I reach out a finger and hit the Scan key, and the talking head’s voice is replaced by the assembly-line blast of some neoindustrial hit. Christ knows, I’m not one of those drekheads who look back on some mythically ideal "good old days," some Camelot golden age when everything was fragging peachy and everybody loved everybody else, but sometimes I can’t shake the feeling that some evil drek’s started going down recently. Maybe it’s just my Lone Star background, but whenever someone officially and vehemently denies the truth of any rumor, I start taking fragging precautions. VITAS 4? Just fragging wonderful. How many people did VITAS 3 take down forty-some years ago? One-plus percent of the world’s population. Something like fifty million deaders—if I haven’t slipped a decimal point somewhere.