Transhumanist Wager, The (14 page)

After spending the night near an
ancient Jain temple, Jethro and Zoe continued towards Tultican Peak the
following morning. Even though the summer air was chilly 13,000 feet up in the
mountains, snow from nearby glaciers was still melting. The trail became muddy
and treacherous as it followed thousand-foot cliffs, steeply winding its way
towards the top, where a legendary Himalayan vantage point awaited. Jethro, who
let Zoe lead so he could watch her closely, soon insisted she tie to him with a
fifteen-foot rope, in case one of them fell. He became progressively more
worried about her as the hours passed. She wasn’t careless in her hiking, but
the terrain demanded a healthy dose of caution. She possessed none, tromping on
wobbly rocks and occasionally slipping in the mud. Once, she barely caught
herself before stumbling over a sheer drop-off. Out here, Jethro thought, one
wrong step and it's sure death. There would be no chance of survival. Even
getting to a fallen body could prove impossible.

The couple spoke little during the
long day of hiking. Jethro purposely avoided conversation. Twice she tried to
make him divulge his feelings about their relationship, when they stopped for a
drink on the path. Jethro was not prepared to do that yet. His heart was a
puzzle. The conflict in him, between her Zenlike acceptance of the universe and
his aggressive, egocentric views on transhumanism, was growing. A dangerous
tempest was gathering in their future. He knew it. She knew it. Zoe wanted to
rip him apart and help him find peace, wanted to show him there was no conflict
and never could be. There was just their love. And fate. Jethro disagreed.

Near sundown, exhausted, they
camped alongside a cliff. Jethro held Zoe tightly throughout the entire night.
Four feet away the mountain dropped off sharply. Even going to the bathroom was
dangerous. In the morning they cooked a small breakfast and packed up. After
three hours of walking, they reached the small Hindu shrine atop Tultican Peak.
Jethro sat down cross-legged near the edge of a rock face, looking like a
Buddhist monk, absorbing the panoramic vista. Miles below them, an alpine
forest merged into the lush agrarian-dominated Srinagar Valley. The war and its
constant shelling were far away now. They were nearly 20,000 feet up in the sky.
It felt like the tip of the world. Except for K2, all other mountains in sight
were below them.

He was glad to be finished hiking
for now. The mood between them was dour. And watching Zoe on that cliff was
nerve-wracking. He sat, trying to soak in the peaceful spectacle of nature, his
safety rope still attached to her.

Zoe stood directly behind him for a
long time, carefully watching him, observing the locks of his shaggy blond
hair. Her eyebrows were slanted inward. She imagined what his thoughts were—and
she was right.

“Why are you so afraid, Jethro?”
Zoe asked.

She paused when he looked back at
her, frowning.

“Ugh. Okay, my mistake. I'll
rephrase that. Because I know you don't really feel fear. You would never grant
the universe so much sway over you. So why are you so worried, Jethro?”

“Because I don't want you to fall
or get hurt.”

“Or yourself,” she insisted.

“Of course, that too. But I'm not
worried about myself right now. I have all the power over myself that I need.”

She stared at him, her pupils edgy.
“Of course. That's it: power over yourself. Classic. It's so hard for you to be
in love, baby. Always trying to control and retain that power. But when someone
else is in the picture, wow, does it change—and change quickly.”

Jethro continued looking forward
and whispered, “Yes, it certainly does. It's shocking me too. This awareness of
someone else. And, the inevitable question: What to do about it?”

Zoe felt an urgent need to get
through to him now that he was talking. She walked rapidly to the edge of the
cliff, so that her toes were almost hanging over it.

“Are you going to be able to do it,
Jethro Knights?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” he answered,
trying to keep calm, watching her at the edge of a 5,000-foot precipice, irate
she was testing him again. He was grateful she was still attached to him by the
rope; however, there was no guarantee that he could hold her in the slippery
mud near the cliff if she went over.

“You know exactly what I mean. This
is excruciating for you. People don't fight love or existence like you do. Are
you going to keep me in your life? Or am I too much for you, the lone
transhumanist wolf?”

