Transhumanist Wager, The (27 page)

Jethro Knights stood up straight
and focused on Refia, scanning the man up and down. Then Jethro’s lips formed a
hearty, mocking grin. “Oh, I'd like that. I'd like very much to meet your god.
And you're wrong about the dead freaks.”

Jethro’s reaction and answers
caught Refia by surprise.

“Huh? What do you mean, you'd
like
that?”

“Because if I ever met your god,
and it had the audacity to judge me and try to send me to your make-believe
eternal hell, I'd kill it. I’d kill it mostly for being sadistic, but partly
for being unimaginative. And no dead freaks are going anywhere. The three
frozen patients that were here got moved out quietly last week and shipped out
of state. No one gets held here too long; the earthquake danger of this city is
too risky for long-term cryonics storage.”

It took a few seconds for Refia's
mind to register this startling new information.

Eleven, ten, nine, eight, . . .

“Well, then what the hell are all
those tanks doing up there, steaming and flashing lights?”

“They're empty and in storage,
owned by transhumanists who haven't died yet. And fully insured as well, should
anything happen to them. Apparently, your superiors didn't notice that before
they assigned you this mission. Quite short-sighted, wouldn't you say?”

“Oh, you son of a bitch,” yelled
Refia furiously. He cocked the trigger of his gun and prepared to shoot.

In that moment, many of the bombs
on the first floor began detonating in a cacophony of explosions. Parts of the
floor they stood on ripped apart and burst into flames. The blasts caused
Jethro and Refia to be thrown into each other. The men instinctively latched
arms and began wrestling. Each tried to headbutt the other. Refia freed his
right arm and punched first, landing a fist on Jethro’s ear, which caused him
to yelp. But there was no time to fight—the building swayed, ready to collapse.
Both men could hardly keep their balance. Around them more explosions went off,
and masses of wood and stone started to crack and fall on them.

Knowing there were only seconds
left to escape, Jethro pushed hard off Refia and took a huge lunge towards a
window ten feet away. Refia tried to grab him, but missed. The terrorist’s
other hand lifted his gun and fired twice. One bullet missed widely, but the
other grazed Jethro's shoulder. Before Refia could get off a third shot, he was
rocked by the erupting bombs on the second story, causing a fireball to sweep
over him. Refia fell backwards, screaming, swallowed by a pit of twisted
blazing wood and collapsing walls.

The window in front of Jethro was
still an opening to the outside, but its shape was contorting and closing with
every step he took towards it. He felt like he was climbing a hurling mountain
of debris. Fresh air, sunlight, and safety were now only four feet away. The
last of the bomb blasts brought him within two feet of the shifting, cracked
window. Heat and flames singed his hair and clothes. He made one last push to
dive through the jagged glass, his left hand covering his face, his right hand
pulling himself through the window sill. Around him, the building raced downward,
collapsing on its foundation, glass splattering everywhere. Massive amounts of
crushed wood, piping, and drywall jettisoned in every direction.

Jethro's dive threw him twelve feet
into the air before he crashed onto a stone path outside. Warped building
materials littered the ground. Behind him, a plume of black smoke hissed from
where the house once stood, and a broken gas pipe accentuated the fire,
torching the ruins like a flamethrower. 

Viewers all around the country held
their breath. Many television stations caught the entire sequence on air, first
using Jethro's inside cameras, then using cameras from news vans scattered
outside Cryotask. It took almost a minute for the dust to clear from the
demolished site. Near where the front entrance had stood, the shot Redeem
Church terrorist was apprehended and handcuffed by police. Fifteen meters away,
Jethro Knights limped from what was now a gigantic blazing inferno. Oliver
Mbaye and a handful of policemen and firemen rushed to his aid, helping him to
walk. His left ankle was visibly hurt, and a sizeable wound on his abdomen was
bleeding heavily. Otherwise, he only had some scratches and one large cut on
his right cheek. He refused to get into an ambulance, but accepted gauze for
his stomach wound. A fireman carefully led him to a squad car, pushing
reporters out of the way when they tried to interview him. Jethro quickly got
into the back of the vehicle. The captain of the police force jumped in right
next to him. A sergeant, waiting in the driver’s seat with the car running,
immediately took off and drove them to the downtown police station.

