The First Immortal

by James L. Halperin

  “The ice.”

  “I once heard you call it the hopeful ice many years ago.” The priest leaned forward in his chair.

  “You remember that?”

  “It’s not so hopeful, is it?”

  “Certainly not right now,” Gary sighed. “I don’t know why I’d want a forever of life like this, mindlessly playing games against a machine. And it’s not that it’s a machine per se. It’s that the machine doesn’t care. Jesus, this sounds like a conversation a fifteen-year-old should be having with a guidance counselor.”

  “It’s a matter of meaning.” Father Steve’s words seemed practiced, though sincere. “Only that which is finite can have meaning in the eyes of God.”

  Gary was appalled but not angry; it was just such a surprise to receive bromide when he’d sought discourse.

  “No.” The priest signaled for Gary’s silence. “Before you misunderstand, hear me out. Forget God for a moment…”

  The quality of Father Steve’s voice was so earnest that Gary wanted to laugh aloud. Had the man even listened to what he’d just said?

  “Whether religious or not,” Father Steve continued, “only that which is finite holds value for us. In the infinite, there is no purpose except as it may be supplied by God. And if you don’t believe in God, just ignore that aspect of my declaration. It still holds true.

  “If you could drink the finest champagne forever, on demand, without limit or cost, wouldn’t the value of the flavor diminish? If a sunset lasted forever, someday it would no longer seem beautiful.”

  “Why don’t you expand on that?” Gary said. “Let me understand where you’re going with it.”

  “What has meaning to you?” Father Steve asked. “Tell me anything. But let it have real significance.”

  “Well, my art used to.”

  “And did you paint pictures of things that will last forever? Or did you capture the essence of transitory people and events; capture them in their most compelling seconds?”

  “What are you saying? That you’re not going to be frozen?”

  “That’s precisely what I’m saying. This struggle of yours has been caused in some portion by the prospect of immortality. It is a false hope with sad consequences. We should accept our mortality and fight only against this death. Staying alive as long as possible is a righteous choice, but once Death finds us, it is madness to hope for corporeal resurrection. And I’m certain this desire offends God.”

  Now Gary was glad he came. He felt revitalized, with a hope he hadn’t felt in years. And all it had taken was a little engaged, human conversation. “Before I answer, I’d like to tell you why I painted what I did. Whether or not my subjects were finite had nothing to do with my choices. I painted them because I wanted their hopes and images to last forever.”

  Father Steve looked at him with attentive eyes.

  “Now I’ve got a question for you,” Gary said. “In whose image is God supposed to have created man?”

  “In His own image.”

  “And how long will God live?” Gary asked.

  May 16, 2031

  —The Senate ratifies the International Free Speech Bill (H.R. 3466), and President David West signs it into law. The bill pledges United States support of efforts to enforce freedom of speech and a free press throughout the world. It also budgets $620 billion over five years to enhance the Worldwide Satellite Communications Network. The WSCN allows all persons with computer, radio, or television access to receive programs in their own language from any broadcaster in the world. West hails the legislation as “a giant step toward world democracy. Strengthening the WSCN is the most efficient way to assure that entire populations will no longer be manipulated toward violence by the propaganda of local tyrants.”—Dr. Robert Steinberg, renowned Dartmouth psychology researcher, announces that his team has devised a series of questions, which if asked during Truth Machine testing, can diagnose virtually all known forms of mental illness. They have also formulated successful treatments using ACIP therapy for several such illnesses. Steinberg’s work, widely praised, is expected to revolutionize the field of mental health.—Pursuant to the terms of the Amnesty Bill enacted several weeks ago, over 56 million individuals have already confessed to crimes committed prior to January 1, 2031, mostly misdemeanors and white-collar offenses. Since the Truth Machine was infused into American society, aggressive crime has virtually disappeared, with victimless crime mostly decodified.

