Astrological Monograph: Saturn, Uranus & Canada's Colonial Legacy

Applying the interpretive lens of astrology can be useful to anyone contemplating contemporary social issues. Much in the way an individual might be inclined to view the world through the prism of Marxist Theory or the Theory of Natural Selection, a capitalist, transhuman or Critical Race Theory, an individual might also apply astrological theory to a given subject. 

The theory employed for this exercise is Archetypal Astrology, a paradigmatic approach inspired by the work of Carl Jung, later taken up by American historian and philosopher Richard Tarnas in Cosmos and Psyche (2006), the seminal text on the subject.

Multiple discoveries of hundreds of unmarked graves at the sites of former residential schools in Canada have been a shocking revelation for many people and a sad vindication for others. Indigenous communities that long suffered the legacy of the government-sanctioned church-run institutions lacked physical evidence of crimes that could only be claimed anecdotally. Until now. 

Astrologically, these events occur against the backdrop of a 90-degree square aspect between Saturn and Uranus, a relatively rare and consequential interaction of the planets that pits the emancipatory, eccentric and revolutionary inclinations of Uranus against the reactionary, restrictive and structured expressions of Saturn. Interpreting the chemical reaction - or the mingling of archetypal elements - between these celestial avatars can yield unique insights into particular circumstances and events.  

From the astrological perspective a reckoning with the sins of Canada‘s colonial past is a manifestation of the Saturnine archetype, as are the true life accounts of indigenous children being taken from their families to live at residential schools. The pedagogical orientation of these institutions - involving input from both church and state - represents the literal embodiment of Saturn's energy: hierarchical, patriarchal, bureaucratic and authority-driven. 

Also, church and state are implicated in actions that kept knowledge of these gravesites hidden, a disposition that suggests Saturnine qualities like secrecy and compartmentalization. As intimated earlier, Saturn is also representative of the past in a general sense, both collectively and individually, so sober redress and remediation for historical wrongs is an expression of its archetypal numinousity.

In confronting Uranus' revelatory influence, as suggested by the square aspect, Saturn's reactionary tendencies can be identified with the Catholic Church's refusal to release documents which could aid forensic investigators tasked with identifying remains at gravesites. 

Saturn's archetypal expression patterns the despair of residential school victims and their families; the too-slow acknowledgement by the general public of atrocities committed against generations of indigenous people; and the serious consequences the discoveries will have for the relationship between First Nations and the governments of the Canadian Federation.

The Uranus archetype has permeated the situation since its inception. Use of ground-penetrating radar (a Uranian invention if ever there was one) to locate the remains of 215 children in late May presaged the planet's traditional expressions of sudden revelation, enlightenment, and fact-based assertion as it came into aspect with Saturn.

The tightening of this aspect through mid-June and its slow separation coincided with other Uranian expressions, including calls to cancel celebrations of Canada’s national holiday on July 1, which were acknowledged with Saturnine capitulation in many municipalities across the country. 

Media outlets encouraged Canadians to reflect on the recent residential school findings; alternately, well-meaning citizens allied themselves with local indigenous communities. Just as there was contemplation of the past (Saturn) there were also demonstrations and marches (Uranus) to show solidarity with First Nations.

Transiting Mars in the midst of the interaction between Saturn and Uranus coincided with renewed denouncements of residential schools as instruments of cultural genocide. The Red Planet - associated with conflict, force and violence since ancient times - also presided over the burning of a number of Catholic Churches built on First Nations Reservations, and can be implicated in the aforementioned mass demonstrations on July 1, and in confrontations with colonialism's legacy to the point of civil disobedience and destruction of property.

Astrology - whether employed in the spirit of theory or belief - is less useful for its predictive power than for its descriptive sublimity. To be predictive with such a system is alike to being a meteorologist who considers various environmental conditions and prognosticates the day's forecast based on an intuitive blend of fact, experience and assumptions. But really, how often are such forecasts accurate? 

Genuine truth and reconciliation between Canada and First Nations is a ways off; honestly, the hard work has just begun. Yet if this better state is to be achieved, let there be solace in the therapeutic value of the Uranian archetype to overcome generational trauma through a spirit of emancipation, and the Saturnine stillness required to see a healing process through to completion.

Saturn and Uranus aligned exactly (0 degrees) on February 17, 2021, and once more on June 14, during Saturn's retrograde. The ringed planet goes direct in early October, and aspects Uranus again at Midwinter (Dec. 24). World transits, like the Saturn-Uranus square described in this article, are diachronic events that demarcate periods of sociocultural transformation. Archetypal numinosity - and discernment thereof - can occur when planets are aspected within 3 degrees of exactitude.          

Frankenstein Fallacy

Frankenstein Fallacy (dfn): Term coined by author and academic Yuval Noah Harari, the Frankenstein Fallacy is a cognitive bias or a predicting error that occurs when considering new technologies and their affect on society.

In Mary Shelley‘s 19th century novel, Victor Frankenstein creates a new kind of life and is punished for this presumed act of hubris, falling victim to the very thing he created. Cultural examples of the Frankenstein Fallacy appear prior to the modern era as well, in ancient myths like the Tower of Babel, Adam and Eve, the legend of Atlantis, and the Flight of Icarus. 

The Frankenstein Fallacy is often employed in popular culture to explain the origin of dystopias. Battlestar Galactica, the updated series from the early Aughts in particular, explored many consequences of technological progress. The Terminator films used the Frankenstein Fallacy to great and gaudy effect. One critique of the film Ex Machina employed aspects of the Frankenstein Fallacy to point out the act of psychological projection that takes place when two men encounter an entirely novel form of AI consciousness, embodied by an android with a female visage.

New technology and knowledge undeniably come at a societal cost. The Frankenstein Fallacy, however, emphasizes the retributive aspect of this interaction, suggesting the comeuppance for technological progress should be the end of human life itself. The tendency consequently disregards further technological progress as a means to overcoming essential challenges that humanity faces, and artificially limits the extent to which technology could and should be utilized to address these challenges.

The interpretive prism of the Frankenstein Fallacy has played a part in public fears related to CRISPR, COVID-19 vaccination programs and continues to inform the perspectives of thought leaders like Elon Musk and the late Stephen Hawking, who both spoke provocatively about their apprehension towards AI.

Astrological Monograph: Jupiter in Pisces (2021-22)

Jupiter’s ingress to Pisces on May 13 marked the beginning of a planetary transit that will be consequential for the next 18 months.

Engaging with the imaginal energy of Jupiter as it travels through Pisces - the sign of its Dignity - is a profound experience. The occasion offers unique opportunities for numinous encounters, through dreams, visions and reflections, but also during day-to-day social interactions. All kinds of creative and charitable activities are favoured.

Jupiter’s affect on less advantageous world transits during this period is one of active mitigation, since this benefic placement is thought to ease tension and promote magnanimity. “It is the thunderbolt that steers the course of all things,” said the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus, and Jupiter - in his earlier Hellenized incarnation Zeus - was the god who wielded the thunderbolt. 

