Transhumanist Wager, The (11 page)

“Yeah, I know. They've made
‘transhumanism’ a very dirty word.”

“And they've made it witchcraft
science to have anything to do with it,” Langmore said obstinately. “Damn
quasi-Christian-run government insists on making you want to die so you can
meet Jesus and other celebrities in heaven. Sounds like a cheesy, B-rated
Hollywood flick. People are crazy.”

“Hopefully, there will be a
breakthrough soon or something. My small group of friends here in academia sure
hopes so.”

“We're actually in the midst of
trying new publicity and funding angles at the institute. It's more grassroots
stuff, outside the usual realm of talking to scientists and entrepreneurs. In
fact, I came here to try to locate a former student of yours about it. He was
the young man who spoke up at the town hall forum. Do you remember him?”

“Sure I do,” said the dean, smiling
broadly, letting Langmore know by his reaction that he knew the student well.
“His name is Jethro Knights.”

“Excellent. So you
do
know
him. Well, his senior thesis,
Rise of the Transhuman Citizen
, was posted
a while back on a life extension blog. The essay has received heaps of
attention in the transhuman underground and also on the Web, the grassroots
side of the movement. Really, it’s mainly the youth that seem interested. But
many thousands of people have read it now, and some of them have re-posted it
all over the Internet. The Institute’s board and I want to see if we can get
him to write more, possibly organize that grassroots energy. The thesis is
quite aggressive and radical. But we need any traction we can get to make
transhumanism more popular. We need to make headway somehow.”

Langmore looked at his feet
sheepishly, then continued. “We need new blood, new visionaries—perhaps even a
new, bolder generation for the movement. It seems we old scientists and engineers
are no match for the brazen politicians and Christian evangelists sweeping the
public right now.”

“Jethro is currently abroad for a
few years,” said the dean.

“Yes, it seems he's a journalist.
But I couldn't get a hold of him through
International Geographic
. They
wouldn't share any of his personal info. Legal policy, they said.”

“He's sailing around the world and
may not be very reachable. I haven't actually talked to him in two years, but a
good friend of mine is his editor at
International Geographic
. I'll put
you in direct touch with him and he'll make sure you and Jethro connect.”

“That’s exactly what I was hoping
for.”

The dean shrugged. "I don't
know if it'll be useful, though. Jethro is still young and brash. He's got much
to learn about the overall movement. And he's definitely not a team player, if
you know what I mean. In fact, he can be downright antisocial and unruly. But
he clearly believes in transhumanism."

"That's fine. We were all
young once. And none of us are team players unless there's an opposing team
that needs to be played against out of necessity. And, right now, that necessity
has arrived."

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

In the middle of a breezy Kashmir
afternoon, a driver took Jethro Knights to Kundara. It was his last scheduled
stop before boarding a flight later that night to his boat in Singapore. Jethro
was anxious to sail again.

Along the way, his driver described
some of the main sites of the village: a bullet-ridden century-old mosque, a
small functioning school, a hospital tent where children are born and soldiers
are operated on by a Western doctor.

“The doctor is a strange woman with
powerful green eyes,” the driver said simply, unassumingly. He concentrated on
the road, agilely swerving around numerous two-foot-deep bomb blast craters.
“The local oracle says she is friendly with ghosts.”

“Fine. Maybe we can do a quick
interview,” Jethro replied, looking out the window to see if the light was good
for photos.

When they arrived, they parked in
front of the village’s white hospital tent. The 1000-square-foot structure bore
a huge, painted red X on its roof to protect it from air raids. Dr. Zoe Bach
was inside, working in bloodstained scrubs and delivering a baby. It was her
third one that week. But this was a good week, she thought. Each baby and
mother had survived so far—better than last week. Much better.

Above her, a rickety lamp tied to
the ceiling of the tent swung gently back and forth. The wind outside was
perpetually seeping in, moving the light and casting dancing shadows on the
operating table. The Kashmiri nurses struggled to keep the tent as airtight and
dust-free as possible for surgeries. The floor was dirt, but Zoe's few
instruments were spotless, a condition she always insisted on. She called for
the scalpel and severed the newborn’s umbilical cord in one swift, expert
moment. With blood everywhere, she handed off the wailing infant to a nurse,
who then began cleaning the healthy child.

