Whatever the reason for the global warming turn-around was, he didn't really care. He had never had any use for environmentalists nor industrialists and politicians who pandered to their demands. There had been too many times in his life when do-good scientists got in the way of his plans. Sometimes he had managed to prevail, others not.

But he also didn't care because he was sure that human beings were stubborn and inventive enough to ensure their survival in the most desperate of climates, environmental or political. He counted on it. He exploited it.

He was so deep in thought, he basically ignored what was going on the street below. A mugger had left a little old lady sprawled on a street corner, crying for help. She was lying amidst her groceries, her hip broken. Passers-by looked at her with curiosity until the cops came. Their quick response was only due to the fact that they were already close by attending to a crash involving a delivery truck and a car stolen by three teenagers on a joy ride. On almost every block there were hookers displaying their wares; many, with their silicon implants and collagen enlarged lips, were almost caricatures of the female anatomy. It was a typical New York City dawn, the kind the nihilistic poets liked to write about.

Once known as Vladimir Kalinin, then as Rupert Snyder, and now as Sergio Battaglia, he was a survivor. He had grown up in a Leningrad slum with yet another name, one that mattered little neither then nor now since he didn't know who his father was, other than through that name. His mother, a prostitute, died from TB at twenty-seven. The young boy of ten became a ward of the state, an orphan in a country in chaos.