  Patrick Webster, ninety-one, sat himself at ACIP module #63 of the Boston Amnesty Bureau. His bloodshot eyes stared at the List: seventeen crimes with detailed descriptions thereof, which he’d painstakingly reconstructed from personal files, public archives, and his own pale retrospection.

  He assumed there had been other infractions, but knew his recollection of them was permanently lost, and for once felt gratitude for the rot of aging. As long as no evidence or witnesses emerged, such loss-of-memory would be the same, by law, as if those crimes had never occurred. And as long as he tried his best to remember all his crimes, any new discoveries would be covered by the Amnesty provisions.

  It wasn’t that Webster feared being stigmatized by his confession. Every person he knew was or had been in his identical position. Before the emergence of the Armstrong Cerebral Image Processor, the foolproof lie detector immediately dubbed the “Truth Machine,” everyone had committed the occasional indiscretion.

  He’d studied the Amnesty Laws as thoroughly as his atrophied legal skills permitted, and recognized that under Amnesty he had committed no crimes for which he could receive imprisonment.

  Still his entire body was stiff with anxiety. He felt his life was at risk, and perhaps it was. Clearly, restitution had to be made. He wondered how much of his vast wealth would remain under his control. He had little prospect of finding profitable work; the demand for attorneys had been severely limited since the ACIP’s introduction. And he was too old to learn a new, marketable skill. Worse yet, in cases of fraud, none of his assets would be protected.

  What if he couldn’t afford to maintain his biostasis insurance? And if he did manage to scrape the money together, his rates would go up: Everyone knew that wealth increased life expectancy. For over a decade, the insurance companies had been factoring net worth into their actuarial tables. Even in the era of the Truth Machine, wealth bought a great measure of survival.

  He tallied six instances of drunken driving, all happily victimless. No problem there. Certain illicit drug use; also victimless. Some minor tax evasion, all pre-2006, a hundred percent grandfathered; he was smart enough to have cut that shit out immediately upon reading Roswell’s bill in April of that year. And finally there was the case, right before his retirement, when he’d bribed a juror to get a client off.

  Very stupid. But thank God it had been a criminal trial and not a civil suit. Again, no victim with standing, and whatever penalty/fine the artificial intelligence unit imposed would surely be tolerable.

  But those four clients he’d overbilled… Damn! Now that was a problem!

  It was long ago, back when Webster figured he’d needed the money. None of those clients was still alive—only one was even in biostasis—but plenty of their heirs were still knocking around, as yet unaware of the financial windfall that might soon arrive at Pat Webster’s expense.

  I could be in deep-dish dung.

  “Is this a complete list of your crimes, described fully and accurately to the best of your ability, Mr. Webster?” the technician asked.

  “Yes, subject to the limits of my memory, what’s left of it,” Webster answered in lawyer-speak. He couldn’t help it.

  “Yes or no, Mr. Webster.”

  “Yes.”

  The Truth Machine light remained green.

  Thank you, dear Lord.

  The AI unit analyzed his List of Crimes and the document was transmitted to Webster’s pocket PC. As he unfolded the screen, the thing felt cold in his hands. That was impossible of course, but…

  Amnesty Certif
icate

  Patrick Vernon Webster

  ID#6445-7866-543-ADFRD—May 16, 2031

  12 victimless crimes

  No punishment, fines, or restitution.

  1 felony

  Bribery, no victim. (2011) Fine assessed: $50,000,000

  4 casualty crimes, all pre-Truth Machine Bill

  Interest-free restitution:

  Malpractice/fraud: The Smith Family Cryonic Trust

  (1989-92) $6,978,000.

  Malpractice/fraud: The Estate of William Couglin

  (1994-98) $9,654,000

  Malpractice/fraud: The Dennis Downing Charitable Trust

  (1995-99) $13,566,000

  Malpractice/fraud: The Estate of Gladys N. Baker

  (1997-2003) $26,775,000

  Jubilant in his relief, Webster allowed his eyes to linger on that most glorious phrase: “Interest-free restitution.”

