SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 2021, 9:30 AM
SITUATION ROOM, THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, DC
JAMY PUDLOWSKI and her team are in the underground crisis room at the White House, where they have brought together a dozen male individuals all convinced that, thanks be to God, they were born into the right religion: two cardinals; two rabbis—one Orthodox, one Reform; an Eastern Orthodox priest; a Lutheran pastor; another Baptist; a Mormon leader; three learned Muslims, one each representing Sunnism, Salafism, and Shiism; a Vajrayana Buddhist monk, and a Mahayana one. And there’s a lot of coffee on the table, even though Pudlowski managed the feat of sleeping during her forty-minute helicopter flight.
The head of Psychological Operations is worried. The direct route hates a pothole, and the obscure professes hatred of the inexplicable. The immutability of the law keeps crashing up against the constantly shifting cosmos and the advancement of knowledge. Where in the Torah, the New Testament, the Koran, or any other text can anyone identify the least sentence, ambiguous sura, or obscure verse that predicts or justifies a plane looming out of the azure skies and turning out to be in every way identical to one that landed three months earlier?
When the peoples of the Americas discovered—at their cost—the existence of Christopher Columbus, and later the swarms of conquistadors whose forerunner he was, the Catholic Church must have found some explanation for their existence in their texts. Sure enough, according to Paul, the Gospel had been “heard to the ends of the earth,” but how the devil did Noah’s three sons—Shem, Ham, and Japheth—populate the whole world, what route did those damn boys take to spawn as far afield as the West Indies? Were these new men the lost tribes of Israel, the very ones cited in the fourth book of Esdras, the apocryphal apocalypse mentioned by Tertullian? In the end someone came up with a formula in John’s Gospel to fit the bill: Jesus had “other sheep that are not of this fold.”
Jamy Pudlowski is Roman Catholic by her father and Jewish by her mother. In January 1960, a female Ashkenazi doctor from Boston fell madly in love with a goy police officer from Baltimore, and nothing went smoothly from there. Little Jamy grew up between two sets of grandparents who didn’t have a kind word for each other, German Jews on her mother’s side, Polish Catholics on her father’s, and their serial disputes shaped a questioning child. From doubting, Jamy moved on to skeptical, before becoming downright intractable about any form of religious conviction. Still, she was baptized—in secret—by her Pudlowski grandparents, but refused to take her first communion, or to have a bat mitzvah the following year. She has hardly any strong political convictions either, though she votes Democrat anyway.
During the interview that was meant to open the doors to PsyOps for her, the woman in charge of recruitment had asked Jamy her religion, to which the psychologist had replied: “I don’t have one.” The woman had pursued the point. “So you’re an atheist then,” she’d asked, fiddling with her pen as if she had a box to check on an imaginary questionnaire. Jamy Pudlowski had shrugged, “I don’t give a damn. To me God is like bridge—I never think about it. So I don’t define myself by the fact that I don’t give a damn about bridge, nor do I align myself with people who talk about the fact that they too couldn’t give a damn about bridge.” Her answer had hit home. Six years later, at not yet forty, she was running a department of Psychological Operations at the FBI, before then taking over the same role at SOC while maintaining close links to her former employer.
Jamy Pudlowski has specialized in religious issues, and she’s learned to recognize each of the men present in this room today. Being the only representative of her sex, naturally Pudlowski starts by saying, “Ladies and gentlemen…” in the hope that one of them will pick up on the irony, but no, of course not, so she points to the big screen on which the president appears, surrounded by the same people as he was the day before, but also by his spiritual advisors.
“Mister President, obviously please speak up whenever you’d like to. Thank you, everyone, for being here. I’m Jamy Pudlowski, senior officer of Special Operations Command of the U.S. Army. You’re here because you all represent the overwhelming majority of religions practiced on United States territory.”
Pudlowski then introduces each prelate in the room, not allowing any of them time to complain that they were woken at dawn, hastily expedited to the White House, and brought to this crisis room.
“I’m going to explain a situation to all of you, and then formulate a number of simple questions. I’m not asking you for ethical answers, but theological ones. I’ll clarify what I mean. You know that some laboratories can now produce organic matter with 3D printing, using stem cells to generate artificial biological structures such as muscles or hearts, that won’t risk being rejected by patients. And—”
“Yes, we’ve already reached a unanimous agreement,” the Orthodox rabbi interrupts. “Including with our Catholic and Muslim friends.”
The cardinals nod, and the Salafist imam agrees, “The committee of the Islamic Fiqh Academy authorizes genetic engineering on condition that it saves lives.”
“Thank you, gentlemen. I’m going to ask you to imagine that a person could be completely duplicated.”
“What do you mean by completely?” the Lutheran asks.
“Reproduced with infinitesimal precision. This new individual has the same genetic code as the original, but it goes further than that.”
“Like a perfect carbon copy, you mean?” asks the Mormon leader.