“I hope you don't mind the
limelight,” were the captain's first words to Jethro as they departed the
chaotic scene. “Because after that stunt, you’re famous.”

Chapter 17

At a San Francisco police station,
Jethro Knights was brought into an interrogation room with bright lights and a
large, shatterproof, one-way viewing window. Inside the room were three chairs
and a steel table. A nurse came in, gave Jethro some pain medication and
bandaged his stomach wound. After she left, two local detectives in gray suits
entered and introduced themselves. They were friendly, explaining that the
interview was a standard and necessary procedure. They were careful not to insinuate
Jethro was guilty of any crime—they just wanted information.

Jethro listened politely, but then
told them they were wasting their time, and that they were going to be called
off the case any minute.

“What makes you think that?”

“Trust me—this is a matter for some
very high-up politicians.”

“Whatever,” one of them muttered,
not sure whether to believe Jethro. “Let's continue with the questioning.”

Ten minutes into the interrogation,
the police captain knocked and entered the room. He bent down to the senior
detective and whispered something in his ear.

“Well, apparently you know
something I don't, Mr. Knights. Someone special, with presidential authority,
will be coming to question you. We’ve been ordered to cease our interview,”
said the detective.

Jethro waited in the room alone for
three hours. He was still filthy from the explosion. The gauze on his stomach
turned partly red, and he clenched his fists to counter the aching. The
painkillers the nurse had given him weren’t strong enough. Finally, he heard
voices and commotion outside the room. Then a man entered. He was dressed in an
ebony suit and a light blue tie. His Italian shoes were more than a thousand
dollars apiece. He carried a folder of paperwork and tried to look resolute,
but only managed to appear apprehensive.

“Hello Jethro.”

“Hello Gregory.”

Senator Michaelson walked toward
the corner of the room, checked his cell phone, then turned it off. Afterward,
he looked carefully at the four cameras on the ceiling above him. Every word
was being recorded, every inch of space videoed. He would have to be very
careful, he thought to himself. He cleared his throat.

“How long has it been?”

“Since the last day of philosophy
class at Victoria,” answered Jethro. He knew Gregory had not forgotten.

“Yes, of course. A long time ago.”

Gregory sat down, put his right
elbow on the table and let out a deep sigh. The senator was fifteen pounds
heavier since the two classmates had last met, and softer from years of fancy
meals and high living. A few gray hairs poked out of his head, more the result
of a burdensome marriage than a busy professional life. Jethro, on the other
hand, looked nearly the same as seven years before, only more masculine. He was
robust and fit from endless laps in the pool and long jogs in the Palo Alto
hills. He was bronze from his California lifestyle, and his arm muscles bulged
out of his shirt. Gregory realized he was no match to physically brawl with
Jethro anymore, even if his opponent was wounded. He bent his head down and
gazed at Jethro’s stomach injury, which was soaking blood through his shirt.

“Are you going to be okay? Has a
doctor seen that?”

“A nurse has. It’s nothing for you
to worry about.”

Gregory glanced at Jethro,
dubiously raising his eyebrows. But then the senator’s eyes returned to the
wound. Inevitably, he became nauseous. Gregory was never himself when it came
to the sight of blood. It had always made him queasy as a child when he fell
and cut himself or saw others scraped up. He still had a rough time getting yearly
flu shots. Even though he had always wanted to watch the needle puncture his
own skin, he was unable to.

Gregory turned his eyes away from
the injury and said, “Jethro, I’d like to help you. I really do. I can, you
know. But you’ve involved yourself in something very complex. Do you understand
that?”

“What are the charges? And when
does the court hear it?”

“Charges? Why even talk with an old
classmate like that? There are no charges right now.”

“Then let me go free.”

“Jethro, you know I can't do that.
This is very serious. You’ve fooled with some very big fish—and their
reputations. You’ve roped them into your live media trap and they are not
happy. They want to be quickly extracted from this mess. You can do that by
going on the record and downplaying any misconceptions.”

“Why waste seconds of my life with
stupid requests, Gregory? You know I won't do that.”

“Jethro, be reasonable. I'm here by
order of the President. Do you understand? The President of the United
States—the most powerful man in the world.”

“Anyone who swears on a Bible to
get inaugurated into his job doesn't qualify as powerful to me. Especially when
it’s a former trial lawyer who does it.”

“For Christ’s sake, Jethro, don't
be like this. Just like you were ten years ago in class.”

“You're wasting my time. You should
leave now.”

Gregory was appalled. He forgot
what it was like to deal with someone so unreasonable, so unyielding. If people
were like that in Washington, D.C., nothing would ever get done, he thought.

“I'm trying to help you here. This
is your life. And it's going to be made miserable by us.” 

Jethro smirked, saying, “We'll see
about that. Do your best—and I’ll do mine.”

“Your best is going to be spending
the rest of your days in prison. Can't you see that?”

“No, I can't. Especially not before
the whole world knows Reverend Belinas and Redeem Church hired a bunch of thugs
to murder innocent law-abiding transhumanists. And if I find out the President
or you are involved, I'll do my best to bring down his presidency and your seat
on the Senate."

Gregory squinted, shooting a quick
glance at the window where a half dozen people were watching. “You must be
crazy,” he retorted. “That’s outrageous. There’s no proof of that at all.”

“Then why are you so scared? Why
come down here personally to California, sweating it out on a jet flying at
full speed from Washington, D.C.? Or were you playing golf in Arizona? Or
sailing your daddy’s rickety pile of splinters off the Hamptons?”

“This is a matter of national
security, Jethro. And you know who I am now. That’s why I'm here.”

“Sure. You're here to carry on the
fight against transhumanism, which helped win your Senate seat for you. And
which your pal, Reverend Belinas, convinced you is at the core of the nation’s
best interests. I’ve read the damn newspapers, Gregory. What I really want to
know is exactly why you’re so afraid of it? Why so much fear about being
transhuman?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking
about. I’ve never been completely against transhumanism—there are just ethnic
and religious imperatives to consider and respect."

"Transhumanists don't hinder
ethnic or religious people from reaching their supposed immortality. So why the
hell should ethnic and religious people be able to hinder transhumanists from
reaching their immortality?"

"Come on, Jethro. For
everyone’s safety, life extension and human enhancement science shouldn’t
travel at light speed like you’re proposing it should.”

“If it doesn't happen rapidly, then
it’s not going to do anything for you and me—or for anyone else alive right
now. We’ll all be dead first.”

“What’s so wrong with that, Jethro?
Our children will figure out how to handle transitions like that, handle power
like that. Maybe our grandchildren. And, hopefully, they won’t mutate the
species into something crazy and nonhuman. You know the dangers of artificial
intelligence, of cyborgism, of cloning, of bioengineering. It could trigger
apocalyptic events in civilization. We wrote papers on those topics.”

“I'm not afraid, Gregory. What
prompts alarm in me is how you and your government want to ruin not only the
potential of this country, but also the path of those who are going to
transition into more advanced beings in search of immortality and omnipotence,
and maybe even participate in a great singularity. These advances are going to
pass, one way or another. And your current second-rate moral system—your weak,
pretend-God-will-take-care-of-us bullshit—is a waste for our species'
possibilities. You people want to pretend that democracy, religious
inspiration, and unbridled consumerism are going to last forever and carry us
all to bliss; that the American Dream is right around the next corner for
everyone. You spend hundreds of billions of dollars on lazy welfare recipients,
on mentally challenged people, on uneducated repeat criminals, on obese
second-rate citizens bankrupting our medical system, on murderous war machines
fighting for oil and your oligarchy's pet projects in far off places. All so
you maintain your puny forms of power and sleep better at night. Well, I’ve got
news for you: Sleeping isn't going to exist in fifty years. Do you understand
what I'm getting at? The changes are going to be utterly dramatic. Utterly
pervasive. On every level of our existence. And your lies and rules are no
longer enough for the new guard nipping at your heels. A fresh nationwide
morality will soon seize the future—a more capable system of ethics and power
ideology.”