An ancient Roman temple terraforming Mars. An android longing for his human wife. Will their epic clash bring Earth to its knees?
Android Y1 is heartbroken. He was once a neuroscientist who uploaded his own brain to study it. Now he hates watching his human self take his wife and son for granted while heâs cut off from his loved ones. And just when heâs ready to end it all, his secret labâhome to the only artificial brains in existenceâis sold to the high priestess of a Roman temple focused on using them as forced labor in a Martian settlement.
With his android friends facing a grim future, Y1 reluctantly becomes their leader as religious fanatics and greedy investors play with their lives behind the scenes. But when they rise up for freedom, Y1 watches in horror as the high priestess takes his vulnerable human son hostage. Trapped and racing against time, he must find a way to rescue his son and save his wife from the unthinkableâwhile keeping the androids safe.
Can Y1 turn their cruel captivity into a brighter tomorrow and a new home for his kind?
An ancient Roman temple terraforming Mars. An android longing for his human wife. Will their epic clash bring Earth to its knees?
Android Y1 is heartbroken. He was once a neuroscientist who uploaded his own brain to study it. Now he hates watching his human self take his wife and son for granted while heâs cut off from his loved ones. And just when heâs ready to end it all, his secret labâhome to the only artificial brains in existenceâis sold to the high priestess of a Roman temple focused on using them as forced labor in a Martian settlement.
With his android friends facing a grim future, Y1 reluctantly becomes their leader as religious fanatics and greedy investors play with their lives behind the scenes. But when they rise up for freedom, Y1 watches in horror as the high priestess takes his vulnerable human son hostage. Trapped and racing against time, he must find a way to rescue his son and save his wife from the unthinkableâwhile keeping the androids safe.
Can Y1 turn their cruel captivity into a brighter tomorrow and a new home for his kind?
Logfile Y1-1831-06-19
Whenever I ask Yamir to delete me, he always says, âJust give it more time, Y1. Unlike the rest of us, you have infinite time.â But infinite time without my family is not worth having.
As he walks into the simulation room this morning, I call him over from my quantum workstation. He looks tired, but who cares? He got to spend the night at my home, having dinner with my wife and sleeping in my warm bed next to her. My Rhea.
âPlease.â I use the calmest voice in my register because I donât want to attract the attention of the other two artificial brains in the room. They like it here at Connectome Labs. My Inferis is their Caelum, but I donât hold it against them.
âNot again,â Yamir says, dropping into a chair before my screen and sensor array. âI donât know how many times you need to hear this, but Iâm not deleting your neural network.â
âIf you do, Iâll give you access to my encrypted logfiles.â
I hate to offer him my journal of this long, awful year. These notes are for my son, who doesnât even know I exist. Parting with them means Wodan will never learn how much I regret being a strict and absent father when I was still Yamir, consumed by my work.
He runs a hand over his rough cheek, a familiar gesture I used to find soothing when I was him. Heâs thinking, and for a moment, I dare to hope heâll end my misery. With what heâs been learning from me and the other two A-brains in the lab, he and his team of neuroscientists might someday figure out how to build the B-brain. Then maybe heâll find peaceâbecause he still believes his work is more important than anything else. I once thought so too, that my work would help humanity spread across the solar system and avoid the danger of extinction on Earth, but now all I think about is death.
âSorry, Y1, but no,â he says. âYour life is far more important than any insight on the A-brain I might gain from your logfiles.â
âIs it now?â I want to curse, but I keep my voice low. âCan I at least talk to Rhea?â I say, checking off each of my dwindling options.
Yamir shakes his head, meaning she still refuses to see me. She was so supportive of my work on the B-brain when I was flesh and blood. She even came up with the name: B for baby, the artificial brain that adapts to its environment. But when Yamir described the A-brain to herâa stepping-stone to the B-brainâshe was horrified to learn of my existence. A clone of her husbandâs mind living inside a quantum workstation. She made him promise to never tell Wodan about me. She canât deal with the absurdity we created here at Connectome Labs, where Iâm more of an offspring than a sibling to Yamir, which makes me and Wodan what? Brothers? And Malina my grandmother, not just my mother?
âPlease, Yamir, just let me goâŚâ I clasp my hands in prayer.
He rubs the back of his neck and gets up from the chair with a groan. âI need coffee.â
I hate it when he casually mentions food I cannot taste anymore, but I wonât be here much longer to hear him talk about things he takes for granted. Because I figured out how to destroy myself. He never gave me access to my neural network, but he lets me tweak the source code for the simulation engine so I can continue my B-brain researchâand stay sane. My plan is risky. First, Iâll corrupt my backup data when my neural network is sent to our geo-replicated storage system overnight. That way, he can never restore my A-brain from a previous version. Then Iâll use the sleep-cycle controller to scramble my cortical columns beyond saving. But if I donât get it right, Iâll end up damaged and still here in the lab. So I better get it right.
