Transhumanist Wager, The (28 page)

“No way. You're absolutely wrong,
Jethro.” Gregory quivered, distraught. “What we are right now is enough. The
nation doesn't need a new morality. We don't need people to change. Humans are
fine just the way they are.”

“The bold code of the transhumanist
will rise. That's an inevitable, undeniable fact. It's embedded in the
undemocratic nature of technology and our own teleological evolutionary
advancement. It is the future. We are the future. Like it or not. And it needs
to be molded, guided, and handled correctly by the strength and wisdom of
transhuman scientists with their nations and their resources standing behind
them, facilitating them. It needs to be supported in a way so that we can make
a successful transition into it, and not sacrifice ourselves—either by its
overwhelming power, or a by fear of harnessing that power. You need to put your
resources into the technology. Into our education system. Into our
universities, industries, and ideas. Into the strongest of our society. Into
the brightest of our society. Into the best of our society. So that we can
attain that future. We don't have a day to spare for you to make those changes.
The promise is too great.”

Gregory pulled away from the table.
“I don't know what you're talking about. You're insane, Jethro. Totally insane.
Shall we stop all help for the poor, for criminals, for the mentally
challenged, for the sick of the world, for developing nations that need us?
Just to fuel transhuman goals? Because you think the promise is so great?”

“Mostly, and brutally, yes. We need
to divert the resources to the genuinely gifted and qualified. To the achievers
of society—the ones who pay your bills by their innovation, genius, and hard
work. They will find the best way to the future. Not the losers of the world,
or the mediocre, or the downtrodden, or the fearful. They will only drag us
down, like they already have.”

“You're evil, Jethro.”

“Don't pretend to me that you don’t
know what I'm saying. You haven't fought for a damn thing in your life. It's
all been handed to you. Nonetheless, you still feel far more superior and
entitled than others—than the little people you feign concern about.”

Little people, Gregory thought,
stunned. How the hell could he know that?

“But mostly, Gregory, don't pretend
to me that you give a damn one way or the other. For you, this is about
politics, and your ego, and your dinner parties, and what others think of you.
For me, however, this is about the future. The transhuman future that I want to
be a part of, that I want to exist in, that I want to thrive in. And to reach
my full potential: the invincibility of the omnipotender.”

“Mortals shouldn’t act like God,
Jethro.”

“Yes, they should. And more
importantly, they shouldn’t be afraid to try.”

Gregory shook his head in
exhaustion. He lowered his eyes and stared at the table in front of him.
Inevitably, he was drawn to look again at Jethro's bloody stomach wound. He
didn’t know why he had to see it once more, but he did—and it made him sick. He
didn’t want to understand any of what Jethro was saying nor want to discuss it
anymore. For a moment he wasn't sure who was crazy.

The senator abruptly stood up and
walked tensely around the room. When he came to a stop, he saw the camera above
him, aimed right at his face. It helped Gregory to focus, knowing others were
watching and supporting him, knowing he wasn’t alone to face this transhumanist.

“Look, I’m not here to discuss
philosophy with you, Jethro,” Gregory said sharply. “You've contributed to the
demolition of a building in a major U.S. city where people have died. I’m here
to figure out a game plan. We want you to go on record as saying this was all
done by some rogue militia group in Ohio, where it all started with Dr. Bach's
childhood friend.”

“Bullshit. It came all the way down
from the top—from Reverend Belinas. I will make sure the whole world knows it.”

“No one will believe you. Such a
spiritual man as Reverend Belinas would never be privy to such petty things.”

“You heard what his thug said on
live TV. I'm not taking back a statement of one of his very own terrorists. My
tech people can trace phone calls, emails, bomb purchases, anything. We'll nail
him—and maybe you too.”

“You're insane. You can't take on
America, Jethro.”

“Not America, Gregory. Just the
idiots and the anti-transhumanists in America.”

Senator Michaelson was aghast. He
didn't know what else to say or do. It was astonishing that Jethro wouldn't
cooperate at all.

He stood there in silence for a
long time, and then said, “This is your last chance, Jethro. You will lose this
war against us. Prison will be a dark, lonely place.”

“I’ll remember you said that,
Gregory—when it's my time to stick you in one.”

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

After Senator Michaelson left the
interrogation room, guards escorted Jethro Knights out of the police station
and across the street to the county jail. He was placed in a solitary
confinement cell. Behind the bars in his concrete cubicle was a stainless steel
desk, a toilet fused into the wall, and a skimpy torn-up mattress on a bedframe
bolted to the floor. The desk held a Bible and a three-inch yellow pencil for
making notes in it.

Exhilarated and elated with the
outcome of the terrorist incident, Jethro paced around his cell, considering
his organization’s next moves. The visit from Senator Michaelson was
tremendous; it proved how deep the impact of the bombing had cut into both the
government and the public. Jethro decided to channel his anxious energy into
writing an article. He knew all the major newspapers would want to publish it
in their op-ed sections. Without any blank paper, he sat down, opened the
Bible, and began writing the article between lines of scripture. The page began
with:

Matthew
13:15

Today,
America has witnessed where their

For
this people's heart is waxed gross, and their

churches
and government have led them: down

ears
dull of hearing, and their eyes they have

a
fool's path, where terrorists threaten innocent

closed.
Lest at any time they should see with

lives
while revealing their own corrupt, boorish

their
eyes and hear with their ears, and should

leadership.
Today, the transhuman movement has

understand
with their heart, and should

made
a united and confrontational stand, declaring

be
converted, then I shall fully heal them.

it
will no longer allow the hindrance of its scientific aims.

