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The 36 faces staring at Sally did not look human to Jake. They had no expression, nothing that fills the face of an intelligent, emotional psyche. They don't even look curious such as a pet dog might, Jake thought.
He was with Jasmine, Miss Annabelle, and Sally, looking into the faces of paraplegics -- some young, some old -- who were bound to this nursing home because of life-threatening physical complications caused by an accident or aging that needed 24-hour medical attention. The average life expectancy once they arrived here was two to five years.
They don't know why we're here, Jake realized after one quick look across the sea of lifeless faces. He was glad he had the opportunity to witness their shell of an existence before Sally announced her offer.
"Good morning. My name is Dr. Sally Salberg." Jake noticed a number of faces suddenly become more humanlike. Those faces knew about her, but not about the offer she was about to make. "You may have heard of me because of my Nobel Prize for my discovery of the flu vaccine or possibly for my work on cancer. For the past three years, I've led an unprecedented medical research effort known as Project Life. I doubt any of you have heard about it because, until now, we have not publicized it. We have successfully accomplished what I'm about to tell you...with an ape. Now, we are ready to try it on a human being."
With that proclamation, all 36 faces lit up and became human. A wave of pity rumbled across Jake's mind as he saw them hoping so hard for what he and others take for granted.
"The risks of failure are high," Sally said to immediately keep their hope in check. But to Jake's amazement, not one face winced, not one soul backed off. He then understood that this moment was the first time since these people had their crippling accidents that they felt like human beings again.
"The operation will take several hours, and the whole procedure will last 14 months from start to finish," Sally said, moving straight into the details. "Simplified: it's a four-step procedure. First, we take a few cells from your body and put them through our breakthrough, rapid cloning procedure to grow a young adult replica of yourself."
The patients of this nursing home were wide-eyed. They had already resigned to the fact they would die here. Now, here was this famous doctor offering a chance to live.
"Then, procedures two and three would be done over a 20-hour period. I would remove your head and attach it to our breakthrough robotic body. Essentially, body-robot acts as your heart, lungs, and circulatory system, putting oxygen into your blood and removing carbon dioxide and circulating your blood up through your head to keep your brain alive. You will be under anesthesia, of course, the entire time. We need to keep your head attached to body-robot for several hours during procedure three. During procedure three, a specialized surgical team will attach the vital nerves from the back of your neck to the spinal cord of your cloned body. Once that's finished, then I'll continue the attachment of your head to the spinal cord and to two artificial support bones, as we call them, and I'll complete the attachment of veins and arteries. We'll keep you heavily sedated for a few days and will bring you up gradually. Let me be honest: the odds are in favor of the worst case scenario -- you die on the operating table. Then there's a chance you make it, but complications arise and you die in the days that follow. I'd say there's a 65% chance you won't make it through the operation. If you do make it, you might discover you'll be bedridden for the rest of your life, which could be a few days, or a few weeks or months. Being our first attempt, I'd say that if you do make it through the operation, there's a 70% chance of complications. Last and by far the least odds is the chance for a complete success. The odds from start to finish are just 10% of complete success -- "
One of the patients shouted, "Does complete success mean we can walk again?" All 36 faces tilted forward and strained to hear her answer.
"Oh yes," Sally said with a straight face. "And you get a fringe benefit for making it: your head will be on your cloned body grown to the equivalent age of 18 years old. You'll not only walk, but you'll be young again! You'll be given your life back to live over -- including the years your accident robbed from you!"
The crowd cheered and laughed. Jake knew they hadn't laughed since they arrived here. He felt both sad and happy for them. Whereas the first volunteer had only a 10% chance of making it, Sally had previously explained to Jake that, by learning from the first operation, the second had twice the chance. The third, twice the chance of the second. The fourth, twice the third. After the fifth operation, Project Life would be able to go commercial on a limited basis. Forty operations would be enough to launch a widespread commercial campaign. But Jake knew that most of these people would not be around for the second try. To be the first try was their one shot at life, and they knew it.
Jake looked at Jasmine. She was both observing and taking notes. The upcoming week would be the biggest week in Jake and Jasmine's soaring career: the unveiling of Project Life to the public through a mammoth seven-part series of extensive articles that would begin Monday through the following Sunday on the front page of all the Patterson Papers, which had grown to 46 daily papers, including the major markets of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Houston. Al had assigned this series of articles exclusively to Jake and Jasmine. The huge seven-part series, which would later be converted into a book, covered in detail every possible reaction to the Association for Curing Aging and Death, the people involved, the God-Man Group, The Group's neothink puzzle that led to this great event, including the campaign and election and the political revolution of Jonathan Ward and the Neo-Tech Party, and the medical, job, and love revolutions that followed the shift into the new political paradigm, and the surging Church of God-Man with its business alliance of over ten million people who were already aware of and driven by Project Life. Collectively speaking, the Church became the biggest financial contributor to Project Life, surpassing Winters, Incorporated upon Jeremiah's implementation of the Church's Pact for Eternal Life and its financial obligation. The article series reached back over 30 years to Duncan Elementary, Miss Annabelle, and her students who now made up the God-Man Group behind Project Life. Finally, Jake would be able to put in print: thank you, Miss Annabelle, for starting it all. The series finale, to appear in the big Sunday edition that sold up to 50% more copies in some markets, would shock the country by accepting applications to be among the first wave to undergo the future, commercial procedure. It was a risk to go to the point of accepting applications, but The Group had decided that nothing got accomplished faster than a product with a market in place and waiting.
"What is the Fourth Procedure?" a beaming paraplegic asked, shattering Jake's thoughts of the upcoming week. When he looked back to the sea of faces, he was taken aback. They all looked four or five inches taller, almost up to Jake's eye level...almost like they had all stood up! They were no longer slumping blobs of near death. They were now pulsating; they were now one with the living. They were now one with Jake.
"The Fourth Procedure," Sally answered, "is a series of breakthrough, skin-rejuvenation treatments to remove years of aging from your neck and face."
