Pulling The Dragon's Tail
Read Pulling The Dragon's Tail Online
Authors: Kenton Kauffman
Tags: #robotics, #artificial intelligence, #religion, #serial killer, #science fiction, #atheism, #global warming, #ecoterrorism, #global ice age, #antiaging experiment, #transhumans
By
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2014
by
Kenton J. Kauffman
Browning Watt’s (aka
Herschel Hatton) Journal
I grew up reading science fiction, especially
Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov. More recent influential writers
include Ben Bova and Charles Sheffield. There are many others. My
years of being a psychotherapist also inspired an appreciation of
the drama that is human relationships. On the one hand, cooperation
makes civilization possible. On the other hand, just below the
surface is tension and conflict.
Speculation about the near future at the dawn of
our new millennium helped me create the characters and themes of
Pulling the Dragon’s Tail.
I wondered about the impact of
global warming on humanity. How might future terrorism look like,
including Eco terrorism? How could technology (as it grows ever
more powerful in scope and tinier in size) be integrated into our
bodies? (One would never ‘lose’ one’s smart phone.)
Essentially I took these themes and projected
them fifty years into the future. I then wrapped them into an
action thriller filled with sinister plots, murders, and a dire
prediction for our environment.
The heart of the story is what happens to
sixteen lucky people who wake up each day knowing they will live
for centuries in a youthful state—the Alpha Group. Nate Kristopher,
as the main character, deals with all these tensions. He is part of
the Alpha Group in which his body has remained biologically
youthful (while he is actually 91). This experiment has changed
them all—and will eventually change the course of world events…and
humanity.
He tries to cope with his robotic companion
Dugan (in the form of a mixed breed Collie) who is rapidly
evolving. As a member of the radically pacifist Church of Abraham,
Nate struggles to reconcile his nonviolent beliefs with the need to
use force to stay safe. The woman he has to travel with, Campbell
is an atheist who presents a polar opposite to his religious
views.
He is beset by Es, also a member of the
longevity experiment, who has embraced the transhuman movement. She
has radically transformed her body surgically in an effort to
become part-robot. Transhumanism is an actual current movement. It
has been described as a “class of philosophies (to) accelerate and
evolve intelligent life beyond its current human form and human
limitations by means of science and technology.” (Max More,
1990)
This was a fun book to write. I want to thank my
friends and colleagues who have been patient with reading it and
providing valuable critiques. Early on in this process I found a
literary agent who had an editor named Gary. Gary was instrumental
in making my story more coherent. I learned so much from him and am
eternally grateful. Diane was a former administrative assistant of
mine who was always patient with my questions about the minutiae of
Microsoft Word. This story has sat in my computer for several
years. I want to thank the love of my life Charlene for encouraging
me to dust it off and put it out there for the world to see.
Finally, I want to dedicate this first novel to
my children, Caroline and Nathan, who will inherit the future. As
the future grows more complicated, it is my hope that they will
learn to both embrace it and thrive in it. There is no other
choice.
Kenton J. Kauffman
Sarasota, Florida
January 2014
The hunting knife sank savagely into Wakely
Karris’s chest. Her lips moved to form a scream. Wide, probing eyes
found her assailant for an instant—as if to ask, “My old friend,
why?”
The muscle-bound man with short cropped blonde
hair, jeans and a white t-shirt, pushed her back with his left hand
while wrenching the knife out with his right hand.
Wakely strained to reach the wound, but her weak
hands failed to stem the spurting crimson blood. Her body twisted
and fell forward onto the terrazzo floor. A sickening crack
resounded as her head hit the unforgiving slate.
She lay unmoving, face down in a pool of blood.
Her right arm was outstretched above her head.
As if in answer to her silent plea, her
assailant stood above her, glaring. The knife, still gripped firmly
in his right hand, dripped with the blood that had given Wakely
eighty-nine years of an extraordinary life in the Alpha Group
longevity experiment. “Hilliard’s evil experiment must not survive.
You are my first sacrifice!” he snarled.
He snapped his eyes shut. “O Lord, I call to
you; come quickly to me. Hear my voice when I call to you; may my
prayer be set before you like incense, may the lifting up of my
hands be like the evening sacrifice. Let not my heart be drawn to
what is evil, to take part in wicked deeds with men who are
evildoers; let me not eat of their delicacies.”
Wakely Karris had always known persecution might
find her as a member of the radical pacifist Church of Abraham
(CHOFA). Her steady commitment helping the unfortunate in the
ever-dangerous Middle East was another lightning rod to attract
trouble. But she could never have fathomed that she would die at
the hands of one of the oldest human beings on Earth—and a kindred
spirit in the most radical experiment humankind had ever known.
