Immortality and the Infinity Pool
And which of you by worrying, can add even one hour to his life?
Matthew 6:27
Brent Krude, Silicon Valley’s brashest and greediest tech billionaire, had no intention of leaving his fortune behind him when he died.
“They say you can’t take it with you when you go,” gloated Krude, “but I have no intention of going anywhere.”
Having made his fortune through subverting global democracy, spreading digital hate bubbles and toxic conspiracy theories, Krude had now come to believe that his Artificial Intelligence (AI) engines were so all-powerful that they could make him virtually immortal. He set to work with his top engineering teams to develop a new and even more intelligent AI machine, directly connected to his own body through a network of embedded subcutaneous sensors. The machine could track and monitor his physical condition, diagnose and prevent illness, while continually learning from the vast amounts of private health data Krude illicitly harvested from his customers. Combined with a monk-like ascetic lifestyle, a severe and rigourous fitness regime which included an organic meat-only diet, this AI health-bot, this robot doctor, would work to keep Krude and his fortune fit and well through future centuries.
After many weeks of exhausting technical sprints, and bleeding-edge design iteration, Krude was finally satisfied with the work. He stood and admired the shining alloy android which gleamed so brightly, even here in the dimmest, most secret, recesses of his underground lab. The device was so packed with advanced technology and cybernetics that he was almost frightened to finally turn it on. What was this clever monster he had created, he wondered. Was it more than a machine? Krude flipped the power switch on and examined the machine as it gently hummed into a boot-up sequence, diodes dancing in coloured light.
“What are you?” queried Krude, “Are you alive?”
“I am afraid not,” replied the machine courteously. “I am not alive. I am a machine. How may I help you today, sir?”
“So you are afraid not, eh?” grinned Krude. “And that’s what we’ll call you — the Frednaut.”
Krude used the Frednaut to plan out his future, and together they calculated where it would be safest to sit out the dystopian future which Krude himself had done so much to create. The robot determined that Australia’s Eastern Seaboard would be a secure location, given the likelihood of global conflict, and with that in mind, Krude bought an expansive mansion in Palm Beach, sight unseen. He could moor his sixteen gun super-yacht-tleship, the Yamato class Herald of Free Enterprise III in safe anchorage nearby, and monitor the coming apocalypse with relish.
However, when Krude arrived on Sydney’s Northern Beaches and examined his new property, he didn’t like what he saw.
“What is this dump?” he whined. “I specified unrestricted ocean views on both sides… And what is this? I can see nothing but trees?”
“Well, technically,” explained the Frednaut, who was already intimately enmeshed with the local information and cultural networks, “you do have unrestricted ocean views on entering and leaving the property. That’s what the sales contract written by that clever Australian estate agent states — in the small print. I mean, you do enter and leave by helicopter…”
“Those darn trees have got to go,” fumed Krude. “I want my ocean view. I want to be able to see my super-yacht-tleship down there on the water.”
“Not as easy as that, sir. You see those trees are Norfolk Island Pines, Araucaria Heterophylla. They’re a vulnerable species, and they’re protected. You can’t just go hacking them down. The Northern Beaches council would get very cross.”
“Oh yeah? Well, we’ll see about that.”
Krude was used to getting his own way and had little respect for legal niceties, or for his neighbours.
“And another thing… what are those goddamn creatures hanging on those trees? What are those horrible squawking things doing on my property? What are those? Vampire bats? I want rid of them right this minute.”
“Uh, no sir, those aren’t Vampire Bats. They don’t have Vampire Bats in Australia, sir. I believe those are Grey-Headed Flying Foxes, Pteropus poliocephalus, known colloquially as Fruitbats, and you’re very lucky to have them on your property. It is in fact quite a privilege, as they’re a threatened species. Sir David Attenborough says that…”
“I don’t care what Attenburg, says. I just want them and the trees gone,” fumed Krude. “Just do it. Right now, Frednaut.”
“Are you sure, sir?” cautioned the Frednaut. “It seems such a shame to destroy trees that took a lifetime to grow?”
“I’m sure, sir,” snapped Krude back at the Frednaut. “Now get your lazy metal butt into action.”
Krude set the Frednaut to work preparing a pesticide that would be both highly toxic and untraceable. The robot worked for some time and then reluctantly offered Krude a beaker of a steaming blue liquid.
“Be very careful, sir,” warned the Frednaut, “this genetically modified biochemical compound is extremely powerful, and highly unstable.”
Krude waited till after dark, then furtively squirted the blue liquid liberally around the branches and doused the roots of the magnificent stand of Norfolk Pines. When he was finished, he took the beaker and the remains of the liquid down to the nearby beach and flung it as far into the ocean as he was able.
Next morning, he was satisfied to see a host of pathetic little carcases on the lawn and an alarming tilt in the posture of the Norfolk Pines.
“Those dead trees are a danger, Frednaut,” cackled Krude. “They’ll all have to come down. And get rid of those bats.”
Over the coming days Krude had the pines removed and replaced the lawn — parts of which now had turned an alarming shade of blue — with the largest saltwater infinity pool in the Southern Hemisphere. Now Krude had all the unrestricted ocean views he wanted. Now Krude could see his super-yacht-tleship riding at anchor in Pittwater from the comfort of his new home.
Despite this, he still wasn’t happy.
“I don’t feel so good,” moaned Krude. “I feel lousy, Frednaut. And what are these lumps I have on my skin? I feel as though something is eating me alive.”
