Belinas was an authentic man, singular in his absolute faith and servitude to the Lord and to his people. Faith was the cornerstone of his religiosity. If God demanded he fly a fully fueled commercial jetliner into a skyscraper filled with thousands of people, he would do it. And not think twice about it. Despite his radicalism, he considered himself broadminded and mostly did not care what religion people were, as long as they actively pursued God in their daily lives, helped the poor, shunned wealth, and avoided transhuman-inspired technology—what he deemed the science of the devil. He professed to be a Christian, but welcomed coexistence and peaceful worship with Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Catholics, Jews, and anyone who believed in God or a higher divine power. Belinas' mission was simple. Unbridled materialism and technology were the domain of his enemies: the atheists and anti-theists. Give it all up and get back to almighty God, he preached—and to helping the faithful, the downtrodden, and the destitute.
To meet him was to meet a devoted monk, or an aesthete at the banks of the Ganges, or an indefatigable holy man. Every day, he wore only leather sandals and a bleached religious gown, creating an angelic warriorlike presence. Purple and gold stripes were embroidered on his robe’s white sleeves, showing his leadership status according to his interpretation of the Bible’s Old Testament. He shaved first thing every morning and scrubbed his bare scalp raw every day. He was known to pray silently for hours straight. No one ever saw him sweat, or lose his temper, or complain about hunger or cold; he appeared impervious to such frivolities. He was a fanatic without appearing fanatical. His sole flaw—that which only proved he was endearingly human, chimed his followers—was his inclination to enjoy a cigarette. Still, he rarely touched one.
Belinas traveled around in a trio of bulletproof white Range Rovers, driven by thickset bodyguards, who were dressed identically in night-black suits and also carried handguns. Because of Belinas’ rock-star status, the top members and financial backers of his congregation insisted he travel that way for his safety. The preacher disliked security, and especially disliked cars. He would've preferred to walk everywhere. And sometimes did—once even a hundred miles across the desert to visit and comfort a child dying from leukemia—just to make a point. When friends and congregation members invited him to stay the night in their homes, he sometimes refused their guestrooms and slept on their couches or floors, or bypassed sleep altogether in order to pray. Humility in front of the Lord and his people was critical, he preached.
Yet more critical was his carefully constructed public image. He made sure the media saw and photographed everything in his ministry. His disdain for technology was no reason not to use it. He made sure his life was like a hit television show: the anointed wandering the wasteland, always on the move to preach the Word of God, to stave off evil, to help his flock spread the goodwill of Christianity. He joined in building houses for the homeless. In walking abused dogs from the pound. In handing out food to street children. In donating blood. In planting trees. In mentoring the disabled. In carrying the caskets of the dead. In leading demonstrations against transhumanists and their enterprises. His show was never-ending, always on local television channels even barbershops could air. Or on public radio broadcasts at gas stations. Or on inner city kids’ cell phones as webcasts from his church’s website. He was everywhere. His own film and production crew—always tagging along behind him—were some of the most talented media personnel in the country. And the best paid.
Belinas was a master diplomat, hungry for power that best accomplished his bidding for his church and the Lord. He would stop at nothing to achieve it. If he had any qualms about his unorthodox methods, which included inciting violence against transhumanists, then they were lost after his recent read of a groundbreaking essay. One of his assistants printed it out from the Internet, telling him it was increasingly getting attention in transhumanist circles. It was Jethro Knights' Rise of the Transhuman Citizen.
Dismay filled Belinas after he finished evaluating it. It was not the explosive fuel he wanted the transhumanists to embrace. So far they were an undersized group of soft-spoken intellectuals, mostly aged nerds trying to gently reshape their world, even if they were the smartest people on the planet. Defeating them on nearly every issue was rarely a problem. Their chivalry and sense of embedded social decency was their downfall.
On the other hand, this essay and its philosophy, TEF, demanded the transhuman political formula change. It said politics, diplomacy, and egalitarian morals had little to do with the movement. The real aims of transhumanism and its coming new breed of fierce advocates, the omnipotenders, were beyond a sense of good and evil. Beyond a sense of democracy and honor. There was no right and wrong when it came to dying or not dying. There was only success or failure. It spoke of using whatever means necessary to accomplish those aims, of thinking and acting with the same cold clarity a super-intelligent machine would use—something they were quickly evolving into anyway, the essay asserted. The world and every one of its inhabitants were not worth living or dying for. The omnipotender should not be concerned with preserving anything outside a useful transhuman universe.
Belinas winced, letting the paper drop out of his fingers to the floor. He was deeply disturbed, whispering to himself, “God help us if this man and his ideas ever get their way.”
Later, Belinas scribbled the name Jethro Knights into a journal that contained a list of the most dangerous transhumanists. On the list, a third of the people were already crossed off—all murdered in the past eighteen months by covert Redeem Church terrorist attacks.
************
“I believe in dying,” Zoe Bach announced matter-of-factly to Jethro Knights. “I believe dying is perfectly okay. Now, do you still want to be with me?”
