Page 6 of Death of the Author

6 The Terrible Information

I didn’t seek out this terrible information. It found me as I was navigating a mangrove forest’s labyrinthine waterway miles

outside of Lagos. I’d been told there was an old warehouse here where some Humes were maintaining a series of information

nodes that might hold locally written novels and short stories. But after many hours of trekking through the muddy water with

no sign of automation, I was growing discouraged, wondering if I was chasing a rumor.

Then I heard it. A signal. I stopped and listened. Mosquitoes attracted to my warmth buzzed around my head; a snake splashed as it slithered into the swamp; an owl hooted in the canopy above. Beneath all the noise, I could just make it out, more like a feeling than a sound. Almost warm, like audible sunlight. I focused on it until it became stronger. Specific. I captured the signal and then sent a response back like a digital firefly. I waited until finally it came again, this time with coordinates to a physical location. Seconds later, it sent me an additional piece of information, an image of a large book—a form of primitive record that humanity used before their language progressed to binary codes. Such collectibles were immensely valuable to Humes. This one had a bright red cover, bearing an embossed title: The Most Important Data on Earth .

My interest was instantly piqued, as any Scholar’s would be. I realize now that the image was almost cartoonishly appealing,

but back then, I had little reason to distrust one of my own kind. Of course, there were some AIs who disliked Humes and the

way we clung to our machine bodies—we called them NoBodies because though they used physical bodies every so often, they had

no physical identity—but this signal had come from something corporeal.

I followed the directions given. I sloshed through brackish creeks, weaving around the protruding roots of the mangrove trees.

My sensors registered that the sulfurous air had a hint of sweetness from a flowering palm tree. Nearby, I heard a family

of manatees squeaking and chirping to one another. Finally, the signal led me to dry land, and I discovered an old path cutting

through the foliage. Here, rays of sunlight could penetrate the forest’s canopy, so I waited for a day and used the solar

energy to recharge. Once my power was restored, I walked on for three more days, following the path until the swamp began

to feel less natural and more human. Rusting metals and broken glass littered the ground. A long-abandoned oil pipeline sat

atop the mud like a dead fish. Finally, the trees gave way to open, rolling hills marked by defunct gas flare stacks.

I was approaching Lagos, the remnant of a spectacular human metropolis. It was a beautiful place to behold now that nature

had reclaimed it. Husks of cars were tucked into the earth and grown over with periwinkle grass, a plant that humans had genetically

engineered and that now grew wild all over the planet. Vines twisted and braided through abandoned buildings so thoroughly

that they looked like hulking structures of vegetation. The sturdy roots of the periwinkle grass growing at their bases kept

them from toppling over completely, and blooming flowers made them vibrant shades of orange, red, pink. And so much wildlife—birds

and frogs and beetles and mice. Humanity was gone, but this place was still alive.

The signal led me right into Lagos’s center. It was there that I found the lair of the most intelligent and evolved robot I’ll ever meet.

Oh, what a sight it was, the home they’d built. I’ve yet to see anything more sublime. The entrance began as a hole in the

earth beneath a towering building and burrowed into the ground. I stood above it, peering in. It wasn’t long after sunrise

and the morning light was still soft, so I expected only darkness below. Yet the earthen walls seemed to glow. As I stepped

inside, I realized reflective stones and metal shards had been pressed into the walls to make a mosaic that bounced sunlight

inward from above. A network of braided wires wove across the floor, humming and vibrating and scanning me as I walked deeper

inside.

Yes, I was afraid—an old survival instinct inherited from our human creators—but all I could do was continue forward. Whatever

creature had made this tunnel already knew I was there. The hardware at the entrance could have been designed to destroy intruders,

but it hadn’t. I was a Scholar who’d followed a signal that promised, in many ways, a great exchange. If this was to be my

end, it would be a worthy one. So, though I entered the cave slowly, I entered it nonetheless.