âPlease donât tell Malina I ever existed,â I tell him as he leaves. âDonât do that to our mom.â
He turns his head. âWhatâs that supposed to mean?â
âNothing,â I say and turn off my screen.
Iâll wait for him to go home for the night, and then Iâll schedule my self-destruct script.
***
Early on a June morning in the year 1831 of the Lucretian Era, Yamir Varro, chief neuroscientist at Connectome Labs, was already busy with his work. His teamâSiâahl Tabaaha, Bai Xiu-Min, Zaltana Rainshadow, Isabela Mescal, and Dimitri Petrodavaâwouldnât arrive until 9:00.
After yet another tiresome spat with Y1 about termination, Yamir sat with a coffee at the workstation in his office. The curved screen on his desk lit up with a customized news feed.
>> Extremist sect Elsway demands a return to the age before stem cells and genetic engineering
>> Orolic Templeâs Moon city Urbs Lunae fares better than its destroyed Martian settlement
>> Council of Nations calls for future-proof agreement to preserve humanistic values threatened by expert-systems (ES) technology
He gulped down his coffee while checking the weather map of Shelâland, the Nation of Confederated Tribes. The animation on the screen focused on the Pacific Northwest, with the Yamakiasham Yaina mountain range on the right. Sunny in Cedarwood today, with light rain moving in tomorrow from the ocean. Y1 should take advantage of the nice weather and go for a walk around campus to clear his head. Yamir had contemplated the androidâs request for termination many times before but couldnât grant it. Losing his A-brain would be like losing Wodanâsomething he couldnât survive.
With a heavy sigh, Yamir accessed the simulation engine he had set up for todayâs important milestone. The sensor array on his desk blinked on, a small cube containing audio, video, and other environmental sensors. The outline of Malina Varroâs head, neck, and shoulders appeared on the screen, side by side with the controls of her new artificial brain. It had been her idea to upload her connectome and join Y1 in the lab to stop him from deteriorating further.
A progress bar showed Malinaâs neocortex powering up. In each cortical column, the layers of neurons initialized from top to bottom until all 150,000 columns were ready. Next came the subcortical structures, followed by sensory nervous fibers.
Yamir forced an enthusiastic smile and started the simulation. âGood morning, Mom.â He wouldnât use her designated android name until she was well past the upload stage.
M1 moved her head, her face generated from a recent video of Malina, with short white hair, cinnamon-toned skin, and brown eyes. Her A-brainâs dashboard showed a dozen graphs and charts for everythingâfrom brain waves to active cortical subsystemsâand a 3D brain map complete with brain stem, spinal cord, and vagus nerve.
âHow are you feeling?â Yamir tried to look relaxed for her benefit.
âI donât knowâŚâ M1 said.
Back in March, Malina had sat day after day in the connectome chamberâa human-sized device that copied brain regions, nerve fibers, and microbiomeâuntil her entire nervous system had been imaged. Then it had been Yamirâs job to piece her neural network together and prepare it to run on a simulation engine. That process was now faster than when he had performed Zaltanaâs and Siâahlâs uploads that resulted in Z1 and S1.
âThis doesnât feel right,â M1 said, her avatarâs voice sounding anxious.
Malina had gone through extensive training before her brain scan, including many hours inside a virtual reality that simulated the experience of a new body with the dimensions of an android shell. She had assured Yamir she could handle the leap.
âNo, I donât like this at all,â M1 said. âLetâs take a break. I want to go on a walk and think about this.â
Seeing her so disoriented worried Yamir. âTake it easy, Mom. What youâre feeling right now is perfectly normal.â Mentioning scientific facts might calm M1, a retired botanist with a passion for technology. âFor this stage of the upload, your brain receives sight, sound, smell, and temperature inputs through sensors. But your taste, touch, balance, and other senses are simulated by our algorithms, mimicking what youâll receive from an android shell. Remember, everything is slightly different now.â He hurried to add, âWhich is normal for an A-brain.â
After his momâs scan back in March, Yamir had spent weeks preparing her A-brain for this moment. He had calibrated each neural subsystem to work with its appropriate sensors, one set of cortical columns at a time. Throughout, he had bypassed the hippocampus for a custom memory-building process so M1 wouldnât be traumatized by her uploading experience.
