This Is the End Read Online Free Page A

coffee maker in the kitchen begins to brew a fresh pot of coffee. I ask Phil if he wants a cup and he shakes his head no.
    “Down to business, then?” I ask him. He begins tapping his tablet and I watch as the other screens mounted around the desk console come to life and start scrolling pictures of the nearly completed cryogenic chamber that I’m going to be freezing myself in. I watch as men in white, freeze-dried space suits assemble the last few pieces.
    Tubes jut at angry angles from every side; there are huge tanks that I presume hold the stuff that they are going to use to freeze my body strapped to the wall next to the large glass coffin-like structure where my actual physical body will be placed. I won’t be in there just rotting from the inside either; I’ll be under going chemotherapy in there as well as some of the latest organic and chemical treatments that my money can buy. There’s also a failsafe, a just-in-case, built in to the life support systems. I mean, you can’t be too careful when you’re undergoing one of the first long-term freezes of the twenty-first century.
    I hear the coffee as it finishes brewing and move to get a cup. It’s one of the last cups of coffee I’ll have in a long, long time. It’s delicious.
     

4.
    Phil and I discuss the status of my “Freeze chamber.” I opted for that description being used as “Cryotank” sounds a bit too Goth for my tastes, but really you could call it a high-tech meat freezer for all I care. As long as it works the way it’s supposed to and I come out alive in the end, I don’t give a shit. We talk about the company’s holdings, the future, the apps and developments that I want the company to focus on, and a couple of last minute changes to my “Living will”—all digital and pre-recorded versions.
    Then we move to some of the black ops, skunkworks stuff that we’ve been working on: hybrid stealth holographic projection membranes for tanks and planes, railgun technology for the Navy and, of course, a couple of chemical and neurological weapons. I don’t like the way I have to do business, but you’re fooling yourself if you think that you can take money from the government and not owe them something for it.
    I told most of the truth today at the press conference, or at least the amount of truth that I can really tell when it comes to the company’s involvement with the government. But I’ve also come to realize, all intended Star Wars references aside, that the truth, the real truth, really just means “a certain point of view.”
    Phil continues to try and explain how we’re developing a crowd control aerosol dispersant with some name that I can’t pronounce even if I have it phonetically spelled out for me. I’m really good at computers—coding and scripting languages, data management, HTML and CSS 6—meaningless, fake and intrinsically ethereal things like that. Hardcore scientific shit like this on the other hand, has and will always be a mystery to me.
    It’s nearly midnight after we call the day officially done. I’ve almost finished off a second pot of coffee and Phil looks less like a statue and more like the tired and graying high-powered lawyer that he is. I smile at him and tell him to call it an early night.
    He gets up and we shake hands. I put my finger on the console and the magnetic locks click open, allowing the doors to swivel open slightly. The second shift security guys glance into the room and then hold open the big, heavy doors for Phil as he exits. They release and the doors automatically close. I’ve got a few things to do before I can get to bed, but I pass out at the desk somewhere around one thirty, maybe later.
    * * *
    When I used to dream, I used to have the same dream over and over again, almost every night. I say almost because, on the nights that I wouldn’t have the same dream, I wouldn’t dream at all. But more to the point, I’ve been having the same dream for nearly thirty years, which