Transhumanist Wager, The (45 page)

Every day, Jethro’s jets brought in
an ever larger number of scientists from all over the world. Each visitor’s
initial sense was disbelief; they looked out the airplane's window at an
iridescent floating city, shooting out of the shifting blue ocean far below.
Upon arrival to Transhumania, pilots were instructed to fly circles around the
city a few times to give onlookers a good aerial view. For many, such a
bountiful and mysterious place seemed too surreal to actually exist, to just
land on and walk around. It was like a new Wonder of the World, something
imagined only in dreams. Then, there were friends and colleagues from all over
the planet in one place, with one mission. All in the same state of mind. Many
scientists commented they felt like graduate students again—when the world was
something miraculous to believe in, when anything was still possible, when the
next great discovery or the next great technological leap was perhaps just
months away.

The logistics of running
Transhumania were incredible. Rachael Burton went from chief architect to mayor
of the city, advising staff on how to manage millions of details. Preston
Langmore was in charge of leading and organizing the direction of the science
and research. Jethro hired Francisco Dante to start a fifty-person news service
in the city, complete with its own 24-hour television channel. Citizens basked
in luxury and were treated like rock stars. Many joined fitness programs, learned
new languages in night classes, and wandered around the numerous
multimillion-volume libraries spread throughout the city. Citizens formed
orchestras, chess teams, and culinary clubs. Fishing trips, rounds of golf, and
jungle hikes on nearby tropical islands were arranged on weekends.
Transhumania’s boats and helicopters ferried scientists to and from their
destinations.

Problems occurred, but they were
quickly worked out for the most part. These were not people who complained
about a broken hot shower or a bad Internet connection. These were
professionals of the highest order, and they were all building the nation
together. They fixed things themselves, went out of their way to improve
operations, and helped one another when they could. These citizens were people
of action, of doing—and doing it right.

At night, many of them looked at
the stars from the windows of their skyscrapers and felt as if they had arrived
on a remarkable new planet. They were never happier or more productive, or
bound with a greater sense of drive.

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

Six months after Jethro Knights'
Transhumania press conference, Reverend Belinas and Senator Gregory Michaelson
met with the President of the United States in the Oval Office of the White
House.

“Sir, I really believe you need to
speak to the Chinese President next week when he visits—about Transhumania,”
said Belinas.

“What for? There’s not any
immediate threat. We only need to monitor the situation. They're just a bunch
of floating sci-fi kooks.”

Belinas was perturbed. A cigarette
burned in his mouth, and he slumped in a leather chair next to the President’s
desk. The reverend silently swore to himself. Two hours before, he received
news that his congregation of believers had decreased for the third year in a
row. His funds and resources had diminished too. The rumor was that his
popularity had peaked. The core issue was more likely tied to the economy,
which was shattered from coast to coast. Even his celebrity and heir supporters
were closing their wallets. In the past twelve months, many banks had
permanently shut their doors. Insurance companies around America evaporated.
Manufacturing plants were empty and listless. Commercial real estate projects
going up anywhere in the country were almost entirely commissioned by the
government. Times were not just difficult, they were desperate.

“Have you heard much from anyone,
Sir—about Transhumania? Military might? Anything?” asked Gregory, leaning
casually against a bookcase in a corner of the room. He held a half-finished
glass of Scotch.

“Sure, I hear stuff all the damn
time. It seems people can’t talk enough about it, whether its voters, the
press, or other politicians. The French President asked me about it at lunch
the other day. He said, ‘What if they develop a nuclear bomb?’”

Belinas and Gregory carefully
watched the President for an answer.

“Hell, I don’t know. We can’t make
a ruckus or cause an embargo just because of something we don't know for sure.
Freezing the city's assets is impossible anyway; the CIA Director told me we
can’t trace any of their bank accounts. Frankly, our people don’t think they’re
working on any nuclear bomb technology. The satellite images don't show any
enrichment going on.”