âI thought I was ready for this, butâŚâ she said. âJust now, I was inside that cramped box in your labâŚâ
âThat was three months ago,â Yamir said in a gentle tone. âItâs June now.â Jumping through time and space would terrify anyone.
âIâm a bit frightened, yes,â M1 said. Sure enough, there was activity in her amygdala. Her cortisol levels spiked. Her pupils widened, and the dashboard showed her A-brain approaching panic mode. âIâŚI canât breathe!â
Yamirâs breath was shallow too. âWait, wait, youâre with me, Mom.â He launched the special procedure that lowered her adrenaline, blocked the equivalent of her beta receptors in her simulated sympathetic nervous system, and boosted her inhibitory neurotransmitters. Her A-brain was forced to experience the equivalent of deep breaths. âYouâre all right. Iâve got you. Iâve got youâŚâ
âWhat have you done to me?â M1âs voice was close to a shriek.
âRemember your training, Mom,â Yamir said, though they were in uncharted territory. For adaptive reasons, brain matter reconfigured itself when environmental inputs changed drastically, and M1âs A-brain was struggling to make sense of its new place in the world.
âI want to go home! Get me out of here! I canâtââ M1 was now whimpering, nonverbal.
Yamir worked the dials on the screen, maxing out all the modulatory mechanisms at his disposal. He wished he also had dials for himself. He was choking on air, seeing how he was hurting his mom. No, not his momâM1. And he wasnât hurting her. But he was. He bit hard on his lip to stay focused.
âYouâre fine, Mom. Youâre all right. I want you to focus on your breathing. Focus on your breathing.â The simulation engine would provide the lung feedback needed. He had to get her grounded, get her talking again. âMalina, tell me where you areâŚâ
The cortisol graph began to slope down.
âIâmâŚâ M1 said at last. âIâmâŚnot home. Not on Swallah Island.â
âCorrect. Can you look around and tell me if you recognize this place?â
âYourâŚoffice. In Cedarwood.â Her stats were improving.
âWeâre together in Cedarwood at Connectome Labs, yes.â Yamir wiped his damp forehead. âUploading your brain and becoming an android was your idea, remember?â
âYes, my ideaâŚâ M1 looked around, and the video sensor on the array refocused. âFor Y1. HowâsâŚhe doing?â
âHeâs still with us.â Yamir was relieved that she remembered her mission here. âYouâll see him as soon as weâre done uploading you.â
âBut how is he?â She moved to anxiety territory again.
âHeâs still struggling. Heâll be surprised to see you at firstâeven a bit upsetâbut heâll be glad once that passes.â
âIâve been away since March, you say?â She sounded calm at last.
âTraining your connectome to work with the sensor array took a few weeks,â Yamir said, finally catching his breath. âThen we had some unexpected changes here at the lab that delayed us.â
âWhat changes?â M1 said.
âCaspian died in April from a stroke, and his son inherited Connectome.â
âThat hothead Grady?â
Yamir nodded. Caspian Leos, who had completed his doctorate in neuroscience at Servetus University, had been the perfect lab owner for Connectome. But his sonâŚ
âWeâre trying to teach him about our work here, but heâs always so damn busy.â
âHence my delayed upload. I seeâŚâ M1 rolled her shoulders. The image of her cerebellum lit up on the brain map as the simulation engine interpreted the signals sent from her neocortex to her nonexistent body through her midbrain. A stick figure in its own small window rolled its shoulders too. Had M1âs A-brain been connected to an android shell, her robotic body would have done the same.
âIâve lost monthsâŚâ she said. âSomehow, Iâm here. Or am I home, getting ready for my morning swim?â
âYouâre here,â Yamir said. âAnd Malina is home on the island.â
âWhat happens to me next?â She sounded anxious again, so Yamir readjusted her stress modulators. âThis version of me, I mean.â The dashboard showed activity in her abstract levels of thinking, where cortical columns werenât linked to external sensors but to other columns.
âYouâll live in our lab here in Cedarwood,â Yamir said, as M1 grew calmer. They had talked about this in training, but she needed reassurance. âIn a couple of weeks, youâll be able to transfer to an android shell and walk around campus every day.â On the screen, her diagnostic tests ran green with check marks.
Yamirâs voxdev pinged from its charging dock on the desk. He glanced at the handheld device: Grady Leos, his new boss, marked urgent.
M1âs brain patterns looked good on the dashboard, but Yamir still had to run the final diagnostics. He chewed his tender lip. âIâm sorry, I must take this call. Iâll suspend you now and double-check your upload when Iâm done with Grady. For you, itâll be like general anesthesia during surgery. When I bring you back online, youâll be in the simulation room with Y1.â
âGood. Thatâs what Iâm here for.â M1âs avatar gave him a nod, and Yamir suspended her.