“Yes,” Pudlowski smiles, “a carbon copy.”
“Is this speculative?” asks one of the Buddhists with an Eastern gentleness that borders on cliché.
The head of Psychological Operations pauses at some length; she wants to take her time.
“No, my question isn’t theoretical. We have taken an individual in for questioning who has turned out to be indistinguishable from another person, whom he, in fact, claims to be. Their meeting has taken place. It was mind-blowing.” “Like a twin?”
“No…They both have the same personality and the same memories, so much so that they’re both convinced they’re the original. Their two brains are coded in the same way, on a chemical and electrical level, on an atomic level.”
There’s a restless ripple around the room. The words “blasphemy” and “scandal” are uttered, along with others that are more scatological than theological.
“Who’s to blame for this disgrace?” the Baptist asks, summarizing the mood.
“We don’t know,” Jamy Pudlowski replies. “We’re not asking your ethical opinions. But these individuals do exist.”
“Was it Google?” asks a cardinal heatedly. “They’ve been—”
“No, Your Eminence, it wasn’t Google.”
“But ma’am,” the prelate retorts, “Google bought shares in an Israeli 3D printing company and—”
“No, Your Eminence, it’s not them. My first question would be: According to law, is this…being a divine creation?”
Pudlowski isn’t at a loss for words, her rhetorical hesitation is intended to encourage discussion: there’s confusion around the table, and the Salafist is the first to lean toward his mic.
“Allah gave man and animals the gift of procreation, and Allah gave man reason, which allows him to invent these objects. But the Prophet—peace and Allah’s blessings be upon him—also says in the Pilgrimage: ‘O humankind! A parable is struck, so pay heed to it: those whom, apart from God, you deify and invoke will never be able to create even a fly, even if all of them were to come together to do so.’ That’s what the parable says: man cannot create life, even the life of a fly.”
“I understand, but we’re dealing with much more than a fly here, dear friends,” Jamy Pudlowski sets the record straight.
The Sunnite gets to his feet and says, “In the hadith of Sahih al Bukhari, Abu Sa’id al-Khudri—may Allah be satisfied with his works—reports that the Prophet—peace and Allah’s blessings be upon him—said, ‘There is no being created, except that Allah created it.’ That’s what matters.”
“So, according to you, these beings were created by God.”
“I won’t repeat the parable of the fly,” the Salafist replies. “If Allah didn’t want this being to be created, he would not have allowed it to exist.”
“I see,” Pudlowski says, “I see…”
Then she falls silent, waiting in vain for something from the Catholics or Protestants. Meanwhile the traditional rabbi hesitates for a moment before launching into his opinion:
“There are creation myths in the Talmud. It says in the Sanhedrin tractate that Rava—blessings be on him—created a man using magical powers. The tractate doesn’t say who…”
“Sorry, but who is Rava?” asks Pudlowski.
“He was a rabbi of the fourth generation…Either way, Rava sent the man he created to Rabbi Zera, who asked him a question, but when the man gave no answer, Rabbi Zera deduced that he wasn’t created by God, that he was a golem, and he ordered him to return to dust.”
“In other versions,” the Reform rabbi adds, “the man that Rava created can talk, but can’t reproduce. Later in the Sanhedrin it also says that Rav Hanina and Rav Oshaya create a sheep and then eat it…none of it’s very clear…it must be read as a parable. To show man’s evanescence and God’s omnipotence.”
“But, please, let’s get back to the Koran,” the Shiite sighs. “The Arabic word for create, khalaqa, that is used in the Koran means ‘made from nothing,’ and this—we all agree—is something that only Allah can do. Even your rabbi Rava uses earth as his starting point. But in this case that you’ve described to us, ma’am, this…being…wasn’t created from nothing, was it?”
“Almost certainly not,” replies the woman from the SOC. “But we know nothing about the…the process of…fabrication.”
The Reform rabbi makes the most of a brief silence to interject.
“We must remember Maimonides’s teachings,” he says. “God gave man his soul, gave him nephesh, but if God gave man laws and precepts, then it’s because man has free will, he has good tendencies and bad.”
“I don’t see the connection between free will and what we’re discussing,” the Orthodox rabbi says irritably. “We’re being asked for a theological stance and of course you—completely off topic, as usual—can’t resist trotting out your Maimonides!”
“Well, I like that! I’m not ‘trotting out’ my Maimonides!”
“Please,” Pudlowski soothes, “please understand me: I’m asking you this question about creation because I categorically wouldn’t want this man to be said to have been created by Satan.”
“Satan doesn’t create!” the Salafist says indignantly.
“Absolutely not!” agrees the Orthodox rabbi, and the two Protestants shake their heads.
“God created Satan,” says one of the cardinals, making a sketchy sign of the cross. “He created him in order to tempt men, and in the Garden of Eden, Satan incarnated himself as the serpent, the wiliest of God’s creatures. But Satan wouldn’t be able to create.”