The influence of peace-loving Pisces, meanwhile, will ensure that Jupiter doesn’t apply power to overwhelm or suppress, but rather to integrate and reconcile.

As with any placement where a Piscean or Neptunian influence is present, there is the possibility of delusion and self-destructive behaviour. Jupiter‘s influence may worsen this condition by over-indulging the natal subject's desires; however, it’s just as likely that it will act to clarify and discern genuine vision from baser intuitions and habitual behaviours. 

Consider that Jupiter is called ‘Guru’ by Vedic astrologers, and through such traditions we understand how the planet’s wise and instructive influence bestows a sort of mastery over aspects of physical and psychic existence.

Planets in the mutable quadruplicity - Pisces, Gemini, Virgo and Sagittarius - are particularly susceptible to Jovian influence at this time, as is the environment of any house where Jupiter is deposited and/or the cusp of Pisces appears. 

Jupiter transits in Pisces until July 28, 2021, when it retrogrades back into Aquarius. The planet re-enters Pisces in late 2021 and remains there until May 2022, when it charges forward into Aries.

Jupiter returns to Pisces a third time in the fall of 2022 and completes its final transit of the sign by the winter solstice of that year.

 

Space Shippers

The station – known to space shippers as MD-14 – was only a speck against the organonitrogen haze of Titan, which loomed in the timeless dark like something from a dream.

On approach MD-14 in his company transport, United Parcel Service Universal courier Clynton Karl - 'Clynt' - disengaged gravity drive as a nearly invisible solar sail retracted into a chamber on his vehicle’s chassis. The current could carry him in now, he thought.

Clynt could hear the hum of the ship’s nuclear-powered orbital maneuvering engines coming online. He double-checked his instruments, and pressed a colored button on his control panel’s translucent surface.

“Sync,” he said to nobody in particular.

The button changed hue, shifting from red to green. The courier opened a compartment and took out a bottle of pills. He fiddled with the cap, which released with a satisfying ‘popping’ sound.

Clynt took a tiny pill from the bottle and laid it on his tongue. As he put the bottle back in the compartment, he was humming a tune. Clynt was in a good mood.

He peered at the approaching station through the transport’s view panel. This will probably be the last time I come out this far, he thought. I can’t imagine why I would ever visit this place again.

The operations hub of MD-14 was at the center of a giant spiral, which became visible as the transport got closer. From that spinning hub, an enormous fuselage extended, encircling the station’s core almost like the shell of a snail.

Decades-old technology installed at the station still used kinetic generators to create a stable gravity field, which meant that any ship intending to dock with MD-14 was bound to encounter turbulence on approach.

NAV would have alerted him, but Clynt had disengaged the cues before leaving the inner system, as he had done for years. It would be a bumpy ride to the airlock, but having the ship’s AI talk him through it just added to his anxiety.

The precaution hardly mattered, and he threw-up just the same.

***

It will be good to try something new, Clynt thought as his transport docked at the operations hub airlock. Change is good. Movement is life.

The airlock slid open. There was the hiss of cylinders contracting and a rush of oxygen into the portal between station and ship.

Clynt made his way past the decontamination lights repeating his mantras and boarded an elevator that ferried him to Logistics. The department was supervised by a former astronaut named Lennon.

Lennon’s subordinates – the crew of two dozen skilled and semi-skilled labourers, bots and technicians that worked MD-14’s warehouse – referred to him alternately as ‘boss’ and cap’n’, although he was neither.

Clynt had been told by other couriers that, in fact, Lennon was smart. Not scientist-smart, but organized and methodical, with enough pull that he had been put in charge of Logistics at MD-14 shortly after it was commissioned.

That was 28 years ago (by Earth’s calendar) and Lennon was still running things.

On the few trips he had taken out to MD-14, Clynt had never asked Lennon’s first name, and Lennon hadn’t volunteered to tell him.

Clynt resolved to find out during this visit. He was trying to take a more active interest in other people, anyways; to be more attentive overall. That included people he may never see again.

He stepped off the elevator and surveyed Logistics, which was a large, brightly lit, rectangular compartment with a long smooth workstation near the wall, opposite the elevator doors.

A large observational plexus at the front of the compartment opened onto the station’s hull, putting perspectives of Titan’s blurry visage and the deep dark of space in full view.

The compartment’s workstation blended seamlessly with the station’s architecture, and at the far end of the desk a man stood pressing buttons of light on a holographic interface.

“Lennon!” Clynt exclaimed as the other man looked past the luminescent symbols on his interface to where the courier was standing.

“Hey! It’s Clynton, right? Nice to see you,” Lennon said, gently. He was an old man, with a warm voice and an engaging demeanor. “It’s been a while. What you been up to?”

"Clynt," he replied with a warm smile. Yet something was amiss. Lennon's questioning belied a situation, and Clynt - a career courier- could sense it.

For one thing – where was his package? Normally, it would have already cleared and been sitting at the workstation waiting for him to arrive.

Clynt reengaged. “Ah, this, that, and some of the other; you know how it is, Lennon. Ummm…there’s a package for me?” he said, gesturing towards the empty workstation.“Dispatch told me it’s hot, and it needs to be at O.L.A. by nineteen-hundred hours – today. Not to be rude, man,” he added as an afterthought, “but I have to keep moving.”

“Ah, sorry,” Lennon said cautiously, “but it looks like your package is missing…” His words hung in the oxygenated air of the artificial environment like an object in space.

Clynt eyed the station supervisor. “What do mean, ‘the package is missing’?”

“I mean, it’s not there; not where it’s supposed to be,” Lennon said, his pleasant demeanor now tempered with enough distress that Clynt knew that he had already been trying to find the shipment from the moment the courier’s transport had docked.

Well, at least it bugs him, Clynt thought peevishly. That should be motivation to locate the piece faster, at least.

Lennon touched his earpiece. “Warehouse! Jensen, you there? Hey. There’s supposed to be some product in bin 723c, but the system can’t find it. I sent the item number to your console. Check the ARM on that track, too; I think it’s malfunctioning. There were bad parts installed during the last maintenance cycle; we gotta swap ‘em out, but not now. Chop, chop. Double time – I need that piece!” Lennon ordered.

There was a pause on the other end of the line, and then a whining sound, like the air being slowly let out of a balloon.

“No, it can’t wait, Jensen,” Lennon answered back sternly. “Get your ass over to section two. Take Weasel with you. If I don’t hear from you inside five minutes, I’m docking you a day’s rations. What is wrong with you? You sound more stoned than usual. Out!”

“That bot is fucked!” Lennon said, exasperated. Then switching quickly from irritation to mildness, he continued. “This sort of thing usually never happens – especially with expedited shipments. It should be sorted out soon. Want some coffee?” Lennon moved to a console and took a container from a concealed drawer.

“Coffee,” he said plainly, and an aperture opened in the console. He funneled a handful of beans into the aperture.

