"Kit Reed - Freezing Geezers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Kit)

One thing his father the company president taught him was, always leave the meeting while it's going well.

As a prospect for Vitality Eternal, Barry is a natural. Besides, and this is a dead secret. After a lifetime of
being Mr. Super Happy Fun Guy on top of all the stress that comes with running a megacorporation,
Barry is, frankly, a little tired.

He has, furthermore, made a very special arrangement here.

Usually Vitality Eternal expects its clients to be legally dead before they touch them, in order to avoid
trouble with the law. Of course they intervene at the exact moment when the important parts of you are
still functional, but according to the law anybody they touch had better be legally dead. Why, that's
dangerously close to being a corpse! No cliff-hangers for this chicken. He only plays games he can win.

Barry knows better than anybody how loud money talks and he's convinced the good people at Vitality
Eternal to begin the process while his physical assets are still intact.

Which is what they are doing at this very moment, as in a semi-drugged state which the director advised
him is the prelude to suspending his functions without turning him to ice, he wonders why instead of being
lulled, he is tense and alert. He is on a table in the Center for Operations in this unique facility in a location
which, for security purposes, has never been disclosed.

"You understand," the director told him at their last conference before the signing, "this makes you one of
the chosen few. You're part of our very, very special pilot project," he went on. He dressed too much
like an undertaker to suit Barry, but he offset it with that reassuring, essential winners'-circle smile. "Only
a very few strong, exceptional, directed people are willing to make the assurances necessary for us to
allow them to pre-die."

At the time, Barry was flattered. When he wakes up, he'll be with people like himself. Hard driving.
Exceptional. Special. That's me.

"No underground storage tanks for our premium clients," the director said, without saying exactly how
many there are. "For you and others like you," he concluded, "We have designed luxury accommodations
in a very, very special place."

Now Barry is at the heart of the operation. He is strapped to the suspension table in the great central
dome in a massive underground installation whose location is so secret that instead of having the
chauffeur drop him or letting him take one last run in his breezy convertible to get here, Vitality Eternal
came for him in a closed car. Of the gigantic buried complex, only the dome protrudes. The inverted
teacup where he is lying, he's relieved to see, is designed to provide the suspended with reflected views
of the tips of palm trees and the gorgeous, constantly changing Florida skies.

"We can't tell you," the director said when Barry finally signed the papers, "exactly how much the
suspended perceive, but we have made the environment as pleasant as possible for our very few, very
special clients who have the wits and the will to pre-die. We can't know whether they are alert or even
aware once we have completed the process, or in healthy stasis until the next phase. What we can tell
you is that you'll never be alone at Vitality Eternal, and you'll never be un-tended. As long as you're here
at V.E. you will receive excellent, excellent care in surroundings designed to keep you happy and edified.
At night, whether or not you can see them, we will keep non-stop motion pictures running in our three
dozen suspension pods, all the latest movies showing on our three dozen individual frostproof screens.
Now, if you're ready..."