Thanatos failed to predict my date of death accurately, which was a bit disheartening after all those years of research. Each time I used my bespoke algorithm on myself I got a different end date. Every bloody time. Not that I shared that information with anyone else.
Thanatos had started life as a DNA-testing kit firm on the internet. Peoplepaidto give me their most personal information in exchange for a bullshit report about their genetic makeup and predisposition to certain illnesses. They literally paidmeto sendthema box full of swabs, sample pots, and questionnaires, then diligently posted highly sensitive data back to an anonymous post office box. People being naive about the value of their own DNA funded the first stage of Thanatos.
Once I had enough free data from dimwitted participants, I launched an aggressive campaign to get the rest of what I needed to attract big investors. I targeted people Iknewwould die soon, usinga combination of NHS health records—which should be private and protected but are only too easy to access—medical health insurance claims to target patients who were starting investigations but not yet diagnosed, combined with algorithms taken from supermarkets highlighting those with poor diets or a regular higher-than-average household spend on alcohol. Nothing is private these days. Everything you buy online is available for anyone to see if you know how. Every thought you think that you are dumb enough to share on social media is out there for people like me to take advantage of. I can’t tell when a person is going to die just from looking at them, but with the combined efforts of AI and a few bespoke tests, it seemed there might be a way.
Until I failed to predict my own date of death correctly.
I would have figured it out eventually. I was so damn close to perfecting the algorithm, I’m sure of it. But then Olivia Bird walked into the clinic on Harley Street. Seeing her again after all these years, after what she did, resulted in a variety of rage I hadn’t felt for a long time. I honestly don’t know whether the date of death I gave her is correct, but in theorytodayis her end date. Nobody except me knows the algorithm sometimes gets it wrong. I guess she’ll find out one way or the other soon. I do know that her visit to Thanatos that day turned my whole world upside down.
Everything I have and haven’t done since has been to protect my daughter. I won’t be around forever, and then both her parents will be gone. So I sold the company, tonight, just now, for that reason and ten billion others.
The world population is estimated to be ten billion by 2026. Human beings are already the most dangerous species on the planet. When people know they are dying anyway, and have nothing left to lose, they’ll take the rest of the world down with them knowing they’ll never have to pay the price. When you remove consequences, you get chaos. Even people you would never have thought capable of murder can turn into monsters when they think their time is up.So I have reached the unhappy conclusion that Thanatos is a terrible idea, which is why I had to sell it.
Then kill it.
But I didn’t kill my wife.
Iwantedto murder Eden, but I didn’t.
A world without consequences terrifies me. Imagine if a world leader with access to nuclear weapons knew they were dying and decided to take the rest of us with them? Or a mass murderer who knew they were going to die anyway going on a final killing spree. Because ofme. Because of my invention. I don’t want to be a part of that. I thought I was offering a cure, but now I fear I am just a symptom of the disease that killed humanity.
But the money I’ve made from selling the company now, before I’d planned to, is more than enough to take care of my daughter when I am gone. So at least I might have got one thing right.
“Siri, call The Manor,” I say, still not slowing down even though I can barely see the road ahead thanks to the fog. The phone rings once. Twice. Three times. Why the fuck don’t they answer? Why doesnobodydo their bloody jobs anymore? The planet seems to be populated with nothing but lazy, work-shy, entitled, two-for-one arseholes these days. All looking for a free ride. No wonder the world is fucking fucked.
“Hello, this is The Manor. How can I—”
