by Neovictorian
What we didn’t fully realize, then, was that technology could give, or at least extend life, through “miracle” medicines and agricultural “revolutions” and biofeedback machines and so on; it could also take away, or more precisely, degrade life. The degradation is well on its way today, in the Western nations and soon, the entire world, as the tech becomes universal. Man is becoming soft physically, with the mean individual adult weaker and fatter than just a couple of decades ago, and with their children becoming the same at an ever accelerating rate. Man is becoming soft mentally perhaps even faster. His ability to memorize and recall information is declining; hell, some jackasses in the “education” field actively campaign against “rote memorization.” From birth, he is inundated with images that serve his political and corporate masters, what he must buy and wear and drink to “fit in,” what he must think and say and teach his children to gain the approval of his betters. Schooling has declined horribly in just the last few years; all one need do to prove it is compare the high school textbooks of today to those of 20, 50, 100 years ago.
In our public morals and ethics, homosexuality and other sexual deviance, bastardy, corpulence and all kinds of psychopathy are on their way to becoming acceptable to the “mainstream” and this will continue, and accelerate, in the coming decades, even as technological advances bring ever greater ease and easy satisfaction to our lives.
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In the fictional world of Heights I projected that these trends, accelerating and feeding off of each other, would bring the world to an existential crisis within 40 years. It may be just 30, or 50, there may be no “bright line” as in my fictional world, but the crisis of the clash between our real human nature, the result of more than 3 billion years of evolution, and our modern half-beastly, half-superhuman socio-political regime is inevitable. There is no turning back, there is no stopping the clock, there is no “reform” that will miraculously save us. Just as before in history, again and again and again, there will be the Time of Troubles, collapse and rebirth. In the meantime, I propose to prepare a segment of our people for these Troubles, that they may survive them, even thrive in them, that they and their offspring can form a core of leadership and hope, in the almost unimaginable world that will follow.
Those of us who are capable, able and willing, must learn, touch, embrace and live our real humanity.
We must ReHumanize.
In the following pages I discuss, expand and expound upon the four Results of ReHumanization. I realize that humans seem to be wedded to the odd numbers in such lists: The Seven Labors of Hercules, the Five Rings, The Father, The Son and The Holy Ghost, etc. but I wasn’t about to add or subtract something to fulfill an irrational preference for odd numbers. Fuck that.
The Four Results are:
1. Hardening of the body: Physically recreating the human body of our ancestors, pre-automobile, pre-manufactured food, pre-Bronze Age or perhaps even pre-agriculture;
2. Hardening of the mind: A rigorous education program focused not mainly on the acquisition of information, but on mental techniques, memory methods, body language reading and eye movement analysis, reaction time, etc.
3. Physiologic control: conscious and accurate personal control of the “automatic” nervous system functions, breathing, heart rate, galvanic skin response, digestion, the endocrine system, facial muscle response, etc.
4. Psychologic control: conscious and accurate control of mental state, mood, attitude, and maintenance of mental acuity in difficult conditions; hunger, thirst, noise, environmental stress, etc.
The methods of obtaining these Results have been known, in some cases, for thousands of years, while in others the scientific instruments available in just the last decade have made measurement and practical training possible.
We have the tools at hand. In addition, we must have the Will.
Let us begin.
I look up from the manuscript. Lisa has pulled a laptop from her bag and is rapidly spinning the wheel of a wireless mouse.
“So why isn’t there a photo of your mother is this packet? I’ve seen her picture in the financial journals and the papers a few times, on TV maybe twice, but not since…”
“Since my father died?” she says evenly. “It’s all right, it’s not an unmentionable subject. He lived a fantastic life, and he died doing what he loved, which is really all I hope for myself.”
“Me too. But I’ll need some photos. Preferably a full-face portrait, profile, and some candids.”
“Already on it,” she says. “I’ve got an album on my screen right now,” and she makes a few clicks, stands up and heads toward the front left of the aircraft. There’s a white monolith the size a small desk there, and she punches a keypad until there’s a click, and the top of the monolith silently opens. She reaches in and pulls out a small stack of paper.
“Mom hates printer noise, it’s a pet peeve of hers even when it’s not very loud,” she says. “So we had the printers and some other gear stowed in that sound-proof locker.”
She hands me five eight by tens of Eve Hart printed on glossy photo paper: what looks like the official corporate portrait, head shot with gray business suit and a bit of high-necked white blouse showing; a true profile, like a mug shot, probably for the corporate security files; sitting on a stage with some guy, a tech expo banner in the background; in jeans and a cowgirl shirt at what looks like a political fundraiser; and a souvenir shot with the President of the United States, an arm around each other in the Oval Office. I study the body language in this one. Her hand is on his shoulder, his at the smallest part of her waist, and they’re making body contact from hip to shoulder. She’s at least as tall as he is and doesn’t seem to be shying away at all. In fact, she’s turned into him an inch or two.
