The Transhumanist Wager

by Zoltan Istvan

  “Okay. Anything else?”

  Langmore scanned Jethro up and down—and frowned. “Yes, there’s one more thing. You’re going to need to learn to dress better.”

  Jethro didn’t agree with Langmore about the importance of appearance, but obliged him anyway. He bought a new black suit, jacket, and shoes; however, Jethro stopped short of wearing a tie, which he considered the most nonfunctional device ever created.

  The following morning, Jethro jumped into his jeep and drove up and down the coast trying to corner each of Langmore’s contacts for a brief meeting. On the way, he devised a new selling strategy, one that catered to the wealthy funders he was now going to meet. To get them to contribute resources, he offered incentives. His basic contract was simple: Give a hundred thousand dollars and Jethro promised they would attain immortality, either in their lifetimes or within a hundred years afterward via cryonics—which his organization would arrange and pay for. It was a straightforward pitch. Jethro backed his promise with legal documents that would grant donors first access to the life extension technology Transhuman Citizen planned to acquire or develop over the coming decades through its proposed investment and research arms.

  After much effort, and patiently hanging out in motel rooms and bookstores for days on end, waiting for short scheduled meetings, Jethro was able to meet nearly all of Langmore’s ten contacts. He usually found himself in a mansion’s reception area—his appointment pushed back at least two hours—listening to other salespeople ahead of him in the next room, giving pitches for some cause or a new business. Once Jethro finally got his moment with the potential donor, he was allowed to speak for an average of fourteen seconds before he was interrupted and grilled with questions: Who are you? How did you get my info? What's in it for me? What gives you the right to ask me for money? A hundred thousand dollars? Do you realize how much money that is these days, son? Do you think it grows on trees? And everything else aside, your plan sounds like a pipe dream.

  Jethro twinged in angst trying to sell his philosophy and organization to these people. It felt like selling his own body parts. This wasn't like dealing with Professor Rindall and the students at Victoria University, where he fundamentally didn't care about their opinions. He needed these donors in front of him. They possessed large possible value for him. But they made him out to be a jerk, a loser with another crackpot idea. Some of them openly laughed, critiquing his sales speech and telling him which parts needed work. Others told him that money rarely goes to those who wear their souls so openly. One powerful banker told him he didn't support radical groups like his, regardless of sound and rational goals. Two older donors asked Jethro where his tie was. One obese Hollywood producer wanted to know if he believed in God. Some simply said no, and didn't care to elaborate or speak to him anymore, pointing toward the door. One 72-year-old heiress with a pink feather boa and fake eyelashes—her skirt far too high, revealing grainy, knotty legs—said she'd consider it if he slept with her.

  Jethro told her that he'd be back if all else failed.

  ************

  As Zoe Bach aged, her simple Asian modality gracefully matched the more distinguished, British side of her being. The result fashioned an ever stronger effect of exoticism in her appearance and a spiritual presence in her demeanor. Slight, endearing wrinkles on her face shot in different directions when she smiled, always summoning a second and third glance from people she met. Her superfine night-black hair enticingly caressed her scalp and shoulders. Her emerald eyes illuminated her aura of vivacity. In the past two years—since she had returned from Kashmir—she completed five marathons and three weeklong meditation retreats at California Buddhist monasteries. Sometimes she did them back to back. She was stuck in a flux of motion, her life streaming in many directions, with many possibilities.

  She stumped her colleagues, who knew her to be independent to the point of indifference or, on rare occasions, hostility. In spite of this, she was as accepting of the universe as it was diverse, and actively practiced compassion for others in her thoughts. Her deepest passion was still reading, and she made time for books as one would make time for a special lover, her only light at night emanating from a single red candle in her bedroom. Besides the classics, poetry, and medical texts, her library was filled with books on spirituality, quantum mechanics, thanatology, transhumanism, and even witchcraft. Her apartment appeared nearly bare, except for some refined modern art and a few pieces of Scandinavian furniture.