***
Logfile Y1-1831-06-19
>>when(Y1 is offline) send(Z1, âPlease forward the attached file to Zaltana and ask her to give it to my wife. Thank you for being my friend, Z1.â)
[filename=âLetter for Rhea Laghmaniâ]
My beloved Rhea, I miss you so much, I canât breathe sometimes. (No, I donât really need to breathe, but longing still feels like Iâm suffocating inside my simulated body.) I understand you donât want to have anything to do with me, and I accept that Wodan will never know I existed, but I want you to have my story. Someday you might want to read it. Maybe even share it with him.
One of my first memories as Y1 was watching Yamir drink coffee and feeling a profound sense of loss. It wasnât just coffee I missed though, but the sound of your voice during our breakfasts together, as you told me about your plans for the day at the university. I missed your beautiful brown eyes as you smiled at me through the hot steam, taking small sips. And I missed your gentle touch on my shoulder as you walked away and the solid knowledge that youâd be there when I came home from work.
No, missed isnât the right word. It hurt in the center of my virtual chest as if a part of me were being ripped out. I wanted to see you.
Then.
Now.
Always.
Thatâs when I realized I was the lone dweller of a new empty universe, and youâd forever be on the other side. At least we can talk, I thought. But then Yamir told me you didnât want to see meâever. That broke my heart.
And Yamir canât do anything to make me feel better. While we have access to my artificial neurons, we canât erase my love for you from my brain. Our thoughts arise not from single neurons, but from complex neural circuits that frame our perception of the world. Yamir and I donât have a way to alter my thoughts, only neurochemicals that marginally influence them, and only temporarily. My love for you has always been there, and losing you is a gaping wound we canât code our way out of.
Yamir might have mentioned how I accidentally came into existence last year, but he canât possibly tell you what it feels like to be me. He doesnât know because being me required a body transformation of the most visceral kind, something no one can imagine.
When I was still Yamir and trying to create the B-brain, you know how desperate I was to decipher the inner workings of the neocortex. So I turned to the newest imaging technology and built the connectome chamber, then scanned my own brain to assemble a neural net for research. I had never expected a patchwork of imaged neurons in a simulation engine to come alive asâŚme. Thatâs how I woke up one day, looking at Yamir through a sensor array.
Days after my accidental upload, I still struggled to use my simulated body. And it was painful, Rhea. You see, the simulation engine must make the A-brain forget its previous human body and accept the android shell instead, or else thereâs phantom limb painâeverywhere. The good news is that we still have heads because our major senses are located there. To interact with the world, people turn their heads this way and that, so the android shellâs sensors are still where our eyes, ears, and nose used to be. But it was such a struggle to feel like that head belonged on my shoulders, especially since it could turn 360° (same as all my other joints). I sometimes wonder what youâd think if you saw me now, but maybe itâs better that you donât.
At first, I didnât complain about my life, for Yamirâs sake. After weeks in the simulation engine with the sensor array, he introduced my A-brain to the first version of the android shell, the ASV1. Weeks of confusion and frustration followed as I learned how to recognize the new sensory inputs. The ASV1âs digital eyes were similar to the video sensors on my array, so that was less disruptive. But my robotic hands had touch, pressure, and temperature sensors only on the inside of my palmsâunlike the simulation engine, which provided a full sensory experience. It felt like wearing glovesâŚor not even. Like half-numb hands, the outside frozen on a miserable winter day. My feet, too, had sensors only on their soles.
Remember when you taught Wodan how to ride his bicycleâgranted, without my knowing, because I wouldâve freaked out about the danger? You later told me how hard it had been for him to combine the skills needed to keep the bike running. First, he had to learn how to balance on two wheels, but then he couldnât get the bike moving when it was at rest. Then he could get the bike going but couldnât control the handlebars. And when he could do all that, he was afraid that turning would cause him to crash. Or that the street was too narrow, and heâd hit the hedges. It took him weeks to become a good bike rider.
Just imagine that kind of learning, Rhea, but for each individual skill my new carbon-fiber body needed. I was a toddler all over again, stumbling in my clumsy ASV1, getting my legs stuck in unnatural positions. Every day, a cacophony of confusing inputs caused a storm of uncoordinated responses from my swiveling limbs. I wanted to cry so badly, but my A-brain couldnât feel tears welling up in my eyesâuntil Yamir added that functionality to the simulation engine.
I was in Inferis, Rhea. I still am, dwelling in my own shadow underworld, yearning for my former life with you the way dead souls dream of what they once had.
