Click cover to enlarge it
Maxwell Alexander eased back in his plush desk chair and swung around toward the massive grey-tinted window behind him. Only two weeks ago, he had been able to gaze down unblinkingly through the golden May sunlight to the traffic-clogged Los Angeles intersection five stories below, but summer had come scorching in on the heels of spring and now the air shimmered with heat and a hazy blinding glare. The sky seemed to drop down suddenly thick with smog, like a stifling shroud over the sprawling city. The newspapers had been reporting that the level of air pollution was critical and had already reached the danger point twice during the past week. As usual, the papers had blamed it on the complexes of heavy industry that surrounded the city and editorial writers were crying out for more stringent anti-pollution measures.
With an impatient snort, Max turned his chair back around toward his broad mahogany desk and picked up the latest copy of New World Steel, Alexander Steel Company’s bi-weekly magazine. He grinned perniciously at the striking cover photograph that met his gaze–a shapely, long-legged blonde sunbathing next to a sparkling bright blue river with a few gleaming white smoke-stacks rising over the trees in the background, gently puffing out pale balls of smoke into the unsullied sky. The caption read: “Pollution–What’s All the Fuss About?” Even though the picture had been taken months ago, it still amused him to think of how he had been keen enough to take advantage of a steelworkers’ strike to scrub down those smoke-stacks and then burn tons of newsprint in the huge furnaces to produce that innocent-looking white smoke.
Fictional reading for entertainment purposes only.