After taking some pictures of the
bombed village and its school, Jethro Knights ducked his head into the hospital
tent. The hanging lamp inside swayed wide; the sun's rays and wind following
him in. Zoe noticed the strong draft and thought, What the hell? When she
turned, however, Jethro's luminous blue eyes met hers, and she felt stunned to
be looking at a light-skinned man only a few years younger than she. The
tingling on the back of Zoe’s neck told her he was neither handsome nor ugly,
but intensely compelling. She felt aroused, and unconsciously adjusted her
legs. There was a spiritual and nebulous connection she felt as well, but it
was too much for her to immediately fathom.

Jethro answered her surprise with a
masculine smile and a slight nod.

An irritated nurse quickly pointed
for Jethro to wait outside the tent, to give the patients privacy and to keep
the wind out. Half an hour later, Zoe appeared, escorting the wheelchair-bound
mother and her newborn out of the hospital tent to her waiting family. In Urdu,
Zoe instructed the mother to come back the following morning for a checkup. A
minute later Zoe returned and invited Jethro into the tent.

“Greetings to a stranger. We don't
get many this far along the Line of Control.
S’il vous plait, Francais
—or
do you speak English?” she asked, pulling the surgeon's cap off her head and
shaking her hair freely.

“Je parle deux. Mon nom est
Jethro Knights.
It's a pleasure to meet you.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance
too,” she said, delighted. “What brings you out here? Though the camera on your
neck and the
International Geographic
hat give you away.”

Jethro, grinning, shrugged his wide
shoulders, and Zoe thought it strange that she noticed his strong, straight
teeth.

“I'm a journalist researching a
story on refugees.”

“Well, how can I be of service? I
like your magazine.”

“Do you have some free time for a
short interview? Maybe a walk through the village?”

“Sure, you have great timing. I'm finished
here for the day unless something else comes in. I just have to help clean up.
Give me ten minutes.”

They walked all afternoon, both of
them quickly forgetting the article he was working on. Instead, they swapped
stories of their adventures in Kashmir and the other places they had traveled.
They even touched on their personal commitments and beliefs toward
transhumanism. Each thought it unnerving how much they shared in common, how
many similar ideas they had, how many similar places they had visited, how many
similar books they had read and planned to read. Even their unspoken thoughts
and desires seemed to wrap themselves around each other.

Chemistry, amongst the dust and
destruction, mushroomed. Less than five minutes into their walk, Jethro Knights
knew he wasn't leaving on a flight that evening.

Chapter 8

Two years after the Transhumanism
Town Hall Forum, a giant photo of Reverend Belinas appeared on the front page
of the
USA Daily Tribune
. In bold, black letters, the headline declared
him “Man of the Year.” The picture was a classic of the preacher: his
6-foot-3-inch frame towering over a church pulpit, his right arm raised and
pointing towards some distant horizon, cautioning yet guiding at the same
moment.

The newspaper’s caption underneath
his photo ran:

Reverend
Belinas is a saint to his burgeoning international congregation and has all the
makings of a great religious leader in a broken-down world. He considers the
transhuman movement and their advocacy of human enhancement technology the
greatest threat of our time. Can he stop it?

That same day of the “Man of the
Year” announcement, at a luncheon in southern Missouri with a group of
welfare-supported single mothers who were marginalized by their communities and
circumstances, Belinas preached that he was fighting for a self-declared
spiritual purity that would spread across the land. He wanted it to be the kind
that didn't marginalize anyone. In the bleak economic times facing America,
especially in the Bible Belt of the continent, he found a willing group of
listeners, most of whom were financially devastated and barely subsisting day
to day. Thousands joined his movement every week. Millions more supported his
evangelism and considered him with awe.

