Singularity

by Steven James

  Maddie nods. “Perfect,” she says punctiliously.

  Before they can leave, Mandie tugs on her mom’s slacks. “Mommy, what’s a gentleman’s club?”

  “Who told you about gentleman’s clubs?”

  “I saw a sign. On the way here.” Her reading ability is another testimony to her mother’s teaching ability.

  They start to follow their server to the table. “Well, for starters it’s a place where no true gentleman would ever go.”

  “Oh. Then why’s it called that?”

  But by then they’re out of earshot, and even though I’m curious as to Fionna’s detailed answer to her kindergartner, it’s time for Xavier, Charlene, and me to take off for the escalator to the dressing rooms.

  The receptionist at the Arête’s front desk let Calista check in early, and the courtesan went up to the honeymoon suite on the top floor to make sure everything was ready for tonight.

  It was soundproof.

  She and Derek had checked that out earlier.

  It would be important for what was going to happen in the room tomorrow.

  Getting past the gaming area is like picking your way through a labyrinth.

  There’s no direct route to the theater entrance, and that’s all part of the plan. Casinos are designed to keep you inside, not to give you a direct path to the exit door, because if you’re outside walking the Strip you’re not gambling, and if you’re not gambling, the casino isn’t making money.

  Truthfully, Lady Luck has nothing to do with your winnings; Señor Computer does. He’s the one who decides how much you’re going to win at the slots. The best odds are always when you’re playing the tables, and that’s where the next generation wants to gamble. There’s a saying around here that there are two types of people who leave Vegas—losers and liars. Not too many people figure out how to exit our city without becoming one or the other.

  And almost always those are the ones who play blackjack.

  On the way to the theater, Charlene fills Xavier and me in about her meeting with the FBI agent. “To put it bluntly, he wasn’t very interested at all in what I had to say. I gave him the USB drive, but I’m not very hopeful.”

  She pauses, and I recall that Fionna was working with the copy she’d made, that Charlene had taken the original drive with her. “However, now with the break-in at Emilio’s place, maybe the guy will change his tune.”

  “Unless,” Xavier replies, “there are jurisdictional issues with the police department. You know how, in crime novels and TV shows, there’s always an interagency rivalry between the Feds and local law enforcement. That could really slow us down here.”

  “Hopefully, life won’t imitate art.”

  “There’s only one way to find out.”

  She produces a business card from the federal agent she’d met with. “I’ll follow up with him when we get downstairs.”

  We pass the sports betting area and find the escalator that leads down to the lower level where the green rooms are. Charlene tells me, “As far as the research on the cobras, you’re not going to believe this, but there’s a secondary venom in the Sri Lankan subspecies of cobra.”

  “A secondary venom?”

  “It took a bit of searching—I actually had Donnie help me. As soon as I told him it was about snake venom, he was all about doing some extra credit work for his mom. Anyway, turns out there’s hardly anything on the Internet, just one thing I came across. It’s still undocumented, but I found one researcher’s blog. He’s a herpetologist and was bitten by a Sri Lankan cobra that had its venom glands removed. He describes a reaction similar to the one you had. The secondary venom is actually in the snake’s saliva.”

  I can’t imagine that too many people in the world have been bitten by Sri Lankan cobras that’ve had their venom glands removed, so it makes sense that the research isn’t out there, but all of this just makes me feel worse about what happened to Emilio.

  “So,” Xavier says, “even if the cobras in the air tube hadn’t killed him, if he were bitten by the other snakes and had a panic attack down there, he might very well have thrashed around, agitated them, and died from cardiac arrest.”

  We’re all quiet.

  Somebody wanted Emilio dead, and they did not want him to die well.

  As we make our way to my dressing room, Xavier and I bring Charlene up to speed about the transhumanism angle.

  “Genetics, biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics, information technology, and cognitive science,” Xav summarizes. “Advancements in those six areas are reshaping what it will mean to age and even what it means to be human. Watch the TED talk with Aubrey de Grey. He’s a little out there, but he makes some good points. He talks you through it step by step, his process of eliminating aging. He believes it’s immoral to keep children from staying young. He also thinks there are people living today who will live to be a thousand years old.”

  “What?”

  “Based on the idea that if you can expand someone’s life span for thirty years, then they’ll be around to experience the advantages of life-extending technology that will be developed in the meantime and will have their lives extended again, and again.”

  “Until they’re a thousand years old.”

  “In theory, yes.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Some people think it’s not so crazy at all.”

  Once we’re inside, Xavier takes a seat on the countertop in front of the mirror and summarizes the issues involving The Singularity and autonomous weaponry.

  Charlene looks impressed. “You two have been busy.”

  “Xavier had all of this in his files already,” I explain. “I just finally gave him the chance to share it with me.”

  “After all these years.”

  “I might be a slow learner, but at least I’m teachable.”

  “Not completely a lost cause.”

  “Not completely.”

  Charlene takes a moment to process everything. “Let’s say they do develop strong AI. How would they assure that the artilects don’t attack humans?”