“I put that last one in there for a reason,” she says. “I know what you’re thinking, and I believe the answer is, ‘Yes’. She slept with the President. About six months after Dad died he invited her to spend the night in the Lincoln bedroom, the old payoff for her very generous contributions to the campaign. She never said anything specific to me, of course, but when she told me she was going, there was a certain look on her face…and when I saw that picture on her office wall, I knew.”
“Well that fits in with some hard questions I’m going to ask you now Lisa. About your mother and if, and why, anyone would want to hurt her, or kidnap her, or whatever is going on. You hired me to find her, and you have to be completely honest with me, or it isn’t going to be useful in getting what we want—getting your mother back. So I ask you some questions and you give me the straight up answers, as much as you know. Deal?”
“Deal,” she says evenly.
“Besides Rance Mason and the President, who are her other lovers? That you know about, anyway. You implied something when you talked about her relationship with Mason. Expand on that.”
“My mother has some very strong, um, appetites is the right word, Cal. She was always open and honest with me growing up, she didn’t have any problem talking with me about sex. After Dad died, when I came home for spring break she was very upfront. She told me that she and Dad had had an intense love life for many years, and that she was ‘back in the game’ and would be going out and staying out overnight sometimes. In the last nine months, since I’ve been living back home with her, she’s seen at least half a dozen men. A couple other corporate tech types, a few I’m not sure of because I didn’t meet them, and the artist who restored the stained glass window in our entryway.”
She laughs. “He came in and looked over the window with a magnifying glass and a special light, ran his hands over it, tapped it with a little wooden hammer and listened to it. A younger Italian guy, around thirty, flew him all the way over from Europe because he was supposed to be the best.
“After he was finished feeling up the window he told her it would take four weeks and cost $32,000 for his services and another 15 for materials. He had her down on her hands and knees to check out the rot a
t the base of the window. I went to get a glass of water and when I came back to the entryway no one was there.”
She shakes her head. ”After that he always made her wait until he was through his work list for the day before they went off to her wing of the house. I heard him laying down the law a couple of times. Otherwise I imagine he’d never have got the job done. He flew back to Italy. Then she met Rance.”
She puts her elbows on the table, folds her hands and rests her chin on her thumbs. “There was something different going on with him. He was shooting on location in San Francisco when they met at the charity ball. After a few weeks that was done, but he didn’t go back to LA.”
She picks her chin up, looks at me with a new intensity. Her eyes don’t look so brown now, more a gold, like leaves in the fall, that one day in the fall when they’re perfect, still firm and full.
“One night I heard some noises from our workout room, different than I’d ever heard before. We both lift weights in there, but these were loud thumps, and yells. I thought maybe she’s brought in a karate instructor or something. When I opened the door, she was beating the hell out of the heavy bag with a big stick, a staff. Forehand, thump! Backhand, thump! Overhead, pow! Each time she hit she yelled: ‘Hiah! Hiah! Hiah!’
“Finally, she saw me in the mirror, turned around and said, ‘Oh, hi Lisa,’ in between gasping for air. Her hair was wet and there was sweat soaking through her shirt and even her shorts. ‘What are you doing, a new martial arts workout or something?’ I said. I wasn’t worried; she looked so relaxed, more relaxed than I’d seen her in years. After a few more breaths she looked me in the eye and said:
”’Sort of, hon. I’m ReHumanizing.’ Then she smiled and said, ‘I gotta get back to it. Close the door on your way out, will you?’ And she leaned in and kissed me on the lips, like she hadn’t done since I was a little girl, and turned her back on me and started yelling and thumping the bag again.”
“So you’ve read the book, or books,” I say, tapping the copy of Heights with my fingertips. “What do you think? I’ve never read the novel, and I only just read the first three pages of the Manifesto,” I tell her.
Both statements are lies, but I want to hear it from her real, not a defense, or a debate. What she knows and what she thinks she knows.
“I think it’s all very interesting,” she says. “The Manifesto has a lot of stuff that makes sense, but most of it isn’t original, it didn’t spring fresh out of Duke’s head, he read it in his friends’ novels and Nietzsche and Korzybski and physiology research journals and diet books and back-to-nature books and books by Englishmen who went to Tibet and Egypt and Japan.”
“Fair enough. But what about his 67 days in the desert? No one seems to dispute that that really happened.”
She giggles. “Just before they left on this trip my mom talked to me about the books and the movement and, it’s been for 20 years, the Church. She said they had to become a church, to avoid all the Feds’ bullshit.
“She told me some stories, inside stuff that’s not public, not at all. She told me that the funny thing is, the ReHumers don’t really take it all too seriously, at least not upper management. Rance told her a couple of the best Phil Duke stories.
“Seems that Duke did stay out in the Arizona desert for 67 days, that’s real. But he was no fool. On Saturday nights he’d disguise himself, walk six or seven miles into town and have a few Wild Turkeys and get a cheese burger to go.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. Though I’ve heard the story before, and a whole lot more.
“So they don’t think of him as another Jesus Christ,” I say. “That’s refreshing, considering the way some of the other new religions treat their founders. Like men without sin. Which reminds me of something else that I wanted to ask.
“You put me off earlier about what the phrase ‘Strauss brothers’ meant. You gave me a line about family friends. We both know that’s bullshit. It was a code word, Lisa. A recognition sign. What did it mean, Lisa? Who told you to say that to me? Who told you I’d know what it meant?”
43. Tomorrow, Juneau Alaska May 28, 8:42 am
I can’t say I’m awake or asleep yet, the dream was comfortable and soothing and though I can’t remember exactly what was happening in it, this one second later I feel a loss, it’s like a country I’ll never visit again and then I feel something hard and sharp and cold under me and I open my eyes and there is truly nothing: Things don’t look different at all, perfect blackness, I close and open them again and close them again and press my fingers to my closed eyes for a second, reassured when the pressure causes a red sheen to fill my vision. When I let go the red turns to white and swirls and blends into other colors, shapes, and I open my eyes and the shapes are faint shadows in the black, black, black that is everywhere and everything in my sight.
I feel the panic start, the lurch of stomach and tightness of chest, the jaw and fists begin to clench and I open my mouth wide, relax wrists and arms and shoulders, feel myself softening, spreading sinking back into the rocks I’m lying on, even begin to feel the first tentative touch from the earth, drawing me down into it, the feeling I can never forget, that night in the desert when nothing was ordinary and never really could be again, and I feel the want, to continue to merge and sink down and through the rocks, until my atoms spread through the magma, disperse and warm and fuse.
“Cal. Cal!”
I hear my name as if my ears are full of water, but it makes me realize that it’s not the time yet, the time to join, to go back, and I rise again, like swimming to the surface of a pool, and when I break through there’s the sensation of cold air, and I open my eyes and everything is still perfectly black, but I’m breathing.
I’m still alive.
44. 3 years ago, Fairfax County, Virginia April 25, 10:02 am
“Revenge for San Jose? That doesn’t make much sense, Jack. Not only was it five years ago, it’s like you said, no one remembers it now, or hardly anyone. A few people in DC connected my name when we were introduced, or researched me and tracked it down, but I just said I’d rather not talk about it, and generally that was it. So fill me in.”
“My brain came up with this while I was shaving this morning, not the conscious part, of course, it just popped up, like these things do to me sometimes.”
He strokes his chin with a forefinger, twice. “There’ve been hints for almost two years that there’s an organization out there, Allah Alantiqam. ‘God’s Vengeance.’ Remember the hit on the President of Pakistan? Right around the time you came to DC?”
“Sure. He survived though. Barely. And they pumped like 30 rounds through the assassin. I thought he was just Taliban, exacting retribution for the Pakis cooperating with the US on the big push into Waziristan.”
“That was the story in the news, anyway. But there were hints, second- and third-hand connections to the Gulf States and their money. Since then, there’ve been a couple more, attacks in Turkey and Russia that didn’t make sense as terrorism. Individual hits on non-Muslims who helped in big wins against terror networks, sure, but no one claimed responsibility, tried to make hay out of any of it for recruitment. Just crossing someone off. For revenge.”
He gives me a hard stare. “They’ve never operated in the States, as far as I knew two days ago. And I didn’t make the connection, until now. I don’t think anyone else has, either.”
“So what are our options, Sir? I mean Jack?” It breaks the tension, and he can’t help but laugh.
“Well, recruit, we can hide out, work on changing our appearance and getting new identities, go get jobs as loggers or worse, factory workers. Give ourselves the maximum odds of there not being a next time.”
He grins that grin again. The wolf.
“Or we can actively try to find out the whom and the where they are, and take care of the problem. Maybe with some kind of diplomacy.”
“What?” I say, skeptically.
“Yeah, diplomacy. You’re a smart guy, do you remember
how eventually the Crusaders and even the Templars struck deals with various Sultans, and, if I remember right, with the Hashishim?” he says.
“The Assassins.”
“That’s right. But on the other hand, Cal…”
He leans in, eyes boring in, chin thrust out. “We may have to kill someone to reach an acceptable conclusion here. You may have to kill someone, personally. You’ve come close to dying, so very, very close, twice. You up for a third time? I won’t ask if you think you can kill someone. That would be trite. But what are you thinking, Cal. What are you thinking?”
I pause the length of one deep breath.
“I’m thinking, Jack, that being a lumberjack wouldn’t be so bad as long as I don’t have to be on the same crew with you all the time.”
He laughs freely at this, raising his chin another inch toward the ceiling, then leans back in his chair, relaxed.
“I’m strangely reassured by that,” he says.
45. Today, Aboard N916F, Enroute to Juneau, Alaska May 27, 2:04 pm
“You put me off earlier about what the phrase ‘Strauss brothers’ meant. You gave me a line about family friends. We both know that’s bullshit. It was a code word, Lisa. A recognition sign. What did it mean, Lisa? Who told you to say that to me? Who told you I’d know what it meant?”