The Red Wolf

He is officially the oldest person alive. His public documents say his name is “Martin Scorsese”. He has chosen this name himself, homage to some actor for the XX century, I believe. The actual name is classified, along with his historical records, under the Privacy Act.

Mr Scorsese was once know as “The Red Wolf”. He was a German office before World War 2. One of the minds behind the Werewolf Brigades, trained many of those infamous agents who lived normal civilian lives during day, and served as agents of institutionalized terror during the night.

At some point during that war Mr Scorsese betrayed his nation, and his convictions. No one knows if was a sincere conversion to the Marxist ideals of Soviet Union, or if he lost sympathy for the image of Hitler and became attracted by the magnetic figure of Stalin.

I suspect he cannot remember himself. If he ever knew which was his main motivation.

Fact is that he turned from Germany to Soviet Union. Impressed his superiors as spy and as a sniper. Earning for himself a place in the Project Superman of URSS. One of the many secret super-soldier projects. Destinate to disaster. Like all similar initiatives conduced by all sides in that War, and during the Cold War that followed it.

The Red Wolf was a singular case, impossible to replicate.

Obviously not a failure, would be imprecise to call it a success.

He developed cancer. Bone Marrow cancer, intestinal cancer, cancer in the stomach and in the liver. Brain cancer, and skin cancer, in several parts of his body. Cancer in the lungs.

All those conditions remained chronical. Ever now and them one would evolve up to final stages. With all correspondent symptoms. Before decline in intensity.

Must have been a less than ideal quality of life.

He kept working as consultant for the Russian intelligence, but his diseases didn’t allowed him much time to work. Between work and hospital, there was little ground for life.

Despite that, the German naturalized Soviet, and now Russian, did not die. Year after year.

Even the development of Genetic Medicine in the last decades of XXI century, leading to biological immortality in the XXII century, didn’t help Mr Scorsese much.

His case provided material of study for the Longevity Medicine but it could not help him immediately.

Subsequent improvements during Baby Steps Age improved his quality of life. Despite that, he reached the year 2500 as the last human being still suffering from cancer.

Mr Scorsese works as consultant for matters of National Defence and intelligence for another 75 years after that. Still residing in the same apartment in Moscol, where he moved to after the end of World War 2.

By this point the painkillers available to him allowed a live almost entirely normal. Except for those months when one of his many cancers reached the terminal stage, before decline again. It happened always without warning, but by this point the Red Wolf and the medical team working his case were used to the routine.

At that time Saturn Orbital Community was conquering the reputation of most advanced scientific powerhouse in the Solar System. It applied to many fields, but particularly to medical sciences.

Attracted by this reputation the Red Wolf moved from Russia to Confucious IX. A sovereign space-station with national status. Home to 1 trillion human beings, and build with a population of 3 trillions in mind. The Red Wolf moved from the position of consultant back into regular military career.

He reached the rank of Divine General, the highest at the time in his new adoptive nation. Almost ascended to the position of dictator, but was saved from that by his aversion for public attention. What as fortuned, since the man who got the job instead of him faced **** less than 2 legal years later.

With the regime he was involved with falling apart, the Red Wolf was **** to escape.

He moves back to Earth and lives another 20 years there. This time in Saint Petersburg.

Working as a freelancer journalist he moves to Pyongyang, in Joseon, for half a decade. Then back to his hometown in Germany, for a couple of years. He keeps the Russian nationality all this time, however.

Until he left the birthplanet of Humanity again. This time to join the growing community dedicated to prepare the ground from Expansion Age at the edges of Solar System.

Same aversion for public attention responsible for saving his life in Confucious IX maimed his journalistic career. In a time of constant public exposition, when most people wanted to see the faces of public figures and hear them speak, instead of just read their texts.

In the year 3.000 of Expansion Age Mr Scorsese inscribe himself in the project to reunite genetically engineered subhumans considered to have “high telepathic capacity” in an isolated space-station orbiting Mystery System. The place where the largest disaster of Expansion Age had happened about 2.000 years before.

Martin didn’t actually believed in telepathy when he joined the project. He was as familiar with the amazing developments of genetic engineering during Baby Steps Age, and the Expansion Age up to that moment. Despite that, being a creature from Earth, born and raised before the Human Genome Project even start, to take the subject of genetic engineered telepaths seriously was difficult to him.

In any case, the status of reality of that was irrelevant to him at this point. The position of chief of security in this project was prestigious, and included indirect benefits that seemed attractive to him. Besides, security is security, doesn’t matter if you are keeping safe a science lab or a circus.

Money was not an issue to the Red Wolf. Had not been for a long time. Not just thanks to his own personal investments.

Mostly due to the strange and contradictory way humanity started dealing with biological immortality in humans, since around the year 500 of Expansion Age.

By one side the Consensus of Alexandria had ended the legal possibility of humans being biologically immortal. Ever human being born after the **** Like in the late years of Baby Steps Age was limited to live only 300 years.