  “We would have to assure that they reflect our values,” I reply.

  “Whose values?” scoffs Xavier. “I mean, whose morality do we stick the machines with? Which culture’s? Which religion’s? Protect the rights of women in Muslim countries? Protect the rights of unborn children in ours? If we really do make machines that reflect all of human nature, then we’ll end up with greedy, self-possessed, violent machines that’ll think nothing of genocide or even of annihilating humanity to achieve their goals. After all, that’s how humans have acted all throughout history. If we make machines capable of thinking like us, you can be certain they’ll turn on us eventually. No doubt about that.”

  Wow. Those are encouraging thoughts.

  But the more I think about it, the more I have to admit that Xavier is right on the money.

  I’m playing out the implications of all this when there’s a light tap at the door. “Come in.”

  Fionna and Maddie join us, and Maddie repositions her glasses as she takes a seat. “Okay, I’m going to tell you what I found out about immortal jellyfish, the only animal on the planet that, left on its own, will never die.”

  Turritopsis Dohrnii

  Okay, she has my attention now.

  She dives right in.

  “A fully grown Turritopsis dohrnii is tiny, not even the width of a dime. It doesn’t have a specialized reproductive system like we do, but is capable of asexual reproduction. They’re spreading almost uncontrollably in the oceans around the world, but that’s not what makes them unique. It has to do with transdifferentiation. After the Turritopsis dohrnii reaches sexual maturity, the cells of the jellyfish change and it reverts back to a polyp colony again.”

  For a moment Fionna, Charlene, and I just stand there. Xavier doesn’t move from where he’s sitting on the counter near the mirror.

  Maddie looks at us strangely, as if what she just said should have produced more o
f a reaction. “Don’t you understand? Its cells change to an earlier stage in its life cycle.”

  Charlene speaks first, asking the obvious question. “It gets younger?”

  “Yes. It gets younger.”

  “You’re saying that this jellyfish ages backward?” I exclaim. “How?”

  “Transdifferentiation.”

  “Which is . . . ?”

  “It’s when a non–stem cell transforms into a different type of cell. In this jellyfish, the cells in the umbrella of the medusa—the sexually mature jellyfish—invert, and the tentacles and the middle layer, called the mesoglea, are absorbed back in. It then reattaches to a rock and—”

  “That’s the polyp colony part?” Xav asks her.

  “Yes. After the embryonic stage, young jellyfish separate themselves from the mother, and then the larvae sink or float through the water until they come to something like a rock or piece of coral or the hull of a boat or something, then they attach themselves and develop into polyps. The polyp feeds on plankton, eventually forming a small colony of polyps that are interconnected with tiny feeding tubes.”

  She takes a deep breath and then goes on. “Eventually, the colony forms horizontal grooves, and the uppermost one releases itself and becomes what we think of when we think of a jellyfish. At that stage it’s called a medusa. After that, the jellyfish doesn’t live long. It releases its gametes into the water, they form the fertilized egg, then the embryo or planula larva, and then another polyp colony begins.”

  Now she’s starting to lose me.

  Xavier too, apparently, because he looks a little bewildered. “Take us back to the jellyfish getting younger part.”

  “In times of stress, like when it’s wounded or starving, the Turritopsis dohrnii is able to return to an earlier developmental stage and reproduce again. Like I was saying, it forms a polyp colony again, grows into a mature jellyfish, returns to a polyp colony.”

  “So . . .” I can hardly believe I’m saying this. “You weren’t kidding when you said it will never die, that it lives forever?”

  “Well, as long as it isn’t eaten or killed, it has biological immortality, yes.”

  “You’re not exaggerating this, Maddie?” her mother presses her. “It doesn’t die?”

  “In laboratory tests 100 percent of the Turritopsis dohrnii went through this process.”

  “Transdifferentiation.”

  “Yes, but”—she clarifies—“to be truly immortal, an organism would need to be immune to death, which isn’t the case here.”

  We’re all silent for a moment.

  I’m looking at the poster child for homeschooling families. I don’t care if she’s only nine, this girl should apply for graduate school.

  “That was a very good oral report,” Xavier tells her.

  “Thank you,” Maddie replies politely.

  “I’d give you an A.”

  “I will too,” Fionna adds. “Now, Maddie, if you’d be kind enough to give us a moment, I’ll be right with you and we can head back to the restaurant for lunch. Can you wait for me in the hall?”

  Maddie steps out of the room and Fionna turns to us. “One of the files on the USB drive noted that RixoTray Pharmaceuticals is involved with transdifferentiation research. A Dr. Schatzing’s heading up the program. I think it has something to do with an anti-aging drug they’re trying to develop. Anyway, I’m not sure why any of this would have been copied onto a drive that has military-grade encryption, but at least it gives us our connection to RixoTray.”

  Xavier says, “Do we know where they’re doing that?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Look into it,” I suggest. “See what you can find out.”

  “We have threads here”—it’s Charlene—“let’s tie them together. The jellyfish research and the progeria research might tell us something.”

