Transhumanist Wager, The (35 page)

A perfectly positioned bomb,
Belinas decided. Then he telephoned his preeminent assassin, Katril Bentoven,
and told him what he wanted.

Bentoven was a frail, dark-haired
Mexican man who wore wire-rimmed spectacles and turtlenecks. Formerly employed
by a dangerous drug lord in Mexico’s prosperous narcotics trade, he was now a
nationalized U.S. citizen living in one of Redeem Church’s compounds in
Florida.

“The security will be extremely
tight in Washington, D.C.,” Bentoven replied on the phone, immediately
understanding the gravity of Belinas’ request. “It may be impossible to get to
Mr. Knights.”

“Don't ever say the word
'impossible' to me again, Katril. You’re better than that. Just make it happen,
whatever it takes. I want him gone in a thunderous, public way. In front of his
wife, his friends, his admirers—in front of the world.”

“Of course, Reverend,” Bentoven
responded solemnly. “By God's will, it shall be done.”

************

Even with all the top transhumanist
leaders present to strategize a survival plan against the NFSA, the
Transhumanism Conference in Washington, D.C. was far smaller than expected. In
the past month, many transhumanists in the movement had outright quit. Few were
willing to be seen at an event where their names were sure to be added to a
government blacklist. The pressure of the NFSA's witch hunt—forcing unemployment,
creating public harassment, and even threatening jail time—was simply too much.

Jethro Knights remembered when he
had passionately made his original Transhuman Citizen speech three years before
to the same group of people. It felt like decades ago now. At age thirty-two,
he was more ambitious than ever, but the powerful hand of the government, once
dismissive and skeptical, was now impossibly oppressive. He wondered if his new
speech, titled
Creation of the Transhuman Nation
, would make a stronger
difference this time. Therefore, he chose to distribute it in writing before
the actual presentation.

The Transhumanism Conference was
held at the Dawson Center, a mecca for large global conferences in America at a
time when groups still spent money to put them on, which was becoming rarer in
the recession. Transhuman Citizen took one of the largest booths at the
gathering. It proudly promoted scientists it directly supported, and openly
displayed their research and discoveries.

The Mobi Company ran the maintenance
and janitorial service of the center. Their reputation was excellent, but a
recent round of layoffs and wage decreases had damaged morale amongst its
employees. When an agent of Belinas' Maryland Redeem Church team approached
some of the Mobi crew for keys and inner access to the center, they agreed.
Fifty thousand dollars was given as an incentive.

“No problem,” responded two
employees. “For that price, take our spare uniforms while you're at it.”

Katril Bentoven stuck in two of his
best men to replace the maintenance crew. He trained them in a warehouse in
Detroit for a week. They became experts at imitating Mobi maintenance
personnel. The night before the conference’s final dinner, Bentoven’s men
hauled out the head banquet table for repairs. It was the table where Jethro
Knights, Zoe Bach, Preston Langmore, and other honored guests were assigned to
sit. The transhumanists always retained their own security too, but it was no
match for keeping tabs on the hundreds of maintenance issues, catering details,
and coordination challenges of running a 1200-person conference.

Besides, a terrorist attack in the
middle of Washington, D.C. was thought unlikely to succeed or to be attempted.
A fifth of the nation’s active military was there. The police headquarters was
located only two blocks from the Dawson Center. Entire streets in that district
of the capital ran 24-hour surveillance cameras, per the NFSA's new mandate for
better security.

Bentoven waited testily, standing
against a dirty wall and watching the moonlit Potomac River through a broken
window. His bomb specialist was next to him. They were in an abandoned
warehouse in the industrial part of town. When the table arrived, Bentoven's
men cut a thin round piece of wood from the bottom of it. A radio-controlled
explosive device, the size of a Frisbee, was glued inside. Afterward, they
shaved down the extracted piece of wood, placed it back into the table, and
perfectly finished it with varnish. They quickly dried it with a hair dryer.
Only an expert could see where the table had been altered.

Ninety minutes later, the table was
back on a truck and being rushed through Dawson Center’s gated security
entrance. A man came out of a booth and looked it over, but waved it in.

“I think the last conference people
damaged it,” the security man said to his partner. “Looks fine to me. It's just
a wooden table.” The guards turned their attention back to their television.
The college basketball game they were watching was now in overtime.

The table was carefully returned
back to the front of the banquet hall. The Redeem Church men who carried it
were nervous and heavily perspiring. They set it down gently and covered it
with a white dining cloth, then put water glasses and silverware back on it
before quickly leaving.

************

“Is dealing with a tragic past
easier when the future is infinite?” Jethro Knights asked himself in a dream.
He stood atop a soaring skyscraper of light, surrounded by ocean on all sides.
A moment later, he abruptly awoke in his hotel room in Washington, D.C.
Outside, it was almost dawn. Through a window, the full moon was disappearing
into the vast North American continent. Zoe Bach was next to him in bed, her
face pale but peaceful in the fading light.

He dressed quickly in his sweats
and went jogging, still thinking of the strange question in his dream. He felt
slightly nauseous. He didn't know that soon, still so early in his life, there
would be an end that would remain with him—an end that would twist and forge
everything he had ever wanted.

The Transhumanism Conference had so
far proven uneventful, save the pall everyone felt. The consensus was simple:
This time the government had gone too far and there was little they could do
about it. Progress of the transhuman mission and the conquest of immortality
were slipping away. Even if each of them were to defy the new NFSA mandates
demanding they abandon transhumanism, little would change. They needed to
regroup, in a statistically meaningful way, with many more resources. They needed
to escape to a place where they would not be hindered. But how? Where? And,
most importantly, with what money? Jethro Knights’
Creation of the
Transhuman Nation
was a start. It spoke in detail of his intention to move
Transhuman Citizen permanently abroad, to a new land, to a new place, to claim
what was theirs—a nation of their own, where they wouldn't be mired in another
country's politics, culture, or economics that impeded their goals.

Many at the conference griped and
voiced that this was too extreme. Others said such a place was bound for
failure because it would be impossible to legally and financially create. Some
transhumanists agreed with Jethro’s vision of an autonomous nation, but
expressed that leaving would be too much for them and their families; many had
sick parents and unemployed siblings who depended on them and were unable to
travel; or they had financial investments that needed hands-on managing; or
they were tied down with various other prohibitive, worldly chains. A few
hardcore transhumanists said they would go, but only when they could be assured
there was somewhere to go to, and not just an idea.

Jethro paid no attention to the
plethora of doubts and reservations. At the conference, he remained a beacon of
passion and hope, his machinelike personality convincing, debating, and
pushing. He implored everyone to help each other, to band together, to stand up
and find a new way to the future. He made believers out of skeptics, and in
others he instilled ideas that might bear fruit later. But he was just one man,
and much more was needed. Inevitably, by the third and last day of the
conference, the transhuman movement did not appear as just a barely floating
raft mired in a nasty storm, but a pile of junky flotsam, rapidly breaking apart
and sinking. Leaving for any distant port now seemed impossible.

Despite this, Jethro's speech at
the event’s closing banquet uplifted everyone. He spoke of fighting for their
destinies, their lives, and their indelible right to evolutionary advancement.
He spoke of the undeniable promise of Transhumania and of their brilliant
opportunity to push the Transhuman Revolution forward in the most remarkable of
ways. Failure was not an option, he roared to the audience. And whatever the
cost, to never give in to losing. They were at a crossroads—how they acted now
would determine the rest of their lives and the course of history.

The people in the banquet hall
stood up and clapped, not because they believed, but thankful the movement
could still move forward through others who refused to quit, who refused to be
afraid of terrorism, social ostracism, and prison time.

As Jethro returned to his seat, he
waved to the standing crowd, and thanked them. He pulled out his chair and
prepared to sit down. It was the cue for Katril Bentoven, dressed as a waiter,
standing at the back of the hall by the kitchen door. He typed a code into his
cell phone and pressed enter.

But Jethro did not sit down.
Instead, Zoe Bach pulled him over to her and gave him a long kiss, embracing him
tightly, pushing her bulging stomach into him. Her smile beamed.

An instant later, a fiery explosion
ripped out of Jethro's table and across the room. Wooden splinters and metal
shards sprayed throughout the banquet hall.

“Damn it,” Bentoven cursed to
himself, leaving the area quickly through the kitchen. He had misjudged and set
off the bomb too soon. The brunt of the shards designated for the transhumanist
leader went into Zoe's back, neck, head, and pregnant belly.

************

The explosion hurled Zoe Bach and
Jethro Knights fifteen feet across the banquet hall. Instinctively, Jethro
grabbed for his wife in the air. Both were unconscious from the blast by the
time they slammed into the ground.

When the smoke had cleared enough
to see, a security guard ran up to Zoe and Jethro. He tried shaking them and
calling their names. Inside of Jethro’s brain, something deep and intrinsic
fought to bring him back to consciousness. Twenty seconds later, he finally
opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was blood. It was everywhere, drenching
his face, his eyes, his hair, his hands—which were holding Zoe's head. He
realized his fingers were touching something sharp and slippery. He didn't want
to believe it, but he knew it was the edge of her cracked skull. He tried to
lift her up, but found his arms were pierced with sharp metallic shards and
mostly unresponsive. He managed to slightly push up her head, but Zoe wouldn’t
respond and showed no signs of breathing.

The security guard hovering over
Jethro carefully lifted Zoe off him. He rolled her body over so that her face
pointed upward. Behind them, people in the crowd were screaming and shouting.
Everywhere in the hall was heavy smoke. Jethro pulled himself up, ordering his
wounded arms to work. His legs were bleeding too, but at least they were still
functional. He got onto his knees and bent over Zoe, watching her body bleed
from dozens of places. His first sense was utter disbelief. Much of her
clothing was shredded and gone. Long wooden splinters were embedded into her
skin. A large hole was blown right through her back. Her stomach was ripped
open, her uterus torn asunder. A tiny leg, slightly jerking back and forth, was
hanging out with half its foot missing.

Within minutes, paramedics raced in
and began to work on the wounded. Preston Langmore and two dozen others were
also injured. Some people threw their jackets on the fires burning near the
blast area. Water rained down from the ceiling sprinklers. Emergency exit doors
were thrown open and crowds sprinted for safety, shoving each other roughly to
escape. The scene was nightmarish chaos.

Coughing from the smoke, Jethro
knelt above Zoe and yelled at her. He tried shaking her, tried waking her, but
her eyes only fell towards the floor, lifeless. A paramedic pushed him aside
and began searching Zoe for any vital signs. He found none. Another paramedic
behind them raced to open an orange box containing a long, intimidating needle.
It was epinephrine. Her chest shot forward with a huge breath once they punctured
her with it. An oxygen mask was quickly placed on her face, and intravenous
lines were put into her body. Her eyes twittered, then closed, then reopened.

Jethro gasped, realizing his wife
was still alive.

A stretcher board was rushed in and
Zoe was placed on it. The paramedics lifted her up and began running, agilely
carrying her around broken tables and chairs towards an ambulance waiting
outside. Jethro hurried after her, limping, his arms heavily bleeding and
burning with pain. He threw himself into the back of the emergency vehicle with
Zoe and was treated with IV fluids for heavy blood loss.

Eventually, Jethro became dizzy and
was forced to lie down, ordered by the paramedic at the back of the ambulance.
Jethro felt faint. Too much blood had drained from his left arm, where a main
artery was punctured. He lay down on a stretcher directly next to Zoe so that
her head was only five inches from his face. He watched her. The paramedic
looked at him, and cleaned the blood off her face for him. Jethro gazed into
her left eye, the only undamaged one that could still see. She looked towards
her stomach, but already knew. Jethro read the agony on her face. Moments
later, she slowly fell into unconsciousness.