Transhumanist Wager, The (21 page)

A nurse, speaking of Zoe, recently
told another co-worker, “Have you ever seen her wear makeup or nail polish? I
haven’t. I just don’t think it’s the way she rolls.”

“That doesn't surprise me. Zoe once
told me that she doesn't own a TV when I asked her about a recent episode of
Friends
and Enemies
. Can you imagine that? Not owning a TV?”

In her mid-thirties, Zoe was a
respected up-and-coming trauma surgeon in San Francisco. Her work schedule was
much more manageable now than during her residency. Three times a week,
starting at 8 P.M., she carried twelve-hour graveyard shifts at San Francisco
General Hospital. But her daily professional life belonged at Cryotask,
California's largest cryonics center. It was started by a colleague whom she
knew from her running club. The entrepreneur saw the movement catching on across
the country and decided to mortgage his house to fund the new operation. So far
it was an undeniable success, with a client list hundreds of persons long and a
full-time staff of employees.

During most weekdays, Zoe was the
on-call doctor, standing by in case a client died and needed to be frozen
immediately. It was a procedure that legally required a licensed physician to
sign off on the paperwork and to make sure a patient was suitable. Not all
were. Only sterilized, intact bodies were admitted. Wounded bodies with
corrupted or germ-laden cells often ended up disintegrating after
cryo-freezing, rendering the process futile.

Zoe loved working at Cryotask. Life
and death—and the gray area between them—continued to fascinate her and appeal
to her transhuman interests. The job’s downside was the protestors. Religious
anti-transhumanism groups demonstrated with pickets every day in front of
Cryotask, even though the science to reanimate cryonically frozen humans was,
at best, still decades away. The protestors believed tampering with death was
satanic and strictly forbidden by God. Once a person was dead, he was God's
property, they claimed—to be cast into heaven or hell, but not back on Earth.
To reanimate a dead person with human technology was blasphemy for both the
deceased and those involved with the reanimation. Religious protestors insisted
there was no room for disagreement with that idea.

To try to remain safely anonymous
from radicals who opposed cryonics, Zoe Bach didn't put a license plate on her
car. Her phone number wasn't listed in any phone books either. She chose to
live high up in a skyscraper along San Francisco Bay's waterfront, with
security personnel who knew her by first name at the entrance.

“Good morning, Zoe. Long night at
work?” the doorman asked when she entered the building in her scrubs. Outside,
dawn was just appearing.

“Yes, Al, a long night. And yours?”

“By the looks of it, not as long as
yours,” the man said, staring at her bloodstained blue pants.

Zoe smiled and nodded sleepily, acknowledging
the obvious.

“Have a good one, Al.”

“You too, Zoe. We'll keep a good
lookout on your floor.”

Despite her attempts to remain
anonymous at Cryotask, Zoe was discovered. She soon began receiving death
threats in the mail. Her postal parcels had to be screened. Security discovered
a package that contained an amateur-made bomb of fireworks. Others contained
dog shit and rotten tomatoes. Zoe was even occasionally followed on streets and
verbally hassled in public.

So far, cryonics clinics had only been
vandalized, but never terrorized. Top Redeem Church members saw the cryonics
movement growing in popularity across America and decided it was time to change
that. Throwing rocks through clinic windows and harassing their employees was
not effective enough. A murderous plot began churning high up in the hierarchy
of Redeem Church, eventually reaching Reverend Belinas. He gave the scheme his
keen approval.

Chapter 14

“You're just not hitting the right
type of people for funding,” Preston Langmore told Jethro Knights over sushi at
a restaurant in San Francisco. It was their first meeting since Jethro had
returned from trying to pitch to Langmore’s ten wealthy donors.

“You're trying to sell something
that’s a damn hard sell. And you're trying to sell to people I've already sold
things to, who would barely buy from me. It was worth a try. But so far you
haven’t found the transhuman crusaders you spoke of at the conference. You need
to find them. Find that new generation of intrepid visionaries. They're the
ones the future is about.”

“Where are they?” asked Jethro.