  A nurse, speaking of Zoe, recently told another co-worker, “Have you ever seen her wear makeup or nail polish? I haven’t. I just don’t think it’s the way she rolls.”

  “That doesn't surprise me. Zoe once told me that she doesn't own a TV when I asked her about a recent episode of Friends and Enemies. Can you imagine that? Not owning a TV?”

  In her mid-thirties, Zoe was a respected up-and-coming trauma surgeon in San Francisco. Her work schedule was much more manageable now than during her residency. Three times a week, starting at 8 P.M., she carried twelve-hour graveyard shifts at San Francisco General Hospital. But her daily professional life belonged at Cryotask, California's largest cryonics center. It was started by a colleague whom she knew from her running club. The entrepreneur saw the movement catching on across the country and decided to mortgage his house to fund the new operation. So far it was an undeniable success, with a client list hundreds of persons long and a full-time staff of employees.

  During most weekdays, Zoe was the on-call doctor, standing by in case a client died and needed to be frozen immediately. It was a procedure that legally required a licensed physician to sign off on the paperwork and to make sure a patient was suitable. Not all were. Only sterilized, intact bodies were admitted. Wounded bodies with corrupted or germ-laden cells often ended up disintegrating after cryo-freezing, rendering the process futile.

  Zoe loved working at Cryotask. Life and death—and the gray area between them—continued to fascinate her and appeal to her transhuman interests. The job’s downside was the protestors. Religious anti-transhumanism groups demonstrated with pickets every day in front of Cryotask, even though the science to reanimate cryonically frozen humans was, at best, still decades away. The protestors believed tampering with death was satanic and strictly forbidden by God. Once a person was dead, he was God's property, they claimed—to be cast into heaven or hell, but not back on Earth. To reanimate a dead person with human technology was blasphemy for both the deceased and those involved with the reanimation. Religious protestors insisted there was no room for disagreement with that idea.

  To try to remain safely anonymous from radicals who opposed cryonics, Zoe Bach didn't put a license plate on her car. Her phone number wasn't listed in any phone books either. She chose to live high up in a skyscraper along San Francisco Bay's waterfront, with security personnel who knew her by first name at the entrance.

  “Good morning, Zoe. Long night at work?” the doorman asked when she entered the building in her scrubs. Outside, dawn was just appearing.

  “Yes, Al, a long night. And yours?”

  “By the looks of it, not as long as yours,” the man said, staring at her bloodstained blue pants.

  Zoe smiled and nodded sleepily, acknowledging the obvious.

  “Have a good one, Al.”

  “You too, Zoe. We'll keep a good lookout on your floor.”

  Despite her attempts to remain anonymous at Cryotask, Zoe was discovered. She soon began receiving death threats in the mail. Her postal parcels had to be screened. Security discovered a package that contained an amateur-made bomb of fireworks. Others contained dog shit and rotten tomatoes. Zoe was even occasionally followed on streets and verbally hassled in public.

  So far, cryonics clinics had only been vandalized, but never terrorized. Top Redeem Church members saw the cryonics movement growing in popularity across America and decided it was time to change that. Throwing rocks through clinic windows and harassing their employees was not effective enough. A murderous
plot began churning high up in the hierarchy of Redeem Church, eventually reaching Reverend Belinas. He gave the scheme his keen approval.

  Chapter 14

  “You're just not hitting the right type of people for funding,” Preston Langmore told Jethro Knights over sushi at a restaurant in San Francisco. It was their first meeting since Jethro had returned from trying to pitch to Langmore’s ten wealthy donors.

  “You're trying to sell something that’s a damn hard sell. And you're trying to sell to people I've already sold things to, who would barely buy from me. It was worth a try. But so far you haven’t found the transhuman crusaders you spoke of at the conference. You need to find them. Find that new generation of intrepid visionaries. They're the ones the future is about.”

  “Where are they?” asked Jethro.