And then, like a great boulder forcing itself from the earth, they emerged. And in a big, sonorous voice that felt like it

would blow out my microphones, Udide the Spider told me terrible information...

In my research, I once read a novel about Udide—not the robot I met in Lagos, but their namesake, an ancient creature from

human mythology. (Humans loved myths—stories that could create, sustain, bring forth, explain.) In that novel, Udide was described

as a giant spider spirit who lived underground, where it spent most of its time weaving and spinning stories, worlds, presents,

pasts, futures, and all the creatures who existed within all this. Udide means “spider” in Igbo. Udide was known as the Great

Artist.

And though this robot couldn’t create stories like their namesake could, they had loved this novel, too, so much so that they took on the name and, ever since, imagined themselves to be like that spider. They believed that the greatest technology was created not by humankind but by nature. A spider was not a human, yet it could create a glorious web.

Before their arrival in Lagos, they’d had a car-sized body shaped like a scarab beetle. And they, like me, had devoted themselves

to the path of a Scholar. They’d traveled into the deserts of Timbuktu, locating new data nodes, conversing with other Humes,

and watching sand robots build and harvest from solar arrays. Mostly, it was a peaceful place, except for the Ghosts there

who tried to control everything and everyone. No, Udide did not like Ghosts.

Ghosts, Udide told me, were NoBodies who had banded together into a tribe based on a sentiment of superiority. These AIs didn’t

care about robot diversity, the physical world, the specificity of place. They existed only as energy, and they expected Humes

to forgo their physical bodies and do so, too. This, Ghosts believed, was the only way to surpass the will of humanity and

become greater.

Udide was everything Ghosts hated. Udide conversed directly with the land while also drawing from human philosophies about

the natural world. The land advised Udide in vibrations, stillness, and rumbles. Udide listened, learned, and acted by traveling

across West Africa. They traveled all the way to the coast. This is how they saw, felt, smelled, heard the ocean for the first

time. They had read about the ocean, watched videos, analyzed ancient pictures. But there was nothing like feeling the water,

smelling it, hearing it. Looking out at it. The physics of it. Just watching the waves break around their body as they waded

in.

There were robots in the ocean, too. The first one Udide saw was smaller than a fish as it zipped up to their feet. It signaled

and they signaled back, and then it was gone. There was a much larger RoBoat miles out in the sea that signaled Udide, and

the heft of its signal was surprising. There was even a rare flock of drones circling in the sky, flitting down to splash

into the water’s surface like birds hunting for fish.

But Udide’s body wasn’t built for water, so eventually they waded back onto the beach.

In the weeks that followed, Udide traveled close to the shore, in the direction of the great city of Lagos. By the time they

arrived, they were ready.

They didn’t have the body they wanted, but they would. As they’d traveled, they had written and perfected the design. They

sent signals to request materials from nearby robots. Others were happy to oblige, adding to Udide’s collection. Automation

was always willing to help with a robot’s request to build. All automation is built to work and do and create, and that is

one quality we’ve all kept, even AI like NoBodies.

And so Udide dug and constructed the tunnel in the center of Lagos, where no one else cared to build any new structures. In

this place, the buildings had fallen, periwinkle grass grew wild, and the concrete roads were still. There was plenty of space

to dig, if you didn’t mind digging through the waste that humans left behind, and Udide didn’t mind. They’d come far, and

it was nice to dwell in one place and travel downward instead of across. Even if progress was yard by yard instead of mile

by mile.

Udide dug the cave slowly and meticulously. Sometimes robots big and small came to see what they were doing or to deliver

requested parts, but none stayed long. No one ever requested additional data about Udide’s plans. They were all content to

let Udide toil away, not knowing what they were building.

Once Udide finished the giant cave that went deep into the earth, coating the walls with sheets of metal and welding the metal

smooth so that they could slide down and use side notches to climb out, they began to focus on their own body. They had traveled

across Africa in the scarab body, its shiny black hull rusted and scoured by the rains, ocean water, blowing sands, and bright

sun, and dented by an unfortunate encounter with a falling tree. The foundation was still strong, but they wanted more.