  Xavier folds his hands on his lap. “So, Emilio was trying to find a way to live longer?”

  Progeria, aging prematurely, is the opposite of what happens with the jellyfish. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but it’s also hard not to acknowledge the obvious—especially when you consider the transhumanism research Emilio was doing.

  “Or,” I reply, “maybe to help someone else live longer. Think progeria for a second. The implications of studying it are profound. If people’s genetic makeup can cause them to age at seven or eight times the natural rate—”

  “Could the reverse be true?” Fionna interrupts, tracking right along with me. “Would it be possible, through some type of gene therapy or DNA manipulation, to program someone’s genes to cause them to age that much slower than the rest of us? Or even to reverse the effects of aging, like with the jellyfish?”

  I face Xavier. “Back at the RV you mentioned xenotransplantation, genetic splicing from one species to another . . .”

  “It’s all connected.”

  “I think”—Charlene flags her hand in the air—“we’re getting ahead of ourselves a little here. We really need to find out what else is on that drive before we can figure out the next step.”

  Fionna picks up her purse. “That’s my cue. It’ll be easier to keep an eye on Maddie and Mandie if I head home after lunch.”

  I recall my earlier hesitancy to have them at the house by themselves. “Did you bring the USB drive with you?”

  She produces it from her pocket. “I thought it might be best to bring it along. After all, someone broke into one house already looking for it—or at least we think he was looking for it.”

  Great minds.

  “Work here,” Xavier tells her. “I’ll feel better about it. The kids can climb, swim—there are lifeguards at the pool.”

  But she shakes her head. “We didn’t bring suits.”

  The suggestion that she could buy some at the hotel comes up, but she doesn’t want to be “wasteful.” He offers to ride back with her so she can pick up their suits from home, but she declines. “How about after lunch I drive back with Lonnie. He can run in and grab the swimsuits; we’ll be fine. Then the two of us can work here while the younger kids hang out.”

  Xavier invites her to the box office so that he can get her family climbing wall passes and free tickets to the show tonight, she promises that she’ll bring us some lunch, and they leave with Maddie.

  Hoping that we might finally get somewhere with the Feds, Charlene calls the FBI agent’s cell number from the business card he gave her earlier, but it goes directly to voicemail. She leaves a message summarizing what we’ve discovered and asks him to call her back.

  At last she heads to her dressing room to get ready for rehearsal while I stand there for a moment, flipping the Morgan Dollar through my fingers processing what we’ve been talking about, trying to tie everything together.

  And failing.

  Eventually, I mentally shift into show mode and head to the theater.

  Tomás Agcaoili passed through security in San Francisco and maneuvered through the crowds toward his departure gate for his flight to Las Vegas.

  His plan: upon arrival in Vegas he would briefly visit Solomon before going to meet with Akinsanya at five. As someone who had his finger on the pulse of everything that went on in the Vegas underground, Solomon was the one person in the city who would know how to deal with Akinsanya, if necessary.

  Body Doubles

  On one side of the stage is the mammoth piranha tank that was constructed specifically for tonight’s climax. I’m not sure when the fish ate last. The crew is supposed to keep them well fed to make sure they don’t attack me while I’m trying to escape the straightjacket, but the fish aren’t predictable, and if they swarm in to attack, the divers we have stationed at the ready won’t likely have time to unlock the shackles on my ankles and get to me in time.

  As long as there’s not blood in the water I should be fine.

  The secret to magic these days is coming up with effects no one has ever seen before and doing them in a way no one could ever guess.

&
nbsp; With the hundreds of Internet websites all sharing magic’s secrets online, and the two dozen dedicated to revealing the secrets and illusions of the most successful magicians, you need to stay ahead of the curve. As soon as one person uses his cell phone to catch the glint of the cable you’re using to help you “levitate” and posts that online, your career is over.

  So we have to use something other than cable.

  And tonight, in the same way, I have to pull off this effect without anyone figuring out how.

  Thinking outside the box might be a cliché in the business world, but it’s your bread and butter if you’re trying to make up new effects to survive in the world of magic.

  I remember one sleight of hand part of my show in the early days of my career that lasted three seconds. It took me a month practicing for nearly four hours a day before I could pull off those three seconds. But they were worth it. I got a standing ovation every time I did that effect, and it’s the one that landed me my first gig on the Strip.

  When we were considering this piranha tank escape, we went through the options carefully. Houdini would get himself shackled and locked in a trunk and then tipped off the edge of a pier or a bridge. He had to pick the locks and get out of the trunk before he drowned.

  I’ve done that a few times, but I didn’t want to repeat it. I wanted to push the envelope in a new direction.

  Thurston would “hypnotize” a man in Indian garb, then he would lie in a clear box and they would sink that in water and put it on the side of the stage. The guy would stay there for twenty or twenty-five minutes in a state of “catalepsy.”

  It was an amazing effect, but it wasn’t anything supernatural. The Indian man just knew how to take small, shallow breaths, something anyone can learn with practice, but few people are willing to put that kind of time into something they’ll hardly ever use.