His wrists going numb from their tight bindings, Joel2 slowly slunk his chair back onto the floor. “Where is Sylvia?”
“Nearby. And I assure you, she is unharmed. I am sorry for any unfortunate circumstances that you may have been party to thus far, but frankly, I didn’t think you would talk to us if we had simply asked. You should know, I hold you in the highest regard and intend on engendering your trust with nothing but the truth.”
Joel2 raised an eyebrow but said nothing. How could this man expect him to sit there and have a civilized conversation while his wife was being held hostage somewhere, going through God knew what? Before he could argue the point, though, a painful seizure overtook his body. His comms crackled and went dark. Joel2 looked around in surprise, but the old man held up another device. It was round and made of black plastic, again roughly the size of an egg. “Another relic,” he said. “So I may ensure our conversation is private and without distraction.”
Joel2 tried to comm Julie, then out of desperation he even attempted to ping Adina at the Mine, but Roberto was right. My other had been pulled off the grid, his comms temporarily as useless as mine.
“Now, where to start?” Roberto’s voice crackled. “Introductions, I think. Yes. You know us as Gehinnomites, but we call ourselves the Friends of Fair Hope, an embellishment of the Fairhope Meeting of Friends, our forefolk.”
Joel2 glared at him silently.
“The Fairhope Meeting of Friends,” Shila said, picking up the pace of his speech as if he were remembering the spoken word on the fly. “A group of Quakers from Fairhope, Alabama. They left the US for Costa Rica after members of their community were jailed for refusing to fight in World War II. As you may be aware, taking another human life is forbidden for Quakers. Only God can make such a decision. So our founders came to Costa Rica. Not only because of its farming potential and pleasant climate, but also because the national government openly invited foreigners to come and help develop the country. Most attractive for the Friends at the time was the fact that Costa Rica had just abolished its own army and—as pacifists—they felt this was a place where they could live in peace. They settled here in Monteverde, eventually integrating with the local community, the Ticos.”
Joel2 made an I don’t care, cut to the fucking chase gesture with his head.
Roberto sighed, a sound his vocal cord implants manifested as a clatter of tin filings. “Patience is not a virtue the youth possess,” he said mournfully, glancing toward the room’s empty corner. “If only my daughter had known patience. But she took after her mother, I suppose. And now she is gone.”
“What does any of this have to do with me and my wife?”
Shila clasped his bone-thin fingers together. “Do you know what an ayah is, Mr. Byram?”
“No,” Joel2 said.
“Very well, I shall explain. But I think the importance of its definition would be edified if you knew my age. Would you care to guess?”
Joel2 shrugged. “I don’t know. Eighty?”
“Eighty? Ha!” Roberto bellowed out a metallic laugh, like a pile of aluminum cans toppling over. “You are too kind.” He cleared his throat. “No, I have counted my first centennial but a short seventy-one years ago.”
“You’re a hundred and seventy-one years old?” Joel2 asked, impressed in spite of the situation. If that was true, Roberto Shila was literally the oldest man in the world. “For someone who talks so big about not interfering in God’s will, I don’t get how you can justify using man-made technology to artificially extend your own life.”
The grizzled Gehinnomite paused for a moment to lick his dry, cracked lips and fix his posture. “In the Book of Genesis there is mention of a man named Methuselah who lived to be nine hundred and sixty-nine years old. Noah, his son, was said to have lived nine hundred and fifty years. It was only after Noah that the average biblical human life-span dropped closer to what is now called ‘normal.’ God never prescribed the length of a human life, just that it should not be infinite. I am not resisting God’s will. I am usurping man’s materialistic inventions for a higher purpose than self-preservation.”
“It certainly looks like you’re living it up,” said Joel2 bluntly.
The old man nodded. “Yes, we have managed to achieve a modicum of comfort over the decades. Buying this land before nanocultivation came into vogue was particularly prescient. You know, many believe—erroneously—that we Gehinnomites abstain from all technology because we oppose teleportation. Were they to inquire, they would find that we embrace all industrialization, automation, computerization, and new technologies. What we reject is heathenism, blasphemy, and heresy. Teleportation is not a mode of transport; it is systemic, compounded, commercialized murder. The most violent sin of all, repeated thousands of times a day!” Raising his broken voice, he said, “Do you not understand, Joel Byram? We are saviors, not destroyers! We seek to save the living and their children! Our children…” Roberto’s semisynthesized voice trailed off like a clockwork of grinding gears. There was a hissing crackle of static as he sighed again. “Unfortunately, my daughter lost sight of our most basic tenet. Joanna. Though now I fear she will be forever known by her nom de guerre, Joan Anglicus. Only twenty years younger than I, she was.”
“Joan Anglicus?” Her name rang a discordant bell. “The one who blew up the TC?”
Shila looked incredibly sad. “Centuries of principled pacifism, undone by a moment of impatience and a quantum trigger.”
“A moment?” said Joel2 incredulously. “Fuck your pacifism. I got killed by your daughter’s suicide bomb, asshole!”
He expected the statement to give the old man at least a moment’s pause, but he seemed unfazed. In fact, he nodded as if expecting this turn of events. “Exactly, Mr. Byram. This is why you are the ayah we’ve been waiting for. Our miracle.”
“I’m not your miracle.” Joel2 shook his head. “What happened to me was an accident. Coincidence, the dumb luck of the universe. I happened to go through the TC right after your daughter. So what?”
“No, Mr. Byram. You were selected. We have known the truth of teleportation since its inception. That it was nothing more than the unholy copying and destruction of human beings. That the Punch Escrow is a lie.”
“What do you mean, a lie?”
“Teleportation is murder.” Shila closed his eyes, as if the emotional impact of these revelations was affecting him, too. “The Punch Escrow is an execution chamber. You were killed and printed every time you entered a TC. I’m afraid there is no such thing as teleportation.”