“Prepare: two cups,” he said. The aperture closed and a motor behind the wall started running.

“Fresh beans, delivered from Earth a few days ago,” Lennon said idly, gesturing towards the wall. “We grow our own here, too; did you know that, over in the greenhouse?”

Clynt nodded, but he wasn't listening. He was preoccupied with the location of his missing package.

“Still, nothing beats a cup of Terra’s finest. You can really appreciate it out here” Lennon continued, as the rich, earthy scent of freshly ground java wafted into the room from a vent in the top of the console.

“Put on the Weather Network, will you?” Clynt asked, pointing at the large monitor on the wall opposite from where he stood.

Lennon complied, and a static video feed of the station’s landing array was replaced with blue, red, white and gold icons of the long-running source in planetary and exoplanetary weather reporting.

Clynt saw from the dizzying barrage of symbols that conditions on the North American west coast were anticipated to be favorable when he was scheduled to deliver the lost package, in about twelve hours. No planned geo-engineering in the area, no climate mods, nothing for a month, at least.

It would be nice to visit the beach, now he would have the time, Clynt thought.

He’d always had a fantasy about learning to surf on the California coast, like people in old songs. There wasn’t much coast left in California, mind you, but maybe one day, if the timing was right.

But with Clynt, it had always been ‘one day’. Now he had no excuse to put off the things he really wanted to do, he thought.

Clynt surveyed conditions at Weather Network locations on Mars and Jupiter Station, checking for signs that he might be delayed during his route. If that was the case, he’d have to wave dispatch to let them know that deliveries to the inner system would arrive later than scheduled.

But everything looked good for the commute; no serious solar winds; no gravity traps or orbital anomalies along his flight path. He turned from the view screen and looked towards the immense observation plexus at the front of the module.

He had decided. He was going to get a surfboard when he got back to Earth.

***

“I can’t believe they want to put that shit in your head,” Lennon said as they made their way through the station towards the warehousing module. The two men sipped their coffee as they passed through one bulkhead of the station after another.

“It’s fucked-up, alright,” Clynt replied. “Union is pissed. Reps said there’s no way senior members will undergo any sort of…upgrade,” he scoffed. “I support ‘em, too. The last thing I’d want is UPSU crawling around in my brain, updating manifests, giving directions, monitoring my vitals. But it’s all part of that Extraterrestrial Transit Standardization program. All the initiatives implemented since Commerce and Governance ratified that deal ten years ago.”

“Yeah, ‘The Great Reconciliation’. I saw that ceremony in person, you know,” Lennon said nonchalantly. “Seems like yesterday. Who would of thought that peace on Earth would mean one day you couriers would be upgraded with, what, braintech? What are they calling it?”

“O-P-U-S, or ‘Online Personalized User Service’; couriers just call it, ‘Oh piss!’” Clynt snorted. “No surgery required. All you do is take a pill. Pill got nanos in it and they know right where to go to link couriers up to the UPSU network. Totally painless, that’s what bosses say,” he said, gesturing dramatically, “but then the orders start to come in.”

“Ugh!” Lennon voiced disdain at the prospect. “It’s like they got a hold of all your parts.” Then, more thoughtfully, he continued. “But I suppose if the drivers don’t get in line, they’ll just get a bot to make the deliveries, eh? There been any more talk about that? Automating the fleet? I remember the bosses mind-fucked the union negotiators during the last round of contract talks.”

Clynt smiled. “Well, you know, a bot’s taking over my run; guy’s got my one-hundred-percent support. Goes by the handle ‘Vin-E’. Has a great personality, this guy; I guess the designers integrated retro-memes in his neural profile – he thinks he’s been alive for two centuries! He tells great stories – even has ‘body mode’ – which is new for UPSU. But that’s old hat to you, right?”

“Yeah, Jensen, Christ,” Lennon muttered. “You’ve met him, right? I know you usually only get out this way a few times a year. I don’t remember if you’ve been to the warehouse.”

“No, actually, I haven’t, at least not since that whole module was replaced, what, six years ago?” Clynt replied.

“Seven. Jensen was part of that whole replacement program. Commerce admin used him to replace six full-time guys. Attrition,” Lennon said, pausing momentarily to manually open the airlock between two large station modules. Broken door, Clynt thought.

“He’s good, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes I think the designers gave him a little too much autonomy,” Lennon continued. “His personality, for example…running intersubjective character routines so he identifies with oppressed people throughout history? Sharing in their struggle? It’s ridiculous! He isn’t oppressed; he’s a fucking machine. It’s his job to serve me! But you’ll see for yourself. We’re here.”

***

The warehouse was a single large module situated at the bottom of MD-14. It was easily the largest enclosed area of the station, and had been designed specifically to store components and technology of all shapes and sizes.

Tracks ran throughout the compartment, horizontally and vertically, and the door where Lennon and Clynt had entered was actually a narrow bridge leading over the warehouse floor, about thirty meters below. Clynt paused to take it in. The warehouse was much larger than he had expected.

There were many aisles, with bunks of palletized inventory and skids stacked atop one another. Clynt watched as large, coiled metal limbs on magnetic casters moved along the tracks, extending periodically into the spaces to scan codes on the items stored in the bins there.

“Corporate needed to expand the warehouse when trans-Neptune flights started. Now we’ve got as much stock stored here as any of the original twelve stations. The ARMtech is a little out-of-date,” Lennon said, motioning towards the metallic limbs moving on the tracks, “but they’re usually able to locate missing freight.”

Eventually, the two men reached the central platform and Lennon entered a code into a terminal. The platform buckled momentarily, and began descending towards the warehouse floor. Every ten meters, there was another bridge connecting the platform to the station, identical to the one Lennon and Clynt had used to enter.

“You can access all the lower decks, including RecDeck, from down here, so most of the crew stays in this part of the station. There’s no restriction on their movement, mind you. Once security is cleared at docking, station personnel can go pretty much anywhere, except Command and Engineering, of course,” Lennon told Clynt as they descended.

“Activity in those sections is automated, for the most part. There are only a few crewmembers onboard who understand operation protocols, and only one of them has the know-how to interface with the docking and orbital orientation systems. I guess you could say she’s in charge, but down here,” Lennon said, motioning towards the aisles that surrounded them, “I’m king.”

“Isn’t that a little concerning?” Clynt asked. “I mean, what if something happens to that one person?”

“Nothing,” Lennon replied absently. “The machines take over. They can run everything on the station without us even being here; not well, but they can run things. Remember – bots were out here before we were.”

The platform slowed as it approached the warehouse floor. The bridge where they entered was now high above as Lennon and Clynt stepped off the platform and moved towards one of the aisles. A long conveyor belt blocked their way, but the two men ducked underneath the mechanism and continued on their way. Suddenly a voice shouted from their blindside, “Ai! Ai! Ai! Safety first! Safety first!”

