But first, please indulge my curiosity. An ice castle in the air, the best and the brightest frozen solid. I'm intrigued.
You know what these are? They're horseshoe crabs. Decades ago, it was discovered that their plasma contained limulus amebocyte lysate, which can be used to detect bacterial endotoxins.
I found a way to synthesize it.
That's how you made your fortune.
But more important, they were the inspiration for my vision. They have survived four mass extinctions. We are now on the cusp of the final mass extinction, caused by a species of clever but greedy primates known as homo sapien.
Everyone dies, Mr. Crandall.
Death is a process. No one is really dead until the information contained in the brain is lost. Cryonic preservation prevents that loss.
Are you a gambling man, Crispin?
No. I abhor casinos.
Oh, yes. Well, I would agree with you there. But perhaps you're familiar with the old saw "You can't beat the house"? No matter how many poor souls you turn into popsicles, the fix is in.
The world in which you awaken will be one incapable of sustaining human life. And why? Because at the critical tipping point, one tragically quixotic megalomaniac cannibalized humanity of the very minds that might have been its salvation.
You see, if you were a betting man, you would understand that now trumps later every time.
The future is a sucker's bet, a maybe, a contingency, a "What if?"
The only thing that is real is the present, and you've plundered it, robbed it of the very geniuses that might have averted the dystopia you so fear.
Indeed, perhaps even the very one who might have devised a means to revive your sad, tired, frozen ass.
Congratulations, Crispin. You've doubled down on extinction.
Life on Earth is going to end. Soon. Cryonics is our only hope.
It won't work.
I'm betting it will.
Ah. So you are a gambling man. Let's place that bet, shall we? [Shoots him in the chest]
What was that? I thought I heard—
What happened? Is he dead?
Dead? Pishposh. What's death? It's just a process, right?
