by Kris Schnee
"Yes, I'm an American, but I stand for the ideals, not the specific patch of land. I go where the fire's burning brightest."
Eaton played with his empty glass. He could be made to disappear if he were too loud about this freedom stuff. Tough, though! Damned if he'd spend the rest of his life afraid and looking for safety.
"I'm going back to Castor," he said. "They're bringing the ocean to life. And themselves."
He hung up, stretched, and went back to the bar's main room. There, every TV was showing some variant on the same headline: a couple of the United States had just declared themselves "free" and invited Cuba to join them as an equal, in a new republic.
Eaton chuckled, though the news hurt him to see. This rift had been coming for a long time, like a tooth that needed pulling or a loveless marriage ending. He liked to think that the dinky little village on the ocean had been a step toward getting the trouble resolved, but it was only one of many streams that had run together.
He watched the news with what he told himself definitely wasn't lingering horror, just fascination. All the bar patrons were silent. The various anchormen were saying that the military was standing down, rumored to be defying an order to do something unpleasant. This dispute wasn't over, not by a longshot, but it looked like there'd be no killing today. That was usually a good thing.
Eaton's phone rang; it was his supervisor again. Eaton listened, then paused before answering. "No, Boss. I quit." He hung up. Though on second thought, maybe it wasn't time to retire just yet; there were other people who needed him.
17. Tess
Several years later
From the deck of Libertalia Platform, Tess could see the original concrete box of the Fort and the ramshackle set of structures they'd started to call Sargasso. What a mess that new place was! The people there were trying to set up housing in cargo containers, a dozen or more coffin apartments to a box. The new district had its own contingent of fish-farmers flirting with the Leeists in both senses. For them the cult was a joke, but she wasn't sure it'd stay that way.
The town network pinged her. Tess slicked back her hair and adjusted her ever-present headset. She mumbled, "Hmm?" at the data that flickered across her eyepiece. Some guests had just arrived and asked for her. She sent out a query about them and was puzzled by the reply. "AI enthusiasts, huh? Sure, I'll meet them."
They hadn't contacted her before, but one of the trio was a rising star in the field. Tess walked from her office to go meet them. The "street" was the bare concrete topdeck of Libertalia, decorated aggressively with flags and signs. She passed a brothel and a casino and dueling gift shops, and the stairwell leading down into the warren of indoor space that, like the Fort, served as various homes, offices and businesses of varying repute. Finally she reached the dock that they'd designated as the seastead's front gate.
It was raised up well above the water to meet passenger ships. Tess reflexively checked the origin of the silver catamaran that had just arrived and was disgorging dozens of people to come and play on the seastead. When her uninvited guests got through the customs gate -- there'd been a fight over whether to have one at all -- Tess was waiting and waving.
A dark-skinned, elderly man in a seersucker suit led the group and shook Tess' hand first. "It's an honor to meet you," he said. "My name is Alain."
"Alain DeLune? You're a rock star. If I'd known you were coming I'd have thrown a party."
The portly man in green beside him chortled. "Hi. I'm Clark, and this is Emi Takahashi." He nodded toward a thoughtful-looking lady wearing the same model of i-glasses as Tess. "We wanted to visit your town for fun, but it's your AI friend in particular that we're most interested in."
The fact that he'd said "your friend" instead of labeling Zephyr as her property won the trio a few bonus points in Tess' eyes. She shook all their hands and said, "I'm sorry; I don't know the two of you, just Mr. DeLune. Sir, your papers on self-improving AI are amazing. Also terrifying."
The man gave her a pained-looking smile. "I get that a lot. Call me Alain. Is there somewhere we can talk more privately?" He looked lost, turning in place on the Libertalia platform. All around them the colony bustled and swarmed, and locals tried to sell booze or knives or pornography to the tourists.
* * *
So they descended, by elevator instead of scuba gear. The Dentrassi brothers had opened a new restaurant underwater, in a geodesic dome on the shallow seafloor. Their prices were too high, geared for tourists who wanted the novelty, but Tess had a standing discount. She asked for a "corner table" just to tease the waiter, then went with her guests to a booth at the round dome's edge.
Clark said, "Where is he?"
Just then, Zephyr arrived and took a chair to sit beside the booth. "Good afternoon. Tess has done the gushing on my behalf, so I'll skip it."
Emi leaned toward him, fascinated. "Some artistry went into your body design. It's very sleek."
"Thanks. I've just gotten some more background info on you; you're some sort of artist and Clark there is a businessman?"
Clark nodded. "I focus on hardware. Industrial control systems."