Jethro’s article went on,
spiritedly describing the new defiant face of transhumanism after the Nathan
Cohen murder. It promised that transhumanists would never compromise their
goals for as long as Transhuman Citizen existed. It also announced a bold call
for radical new groups to emerge and join the transhumanist plight—promising that
a brighter future for the movement was now dawning. The
USA Daily Tribune
published the article the following day, after a sympathetic jail guard brought
the torn-out Bible pages to Zoe Bach. The printed article added clarity to the
transhumanism debate and hype unfolding in the media.

Forty-eight hours after the
bombing, Jethro Knights was arraigned—his wrists and feet bound by metal cuffs,
his body clad in orange attire. His shirt read,
Inmate 132
. He chose not
to be represented by a lawyer. Behind him were Zoe Bach, Oliver Mbaye, and
Preston Langmore. In back of Langmore was an attorney from the World
Transhumanist Institute.

“I know Jethro dislikes lawyers,”
Langmore said to Zoe. “So I brought ours, just in case.”

After preliminary discussions in
the courtroom about jurisdiction and other legal technicalities, the judge—a
squat man with gray hair and a forceful, badgerlike sense about him—asked the
prosecutor if Jethro Knights was being accused of any crime. The judge found it
odd that there was case paperwork in front of him, but no charges. The
prosecutor, whom the judge had never met before, brought up documents bearing
the Presidential Seal stating that under a new Homeland Security decree, the
government could detain criminals for up to ninety days without a charge, as
circumstantial evidence was gathered.

“Huh?” said the San Francisco
judge, surprised—then instantly turned irate. “What is this, the Gestapo? When
did the standard seven days of a Presidential Seal turn into ninety days
without congressional approval? We're in a courtroom in California. The last
time I checked we were still following the Constitution, the law of the land.” 

The prosecutor looked threateningly
at the judge, “Your Honor, I suggest treading lightly, very lightly. This is a
Presidential Seal. The upper echelons of the government, including the United
States Attorney General, have no tolerance for anything but the strictest law
being followed when it comes to domestic terrorism suspects, as we consider
Jethro Knights to be.”

The judge stared back in
astonishment. Five seconds later, he abruptly stood up, bent over his desk, and
turned ferocious. This was his bench for the past twenty-five years and no one
had ever threatened him in his courtroom like that.

“Domestic terrorism, damn it? This
case looks cut-and-dried to me, sir. I’ve spoken at length with the San
Francisco police captain and our local district attorney about what happened.
I’ve read dozens of reports from different official agencies. I even watched
what happened on live television. I unequivocally deny the charges of his being
held as a domestic terrorist for ninety days.”

The prosecutor stood abashed. He
was not used to the ways a loud, liberal San Francisco judge handled the
arraignment. He blurted out, “But, Your Honor, this order has the Presidential
Seal.”

“Yeah, and this is an American
courtroom, first and foremost. Orders—regardless of who issues them—don’t trump
law. Don't forget son, I've been on the bench a long time. I've seen presidents
come and go, some of whom were forced to resign with their tail between their
legs when the law was broken.”

The judge stared hard at the
prosecutor, testing him, unafraid.

The prosecutor turned to his
partner, a CIA man who bore a callous countenance and wore a dark suit. They
whispered to each other until the man grudgingly shrugged his shoulders.

  “Your Honor, seven days will be
acceptable,” said the prosecutor meekly. “We request that time to determine if
there are any charges to be brought against Jethro Knights regarding the
Cryotask bombing.”

“
That
, you gentlemen may do.
But the day someone comes into my courtroom telling me what I can or cannot do,
when it's not within the scope of the U.S. Constitution, I will quit my job and
leave this great nation. You have seven days to drum up reasonable charges and
evidence against Mr. Knights, or I will free him.”

Oliver Mbaye and Preston Langmore
snickered at the about-face the prosecution was forced to make. Moments later,
a police officer led Jethro Knights out of the courtroom and back to his cell.
Jethro eyed Zoe Bach as he was escorted away, nodding to her that everything
would be all right.

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

Four days later, the President of
the United States held a special evening press conference that was broadcast live
on television, radio, and the Internet. It was a deliberate government attempt
to ease the escalating tensions between the transhumanists and the religious
anti-transhumanist groups. In the seventy-two hours following the Cryotask
attack, dozens of spontaneous acts of violence had occurred nationwide—many at
cryonics companies, human enhancement clinics, and transhuman laboratories.
Television stations aired live, incendiary footage of a robotics research
facility and an embryonic stem cell center being torched by angry religious
mobs. The attacks were countered by transhumanist youths burning down a handful
of churches across the country and vandalizing an NAH satellite building in
Tampa Bay, Florida. The NAH building was spray-painted multiple times in bright
orange with the words,
Courtesy of Transhuman Citizen
. Clearly, the
stage was set for a national standoff.

At the press conference, bearing
his patented cool demeanor, the President asked the nation's citizens to calm
themselves, to control their emotions and angst. He blamed recent events partly
on the media, and how they mishandled and misrepresented stories. He extolled
them to be judicious with the news, and to stop sensationalizing it. Mostly,
though, he spoke of the problem of aggression across the country as being an
economic issue.

“If people had jobs they would be
more reasonable, more tolerant. We could progress through these challenging
times in peace and unity.”

After five minutes of speaking and
meandering on the country's woes, it was clear the President’s special address
was leading to something bigger—an important announcement. Blogs had recently
reported a rumor that the government was imminently launching a gigantic new
agency to remedy the animosity brewing across the country. What exactly for, no
one knew for sure.