by Joe Plus
“My what a joyful day today is,” she said, her voice somehow puncturing through the wall of shrieks and calls of Oh yes, and That’s right. “A new church, where three wildly different orgs find so much in common, through the shared goals of a single creed - the three points of Transhumanism. Yes, each org sits on a separate corner of the Transhumanist house, but it is the same tricorn bedrock, the same belief interpreted in mutually beneficial ways.”
An image of a human brain turning on an axis appeared in the minds-eye of each audience member. Anna placed her fingertips to her temples.
“Can you see it?” she said, “can you see your future mind? Our beautiful mind? It is growing, expanding and getting more powerful. See it grow?”
Yes, yes! said the crowd
“Watch it feed, watch it mutate.”
The image flushed and smoldered, the temporal lobe a strobe lamp.
“Your memory, your ability to master language.”
Then the parietal lobe flashed.
“Mathematics, spatial skills, vision.”
Then, disproportionately, the frontal lobe flared up.
“Behavior, emotion - passions and the self-control to deal with them.”
The brain expanded until it filled the stage, then exploded into a ball of intense white light. John shook his head – the image caught hold of his mindware and he could not apply a filter or shade. Though it could not affect his eyes, the bright flash caused discomfort. John blinked instinctively. Audience whispers and laughter died down, and Anna’s voice cut through – John’s mind was seized; arrested.
“Do you hope to bring us closer to perfection, to save our species? How can this not be achieved without super-intelligence? I tell you all that the predicted day is prescient. Through evolution and science, and through our collective spiritual being, its core projected forevermore onto the great universal holograms of the super black hole at the center of our universe.”
“Hey?” said John.
She lifted her hand in the air.
“It is foreordained, and a necessary consequent of history that we will have a common super intelligence that will self-improve and exponentially grow until we become the mind of god. Until mission accomplished, long live the Church of the Transhuman. Long live the CoT plus.”
Her short speech ended, she turned and left the podium. Surprised that her speech had ended so soon, Scrunch stepped back onto the stage and fiddled with his hands.
“A big hand for StaaarPluuus,” he said.
Black Hole? What kind of…? thought John.
As the band played You are the hands, I am the clay, Scrunch coughed down the mic.
“Ladies and gentlemen, fellow travelers, fellow believers, please give a warm hand to that fantastic super doop doublishous-double-plus of self-improvement, Puuuuure………Pluuuuuus.”
He waved his arms around an imaginary wheel, terminated the curve so that both index fingers pointed to PurePlus’s vacant seat. The crowd’s cheer and whoop decayed to silence when it dawned on everyone that PurePlus was absent.
Then they heard the echo of a clip, then a clop: from within the dark folds of the curtain, a condensation of grey mist shimmered like a cloud of gnats on a beach at sunset.
Chapter 11
Log: 05-10-2044::23:51
Field Trip: Batang Garing
Role: Field Lead
Name: Augusta Green
There’s that strange smell again, pungent urine and rotten fruit. I feel dizzy, drowsy, inebriated even, and I hear voices, their faint calls from afar: a dead relative having a hissy fit; shouting curses because I will not respond. I am too tired to care. I wish someone would come in for a chat. Why would anyone take an interest in a wire-haired fatso like me? I used to look good, when I was with John; my best years over and not much to show.
We’re on a losing race here, a scramble against the dark lords of capitalism and their agents; loggers, mining companies, military, police, missionaries. They can’t destroy the place fast enough, and I am afraid most of Borneo’s treasures will soon be lost. Once our immediate job’s done I will concentrate get back to what matters most, so that Boris and I will be together again. With a lot of hard work, and a bit of luck, it will be soon – I know it. And yet I don’t know. My dear Anna, I have so much doubt, on whether this trip will contribute anything. Are we not on an interminable quest, finding cures to things ephemeral? I miss you, and I miss my sweet Boris.
You know, I can feel him, the one who pisses against the tent. I know he’s outside, his eyes on me as I sleep.