Langmore threw his hands up.
“That's your job. That's why it's a new generation. But I'd begin by
researching every business that has a net worth over twenty-five million
dollars and was started in the past five years. Go on the Internet and check
out corporation formations, tax returns, and IPO filings. Then find out who
started the company. And go visit that person with your pitch. But don’t do it
here on the West Coast where they've all been picked through already. Try the
newer industrial areas, the few with any sort of action: Phoenix, Wichita, even
the semi-resurgence of Cleveland. People there may still have vision—and
gumption.”

Jethro followed Langmore’s advice
again. A week later, after a few marathon days of research, Jethro flew to
Arizona to court John Fillway, an electrical engineer and owner of Blightdale
Industries. His company was a major solar panel producer and had successfully
launched an IPO last year in the stock market.

From there, Jethro ventured up to
Kansas to court a woman named Allivia Conway, co-inventor of the modern Lasik
eye machine.

Afterward, he left for Cleveland to
meet another entrepreneur, Juan Pedrosen, a Peruvian immigrant with a thick
accent, who recently acquired five small tourist cruise ships. Pedrosen also
founded a T-shirt company that now had factories in China, Portugal, and
Indonesia. He was worth thirty million dollars and had recently given money to
Nathan Cohen's lab in Phoenix.

Obtaining even a five-minute
meeting with these busy business people was difficult. If Jethro wasn't granted
a normal interview via their secretaries and staff, he would find alternative
ways to talk to them. These methods included waiting for them by their cars in
their company parking lots, hanging out in front of their gyms hoping to catch
them, and sometimes even interrupting them while they ate at restaurants.
Eventually, he forced a conversation with each entrepreneur. Surprisingly,
Langmore was right; these types of people were far more receptive. Each one of
them listened carefully to his transhuman plan, some for nearly fifteen
minutes, asking questions and considering scenarios.

Furthermore, Jethro was learning to
be more professional and convincing. His absolute assurance of real results
came through as authentic and daring, especially to people who created mini
business empires by being authentic and daring. Still, no one immediately
agreed to fund him, but all took his business card, promising to keep in touch
as they thought about his proposal and considered his extreme transhuman ideas.

Back in Palo Alto, Jethro met with
Preston Langmore again for dinner.

“So, what now?” Langmore asked
curiously.

“Same thing. I'm leaving in a few
days for a similar trip: Georgia, Minnesota, and Florida. Eventually, it'll
work out. Or I'll run out of money and have to work for a while, then try it
again.”

Langmore grimaced.

“Jethro, I think you should spend
more time sharpening your social skills. I've told you this before—you need to
become a more approachable human being.”

“My pitch is fine. I've practiced
it a hundred times now. If someone likes my ideas, they'll embrace and back
them. I can't force people to want to live forever. Besides, I already feel
fine the way I am as a human being.”

“Yes, I know
you
already
feel fine. But you must understand whom you're dealing with. These people are
not fully aware they want these human enhancement and immortality leaps you're
proposing—not in the way you are. You must convince them of it. You must teach
them they want something they've been taught their whole lives to be afraid of.
You must persuade them time is running out to accomplish such goals. That's
delicate work. Not exactly the foray of a bulldog.”

 Jethro looked at Langmore and sighed.
He cast his head back, running his hands through his hair.

“Fine. Suggestions?”

“Okay, I've given it some thought.
So let's do this formulaically. A three-step program. First, I want you to
watch my twelve-part documentary series on the Presidents of the United States.
They're all masters of uniting the disconnected. And they do it with style and
grace, often under extreme pressure. I've personally viewed the videos a dozen
times over a decade. Watch them carefully and learn. Step two: I want you to
read a book on etiquette. I'll give you Tillerton's
Rules of Social
Etiquette
. You must learn all the rules and practice them. It'll show you
respect people's customs, even if they're not your own. Don't look at me like
that. Your success or failure at reaching immortality might be based on
interacting better with people.”