Nate Kristopher’s effortless strides across the
southern English countryside served as literal confirmation of the
power of the Alpha Group’s experiment. He was born in 1968, making
him ninety-one years old.
From the light rail passengers to the drivers of
hybrid autos, all observed a youthful Caucasian male in khaki
running shorts and a white T-shirt. Nate was tall and thin; some
would call him bony, a term he detested as a kid. He did however
like the nickname that had stuck with him: Skip. Short dark brown
hair covered his head except for a slowly receding hairline. He had
a slightly flattened nose with intense hazel eyes. His lengthy
runner’s legs were lightly tanned.
Beside him on the road to Glastonshire ran
Dugan, his robot, commonly called a CCR. This artificial
intelligence, in the form of a collie-Labrador mix with tawny brown
and white fur, had no trouble keeping up with his owner’s quick
pace. Dugan was part sophisticated intelligence, part protector,
and, if the truth be known, a full-time best-friend.
Nate’s vitals instantly downloaded into the
dataport computer installed inside the bone behind his left ear.
Nanochips implanted next to his eyes served as a nearly invisible
computer monitor, enabling easy reading of the information coming
across his visual field. All sensors confirmed his physical
functioning was that of a man in his mid-twenties. Even after six
decades of possessing a seemingly immortal body, he was always
secretly thrilled each time he ran—until today.
Nate glanced at the forest on his right and
cringed. Once-hardy sycamores and oaks lay barren, even in late
spring, their trunks slowly being consumed by moss. Meanwhile, new
species dotted the landscape, their green buds basking in the
warmth of spring. Cedars, argans, and oriental sweet gums, native
to the Mediterranean, now dotted the landscape of southern England.
He turned his head to the other side of the road. An open patch of
field revealed a farmer tending a crop by hand.
He stared in disbelief. “Dugan! Scan the field
to my left. Confirm if the plants are grapevines.”
“Yes.” Dugan’s voice rang crisply into Nate’s
dataport, which was powered in part by kinetic activity. “This
particular variety,” replied the CCR, “is called Muscadet, and
produces a dry white wine historically grown in the Loire Valley in
central France. These vines are six years old and will produce wine
in about—”
“Enough, Dugan,” Nate interrupted his chatty
cyber friend. Recalling humanity’s half-hearted efforts over the
past half-century to stop global warming, even in the face of
overwhelming scientific evidence, evinced a bitterness inside
him.
“New security information concerning you,” said
the computer companion robot in a firm, evenly paced dialogue.
Nate ignored the warning, still caught up in his
angry reverie. Millions had heeded the call to limit their carbon
footprint. To halt global warming,
everyone
had to get on
board. But millions remained in stubborn defiance and denial about
the scientific truths about the earth’s environment.
However, Nate Kristopher was convinced that,
just as the scientists in the Global Diversity and Sustainability
Project (GDSP) had predicted in the 2020’s, global warming was
not
the true threat to humanity. Human civilization was
struggling—but adapting to life on a hotter planet. He knew that
global warming was only the opening act. He shivered and thought
morosely,
And in less than ten years, if nothing changes, the
End-Date ice age will destroy it all.
“Skip!” said the CCR insistently.
“Sorry, Dugan.” His melancholic review was
successfully interrupted.
“I am picking up increased Net chatter on
several pre-programmed security channels. There are frequent
mentions of the Church of Abraham and—”
“So?” Nate responded. He was used to threats
against CHOFA in the years since he joined the fast growing
religion.
“This time your name is mentioned.”
Methodically, Herschel Hatton went to work. He
glanced out the window of Wakely’s tiny apartment. The neighborhood
lay in a silent slumber. He found some computer mini-files in the
bedroom. He shuddered when he saw her bed—pillows and sheets still
awry. Then he downloaded as much information as possible onto a
disc he pulled from his pocket.
With another furtive look through the curtain,
he was ready to go. The twinkling lights of mid-21
st
century Jerusalem looked much as they had for the past two thousand
years, except for several communications towers blinking steadily
above the city.
Re-entering the kitchen, he bent over the
lifeless body. Her blood was already becoming coagulated and stiff.
He inhaled deeply, closed his eyes, and slowly exhaled. His senses
tingled with anticipation; the events of the past twenty-four hours
had changed
everything.
There were sixteen;
now there are fifteen. That was too easy. Won’t Skip just love my
surprise
?
Carefully swiping blood off the floor with his
index finger, he wrote on the cold, hard floor beside her, “90” and
“10”. Placing the hunting knife down at her side, he pulled off his
blood-stained gloves and deposited them into a plastic sack.