Chapter 12
Slight, lanky, sinewy and tattooed, arms outstretched, hocks bent, and long neck in a twist: too-and-fro like a mantis in pursuit of a mate, PurePlus clip-clopped over the wooden boards, eyes alarmed golf balls. His polychromed tattoos a dance in synch with his heartbeat, their forms morphed and colors flip-flopped; a thought map; an emotional puree. He gripped the lectern tightly, and each audience member zoomed in to see on PurePlus’s bare arms the scene of a fox chased by beagles run up bicep and under his armpit. A Saint Andrew's cross grew on his forehead with an image of Vinci’s Vitruvian Man nailed to it, rivulets of blood flowed from the wounds and down PurePlus’s nose, mouth, under his goatee and through his bushy neck. He raised his head to speak; cross and blood faded and Vitruvian man transformed into a metallic blue and cloven hoofed cyborg, placed its fists in its devilish hips before shooting into PurePlus’s hairline, leaving a cloud of stars twinkling on his brow. The fox returned, fat and relaxed; licked its lips after a heavy meal of beagle.
Fuck me, what a creep, thought John.
From the ranks of Menders grew a bestial murmur of caw, grunt and whistle. PurePlus spoke with a fragile rasp; a creak on the cliff of a pubescent croak.
“You must have…” he paused and looked out to some illimitable point, “…an enhanced physique. A new, way, way cooler container to liberate your incarcerated soul.”
John looked at Augusta, and he could not catch her eye. She seemed entranced. PurePlus, he had to concede, was an entertaining spectacle.
“We,” said PurePlus, “are the pathfinders of a new super being, one that allows us to transcend this carcass, a body that is untouched by the fuss and bother of this life. A creature like no other,” PurePlus moved away from the lectern, “an intelligent amoeba, camouflaged, without fundamental form.”
John exhaled audibly with a low fuuuuuck, and Augusta elbowed him in the ribs. PurePlus stepped down from the stage to the seated crowd.
“Without identity, yet with whatever identity it wants. Whatever it wants to be, it will be. To become this, to become that, to be… free.”
And then he vanished.
The audience let out a cry, heads turned to-and-fro, up and down.
John fixed his eyes on the base of the lectern. A faint green curl of coil formed. John snorted loudly only to receive a second ribbing. Someone called out: “Look, look on the stage.”
The coil unwound into a giant, hooded cobra, rising above the lectern. It hissed, slithered stage right down the podium and up the wing wall onto the ceiling, where it transformed into a bright red lizard with a head like a blowfish, upside down and pulsating . He dropped a full seven meters, a somersault, a bounce and back spin: hooves cracked down on hocked legs, hairy arms raised, horns back, fists clenched. The crowd - with the exception of John - stood and roared its approval.
“We can do it,” PurePlus said, “Look at me! I have done it, and you can too.”
“Do what?” said John.
Scrunch stepped onto the stage and the band played Let's Make it Happen.
“Another cheer for PurePlus, Mender extraordinaire and multi, trillionaire,” said Scrunch.
PurePlus turned, did a triple back flip and vanished for a second time. The crowd cheered and clapped, called for PurePlus to reappear – encore, encore. Scrunch stood sheepishly and waved the crowd down: “Thank you, thank you PurePlus for showing us how we can escape the limitations o
f our bodies and work toward something new, something with real value to humankind. A body that defies definition, defies our ancestors notion of what defines us, whether it be our sexuality, our race, or our species. Which leads me to our final speaker, someone who needs no introduction. The man who gave us, and billions of people the world over, a fully FDA approved solution to the blight of mortality. The man who we can honestly say has delivered humanity from the claws of death. Here he is: everyone’s Uncle, Uncle…”
Assisted by two angels, Bob stood up from his chair,
“…Bob. Bob Blessing ladies and gentlemen.”