The 36 patients listened and nodded. God, they look so excited and innocent at this moment, like children, Jake thought. The numbers raced through his head at that moment and left him very sad: the odds were one in 36 that they would be the chosen one; then the odds were one in ten the procedure would be a success. That meant the odds were 360 to 1 against this dream happening for them, yet there they sat tall and euphoric. At that moment, Jake understood like he never understood before the meaning of HOPE.
These people had understandably suppressed or given up hope; they had resigned to the unhappy life they lived. Isn't that a microcosm of society, Jake thought, before the job revolution? Now, hope was in their lives, and look at them: aren't they now a lot like the rest of society, Jake thought, after the job and love revolutions?
"Because of procedure one, cloning your body to physical perfection, no one in here is a better candidate than the next. You all equally qualify for the experiment. And, it is an experiment. I want to be clear on that. Nothing we will be doing has been tested on a human being. Everything is experimental."
Jake knew Sally was trying to pare down the field. She wanted no one who harbored second thoughts or fear. That could cause disaster and unnecessary failure. She wanted only the most determined and mentally strong individual. That would create the best odds at success. ...Still, no one backed down, not even secretly. Jake could see determination and fearlessness in every face.
"I've brought a 240-page book for each of you to study this week; it explains in detail exactly what is involved," Sally said, knowing full well that the 36 patients were all ready to pick straws. "I'll be back next weekend to select a volunteer."
*
The banner of every Patterson daily paper across the country read "ARE YOU READY?" The first of seven articles that Monday morning sent the entire country into an electric buzz. In that first article, Jake and Jasmine revealed The Group and its members behind Project Life. The country was stunned that those members included the President of the United States! That information was never purposely kept secret and the media reported Jonathan's monthly trips to Rico's along with the other powerful visitors. And nearly ten million members of the Church of God-Man knew about the Association for Curing Aging and Death. But, the media never put it together and attached Project Life to the President. So, it came as a bit of a surprise.
By Monday evening, the network news and cable news stations were headlining Project Life and the individuals behind it. The former students and their teacher as well as Salinski, Jessie and Angie had previously decided to leave two solid weeks as open as possible to respond to the demands of the media. They were ready, and for two weeks they dominated the television talk shows, news, and radio. Even Jonathan, President of the United States, devoted these two weeks to press appearances. They got the message out. Project Life was the biggest story of the new millennium. It was the story that defined the new millennium. And the big, bold question that appeared all week as the banner of Patterson Group papers "ARE YOU READY?" was resoundingly answered by record-breaking television ratings and by hundreds of nearly unanimous polls: YES, the public was ready!
The God-Man Group was doing what it set out to do: the members were creating the future they wanted -- the rational future for themselves and mankind.
The Church of God-Man, driven by the goal of achieving biological immortality before one dies (not promised to him after he dies) catapulted from 10 million to 40 million members worldwide over the next few months after The Group went public with Project Life. The Church of God-Man and Theodore Winters were the major financial supporters of Project Life. The eager public joined the Church of God-Man to get closer to humanity's greatest undertaking of all time. With 40 million members contributing 2 1/2% of their take-home pay (or more if running a business) toward Project Life, the incoming flow of money dwarfed any financial backing ever seen for a medical project. Suddenly, Sally had billions of dollars to work with.
The costs of goods had dropped to fractions since Jonathan took office. Better and better values for less and less money had sent everyone's standard of living soaring. Now, with the job revolution making nearly all employees their own prosperous entrepreneurs getting a piece of the action, people had a lot of money to spend and total security.
Project Life became their outlet. People were pouring tens of thousands of dollars and more into Project Life. Theodore told The Group that once Project Life goes commercial, the costs and resulting price will steadily plunge from the early experimental costs. Therefore, those who invested large sums of money were given complimentary certificates that would entitle them and, in many cases, their loved ones to undergo without charge the commercial procedure later on. The most popular question in the country was: "I donated three months pay to Project Life, did you?"
*
With all the funds and facilities available to her, Sally told Jake her best asset at this point was the super rapid progress by the many new medical entrepreneurs -- the tens of thousands of "garage" entrepreneurs -- who sprang up after the elimination of the FDA. Their breakthroughs were coming at a fast and furious pace, and some of those breakthroughs fit into Sally's current puzzle, some fit into the next level of her puzzle for a more definitive nonaging cure, and some did not fit into Sally's plans but were promising, competitive approaches. The medical world was free again -- the new wild wild west -- and the results amazed Sally.
One viable approach that did not fit directly into the Neothink puzzle Sally was building, but an approach that could merge with Sally's work later on, had to do with advancing computers, particularly the next leap into the atomic and subatomic quantum computers. Soon, quantum computers would have the power to easily store one's entire brain activity. Would an individual's "I-ness" be lost, Sally wondered; when the stored brain activity gets downloaded into a clone, would the "I-ness" or sense of one's self be the same as the brain that physically died? For, immortality does not exist, she realized, without continuing the life of the person within, the "I", despite otherwise identical memories and knowledge of stored brain activity.
The immediate value of the computer approach to Sally was the opportunity to further define the nature of what curing death was all about: to keep the I-ness alive. The longer term value of the computer approach to Sally was a potentially superior method to transfer one's brain from a dying body to the cloned body.
Buried in Project Life, Sally turned over perhaps the most promising nonaging approach to biological immortality to two close colleagues. She turned over all her cancer research on controlling the growth of cells. That research, originally searching for ways to shut off cellular growth to stop cancer tumors, provided a huge headstart on how to turn on cellular growth to stop aging.
In any case, the many thousands of new medical entrepreneurs brought an exciting competitive spirit into medicine, as seen previously in the computer industry. The new medical revolution was now the place for the rising, young Neothink geniuses to be.
