Transhumanist Wager, The (64 page)

The chip in his head immediately
notified emergency crews of his condition, but surprisingly, it couldn't
diagnose the problem. Jethro's two bodyguards—one polibot and one human, always
patrolling outside his cottage—sprinted in and carefully placed him on his bed.
He was barely conscious, and his breathing was weak.

Four hours later, in the San Aliza
Medical Hospital in San Francisco, a doctor explained to Jethro that he had
contracted an extremely rare form of H1L39, a new and mysterious airborne virus
out of Madagascar that affected only a tiny population of people, but had
recently arrived on the North American Continent. There was no known cure.
Jethro was told that he would only have a few months to live without 24-hour
life-dilation:
a tedious medical process which rendered a patient vegetative and mostly
unconscious until a treatment was found.

“There’s a cure in the works,”
President Langmore fretfully told Jethro a few days later in the hospital
during a visit. “But it’s not here yet. The supercomputers can't break the
biological mechanism of the disease for some reason. No one’s bothered with
this specific virus because so few people get it.”

“Freeze me. I’ll be back in a few
years or so, when there’s a cure and you start reanimating patients.”

“Huh? What are you talking about,
Jethro? That's ridiculous. We'll keep you on life-dilation. Probably only for a
year or two. I'm sure there will be a cure soon now. Oh, I can already see the
rush of grants being given to kids doing their Ph.D.s on it now that you, of
all people, have it.”

Jethro shook his head. “No thanks,
my friend. I don't want to do life-dilation. I would prefer not to be a
vegetable for years. Please take care of the logistics on the cryonics chamber,
and I’ll undergo the process in a few weeks. I just want to finish up a few
edits for my latest book, then I'll be ready.”

The President stepped backwards in
astonishment, and became frightened when he saw the gravity in his friend’s
face. “But Jethro, that's death!” he exclaimed.

“Precisely,” Jethro answered.

“But no one has ever been successfully
reanimated yet. It's always proved too difficult to do without significantly
damaging brain neurons and long-term memory. We don't even know if it's
possible yet.”

“Of course, it’s possible. The
research teams are quite close. In maybe five years—eight years maximum—they'll
be able to do it just fine. There are hundreds of thousands of cryo-preserved
patients waiting around the world. Important people. Wealthy people. Some of
our good friends. Some of our best scientists from a generation ago, with unwavering
willpower and soaring IQs. We're right at the cusp of achieving reanimation.”

“Jethro, this is absurd. You fought
against death your whole life. Your argument is totally beside the point.
Nobody gets frozen anymore. Transhumanists like us don't die anymore.”

“
This
transhumanist does.”

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

In three weeks time, after
completing his latest manuscript, Jethro Knights was back in the hospital. His
disease was beginning to critically sicken him. The doctor at Jethro's bedside
confirmed the cryonics chamber would be suitable for his blood type, pH levels,
and genetic base. Cryonics freezing was increasingly used only for people with
maladies who chose to be animated while still in good health, rather than
waiting until they were deathly sick—as those kept in the comatose state of
life-dilation. More and more, however, few nonreligious people with resources
died anymore. At least those who preferred not to, didn't die—not in the
prosperous urban places on the planet.

“I don't understand you at all,
Jethro. Why die when you don't need to?” asked President Langmore on one of
Jethro's last nights alive. “What the hell is going on here with you?  Has this
disease attacked your brain? This is so unlike you, especially after everything
you did and fought for.”

“It’s fitting I should die, my
friend,” Jethro answered. “I’ve always wanted to experience many things. That's
part of what living is about.”

“But we could keep you on
life-dilation. It's so much safer. It's a sure thing. We could probably even keep
you conscious on tubes and drugs the whole time if you wanted—for years even.”

“That’s not a life. It's miserable,
foggy, and painful. Although, of course, I would do it if I were worried about
not coming back.”

“Are you sure? Honestly, sometimes
I don't understand you at all.”

“Preston, please don’t worry about
it. I know what I'm doing. Besides, we don't always get to understand
everything. Not yet.”