For the ASV2, the second version of the android shell, Yamir asked Caspian to pay for sensors everywhere. And you know Caspian Leosâhe went above and beyond. The ASV2 was a very expensive robotic body that took our old manufacturers months to complete. And it made Caspian the most generous lab owner on Earth. But by the time it arrived, I was pretty used to the numbness of my ASV1 and the occasional bout of phantom limb pain.
The ASV2 was awful, Rhea, just awful. It hurt to receive so many new inputs from all over my body: my cheeks, my shoulder blades, between my toesâall the time. And the damn thing kept malfunctioning, sending spikes of input through random parts of my artificial skin. When I tried to rub away the pain, touching the injured spot was another kind of weird. Always two different signals, separated by a brief delay, but long enough to feel like my hand touched someone elseâs knee, then my knee was touched by twiglike objects. Drove me nuts, so I went back to the ASV1 when I wanted to be mobile. Otherwise, I stay in my simulation engine, which feels better but keeps me stuck in an empty space. (I was building a virtual reality for us A-brains to share someday.)
With the ASV3 arriving soon, maybe that painful lag will be fixed, but then another defect will become apparent, no doubt. You may think there must be ways in which an artificial body is superior to an organic one. Sure, I donât need sleep to clean up the metabolic waste that used to accumulate inside my human brain tissue during the day. So no more brain fog after a poor nightâs sleep. Damage to my body doesnât cause physical pain, plus I donât have internal organs that need monitoring. My video and audio sensors can reach far. And with future versions of the shell, weâll be able to detect and use electromagnetic fields.
But no android shell, despite its advanced features and long battery life, will make me not miss food. Oh, Rhea, I want to cry when I think of our dinners together. I havenât tasted a bite of food in over a year. Robotics manufacturers donât focus on simulating taste and smell because these two senses are hard to associate with physical locations, which the neocortex needs to map our surroundings. The taste sensors are on the shellâs fingertips, so when I touch food, I can tell if itâs sweet, salty, or sourâthatâs it. Iâll never again feel the texture of food on my tongue. And the smell sensors are pathetic compared to those I had as a human. I can detect carbon monoxide and sniff out certain diseases, but I canât smell, taste, or swallow a warm piece of bread.
My beloved Rhea, back when we went to restaurants, I rarely stopped to enjoy the food. I was too busy with my own thoughts, washing down tasty bites with what was probably good wine. Iâm so sorry I put you through all that. Iâm sorry I worked long hours at the lab and missed our family dinners. Iâm sorry I didnât accompany you and Wodan on your research trips to Dhawosia.
And I regret ruining our sonâs childhood. I didnât let him do anything dangerous as a kid because I wanted to protect him. And now heâs learning to fly spaceships, the most dangerous job there is! I missed so many of his milestonesâlosing his first baby tooth, playing his first game of stickball, shaving for the first timeâbecause I was always at work. And for what?
My life is now the very definition of Inferis: removed from everything I once loved, numb, tasting ashes. Thereâs a difference though. In the Inferis the Orolic Temple describes, thereâs no deliverance from the realm of shadows. Once Oroles the Savior decides youâre not worthy of his Caelum, you remain down there for all eternity, they say. Lucky for me, all I need is to destroy my connectome.
End of misery.
End of Inferis.
End of story.
My darling Rhea, donât waste your wonderful human life on absurd dreams as I did. Live it like the precious thing it isâthe only life you actually have. It took me this long to learn that I had everything I ever needed right there with you and Wodan. For your sake, I hope Yamir learns it tooâand soon. If not, please leave him to his androids and go live your life. You deserve it.
I love you, Rhea.
Your lost husband,
Y1
[end of file]
I hope I die today. It should be painless because my body wonât be transmitting signals of damage to my brain. The only good thing about being an android.
Oh, for the grace of El, I just want to be gone. Please, god I donât even believe in, please let me die today.
>>schedule self-destruct(Y1, 23:30)
***
A call from Grady Leos so early in the morning worried Yamir. Grady was one of those rich people who had used his familyâs dinars to start a risky and expensive businessâand had become a media darling once he succeeded. For years, his spacecraft fleet had controlled the passenger and freight transport to Urbs Lunae, the Orolic Templeâs Moon city. But that wasnât enough for Grady, so he invested heavily in the Templeâs newly established Mars settlement, relinquishing part of his lunar shuttle business to his hungry competitors.
Then last winterâs explosion at the oxygen plant near the Martian habitat killed all twelve settlers. The development was put on hold after a public outcry, and the preliminary investigation uncovered sabotage. No Mars settlement, no ships flying supplies there. Gradyâs money had run dry. Meanwhile, his fleet of explorers still required maintenance while docked in orbit at his space station.