  Langmore threw his hands up. “That's your job. That's why it's a new generation. But I'd begin by researching every business that has a net worth over twenty-five million dollars and was started in the past five years. Go on the Internet and check out corporation formations, tax returns, and IPO filings. Then find out who started the company. And go visit that person with your pitch. But don’t do it here on the West Coast where they've all been picked through already. Try the newer industrial areas, the few with any sort of action: Phoenix, Wichita, even the semi-resurgence of Cleveland. People there may still have vision—and gumption.”

  Jethro followed Langmore’s advice again. A week later, after a few marathon days of research, Jethro flew to Arizona to court John Fillway, an electrical engineer and owner of Blightdale Industries. His company was a major solar panel producer and had successfully launched an IPO last year in the stock market.

  From there, Jethro ventured up to Kansas to court a woman named Allivia Conway, co-inventor of the modern Lasik eye machine.

  Afterward, he left for Cleveland to meet another entrepreneur, Juan Pedrosen, a Peruvian immigrant with a thick accent, who recently acquired five small tourist cruise ships. Pedrosen also founded a T-shirt company that now had factories in China, Portugal, and Indonesia. He was worth thirty million dollars and had recently given money to Nathan Cohen's lab in Phoenix.

  Obtaining even a five-minute meeting with these busy business people was difficult. If Jethro wasn't granted a normal interview via their secretaries and staff, he would find alternative ways to talk to them. These methods included waiting for them by their cars in their company parking lots, hanging out in front of their gyms hoping to catch them, and sometimes even interrupting them while they ate at restaurants. Eventually, he forced a conversation with each entrepreneur. Surprisingly, Langmore was right; these types of people were far more receptive. Each one of them listened carefully to his transhuman plan, some for nearly fifteen minutes, asking questions and considering scenarios.

  Furthermore, Jethro was learning to be more professional and convincing. His absolute assurance of real results came through as authentic and daring, especially to people who created mini business empires by being authentic and daring. Still, no one immediately agreed to fund him, but all took his business card, promising to keep in touch as they thought about his proposal and considered his extreme transhuman ideas.

  Back in Palo Alto, Jethro met with Preston Langmore again for dinner.

  “So, what now?” Langmore asked curiously.

  “Same thing. I'm leaving in a few days for a similar trip: Georgia, Minnesota, and Florida. Eventually, it'll work out. Or I'll run out of money and have to work for a while, then try it again.”

  Langmore grimaced.

  “Jethro, I think you should spend more time sharpening your social skills. I've told you this before—you need to become a more approachable human being.”

  “My pitch is fine. I've practiced it a hundred times now. If someone likes my ideas, they'll embrace and back them. I can't force people to want to live forever. Besides, I already feel fine the way I am as a human being.”

  “Yes, I know you already feel fine. But you must understand whom you're dealing with. These people are not fully aware they want these human enhancement and immortality leaps you're proposing—not in the way you are. You must convince them of it. You must teach them they want something they've been taught their whole lives to be afraid of. You must persuade them time is running out to accomplish such goals. That's delicate work. Not exactly the foray of a bulldog.”

  Jethro looked at Langmore and sighed. He cast his head back, running his hands through his hair.

  “Fine. Suggestions?”

  “Okay, I've given it some thought. So let's do this formulaically. A three-step program. First, I want you to watch my twelve-part documentary series on the Presidents of the United States. They're all masters of uniting the disconnected. And they do it with style and grace, often under extreme pressure. I've personally viewed the videos a dozen times over a decade. Watch them carefully and learn. Step two: I want you to read a book on etiquette. I'll give you Tillerton's Rules of Social Etiquette. You must learn all the rules and practice them. It'll show you respect people's customs, even if they're not your own. Don't look at me like that. Your success or failure at reaching immortality might be based on interacting better with people.”