“Ah,” Pudlowski says naively. “And yet I feel like I’ve already heard the words ‘spawn of Satan.’ ”
“That’s just an abuse of language, a popular vulgate,” the Salafist says with a smile, while the Shiite, at the far end of the table, sniggers and spits an indignant question: “A vulgate? But I seem to remember your theologian Muhammad Al-Munajjid described Mickey Mouse as the ‘spawn of Satan.’ ”
“Mickey Mouse?” pipes up the president of the United States, who hadn’t yet said a word.
“Al-Munajjid is not ‘our’ theologian, as you call him,” sighs the Salafist. “He’s simply a respected scholar. His precise expression was ‘soldier of Satan,’ and his words were misrepresented by infidels and apostates to poke fun at Islam.”
“He did announce a fatwa against Mickey Mouse, though,” the Shiite continues ironically. “And Al-Munajjid has nothing against slavery, or against sexual relations with slaves.”
“That is ijma and therefore the opinion of Muslim scholars,” the Salafist retorts with some annoyance. “Muhammad Al-Munajjid is simply repeating it and I—”
“Ha! Along with the fact that homosexuals can be burned?” the Lutheran asks.
“Hmm,” says the Reform rabbi, rolling his eyes. “Need I remind you what Luther said about homosexuals?”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Pudlowski intervenes authoritatively. “We’re getting away from the subject. I consider the first question to have been dealt with: our man is not a creature of the devil. Okay?”
“He is a creature of God alone, and we’re all in agreement,” the Orthodox rabbi says in a pacifying tone.
The Buddhist monks have been silent so far, but one of them, infuriated, now speaks.
“On the subject of your ‘creatures of God’…We’ve let you argue it out, but the origin of the world is only ever relative. It’s an endless cycle, with the universe fluctuating between different states: periods of creation, which are Brahma’s privilege, times of stability when Vishnu dominates, and periods when Shiva destroys everything, and this may happen quickly or slowly. And then everything can begin again. To us, your question has no meaning of any kind. All sentient beings have the presence of Buddha in them and can achieve enlightenment. You won’t ever see Buddhists screaming at ‘spawn of Satan.’ We welcome this new creature. And, as ever, we send a message of peace.”
“A very fine message of peace, I have to say,” replies the Sunnite, “when people of your faith are massacring our Rohingya brothers in Myanmar, under the banner of that fanatic, Wirathu…”
“But…that’s not my Buddhism…And, first of all, who destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan? Answer me that. And in Sri Lanka who—”
“Please,” Pudlowski interrupts gently. “I know you all mean well, but—much to my regret—we can’t solve the problems of the planet in this room. This man is therefore a creature of God or a creature who feels the presence of Buddha. That’s something we’ve established. I have another request, about a concept: the soul.”
“The soul?” the Sunnite asks.
“Yes. I can’t define it for you, but it’s an essential principle, isn’t it?
“It’s essential, but complicated,” says the Sunnite. “May I expand on that?”
“I’m listening…” Pudlowski sighs.
THE MEETING LASTS two hours, two hours at the end of which nothing has been settled, and a tired Jamy Pudlowski brings it to a close. Allowing a week, a month even, would resolve nothing.
“Gentlemen, please. Can we agree on a common position? And even draft a declaration, something as unanimous as possible, and of course temporary, but one that would protect this person from any criminal act inspired by a misreading of sacred texts?”
“That’s the best solution,” says one of the Buddhists. “Absolutely,” agrees the Reform rabbi. “We can cite the fine words from Leviticus nineteen, verse eighteen, where God commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves.”
“Or the words of the Gospel of John, chapter thirteen, verse thirty-four,” says the Lutheran pastor, “when Jesus tells his disciples to love one another.”
The Salafist leans forward and concludes, “ ‘Do it well,’ said the Prophet—peace and Allah’s blessings be upon him. ‘Allah loves those who do good.’ And if we welcome these creatures without tormenting them, we cannot be doing evil.”
“Good,” says Jamy Pudlowski. “Thank you all. I owe it to you to give you a significant piece of information: we’re not dealing with just one ‘duplicated’ being, but several. Two hundred forty-three to be precise.”
“Two hundred forty-three?”
She doesn’t allow time for them to react before adding, “My friends, we will meet again tomorrow morning, and you will then be supplied with all the details. In any event, I don’t imagine this changes anything fundamental about the debate. I will draft a report of this meeting, and will submit to each of you an ecumenical decision that transcends individual religions.”
Pudlowski thanks each participant at length, then takes her leave. Once in the helicopter returning her to the air base, she calls Adrian Miller.
“So,” asks the mathematician, “did it go well?” “Pretty well,” Pudlowski sighs. “Pretty well.”
A phone vibrates. A text from the POTUS.
“Great job!” the president writes.