“I don't know,” he answered
quietly, a sharp wind almost drowning out his words. “I want you in my life. Of
course, you know I…I have feelings for you.” He almost said it: I love you. But
not yet, he told himself. Not yet. Because then it would all be over for him.
Right now, he might still be able to escape and justify his romance with her as
experience—just a pivotal new adventure. The most amazing one.

Jethro glanced tensely at the
faraway mountains and said, “I just don't know if I can live my life as a
transhumanist and also be with you. The two worlds clash, and merging them may
be impossible. I might be too selfish for love.”

“Selfish is the wrong damn word.
You may be too hardheaded.”

“That too. But damn it, Zoe, can
you step back from the cliff now? You're doing this purposely,” Jethro said
finally, angrily.

Instead of backing away, Zoe nudged
forward, her toes now perilously over the edge. She had only moved five inches,
but the energy in the air changed instantly, dramatically. Both of them knew
it.

Jethro jumped up and shouted, “What
the hell are you doing?” 

The six feet between them felt
endless. Everything around them turned colder, almost icy. The brightness in
the sky disappeared from cloud cover.

“I'm about to teach you a lesson in
life—and on love.”

Jethro knew immediately what she
was doing: jumping. Suicide for her was just a birth. A form of quantum
evolution. And she meant it. This whole damn time, she meant it.

“Zoe, don't do it. Please back
away.”

“Do you know how often I think
about this?”

He didn't care. He glanced to see
if there was ledge or something below her. There wasn't.

“No I don't—and right now I don't
want to. I just need you to back away.”

Jethro began subtly pulling in the
rope attached to her. She wasn't going too far, as long as he could keep his
balance on the cliff's edge and not slide over himself. He calculated whether
or not he could. He wasn’t sure because the mud was tricky.

“I think about it often enough.
It's not just my job that makes me like this. It's what I believe. It comes in
my dreams. In my patients' last moments. In your eyes when we’re making love.
In my every breath.”

Zoe saw Jethro pulling in the
rope—and smiled. With the accuracy of a surgeon’s hand, in one swift motion she
quickly unclipped herself and let the rope fall. It hit the ground underneath
her with a thud, and toppled off the edge.

Jethro's fury turned to disbelief.
“Zoe, come on now? We can talk this out.”

“We've talked enough,” she shouted
at him. “A hundred times by now, wouldn't you say?”

“What do you want me to do? What
can
I do?”

“To have the faith to jump with
me—to believe it's okay.”

“That’s insane.”

“It’s not insane. Or it’s as insane
as everything else in this world. I want you to believe it’s okay.”

“But I do believe it's okay. In
fact, I'm convinced it would be amazing. You know that. A true peak experience.
But also quite stupid. Very, very stupid.”

“Well, at least you've gotten that
far.”

“I'm farther along than you think.
Perhaps farther than you. But this is not my path.”

“And not keeping me in your life
because of obstinate transhumanist ideals
is
your path? How childish and
stupid!” she cried, wobbling near the edge, tears forming in the corners of her
eyes.

“Zoe, I didn't say that yet. That
decision is not made. I'm still trying to get through it, but that one will
take time.”

“How much time? It's an insult to
me that you have to get through it when you know how we feel about each other.
How amazing and unique and special this is.”

“I'm sorry. It's not meant to be an
insult. You could also look at it as something noble.”

“Noble? And what if jumping here is
noble? Since you know I believe I'll only find another version of myself,
perhaps an even better one,” she said.

“Zoe, be reasonable.”

But she wasn't able to be
reasonable. She wasn’t fully there anymore. Tears were cascading down her
cheeks, her abundant emotions, faith, and feelings drowning her. She wasn't
only speaking to Jethro anymore, but to something deep inside herself.

She drifted towards the edge,
already off balance.

“Zoe, please. Not like this.”

“You're being stubborn, my love.
Without justification. Just a man afraid of the unknown in his heart. When
there's so much more out there to embrace.”

“It's much more complicated than
that,” Jethro insisted.

