and Amy took a taxi to the Four Seasons, H.G. gazing morosely out the window at the nighttime opulence of Beverly Hills, its gleaming motorcars, its chic people outside clubs lit in vivid colors, the darkness hiding the less fortunate, the flotsam and jetsam of this roller-coaster world. He didn’t share his dashed hopes for an enlightened world-state in the twenty-first century with Amy. He didn’t share his realization that in 2010 the only likely Citizen of the World he would find was himself. He didn’t tell her that the monster had phoned and taunted him with his grim knowledge. And, no, he didn’t tell her that he was preoccupied with the end of the world. So they rode in silence, Amy thinking that H.G. didn’t want to talk in front of the cabdriver, and H.G. trying to calculate the year mankind had blown up the planet. If the worst was going to happen, he wanted proof, so he ran the numbers through his brain again. If Amy had arrived at the Getty at 12:01 A.M., that meant . . .