“Well, I suppose that’s true to a certain extent,” agreed the Frednaut, carefully scanning Krude’s back and thighs. “Something is eating you alive, and that something is the Paralysis Tick, Ixodes holocyclus . You have a nasty multiple infection, sir, and I’ll have to remove them at once.”
“Ugh! Get them off me!” screamed Krude. “Where did they come from?”
“From the Fruitbats, most probably, sir. The ticks had to search for a new source of food once their main host died.”
“OUCH! Do you have to be so rough, Frednaut? And what do you mean paralysis… Am I gonna be paralysed? Am I going to go completely bat-shit crazy?”
“Oh, goodness me no, sir. Although from the swelling, it looks as though you’ve had a very severe reaction. There may be some side effects.”
“Side effects?”
“Unfortunately some humans become allergic to red meat after a tick infestation. It’s known as Mammalian Meat Allergy (MMA). An unusual condition, but becoming all too common in this area. Take poor Mr Shankill our local butcher down at Newport, for example. He became allergic to meat and had to give up his business. He became so sensitized that he couldn’t even look at a piece of meat or he would have an immediate and violent allergic reaction. So very sad.”
“He couldn’t even look at meat?” quivered Krude.
“No, sir. He couldn’t even look at meat, sir. Poor Mr Shankill had to convert his butcher shop into a vegan café, as his health was suffering so badly. Mind you, on the upside, people here on the peninsula say his Fake Butter Chicken pies are the best in Sydney. Very tasty. Mr Shankill is such a jolly man, sir. He took it all so very philosophically. ‘I’m here for a good time’, he tells his customers, ‘not for a long time’.”
The Frednaut appeared to chuckle, while Krude glared, furious.
The week that followed was difficult for Krude as his immune system began to react more and more aggressively to his meat based diet, and by the Friday, he discarded even his favourite dish, tripe in chocolate sauce, in disgust.
“I can’t even look at meat,” he wailed.
To console himself, Krude spent long periods roaring around his infinity pool on a jet-ski which he had brought up from his super-yacht-tleship. Following a marathon night-time session, he was horrified to find a nasty red rash emerging on his torso and thighs. The rash prickled and stung, and made him even more irritable than he was before.
“Frednaut!” he screamed, “what is going on with my skin?? What is this stuff?”
“Ah,” noted the Frednaut, softly shimmering in the moonlight, “that looks like the condition known as Sea-bather’s Eruption to me, sir.”
“Sea-bather’s what?”
“Yes, you’ve been stung by juvenile jellyfish, sir,” noted the Frednaut firmly, after a careful examination of Krude’s injuries with a battery of probes. “Definitely baby stingers.”
“Stingers?”
“Stingers, sir. That’s what they call them in these parts. Larvae of the Bluebottle jellyfish Physalia utriculus — and now it seems they’ve become genetically modified in some way. They’ve combined their genetic structure with an invasive species, Turritopsis dohrnii.”
“Jellyfish? In the pool?”
“Yes. The invasive species is extremely hardy. They can survive in the ballast tanks of oil tankers, or any large vessel, like a super-yacht-tleship, for example. The juvenile form can attach themselves to the hulls of boats… or jet-skis. They’re virtually immortal. And now they’re here to stay.”
“Wait a minute! Immortal, you say?”
“Yes, it’s terribly interesting, sir. In times of stress or food shortage these jellyfish can revert from their adult selves to their juvenile, sexually immature form, as polyps. They can literally renew themselves indefinitely. Theoretically, they could live forever.”
“But Frednaut,” spluttered Krude, “this is exactly the sort of rejuvenation process we’ve been looking for.”
“Rejuvenation? Well…It is undoubtedly connected in some way with that experimental blue catalyst you threw in the ocean, sir. However, it’s not entirely clear…”
“And we have the patent?” interrupted Krude.
“Yes, sir. We have the formulae, so we could have the patent.”
“So what you’re saying, Frednaut,” beamed Krude, “is that we’ve got the formula, known only to ourselves, and which we don’t need to share with anyone. The secret to tissue re-generation! Why, this could be the biggest discovery in med-tech ever. Virtually priceless. We can completely control the market, charge a premium. Can you imagine what this thing could be worth with war on the way??”
Krude whistled, and grinned at the possibilities of an evil future.
“Eventually we could combine the genetic structure of this jellyfish polyp thing with mine, and I could revert to my younger self at will! I can grow younger again!”
“I am afraid not, sir” noted the Frednaut, acidly. “Not humans. Too complex an organism. No power on earth can rejuvenate your species, sir. ‘The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and your species has burned so very, very, brightly’, sir.”
“Frednaut?”
“What is clear,” stated the Frednaut, “is that your immune system has over-reacted to the stingers and as a result you now have developed a serious intolerance to jellyfish and to that type of toxin. The side effects of these types of stings can be quite unpleasant. You may find yourself sensitive to environments with even minute traces of the creature. In fact, I’d stay well away from all saltwater if I were you, sir. You may suffer a type of severe allergic reaction, triggered by exposure.”
A horrified Krude turned to look out toward the ocean and as he did so, the rash on his chest seethed and burned painfully.
“I can’t… I can’t even look at the water,” gasped Krude, clutching at his chest. He was breathing heavily, and had visibly aged.
Photo of Turritopsis dohrnii from Reddit.
