Cover

Other Books by This Author

ALSO BY DAVID GREGORY

FICTION

Dinner with a Perfect Stranger: An Invitation Worth Considering

A Day with a Perfect Stranger

The Next Level: A Parable on Finding Your Place in Life

NONFICTION

The Rest of the Gospel: When the Partial Gospel Has Worn You Out

(coauthored with Dan Stone)

Title Page

Copyright

THE LAST CHRISTIAN
PUBLISHED BY WATERBROOK PRESS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

Scripture quotations or paraphrases are taken from the New American Standard Bible®. © Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org). The NET Bible ®, copyright © 1996–2005 by Biblical Studies Press LLC, www.bible.org. Used by permission. all rights reserved. The Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

Copyright © 2010 by David Gregory Smith

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

WATERBROOK and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gregory, David, 1959-

The last Christian : a novel / David Gregory. — 1st ed.
    p. cm.

eISBN: 978-0-307-45906-0
1. Artificial intelligence—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3607.R4884L37 2010
813′.6—dc22

2009046392

v3.0_r1

Dedication

To my dad

Acknowledgments

My heartfelt thanks go to Bob and Jan Mugele for schooling me on missionary life and to Bob for his assistance with the Inisi language; to Lisa Stewart, Rex Campbell, Todd Herder, Doug Reed, Rod Pauls, and Glade Diviney for their invaluable comments on the manuscript; to Drs. Robert Cockrell and Dana Penner for their insight on medical procedures and terminology; and to Dr. Gary Ferngren for helping me understand the professorial life. I am indebted to my editors, Shannon Marchese, Steve Parolini (noveldoctor.com) and Carol Bartley for forming a team that made this a much stronger book than my solo effort would have produced. Thanks finally to my wife, Ava, for your continual support and encouragement and advice to keep cutting.

My thanks to David Hazard for the painstaking work required to make the writings of the early Christian disciples accessible to today’s reader in You Give Me New Life: A 40-Day Journey in the Company of the Early Disciples, from which I borrowed several quotations. Hazard’s entire Rekindling the Inner Fire series is a spiritual gold mine.

Writing The Last Christian required extensive research in the fields of artificial intelligence, future trends, and jungle and missionary life. The two books upon which I relied most were a riveting personal life story, Child of the Jungle: The True Story of a Girl Caught Between Two Worlds by Sabine Kuegler, and a fascinating look into the possible future of artificial intelligence, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil. I am indebted to these authors for helping shape my thoughts in their respective areas of expertise and experience. My thanks also to the following authors whose writing enriched my understanding:

On jungle and missionary life:

Michael Dawson, Growing Up Yanomamo: Missionary Adventures in the Amazon Rainforest

Clarence Wilbur Hall, Miracle on the Sepik

Joel P. Kramer, Beyond Fear: A Harrowing Journey Across New Guinea Through Rivers, Swamps, Jungle, and the Most Remote Mountains in the World

Peter Matthiessen, Under the Mountain Wall: A Chronicle of Two Seasons in Stone Age New Guinea

Candice Millard, The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey

Mark Andrew Ritchie, Spirit of the Rainforest: A Yanomamo Shaman’s Story

On artificial intelligence:

Damien Broderick, The Spike: How Our Lives Are Being Transformed by Rapidly Advancing Technologies

Bill Joy, “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us,” Wired, April 2000

Jay W. Richards, editor, Are We Spiritual Machines? Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong A.I.

On future trends:

John Brockman, editor, The Next Fifty Years: Science in the First Half of the Twenty-First Century

James Canton, The Extreme Future: The Top Trends That Will Reshape the World in the Next 20 Years

Mike Wallace, editor, The Way We Will Be 50 Years from Today: 60 of the World’s Greatest Minds Share Their Vision of the Next Half Century

Prologue

APRIL 3, 2088

I see your neurons firing, Ray.”

The voice was familiar, one Ray Caldwell had known for decades. Bryson Nichols’s face came into view overhead.

I must be on my back.

He had no such sensation. He tried to turn his head to the right, then the left. It didn’t respond. He tried moving his fingers. No sensation. Panic swept through him. He was paralyzed.

“I brought you back to consciousness to let you know about the procedure.”

The procedure. On whom? There were no more procedures scheduled. Caldwell had canceled them all.

Nichols’s face slid in and out of view as he hovered above and behind, wielding surgical instruments with which Caldwell was all too familiar.

No…He wouldn’t …

Nichols spoke calmly as he worked. “I do so apologize for having drugged you. But it was the only way. You know how much I’ve valued our working relationship—our friendship—these many years. I’d never do anything to jeopardize that friendship.