“Why not?” Belinas asked. “Jethro
Knights is a militant man. Surely he wants that type of power and would use it
if he had it.”

“Quite possibly because you made
him that way, Belinas,” the President shot back sharply. It was the first time
he had revealed he was suspicious about whether the NFSA had really accomplished
its goals.

Belinas turned pale and quickly sat
upright. The President's jab of frustration hit strongly.

In the corner, Gregory also stood
up straighter.

The President frowned, not meaning
to scare or badger his longtime minister. He was still very much on the
reverend’s side, and added, “Look, Belinas, the generals just don’t think the
transhumanists have the resources or time for that. It’s not a strong use of
their time or part of their agenda.”

The President took a sip of his
water, then said firmly, “Gentleman, we are old friends here, and men bound
together in faith. I want to protect America and the world just as much as you
do. But we are losing our shirts right now because of the economy. Damn crisis
just a few years ago was a prolonged recession. Now people are starting to
wonder if it’s a full-blown depression. My priorities are elsewhere. America is
too poor and frustrated for another war against some far-out, far-off cause.”

There was a long, awkward silence.
It filled the room as the President looked at his wristwatch. He sighed, then
said, “And now, friends, I have to meet Senator Charleston about a fourth
extension of the unemployment bill. More pork to deliver. I feel like a damn
pizza man these days.”

Belinas shot Gregory a foul glance,
encouraging him to press the President further.

“What about the scientists and
engineers?” Gregory asked.

“What about them?”

“They’re disappearing by the
thousands.”

“What can we do? Tell them no, you
can’t go? Pay them more? Christ, they’re transhuman rogues anyway. If they
don't want to be here, then they don’t really belong here. Besides, there are
others stepping up who do, replacing the old.”

“Some of those leaving are the best
we have. Shouldn’t we keep them here? Insist they stay?”

“Gregory, how shall we do that?
Shall we have a ‘War on Scientists Leaving’ as well?”

The President got up from his chair
and walked to the window. He was full of raw nerves these days and he knew it.
He looked out over the White House lawn and saw his Golden Cocker Spaniel
taking a shit. Eight feet away a Secret Service officer was holding a small
shovel to scoop it up. The politician smiled stupidly.

“I don’t want them to go,” the
President said softly, “but to make it illegal for them to leave is not only
beyond unconstitutional, it’s tyranny. I agreed with your War on Transhumanism.
I’m a God-fearing man, and I want the human species to remain what it is. But
to go further than that—to make it illegal to think what you want, where you
go, and what you study—when there's no tangible proof it’s hurting others, then
that is too far. We must hold to our own values with our cherished beliefs and
our unified sense of what is morally right. We must teach them our rules by
example, not by guns or force.”

Belinas disagreed. He
emphatically
disagreed. He wanted an iron fist. Using guns and force was
exactly
how
the transhumanists needed to be handled and taught. Belinas stared at the
portrait of President Andrew Jackson on a nearby wall, knowing soon he would
bypass the President's authority if necessary, and go straight to Congress. Or
better yet, straight to the generals.

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

Jethro Knights stood atop Memorial
Vista, gazing pensively at Transhumania below him. He was exhausted from
endless travels and meetings. It was good to be here, he thought, good to be
home. Near him, the commemorative statue of Dr. Nathan Cohen now stood. A
sculptor from Taiwan, a longtime advocate of transhumanism, was chosen for the
commission. Jethro had offered him excellent compensation to make the statue,
but the artist refused to charge anything, balking at Jethro.

“Did you pay yourself for building
Transhumania, Mr. Knights? Do you have a salary? Or a personal savings account?
Or how about a retirement portfolio? No, of course not. Those things are
superfluous for you. Because this isn't your job, it’s your life. Please don't
insult me with what is going to be the paramount assignment of my life.”

The effect the artist created in
the statue of Nathan Cohen was haunting. The shimmering, life-sized bronze
body—headless and tortured—was being dragged away by black-stained, ghostly
hooded men. Five feet away, cemented into the ground, was a sculpted skull; the
expression on its face was adamant, enduring, unyielding.