*
Millions of applications for Project Life came to the Patterson Group from Jake and Jasmine's Sunday and concluding article to the seven-part series on Project Life. That Sunday article appeared, via the AP wire, in nearly all domestic Sunday papers and many foreign papers. Al Patterson had decided to go ahead and send the exclusive article through the wire without copyright restrictions at the cost of probably a million lost newsstand sales. The personal profits to get millions of people more behind Project Life by letting other papers print the article outweighed the financial profits from another million sales. Nevertheless, the Patterson Group had become the epicenter of the media world almost overnight.
People knew the stakes involved: this was a race for their lives and their loved ones' lives. With the possibility of averting death here, people could not bear the loss of another loved one. Money poured into The Association at a frenzied pace. Businesses worldwide wanted to contribute any way they could to the effort. Project Life dwarfed the money and effort behind the Moon Project decades earlier or the war efforts of the last century. The Group knew going public would raise enormous funds and assets, but the response surpassed their expectations.
At their monthly meeting, The Group altered their approach. With the enormous funds available, they could accelerate the program. They could have affordable commercial biological immortality for the average person in five years and not ten years as originally estimated.
The greatest consumption of time on the age-reversing, four-procedure process was the first procedure of cloning the human body. The operation itself occurred over a 20-hour period. Although skin rejuvenation of the face and neck took several months of treatment, that was a cosmetic step only.
With the enormous funds, The Group decided to clone all 36 paraplegic patients. They would proceed with the first operation, which had only a 10% chance of success. They would absorb and analyze the data, improve the procedure and then proceed with the second operation in a few months. They would absorb and analyze the data, improve the procedure and then proceed with the third operation, and so on, each time dramatically improving and perfecting the procedure. They would have the bodies, and would proceed through their experiments in the order of saving life. In other words, the patient least likely to last in the nursing home got to go next. Over five years of repeated procedures, the procedure would be perfected and inexpensive enough to go to the masses. And Sally predicted that soon thereafter either her colleagues or a "garage" entrepreneur would find a way that cellular reproduction could be "turned on like a spigot" to end aging altogether, obsoleting the traumatic head-transfer procedure.
Most importantly, with this "science lab" of 36 experiments that would quickly perfect the procedure, Theodore decided that the first step of the commercial venture could begin: commercially cloning bodies. He hired the best bioengineers in the country to study Sally's cloning station and to then design the next generation of relatively low-cost commercial cloning stations for mass production.
Although the market was massive, Theodore knew the cloning stations could be obsolete in a few years. The medical industry was now the phenomenon the computer industry had been for some time. In fact, Theodore felt certain that the medical "garage" entrepreneurs and their many approaches in bioengineering, genetics, and nano-technology would obsolete the cloning stations in a few years. The cloning stations would end up with a market of only paraplegics, and perhaps only temporarily at that.
But that was OK with Theodore, for he loved progress, even if it passed him by. Saving human life underscored to him and to the world that the greatest beneficiary of progress is each and every individual. One value creator's honest gain contributes to the whole and becomes everyone's value. In other words, one value creator's honest gain is everyone's gain.
The computers gave humanity the first look at that fact: the more individuals who got rich by taking the whole computer industry to the next level, the more costs dropped and the more buying power and values came to the consumers -- to everyone.
Theodore decided to limit his upstart commercial cloning venture to paraplegics and other physically damaged, accident victims, for by the time he would be ready to go commercial, the cloning stations would likely be obsolete to the masses. He did, however, develop another set of plans around the possibility that the path of the immortality business could turn straight into cloning for some time to come if the quantum computers became a cheap, effective method to transfer the brain. That jackpot would hit upon demonstrating the "I-ness" is transferred along with the brain activity of memory and knowledge. ...Ah, the competitive stakes in immortality were heating up, just as The Group had planned.
*
When the 36 paraplegics got a visit from Sally and were told of the revised plan and that she was there to take cell samples to begin the cloning of their perfect new bodies, they hollered and thrashed about in their wheelchairs in absolute ecstasy.
Sally told them of the plan the day before the Patterson Papers printed the article. By the next day, the 36 paraplegics were international celebrities seen on television and heard on radio around the world. They were called on one network: the last battalion in the last battle of the last war. The metaphor stuck because it was so accurate.
*
Since America went through its political revolution, most of the world had, too. The stimulations in the unfolding Neo-Tech World were too inviting not to join in. As the external authorities collapsed, people around the world were "jumping" into the new Neothink mentality that grew from a ground of illusion-free honesty. That fertile ground, of course, would rapidly grow the cure for aging and death.
The nonpolitical world of honesty and heroic businesses, which were catapulting society into enormous buying power and wealth, obsoleted dishonesty and irrationality. There was no such thing as politicians anymore. Jonathan had successfully metamorphosed government into an accountable business. People willingly paid for their local and national protection. All other aspects of the government were now private spin-offs serving the consumer and not political agendas. In short, politicization of our lives and businesses no longer existed. Politics was quickly fading worldwide as some kind of weird, archaic illusion. Borders of countries were also fading and seemed weird. Taxes backed by force were disappearing fast, and without force-backed taxes, borders seemed irrelevant and silly. The INS had been abolished two years ago and was nearly forgotten. A person had to actually stop and think why did we put boundaries between countries -- what was the rationale? It was becoming hard to remember.
Big bureaucracies such as the INS, FTC, SEC, FDA, EPA no longer existed, and it now seemed weird that huge buildings filled with nonproducing bureaucrats once made their livings by stopping the flow of foreigners, for example. Now, productivity dictated the flow of people, not nationalities.
Reputations and statistics publicized by private regulatory services did much more than merely discourage dishonesty and unfairness in business. In fact, dishonesty and unfairness had already vanished in the ultracompetitive environment, for dishonesty and unfairness were too uncompetitive. The great value of the private regulatory services was: they provided businesses with a medium to show off their good will and extra efforts. The private regulating services caused businesses to become highly motivated to do better than their competition, which was great news for consumers. The private regulating services caused great "value wars" among companies. The "value wars" brought many exceptional values to consumers including rapidly increasing safety and developing a cleaner, more beautiful environment among other things. ...Businesses start "value wars", Jake thought, that bring exceptional values to people, whereas governments start violent wars that wipe out the greatest values on earth -- human lives.