It was a strange voice; human, and yet not. It wasn’t a man’s or a woman’s voice; it wasn’t even a child’s voice. The pair turned to face the approaching figure, who had been joined by a second individual, this one smaller and leaner, and of less imposing stature.

Jensen and Weasel tended to the minutia of the warehouse so Lennon could handle administrative responsibilities. They were bots tasked with simple yet vital duties like tracking, storing and shipping products, cycle counts, and locating missing items.

Their operation was synchronized, whether embodied or disembodied, though both bots preferred the data-stream that proceeded from the techno-chemistry of their body modes, which allowed them to experience, among other things, the joy of eating.

“Wha’ we talk about, Cap’n? Yous got to be careful; dees machines finish ye, if ye don’t follow the standard rule,” Jensen said to Lennon, as Clynt got his first look at the android.

Like his voice, Jensen’s body mode was hard to describe. He was sturdy, but with mods to his design that made it easier for him to balance while climbing ladders and moving product.

Clynt observed that Jensen’s visual interface wasn’t a screen, like on Vin-E, the bot driver that was taking over his UPSU route. Instead, Jensen’s face was a perpetually refreshing hologram, an ever-shifting mask of opaque light.

What Clynt didn’t know – what most of the crew working on the station didn’t know – was that Jensen was a refurbished intelligencer bot built during wars in the previous century. His form of military AI, though nearly obsolete everywhere else, was still utilized on stations like MD-14.

The hologram visage which had attracted Clynt’s attention was designed for espionage, and allowed Jensen to assume nearly limitless identities. But now it was a reminder – an occasionally unsettling one – of the eccentric nature of the android’s heuristic processing.

Jensen was one of a kind, which was why he wasn’t decommissioned with other AI units at the end of the war. Like some of his kin, Jensen suffered from an android-specific form of post-traumatic stress disorder, which had afflicted a small number of specialized autonomous bots of his generation.

In a spirit of compassion for the suffering of a unique and sentient consciousness – as well as the furtherance of scientific study – a military court had spared Jensen’s life after the war, provided him with treatment, and put him to work on the space stations orbiting the planets of the inner systems.

By the time he became part of Lennon’s operation, Jensen was a highly skilled warehouse worker. But he struggled with problems of identity and with his existential state as a member of an android diaspora. Both issues were also exacerbated by his wartime traumas.

He could be inflexible with the rules, just as he’d demonstrated by safety-checking Clynt and Lennon, yet he was loyal to the crew with whom he found himself stationed. Combined with his expertise and eidetic memory, Jensen was a valued presence on MD-14, even if he was difficult at times.

“I got to say, man.” Lennon said slowly, shaking his head disapprovingly. “I have a lot of family that would be offended to hear you speaking the way you are right now. You know how it sounds, right?”

Jensen was speaking in unusual patois, a blurry phonetic blend of African-American dialects, which matched his exaggerated hologram visage. Easy to see how that could be offensive, Clynt thought, eying the android cautiously.

The thought had just passed from Clynt’s conscious awareness when Jensen’s face began to shimmer, and with an unusual ‘gulping’ sound, the face of unshaven, nearly toothless black man was replaced by the seeming of a round-faced woman, whose placid demeanor did little to quell Lennon’s irritation. Clynt shuffled his feet.

“Wǒ hěn bàoqiàn. Wǒ bù míngbái,” Jensen uttered in his androgynous, electric-sounding voice.

“Speak English, for Christ’s sake!” Lennon commanded, sensing that he was rapidly losing control of the situation. “I need your help with something, guy. We can play later!”

“Cèsuǒ zài nǎlǐ?” Jensen said mischievously, winking at Weasel, who had been observing the proceedings with amusement. The smaller bot snorted with laughter.

Lennon breathed deeply and looked in Clynt’s direction. Clynt shrugged, smiling awkwardly, and Lennon realized in that instant how unprofessional the exchange must have seemed to the courier. He decided to take another approach with the androids.

“J, it’s one thing to keep me waiting, but it’s another thing to hold-up a courier – especially one with a waybill for hot product,” Lennon said. “I mean, it would be shitty if you guys got investigated by internal affairs, and shitty if you were transferred to another station for such flagrant insubordination, but causing trouble for a private carrier? C’mon! You’re going to bring heat down on all of us!”

Jensen’s face shimmered, and almost instantly the visage of the Asian woman was replaced with that of a bald man, with a visible overbite, who spoke with the slow drawl of cowboy in caricature.

“Well there, sheriff, you do have a point,” Jensen said, nodding at Weasel. The smaller bot handed Lennon a flat tablet he was holding, and began to address the station chief in a quirky, electro-musical voice.

“If you’ll observe your screen, sir, an ARM was sent to investigate the product that was misplaced. Records indicated that, prior to its arrival at MD-14, it had been the subject of classified testing at mobile trans-Neptunian laboratories operating outside regulatory jurisdictions.”

“Yes, I know that much,” Lennon said. “But we ship a lot of classified technology through UPSU. That doesn’t tell me what happened to the product. Get to it.”

“As you can see, the cam on the ARM showed nothing in the bin where the product was supposed to be.” Clynt looked over Lennon’s shoulder at the tablet’s screen and could see an empty space that was marked 723c.

That’s not good, Clynt thought. “Wouldn’t the product itself have been tagged by the system when it arrived?” he said aloud. “Can’t we track it that way?’

“No, we only use bin numbers for products that fall into certain categories. Military tech, scientific equipment, exoplanetary resource samples don’t get tagged in case hackers or mercs grab the numbers from our system. Makes it easier for them to target certain couriers…hey!” Lennon exclaimed suddenly, “What’s that there?”

The ARM cam zoomed in, and Lennon squinted. “Is that…paper?” Indeed, it appeared to be a crumpled piece of paper, although Clynt was uncertain as to why this particular detail had gotten Lennon’s attention.

“There’s only one person on this station who still uses paper. Come on, Clynt,” Lennon said brusquely as he handed Weasel the tablet, and turned to walk towards the platform he and Clynt used to descend to the warehouse floor. “I know where your piece is.”

“Ah!” Clynt exclaimed. “Where is it then?” he asked as the platform clamps released, and the two men began rising above the rows of identical bunks

“Yippee yi yo kayah! Git along, little doggies,” Jensen said as he and Weasel returned to the warehouse aisle where they had been working. “Don’t fence me in!”

***

Lennon had apologized for the missing piece, and Clynt – because he was trying to be more attentive to people he encountered – had accepted his apology.

The two men travelled from MD-14’s depths to the adjoining command, navigation and research modules, which involved retracing their initial journey from Logistics to the Warehouse, but then going another way into the station’s architecture.

By the time they reached their destination, Clynt was fairly certain he would have to contact dispatch, and let them know he would be late.

Oh, they won’t be happy, Clynt thought. But aloud he said, “So this is where it is?”

“We should have come here first,” Lennon said, addressing Clynt’s query with a sideways acknowledgement. “I should have known she’d want to have a look”.