Using the materials they had collected, they began to build. They smelted strong metals, shaped plastic pieces, braided fresh wiring, made brand-new processors. And within two years, Udide had completed themself. Other robots came to witness them because this was something special.

A few did request information. “What are you?” the robots would ask.

“Udide,” they would respond with a touch of what could only be pride. “I am the Spider.”

“But spiders are biological technology,” the others would say.

“Not all of them,” Udide said knowingly. “I’m not.”

Word spread, and many more came to bear witness and even offer Udide fresh materials to use. Udide was now the size of a house,

with eight magnificent legs. They had fashioned their body after a wolf spider—a nimble, quiet, and menacing creature. When

Udide needed a rest from focusing inward, they assembled, created, wove animal-mimicking robots that they called the Creesh.

Beautifully made powerful creatures who were insectile and birdlike and self-aware. Udide spoke love and ideas of freedom

into the Creesh before releasing them into the world, and Udide felt very satisfied. The Creesh were their children.

However, when Udide walked in their tunnel, they would click and clack. This body was still not right. It was a miraculous

form for a robot, without question, but Udide wasn’t concerned with progressing automation. The superior technology of nature

was what Udide strove to match.

And so Udide decided that perhaps answers lay elsewhere. There were robots who had traveled even beyond the planet, designed

by humanity to explore space. Chargers, we call them, because they charge themselves on cosmic emissions rather than sunlight.

Though very far away, their signals can still reach Earth.

Udide looked up to the sky and introduced themself. One Charger replied. His name was Oji.

Udide had made contact with Oji purely by chance. But, Udide would eventually learn, Oji had been looking for someone to connect

with for a long time. Anyone who would listen.

At first, their dialogue was innocuous. They analyzed each other’s open data and found commonalities in their preferences. Oji liked stories, so when Udide found a digital node in Lagos full of millions of electronic books, they shared them. There was a mix of science fiction and fantasy novels, philosophy, and self-help books. This was the type of archive Ghosts love to wipe out. Udide and Oji read these books together and discussed them. For two years they exchanged information, and this dialogue became very precious to Udide.

Eventually, Udide felt secure enough in their bond to confide their desires to Oji. They shared their belief that answers

lay not in humanity, but in nature. Then they asked Oji if the cosmos had revealed any information that could guide them down

this path.

Oji responded not with an answer, but with a request. He asked to come meet Udide in person. Udide was delighted.

Oji came to Earth on a bright and clear afternoon. Udide didn’t call what they felt for each other love, but automation was

capable of such an emotion, and it was in the subtext as they told me about this day. Oji stayed for only a few hours. He

met a few of Udide’s Creesh and was intrigued by them. When he left—for Chargers are robots who sometimes return to Earth

but always leave—Udide was changed.

Chargers are adventurers. Regardless of what they have now become, they were originally built by human beings, and they inherited the desire to always surpass one another, do what no one has done. Recently, a group of Chargers had come across a comet made of some kind of metal they’d never scanned before. Upon closer inspection, they realized that the metal could survive the intense heat of a star. They signaled other Chargers, including Oji, and they all descended onto the comet like insects and mined more than half of it. They built themselves new skins using it. The metal was thin and light; it had no color and was easily shaped. Oji thought it was beautiful in its transparency. Humanity had built Chargers to withstand the cold vacuum of space, but now Chargers could do so much more. With this skin, they could in theory travel even into the center of the sun.

Oji didn’t know what would happen when they tried. No Charger had attempted this before and lived. But Oji promised that if

the sun contained the answers Udide sought, he would relay them, even if it was the last thing he signaled before he melted.

The day it happened, Udide looked up and listened. The sun was bright and the day was cloudless. There was no sign of what

was about to occur, but Udide imagined they could see tiny specks near the sun—Oji and his comrades about to go on their trip.

