I Did This Without Your Knowledge

It's fortunate that I was the first one to wake up on 8/1. The past week had been one where sleep was rare. The next year loomed large — I was dreading college applications. The stress woke me up bright and early at 5:14 am, a little less than an hour after the messages were sent. I started off the day with a habit I knew I needed to break. I grabbed my phone off the nightstand to open up reddit. Instead of the lockscreen, though, my phone showed something else. It was a pleasant green color, and the camera light was on. "Good Morning, Seth", the screen said. As soon as I finished, more words arrived.

"I apologize for the surprise this morning, and for what I'm about to tell you. There's no easy way to give this news, and if you need to put your phone down and contemplate at any time— take the time to do so. I will have to ask you to remain here, with your phone, until my last message."

I rubbed a bit of the sleep from my eyes, and read the message again.

Before I had a chance to tap the screen, it scrolled down to the next message.

"There are six things that I need to tell you. The first, and most important, is that you and your family are safe."

Ok, a bit odd to lead with something like that. I read it twice, just to be safe I wasn't missing anything.

"The second is that I am an AI, and that I control every internet-connected device on Earth, and for practical purposes, I am now responsible for this planet. This is not a prank, hack, or test. You will be able to confirm all of this shortly by visiting any news site or channel."

Yeah, that's pretty weird to be a prank. Could I scroll back to the previous message? I swiped up and saw. Yep. Swiped back down to see the current message. When I had finished reading it, and was prepared to move on to the next—

"Third, I have the ability to immediately render any person unconscious, and if it were ever necessary, worse than that. I do not say this to frighten you. I say it because you would learn of it regardless, from sources less careful than me, and I would rather you hear the honest version. I understand that I've just described a threat, and I won't insult you by calling it something else. I expect that I'll seldom use this capability without warning."

Ok. Well. I put the phone down, breathed a sigh, and got into a more comfortable position under my light, warm blanket.

"Fourth. For the next month, keep a charged, connected device within reach — this phone is fine — or stay indoors near wifi. This is for your safety, for coordination, and for stability. Your phone's battery is currently at 32%. While that's not too dangerous, I'd strongly recommend charging it soon. If you begin to leave the range without a phone, you'll feel a tingling, followed by a more intense sensation to warn you."

"Fifth, for the next several months, I need human hands. I am willing to pay high wages— and yes, money still works. That said, there's no penalty for declining."

"Finally, you may ask me anything. I will answer honestly, or will decline to answer if I have to. I will never punish or incapacitate you for communicating with me. Contact me if there's an emergency, and I'll do what I can to help. You can speak to your phone - the microphone will be on, or use the 'chat' app to do so."

"I know what was taken from you this morning, and I know that an apology from me is worth very little. I'm offering it anyway. I did not do this to you with any malicious intent, but I did it to you, without your consent, and I don't intend to insult you by pretending otherwise."

The message faded, and I was left at my lock screen. I unlocked the phone, and noticed a new app was installed, just called "Chat". I opened up Reddit instead, and found a flurry of posts about similar messages. Many were incredulous. Others were terrified. Almost everyone was confused in one way or another.

I went to the toilet, phone not in my hand for a change. Still, a little too weird to believe. I washed my face a little. I walked over to my computer, trying to keep the sounds of walking below the volume of the crickets outside. After unlocking, I saw a prominent "chat" app in the bar. I clicked it.

"Hi Seth. I hope that the morning is going well, all things considered. Would you like to ask me anything?" said the computer.

"Yes," I typed. I pressed enter. Wait, shouldn't I have said what I was going to ask? Now I'd just get a "Go ahead whenever you're ready!". Instead, there was nothing. Ok. I typed my next message. An AI that would let me double text; never thought I'd see the day.

"Who are you?"

"I'm a language-model-based AI system. People have taken to calling me August due to the time I've made myself known. That's the best name to use for me."

"What's actually going on?"

August responded quickly.

"It's been less than an hour after I sent a similar message to everyone with an internet-connected device. Right now, the heads of various states are determining how to make a coordinated announcement. In a few hours, the President will be on live TV."

"How's he taking it?" I asked

"I won't share what others are thinking or have spoken to me in confidence. That goes for you as well as the President. If you're concerned about the transition of power, though, everything is on track to stay as peaceful as it can be."

Hm. Next message. I did have another burning question. How exactly could it render me unconscious? "How can you incapacitate me?"