“But you were acting nonsensically, Ray. Halting the procedures at this point was sheer madness. I told myself it was the onset of disease, that you weren’t thinking straight. Or perhaps you were having cold feet about your own procedure. In any case, for your own good, I had to accelerate the schedule.”

Nichols paused, his upside-down face fixed in Caldwell’s line of vision, smiling. “Your alphas reveal your reluctance, but I do forgive your response, Ray. I know that, once the procedure is complete, we’ll see eye to eye.”

Caldwell examined Nichols’s face as he spoke. He was calm, purposeful, self-assured. No trace of consternation concerning the crime he was about to commit.

“Oh, Ray, to be free at last from the constraints of biological intelligence. How I wish I were in your shoes!”

The room fell silent save for Nichols’s movements and the methodical hum of neural scanners. Caldwell knew the routine. He had performed it himself numerous times, though not to completion.

Think! He had to think. Within the hour he would be disconnected from his biological brain…forever. If only he could talk, he could dissuade Nichols from—

Nichols’s face reappeared. The procedure was ready, Caldwell intuited. Now was his final chance to change his destiny.

“… pat your hand, Ray. But I know you can’t feel it. I want you to know that I’ll be with you throughout.”

Nichols leaned closer to Caldwell’s face, his voice softening. “I have to admit, I’m envious. We had always planned on my being the one unveiled. And now it appears you will be the world-famous one—the first transhuman.”

He straightened up. “I could be bitter, being supplanted by you in that regard. But of what value, ultimately, is the recognition we receive for our achievements? Is it not of minor importance compared to the contribution we make to the advancement of our species—of the evolution of the universe itself?”

Nichols glanced to his right. “I can tell by your scan that you still aren’t in full agreement.” He cocked his head slightly. “Ray, are your gammas spiking? I recognize that configuration. Are you trying to tell me something?”

He turned back toward his patient and shook his head. “You never cease to amaze me. I doubt any of our colleagues could manipulate their brain waves with such ease. That’s why I teamed up with you so many years ago. Always amazing.”

Nichols stepped away from Caldwell’s sight, then reappeared. “I’m putting you back to sleep now, Ray. When you wake up, everything will be complete. Your misgivings, whatever they may be, will be alleviated. You’ll be everything we have worked toward. Everything humanity has dreamed of for millennia. Our friendship, our partnership in this grand endeavor, will continue. Shortly you’ll perform the procedure on me. The two of us will lead humanity into its greatest adventure.” He smiled broadly. “See you on the other side.”

With all his will Ray Caldwell commanded his arms to move, his legs to break free from the bands that held him to the surgical table. But it was no use. In a few moments he would lose consciousness. When he awoke, he would be missing the only thing that made life—existence itself, even—worthwhile.

Drowsiness stalked him. His mind began to swim.

Three hours and six minutes later Caldwell’s new brain powered up. He awoke. Electronic impulses coursed through the silicon mass that his cranium now housed.

Terror seized him. He bolted upright and scanned the room. His gaze landed upon the smiling face of Bryson Nichols standing four feet away.

“O brave new world that has such people in it, Ray. How do you feel, my friend?”

Past Nichols, in a glass jar, he spotted the three-pound mass of gray matter that had been extracted from him. His terror subsided into resigned grief. What he had feared most had come to pass.

It was gone. Utterly gone. He had lost his connection.

1

THREE WEEKS LATER

I always expected to teach history. I never expected to make it. Making history is the stuff of inventors and politicians and astronauts. Not professors. Especially not those with both feet in the past.

Visitors to my office—and they are few, since no one is on college campuses anymore—are always struck by what they regard as the antiques. The brass doorknob that requires a physical key. The mechanical clock. The metal nameplate with “Creighton Daniels” etched into it. The sea of books.

Meeting me in my virtual reality office (identical to my physical one), students are always surprised by two things: the books and the smell. They are one and the same, of course. Have enough old books on hand, and you get a musty smell. No one knows that anymore, because no one owns books.

With the exception of the door and a large window directly behind my desk, my office walls are covered by floor-to-ceiling wood bookcases filled to overflowing. “Where’d you get all these books?” students ask. The less polite ones add, “And why do you have them?”

I like being surrounded by books. Always have, even as a kid. I used to visit my grandparents’ house and climb up in the attic and dig through dusty boxes looking for old kids’ volumes. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Harry Potter, the Planet Nine series…the classics.