Fortunately, with political power fading as archaic irrational illusions of false power...war and terrorism vanished too. Honesty, rationality, and prosperity were lighting the world. Without politics, dishonesty, irrationality, there would be no more man-made wars. Only one war remained: the war against the greatest natural disaster and most insane irrationality -- human death.
By the time all 36 operations on the paraplegics would be completed, Sally predicted the success rate would be over 95% and would quickly approach 100% in the commercial arena. So, befittingly, the paraplegics were, indeed, the last troops in the last war.
*
Mr. Melbourne began talking during the final meeting of the God-Man Group before Project Life would proceed with the Operation. Jake looked around the room. What an exciting life I live, right in the middle of man's greatest endeavor in history, he thought. His eyes rested on Jonathan. Jonathan was now CEO of NADA (North-American-Disputes Arbitrators). The President of the United States no longer existed. Government no longer existed as a tax-created institution. NADA had taken its place, and people willingly paid for NADA's protection. Crime no longer existed because people everywhere were wealthy since the cost of goods dropped to fractions during the great Technological Revolution. Even the uneducated, inner-city individuals woke up to a world in which they were rich. Crime simply became too much effort when getting rich happened without lifting a finger, just as Jake and Jasmine had predicted. People were living in luxury.
Without war and crime, the one legitimate purpose of government -- to protect the individual from physical aggression -- faded away too. In its place, Jonathan started North-American-Disputes Arbitrators to settle legitimate conflicts throughout society. He hired Salinski as NADA's president.
Jake smiled at how the concept of no U.S. President would have seemed impossible just a few months ago. Yet, now it seemed so natural. How did things move so fast?
Mr. Melbourne continued his talk, explaining what was happening throughout the world, and Jake refocused, for surely Mr. Melbourne, the philosopher, could explain it:
"Here we are, finally at the final pieces to our first puzzle."
First puzzle? Jake wondered what the second puzzle was.
"We have watched, in awe, the breathtaking changes the past few years, and particularly the past few months, weeks, and days. As complex as those changes seem, they all reduce to something elegantly simple: a simple but profound shift from a following-mode mentality dependent on external authorities to an integrating-mode mentality that neither needs nor wants external authorities telling it how to live. From that simple but profound shift in our mentality, that you former students of my wife experienced over 30 years ago and the rest of the world is experiencing now, comes these complex changes in our civilization. External authorities, until now, thrived. Politicians thrived; theocratic leaders thrived. People sought or at least accepted external authorities telling them how to live, a carry-over from the theocracies of primitive bicameral man. Now, people no longer need external authorities telling them how to live. External authorities suddenly get in the way. People have become just too effective and excited by building their ambitions in life to have their creations retarded by external authorities. Suddenly, there is no place in this prosperous world for external authorities, which explains why government and religions have nearly faded from the face of humanity. Soon, they will fade from our memory."
Yes, I've experienced that, Jake thought; I've had a difficult time remembering what half the government consisted of and for what reason just a few months ago! Now Jake understood why the collapse of government and religion happened so rapidly: because those were institutions built on external authorities. The overnight rise of God-Man where people, one by one, became their own authority, explained the overnight collapse of those institutions of external authorities.
Mr. Melbourne went on to tell The Group that man could have and would have evolved directly from bicameral man into the God-Man over 2000 years ago if not for Greek philosopher Plato and, later, the Church Fathers, namely St. Augustine, who led humanity into the Dark Ages. Instead of explaining what happened back then, Mr. Melbourne handed out his latest book called, From Anticivilization to Supercivilization: Humanity's 2300-Year Detour.
Something Mr. Melbourne said stirred Jasmine. She looked up from her notes. She paused and sighed, collecting her thoughts. Then she said, "I've talked to hundreds of people about Project Life. Several of them, maybe as many as one out of five, still make a comment about God...like they harbor a fear of interfering where they don't belong..."
Jeremiah cut in, "Fear had been drilled into their minds for so many years; they still feel ingrained emotions of fear and betrayal and might for a while. We see the same thing in our Church. People's intellectual side know they're leaving behind a primitive mythology when they leave behind their old religions. But their emotional side sometimes involuntarily feels things like fear or betrayal or even nostalgia. In time, those deep emotional concerns fade and go away."
"Interesting choice of words: primitive mythology," Mr. Melbourne said. "The voices of the gods `heard' by primitive man was where all modern religions grew from. The `voices' were actually audio hallucinations experienced by primitive man while under stress. The mythologies of gods or a God and their hallucinated voices would have dissipated after primitive man leapt forward into human consciousness. But the educated elite had too much to lose. You see, the educated elite leapt forward into human consciousness first. They held enormous power over the bicameral masses and, therefore, manipulated the masses for easy money and power. To keep their lucrative power, the educated elite successfully created mutations of bicameral man's primitive mythologies to survive in the newly conscious mind. Those mutations were the major religions. The underlying coup of those mutations -- those religions -- was: conscious man was now subservient to a higher cause -- an external authority. That subservience was secured by overwhelming the subjects with fear and guilt. Of course, the educated elite -- the leaders of the Church who were also the leaders of the state -- enjoyed easy wealth and power, for they were the representatives of the external authority. In other words, they ruled in the name of God. In short, through religions, the educated elite were able to maintain their lucrative power over the masses.
"By the way, a very interesting perspective about Jesus and the Bible that very few people know but is explained in detail in the book I just handed you, is that Jesus was a conscious peasant trying to free the bicameral peasants from the manipulative conscious elite. To do that, he told the bicameral peasants that he was one with God. When you understand the context back then, Jesus was pointing the peasants toward the far more powerful conscious mentality in which the bicameral man could become his own authority, his own voice, his own God. Moreover, the main stories of the Old Testament of Abraham, Moses, David, the Prophets, are of specially gifted bicameral men who showed early signs of consciousness. When you understand the Bible in the context of when those things happened or were written, a whole new perspective unfolds. It becomes the document that captures man's leap from the bicameral mentality of the primitive mind to human consciousness of yesterday's mind. Of course, my book captures man's leap from yesterday's conscious mind into today's Neothink mind. But back to the Bible, the educated elite leaders of the Church changed the context of Jesus and the Bible to fit their brilliantly crafted mutation of the bicameral mind -- their religion. I explain how that was so, in detail, in my book.