“This is asinine, Jethro.” Langmore
shook his head, frowning.

“Just make sure everything moves
forward on Transhumania and that my body is always secure somewhere. I’ll be in
the hands of my friends. I'll be counting on you all.”

“We know. Nothing is going to
happen. The world is so damn safe and amazing these days. So much wealth,
prosperity, and innovation. I can hardly keep up with it. And now all the
interplanetary stuff is starting—Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. You’ve made it all
happen, Jethro. All the exploration and brilliance of life we were capable of
achieving. The world will carefully watch over you.”

“
We,
my friend, made it all
happen. Every one of us who believed in and fought for transhumanism,” he
answered, correcting Langmore. Jethro, faint and pale, struggled to adjust
himself in his hospital bed. “Let me get some sleep now. I’m exhausted. We can
talk more tomorrow.”

Three days later, Jethro Knights
attended an intimate state dinner where heads of every major principality of
Transhumania joined to say farewell to him. Jethro was noticeably weaker and
thinner, was pushed around in a wheelchair, and spoke little. He listened to
the happenings of the new world and what was anticipated for the next decade.
At the end, President Langmore took Jethro to his hovering aircraft on the roof
and escorted him back to the hospital. Jethro was going to spend the night
there before entering the cryonics chamber in the hospital's basement the
following day at 10:00 A.M.

The next morning, a half hour
before he departed consciousness, Jethro warmly smiled at Langmore and the
other close friends he had invited to be present at his end. Many were top
Transhumanian leaders or officials in their fields. They gathered in a
semi-circle around his bed. It was hard for Jethro to speak, but he turned to
each person and began saying farewell.

“Rachael, the semi-elastic polymer,
Fylio, is the most incredible material ever created. The engineers say it's a
gold mine for our new cities—
your
new cities. Mile-high skyscrapers that
can go through hurricanes, tsunamis, and ten-point-plus earthquakes.

“Oliver, use extreme caution with
the interplanetary exploration. So exciting, but watch out for the strange
atmospheric bio-diseases and even the extraordinary living minerals Saturn
possesses. They might be a Pandora’s box.

“Francisco, keep them honest in the
media. Force objectivity and didactic journalism to reign over commercialism,
sensationalism, and fear-propagating news. Don’t let free information be
dictated by corporations and their addiction to profits.

“Josh, there are talented hackers
on the island of Japan who are rogue. Watch out for them. They are ambitious
and power-hungry. They are demonizing the concept of the omnipotender. The
rumored god-computer they’re trying to build in the Tokyo underground is
perhaps the most dangerous threat to our planet.”

Jethro started coughing—lightly at
first, then more roughly. His voice was hoarse and his throat ached. He was
running a 103-degree fever because of the disease. It was hard for him to
continue, but he held up his hand, showing everyone he was okay. He turned to
his longtime secretary.

“Janice, thank you for your
kindness and efficiency throughout all these years. You’ve been so wonderful.
I'll have plenty more manuscripts for you to help me research when I'm back.
Please enjoy house-sitting at my Palo Alto cottage.

“Preston, be on your guard against
global political muddles undermining the transhuman mission. A firm, honest
ruling hand is always best, both for guidance of our individual selves and for
society as a whole.”

Langmore nodded in agreement.

“Also, make sure to publish my
latest book while I'm gone. I know you’ll read it and want to edit it. That’s
fine, but please don’t Langmore-ize it.”

Everyone in the room chuckled.

The President laughed too, and then
blurted out, “Of course, I wouldn't consider Langmore-izing it. We wouldn’t
want it to make the bestseller list, now would we?” 

Jethro grinned. He looked warmly at
Preston, and then gently smiled at everyone else in the room. But when his eyes
came to rest on Frederick Vilimich, standing oddly alone in a far corner,
Jethro’s expression turned solemn. The two men looked painfully at each other.
The Russian's face was somber and intense; desperation seeped from it.

Vilimich slowly walked up to Jethro
and placed a small, faded picture of his son and wife into his hands,
whispering, “Please don't forget.”

Jethro picked up the photo and
looked at it.