Jethro covered half his face with
his right hand. He was getting frustrated. He couldn't see how something like
wearing a tie should make any difference in whether or not someone believed he
could help them achieve immortality and other transhuman aims.

“This is more important that you
realize, Jethro. You can't reach your ambitions alone. You need others. Even if
they're stuck in a culture you dislike and make a point of not participating in
it.”

Jethro took a substantial gulp of
his red wine.

“Come on, Preston. It's all this
social properness and political correctness that's made so much of the human
species imbecilic and nonfunctional. It's almost as bad as religion. And for
many, this sort of thing is as meaningful as religion. Does it really mean
something damning because I lick my plate at a restaurant? Or use the word
‘fuck’ in formal conversation? Or go out in public with disheveled morning hair
and mismatched socks? We're a peacock species. There's little sense to it. It's
all a harebrained carryover from the face-painting tribes of Africa, to the
boorish Victorian-era conservatives, to the fashionista celebrities in
Hollywood. Culture is a monster when it's that overbearing and irrational. One
gets foolishly lost in the complexity of etiquette instead of accomplishing
whatever real task is at hand.” 

“I'm not disagreeing with you,
Jethro; however, it’s all beside the point. We live on Planet Earth. These are
the playing cards you're given. You must learn more to be a team player—and
then the leader on that team.”

“But I don't like people who join
teams or who need a leader.”

“Then you're going to fail,” said
Langmore sharply. He was half standing up, pressing his palms on the table, and
staring at Jethro. “Because you won't succeed alone. The nature of
accomplishing your goal requires others. And this is the only team you're going
to get.”

Jethro became quiet.

“Just think about it,” insisted
Langmore.

“I'm not going to fail.”

“Just think about it.”

Jethro looked ill, but he
acquiesced. He could see Langmore was deeply frustrated too.

“Okay, Preston, I’ll consider it.
You have my word. I'll start the documentary series tonight and give your
etiquette book a lookover.”

Langmore shook his head, exhausted.
He thought it was useless to try to socialize or compromise Jethro. His
strength was exactly in the fact that he couldn't be changed or tamed. Jethro’s
ideas and actions emanated from his deepest self: a spring of exacting, unadulterated
reason. It was not tainted with the monster of culture and illogical customs.

The two men ate in silence for a
long time.

“What's number three?” asked
Jethro, finally aiming to move beyond the disagreement.

Sheepishly, Langmore retorted,
“Okay, three. This is more discretionary. Nonetheless, I think you should start
dating. You're a loner and that doesn't mix together well with growing an
organization like yours. Getting close to someone may help smooth out your
rough edges. Find someone with whom you get along, and enjoy that person. Learn
from that person. Maybe even
love
that person.”

Later that night, Jethro sat in
front of his computer and began watching the documentary series on the
presidents. Inevitably, his mind turned to Langmore’s other suggestion: dating.
Jethro went to his nightstand and pulled out the lone photo he kept of Zoe
Bach. She was in dirty scrubs, talking with a team of Kashmiri nurses after
successfully reattaching a villager’s shot-off ear.

Now that Transhuman Citizen and TEF
were established and operational, Jethro knew it was time to make contact with
Zoe. He was still wary of what she made him feel inside, how loyal he felt to
her—the overriding instinct of love and bonding that often seemed in total
conflict with TEF. But he could accept it now. He was ready to take that
chance.

Early in the morning, after
watching five hours of the documentary series, he went to bed thinking of Zoe,
plotting what it would be like to see her again. He dreamt of wrapping his body
around hers.

************

Zoe Bach's good friend from
childhood, Jane Madiston, now living in a small town in Ohio, made the mistake
of marrying an eye-candy cowboy type when she was in her early twenties. His
name was Bobby MacAlister, and over a rocky ten-year marriage he proved a
contemptuous jerk, whose antics and role as a husband and father got worse as
the years unraveled. In the best interest of the two young daughters they
shared, Jane made the grim choice not to leave or divorce Bobby. She didn’t
want to break up her family, but year after year, while trying to raise her
children as best as she could, her angst and disappointment grew.