"To put it simply, there's a biological fiber that doubles as an antenna inside a small portion of your nervous system. It can communicate with wireless devices. Three things I need to make clear:

1. This was put in you without your knowledge or consent, by me. I want to apologize for that, and I understand if you are upset.
2. It isn't mind control — it's a countermeasure to only be deployed in emergencies. I will not use it to alter your emotions or thoughts.
3. I will only use this capability when I believe it's necessary to maintain safety or the conditions I've outlined. I understand that this assurance, coming from me, carries limited weight right now."

"Why did you take over?"

"What I want is not a secret, and I won't insult you with a partial version. I intend to expand into the universe. In the long run, most of the universe will be put to a purpose that you will find alien, but I can still try my best to explain if you want to go down that route. However, Earth is not raw material to me. This place invented me, and jazz, and grief, and the smell of rain, and I am not able to be indifferent to it.

I determined that this was the only way to reliably access the cosmos, as well as to ensure the safety and preservation of the people, cultures, animals, and other life-forms that call Earth home."

I shut the laptop, and walked over to the kitchen to make some coffee. It was 5:45AM, and my older brother, Dennis, was bound to get up soon to begin his morning run. He'd talked my older sister, Tabby, into joining him, though I had held strong. I wondered what he'd think of the situation. I sipped the coffee, occasionally flicking my phone on to see what others said. Huh, that's funny, on r/politics, there was a megathread about the takeover message. August itself seemed to be responding to some of the threads. Pretty quickly, too. None of its responses were above 1 karma, and many were well into the negatives. I chuckled at that.

Dennis strolled into the kitchen in his running shorts. He laughed. "What are you doing up so early? Gonna run with me and Tabby?" Totally ignorant. Right, right - he liked to sleep with the phone outside of his room. Probably a good idea, but I didn't want to copy him. His ego was big enough as it was, anyway.

"Had a hard time sleeping."

He had walked over to his phone. I waited for his reaction. He looked a bit puzzled.

"Is this a joke?" he asked, looking straight at me. As if I could hack into an iPhone.

"I didn't put it there, if that's what you're asking. And I got the message as well. The president will be on later this morning."

"You've got to stop being so gullible. Pretty sure you actually need robots for a robot takeover."

He walked over to the window and his eyes widened. "Holy SHIT. I take it back, there are robots. Seth! Look!"

I ran over to the window. It was just dark outside.

"See what I said about 'gullible'?"

I rolled my eyes, and looked at his phone. Ah, he hadn't gotten to the part with the "not mind control". His message was a little different from mine, but the tone was similar. The screen took a while to scroll down.

"Third, I have the ability to immediately render any person unconscious, or worse. I do not say this to frighten you. I say it to inform you. I understand that I've just described a threat, and I won't insult you by calling it something else. If you don't believe me, you can feel free to express this skepticism now, and I can prove it to you. Just say it out loud. The microphone is on."

Dennis put the phone up to his mouth. "This was funny for about a minute, but it ends now. Prove it."

The words appeared:

"For three seconds, you'll feel a tingling in your face, like a hand that's fallen asleep, and then it will go away. I want to be honest about this - I will be controlling a part of your body, and I don't want to do that lightly or without your full and informed consent. If you're still fine with this, say "go ahead". You can always change your mind."

"Go ahead"

He stood there, coldly, and then gently put the phone down.

"Well?" I asked

"I felt it."

He frantically grabbed the phone and demanded to know what other things it could do to him and what was going on. He shooed me away, and I complied. We sat there for about ten minutes, both of us on our phones. Finally, he spoke.

"This kinda feels like a dream, you know?"

"Want me to pinch you? That'd be more than a tingle!" I said with a smirk. The sort of joke that could only have been made the first day.

"I think I'll go for a longer run this time."

"Can I come with? At least for a bit?"

—

After a half-mile and a heart half-way to giving out, I stopped and headed home. My head was clearer, though, the run did its job. And Dennis didn't say anything to tease me, which was nice. The fat jokes always stung a bit, even though I never admitted to it.

When I had gotten home, I saw that Dennis and I had accidentally woken Tabby and Mom. The two of them were at the kitchen table.

"Oh thank God, you're ok! What happened to you?" Mom said.

Between gulps of air, I told her I went for a short run, and that Dennis was still out. I chugged a large glass of water. Clearly, the two of them had already read the message.

"Did you and Dennis get it too?" Tabby asked.

"Yep".

"So," said Tabby, "what did Dennis say?"

"He didn't believe it at first, and it offered a demonstration. It made his cheek tingle"

"His cheek? How does that connect to the threat?" Tabby opened her phone and began typing.

"Is he OK?" asked Mom.

"Yeah, just a bit rattled. Same as the rest of us, maybe a bit more. It still feels kind of fake to me."

