Transhumanist Wager, The (52 page)

As Jethro's short, explosive speech
neared its close, cell phones of the leaders and diplomats began vibrating and
ringing. Beeps and chirps from incoming texts and new emails were heard
throughout the room.

Jethro raised his voice
determinedly. “We have a transitional map for the world to follow if and when you
surrender. We are willing to accept those of you who are not with us now to
join our effort and help our cause. We encourage this. But to join us you must
produce value for us. You must support and augment our mission. You cannot be a
parasite. You cannot live off Transhumania. Or off our intellect. Or off our
hard work. Or off our courage. Or off our life-changing ideas. You cannot be
some useless impediment in our way. We will not accept weak, irrelevant
individuals who do not contribute. You must become one of us. You must become
productive transhumanists.

“We are moving towards a new epoch,
one in which what it means to be a living human entity on Earth will change
greatly from past interpretations. Soon, being human will mean little.
Everything will be
transhuman
. I hope you will find the strength and
wisdom in yourselves to make the right decisions for your best, most advanced
future.” 

The speech was over in less than
two minutes, before leaders of the world even had time to consider what a
worldwide broadcast meant to them. Now every cell phone and pager in the room
sounded. Senator Michaelson's top aide confirmed to him in a text what Jethro
had said: Media networks around the world had tuned in and were airing the
speech everywhere. The live news feed was emanating from the Transhumania News
Network in the Pacific Ocean.

Just outside the Summit Chamber,
scores of diplomats and high-ranking military officers stood flabbergasted,
watching a television on the wall. IMN was broadcasting the entire meeting. One
aggressive, three-star American general turned from the television and loudly
broke into the assembly room with four armed soldiers. He walked directly up to
the President of the United States and said, “With your permission, Sir, if we
are now at war, then let us arrest this man, Jethro Knights—this so-called
tyrant of Transhumania. He will become our first prisoner. He has just broken
international law, as well as the sacred code of international diplomacy, by
making classified information public to the entire world. It’s blatant treason,
Mr. President. He has jeopardized the confidential interests of the United
States of America and all other A10 nations on his own. His punishment will be
a harsh lesson of reality for the rest of the foolhardy transhumanists.”

Heatedly, the President looked at
Senator Michaelson, then at the other A10 members, then at his phone—still
buzzing from an incoming call by the U.S. Secretary of Defense. Every
politician in the Summit Chamber was stung deeply by Jethro’s egotistical
speech. The transhumanist had succeeded in badly humiliating them publicly.
Already, each politician was wondering how this would play out with their
constituencies, for their political parties, and in the next elections. Their
exasperation was raw.

The Chinese President stood up and
pointed at Jethro Knights. “Yes, let us arrest this traitor of humanity, this
wizard of spells.”

The Russian Prime Minister, already
standing, shouted in a thick accent, “Agreed! Arrest Jethro Knights now. Let us
rain down our missiles on this tiny, arrogant transhuman city if they want to
fight us, if they choose to defy us so openly in front of our own people. They
are a danger and a menace to the human race.”

The U.S. President looked at the
other seven international representatives. Each one decisively gave their
consent.

“It is agreed then, General,” the
President said. “We are at war with this criminal and with the nation of
Transhumania. You have our permission and authority to arrest him.”

The general, Reverend Belinas’
close friend, approached Jethro. His four soldiers moved to surround the
transhumanist, their hands on their pistols.

“Jethro Knights,” announced the
general, “you are under arrest, by the power vested in the Charter of the
United Nations and its statutes, in accordance with the Constitution of the
United States and the Geneva Convention.”

 “Proceed then,” Jethro said,
nodding.

The men handcuffed Jethro and
escorted him out of the Summit Chamber. Instead of taking him towards the main
entrance to exit the building, the soldiers aggressively diverted him down a
long hallway to his left. Gregory watched, knowing what was about to happen.
Reverend Belinas waited in the shadows with his two black-clad bodyguards. The
three men stepped in behind the military entourage as they walked by. The
preacher quietly instructed the soldiers where to take the prisoner. They
followed his orders and descended a long flight of stairs towards an
underground basement.

Chapter 29

It was murky and cold when Jethro Knights
came back into consciousness. His head was sweltering and bleeding, the result
of a rifle butt slammed into his skull. His bio-monitoring T-shirt had been
ripped off, leaving him bare-chested.

“Where am I?” Jethro asked a
shadowy figure standing behind a glaring spotlight.

“Somewhere no one knows, or is ever
going to know.”

Partly blinded by the light, Jethro
stared at the figure inquisitively. He wondered if the person had missed the
U.N. Assembly and the publicity. The expression on Jethro’s face said,
Don't
you know who I am, you idiot?

Reverend Belinas sneered. “Oh,
don’t think I would be so careless, Mr. Knights. No one can hear you or find
you in here. You are in a lead-lined transport with light minutia built in.
Signals can’t get through, and if they do, they bounce off confused. Your
rescue team might end up looking for you in Antarctica.”

“Lead and light minutia?” Jethro
chuckled softly, feeling he was being driven somewhere from the vibration
underneath him. He looked more closely, his eyes focusing on the figure behind
the light. He recognized the famous reverend in the white gown. “Is that the
best you can do, preacher?”

Belinas looked sternly at his
bodyguard sitting next to him, then nudged his head at Jethro. The guard
grunted, and in one quick motion he rammed the butt of his gun into the
prisoner’s forehead. Jethro’s skull stung from the pain as he slowly succumbed
to unconsciousness again.

Aggravated, Belinas turned to his
other bodyguard and ordered, “Tell the soldiers to speed up. We need to make it
to the base as quickly as possible now. They may have a read on us.”

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

“What do you mean you goddamn lost
him?” Preston Langmore yelled at Transhumania’s lead computer engineer.

No one on the seasteading city had
ever seen Dr. Langmore lose his temper before.

“Just for a moment, sir, until our
computers reconfigure. Whoever has Mr. Knights is purposely causing some type
of signal interference with his location. We’ll get him back in thirty to sixty
seconds.”

The first Hyper-scram aircraft,
named
Trano
, loaded with three robots, had departed a half hour before
and was now flying seventy-five feet above the Gulf of Mexico at Mach 22—the
fastest recorded flight in history. The plane and its mission were being
monitored by over 250 personnel in the expansive Transhumania Defense Command
Center, on the fifty-first floor of the Technology Tower. The rows of engineers
made it look like a NASA space shuttle launch was imminent. In front of the men
and women were dozens of consoles and computer screens showing live video and
data feeds, some streaming views from the robot's single-eye camera vision
system.

“How long before
Trano
is in
the area of the convoy?” Langmore asked, pacing like a caged tiger.

Oliver Mbaye turned to him and answered
calmly, “Ten minutes and eighteen seconds. We’re entering American airspace
now.”

“He could be dead in ten minutes
and eighteen seconds.”

“There he is—he’s back,” said a
young engineer. “And his vital signs are returning to normal, sir. The chip signal
is yellow. It’s picking up everything. It’s fantastic. It blinks yellow when
his heart rate is normal, orange when it’s elevated, and red when it’s
dangerously elevated.”

At least something was going right,
Langmore thought. Jethro Knights, as well as 500 other scientists on
Transhumania, had undergone microchip implantation last year, after first-stage
testing showed no incompatibilities or negative effects with the brain’s
synaptic nerve system. The chip, which was integrated into the back of the skull,
served as a recording and recognition data device capable of being globally
tracked by Transhumanian supercomputers. It also monitored the body's vital
signs through blood flow, body temperature, and electrolyte count.

The microchip implant was still in
its trial phase, but as usual, Jethro volunteered for all the important
experiments on Transhumania. He was currently third in line for the eagerly
awaited robotic hand replacement, reputed to be only four years away from
reaching a functional prototype stage. The alloy-based hand was to be over
seven times stronger than the human hand, and ten times more sensitive to touch
and stimuli. The two robotic inventors were first in line to receive it.

Langmore had chosen not to have the
microchip implanted in his head, letting the younger scientists go first. He
was more careful than the others—perhaps a sign of aging, he thought.
Nevertheless, as he watched—from 3,000 miles away—Jethro's vital signs on the
monitor, he was grateful Jethro had undergone the surgery.

A moment later, the computer screen
signals from Jethro's chip spiked, and a red light flashed. A warning sign also
appeared on the monitor.

“What’s that?” Langmore asked.
“That can’t be normal.”

“No sir, it's not,” the engineer
whispered. “They must've roughed him up again, maybe hit his head, but this
time closer to the chip. There may be some damage. We'll run diagnostics
again.”

“Just don’t lose him,” chimed in
Oliver, edgy now. “Start the backup triangulations. I want every available
resource watching him. All the backups in the Bahamas and Russia too. Take
resources from Morocco online now as well.”

“Yes sir,” answered the engineer,
typing rapidly onto his computer.

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

With a black hood bound tightly
over his head, Jethro Knights slowly regained consciousness as Reverend
Belinas’ bodyguards roughly transferred him onto a trolley stretcher. They were
in a huge, artificially lit cave: the entrance to a secret underground military
compound in a remote region of the Appalachian Mountains in western Virginia.
Aside from a dirt road winding through rocky terrain leading to the complex,
there was no sign of human activity around the area for fifty miles in any
direction. Directly inside the cave’s entrance were military jeeps, stacked
anti-aircraft rocket launchers, and a squad of eighteen alert soldiers ready
for battle.

Belinas signaled with his left hand
to the commanding lieutenant. Immediately, the hydraulically operated titanium
doors—over a foot thick and painted in the same colors as the surrounding
terrain—began closing off the cave to the outside world. Belinas and his
bodyguards turned and wheeled Jethro thirty yards down a stone ramp, and slowly
descended into the mountain. They passed numerous steel doors that led into
various detention cells on both their left and right. When they reached the
bottom of the compound, they took him inside a musty concrete room that was
thirty-feet by thirty-feet: a dungeon. Its sturdy walls were fortified with
over ten thousand tons of rebar and lead. Dozens of glowing floodlights and red
power cords ran across the ceiling. In one corner of the room was a long plank
of splintery wood and material for waterboarding. In another corner was a rusty
table with dentistlike instruments on top of it—tools for painful methods of
torture. Another corner had a sharply pointed Judas cradle in it. Lining the
walls of the room were rusty chains for hanging people upside down.

Jethro was stripped naked and
placed upright on a wooden stool in the middle of the room. The bodyguards
tightly handcuffed his wrists together in front of him, then removed the black
hood covering his head. Finally, they doused him with a bucket of ice water. It
stunned him into full consciousness. He shook the water from his eyes. His head
throbbed, and blood dripped down his left cheek from the wound near his
eyebrow.

Belinas entered the room, ordering
his bodyguards to wait outside and to shut the bulky steel door behind them.
When the men were gone, the preacher began walking around the room slowly,
ominously. He stopped at the surgical tools on the table, wincing at their
meticulous craftsmanship.

“Mr. Knights,” the preacher said,
turning to his prisoner, “I am responsible for your wife’s painful death.”

Belinas waited a moment to let his words
make their full impact on Jethro. Then he continued, “And I will be responsible
for your death too. Your final hours can be much more excruciating than hers—or
much less. You may be allowed to live a few extra days, possibly weeks, or
maybe even months, if you fully cooperate. It's your choice. If not, like
your
philosophy, I’ll do whatever necessary to get what I want.”

Belinas continued his examination
of the torture instruments. He picked up the cruelest looking tool: spiked,
stainless steel forceps designed for painful eyeball extraction. While holding
it, he said, “Three years ago, the NFSA discovered and built this extraordinary
place. It's a clandestine military prison built under a mountain. Only a
handful of public officials in America know about it. Not even the U.S.
President is aware of its existence. Its various detention chambers were
designed to unlock secrets of state enemies, to torment and break every one of
you blasphemous transhumanists, if necessary. Escape is impossible. And I guarantee
no one can see or hear us down here, regardless of what technology you think
you possess. This is a very dark and lonely place. It’s for God’s eyes and ears
only.”