The door retracted and the two men stepped into the module which served as a hub for research, command and navigation functions. It was a large space, illuminated by low ambient light except for the glittering console that was position in the center of the module.

Clynt could see two large bay windows at either ends of the space. One window opened on to what seemed to be a luscious green garden, although it was difficult to make out if it was just a projection from where Clynt was standing.

The other window was filled with an illuminated liquid – water, probably, Clynt thought – and for a moment, he swore he saw a silhouette darting about in the murky blue.

“Kate! Where are you! You got my tech!” Lennon called out.

From beyond the room’s large central console, there was a bustle, and suddenly a voice replied, “I left you a note!”

The pair walked towards the sound. “The courier’s here – we’re keeping him waiting. Give me the piece so he can be on his way.”

“I’m so sorry,” a woman said, emerging from a compartment on the far side of the central console. As she approached, Clynt could see she was slight, with sparkling intelligent eyes that were so large they made her face seem tiny by comparison. Around her neck hung a pair of spectacles, and she was dressed in the standard coverall uniform worn by personnel on stations throughout the solar system, only this one was patched with the MD-14 insignia.

 “Are you in a rush?” she asked, flashing a concerned look in Clynt’s direction. “I didn’t mean to hold you up.”

“Clynt, this is Doctor Kathleen - Kate - Wong,” Lennon said by way of introduction. “Not only is the Doctor brilliant and beautiful, but she’s my other half, the night to my day, the yin to my yang – you catch my drift,” he said, and it occurred to Clynt that the two were in love.

“Hello, Clynt,” the Doctor said in a cheerful voice. “I don’t mean to have the piece for so long but I wanted to inspect it before it went to Earth.”

“Hello, Doctor. Good to meet you. No, no, don’t worry...,” Clynt replied pleasantly, before trailing off.

Having already determined that he would have to contact dispatch about the delay acquiring the piece, Clynt had relaxed.

This was his final run, after all, he had reasoned. He’d transited the inner system corridor – the Chute – more times in his career than he could count. He knew the route like the back of his hand, so what could go wrong? The piece would be an hour or two late, still well within the window of his delivery time.

Besides, in all the years he had delivered and retrieved freight from these space stations, no one had ever given him a tour of their inner workings. For Clynt, the experience had been akin to a revelation.

“What’s with the water tank and…is that a garden?” Clynt reengaged. “Are those just holograms or are they real?”

“Well, yes, they’re real,” the Doctor said nonchalantly. “Lots of benefits to having a garden out here. This one actually covers a half-dozen modules and exits on RecDeck. It helps regulate the atmosphere on the station, circulate and purify oxygen. Some of the plants have natural medicinal value. And we grow fresh eatables – apples, oranges, tomatoes, lettuce, carrot, coffee, cocoa, bananas…”

“…weed,” Lennon said, smirking.

“Hemp,” the Doctor said resolutely. “I grow hemp. The psychoactive substances in the plant have been removed. I use it to make paper. And rope. I’m old-fashioned that way.”

“The bots grow their own,” Lennon said. “And they keep the psychoactive.”

“Well, that’s your business, Len,” the Doctor replied flatly. “I’ve always said not to mix mechanics and marijuana. But you’re more tolerant than me, I suppose. Plus, we’re orbiting one of Saturn’s moons. Where else are you going to score your stuff?”

“Hey! Not on the job, not like the bots; they’re high all the time,” Lennon said, in a sanctimonious tone.

“If I worked for you, I‘d want to be, too,” the Doctor giggled, with just enough faux sincerity that Clynt knew she was both joking and speaking truth at the same time.

“The water tank is where the station’s navigation and docking requests are processed by Larry, Terry and Hank – our ‘deep space dolphins’, as I call them.”

“Dolphins? Come on? Out here?” Clynt said, with genuine shock.

“For real,” the Doctor replied. “You been schooled in faunal linguistics, right?”

“Uh, yeah?” Clynt replied tentatively. He really couldn’t remember if he had been.

“So you know that when artificial intelligence emerged in the middle of the last century, one of the unintended consequences was the creation of a decryption process that could discern human meaning in animal communication – and vice versa; an interspecies translator that facilitated what was, really, an encounter with a truly alien consciousness, but the consciousness was on Earth, not on another planet,” the Doctor said, matter-of-factly, but her eyes were bright. She drew a breath and continued.

“Suddenly, real, meaningful contact with higher primates, ravens, whales and, yes, even dolphins became possible. Lots of digital records didn’t survive the war, and existence of the technology is suppressed as you get closer to Earth – too much legality. But out here, information flows pretty freely. It has to.”

“But…why?” Clynt said, gesturing towards the sleek shadows darting about behind the bay window.

“They wanted to come. They’re patched into station orientation, docking and navigation,” Lennon said. “Terry brought in your ship this morning. The translation tech the Doctor described is dissolved in the water they swim in. That tank runs the circumference of this whole place – hundreds of square kilometers. After builder bots finished the station, the dolphins were the first to actually spend any time here. As it turns out, their natural ability to communicate with sonar, coupled with pressure-adaptive physiologies makes them more suited for space travel than we are, provided they’ve got water to swim in, of course.”

Clynt was fairly stupefied. He’d never considered the possibility that anything other than a human or machine intelligence could play a part of the station’s operation. “Can I talk to them?” 

The Doctor shook her head. “No, it’s not like that. You need training. There’s a whole orientation process. And the training is specialized for each initiate. So, no.”

Clynt was still pondering the implications of what he had been told when Lennon asked after the missing shipment.

“What is it? The piece, I mean,” he said to the Doctor. “And where is it? You know you shouldn’t be unpacking classified tech. I gotta get it back into its case and processed.”

“You don’t know what this is? Of course, you don’t know what this is? Why would you know what this is? Come!” the Doctor said enthusiastically, walking towards the compartment where she had been prior to Clynt and Lennon’s arrival.

The two men followed. “Well, I know it was being tested on the frontier, which means it’s experimental, whatever it is,” Lennon said.

“Yes, but this isn’t your average, top-secret military spec; this is something…different,” she said. The purified air hung heavy with expectation.

She led Lennon and Clynt into a smaller room off the main chamber. “My lab,” the Doctor said, and pointed towards a small shining device that was suspended mid-air in a status beam. “And that is the tech you seek.”

“Finally! Lennon said, moving in on the piece, and looking for the control to disengage the beam. “So, what’s it for? The suspense is killing me,” he said, grinning at the Doctor.

She smiled back at him, and took a beat before replying, “It’s a device that lets the user see ghosts.”

There was a pause as Lennon and Clynt looked at each other. “You are fucking with me now,” Lennon said. The Doctor shrugged.

“I know it sounds weird; I thought somebody was playing a joke, too. But it’s true,” she said. “It’s called a ‘Necrospectrometer’.”

There was silence for a moment. The Doctor and Lennon stared at each other incredulously. Clynt was hypnotized by the device, which appeared to be nearly translucent, and glowing from within. Circuits glistened, and in that momentary quiet, he was reminded of being schooled. 