“No it's not. But it doesn't matter
anyway. Because I think you'll always save me. Always look for me. I think we
made our choice a long time ago. I felt it right when I saw you for the first
time. Even if you can't have me now.”

Jethro saw her balance failing and
doubted that she could pull herself back anymore.

Zoe tilted over, her body speed
gaining momentum in the air, until finally she was falling headfirst,
uncontrollably. She didn't flinch, but accepted it serenely, watching him as
she began a thousand-foot drop.

Jethro Knight’s mind screamed.
Instinctively, he took a step—then another, and another—and lunged at her in
the mud, his body hitting the ground hard and sliding towards the cliff face.
In front of him, his outstretched right hand aimed for any piece of Zoe it
could grasp. It reached her swiftly falling upside-down leg, barely, his
fingers clamping down on her right ankle with all his strength. Her weight
jerked him forward, downward, almost over the edge. He countered with his empty
hand, pushing himself up on one knee, and digging his right foot into the
cliff. A sharp rock scraped his shin bloody. He swayed, trying to pull her
back, starting to lose his balance. His right foot stumbled, skidded in the
mud, his boot coming to within an inch of the edge before stopping. He dropped
to his butt as her weight began pulling him over the precipice. In the last
instant before they were both gone, his left heel pushed vigorously into the
mud, digging deep, helping to mobilize his weight, to fortify his stability.
Then, with furious strength, he arched his back and neck, grasping out, and
yanked her up to the edge in one sweeping motion. They fell to the ground
together, his right foot totally hanging over the cliff now. Behind him, his
left hand frantically dug for a secure hold in the brown sludge. With his other
hand he grabbed Zoe’s jeans and dragged her to him.

Then they were still, her body
wrapped against his chest. The embracing pair balanced precariously on the
edge. Mud was on their faces and clothes.

After many seconds in silence, she
looked at him and smiled peacefully.

“See, you saved me,” he heard her
whisper.

The words weren't only for him, but
to everything else that also surrounded them.

Jethro Knights shook his head
slowly. Sweat poured off his brows. He was breathing heavily, and his eyes were
red with danger. He pulled Zoe tightly into him, bringing her mouth to his, and
kissed her forcefully. Behind her back, his right hand reached for the rope and
violently yanked it in. He grabbed the end and quickly clipped her back on to
him.

“Let’s get on with our journey—we
have a long way home,” he ordered. A discordant vibe in the air brimmed from
the severity of his voice.

“Of course, my love. But I still
don't think you're going to be able to keep me yet, one way or the other.”

Chapter 10

It was the moment after spending
three months together, after innumerable bouts of making love and talking late
into the Kashmiri nights, with bombs hurling and hissing in the distance. After
frantic knocks at two in the morning for the doctor who spoke with ghosts,
because she was immediately needed in the hospital tent. After scores of road
excursions to other villages on scooters. After side trips, trekking in the
snowcapped mountains together. And after skinny-dipping in the valley's
rivers—that Jethro Knights solemnly confessed to Zoe Bach: I love you.

He was in love with her fiercely
incisive mind. Her body that perfectly fit his. Her iron work ethic and
competence as a surgeon. Her faith in destiny taking care of itself. Her dark,
death-wish soul aspiring for passion and life.

Jethro reeled back in distress at
the full realization. Something novel had been seeded inside him during the
past few months, and was now budding. It challenged him to his core. He needed
to leave. Depart as soon as possible. Get away from her so he could gather his
thoughts. The man who prided himself on being rational and unemotional was
being crushed by his heart. He was feeling emotions of wanting to protect Zoe
to the point of giving his own life for her. He even questioned if he was
sailing only to find
her,
and not his immortality or the best path to
pursuing transhumanism.

He found himself
wondering—practically fantasizing—if immortality was really just gifted through
the temple in her belly. Here was a man who never understood love of another
and now was completely engulfed by it. His rational mind cried out that it was
a trick, a woe that threw him into melancholy, into a battle with his own
desires and reason. This was worse than any of the storms, more dangerous than
the seventy-foot wave from Hurricane Talupa, more chaotic than the death roll
on
Contender
.