  Not even $110 million.

  He would retain over ninety percent of his wealth, plenty for his wife and him to enjoy a comfortable life during the decade or so MediFact had projected remained before they’d require biostasis, and enough to endow a very respectable INA account for life after revivification.

  The Smith Family Cryonic Trust would receive the actual amount of the fraud based on Webster’s most honest recollection. But $6.98 million today was worth barely $240,000 in the dollars of 1992, when the last overbilling had occurred.

  As his decaying legs, aided by quasi-bionic muscle-stimulation trousers, carried him outside to his waiting programmed-transport vehicle, he considered the ever-expanding dominion of the AI machines. With a machine doling it out, justice was an objective measurement of human input, uncolored by emotional reprisal or lenience.

  A decade ago such authority in the tenure of machines would have been alarming. No human could match their intellectual horsepower, and throughout history the greater minds had tended to enslave those lesser endowed. The machines had no weapons, of course, but given time, communication becomes persuasion, and persuasion is enough to command.

  Power corrupts, the old saying went, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

  Yet the machines did seem to render justice with a consistency no human could match. Since the United States Software Act of November 7, 2022, and similar legislation in every other nation, it had been illegal for any machine to be programmed with a survival instinct or emotions. And now, with the Truth Machine at society’s command, no attempt by human programmers to violate this act was likely to go undetected.

  Armstrong’s Truth Machine had also made biostasis infinitely safer. Intentions of terrorism were routinely detected in everyday licensing “scips,” long before any such plans could be carried out. Not a single suspendee in the U.S. had been lost to terrorism since the infamous January 2025 attack on the cold-storage cylinders of Forest Lawn in Burbank, California.

  Following the lead of the United States, many other nations had passed laws to deal with the plethora of crimes committed before the Truth Machine had eliminated such temptations. In Paris, for example, on the same day as Webster’s routine confession, Drs. Claude Noire and Edouard Binette were forced to endure a harsher inquisition, their crimes being far more significant. The doctors had failed a customs scip (Truth Machine test) that morning while attempting to leave Paris for a pharmaceutical convention in Hong Kong, and were “invited” by the douanier to answer questions.

  “If we refuse to answer…?” Binette had asked the young bureaucrat at the Institut Nationale pour la Vérification des Recherches Scientifiques.

  “No problem.” The man had pointed the Truth Machine at himself. “We will just assume that every experiment you have ever submitted is fraudulent, and sentence you accordingly.”

  The ACIP light glowed a chilling, steady green.

  Confined to separate rooms, the two doctors gave virtually identical testimony. Both testified that the deep-frozen-mouse revivification, which had changed the worldwide paradigm on cryonics, had been a simple scientific fraud. A genetically identical clone of one of the cryonically (minus 79 degrees C) frozen mice had been deanimated, cooled to 25 degrees Fahrenheit, and secretly switched prior to the reanimation. Of course, the replacement had been the sole survivor out of the entire group of 1,300 mice. They had repeated the fraud nearly a dozen times in subsequent years, with convincingly mixed results, but for purported “competitive reasons” had refused to release the formula to other scientists.

  The only significant difference in their testimony concerned motive. Noire had perpetrated the fraud to attain wealth. Binette’s purpose had been less rapacious but equally selfish: He hoped to foster public acceptance of cryonics. Both still believed that vitrification under the guidelines of the Prometheus Protocol was the best hope for preserving identity and memory of mammalian brains.

  Of course, now it was apparent that they were only guessing.