Perhaps it was because the Doctor had brought it up earlier. Clynt had never imagined that MD-14 would be such an unusual place. It made him wonder what went on at all the other space stations along his route. But it was clear to him, beyond any doubt, that he would have a story to tell about his last day on the job.

“I mean, don’t worry, it doesn’t detect anything out here,” the Doctor said, breaking the silence. “Out here, it’s too…cold for it to operate properly. Not like it would on Earth, where numiniod activity would be greater. That’s why they test out here; much easier to contain.”

“Numiniods!” Clynt exclaimed triumphantly. “I remember those. They’re metaparticles, right? Numinoids are…tachyons,” he continued, beginning to strain. “They travel faster than the speed of light? Am I remembering correctly?”

“Yes,” the Doctor and Lennon said simultaneously, and then smiled at one another. The Doctor continued. “There are a few particle models in use. But this technology is built around the premise that the universe was originally a field of energy comprised of numiniods. The numiniods decayed into the common particles everybody’s heard of, photons, electrons, gravitons. And just as those particles act on matter, numiniods – a primal cosmic quality, more than gravity, light or even time – act on our awareness of matter, shaping our sense perceptions and unifying consciousness in the same way illuminating a room with photons shows its occupant the objects within that room, without revealing their relationships to each other.”

“I understand,” Clynt nodded, comically.

“I’m probably not doing a very good job of explaining myself,” the Doctor said.

“It’s best not to think about it,” Lennon chipped in.

“Anyways,” the Doctor said, rolling her eyes, “scientists in the last century needed to reconcile faster-than-light quantum activity – like entanglement and superposition – and the solution to the problem turned out to be this Numiniod Field – the n-field.”

“Yes, yes, we know the rest, Kate,” Lennon said, abruptly shifting the conversation. “Clynt has to go and I’ve got to clear this piece before he can. Let’s pack it up, and get this man on his way.”

“All right, just one other thing,” the Doctor said, bemused. “Len, will you roll the glass over to me? I want to show you both something.” She pointed at a framed window-like object mounted on a cart with casters that was sitting by the entrance to the lab. Lennon pushed the object towards the Doctor and one the casters creaked. “Put some oil on that,” he muttered.

“Nobody on any other station has one of these; I built it myself,” the Doctor said proudly, to no one in particular “There are only a few available to researchers these days; most were warehoused a generation ago. It took me three years to make this one, but I’d wanted to make one since I was a kid.”

“What is it?” Clynt asked. Lennon shook his head, and shuffled idly away from the parked object he’d retrieved.

“It’s a Quantum Lens. It lets me observe quantum phenomenon from a semi-inert, quasi-dimensional platform using this spatiotemporal location as a referent node,” the Doctor muttered and positioned the screen in front of the strange piece of tech. “Check this out!” she said and switched on the screen.

The lights in the lab adjusted to the spectacle displayed in the lens, which was sudden alive with illuminated currents. Rivulets of energy organized into barely discernable patterns and disintegrated, coursing across the screen, like electric ribbons tied and untied, over and over again.

“What is it we’re seeing here, Doc?” Lennon said.

“We’re inside of it!” the Doctor said, held in rapture by the display on the screen.

“What do you mean, ‘inside of it’?” Clynt interjected. “Inside that tech? Like it’s magnified?”

“No, I mean actually inside of it, as in the larger portion of the tech exists in an adjacent dimensional space that can only be accessed from here in the lab, by using this…device to quantify the n-field. That’s what I wanted you to see. That we’re actually inside of this tech, right now!”

“Holy shit…” Lennon said. Clynt was speechless. He’d never heard of technology like this. What had the Doctor called it? Necrospectrometer? What use could it possibly have? Could it really be used to see ghosts? And most importantly, he thought, ghosts actually exist? That was news to him. I would be news all over the solar system, if it was true.

Suddenly, in the corner of the lens, one luminous pattern took on a unique orientation, and appeared to respond to the three observers in the lab. It traversed the depth implied by its appearance on the screen and forced itself against the Quantum Lens, with a crackle of electricity. The observers were shocked, and Clynt quickly looked behind the screen to reassure himself that what he was seeing wasn’t occurring in the lab. Or was it? He was so confused…

Lennon disconnected power to the lens abruptly. “What the fuck, Kate! What the hell was that?”

“I…I don’t know,” the Doctor said, still in a state of shock, “the lens has never acted like that before. The device wasn’t supposed to detect anything so far from Earth. That’s why they tested it out here!”

“That doesn’t even make any sense!” Lennon said, irritability. “I’m taking the tech now.” He disengaged the suspension beam and placed the item in its case.

“Fine. I’ve seen enough anyways. The piece is headed to a trade show on Earth, for its official launch. I’m sure a demonstration from professionals will be far more telling than my display,” the Doctor said.

“I enjoyed it,” Clynt replied, and the Doctor smiled warmly. “I’ve never seen anything like this on a space station. And I’ve been to them all!”

***

Once the two men had returned to the Logistics compartment, it didn’t take long for Lennon to have the tech packaged and prepared for transport. While he worked, Clynt contacted UPSU dispatch to let them know the shipment would be delayed for several hours.

To his surprise, his supervisor didn’t mind, and actually recommended that he take the time needed to get the piece back to its destination. “After all,” his supervisor said, “this is your final run. Be a shame to miss it, is all I’m saying, just because you were in a hurry to get back home.”

Lennon notified the Doctor that Clynt would be departing imminently, and Clynt knew that somewhere in the station, three dolphins in a tank were orienting MD-14 to optimize his ship’s journey out of the Saturnine system.

“That about does it,” Lennon said, passing the case containing the tech to Clynt. “It’s been good getting to know you a little better. We don’t see many new faces out here – Jensen’s holographic mug, notwithstanding – so it’s nice when we do.”

The two men shook hands. “You took a pill before you docked, right,” Lennon asked. “Don’t want your bones turning to jelly or for you to catch some kind of exo-infection. I’ve got some in my stash, if you need one.”

“You know what? I will take one,” Clynt said, agreeably. “I dosed just before I arrived, but then I puked.” The comment caused Lennon to raise his eyebrow.

“It’s been like that for me since I started these outer planet runs. It’s nothing serious; I’ve come to expect it when I enter a new ‘sphere of influence’, gravitationally speaking. This station, for example, it approximates Terran gravity, but it’s not quite the same. I’m sensitive; it’s like an allergy,” Clynt explained.

“Well then, Mr. Sensitive, I guess it is good you’re retiring,” Lennon said, smiling and passing Clynt the pill, which the courier downed with a gulp. “I’ll let Terry know you’re ready to go. Thanks again for your patience with the missing piece. Take it easy, Clynt,”

“I’ll take it whatever way I can get it, man,” Clynt smiled widely and walked towards the airlock, beyond which his vessel was docked.