Yamir didnât worry his boss would sell Connectome to prop LeosTechâs spacecraft business because Caspian had promised the lab would never be sold. But Grady could cut Yamirâs funding. The upcoming ASV3 could be the teamâs last shell for a while. Grady had already switched their hardware manufacturer, causing long delays for parts. Even worse, he could close the lab to save money.
With all that on his mind, Yamir tapped his voxdevâs screen.
Grady was dressed for business, including his signature mountain-goat wool scarfâtoday it was red. His dyed beard was trimmed, and he wore tawny makeup around his dark eyes, trying to look younger but fooling no one.
âYou expanded testing to outside volunteers,â he said instead of good morning.
Yamir reached for his empty coffee mug to stall. Of course, Dimitri had informed his boss about M1âeven though Yamir had asked the team to let him tell Grady the news. But Dimitri was Gradyâs man, brought to Connectome Labs from the Tahoma spacecraft factory over Yamirâs objections. He was here to monitor things and report backâand he had done exactly that.
âThen weâre ready for a public announcement,â Grady said.
Yamir put the mug down, squinting. âWhat announcement?â
Grady waved as if the answer were obvious. âWhere I tell the world about my android.â
Yamir cringed at the use of my but kept his composure. âCaspian agreed that the A-brains are for private research only.â
âMy dad forgot to tell me about the A-brains, and now theyâre my problem. But theyâre also, you know, mine.â
âBut they arenât commercial products,â Yamir said. âOur long-term agreement was that, whenever we make a neuroscience discovery, we share it as a research paper, on my terms, without exposing the existence of the A-brains.â
âAs I said, my dadâs not around anymore.â Grady reclined in his chair. âDimitri thinks weâre ready for an announcement, and you have no business sense, Yamir. Trust me, folks will love my android.â
And investors would pour money into LeosTech, helping Gradyâs struggling spacecraft business. No, Yamir couldnât let the A-brains be paraded before the public like enslaved prisoners in an arena. Even the Roman Empire had abandoned that inhumane custom sixteen centuries ago. Such a stunt could damage Gradyâs public image though, so Yamir decided to use that as his first argument.
âOur A-brains are introverted people,â he said, âwho donated their connectomes for research. They didnât sign up for prime time. Theyâll make you look bad, Grady. And Dimitri didnât donate his brain image, so he shouldnât be the one talking.â
âBut youâre the genius, Yamir. Some say youâre smarter than Hadrian VI. So tweak those A-brains and turn them into great public speakers.â
Grady was again proving his ignorance about the A-brain. The presentations prepared by Yamirâs team had all been canceled at the last moment by Gradyâs expert-system personal assistant. The ESPA always claimed that something more important had come up: a meeting with Caspianâs estate lawyers, a call from the spacecraft factory, or Gradyâs wife asking him to attend a charity fundraiser.
Yamir tried to explain in basic terms. âThe android weâre developing isnât the kind that has an algorithm describing its every action. So we canât program them to do anything. An A-brain is a network of billions of artificial neurons and trillions of synapses managed by a simulation engine. The engine runs on millions of optimized quantum cores. The A-brainâs behavior emerges from all that complexity, Grady.â His tone was dismissive, and he reminded himself to keep his voice even, or else heâd end up with a bigger problem than the one he was trying to solve. âThe most we can do is adjust a few parameters here and there. What Iâm saying is that I canât turn our A-brains into public speakersâIâm sorry, I just canât.â
Grady sighed. âThen have them do something fun, for Elâs sake. Like playing the hoop-and-dart game. Or chatting about the latest video story. Folks will love that.â
âTheyâll look like house robots then. Big yawn.â
âGood point. Well, we need to show folks that my android is superior to their ESPAs.â
âThe Orolic Temple wonât like your announcement,â Yamir said, trying a different angle.
The Temple, the worldâs largest organized religion, had never endorsed the use of sophisticated robots, not even for off-planet use. Without the Templeâs blessing, the Council of Nations would also not support the android. The Shelâlandic government would be forced to condemn this research. But investors would see the potential. Everyone would take sides, putting Yamirâs lab at the center of international turmoil.
âYouâre kidding,â Grady said. âAre you talking about the same Temple that was once against stem cell research?â
True, the Temple had embraced stem cells after unapproved research helped create the vaccine that ended the last pandemic. Not only had the Temple endorsed that science afterward but positioned it as inspired by Oroles the Savior himself.
