James Halperin - The First Immortal

“But it’s irrelevant to the average voter,” Rainwater had explained. “Most of them worry about their lives every time they leave home. Living to see the twenty-second century is the farthest thing from their minds. I can assure you the average citizen of Arizona thinks cryonics is eccentric at best. If a politician proposed to spend a few decades in a canister, his constituents would be all for putting him there immediately. And right now I can do us a lot more good if I’m still in office.”

It was 11:54 P.M., approaching the end of tonight’s program. CRACK! P-KOW! BRDDDDT! WHOOSH! The climax picture would appear on schedule. The two First Families, last and next, had been carefully coached on how to put on the proper facial expressions: artistic appreciation without philosophical judgment of this replication of the famous and controversial Gary Franklin Smith work, now perhaps the world’s most widely recognized twentieth century painting.

K-K-K-K-K-KRAK!

A hundred thousand precision-arranged mortars ignited in simultaneous flashes of brilliant tincture, and for twenty-eight seconds the image of Katie’s Hope veiled the western sky.

Katie’s face sparkled in serenity while the white-coated technicians lifted her frail, lifeless frame above the neuron-preserving dry-ice canister. Her family shimmered in Chagall-like hues of red and blue light, their faces indistinguishable, but their love somehow depicted in ethereal glow, impossible not to recognize. The only unmistakable visage, other than Katie’s, was that of Kevorkian, who smiled beneath a white halo, benevolent yet menacing, as he floated above her like some impossible hybrid of vigilante and archangel.

August 27, 2003

—The fourth takeover of a major bank by a software firm this year, Microsoft acquires all outstanding shares of NationsBank in a transaction valued at $11 billion, or 44 percent of book value. Solomon Brothers analyst Gilbert Salzberg called the price “very rich, even for a bank so well managed.” Nations Bank has operated at almost break-even over the past 12 months, far outpacing an industry devastated by competition from on-line firms. Some 97.84% of banking transactions are now performed over the Internet. With ubiquitous software to automatically shop for the best deals on fees and interest rates, brand loyalty among banking customers has all but vanished.—Broderbund’s interactive Crib-School wins the Consumer Reports new product of the year award. The electronic game, which adapts to cradle, crib, and playpen, has been shown to stimulate precocious mental growth. Many toddlers have learned how to do simple math, and even to read, using the Crib-School system.

Roy Preston Longwell paused, signaling to his brethren, all of whom had seen him do it a hundred times before, that he was about to conclude his argument before this Democrat-controlled Senate Public Health Committee.

Thank God! most of them silently breathed in relief, Longwell’s oratory talents having already been inflicted upon them for seventy-four mind-numbing minutes.

The six-term Republican, a seasoned vote counter, had no doubt calculated that his side would lose by one vote, but conscience would not permit him to go gently into that good night, nor would his obligation to represent the Christian voters of South Carolina, many of whom were monitoring these hearings. After all, with the next election barely thirteen months away, Longwell was apparently quite unprepared for retirement.

“The, ahem, distinguished senator from Massachusetts seems to believe that human beings are little more than machines, mechanical gadgets composed entirely of matter, with interchangeable parts.”

At least he was now “the distinguished senator from Massachusetts,” my father mused. Must have been the cameras. Yesterday, he’ d just been “Junior.” He particularly relished this, his most visible committee assignment. While most senators would have felt some impatience languishing in Public Health during an era when the glory went to those legislators battling violent crime, George Crane valued the opportunity to influence public debate over his favorite issue.

“Well, I disagree,” Longwell continued. “The Bible teaches us that the essence of every individual is a unique, irreplaceable soul whose manner of composition is far beyond the ken of science, and which ultimately belongs to God.”

No one in the room dared groan, though several senators must have heartily wished they could express their frustration. After all, anyone could allege that the Almighty supported their position, and He was hardly apt to descend from the heavens to rebuke the claim.

There was an additional hypocrisy here, George thought. This weasel now portrayed himself as some holy defender of the sanctity of human life, yet he was also one of the most vocal supporters of Swift and Sure, the anticrime laws that, once passed in January 2005, would mandate immediate execution of all second-time convicted violent felons, few of whom had actually killed anyone.

“Thanks to your sainted Kevorkian,” Longwell shouted, “the course has veered to organ donation. Therein lies an even more slippery slope: You convince the ailing and vulnerable that ending their own lives is an acceptable alternative, and by the way, give us your livers and kidneys while we can still plant them in someone else. How soon before we legislate mandatory suicide of the terminally ill, so we can harvest their organs before disease renders them useless to their next owners?”

In a way, freshman Senator George Crane Jr. was horrified to hear Longwell tender a quasi-legitimate argument. Assuming himself always on camera, George shrewdly affected an impartial expression, as if carefully evaluating, then rejecting, each of Longwell’s statements.

The white-haired legislator scowled at the ardent newcomer as a teacher might have glared at a disruptive fifth-grader and, to the younger man’s delight, fell back on windy rhetoric: “Suicide is a sin, Senator Crane, a mortal transgression against our Creator. If we legalize it, we are defying Him, and damning ourselves to His wrath. If you wish to insult the will of God, I’ll pray for Him to take mercy on your soul, though frankly I doubt He will heed my invocation.”

Indeed! George Crane thought. Why should God be any different from the rest of us? But he held his tongue. At thirty-one, he hadn’t become the second youngest United States senator in the history of Massachusetts by succumbing to lapses in his self-possession.

Only through the same force of will, in fact, and the guidance of his mother, had George managed to transform himself from couch potato to overachiever within a year of his grandfather’s so-called death.

Fresh out of Harvard Law School, George had decided to run for Congress shortly before his sister Katie’s death. She’d encouraged him, knowing that our family name recognition might help. He’d soon discovered he was a natural-born campaigner, and in a liberal state like Massachusetts his association with Kevorkianism awarded him all the advantages of Dr. Death’s fame without the inconvenience of his infamy.

To his amazement, he’d won.

Then, just ten months into the young man’s first congressional term, his sixty-nine-year-old patron, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, decided to retire while a Democratic governor still held office and thus could appoint the successor. George had accepted their invitation to carry the Democratic mantle as interim senator, until the next November’s election.

George Crane had won the Democratic nomination easily, but by September 23, 2002 was down ten polling points against his Republican challenger. On that day, Dr. Jack Kevorkian had made his “critical” contribution to the Crane campaign: On a hunger strike in Michigan State Penitentiary while serving a forty-five-day sentence for contempt of court, he’d had the good grace to expire.