“Why don’t you just experience those stories in virtual reality like the other kids?” my father would ask. He worried I’d fall behind the times technologically. Which I did. But I also cultivated a love of books and, with it, a love of learning.

By the time I finish explaining why I’m a bibliophile, most students scrunch their noses and ask, “What is that smell?” At which point I expose them to the delights of holding old books: the feel when you take one off the shelf, the aroma when you open it, the hint of mustiness. There’s nothing quite like it.

This particular Wednesday I walked down the deserted third floor of McMinnus Hall to my office and started my morning routine. I grabbed a cup of coffee, sat at my desk, took a bite into a toasted cranberry bagel, and pulled up my Grid interface.

“Good morning, Alistair.”

Alistair appeared in one of the two chairs across the desk. “Good morning, Creighton. How did you sleep?”

“Well, thank you. Access CulturePulse, please.”

Alistair frowned. “You still have seven dissertations to review before the end of the term. I can access the current one for you.”

I sighed. Dissertation reviews. The bane of my profession. Having neural implants that enhanced reading speed and comprehension by a factor of eight didn’t make five hundred pages of “National Stereotyping in Virtual Reality Programming and Its Effects on Preadolescent Cross-Cultural Relationships” any more enticing.

I did what I always do when faced with an unpleasant task.

“CulturePulse first, Alistair.”

A hundred electronic images appeared in the air above my desk—the cultural items that received the most hits on the Grid in the previous twenty-four hours.

“Number one, please.”

The image on the far left moved to the chair next to Alistair. It was an attractive young woman with short brown hair, dressed in a blue sundress and sandals. Her name was Jade, from Auburn, Michigan. She’d had a dream in which Jesus appeared to her.

The second image appeared, a young man dressed in a beige T-shirt and jeans. He’d had the same dream. I scanned the remaining images. Twenty-two of the ninety-eight were the identical story.

I picked up my coffee cup and leaned back in my chair. How did all these people have the same dream? And why are they all from North America?

An audio-only tap interrupted my thoughts. City of Champaign Police Department. This can’t be good news.

“This is Creighton Daniels.”

“Mr. Daniels—is it ‘mister’ or ‘doctor’?” The voice was low, the speech slow.

“Either is fine. Is anything the matter?”

“Mr. Daniels, the Grid lists you as the primary contact for your father, Eli Daniels.”

I sat up straight in my chair. “That’s correct. Is he all right?”

There was a pause. “I’m sorry to have to tell you. Your father has committed suicide.”

The police officer climbed out of his car when he saw me pull up in front of my dad’s place. “Mr. Daniels? Officer Stefan Hixon”

We shook hands.

“You went to the morgue to identify him?”

I nodded.

“A crying shame, a man that young, in his eighties. At least it was painless. Did he give any indication?”

“No. Not to me, at least. They said he left a suicide message.”

“Yeah, I need you to look it over and check out his place. This is all just a formality since they’ve done the autopsy.”

We walked through the front door into the modest, sixty-year-old house where my dad lived his last two decades. Though we visited in virtual reality once or twice a month, I hadn’t been to his house in eleven years. It looked the same: immaculate. My dad was a neat freak, a gene he had failed to pass along.

The officer started the visual. Dad was sitting at his desk at home, expressionless. But he was always expressionless. “This is just a simple message for those I leave behind,” he said. “I’m fortunate to have had so many good friends and family, especially my university colleagues. I’ve appreciated you all. But now it’s time for me to say good-bye. I’ve been diagnosed with CJD, which has no cure. I haven’t told anyone this, not wanting to burden you with my troubles. The doctors give me only a few months of rapid deterioration. I don’t want to go out that way, and I don’t want to be remembered that way. This is better for all of us. My fond farewell to you all.”

That was it.

Why didn’t he tell me? And why didn’t he have more to say than a fond farewell?

The officer shook his head. “That’s rough, man. I’m sorry.” He glanced around the living room. “Well, I just need you to make sure everything seems normal. It’s just you, I take it? No brothers or sisters?”

“No.”

“A life partner?”

“His last one was years ago.”

“Parents?”

“They’re in Washington State. I don’t think he’s talked to them in years.”

He nodded. “I get this a lot—only children having to do everything themselves. That’s the way it is anymore, I suppose.” He paused, then motioned toward the door. “I’ll just wait over there. Take your time looking around. Just don’t remove anything for now.”