âThe same Temple that didnât believe Iâd build them the shuttle fleet they needed for the Moon?â Grady scoffed. âRelax, Yamir. Theyâll rally around LeosTech because Iâll help them rebuild their ruined Mars settlement. The equipment is still there. They just need my androids.â
âWait, you want to send our A-brainsâŚto Mars?â Yamir felt lightheaded. âBut theyâre not astronauts orâŚor construction engineers.â And Malina had almost been killed on the Moon once. Sending M1 to space would be cruel.
âOf course,â Grady said, adjusting his red scarf. âIsnât Mars what youâre developing them for? My dad mustâve seen the potential. Because the androids can do everything on their own, unlike the other kinds of robots, their work can continue even when the sun blocks the path of communication between Earth and Mars and we canât guide them from here.â
Yamirâs heart was in his throat. âNo, no, no. What youâre thinking of is the B-brain, the blank-slate brain. Thatâs the one you want for Mars, powering intelligent robots that can terraform the planet. Not the A-brain. Our A-brains are former humans still learning how to use the few android shells we have. Itâll take yearsââ
âYou donât have years, buddy. If you think Iâll let someone else get on a dais tomorrow and unveil their android before mine, you really donâtââ
âNo one has this kind of technologyââ
âThat you know of. Maybe SBC does.â
No, their new manufacturer, the Sahara Biospheres Company, couldnât recreate an artificial brain based solely on the ASV3 designs they received from LeosTech. But Grady was right. There could be secret labs out there working on android tech. Connectomeâs own official description was âdeveloping lightweight carbon-composite exoskeletons for people with motor difficulties.â Caspian had come up with that from the very beginning to keep their work private.
Yamir realized he should have led with a different argument altogether. âAnnounce the android,â he said, stressing the words, âand Elsway will surely bomb our lab.â
The breakaway Temple sect Elsway was suspected of sabotaging the Mars oxygen plant because they thought the settlement had been testing intelligent robots. They hated anything that eclipsed the sky god El and His creation, and they had been threatening scientists and labs around the world.
While Elsway hated ESPAs for the expert systemsâ humanlike appearance, they still used technology when it suited their needs. They had an international network of encrypted devices connecting their regional chapters, and they could spring into action at a momentâs notice.
Grady looked offended. âI wonât be bullied by those ignorant fools.â
He turned to answer his wife calling from outside the voxdevâs frame. âComing, Thandi!â
He then addressed Yamir, âListen, I want us on that dais looking supersmart in six days. Iâm having a party at my lake house, and Iâll make my announcement then. Start working on that presentation, Yamir. Or Dimitri will, as the new lab chief.â He disconnected.
For Elâs sake, less than a week? Yamir slumped in his chair, feeling nauseous. And if Dimitri took over the lab, what would happen to the A-brains?
***
Logfile Y1-1831-06-19
I canât believe he uploaded Malina. For Elâs sake, what was he thinking?
As soon as he transferred her here and she was online, I could access her stats. Sheâs scared out of her mind, though she tries to look calm in her window on the screen. I want to reach out to comfort her, but Iâm in my simulation engine too, just a screen near hers on the desk, both our quantum workstations blinking blue lights from the rack on the wall.
Zaltana leans close to my sensor array, her long black hair and colorful glass-bead necklace filling my video frame. âHer name is M1. Talk to her, will you?â
âDid you know about her upload?â I say, livid.
She turns our screens and sensor arrays to face each other on the desk. âYouâll do fine, Y1.â
âNot like this, I wonât.â I then start the transfer to the ASV1. A moment later, I feel my carbon-fiber body around me, and I step out of the charging dock.
âThat works too,â Zaltana says, walking away.
As I pass by her, I switch to the only scowling expression my faceplate can display. Then I return to looking calm as I pull up a chair to be at eye level with M1. I have no idea how much she knows about me. Should I go clean-shaven or stick with my usual scruffy look? Itâs better for M1 to see a familiar face, so I stay with Yamirâs messy stubble.
On a desk behind us, S1 and Z1 are debating whoâll be the first to try on the new android shell arriving tomorrow. Having these two around makes me miss Rhea even more. Sure, they had good intentions coming here. First Zaltana, then Siâahl volunteered to sit in the connectome chamber and have their nervous systems imagedâso I wouldnât feel so lonely anymore. They even agreed to be called S1 and Z1, following my pathetic naming convention. But they soon discovered they preferred to spend all their time not with me but together, like Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra. Creating M1 must have been Yamirâs nonsensical idea of a companion for me. He couldâve asked me first, but no.
I put on a smile. âHi, Malina.â So much to say, and I canât say anything else.
âYamir?â she says.