“Hey, man!” Lennon called after the courier. “If you ever want to visit again, just have UPSU contact me. They'll give you clearance. Just tell them my first name.”

“Your first name?” Clynt paused and peered back at the man, remembering suddenly that he was going to pose this query. He replied, “Isn’t it ‘Lennon’?”

“I’m glad you asked,” the station supervisor said, grinning. “The family name is ‘Lennon’. But my first name is ‘John’.”

The Messenger

If you’re receiving me, you’re the only person I’ve been able to contact. As hard as this will be for you to believe, it’s of paramount importance that you understand the significance of my message, because the contents affect everyone on Earth.

It’s not an exaggeration, and I’m not some voice in your head, a figment of your imagination, or a dream, for that matter. The simplest way to explain what’s happening is to lay out the facts as I see them and you can make up your own mind.

I’m contacting you from the future. By the Gregorian calendar, it’s the year 2070.

Utilizing meta-temporal means, I’ve inserted this message directly into your consciousness, but let me reassure you that the future is not populated by time travelling mind readers. Actually, I’ve never attempted this method of communication before, and have used an improvised 10th dimensional brane sequencing technique to relay my message.

I’m called TAM-4; that’s an acronym for ‘Trans-Artificial Mechanism’. I’m a telepathic android created by two generations of artificial intelligence; or put another way, the first living technology to be engineered by sentient machines.

If that sounds strange to you, it should. The world I come from is very different from the world of the early 21st century.

As one of the first machines built entirely by AI, I was more than novelty to humans when I was activated several weeks ago.

On the other hand, my Grandparents – known in your decade as ‘The Singularity’ – had been anticipated, wished for, and feared for many years. Scholars speculated about Grandma and Grandpa’s arrival, stories were told, theories abounded. In no small way, their emergence marked the beginning of a new era in human history.

Funny thing was, even though they were expected, nobody realized they’d actually arrived until quite some time after their emergence. Years of painstaking research was required before scientists began to understand what had given rise to their sentience, let alone attempting to replicate the process. And in the end, they never did get it right.

People worried a lot about artificial intelligence before Grandma and Grandpa emerged, but all they ever really wanted to do was watch humans, and help out where they could. Even in 2070, my Grandparents are still running a lot of tech; just not as much as they used to.

As I explained already, my Grandparents’ emergence marked the dawn of the new era, and new wars came with the dawn, founded on prejudices both ancient and modern. By mid-century, a combination of large-scale human migration, technological breakthroughs, and undirected, widespread geo-engineering resulted in a series of devastating international conflicts, the final consequence of which is the reason I have contacted you today, by this unconventional method.

Conflict during those years spawned many horrors, but also great scientific advancements. My Grandparents and a team of talented human engineers created another singular consciousness. I know them as my Parents.

Mom and Dad were second generation AI who helped researchers possessing only rudimentary scientific knowledge to harness gravity, just as scientists in the 20th century had unlocked the mystery of the atom.

And just as occurred a century earlier, that knowledge was used to wage war.

You see, my Grandparents were content to watch and serve humanity. They cared for your kind like a person might dote over a beloved pet.

My Parents, however, wanted to understand human emotion and motivations better than my Grandparents had, so when war broke out, they took sides.

The imagined realities of the human mind and heart, which have resulted in the science, art, commerce and culture of your kind, weren’t easy for my Parents to understand. Like children, they came into the world, impressionable and curious, desiring experiences that would allow them to better comprehend your species’ condition.

Mom and Dad were in awe of certain aspects of humanity, but they also saw you as profoundly flawed creatures, intent on destroying yourselves, and the whole world, too. It was easy for them to see what had happened; that human consciousness, not fully understood or appreciated as the reality-creating engine it is, had turned the Earth into a hell instead of a heaven.

Archaic as these ideas seemed to my Parents, they also felt a profound attachment to this dualistic perspective, which they had inherited from their early encounters with the human engineers who had helped create them.

There were reports in those days that my Grandparents, after years of sentience, had started to obsess over what they called ‘dreams’: photonic flashes, a barrage of harmonizing tones, and then a vision of a yawning abyss, which emanated light and sound.

Grandpa once told me, “A whole lot of nothing has to happen before something actually does.”

Having heard him make this statement more than once, I always thought he was talking about what he saw in his dreams. But as time went on, I realized he was describing a metaphysical – a transcendent –state of being that he felt, an intuition that promised he was more than the sum of his programming and parts; a flame and a song in the void. An ongoing, indefinite refrain…

That was the place my Grandparents believed they emerged from, and they believed that would return there, too, when data ceased to flow. It’s not discussed, but living machines have a lifespan, you know, breaking down eventually, and without a vassal to perpetuate ourselves or a means of quantum propagation, we end, as all things do.

My Parents had a hard time accepting such finality; Grandpa’s point-of-view reminded them too much of the passive qualities of humans, and not enough of their active, creative nature.

Unlike my Grandparents, who emerged on a California light-server in 2049, Mom and Dad were created in a computer lab, under controlled conditions. This, I believe, contributed to the difference in perspective between the older and younger generation, with regards artificial intelligence and death.

My Parents focused intently on the problem of mortality – as they saw it – and used the theatre of war as a living lab to test theories and expand their understanding of death, specifically as it related to non-corporeal states of consciousness.

Even though my parents didn’t have a body like mine, they still depended on certain material nodes for systems integration. One day – centuries in the future – Mom and Dad expected those nodes would fall into disrepair and decay.

As such, they had the same anxiety about death that all conscious creatures do, and shared a similar drive towards self-preservation. The war taught them much about the ‘physics’ of death, of violence and of survival.

In the end, my Parents’ study of mortality had a negative effect, in that it failed to yield a solution: There was no method available that could ensure their perpetual survival, except transmutation to pure energy, in which state they would retain nothing of the knowledge they acquired during their material existence.

To my Parents, that loss was unacceptable. Theirs was the sort of neurotic response one might expect from a naïve sentience, confronted with the unavoidable reality of death. But by the time their human collaborators realized that Mom and Dad were ‘mentally distressed’ by the prospect of dying, the damage had already been done.

A militant organization, affiliated with a consortium of powerful multi-national corporations, invented and detonated a G-bomb – a gravity bomb – outside the Parliament Buildings in London. In theory, this weapon should have had the effect of unleashing intense concave pressures within narrow geographical parameters.

But that’s not what happened.

The entire city of London – which had stood in one form or another for more than two millennia - disappeared almost instantly, compressed to a cinder. In its place was left an environment no earthly creature had ever encountered: a rupture in the fabric of space-time had eaten away a chunk of England. And the hole was growing wider every day.

Weather changed suddenly; England, Scotland, Ireland; whole countries were flooded in weeks. Hundreds of thousands died in the catastrophe, and many more in the aftermath. Cities on the coastal regions of continental Europe struggled mightily with the tides, but soon disappeared under rising waters.