John put fingers in his ears as the crowd, like bi-polar manics on a Salvia-Lysergic Acid combo, danced, clapped, and cheered. His father stepped forth, swayed a little, and the audience, fearful that he might collapse, fell silent. John noticed as his father pulled back his shoulders, lifted his head, and in oversized suit, breezed across, a corpulent galleon of fabrics, curves and inertia. He did not climb the podium’s steps to stand aloft but stopped short, turned to the crowd and, with a dramatic wave, revealed a small ball of light in the palm of his hand.
Chapter 13
Log: 05-11-2044::13:14
Field Trip: Batang Garing
Role: Field Lead
Name: Augusta Green
This morning I needed to get away from Malcolm. He’s behaving boorishly; chest out and an exaggerated swagger, complaining to the two girls about how he has been overlooked and over-ruled by so many suits in the org. I see he gulps down the LongLifes – way too many, with vodka shots. I assembled a small party, a few of us to cross the river to look around: myself, Trish, and two young men: Herman, a Bisaya youth from Sarawak and one of the few Christian crewmembers, and Jelani, our very youthful Dayak boatman – a lovely boy with an impish look. We decided to use oars and not the outboard, since the river is not so strong up here. Besides, with Jelani steering we will be hydroplaning before you know it, scaring everything off for miles. It took us less than a minute to cross and we stopped near an outcrop of rock, a relief for me since most of the time the banks are mud and mangrove and I seem to spend a tremendous effort extracting myself from waist deep slime.
Once on the rocks Herman helped me assemble the lookout. It’s a good piece of kit, changing its color and texture to fit in with the terrain. So here we now sit atop our rocky ridge with its jutting horizontal layers of granite. We can walk along it to a point where it forms an overhanging ledge. Up and down the bank and behind us, dense vegetation from the mangrove forms an impenetrable, thorny green wall.
After lunch Trish got into her wetsuit and went out onto the water. She took a dive and came up covered in leeches – totally unfazed. Visibility was poor and her lamps did little to help; backscatter put paid to anything distinct. The diffuse light is a combination of silicate suspension from the mud, sewerage from the mines, and river phytoplankton – I understand that phytoplankton are numerous this time of year, but the numbers are worse than expected. They’re swarming away down there, munching of pollutants, obscuring our vision.
Log: 05-12-2044::15:04
Field Trip: Batang Garing
Role: Field Lead
Name: Augusta Green
The river is considerably clearer today and the sun a blisteringly - 37oC. Good to be under the very edge of the forest canopy. Malcolm, Trish and Mohammed are off trying to locate the source of some unknown birdsong. So here I sit, alone yet excited after what I saw earlier. It was a few minutes after sunrise and I was playing around with the drone sub, capturing footage of small amphipoda when, at around 07:30 on the opposite bank, I heard a loud splash. I would say it was three or four hundred meters westward, and I navigated the sub to the source. Though the sub is reasonably silent, I was nervous the headlight could frighten whatever it was. I adjusted the strobe and selected the diffuser to reduce backscatter. I saw a whirl of mud like an underwater dust storm. I glimpsed an occasional blue-gray, something feeding, fighting or mating. The cloud inched toward the sub so I made sternway at around 2 knots. In the opaque cloud I detected specks of red, and after a minute or so the cloud expanded and dissipate to… nothing. I steered into the cloud and, with the sub’s pincers, retrieved tumbling fragments of what I now know to be torn flesh. I stored the largest half dozen pieces in the hold and, after a further search in this opaque soup, sailed back. I levered out the drone and examined the fragments before placing them in the coolbox. It’s most definitely flesh. My guess, from the skin coloring, is a dugong or river dolphin. I reserve judgment until our expert takes a look. Trish will no doubt have a lot to say.
Chapter 14
The ball of light grew into three trees: an oak, a willow and a Cedar with boughs and roots intertwined, glided over the audience. A flock of birds settled among the branches, chirping and chattering. The image faded and the new CoT+ colors breezed into view. In each attendees ear, a disembodied voice spoke: The Church of the Transhuman – What is it?