"Now, without the brilliant mutations of ancient mythologies, man back then would have discovered Jesus' secret message, just as he's discovering today, that he was the Highest Being in the Universe -- the God-Man. He would have served no one and forever left behind his following mode. He would have leapt into the integrating mode and into Neothink. Instead, starting with the early bicameral mutations of religions and carried on by later bicameral mutations of politics, the power of man's mind was retarded by external authorities for 2300 years. All along, religions and politics needed to use guilt and fear to succeed. I think, people's comments or fear about God or interfering with God's work are harmless residual feelings that will wash away in time. Has that been your experience, Jeremiah?"
"Yes it has," Jeremiah answered. "They're verbalizing some deep emotional engrams. But those pass in time. And through Ian's work, those engrams of fear and guilt will soon be emotionally dismissed as silly as a fear of falling off the edge of the Earth. As you know, Ian's Overlay Charts prove that the very advanced God-Man or Zon controls the cosmos and created our Universe. ...You know, ever since the earliest civilizations, whenever natural phenomena went beyond man's intellectual or scientific reach, he always turned to `God' as the explanation. As science progressed and explained the previously unexplainable, such as the tumultuous time of Darwin, the role of God in our psyches retreated. Today, people who still worry about God haven't yet seen Ian's Overlay Charts that give us the emotional, intellectual, and scientific grasp of the workings of the Universe. When they do see the Overlay Charts, the role of God in their psyches will vanish completely. Then, they know it becomes our responsibility to save our own consciousness in order to join the others in the immortal Civilization of the Universe."
"During the Age of Reason," Mr. Melbourne added, "the predominant belief was: the more we can understand the Universe, the more we will understand God. Ian has brought us our own Age of Reason with a definitive understanding of the Universe. That understanding will wash away those residual feelings of a mystical, wrathful God scarred into so many souls. For, Ian shows us God alright -- as God-Man...as you and I!"
"Has there been any resistance to Project Life?" Cathy asked.
"No, none whatsoever," Jasmine answered. "Everyone's devoted to it...just those occasional, lingering doubts about God."
That statement, "Everyone's devoted to it..." rang in Jake's ears. The thought that everyone was devoted to curing death seemed almost surreal. So much has happened since the reunion -- so much dishonesty and irrationality has come crashing down -- to be at this point where everyone was for immortality! My God, Jake thought, look at what we've done!
"Are you ready for the Operation?" Theodore asked Sally. Those two were the heavyweights in this mission. Sally was the product developer; Theodore was the marketer.
"Yes, I'm 100% ready," she said genuinely.
*
That night, Jake and Jasmine put the finishing touches on their article titled The Other Side of Immortality: Why Overpopulation Will Not Happen. Their article demonstrated what the accelerating rise in knowledge would lead to as more and more people broke through into Neothink. Man's accelerating knowledge would bring with it accelerating space exploration and colonization. By the time overpopulation became an issue on Earth, mankind would be inhabiting Mars. We would be mining asteroids for natural resources, which a business in Texas was already researching.
Originally the article included the concept of boredom and how it does not exist on the other side of immortality, but boredom was so quickly being forgotten and replaced by energy and enthusiasm as people pursued their Friday-Night Essences that Jake decided to eliminate the question of boredom from the article.
After the reunion a few years ago, Jake tried talking to others about biological immortality, only to find that most adults said they wouldn't want to live forever. He thought the reason for their lack of enthusiasm was boredom. But he refined that thought later on: The act of living brings on many responsibilities, but for most people those are dead-end responsibilities, which amounted to a burden. Their lives were productive, but they were cogs in a wheel, not experiencing their own exhilarating competitive creations for the world. Only when a person discovers his or her Friday-Night Essence and builds his or her own competitive creations for the world, Jake knew, could the burden of dead-end responsibilities vanish. Then, his or her dimensions of living turn inside out like a big bang, releasing exhilaration and euphoria each and every day. Jake knew that, before, even good productive people felt, down deep, that living was a burden. They would enjoy the good experiences within life, but would be ready to let go of the burden in their 70s. A week earlier, Jake talked to Jeremiah about why the silly idea of Heaven still gripped intelligent people.
"Heaven," Jake had told Jeremiah, "represents a place where one is released from his relentless day-by-day dead-end responsibilities. One is released from the underlying burden of living. Heaven and Nirvana, they both free one from the burden."
Jake knew that people would not want to live forever until the feeling underlying their responsibilities for living could change from a subtle burden to a steady excitement. "When Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel, he worked around the clock, just taking cat naps," Jake told Jeremiah. "He didn't exert that discipline for any other reason than the exhilaration for what he was creating. His life was not a burden, but a joy. The feeling underlying Michelangelo's responsibilities for living was a steady excitement."
Jake knew that, only after people discovered their Friday-Night Essences and could exchange the underlying burden of life with an underlying excitement like Michelangelo, could they truly want biological immortality. Otherwise, they would still want Heaven or Nirvana.
As Jake and Jasmine wrapped up their article to be printed on the eve of the Operation, Jake deleted the entire portion about boredom and burden because, as he told Jasmine, those points were now moot, for the people had discovered their Friday-Night Essences. They really did not want to die.
The article delved into the profound victory humanity had already won by the concerted drive toward preserving human consciousness. The people now knew they were the highest entity in the Universe and felt they must not perish. As a consequence, they had withdrawn their support of authorities like the FDA and the other government authorities retarding progress, and they exchanged misplaced hope of God and Heaven offering them a burden-free life after death for hope of immortality on Earth and an excitement-filled life forevermore. Project Life would be the crowning moment of humanity's greatest victory.