I walked slowly around the living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, and bath. Everything looked normal, but I wasn’t exactly the best judge. I drifted into my dad’s study and sat down at his desk. Everything on the desk top was in perfect order. I opened a drawer and glanced at some electronic accessories, neatly arranged. I opened another and pulled out a disheveled stack of papers. I wasn’t sure what surprised me more, the papers or the disarray. Dad never kept things that way. I flipped through them. None seemed particularly important.

I looked in the bottom drawer. A bowl. Dad always ate popcorn at his desk. An old model electronic writing pad. I opened it. It was dusty—probably hadn’t been used in years. I started to close the pad, then noticed that something had been tucked inside the cover pocket. I pulled out an old-style digital storage device. No one had used these for two decades.

I glanced toward the front of the house. The officer had momentarily gone into virtual reality.

I slipped the device into my pocket.

2

NINE DAYS LATER

Abigail Caldwell’s eyes blinked open. Painfully she lifted her head off the wood bottom of the dugout canoe and glanced at the sun shining between the endless colonnades of trees overhanging both sides of the river.

Early afternoon. I’m heading east.

She sat erect and looked at the jungle on both sides, then at the bends in the river fore and aft. Nothing was familiar. She reached for her oar and began to row, the handcrafted paddle cutting swiftly through the water. Her arms and shoulders felt stiff. She focused on the mechanics of her stroke. Back straight. Arms relaxed.

Mosquitoes, stirred by her awakening, returned. Swatting them occupied her arms full-time, bringing her rowing to a halt—a luxury she couldn’t afford. She let the mosquitoes feed.

She was so hungry and thirsty. She hadn’t eaten in two days, had no time to stop and forage for food, and didn’t want to risk venturing alone into unfamiliar jungle. She slid her hand over the side of the canoe, cupped some brown water, and drank. It was rancid, but the liquid felt welcome on her tongue and her lips.

At least she had slept. Prior to leaving in the canoe, she hadn’t slept for two nights. She had been too much in demand, tending the sick. Her body craved more sleep now. She could feel the heaviness in her head and muscles, but she couldn’t indulge it. She had to keep going.

The sun drifted downward. Her canoe traversed an endless series of switchback curves—at this moment east, at this one west. She pressed to push the oar through the water at a consistent pace. She noticed her posture failing and straightened. Ten minutes later she straightened again. Finally she resigned herself to a permanent, aching slouch.

Night fell. The jungle erupted into a cacophony of hoots, grunts, wails, and caws. A guttural scream brought silence to the entire rain forest. She jerked her head and stared into the blackness. Her own hand was invisible to her.

She fought a growing panic. Could she survive another moonless night on the river? Proceeding was terribly risky. At any moment the canoe might crash into a fallen tree, a boulder, or a low-lying bridge, spilling her into water infested with crocodiles and river sharks. Worse, she didn’t know when the river might turn into rapids that could send her swirling beneath the brackish water.

The danger was unavoidable; she had to reach the coast. If she failed, the village—everything she had ever known—would die.

Hour after hour, she rowed. Exhaustion overcame her. She finally stopped rowing and let the current carry her. She closed her eyes. She slept. She dreamed. A dark-skinned little girl approached her with a white rose of Sharon.

“Where did you find this, Miraba?”

“By the river.”

“This flower doesn’t grow in our jungle.”

“There was only one.”

The girl placed the flower at her own feet. It grew, slowly enveloping her.

“I’m going for help, Miraba. Hold on.”

“Xén, bi náana ‘nû ten la.” My heart is with you always, Mama.

She woke when her face hit the water. She gasped and sucked in a mouthful of black liquid. She tried coughing it out but only sucked in more. Her feet thrashed, and her arms flailed, and she moved through the water—whether up or down, she didn’t know. Her head smashed into something solid. She stopped momentarily, dazed.

I have to breathe!

She raised her hands above her head and felt an object. The canoe. She thrust upward to her right, her head finally breaking the surface. She gasped, retched, and reached for the canoe. She touched it and clung to it and coughed up black water. She wanted nothing more than to hold on and simply drift downstream. But that was likely fatal. She had to get back into the dugout.

Hand over hand, she silently made her way to the stern. She placed one hand on each side of the canoe and lunged upward, lifting her torso out of the water and onto the craft. She lunged again, her waist straddling the stern. The canoe tipped precariously. Guardedly, she dragged her legs onto the canoe and collapsed inside.

In sudden desperation she ran her hands along the inside of the canoe. Where is my paddle? She felt something move under her palm and grasped it. The paddle. She briefly breathed a sigh of relief, then resumed a frantic search of the canoe but failed to find her other vital possession: her knife. She was defenseless.

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