  Jethro covered half his face with his right hand. He was getting frustrated. He couldn't see how something like wearing a tie should make any difference in whether or not someone believed he could help them achieve immortality and other transhuman aims.

  “This is more important that you realize, Jethro. You can't reach your ambitions alone. You need others. Even if they're stuck in a culture you dislike and make a point of not participating in it.”

  Jethro took a substantial gulp of his red wine.

  “Come on, Preston. It's all this social properness and political correctness that's made so much of the human species imbecilic and nonfunctional. It's almost as bad as religion. And for many, this sort of thing is as meaningful as religion. Does it really mean something damning because I lick my plate at a restaurant? Or use the word ‘fuck’ in formal conversation? Or go out in public with disheveled morning hair and mismatched socks? We're a peacock species. There's little sense to it. It's all a harebrained carryover from the face-painting tribes of Africa, to the boorish Victorian-era conservatives, to the fashionista celebrities in Hollywood. Culture is a monster when it's that overbearing and irrational. One gets foolishly lost in the complexity of etiquette instead of accomplishing whatever real task is at hand.”

  “I'm not disagreeing with you, Jethro; however, it’s all beside the point. We live on Planet Earth. These are the playing cards you're given. You must learn more to be a team player—and then the leader on that team.”

  “But I don't like people who join teams or who need a leader.”

  “Then you're going to fail,” said Langmore sharply. He was half standing up, pressing his palms on the table, and staring at Jethro. “Because you won't succeed alone. The nature of accomplishing your goal requires others. And this is the only team you're going to get.”

  Jethro became quiet.

  “Just think about it,” insisted Langmore.

  “I'm not going to fail.”

  “Just think about it.”

  Jethro looked ill, but he acquiesced. He could see Langmore was deeply frustrated too.

  “Okay, Preston, I’ll consider it. You have my word. I'll start the documentary series tonight and give your etiquette book a lookover.”

  Langmore shook his head, exhausted. He thought it was useless to try to socialize or compromise Jethro. His strength was exactly in the fact that he couldn't be changed or tamed. Jethro’s ideas and actions emanated from his deepest self: a spring of exacting, unadulterated reason. It was not tainted with the monster of culture and illogical customs.

  The two men ate in silence for a long time.

  “What's number three?” asked Jethro, finally aiming to move beyond the disagreement.

  Sheepishly, Langmore retorted, “Okay, three. This is more disc
retionary. Nonetheless, I think you should start dating. You're a loner and that doesn't mix together well with growing an organization like yours. Getting close to someone may help smooth out your rough edges. Find someone with whom you get along, and enjoy that person. Learn from that person. Maybe even love that person.”

  Later that night, Jethro sat in front of his computer and began watching the documentary series on the presidents. Inevitably, his mind turned to Langmore’s other suggestion: dating. Jethro went to his nightstand and pulled out the lone photo he kept of Zoe Bach. She was in dirty scrubs, talking with a team of Kashmiri nurses after successfully reattaching a villager’s shot-off ear.

  Now that Transhuman Citizen and TEF were established and operational, Jethro knew it was time to make contact with Zoe. He was still wary of what she made him feel inside, how loyal he felt to her—the overriding instinct of love and bonding that often seemed in total conflict with TEF. But he could accept it now. He was ready to take that chance.

  Early in the morning, after watching five hours of the documentary series, he went to bed thinking of Zoe, plotting what it would be like to see her again. He dreamt of wrapping his body around hers.

  ************

  Zoe Bach's good friend from childhood, Jane Madiston, now living in a small town in Ohio, made the mistake of marrying an eye-candy cowboy type when she was in her early twenties. His name was Bobby MacAlister, and over a rocky ten-year marriage he proved a contemptuous jerk, whose antics and role as a husband and father got worse as the years unraveled. In the best interest of the two young daughters they shared, Jane made the grim choice not to leave or divorce Bobby. She didn’t want to break up her family, but year after year, while trying to raise her children as best as she could, her angst and disappointment grew.