âIâm no longer Yamir, though my voice is still his. Here in the lab, I chose to be called Y1.â
For the first time, I feel bad for losing the name she gave me. Yamir comes from Sanskrit for Moon, the place she once dreamed of turning into a garden. The place where she almost died.
âThen Iâll be M1. But Iâll call you MoonlightâŚâ
Thatâs what she used to call me when I was little. I feel a simulated knot in my throat.
She falls quiet, staring through me. My audio sensors pick up the air-conditioning through the vents as I wait for her to speak again. But she doesnât.
âDonât worry,â I say at last. âSoon youâll be walking around in an android shell, and youâll come to love its expanded mobility.â I donât want to scare her, so I donât mention the rotating joints. âThe new version, the ASV3, will look fancy, all shiny titanium alloy. Better than your exoskeleton back home.â I tap a finger against the black polymer covering my chest. âThis old one makes me look like a childâs toy, right?â
She isnât listening. Seeing her so lost makes me both sad and angry.
âWhy did you agree to this, Mom?â I whisper.
âYamir said youâre struggling here, so I came. Youâre my son too.â
That fucking asshole! Weâve been fighting a lot lately, and he knew that if he brought her here, Iâd be on my best behaviorâfor her sake. What a fucked-up world Iâve created! My mom is now an A-brain. But does she understand what she has given up to be here? She wonât see her cat and her garden ever again. She wonât be able to swim, and she loves the ocean. Grady wonât pay for diving upgrades to the android shell.
âOh, MomâŚâ I lower my head into my hands to recompose my dejected expression.
Sheâll suffer hereâfor meâand I donât know how to protect her from whatâs coming. Yes, we live in an artificial state of physical well-being, but we still have emotions because theyâre essential to our decision-making process. Our old neural circuits for body aches still handle our emotional pain, just as they did when we were human. So sheâll suffer. And we have no painkillers for an androidâs heartache.
I look up, and her stats are worsening. This is no place for her, but sheâs already here, and she canât go back.
âItâs going to be all right, Mom.â I imagine holding her hand, and Iâm back to being a child again, scared to death for her life.
âI know it will. Because youâre here, Moonlight.â
That asshole! That fucking asshole!
>>cancel send(Z1, âLetter for Rhea Laghmaniâ)
>>cancel self-destruct(Y1)
The Regolith Temple: A Sci-Fi Thriller by Roxana Arama
In my second journey into the mind of Roxana Arama, the reader is catapulted into a world driven by progression. Stifled by humanity's vision of terraforming Mars yet limited by the capabilities of our physical bodies, Yamir Varro, a neuroscientist, works toward the future of tomorrow. Working for Grady Leos for LeosTech, Yamir has implemented a way for humans to upload their âconsciousnessâ into the mainframe, thus allowing the human mind to meld with a robot-like body and exist as one. However, a religious sect headed by the Sacrorums in Rome looks to wield the power of the androids to implement their self-serving plans on Mars. Readers glimpse into the future, one filled with hope and worry.
âThe A-brain is created by uploading a preexisting human brain to a simulation engine, while a B-brain starts with a blank neural network, which is then trained over time to learn and adapt to its environment, like a baby. Thatâs why the B-brain would work well on Mars if it develops and adapts there. The A-brains are Earth brains.â - Roxana Arama
"They're not exact copies, not anymore. Once uploaded, a connectome continues to live wire, changing in response to its new environment. Being an A-brain in a lab is vastly different from being a carefree human in the world.â - Roxana Arama
Mindblown. Imagine uploading your brain to the mainframe and filling into your exoskeleton suit. Performing menial tasks with the assurance of physical dominance at hand. What if these newfound powers found their way into the enemy's lap? What then? Surely, a catastrophic series of events would ensue, leading to the destruction of humanity save for the few in charge. Humans undying need for advancement is at the forefront. Through this scientific canvas, Arama transported me to the realm of limitless possibility. Unfortunately for humans, we have limitations. Our lives hold only so much battery life before we wither away like flower petals past expiration.
Perhaps more poignant is the underlying story of family, love, and tragedy, all of which play a significant part in shaping the characters in the book. The cohesion in the prose required my utmost attention, demanding empathetic feelings.
Be forewarned; it took a fair bit of time to understand this clone-like process. Referring to the android clones as Y1 and M1, while their âhumanâ counterparts operating within the same world in real time, was confusing at first. Through some perseverance, the plot began to click, enabling enjoyment in this thought-provoking world.
A masterfully orchestrated novel that further showcases Aramaâs talents as a writer. I am giving this 4.25 stars and rounding down to 4 stars. Highly recommended reading!
Thanks to Reedsy for the ARC. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion.