Transhumanist Wager, The (40 page)

“But in this case, there’s no other
choice. You must understand the priority is now for your own life and
potential, for your own ability to be able to see them again. The paramount
priority is you and your survival, which is a quintessential law of the
universe that cannot be broken or betrayed. Because what you need most in order
to possibly see them again is time—time to evolve the transhuman cause so that
all other potentialities might unfold in the future.”

Vilimich disagreed. And he didn’t
come all the way to America to get a lesson in logic from Jethro. He came to
immediately begin scientifically finding a way to his loved ones, using the
best talent available on the planet to do so. Unfortunately, Jethro wasn't
going to give in, he realized. He would have to break first if this man was
going to help him, and this was something the Russian was not prepared to do.

“Furthermore,” Jethro continued, “I
don't mislead people or lie. And I especially won’t promise something I can’t
give. I don't even know if what you want is really possible. It may not be. You
have to accept that.”

Jethro added, whispering, “We
both
have to accept that.”

The conference room darkened as the
sun outside disappeared behind clouds. The two men stared at each other for a
long time. Their eyes became luminous, reflecting both the room’s changing
light and the emerging shadows.

“Are you sure, Mr. Knights? This is
your only chance. You don’t want to reconsider my offer?” Vilimich asked one
last time.

Jethro did not. He stood up
straight, unafraid. Transhuman Citizen was dying, as were his chances of
immortality. And Vilimich's funding could renew everything. It would mean the
birth of Transhumania. But then it wouldn't be Transhumania anymore. It would be
an abomination. Another direction towards a sure death. Jethro knew this was
not a moment to bend or  compromise. Too much was at stake. Too much that would
never be forgiven. There would be other ways to succeed. Better ways, if not
more difficult—much more difficult. He just had to be patient and find them.
Pure TEF is what it is and, like mathematics, can never be altered or
compromised. Not by love or loss—not even by death.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Vilimich. I don’t
believe I can help you, given your aims. I won't promise that kind of thing for
exactly that kind of reason. If you change your mind, and want to do it my way,
please get back in touch with me.”

There was silence in the room. Both
men were overwhelmed and exhausted with raw emotion.

Vilimich watched Jethro—not exactly
watched him, but felt him. Secretly, he almost wished Jethro would try to
exploit him, finagle him, somehow con him out of the money he was offering.
That would’ve given him a reason to disagree with the man, to dislike him. So
many people had tried to swindle resources from him in the past for their own
aims. Any practical business person would’ve at least entertained such an
option, Vilimich thought. But not the young man in front of him; he was more
honest than a saint, and more unyielding than a force of nature.

The Russian turned and slowly
lumbered to the door, his giant shoulders slouching. He put on his hat and
walked out of the office without uttering another word. His chauffeur opened
the door to his limousine, and they drove off.

Jethro sat down at the conference
table and put his hands on his head. He sat there for a whole hour, lost in
thought, agonizing, thinking about Zoe, about TEF, about Vilimich. Finally,
Janice Mantikas came in and asked what he wanted to do about his 3:30 P.M.
meeting with the Vontage University genetics researcher; he had recently
returned Jethro's lab equipment after bowing to pressure from the school’s
president.

Jethro strained to look at his
watch. His secretary noticed how much effort it took.

Almost inaudibly, he said, “Tell
him I'm leaving now and will be five minutes late.”

Chapter 24

Four days later, Jethro Knights’
cell phone beeped from a new incoming message. He clicked on the text:

You stubborn bastard. I look at
you and feel like I'm looking in the mirror. I sold half my stake in Calico—and
wired 10 billion U.S. dollars into your Cayman Island donor account. Use the
money how you like. For the right goddamn reasons. Good luck.

Vilimich

A moment later Jethro’s phone rang.
It was his secretary.

“Jethro, the president of Phoenix
Bank in the Cayman Islands is on the line, asking if a massive deposit of
billions of dollars was expected, or if it was a mistake. He’s suggesting maybe
it’s a computer glitch, or even a jokester's hack.”

“It's correct, Janice!” Jethro
shouted. “Tell him it’s correct. It's from Frederick Vilimich. I'm driving to
the airport and flying to the Caymans right now to confirm and hide it. Make
sure no one finds out about this. Not a word to anyone.”

Nine hours later, Jethro was in the
Cayman Islands. The president of Phoenix Bank, a loyal Transhuman Citizen
member, met him at the airport in a bulletproof Mercedes. Over dinner, Jethro
explained to him what had occurred, and they formulated a plan for how to best
keep the money safe and confidential.

The next morning, in a rented
private jet, Jethro flew around the world to Vanuatu, Singapore, Lebanon,
Panama, Maldives, Djibouti, and Switzerland. He spent two weeks establishing
bank accounts for various pop-up companies and corporations in out-of-the-way
places, acting as the sole manager. He made up odd business names like Antidy
Enterprises, Amerigon LLC, and Dumcros Inc. The money was wired in small,
varying portions to all his hidden accounts belonging to the companies so it
could never be frozen, tracked, or calculated by the NFSA or anyone else on the
planet. Even the Phoenix Bank president wasn't aware of the account names or
numbers, as third-party escrow accounts were used to hide and deflect all
traceable sources. Jethro sent secondary codes and addresses to Mr. Vilimich,
as the only other person capable of locating the money. But even
he
wasn't allowed to know everything or control anything. On every account, there
was a different company, a different address, a different identification
number, a different mission statement. The ten billion dollars was split in a
hundred different ways, all with digital tentacles that led only to Jethro
Knights.

When the money was safe, he emailed
Vilimich:

Dear Mr. Vilimich,

Thank you. The money is safe and
being put to good use for the right reasons. I'll be in touch as the transhuman
mission progresses. Furthermore, you have my pledge that I will not forget that
picture in your pocket.

Jethro Knights

The same day, in a hotel in Panama,
Jethro went online and bought a used business jet capable of flying a dozen
people comfortably between continents. He ordered it flown to Panama City by a
newly hired full-time pilot with a longstanding transhuman affiliation. Jethro
employed a small construction crew to tear out half the plane’s interior and
replace it with an office, a conference table, three work stations, and two
bunk beds. It was almost like building the sailboat again, he thought.

The same week, he boarded a
commercial plane back to Palo Alto and emptied his apartment, throwing away all
nonessential items. Much of it was Zoe Bach's stuff. There were other things
too: a crib, a baby jogging stroller, a book on choosing baby names. He placed
them all into a rusty blue trash dumpster outside, trying to restrain his
anguish and just make it through the day. From then on, he would be living on
his plane, or in a hotel, or wherever. He didn’t want a home again—not until he
built it in Transhumania.

Jethro ordered his secretary to
catch up on the past rent for the foreign offices and to send the landlords
flattering gifts. Beijing, Paris, Buenos Aires, and Sydney were all two months
behind on lease payments, and evictions had been threatened. Jethro also
instructed his secretary to immediately prepare the groundwork for opening new
offices in Delhi, Panama City, Vancouver, Tokyo, Dubai, Moscow, and
Johannesburg, complete with new transhumanist hires.

“But Janice, let’s plan to close
the Palo Alto headquarters
publicly
. Make sure the media finds out
somehow. Slip them an anonymous email. Let's move to a much smaller place, like
a studio office in downtown San Francisco. Pick a cockroach-infested building
in a shoddy part of town. That'll give them something to squawk about. Oh, and
effective immediately, double the salaries of the three employees who stayed,
including yourself. But do it quietly. All
very
quietly.”

“Jethro, this is going to make huge
news. That's a staggering amount of money. America and the world are sure to
find out.” 

“No, they're not. Listen to me very
carefully. No one is to know about this money. Not for a long while. I'm not
even going to tell Preston Langmore.”

“But the country will see what
comes of it.”