The entwined couple were lying naked in bed in Zoe’s Kashmiri mud shack. Beside them a candle burned on a tall, unstable stack of medical texts, novels, and poetry chapbooks. In a corner of the room were Jethro's backpack and all his camera equipment. Four passionate weeks had passed since Jethro stuck his head into the Kundara hospital tent. As usual, they were continuing an unfinished conversation from days ago.
“Maybe, Zoe. But I need a reasonable answer from you for why you think dying is okay.”
“Why do I need a reason?”
“Do I really have to answer that?” Jethro started to tickle and to pinch her.
She squirmed away, saying, “All right, fine. But as I seem to tell you every day, a person doesn't always need a reason to be reasonable. My mother always said: ‘Reasons often precede the notion of reasoning altogether.’”
“Yes, yes, I know.” He frowned, cupping her breast with his hand. “You've told me that plenty of times; however, since the man you're in bed with only understands reasonable reasons, please answer me rationally so I can also understand your answer.”
Zoe smiled, eager to make headway with him.
“Like I've told you before, I don’t think life and death are fundamentally separate phenomena. I've seen at least a hundred people die in front of me—the ones I couldn't save. And in their eyes, always right at the end—the very end—something happens. Something magical. Something enduring. Something graceful. Like they're going somewhere, or they see something. I don't think it's over, whatever it is that happens.”
Jethro released her breast and pushed himself away, rolling onto his back. For such an intelligent person, sometimes she was unbelievable, he thought.
“When they die I’ve seen things you wouldn't believe,” Zoe continued. “Their faces light up. Their pupils increase in size. Their deaths last a minute or two. It's not like in the movies, where it's only a few seconds. The mind straddles the edge of consciousness and wherever else it's going. Sometimes people die, and come back, then die again. And afterward, the EKG may say that a brain is dead, but there's still electrical activity going on inside it. There are still flare-ups and miniscule reads, even with the patients in cryonics suspension tanks.
“You can't p
rove any of that in a meaningful scientific way. We've gone over this a half dozen times.”
“I feel I can,” insisted Zoe. “The brain reads a technical flatline, but that doesn't mean there’s no activity, that the mind has just disappeared forever. There's always activity. Something is still present. Sometimes it's just so small, it's barely noticeable. At the medical center at San Aliza, eight people I cared for requested to be preserved cryonically as their health deteriorated and their deaths neared. So when they died, I took them down to the basement and preformed the cryo-freezing procedure. Each one of their tests in the tanks has shown—even with some of the bodies being dead for over a year—that the brain matter is still illuminated.”
“Not illuminated. Just typical subatomic particles going about their business in a dead, preserved organism. It's entropy, regardless of how you try to paint it for yourself.”
“No, it's evolution. And there's far more to it with the magnificent potential and complexity of the human brain, especially when it’s frozen properly. But even in bodies that are cremated, there's still something that lingers. Infrared radar tests prove it. It's in the air. It's in the energy. I’ve seen it. Entropy is just a facet of universal evolution. All matter is undergoing activity and communications, regardless of how rudimentary. And somehow, this matter remains organized—imprinted with the possibilities of itself.”
“Oh, no. Now you're heading to that metaphysical Zen stuff.”
“Yes, exactly,” Zoe said excitedly. “Though I prefer to call it quantum—the mystical motor of all things. I believe that all matter has undetermined tendencies and infinite possibilities, even if they appear to follow prescribed scientific patterns, like our brains are doing right now. It's quantum dynamics, perpetually unraveling. This conversation. That bullet I removed today from the soldier's lower cortex. The potholes in the road. The river we swam in yesterday. It's all filled with a countless amount of possibilities. Everything is swimming in a cosmic quantum Zen.”
“Sure, it's happening to everything,” answered Jethro. “I know the physics too. The variations of string theory. The so-called God particle. The Eastern epistemological conjectures. You can call it whatever you want. But if it's not sentient like I am right now, then what use is it? Especially to me, Jethro Knights, the transhumanist. I'm interested in how to create the strongest and most advanced ‘I’ that I'm capable of in my universe. That means my will, my memories, my value system, my emotions, my creativity, my reasoning—my consciousness—all fusing together through a prism of sapient action that makes a conversation like this possible and worthwhile. That's what I want. Everything else is just inanimate. Just space-taking furniture. Just fairy tales in our mind because we don't want to face the truth that someday we're going to die and disappear, and all will be for naught. We all think that. All of us know that. Just some of us believe we're too important to allow that to happen.”
“Oh, you're a stubborn one,” Zoe responded, looking at him foully. “That wonderful brain of yours is getting in the way of that even more wonderful spirit of yours. You ought to try balancing them more. Why is that ‘I’ so important? Why can't you just drift peacefully through the universe with the knowledge you aren't that same ‘I’ anymore?”
“Because that conscious ‘I’ is integral to my life—and also because you used the word 'knowledge' in that last sentence, Zoe. How can there be knowledge without something conscious and organized to conceive of it? That part of ourselves always needs to be retained and safeguarded to let us know that life and existence are happening.”