Jethro also wanted the artist to
create a statue of Zoe Bach; however, Jethro chose to postpone it indefinitely.
It still hurt too much. The visceral reminder on Memorial Vista would be
crushing. He pushed his mind away from thinking of Zoe tonight. Instead, Jethro
concentrated on the sunset. It was magnificent, fading amongst a kaleidoscope
of colors etched in the drifting clouds. He turned from the statue, and his
eyes wandered to the benches lining the city’s edge.

In view, there was only one
skyscraper remaining with substantial work to be finished: the shortest, called
the Technology Tower. Its skeleton, almost 70 percent covered in siding, was
fifty-two stories high. Soaring above it were two other highrises: The middle
building was sixty-six stories, called the Science Tower; the last and tallest
building, eighty stories in height, was named the Transhumania Tower. Each of
the towers—bearing slightly varying hues of silver, green, and blue glass
siding, configured to emulate circuitry design—shot towards the sky,
harmoniously complementing one another.

Already complete, the Transhumania
Tower contained many of the citizens’ homes near the top, including Jethro's
minimalistic but intriguing three-room residence. His customized dwelling was
informally dubbed the “Immortality Bridge” because most of the city’s essential
command controls were located inside it. Dozens of servers, computers, and
monitors neatly packaged against his living room wall could maneuver and
operate all of Transhumania. Friends, colleagues, and guests of the city loved
to visit for coffee or tea and watch the thousands of blinking lights, flow
diagrams, and fluctuating color graphs on the screens. Near the
floor-to-ceiling window of his dining room, Jethro placed a twenty-person glass
table overlooking the sea. It was his place to host important meetings and
dinners.

Farther down in this skyscraper, on
floors forty-seven and forty-six, were located the offices and broadcasting
studios of the Transhumania News Network. Below that, on floors thirty-nine and
thirty-eight, was the Lojban Center, where a team of international linguists
specialized in improving and teaching Transhumanians a syntactically
unambiguous human language. The phonetically spelled language based on
predicate logic was called
Lojban
, and over time, Jethro planned to make
it the official language of Transhumania. It was the most effective and
straightforward language on the planet for both human-to-human and
human-to-computer communication.

Below the Lojban Center, many of
the city's best restaurants and shops occupied the middle and lower floors,
including multilevel grocery, department, and hardware superstores. In the
bottom section of the tower were numerous conference halls, an elaborate spa
complex, and the five-star Transhumania Hotel for guests. A gymnastics arena, a
basketball court, and an ice-skating rink were located at varying upper levels
in the twenty-five story basement. Storage units, long-term car parking, and
emergency cargo holds made up the bottom levels.

The Science Tower looked complete
on the outside, but workers were still finishing the interior of the highest
stories. That skyscraper was for biology, chemistry, physics, and the medical
fields. Sections of the building were separated between the disciplines of
biotechnology, cryonics, cellular regeneration, nanomedicine, cybernetics, life
extension pharmacology, chemistry, cognitive science, cloning, gene therapy,
neuroscience, organ farming, tissue engineering, bacterial transformations,
viral containment, psychiatry, cancer research, and nuclear physics. A floor
was even dedicated to the fledgling field of quantum mechanics and its
relationship with the brain and consciousness. At the bottom of the building
was a five-story medical center, including the trauma and surgery bay, which
was the most advanced of its kind in the world. Research and medical care were
already underway on many floors of the building.

The topmost outside skeleton of the
Technology Tower was only ten days away from being completed. It was the most
difficult building on Transhumania to finish because of the complicated
technology and engineering involved. Over 500 electricians and technicians
spent weeks installing a massive array of complex wiring, tens of thousands of
servers, and dozens of remote Internet encryption firewire systems. It was the
building dedicated to everything computer- and microchip-oriented: all
software, hardware, and nanotechnology research.