“Oh, they will see for sure.
They’ll see it when we steal their best people away from them and beat them at
their own game by building from scratch a new nation that rivals anything on
this planet. For now, however, we’re going to play dead. Let the NFSA and
anti-transhumanists lose guard. Let them think they’ve won the War on
Transhumanism. Then we'll resurrect in a way they can't fight against.”

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

Six days later, Transhuman
Citizen's Palo Alto headquarters was officially closed. Janice Mantikas didn't
need to contact the press about the event. Reverend Belinas' people, who spied
on Jethro Knights’ office every day, notified the media and insisted they cover
it.

Belinas placed proud calls to IMN,
the
USA Daily Tribune,
and other media outfits, issuing boastful quotes.
“We are cleaning up our cities. We are cleaning up America. The transhumanists
wanted to take away all that is good and human in our nation. Thankfully, the
people have not allowed that. Our faiths have not allowed that.
God
has
not allowed that. Together, we have saved our humanity.”

IMN sent out a news crew, which
filmed boxes being carried from the defunct Palo Alto office and put into a
small, beat-up moving truck. The cameramen followed the truck to an outdated
sixteen-story building in downtown San Francisco, where Jethro’s three
employees were holing up in a small studio. Paint was peeling off the sides of
the mid-rise, and people wearing inexpensive suits smoked cigarettes in front
of its squeaky, revolving entrance door. The manager of the building was
interviewed by a reporter, questioned what it was like on the ninth floor,
where Transhuman Citizen was renting by the week.

“Really, it's where many of the
city’s struggling outfits move, often when they just need a studio or a
one-room office. Usually companies there don’t last long; they often fold
within weeks. It’s what we in the renting business call ‘a transient floor.’”

In addition to the humiliating
press coverage, public speculation ran rampant that the transhuman movement,
once so prominent in science and avant-garde culture, was going into permanent
hibernation. Everywhere, scientists and technologists abandoned their
transhuman ties and ambitions. Life extension and human enhancement
organizations across the country simply disappeared, many without a trace.
Discrimination and ridicule against transhumanism became openly encouraged by
police, religious organizations, and conservative outfits in the media.
Criminal lawsuits and civil complaints were filed against those like Jethro
Knights and Dr. Preston Langmore, who tried to keep their organizations and
missions afloat. Anti-transhumanists laughed, saying the immortality fad had
run its natural course.

IMN interviewed a colorful pastor
from Redeem Church’s San Francisco branch. He was quoted as saying, “Of course,
the transhumanists lost. Their radicalism was doomed from the start. What did
they want to do? Replace us with robots, computers, and all things
egotistically man-made. How absurd. Every one of us is a sinner, and our great
goal in life is to work towards being forgiven for our sins so that we may one
day unite with our Lord in heaven—and not perpetuate our devilish egos on
Earth.”

A month later, Amanda and Gregory
Michaelson invited Reverend Belinas over to their vacation beach house in the
Hamptons, to celebrate their successes. It was an intimate dinner, commencing
with toasts of a limited reserve Vibolta Champagne. The Michaelson's new Filipino
butler wore cumbersome white gloves, accidentally fumbling the main entree,
Duck a l'Orange—one of six courses. A decadent Portuguese Almond Blancmange
with caramel glaze arrived as the last dish. A 1961 Burgundy Pinot Noir, picked
from her father's cellar, accompanied the feast.

Dinner prompted much gossipy
chit-chat. The drunker the trio became, the more they gregariously complained
about the tenuous state of the world. Gregory ranted about his lazy
constituents who didn’t want to work, just wanted food stamps galore and
endless financial handouts. Amanda cursed the butler's clumsiness and the
gardener's laziness. Belinas complained about the lack of new donors for his
church, citing the devastated global economy. But each ultimately laughed about
their squabbles. It was their way of parading their high-mannered superiority.
They were surefire winners, their popularity and success at an all-time high.

In a recent front-page article
about Reverend Belinas and Senator Michaelson, the
USA Daily Tribune
wrote:

The team
that preserved our glowing humanity. They stopped the transhumanists from
robbing us of ourselves.