Tess said, "I'd send you to meet Valerie, but she's busy. Captain Fox's son is still in alpha development, not ready for public release."
Zephyr silently sent, I'm here, to quell the jealousy Tess still felt toward Valerie. She was wrong to keep pining for Captain Fox, when she had a soulmate of her own. She didn't need to say anything back to Zephyr; he knew exactly how she felt.
Zephyr had a glass of water ceremonially placed in front of him, for appearance's sake. After several minutes of pleasantries he said, "Well?"
Tess shot him a look and a thought of that's a bit rude. Aloud she said, "We take it there's something more to this meeting than asking each other for autographs."
Emi had been doodling on a napkin, though when she pulled her hand away Tess marveled at the elaborate flower design she'd conjured from nothing. Emi said, "The three of us are teaming up to experiment with game design and AI. Do you want to get involved?"
"In making games?" asked Tess, surprised. She was a little busy these days, what with being part-owner of a mad science company. "Westwind Transhuman Designs" didn't do games, though it made robots and was dabbling with gengineering and other technology.
Researcher Alain spoke quietly. "In developing an AI-powered game, one that can play with many people at once."
"Most games already have that; the AIs are just morons meant to die and make the player feel cool and powerful."
"We'd like to go a step farther. You're already aware of my little creations that can carry a conversation and control a virtual body in a simple game world." Those were part of his published work. "People assume that the next step is to take that AI technology from a simulation into the real world, and create a direct competitor for the Hayflick series." Alain nodded toward Zephyr.
Zephyr's eyes flickered between orange and green, for him a sign of guarded, wary thoughts. Tess picked up only snatches of What's their scheme here? Zephyr said, "I understand from your phrasing that you have a different idea."
Emi explained, "Zephyr, you've found your own understanding of reality and human culture by occupying a humanoid body. You also have contact with this regional network for exchanging thoughts and ideas. We'd like your expertise for creating a non-embodied AI system that learns from its players."
"Like a surveillance system?" asked Tess.
Clark waved off that idea. "No. We're... not fans of those."
Alain leaned forward. "There is a certain urgency to our work, frivolous as it may seem."
Zephyr spoke rapid-fire to Tess, who figured out quickly what he was getting at. The robot had temporarily disconnected the two of them from any risk of sharing with anyone else in their network, so that he could say to her, Reading between the lines, they're going for the Holy Grail.
Tess answered him, And they're scared of something.
Self-improving AI was technically possible;
Zephyr himself was the poster-bot for that. What people usually meant by the term, though, wasn't just that a machine would read books and form opinions. Instead, they meant a system that rapidly altered its own code. The craziest predictions said that some autistic genius would leave his AI running overnight and foom!, it'd ascend to godlike superintelligence and probably destroy the world, due to having vast resources and no common sense. The Castor network wasn't on that level at all, nor was Zephyr.
But this trio of game-makers seemed to have a plan for gathering gobs of data on human interaction, and DeLune had already built code with a limited form of self-editing and growth. They might create a new type of AI that could rapidly upgrade itself while being somewhat grounded in sanity. Or just one that was really, really good at manipulating people.
Tess and Zephyr made all these connections in about ten seconds while they sat there slack-jawed. Then came the other piece of the puzzle: By 'urgency', they're hinting that there's less ethical competition out there.
Tess composed herself and said, "One to ten: how screwed do you think the human race is right now?"
Clark chuckled mirthlessly. "Due to AI specifically, maybe a three. We're aware of several, let's say, well-funded organizations that want to invent an AI that goes well beyond Zephyr's abilities. Impressive as they are. And of course they have access to the same research of Alain's that you've seen."
Alain muttered, "Should never have published."
Emi added, "You're well aware of what can hold an AI project back. We're not eager to help the competition re-learn the lessons that you did, or to help them find a workaround."
Tess leaned back in her seat. "So. You want to produce a new AI system of a type that everyone says is super dangerous, on the theory that someone else might do it first?"
Zephyr said, "And label it as a game."
Clark said, "You get it. You could help push our project along faster, and safer."
Tess had been involved in some strange activities over the last few years, from running away from home, to building a town out of nothing. This idea, though, was far out by her standards. She tapped the table. "Zephyr and I are tied to a specific location, a specific set of senses and goals. We can't save the world from some hypothetical god-tier AI, but that's not realistic anyway. You get ideas and success from trying to solve problems here and now, not from finding some perfect theory that will Fix Everything."