  May 30, 2031

  —Memorial Gardens on the World Wide Web reports reaching a milestone 750 million “grave sites” where family members and friends post permanent epitaphs, stories, photographs, and recordings of their departed or suspended loved ones. The statistic does not include deceased pets or inanimate objects, which if added would raise total sites to nearly one billion.—In a speech to Republican supporters, Senator and likely presidential candidate Jonathan Salyers warns a largely indifferent audience: “The meme of the mouse reanimation has infected our brains to the point where we can’t seem to recover from it, even after Nobine’s exposure as fraud. In fact, predeath cryonics is the equivalent of simple suicide.” President David West asserts, “It is interesting that this bombshell has had so little effect on the public’s attitude about cryonics. Still, I suspect most suspendees will eventually be revived and rejuvenated, and even if not, to anyone about to die or lose memory, the mere possibility seems well worth the limited risk and expense.”

  Gary and Father Steve watched from the artist’s workshop/dwelling. Perhaps a third of the world’s adult population were also witnessing, in real-time, today’s trial in Paris.

  The two “chronies”—as Gary had dubbed them when they reached their mid-eighties—shared a nutritionally optimal lunch that the priest had brought with him: mostly fruit and whole grains, but also nine ounces of a delicious cultured chicken breast. Like most Americans, they refused all food that had ever been part of a sentient organism, now that modern cell-culturing techniques enabled “farmers” to produce healthy meat at affordable prices without slaughtering animals. This was no hardship; the stuff tasted great.

  During the past six and one-half years, both men had undergone other significant lifestyle transformations as well.

  In January 2025, Gary had ordered the VR machine removed from his apartment, and was now the only person he knew who did not keep one. Furthermore, he hadn’t gambled in six years. In April 2025 he’d spent nearly all his remaining money on AI and graphic computers, and since had immersed himself in the discipline of digitally enhanced artistic synthesis.

  Having yet to attempt to sell anything, he was nearly broke, yet felt satisfied and mostly optimistic.

  For fifty-one months he’d worked tirelessly, with a tenacity exceeding even his previous peak levels of obsession, on a single picture which, when completed, he was convinced would be regarded as the finest composition of his career.

  He had never shown the work to anyone.

  For seventy-seven months, Father Steve had irrevocably embraced the creed of biological immortalism. While he remained a devout priest and faithful Christian, beneath his crucifix now dangled another sacred ornament: his biostasis protocol.

  In His own image… If the biblical verse were true, his action would be vindicated. If it were not true, what had he to fear?

  The three-dimensional screen on the west wall of Gary’s dwelling placed the two men at front row center in the gallery of the courtroom. The device had recently been reprogrammed to adjust its own acoustics, conveying the compelling feeling and s
ound of actually being there. To their left sat Drs. Noire and Binette, shuddering nervously as they listened to prosecutor Antoine Bardot’s strident summation.

  A simple AI device on Gary’s screen translated Bardot’s harangue into English:

  “…worst fraud of the entire third millennium. The defendants have personally extracted over ten billion ECU’s per year in each of these past fifteen years, from the trusting citizens of the world. They accepted blood money for a product whose efficacy they knew had been demonstrated by duplicitous means; indeed, a product which they were able to sell as proven only through their own deceit; mere sleight-of-hand. Their original and perpetuated design was simply to defraud the public of these funds.

  “And how many have they killed? This we do not know. Someday, should we have the technology to reanimate the potentially living, we will learn either that the Prometheus Protocol works, or that the human race has been sold a trillion ECUs’ worth of snake oil. But the real issue is this: All clients who purchased the Protocol had every right to conclude that they were doing so on the basis of proven science. We now know that the defendants committed a scientific fraud, and that over the past twenty-five years almost a third of a billion people have made their biostasis decisions based upon that fraud.

  “Every person in this room, perhaps every person watching the broadcast of this trial, awaits the revival of loved ones in biostasis; loved ones legally entitled to receive the best possible science upon which to have their suspensions designed. The magnitude of this fraud, unprecedented in history, is tantamount to mass murder. We seek the only justifiable sentence, the maximum penalty: Final Death for both defendants.”

  Defense attorney Pierre Villard scanned his notes.

  “Tough case for the defense,” Father Steve said to his friend.