*
The world held its breath. The Operation was about to begin. Every Web TV in the world tuned in. Sally, the God-Man Group, and Martin the patient had decided to let the world watch. Project Life had become a joint venture of humanity. Every business stopped; every employer and employee stayed home to watch Sally and her team. Ultimately, every person's own life was dependent on the success of the Operation.
Martin Castlebury lay on the operating table, his body shriveled and lifeless. A few yards away was his cloned body -- full and perfect. Although covered with linen, the head of the cloned body obviously had already been removed.
Martin's internal organs had begun noticeably deteriorating three days before. He was only 31 years old, but he would be the next to die in the nursing home. So he was the first chosen for the Operation. Sally asked Martin if he would like to say something before the doctor anesthetized him. He nodded.
"I want to thank you, Dr. Sally Salberg." His atrophic body was so void of life, yet his voice and expression were so full of life and love. Families huddled closer to their televisions to not miss a single word Martin said. "I want to thank every member of The Group. I want to thank every person who contributed to Project Life. And I want to thank humanity for its unanimous emotional support. I will not let you down. I will fight with every breath to be strong and to make this a success. I will not surrender to death."
The emotional impact of this final fight between life and death silenced the world as Martin looked into the camera and continued, "If I'm overcome by events beyond my own will to live, if I do not make it, I want you to know that the Operation is and will always be a momentous victory. The knowledge gained will accelerate humanity toward ending the most insidiously irrational, perhaps the only irrational occurrence left: the loss of your life -- the loss of everything. ...Now, I'll let you in on what I'm looking forward to most: love. I'll cherish falling in love and having children to love as the most precious gifts in life. And with that, I'll say, good-bye. Tomorrow, I hope to say, hello."
Parents hugged their children. Martin looked at Sally and nodded. Sally nodded to a doctor standing at the head of the operating table above Martin's head, who released the anesthesia.
Sally, aided by the three top neurosurgeons in the world who specialized in the spinal cord nervous system, began to slowly and deliberately cut into the base of the neck where it met the chest. She carefully cut a thin layer at a time. Her cut was at a slight downward angle away from the head, into the upper part of the torso. The four doctors were very careful not to cut the arteries and large veins.
Jake experienced powerful yet undefinable feelings while watching this medical procedure. He did not feel any sense of repulsion. The Operation was too important, he realized. He had nothing to compare these feelings to. The feelings shot adrenaline into Jake's blood, which energized him. Yet, he was paralyzed. He was breathing hard as though he were prepared to fight. Perhaps he was subconsciously breathing -- and fighting -- for Martin.
As the aggressive Operation carried on, Jake noticed he less and less felt its importance for humanity and more and more felt its importance for Martin. As he watched the doctors cutting into Martin's body, Jake realized that Martin's life was everything to Martin. If Martin dies, the world, the Universe dies for Martin.
After less than an hour, the head looked nearly severed. The arteries and large veins and the spinal cord were still intact. At this point, an amazing thing happened: After a partial blood transfusion from Martin's body to the robotic body, Sally cut the major arteries and large veins and quickly slipped them into corresponding tubes waiting on the robotic body. Within three swift minutes, the robotic body was circulating blood to the head.
Body-Robot kept blood circulating to the brain while the spinal cord specialists spent the next four hours slowly detaching the spinal cord, carefully charting their course on the computer screens directly in front of their eyes.
As the operation continued into the afternoon, every household, adults and children, watched as doctors narrated and described the different nerves, arteries, veins, muscles, and elaborated about the robotic body. They explained that Sally's team had switched life support to body-robot before working on the major nerves because severing the nerves would effect normal breathing and circulatory functions. Similarly, they would keep Martin attached to body-robot while attaching major nerves onto his cloned body before attaching Martin's head to the clone's own breathing and circulatory system. The robotic body, however, could safely serve as a life support for no more than fifteen hours before risking brain damage because its ability to feed the blood with oxygen and remove the carbon dioxide was not as efficient as the human lungs.
After nearly five hours, Martin's head was ready to be moved to his healthy, young cloned body. Humanity held its breath as the world went silent.
Instead of moving the head as Jake believed they would, the head never moved. In a dramatic moment, after five hours of stillness, the withered body, on its own table, separated from the head and was rolled away.
Jake stared at Martin's head and neck, breathing, alive, alone and separated from the body. The head lay there, alive and asleep, attached to a man-made machine a little bigger than a TV. Jake stared at the surreal scene. Martin's head looked so small there all by itself. The next moment, though, it looked so large. Nothing there seemed natural. But as Jake watched the doctors moving confidently about, he was aware that the surreal scene did not feel eerie. After a moment, he realized he was feeling proud and strong. A minute passed, and he got used to looking at Martin's head alive and breathing on body-robot. Suddenly, like drinking warm cider on a chilly morning, a warm feeling filled and saturated Jake and took away the chill. And everything seemed natural -- completely natural. He looked at Martin's head alive and breathing, detached from his wretched body, free from that prison, and Jake knew at that moment that mankind had transcended man. "We are now God-Man," he whispered through the glass to Martin. "We will free you, my friend. We will now be who we were always supposed to be: the real Gods who will free man from all suffering."
The voice of the narrating doctor on television broke the long silence across the world and pulled Jake and the rest of humanity back from their awestruck feelings to the event at hand:
"Free today is this man from his sentence in living hell," the TV doctor was saying. "Free tomorrow will be humanity from its sentence to death."
It was breathtaking: The cloned body was wheeled into place. The narrating doctors explained that the cloned head had been previously removed. During the Operation, the cloned body had been gradually warming from a very cold temperature. The doctors began again, in reverse of what had occurred over the previous six hours.
A new team of neurosurgeons replaced the other three exhausted doctors, all but Sally. Now, they began to attach what was severed during the previous six hours. They went to work reattaching nerves surrounding the upper region of the spinal cord.