“What indeed,” Bob bellowed, slowly and deliberately, each syllable drawn out, each vowel flat and pinched off with a glottal stop, “is the Church of the Transhuman? Well let me tell you. We, the CoT plus, are a congregation of likeminded souls in service to science and progress, and we are a refuge from history’s cold, vacant, unconsciousness.”
A hologram of planet Earth hovered above, expanding until the audience was brought into fields filled by herds of grazing dinosaur. A crash of a meteor, the detonation of volcanoes, and a tsunami swept landscape and animals into a confused mass of red dirt, torn flesh, and broken bone. Out of the rubble sprang a small mouse, and he leapt through a forest fire, evolved into a bushy-tailed squirrel: scampered across a parched desert, hopped through a field of snow, swam across a river, then as an earthquake hit, a primate in a shuddering tree, only to descend as a bipedal ape. The ape scratched in the dirt for insects, ate putrid fruit and carrion, narrowly avoided a snake attack, dodged a tumbling boulder, and suffered a shoulder injury from the bite of a saber toothed big cat, until, desperate with hunger and thirst, she picked up a stick and beat to death a small buck, drank its blood and fell down dead with exhaustion.
“All that effort, for what? A dead end. Is this our end? Natural selection was once something over which we had no control, though as luck would have it, it developed in us the capacity to cope in a fierce, unpredictable world.”
Michael Angelo’s King David appeared before them. David picked up his spear and threw into the clouds where it morphed into Appollo 11, continued on to Earth’s moon.
What is it to be a Transhuman? came the voice.
“To be a Transhuman is to desire nothing less than the gifts of the divine. The CoT+ knows no borders, is not hindered by culture, religion or politics. We hold the reigns of selection, and we will force our way through history – to become eternal super-beings, pure and supreme.”
Kind David grabbed his stomach, rolled into a ball, grew wings, a beak and turned into a Dodo. The audience laughed as the Dodo ran from a sailor with a club. The sailor caught the bird and pummeled it into a mound of blood and feathers before feeding it to his pet dog. A small, silver dot appeared above the sailor, and grew into a large bomb. The bomb exploded into a white ball above the sailor’s head, incinerating him and his dog, expanding into a mushroom cloud that consumed the whole island of Mauritius.
“As for the rest of mankind? Well, if they do not annihilate themselves through weapons of mass destruction, or through the poisoning of the planet, they will evolve into an inferior life form; this is an outcome I can predict with absolute certainty.”
A modern woman and man appeared, both suited. One morphed into Artemis with her quiver and bow, the other a hunched, short-armed Neanderthal. Artemis stood forward, and on her forehead was drawn the emblem of the CoT+
“But in our church, the church of the Transhuman, you will be safe, because we have harnessed evolution.”
Another slide and a booming, singing basso cantante voiceover to the song: All
things new in CRISPR.
The audience sang along and Bob pumped his fist in time. John hated it, with its slow, flat tune and 3/4 time signature. He moved his lips with folded arms and furrowed brow.
Bob continued: “We believe in mankind's capabilities to transcend its lowly status, to break the bonds of time.”
“Yes,” called out a member of the audience.
“We believe in and demand perfect bodies.”
“Jesus H Christ yes,” said John.
“Yes,” said the audience.
“We believe in and we demand supreme intelligence.”
“Yes.”
“We believe in and demand eternal life.”
“Yes.”
Bob pumped his fist, “yes, the world needs us,” he said, his face folded and puce.
Another slide: Why does the world need us?
Bob, with incredulity asked: “Seriously?”
The audience laughed, clapped and whistled.
“I mean, seriously?”
Another slide, this time with a movie to a song: Wrong Turn. Images of Bonobos living in tranquility merged into stock film of soldiers fighting hand to hand, followed by famished children having their eyes pecked out by vultures. A controlled nuclear explosion, a women tied down, blood drained from her neck by black bandana wearing youths. Poisoned gas attacks, victims of bird flu, Ebola and HIV followed by food queues in Europe, Asia and the US until panning out to a view of a dying Earth; desiccated, sea-less; a shit-brown atmosphere; orbited by a cloud of floating space-junk.