Clark said, "But we can find a system that will help address everyone's problems at once. If we just find the right code base and iterate --"
Zephyr's laugh was a synthetic echo of Tess' voice. They started to speak the same words, but Zephyr deferred to Tess. She said, "First piece of advice: nope, finding the one true idea isn't going to save you. Second thing: no, you're not going to solve everybody's problems; hell, you'll probably invent new ones."
Zephyr added, "Not that we think you should stop. Just... try for something simpler, and build from there."
Emi said, "Like what?"
Tess shrugged. "Can your AI system figure out how to help the players have fun?"
"You think that's a straightforward task?"
"No, but if you can't solve it, you're not ready for bigger ones."
"Fun, huh," said Clark, playing with his silverware. "It doesn't mean the same thing to everyone."
Tess said, "Exactly." If these three ever got anywhere beyond Alain's existing research, it'd be through finding what each individual wanted, not what "people" wanted.
When the meal was over, the guests stood, and shook hands again with Tess and Zephyr. "You've given us a lot to think about," Alain said. "I think we'll be seeing each other again, as our work progresses. Until then, would you mind giving us a little tour on our way out?"
She did, just as she'd done for other strange visitors. This wasn't her first encounter with crazy schemers, just one of the more credible ones. It didn't matter whether she agreed with all the different agendas around here. What mattered was that people were free to try things, to squabble, and to see how far each of their ideas could go.
Tess waved goodbye to them and walked the decks of her home once more, watching people go by with countless ambitions. One of her rental robot birds flew overhead and she smiled; she'd already helped to shape the dreams that others followed.
"Well, back to work," she said, and with Zephyr she returned to her lab to try making new things once more.
Those early years on Castor were the end of one tale, and the start of a thousand more.
Author's Note
Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a rating on Amazon and/or Goodreads. Independent authors don't get noticed without reviews and ratings!
This is a revision of my first novel, originally written in 2009. I'd been interested in the idea of floating island colonies since at least when I took introductory college classes on ocean engineering and made a little underwater camera housing. I'd wanted to devise a science fiction setting that was (1) near-future, (2) plausible and not reliant on freak chance events like asteroids or aliens, and (3) optimistic. So here's a story where a group of people is able to get along tolerably well while doing Future Things.
I should talk a little about the Pilgrims. I wanted a group with bizarre religious ideas, so this bunch latched onto a historical figure and built a personality cult around him. The fictional group isn't intended as a slight against people honoring the real Confederates. I shouldn't need to bring this topic up at all; most readers will understand that an author doesn't always agree with his characters. But in the years since this book was written, there's been a disturbing trend toward censorship of dissent, to the point of people illegally tearing down statues and even physically attacking public speakers. I've started to feel the edge of this hurricane myself: In 2018, publisher FurPlanet retroactively erased a story of mine from a collection, months after publication, because it had offended somebody. So, I feel the need to speak out and to make it plain that I don't endorse those who'd erase ideas they disagree with.
On to a happier subject. The colony of Castor shows up repeatedly in my later books, which makes this one loosely related to the Thousand Tales world. Among other changes, the seastead is now located in a different place. Despite the updates, the facts of this book still aren't fully consistent with the Tales. Anyone keeping track should consider "Island" only semi-canon for that. (Tess seems not to age, for instance.) The year when this one takes place is deliberately vague but if taken together with Tales, it'd make the most sense around 2029.
The book that focuses most on Castor besides this is "Crafter's Heart", which is set almost entirely there and during 2038-9. This book owes its existence to "Freedom City" by Phil Geusz, a superior story which is set on a well-established colony. That colony's founders include two characters that I kind of ripped off as the Pierponts. The Seasteading Institute (https://www.seasteading.org/) has more information about seasteading as a serious proposal. I don't agree with everything they stand for, but they've thought about crucial problems like "how can this be made economically viable?"
About the Author
Kris Schnee has been a parrot trainer, an MIT graduate, a zoo intern, a lawyer, a game designer, and most recently a software developer. He lives in Florida.
Galleries:
http://www.amazon.com/Kris-Schnee/e/B00IY1HDDY/
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http://kschnee.deviantart.com
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The Crafter Series
Crafter's Passion
Crafter's Heart
The Thousand Tales Series
Thousand Tales: How We Won the Game
2040: Reconnection
The Digital Coyote
Thousand Tales: Extra Lives
Thousand Tales: Learning To Fly
Fairwind's Fo
rtune
Liberation Game
Also By Kris Schnee
Everyone's Island
Striking the Root
Dragon Fate: Interactive Fiction
Perspective Flip
Mythic Transformations
Tales of Kitsune
Fateweaver's Quest