The body was still kept very cold, in hypothermia, to preserve it in the absence of blood flow. The doctors wanted to keep the circulatory system off as long as possible. They had also drained over half the blood and would perform a partial blood transfusion from the robotic body into the cloned body just before they switched life support to the body.
Connecting took substantially longer than severing. After four hours of connecting nerves and suturing several layers of muscle, a third team of neurosurgeons replaced the second team. As planned, Sally would oversee all three teams to the end.
After another four-and-a-half hours, the lower portion of the neck bone was secured to two clamps attached to the backbone. The narrating doctors told us the "deep" work was done. Soon, Sally would connect the main arteries and veins to the cloned body and start it breathing and its heart pumping. Everything had gone picture perfect.
Into the sixteenth hour, the moment everyone was waiting for was close. The narrating doctors on television were telling us that Sally wanted to be using the new body's circulatory system by the sixteenth hour, because after that, the exchange of gases would quickly fall below optimum. The blood would break down as carbon dioxide would build up beyond critical levels and not enough oxygen would travel to the brain.
Jake watched as Sally, without missing a beat, instructed her team to start the blood transfusion from body-robot to the cloned body. Six billion people's hearts started beating faster. They could feel the anticipation building toward the miracle. As every heart in the world beat fast with nervousness, Sally never wavered. Jake admired her as she performed confidently, flawlessly. Six billion people were experiencing waves of chills, but Sally stayed calm. Her rock-like steadiness kept her team focussed and relaxed. No mistakes would be made with her in charge.
During the transfusion, she called for the final team of doctors -- the heart doctors. The neurosurgeons left and the heart doctors lined up next to Martin.
"Are you ready?" Sally asked, looking into each doctor's eyes. The all nodded. Suddenly, Sally commanded "Shut her down," and body-robot was done. In quick single movements, Sally removed the arteries and large veins and connected them inside the clone. Jake, who was shivering with nervousness, asked himself, "How does she stay so in control?" The thought went through him that only having gone through the experience of losing her mother as a child gave Sally the discipline, determination, and emotional strength to handle this operation, with the fate of all humanity in her hands.
In a matter of two minutes, her job was finished.
"Let's give him life!" she exalted. She could feel victory. A doctor pushed a tube down his throat and began squeezing air into his new lungs. A moment later, another doctor pulled down the blanket to expose the perfect torso as Sally cried, "Stand clear!" A trauma specialist placed the defibrillator on Martin's beautiful new chest.
Jake, Jasmine, and the rest of the media huddled against the windows.
The body jerked slightly from the electrical shock, and the world waited. No response. Sally snapped more commands and the specialist placed the paddles on Martin's chest again. "Stand clear!"
This time the body jerked more noticeably. The team waited. No response. Sally reached over, adjusted the settings herself, grabbed the paddles, and laid them down on Martin's chest herself.
"Stand clear!"
Something was not right, Jake could hear it in Sally's voice.
The team of doctors looked at the monitors. Their eyes and ears were wide open, begging for a pulse. But nothing happened.
"I'm going in!" Sally announced. She ran a knife right down the middle of that perfect torso as the other doctors leaned over, placing a clamp-like device that opened the chest cavity, exposing the heart.
God, what's going on? In the media, Martin was always a metaphor for humanity, but seasoned journalists in the media room were pleading, "Martin, Martin...don't die, Martin!" Suddenly, Martin was no longer a metaphor or model. He was Martin, and during these frightful moments that would yield either eternal death or eternal life, every thought in the world shifted to Martin.
Jake looked at Sally rushing her hands around Martin's heart as her assistants thrust something in his mouth. She looked like an archangel fighting for Martin's life. Sally was the only person in the world talking at that moment as she shot out an endless barrage of commands. She was the only person in the world collected enough, under the enormous magnitude of this moment, to speak, to lead. Her strength and conviction kept her team focussed, moving flawlessly. Everyone else in the world, Jake included, was paralyzed with fear...for Martin.
The body was not responding. Sally pulled her hands away and turned away from the table. The whole world gasped. Her face was directly in front of the media window, and Jake could see into her eyes. There was no panic there. Instead, her eyes were crystal clear...they were to Jake the essence of competence and beauty as he watched the most intense discipline of thought thundering through that great mind. She was searching her mind for an answer. Under this enormous pressure, her mind was at its peak. Jake watched those powerful eyes, in an instant, shift toward the robotic body. Watching those eyes, the talented news journalist in Jake could almost recreate her thoughts: No, she dismissed that thought, for body-robot had expired its conversion of gases and would destroy Martin's brain. Almost instantly, her eyes darted away, toward the corridor where the other 35 cloned bodies lay. As quickly as the thought entered, it exited; the other bodies still had the heads attached; there was no time. As quickly as Sally had turned away, she turned back again. Her only chance was to get that heart going. She shouted one final command and with it came the anticipated needle that Sally injected directly into the heart. Immediately she had both hands massaging the heart again.
A hush settled over the world as people held their collective breath. It was as if, for that moment, humanity were all one with Martin, and all would breathe with Martin...when Martin breathed. But his breath never came.
In an ice-cold voice, Sally said, "It's over."
She calmly asked everyone to leave. She did not move as the devastated doctors one by one left the room. Alone now, she removed the clamp from Martin's chest, removed her gloves, and pulled the sheet up to cover his chest and the open portion of his neck. She did this with such gentle love and caring, as if she were tucking her son into bed at night. Martin's exposed face looked young and innocent as Sally rubbed her hand across his forehead as a mother does who is saying good night to her son. She leaned over and kissed his forehead. She pulled over her stool and sat next to Martin, like a mother about to tell her son a good-night story.
The cloned body's electrical system did not start. Jake could see Sally was trying to weigh what went wrong but was being overcome with emotion. She couldn't stop the emotional tidal wave that was about to hit her.