“But it's all happening in one way or the other, whether you know it or not.”
“Possibly, but I don't give a damn about any part I don't know about. The unconscious quantum world is death to me. I choose not to see it because it's not worth seeing.”
“Because you're spiritually blind, baby.”
“That may be true; however, I still feel and believe the same.”
“Give it time, my fledgling omnipotender,” Zoe said with a dash of mockery. “You'll see things differently. Besides, if you're going to be all-powerful, then you're destined to master the quantum sovereignty of the universe. One day you'll have to be able to feel and to control it; you'll have to be able to form and to create with it; you'll have to be able to manifest and to merge with it. Whether its nanotechnology, string theory physics, or just the creative thoughts in your mind, you'll have to rule with quantum dominance. Call it ‘spiritual transhumanism’ if it’s easier to swallow. Your understanding and oneness with quantum will be the greatest of your powers—or the demise of all your dreams.”
Jethro shut his eyes in frustration. What did she know about the omnipotender and his dreams, he asked himself? But she nudged closer and overcame his displeasure, her body warming him, like the sun does to a reptile. He noticed it intuitively and pulled her closer. He really couldn’t argue with her concepts and logically win, anyway. It was the same thing as arguing about the existence of God. No one really knew for sure. At least not until science advanced more. Regardless, people chose their sides.
“Your answer, cowboy?” she said coyly.
“Okay, fine. I’ll say it: I still want to be with you even if you believe in dying and think it’s okay.”
“Wow, you must be really smitten with me. The man whose most important goal in life is to achieve immortality has fallen in love with someone who doesn't believe there's a need to do that.”
************
Gregory Michaelson’s and Amanda Kenzington’s 500-person glam wedding was set for early July, at the five-star Belidore, the fanciest hotel in Boston. Only four weeks before, Gregory had graduated from law school. Knowing the money into which he was marrying, he bypassed numerous job offers, including one from the wealthiest law firm in the country, Sillovan & Franklin in New York City. Instead, Gregory accepted an unknown public defender’s job in the small county seat of Queensbury, Upstate New York, telling friends he wanted to help people. The “little people” he joked to Amanda—the people about whom he had never cared nor considered his entire life, but found them useful to consider and to care about now just for the sake that others might consider and care about him. Such was the future career he was aiming for: politics.
Amanda's father bought them a lavish colonial-style house in the only gated community in Queensbury. They joined the nearby country club and made generous donations to local schools and charities. Amanda was pregnant a few months after the wedding and left her Master's degree unfinished.
Her father told her, “You found a good husband. Wasn't that why you went to grad school in Boston? What do you want with tests and classes anymore? You're never going to work, my precious. You're going to preside over things.”
She agreed with daddy. She always did. As long as she stuck with him and followed his advice, she'd always be in good hands. More than once did she fantasize about marrying her father if she could have. Her husband, on the other hand, she doubted. He needed to prove himself. Political meandering, lawyering, and all the parties she attended with Gregory were fun and amusing; however, her kind of people—the uberwealthy—saw government and the administration of law as just a game. Real power came exclusively from money, most often to the highest bidder. Her prenuptial agreement with Gregory was ironclad; her father spent a small fortune on a legal team to craft it.
In the first weeks of his job as a public defender, Gregory found his new role strangely intoxicating. Mostly, this was because his days seemed schizophrenic. On one hand, he was protecting some of the poorest people in his home state; on the other hand, he now belonged to the wealthiest faction of people in America. He found it both perplexing and amusing to sit across from a criminal who would spend three years incarcerated for stealing a beat-up, six-hundred-dollar station wagon. He liked to secretly think to himself: I'm worth about ten million times more than this poor, dumb bastard. But Gregory never actually acted like that at work or in public. He always pretended to tak
e every person seriously, regardless of their circumstances—even with his close friends. In fact, he played the good-guy role to everyone but his wife.
Gregory was a great showman. It was the core and most sharpened part of his personality. Criminals went away trusting him. He came away feeling cleansed for helping the little people. One day, Gregory asked his wife if she thought he was despicable for feeling and thinking such things. She looked at him like he was an idiot.
“Why even spend time worrying about it, Greg?” she muttered. Amanda sat in front of a six-foot-tall Victorian mirror, meticulously putting on eye shadow in preparation for a dinner party—their third one that week.
Despite some initial excitement at his new job—contending with larceny, domestic violence, and drug bust cases—Gregory tired of his work after only a few months. Living deep inland now, he longed for the ocean. He missed the yacht club, sunset cocktails with his friends, and sailing Blue Lagoon. Sometimes, when he daydreamt of yacht racing, he thought of Jethro Knights. Jethro out there on the other side of the planet—the intrepid philosopher-explorer. Gregory couldn't help but feel jealous. Stinging him even more was the recent news from an old Victoria classmate: Jethro was now a journalist at International Geographic, writing travel stories from his boat and covering a conflict in Asia as a war correspondent. What an adventure, he reluctantly admitted.
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