“My friend, I've thought very
carefully of this picture for a long time: thirty-five years, ten months, and
fourteen days, to be exact. Don’t fret—I won't forget it.” Jethro’s voice
trailed off as he whispered, “How could I?”

A palpable heaviness washed over
everyone in the room: a wave of acute perception. Hairs on people's backs shot
straight up. Everyone, from President Langmore to Oliver Mbaye to the physician
in the corner, understood something of enormous consequence, of a hallowed deal
in the shadows, of an oathlike promise informally cast decades ago, of carnage
carried quietly for thousands of days and nights. It was a startling epiphany,
shocking and raw.

Jethro Knights slowly looked at
everyone, a sad smile encompassing his face.

“Zoe Bach,” President Langmore
finally whispered, his eyes tearing up. “You're going to look for your wife.”

Jethro nodded his acceptance.

“It’s time now, Mr. Knights,”
interrupted the doctor. He tapped a computer tablet that monitored Jethro’s
vital signs. “The serum we gave you is peaking, and it's time-sensitive.”

Jethro turned away from the
emotional moment and acknowledged the physician.

“Yes, I know. Thank you, doctor.”

Jethro looked at everyone around
him. He joined his knuckles together and made the infinity symbol with his
fingers. “I’ll see you all in a few years. Goodbye my friends—my fellow
transhumanists.”

The doctor handed Jethro the death
inhaler required by the cryonics procedure. Jethro strapped it onto his face
himself and began slowly breathing from it.

Soon, Jethro closed his eyes and
thought of Zoe Bach—of her extraordinary spirit; of the promise he had made to
find her; of the universal dice and all its quantum possibilities. Within sixty
seconds, he drifted off into total darkness.

A few minutes later, Jethro's
naked, lifeless body was carefully lifted by a medibot into a glass tank full
of a freezing green solution.

Epilogue

Seven years and four days later,
sunlight from a hospital window shot into Jethro Knights’ eyes and registered
the first cohesive thought in his brain. His eyes were blurry. They stung when
his pupils tried to focus. His skin was slippery from the green cryonics
compound dripping from his body and all over his hospital bed. A breathing tube
was in him, and numerous diodes were attached to his forehead. He could hear
voices in the distance. A medibot and a human doctor were handling him,
cleaning the goop off his legs and arms. In the doorway, he could see blurs of
human faces nervously watching him.

One face in particular, larger than
the others—with eye orbs as intense as train headlights—searched him for clues.
Jethro focused his vision on Frederick Vilimich, then shut his eyes, trying not
to think of Zoe Bach.

Jethro shook his head back and
forth. “Nothing,” he groaned, his vocal cords cutting in and out.
“Nothing…at…all.” 

Devastation struck Vilimich. His
thick eyebrows tightened. He clenched his fists and turned away, fighting the
tears forming in his eyes.

 Eight hours later, when Jethro’s
body was more thawed, his vision became less blurry and his hearing increased
in sharpness. He was breathing on his own now, and his lungs no longer needed
steroids to function. Jethro heard his room door open. He turned slowly to see
who was entering.

The doctor monitoring Jethro
whispered, “Sir, the former President, Dr. Preston Langmore, is here to see
you.”

Langmore walked in, and his face
brightened, casting off years of anxiety in a single flash.

“I’m so thankful you’re with us
again, my friend. So very thankful.”

Jethro smiled, still too weak to
carry on a conversation.

“Don’t try to talk now,” Langmore
said. “They say you'll be much stronger tomorrow already. I just wanted to let
you know that all is well—with you and with Transhumania. It’s been longer than
we hoped. Seven years. There was a strain of viruses, one of which you caught,
that seemingly couldn’t be defeated. We finally nailed it, though, and
eventually, during a long reanimation, you were given the antidote. You’re
fully cured now.”

“You were right about the
reanimation too. They started doing it successfully only twenty-four months
after you went under. In fact, the age of your muscles has been slightly
reversed to a younger you—about a 40-year-old—and kept in fit shape via digital
acupuncture. It's one of our latest scientific tricks.”