"I...I'm so sorry, Martin," she whispered. "I'm so sorry." She leaned over and cradled his head and rocked it gently, like a baby. She buried her face against Martin, then a great wail rushed from her lungs, heard in every household around the world. She cried the saddest, hopeless cry that rushes up from the deepest depths of irrationality.
"I'm so sorry, Martin!" she involuntarily cried over and over in pain. She rocked his head like a baby, looking at him, stroking his soft hair back, revealing his baby face that looked sweet, like a boy. Sally leaned over and with all her love, kissed his forehead again. The world wept with her.
Jake stood watching; he could not move. His soul was empty. The priceless spirit, Martin, was gone forever...because the body, a mere biological tool to carry the spirit, gave out.
*
The world had to recover from watching Martin die. Most businesses stayed closed the next day. People needed to collect their bearings. Never had such a gloom gripped the world.
In The Group's next gathering, Mr. Melbourne helped the members cope with the loss. He explained that the enormous pain felt across the world for the loss of one man's life finally approached the value of human life. People had risen to the next realm of emotional existence now. They loved their lives, their competitive creations, their spouses and children. They could no longer accept human death, not even one stranger.
Jake and Jasmine were finishing a healing article dedicated to Martin. Since Martin died, his last words about love kept ringing in Jake's ears: "I'll let you in on what I'm looking forward to most: love. I'll cherish falling in love and having children to love as the most precious gifts in life." Jake and Jasmine, who had grown deeply in love, decided to have children. What is that great love of children Martin wanted and Rico had?
During The Group's somber gathering, Sally reported how very close the Operation had come to success. In fact, the loss came from the electrical system failing to start, the odds of which were but a fraction of the other possible things that could have, but did not, go wrong.
"What solutions are we looking at? And what amount of time?" Theodore asked.
"The irony of it all," Sally said, noticeably, permanently pained by losing Martin, "is that the Operation told us how incredibly close we are to success and how rapidly we can move into the next operation. I no longer consider the odds of failure to fall in half. I consider the odds of failure to drop by 80%. Going into Martin's operation, everything was experimental. We learned just how doable this is. For the next Operation, we have experience and confidence. The electrical system will start up 95 out of a 100 times. But to assure that, the solution is to have the clone's electrical system already going. We must build the counterpart to our robotic body. We must build a robotic head."
"That'll take...what? A good year or longer?" Ian injected. "What about building another body-robot and having two clones in case his happens again? You'll have a backup."
"I've weighed those options, too," Sally assured him. "Building head-robot will be the quickest route. You see, body-robot is a complex computer that removes carbon dioxide from the blood and puts oxygen into it. Building the body-robot required simulating the job of the lungs. ...But head-robot does not need to exchange gases, for the lungs of the clone will be doing that. The robotic head simply will direct the blood in the clone from the arteries into the veins."
"How long before you can go with Operation II?" Jasmine asked while taking notes.
"We can go with Operation II in twelve weeks."
Only three months! The members were surprised, but no one doubted Sally.
*
Getting past the loss of Martin was hard for everyone, especially for the members of the God-Man Group. Yet watching the loss, the sadness of death amplified the preciousness of life and love. Spouses and families never felt such love and closeness as they did in the days after watching Martin die. It was almost as if amplifying the preciousness around the world was Martin's parting gift to the world.
Jake and Jasmine decided to no longer delay their celebration of vows, despite being busier than ever before. The celebration of vows had replaced the traditional marriage concept and its marriage license granted by external authorities. The celebration of vows was a formal wedding of two people expressing their commitment to each other and to themselves.
Three weeks later, Jake and Jasmine got married. Their celebration of vows reflected something that had not been reflected in weddings or vows before. Their vows were the first to ever express love and life together from an immortal perspective. At one point, Jake said,
"Jasmine, I have jumped to the new world where life is not a subtle burden of dead-end responsibilities. My life is afire, burning with enthusiasm for what I'm creating. And from that fire arises my burning love for you. Jasmine, when you walk into the room, my life lights up; my heart jumps. When the workday is done, being with you is a major event of happiness for me...a celebration! Each and every day I feel the celebration...what a way to live my life! Thank you, Jasmine, for bringing the celebration into my daily life. You have become so precious to me, my darling, there are no challenges to my love for you. And soon, the only possible threat that could steal us from each other will end. That horror called death will be conquered, and then we will have each other forever. Jasmine, I used to think the shortness of our lives underscored the rightness of our extraordinary happiness together. Now I think the expanse of immortality will show us yet a whole new dimension of happiness. And it is with you, Jasmine, I want to explore that happiness, for all eternity."
Jake's vows went on to open the door to Jasmine's soul. Today was the happiest day of her life. When she turned around, she saw her father, his eyes swimming in the memories of when she was his little girl...those special years between a father and his daughter that, one unforgiving day, are suddenly gone forever. Immediately, Jasmine's eyes were swimming in the same memories of when she was young, and her busy father would come home from work and always spend at least three hours every day with his little girl. Jasmine dearly missed those three blissful hours a day with her dad, and so did he. And yet, as much as they both missed that daily time together, they would never have that again. ...She walked over and hugged her father.
"Oh, I love you so much, daddy. You were always so nice to me...I still cherish all those times we spent together. Since I've moved out, I really miss you."
Jasmine's mother died when Jasmine was just a toddler, which made her dad deeply feel the preciousness of life. Jasmine's mom dying young made Jasmine's dad cherish every day with his only child while growing up.
"I've been thinking, Jassy, I can work anywhere," he said. "What if I moved to one of those big homes on the New Jersey shore, just outside the City? You and Jake could come and see me or stay with me anytime you'd like. You could stay at my shore house on weekends whenever you'd like."
"Oh daddy, yes! I'd love that! Can you, please! Will you?" Jasmine's face lit up like when she was a little girl, a sight her father so deeply missed.
He smiled nostalgically, happy to see that smile again, a special smile he had not seen for years and feared was gone away forever.
"Yes, princess, I'll be there in a few weeks," he said. Jasmine shrieked with joy at his decision that would let them be close again.
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