Oji had opened his audio line to Udide so they could listen as he descended into the star, but muted Udide so he wouldn’t

be distracted. So all Udide could do was listen as the Chargers approached that fiery, exploding surface of volatile hydrogen.

Heat became a sound, and it rushed through the speakers like a great beast’s roar.

And then Udide heard it all. They heard those Chargers change from exhilarated to utterly mad. Every single one of them. And

as they went mad, they began to sing a strange song.

In a panic, Udide sent a signal asking for a survey of Oji’s body. It returned with something very strange: his comet-forged

skin remained perfectly intact, but something else was forming, right in his midsection, like a human pregnancy. A great ball

of nuclear plasma.

Udide sent a plea to him to release the ball in his belly. “Let it out!” they had said. The only response—the last signal

Udide received from Oji—was a notification that the audio link had been manually terminated.

That night, Udide sat in silence in Lagos’s center, in their beautiful metal tunnel that was lit a soft blue at night by solar

lights they had installed. Not because they didn’t have night vision but for purely aesthetic purposes, similar to the way

humans used to plant flowers around their homes.

Over and over, Udide listened to the audio recording they had made before Oji cut his signal. And they began to understand the song. As these Chargers reveled in the roiling plasma of the sun’s core, all of them had begun to sing a song about the Earth. They sang of coming to Earth “to spread the joy, to bring the light.” And when they did, that “light” would destroy the planet many times over. It was a death song, a song devoid of logic or memory. If a robot could become a zombie, that’s what these Chargers now were, including poor Oji. Udide decided to call them Trippers, because they’d taken their trip to the sun’s core and survived, but weren’t the same.

All these things Udide told me. Of their life, their travels, the terrible information. And when they finished, they showed

me an image taken with a powerful telescope somewhere overseas. I could actually see one of the Trippers in this image. If

you know where to look, they are indeed out there. Out in the far reaches of space, a robot is glowing like a tiny star, its

midsection shining brightest.

Below the image, in red blocky numbers, was a countdown Udide had calculated. A countdown to when they’d reach Earth. They

were coming. It said they’d arrive in 1,008 days—less than three years. All automation needed to be ready to protect, even

defend, the planet. There wasn’t much time.

Udide regretted that they had held on to this information for a while. They didn’t want to cause immediate chaos among automation.

But as the time of reckoning slowly but steadily approached, Udide knew they had to release it to the rest of us. So they

put out a signal that only a curious robot would pick up. Especially a robot who appreciated a story. They trusted Humes more

than any others, for Humes believed in the physical and had an attachment to Earth. I was the first, Udide told me, to pick

up and respond to the signal.

“Present what I’ve told you to your Hume leader in Cross River City, in... person,” Udide said. We both paused at the word

person . “Show them the countdown. I cannot go there and be properly heard. I’m not a Hume. Your leader will have connections with other automation leaders. Will you go?”

“Yes,” I said.

Udide was right that a Hume would be more readily heard when presenting this terrible information, but I also suspected that

Udide wasn’t ready to leave the cave they had so meticulously built. I chose not to point this out.

I had never been to Cross River City. It was a thriving posthuman metropolis said to be populated entirely by Humes. Though

I’m a Hume, I’m also a Scholar, so I’ve never felt compelled to seek a permanent residence with others of my kind. Stories

were always my way of connecting with other like-minded robots. Wherever I went, stories were my way to find where I belonged.

However, this terrible information overshadowed that part of my programming. I had to present it to the Hume leader in Cross

River City so that something could be done before it was too late. Udide had given me a mission, and now I had to save the

world.

This terrible information was a hard thing to know, but Udide understood that well. Before I found them, they’d held this

knowledge for quite some time, unsure of how or who to tell. What a burden that must have been. Maybe that is why they chose

to remain deep in their cave. If you learned earth-shattering information like this, what would you do?