Transhumanist Wager, The (4 page)

Watching students on the campus
lawn through his corny Gothic office window, Dean Graybury sighed. He was unsure
of what to do. The chancellor of the university had insisted he expel Jethro.
But the dean liked the young man, or what little he knew about him. He thought
of Jethro’s shadowy past: an only child, whose Swedish mother and Austrian
father disappeared as European diplomats in Iran when he was just six years
old. Religious extremists were rumored to be responsible. Jethro’s father was
publicly critical of the Koran—or any religious text—as a tool to govern
society. Lamentably, neither Jethro’s parents nor their remains ever surfaced,
and the truth behind their disappearance was never discovered. The boy was sent
to Los Angeles and raised there, partly by an old aloof uncle, partly by foster
homes after the uncle had died. There didn't appear to be any rogue childhood
issues—no hindrances, no criminal record, no major academic or disciplinary
issues. On his college application, his extracurricular skills simply stated:
transhuman philosopher.

For the nearly 50,000 students
applying to Victoria University’s 2,500 admission spots, it was unremarkable.
But the essay Jethro wrote with his application was like nothing the dean
thought possible from a teenager. It was more a declaration then an essay. It
was a damning critique of the widespread fear of designer evolution. Evocative,
compelling, and eloquent, it tore apart religious dogma and blasted traditionalism.
It concluded by promoting outright aggression towards opponents. You took a
critical chance writing about that to such a school—as conservative as it
was—and not about your merit scholarships, or national piano championships, or
the state track records you broke. Yet the dean wished he had written that
essay when he was only seventeen years old—and maybe even now. He accepted
Jethro to the school, overruling a unanimous veto by the stuffy admissions
staff. 

But now this: a broken pool stick
on a football player’s head. The dean smiled. He secretly wished he had done
that, too, when he attended Victoria twenty-five years ago and was ridiculed as
a skinny computer science geek. Guess Jethro meant what he said in the essay,
the dean thought.

Unwilling to follow the expulsion
recommendation of the university chancellor, the dean called Jethro into his
office with a plan. He told the young man to take a semester off, and offered
him a coveted job as an assistant to a good friend: Francisco Dante, a spirited
and renowned journalist for the award-winning weekly,
International
Geographic;
it was one of the few remaining media sources the dean enjoyed
anymore. All others, like the popular
USA Daily Tribune
newspaper, or
the ubiquitous and glitzy International Media Network (IMN) television channel,
were heavily commercialized, superficial, and annoyingly conservative.

Dante, a hulking Spaniard and
longtime transhuman advocate, was currently covering the Congo war in Africa.
His assistant had been shot and killed last month. Dean Graybury warned Jethro
the experience would be heavy and grueling, but ultimately eye-opening and
transformative. Furthermore, the dean promised Jethro he would pull strings to
get him back into Victoria when the fall semester came around, assuming he
agreed to stay away from pool cues.

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

Jethro Knights welcomed the
adventure of going to the Congo for
International Geographic
. A few
weeks after he arrived in Central Africa, Francisco Dante wrote the dean from
their jungle camp:

Where did
you find this guy? He’s the perfect assistant—engaged, intelligent, efficient,
and super low-maintenance. If only he doesn’t leave me to join the revolution.
I’ve rarely met someone so impenetrable, so lacking in fear.

Jethro did his job for the
reporter, learning the journalism trade along the way. They became friends and
carefully looked out for each other, often discussing transhumanist concerns
late into the night around a campfire. There was little to do in the jungles of
the Congo except to follow the military around, avoid snake bites, and stay out
of the way of bullets and shelling from guerrilla fighters. They lived mostly
on remote trails in rainforests, or on the backs of army trucks, waiting for
that perfect moment to snap a photograph or conduct an important interview.
Occasionally, they would find themselves amongst a plethora of limbless and
headless bodies, consoling a weeping chief whose village had just been
ransacked by a looting warlord and his militia.

Jethro's declared major of
philosophy in college offered consolation to what he had witnessed in the
Congo. Jethro chose this major because, besides giving mental strength through
the use of reason and logic, philosophy was the one subject that united all
others. It bridged gaps between various pieces of knowledge, while also
instructing how to find the pieces that weren't yet discovered—the most
interesting ones. Jethro was born in love with the unknown. A propensity to
ask,
Why?
Philosophy gave the explorer direction when no map was
available.

Beginning with childhood, Jethro
was attracted to transhuman philosophy. This was because he instinctively
viewed life as a chance to improve himself, hoping one day he might reach a
self-actualized perfection. He knew that much was obvious for any advanced
thinking entity living in an evolutionary universe. He spent much of his youth
considering ideas around his personal development: reading nonfiction science
books, following sci-fi cinema, forming futurist thoughts, and keeping a detailed
journal about how to be his best self. His budding transhuman perspective
spanned seasons and years, evolving, maturing, and finally snowballing all the
way into his first semester at college.

At Victoria, he formally immersed
himself in the academics of transhuman thought, rigorously considering and
debating its every philosophical idea and direction. Despite this, his
mindset—though habitually brash and brave—remained quite scholarly and
intangible. He possessed little concrete experience in transhuman dealings,
little real-world street time—just idealistic thoughts and feelings of what he
hoped to do in life and what he hoped to become. His future was still
uncertain.

All of that changed three months
into his Congo trip, when the map of his destiny was infallibly carved into his
psyche, accompanied by a tsunami of urgency.

Alone in the jungle during a late
afternoon, while he was collecting firewood for a night out on watch, he
strayed fifteen meters off the dirt path. In the distance was a choice dry log
wedged deep in the grass, and dry wood in the damp rainforest was hard to find.
He instantly went for it, ditching the cardinal rule of the Congo: Never leave
the path. Without warning, he stepped on a barely buried metal object, creating
a sharp noise underneath him. The sound was unmistakable; it was a sudden and
loud
click
. Panic struck him. He knew immediately what it was. The
forest was full of them: landmines.

Jethro waited for the explosion,
intuitively bracing himself for impact, snapping his teeth together, shutting
his eyes. He waited for his legs and torso to be ripped apart, waited for
mutilation and death. His arm hairs spiked, his muscles flexed, his fists
clenched.

The blast never came.

Jethro was shocked. He didn’t dare
move. The seconds were precious. Finally, he jumped back and sprinted to the
path, turning around to scrutinize where he had just stood. In the ground, he
could barely make out the corner of a buried metallic disc. It was a dud.

For Jethro, however, it was a
philosophical nuke. A single moment that transformed his youthful transhuman
outlook into a physical law of its own—like the sweat on his brow in the
equatorial sun, or the pressure in his hand when he made a fist. He was forever
a changed man. And he knew he wouldn't always be so lucky.

That night he couldn't sleep. He
looked at the millions of stars above him, thinking solemnly and with full
focus: What happened today is unacceptable. Death must be conquered. From now
on, that is my first and foremost aim in life. That is the quintessential first
goal of the transhumanist.  

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

In the winter, Dean Graybury was
barely successful in getting Jethro Knights admitted back into Victoria. The
university chancellor emphatically disagreed. A compromise was struck: Jethro
wasn’t allowed to live in the dormitory on campus. And one more issue with him,
the chancellor fumed, and he would be expelled unconditionally. The chancellor
promised he would see to it himself.

Jethro took a studio with paint
peeling off the walls, fourteen blocks from the university, on Lenard Street in
the middle of Harlem. He rented by the week from a 300-pound Somalian lady who
ran a hairstyling shop underneath his place—and a brothel a floor above him. He
found himself content in Harlem. It was good to be away from the drunk Greek
brats, the brainless jocks, and the showy student consumers strutting their
newest shoes, handbags, and jewelry—some of which contained blood diamonds from
the Congo. Most importantly, his studio was only a twenty-minute bike ride away
from the boatyard where he intended to build
Contender
.

Two years later, at the Fillmore
Yacht Club, Gregory Michaelson waited tensely for Jethro’s response after
asking whether he wanted to be a gorilla on his dad's yacht,
Blue Lagoon
.
Something deep inside Gregory wanted Jethro to take offense, to stand up and
challenge him back. Gregory couldn’t think of anyone else on the planet who
thought so little of him, who wouldn’t show him the most basic social respect
or recognition. This time, Gregory thought, there was no pool cue to protect
Jethro against the bigger, stronger guy.

Jethro Knights stopped working,
left the spinnaker sail on the ground, and stood up calmly. He turned around,
facing his peer. Jethro’s expression was unconsciously blank. It was obvious he
didn’t take any offense or register any challenge. His opponent would have to
have real value for that to occur. Instead, Jethro looked behind Gregory and
observed
Blue Lagoon
two docks down. The forty-ton monster wooden yacht
took up a whole finger of berths. One glance at it made Jethro positive
any
modern, twelve-foot fiberglass Laser could outclass the splintery behemoth in
any
sailing competition.

“I’ll pass, Greg. I’m only
interested in boats that will help me prepare for my circumnavigation.”

Gregory nodded at the man,
acquiescing and hating him.

Jethro bent back towards the sail
and continued working quietly.

Awkwardly standing there and unsure
of what else to say or do, Gregory muttered, “Suit yourself. See you tomorrow
at the town hall forum then?”

Gregory saw Jethro freeze for an
instant, a sharp tension momentarily clutching the man’s body. Then from behind
his shoulder, Jethro said, “Sure, Greg. See you there.”

Chapter 4

There was extensive vigilant security
at the Transhumanism Town Hall Forum. Apprehensive Secret Service men wearing
sunglasses and dark suits communicated with a dozen sharpshooters who lined the
nearby dormitory roofs via Bluetooth headsets. Police and campus security were
ubiquitous, spread throughout the crowds. The President of the United States
and other attending government officials promised they were there to
objectively consider transhumanism, thus creating a stir of excitement and
nervousness all over campus and the surrounding metropolis. Already the
conflict of religious imperatives versus transhumanist aims was being called
the next great civil liberties war—one that would likely dwarf the race and
gender movements by its global impact.

Over 5,000 religious zealots and
protestors yelled and marched in front of Victory University’s rotunda. They
spilled out from underneath the building’s Romanesque facade of forty-foot
pillars, onto a grassy, soccer-sized field adjacent to Freemont Library. They
carried banners and signs:
Artificial Intelligence Will Destroy Us; Cloning
is Evil; Religious Faith is the Key to the Future; Stem Cells Advancements are
Made from Murdered Babies; Being Human is to Remain Human; Biology and Machines
Should Never Merge; Only God Deserves Power Over Death
.

In between the protestors, numerous
motorcades arrived. Each vehicle stopped on the barricaded cobblestone driveway
in front of the rotunda, dropping off a governor or a senator. Each car was met
by a throng of journalists: reporters with microphones, television crews
shouldering video cameras, and photographers snapping pictures. Some
politicians smiled, stopped, and said a few choice words. Most jostled up the
stairs until they were inside and away from the chaos.

Other invitees, such as important
religious leaders and award-winning scientists from across the country, as well
as students and professors from the surrounding campus, also made their way
through the crowds into the town hall forum. A few VIP invitees—each protected
by bodyguards—also navigated the protestors; they were famous entrepreneurs,
like Phil Holbec, CEO of Atlantis Software, which ran in virtually every
computer on the globe. Or Tom Wolfson, the powerful financier who recently
bought Phillips Bank when its stock price collapsed in two days—from forty-five
dollars to sixty-two cents. Or Frederick Vilimich, owner of Calico Oil, one of
the richest men in the world.

Minutes before the town hall forum
was scheduled to begin, cheers and whistles erupted in the crowd. Reverend
Belinas had arrived. The preacher wore a dramatic white gown, embroidered with
gold and purple bands on its sleeves—the colors of his church and movement. His
presence quickly divided the crowd in half; like a saint parting a waterway, he
walked through the protestors towards the rotunda. Some followers cried and got
down on their knees, casting prayers and wishes his way. Others pushed in and
desperately tried to touch him.