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trading in time stolen from other people’s bodies like super
expensive drugs.
Everything suddenly went out of control. And there was
nothing left for the authorities to do except to recognize
the fact that there was civil war on the streets, just instead
of machine guns, chronomatizers were operating. And
there was no end to this war, because the greed for time is
continually fertilized by the passage of time itself, and no
one ever will be satisfied by enough everlasting youth, and
no one will ever renounce their desire to freeze their
biological age at its apogee.
The authorities couldn’t cope with this battle. So they
began to profit from it instead.
September 2041
THE YOUNG ELDERLY
Torne jumped across the fence of the small playground,
from which agonizing moans were echoing. He tidied up
the strands of gray hair dropping over his brow and
strained his weakened eyesight. On the artificial playing
surface, two old men in jerseys with the names and
numbers of basketball stars were in agony. An abandoned
basketball sat between them. Streetlights glowed weakly,
from time to time emitting a neurotic hum. Torne looked