Unlike other famous religious leaders,
Belinas never asked the poor for donations. His disdain for money was
legendary. He was essentially without possessions—and made sure everyone knew
it. He encouraged others to not just believe in Jesus Christ, but to literally
live like him too. Year after year, Belinas never splurged on fancy living, nor
entertained women in inappropriate ways, nor even handled a single dollar bill.
His followers, friends, and admirers provided for everything. His reputation
was so commanding that a meal or a service hadn't been charged of him in years.
His personality and sonorous voice, always in the didactic tone of a sermon,
was compensation enough.

Behind him, though, hidden from the
public—and carefully monitored by carefully chosen people—was an enormous machine,
worth hundreds of millions of dollars. It was supported by a wealthy few,
feeding endless money into the machine for the right to belong to it. They were
people for whom riches came too easily and freely: celebrities, royalty, and
heirs. They bought Belinas' goodwill and paved the way for his ministry with
their resources. In return, he promised them God's favor, both in this world
and the next. He meant it, and they believed it.

Belinas was an authentic man,
singular in his absolute faith and servitude to the Lord and to his people.
Faith was the cornerstone of his religiosity. If God demanded he fly a fully
fueled commercial jetliner into a skyscraper filled with thousands of people,
he would do it. And not think twice about it. Despite his radicalism, he
considered himself broadminded and mostly did not care what religion people
were, as long as they actively pursued God in their daily lives, helped the
poor, shunned wealth, and avoided transhuman-inspired technology—what he deemed
the science of the devil. He professed to be a Christian, but welcomed
coexistence and peaceful worship with Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Catholics,
Jews, and anyone who believed in God or a higher divine power. Belinas' mission
was simple. Unbridled materialism and technology were the domain of his
enemies: the atheists and anti-theists. Give it all up and get back to almighty
God, he preached—and to helping the faithful, the downtrodden, and the
destitute.

To meet him was to meet a devoted
monk, or an aesthete at the banks of the Ganges, or an indefatigable holy man.
Every day, he wore only leather sandals and a bleached religious gown, creating
an angelic warriorlike presence. Purple and gold stripes were embroidered on
his robe’s white sleeves, showing his leadership status according to his
interpretation of the Bible’s Old Testament. He shaved first thing every
morning and scrubbed his bare scalp raw every day. He was known to pray
silently for hours straight. No one ever saw him sweat, or lose his temper, or
complain about hunger or cold; he appeared impervious to such frivolities. He
was a fanatic without appearing fanatical. His sole flaw—that which only proved
he was endearingly human, chimed his followers—was his inclination to enjoy a
cigarette. Still, he rarely touched one.  

Belinas traveled around in a trio
of bulletproof white Range Rovers, driven by thickset bodyguards, who were
dressed identically in night-black suits and also carried handguns. Because of
Belinas’ rock-star status, the top members and financial backers of his
congregation insisted he travel that way for his safety. The preacher disliked
security, and especially disliked cars. He would've preferred to walk
everywhere. And sometimes did—once even a hundred miles across the desert to
visit and comfort a child dying from leukemia—just to make a point. When
friends and congregation members invited him to stay the night in their homes,
he sometimes refused their guestrooms and slept on their couches or floors, or
bypassed sleep altogether in order to pray. Humility in front of the Lord and
his people was critical, he preached.

Yet more critical was his carefully
constructed public image. He made sure the media saw and photographed
everything in his ministry. His disdain for technology was no reason
not
to use it. He made sure his life was like a hit television show: the anointed
wandering the wasteland, always on the move to preach the Word of God, to stave
off evil, to help his flock spread the goodwill of Christianity. He joined in
building houses for the homeless. In walking abused dogs from the pound. In
handing out food to street children. In donating blood. In planting trees. In
mentoring the disabled. In carrying the caskets of the dead. In leading
demonstrations against transhumanists and their enterprises. His show was
never-ending, always on local television channels even barbershops could air.
Or on public radio broadcasts at gas stations. Or on inner city kids’ cell
phones as webcasts from his church’s website. He was everywhere. His own film and
production crew—always tagging along behind him—were some of the most talented
media personnel in the country. And the best paid.