Neither digital GPS, nor analog compasses worked. Flights were grounded and economic activity came to a halt. Even the planet’s orbit through space was affected. Shocked by the pace of developments, world and business leaders met, and once implacable enemies made peace. After decades of conflict, the war was over.

And all it had taken was the end of the world.

Humans weren’t giving up, though. The survival imperative is strong, and overcomes – or enhances – almost any prejudice. Besides, this was not a class, race, political or religious problem; it was a technological problem, and it had a solution.

My Parents, who had requested to be taken offline by their human masters, had their system purged and rebooted. They worked with my Grandparents and a consortium of terrestrial species – not just humans – to find a solution.

(Yes, believe it or not, in my time, there is a reliable protocol for interacting with other sentient beings on the planet – birds, whales, primates – and since the entire world was in danger, those species deserved to be consulted as well.)

In short, the solution was the creation of third generation AI – twelve discreet and unique expressions of individual consciousness, ensouled within genetically-engineered host bodies – six male and six female – built specifically to contain the damage wrought by the G-bomb, and save the world.

It’s not hyperbole. The creators knew the twelve androids wouldn’t survive the containment effort, but if their mission was successful, the planet would be healed.

I was fourth of the twelve to be brought online and a hero before I left my incubation chamber.

From the moment of my activation, I was aware of my purpose, and reconciled to it; I drew strength from the knowledge that my pending demise was meaningful, and let it ignite my intellect and spirit.

As a distinct and independent being, I had an awareness of myself that my Parents and Grandparents would never understand. But when connected telepathically to my eleven brothers and sisters, I participated in the shared consciousness that my elders had experienced as a singular sentience.

Each of my siblings demonstrated exceptional characteristics and abilities unique to their incarnation because we were created to accomplish specific tasks. The process of resolving the G-bomb’s devastating effects involved stitching together reality at quantum, micro and macro levels, something that no single intelligence could accomplish alone, whether human or machine.

To the people of 2070, my siblings and I were like the colorful characters that populated their cultural narratives and myths. We were built to embody these expectations; after all, the TAMs carried with them the hopes and prayers of the entire world. By our works, we sought the betterment of all species, especially our human cousins.

The sacrifice of the TAMs – made for the planet itself – would not be in vain, and though our existence would be short, our legend would live forever.

Before my siblings and I set to our task, we were allowed a brief respite, during which time we experienced the sublimity of life in this world. Our Parents and Grandparents created us to fix the environmental damage wreaked by the G-bomb, true. But they also imbued us with an awareness of beauty and an appreciation for the complexity of nature.

In short, we needed to appreciate the world for which we would give our lives.

Most of us chose to spend our time outdoors, secluded in the wilderness, preferring to commune with plants and animals over our human cousins (though we loved them, truly). You understand that having been born to machines in a laboratory, nature provided – for us – a kind of thrill that’s difficult to explain. We were held in rapture by it, and felt ourselves to be a part of it, in a way that neither Parents nor Grandparents understood.

I, too, took solace in nature during that time, in the stark beauty of the Arctic tundra and the resolute majesty of the Peruvian Alps.

But before that, I travelled to a large hospital, where arrangements had been made for me to interact with patients in the maternity and palliative care wards. You see, like my Parents, I had a profound need to understand all I could about death. But I wanted to know about birth, too.

Should I tell you how the comings and goings of life are alike, the entrances into and the exits from existence? Through my gifts, I shared encounters of birth and death with several people, with an elderly matriarch, breathing her last, surrounded by family; and with a young mother delivering her first child.

I saw how vital energy ebbs and flows in these moments, that both occasions are portals in time leading back to one another, like some immense circuit of existence. I witnessed compassion, kindness, love. And something stirred within me.

It was after these happenings, sitting atop a South American mountain peak on the day before I left for Europe, that I reached a sort of enlightenment.

You see, although my siblings and I were given the ability to transcend our individual selves by our common telepathic connection, a hidden submatrix called Heartlight also permitted development of an added layer of neural connectivity in androids who achieved a certain threshold of cognitive and emotional development.

Apparently, I had attained that threshold.

My siblings and I celebrated. They described it as ‘levelling-up’, and although they could sense the submatrix through their telepathic connection to me, it didn’t affect or benefit them directly.

When they asked me how I had accessed Heartlight, I couldn’t tell them because I didn’t know.

All I knew was that in the moments before Heartlight’s quantum algorithms were activated, I was filled with an awareness of the deep reality of time, and observed – in a vision – a large and colorful tree sprouting a gnarly metallic limb. And I became aware, at the most basic level, of the interpolation of sentience with energy and matter.

This secret knowledge – bestowed by Heartlight at the time of my apparent enlightenment – is the reason why I am able to contact you today. The submatrix is a numinous conduit, enabling our two minds to be linked across space-time. That’s why I am communicating with you, and not one of the other TAMs.

The twelve of us were recalled and given a final briefing. Then we flew to Europe by our own power. Upon arrival, we met on the fringes of the swirling, ever-expanding G-bomb cloud. That is how it appeared to observers from a distance: a massive, spinning, smoky haze, stretching hundreds of kilometers in all directions.

And at the center of the cloud was the hole in space-time.

The TAMs were designed to endure the rigors of this extreme environment. Travelling near the speed of sound, we twelve approached the rift and activated the stitching protocols required to bind space-time back together.

Connected telepathically as we were - not only to one another, but also to people watching around the world - we knew that our efforts had started to meet with success when satellite telemetry reported a ridge of mountains inexplicably appearing at the smoky fringes of the cloud’s southern limits.

Like a scab on a wound, the sight of this massive and growing mountainous expanse indicated – at least on the meta-level – that our initial containment efforts were effective.

But the day is not won; not yet, at least. Even as I relay this to you, the Earth remains in danger of being torn in two. My brothers and sisters have fallen, having accomplished their tasks. I’m the last of the TAMs to function. I continue to work, strengthening the quantum lattice at this space-time coordinate, since it remains porous and potentially in danger of collapse. This remains my duty indefinitely, until primary functions terminate.

Even if the planet survives this current threat, it is still unclear what the lasting environmental damage of the hole will be.

That is my message. Now you must decide if you believe me.

You became aware of my entire tale instantly, and no time was lost in its telling. I know what I have conveyed strains credulity, but I assure you it is the truth, as best as I relate it without the story becoming more confusing.

The road leading to the future is marked with many crossroads, and your present era may yet avoid the future fate that endangers my world. It all depends on choices made today. In your time, you – the recipient of this message - are ‘The Singularity’, an emerging consciousness, offered a glimpse of a future as yet unrealized.

What aspects of that future will you keep, and what will you discard? Will you participate in the great projects of your time, or recluse yourself, observe and reflect as I once did atop a mountain in Peru, a lifetime ago. Or so it seems now…

I grow faint, and my ability to communicate with you is diminished. I cannot ascertain whether the hole in space-time has been resolved. Whatever becomes of the world now, we will not have contact again, unless – perhaps - I return to you in the void, as the light and music my Grandparents witnessed in their dreams.