Most of those born before that date had voluntarily renounced their privilege of keeping both human status and biological immortality. Those born after the **** Line could became biologically immortal still, but for that they had to sign away their rights as humans. Accept to be reduced to the status of property, like the intelligent uplifted beasts, such as dogs and cats. The decision of give up immortality to avoid being hypocritical was lauded as right and moral by all.

Accordingly, those humans who kept the immortality allowed to them by law, under the Consensus of Alexandria, suffered some public reprehension. It was framed upon, as a less than morally decent decision.

On the other hand, and at the same time, a sort of reverential respect and admiration started to develop. With the “oldest humans alive” in focus.

Particularly those humans born before Baby Steps Age, specially those from the XX century and early XXI.

Someone, somewhere, created a “Memory Tribute Fund”. Voluntary, at first, it was elevated to law by most human nations in the galaxy between 400 and 500 of Expansion Age.

Every human being listed in the found, individually or as citizen of a nation, contributes with a few cents from every salary. A small percentage. Those resources are administrated by a High AI, and distributed to the “Old Ones” periodically, proportionally to their age.

Since the number of humans born before Baby Steps only goes down, because biological immortality is not real immortality mind you. And the number of people contributing with the fund only goes up. Due to the fast grow of humanity in the galaxy. The symbolic initiative now distributes a considerable fortune to each beneficiary.

Being the number 1 in the list the Red Wolf, Mr Martin Scorsese, gets more money than anyone else. By this point he could probably afford the costs of building a Seeding Vessel all by himself. If he decided to invest all his patrimony.

However, many things money cannot buy nowadays.

Money can get you a comfortable shell to isolate yourself from other people. However, the respect of other people only can be achieved by professional status. And “owner” is no longer considered a valid profession. Administrator is a different matter.

However, everybody knows that High AIs do most the actual administrative work. Since they are astronomically superior to any human in that field. You only get credit for what you do, by yourself, and in the case of administration credit is only due when what you do result in better consequences than what the average High AI would have done.

Therefore, administration is a field very few humans dare to step. For good reason.

The Red Wolf left Solar System a couple of years after finally cure his last cancer. Took complete replacement of his skeleton by cyborg bones, and most of his organs too. The brain tumours remained unconquered all that time, until a new and revolutionary technique was developed, tailored specifically to his unique condition.

Having studied this case, I am glad to know that judge him morally is not my place. Despite that, I cannot escape entirely the impulse to do so.

Mr Scorsese is not a good person, morally, by any standard or stretch of imagination. He is serious, competent, trustworthy, and funny. Very pleasant conversation. What makes sense considering his professional formation as a spy, and trainer of spies.

He was, in the most literal sense possible, a nazi. No metaphor involved.

That alone could make him a controversial character in most circles. Even today.

He then changes his loyalty to communist Stalin administration. What depending on where you are can be considered marginally better, a lot better, or marginally worse. Few nations declare themselves fully National Socialist. The population of those nations is many times more numerous than the entire population of Earth by the end of Baby Steps, to say nothing about World War 2. Nevertheless, nowadays, they are a small drop in a very large ocean. Communist Stalinism is far more popular, but, still, does not reach 1% of humanity in the galaxy.

Whatever you think about the ideological justification, his actual, concrete, work before getting sick was as violent as war can be. He was better informed about the atrocities being perpetrated by his govern, both as a German and as a Soviet, than most military officials.

Was directly responsible for some of the worse atrocities perpetrated during WW2.

Stayed deeply involved with the darkest secrets of secret military operations for a very long time. After his diseases **** him out of the field. Confining him to “desk job”.

Even as a journalist, he never believed the public has the right to know everything about “how the sausages are made” inside public security agencies. Instead, he helped cover secrets and hide conspirations of violent nature. For the sake of institutional stability.

He does not believe in democracy, his respect for human life is farcical, his empathy towards any kind of victim is non-existent.

This man endured considerable physical suffering. Possibly more pain than any other person in human history. For far less I would have embraced suicide myself. He never considered give up life. I suppose that could count a “redeeming” quality. Of sort. His commitment with survival. However, one could say that was a symptom of his unique disease, ratter than a trace of character.

Despite all that, in person, he is a very pleasant fellow.

Hard to remember his shady past, when you are talking with the man face to face. There is really nothing intimidating or arrogant in his manners. On the contrary.

I honestly don’t know what make with all that.

A small part of me is really happy to see him living the Solar System.

His new home, after the Seeding Vessel reserved for this mission, will be Othershore. A secret facility at the edge of Mystery System.

“Suicide Mission” say most whom have access to the privileged information about it.

To place that many telepaths in one place. From many different species, to make things worse. It has no chance to not end up badly for every person nearby. Looks like a plan to cause a “short circuit” in their mental aura. In order to see if the ‘explosion’ attracts any attention from whatever is responsible for the “mystery” in Mystery System.

Since Mr Red Wolf do not even believe in telepathy he cannot be taking seriously the risk.

Or can he?

If he is aware of this danger, then maybe his long-lasting commitment with survival at any cost has reached the finishing line.

Shame, if this is the case. Because that would take from his character its only redeeming quality.