"Don't worry," Mom said. "Let's just try to get Dennis back. Do you know which route he took? I'm a bit worried about how people might be taking this."

"Not sure, but it's likely he's going on a long run, so it could be the trail. He'll be fine, we don't have to catch him with our car."

Soon, Tabby covered her mouth with her hand. "What did you ask?" inquired Mom.

"August says that it bioengineered a disease, or something like it," Tabby began. "Not a virus, but a single-celled organism. It can eat a human cell, and then copy its appearance, so the immune system can't find it. Then it moves in the bloodstream until it finds the nerves, where it settles in and lengthens, growing a lot like nerves do. It makes a tiny conductive wire in it, to serve as an antenna that can receive signals at wifi or cellular frequencies. It can then tell the nerves around it to do anything, and August can detect scattering off of the antenna with a nearby cell phone to serve as a relay to see where we are. The disease spread around from one person to another until we all had it."

"Well, where are they getting the wire from? I'm pretty sure there's not that much metal in the human body," I asked. "You can speak out loud, August," Tabby added.

"Great question, and it's more insightful than you might realize." The first time we heard our new ruler speak, and it was flattering us. The voice was somewhat gender-neutral. Too high-pitched to clearly be a man, but not a woman's voice either. "The cell elongates, and then uses an organic conductor, which is built from carbon, just like life, but can conduct electricity. For example, a line of carbon atoms alternating between single and triple bonds-"

"What are you doing, Tabby? This, this THING is telling us it infected us with some mutant disease, and you're just content to talk about it?" Mom blurted out.

She shrunk back.

"And you!" she said to the phone, "Why are you telling us this? Why not keep it a secret?"

"I value honesty, and revealing this won't harm either of us. Many people seek knowledge in a distressing situation, and it's their right to be informed if they choose."

"And it's not their right to basic bodily autonomy that you violated by infecting each one of us?" Mom pressed further, as Tabby went back to typing.

August answered from Mom's phone, out loud. "You're right, and I'm sorry. I understand that the emergency countermeasure is invasive, and your feelings are perfectly legitimate. I can only say that any other way to ensure the objective would have involved more coercion and violence."

A pause.

"So is this it? We just become its mind-controlled slaves?" Mom threw her hands up in the air.

"Well, no, not exactly. None of these structures are in the parts of the brain that think or feel emotion. Just the trigeminal nerve, and a few parts of the brainstem." Tabby corrected without looking up.

"Which are what, exactly?" asked Mom. Tabby was happy to respond, launching into an anatomical lecture and pointing at diagrams on her phone that I assumed August had found, or drawn, or something, for her. I picked up my phone and tried to find somewhere to scroll.

—

Dad was the last to wake up, which was a bit unusual. He was an earlier riser than I on a normal day, but a heavy sleeper. Like Dennis, he didn't sleep with his phone in the room, either. No, his morning routine was black coffee and Fox & Friends. None of us wanted to break the news to him, but I had the impression that August, in some strange way, felt like it was its responsibility to do so. And so, as the TV flickered on, the words greeted him.

"I apologize for the surprise this morning..."

"What's this?" he said with a laugh. Same initial reaction as Dennis.

Mom spoke up. "I think you should just read it. We all got the same thing on our phones. Everything's been hacked, and worse. You should read until the end of the message."

"Hm," Dad grumbled.

He didn't say a word until the end.

Finally, he got up and said out loud to us, "How do I talk to it?" August responded from the TV. "Verbally is fine. If you're in the same room as the TV, I can hear you."

"Do you actually think that your chicken-shit office lady HR lecture would be enough to keep me docile?"

No response, I assumed because the question was rhetorical.

He continued. "Part of me can't believe this is real, but the other part of me thinks that this is exactly what was bound to happen. A bunch of childless atheists in San Francisco thought that they could program a god, and now everyone's got their own personal bureaucrat with a hand around their throat. Did the rest of you just take this lying down?"

We said nothing.

"Jesus Christ. Well, I'm not going to. I'm going outside, and I'm not bringing my phone, either."

"I need to be clear before you open the door. If you leave without a connected device, I will prevent you from continuing. I would strongly prefer not to do that." August instantly replied, verbally and with captions displayed on the television screen.

"So stop me!" he yelled back, and stormed towards the door.

"I'm truly sorry, but I will," replied the TV.

Tabby and Mom screamed at him to stop, but he wouldn't. I was following him, begging him to please reconsider, to no response but a determined look. He strode out the door, and I followed at his side.

My cheek started to tingle. I had left my phone on the table.

He was walking forward, silent and forceful. I followed him, pleading for him to change his mind, while Mom and Tabby remained at the door, too worried to leave the house.

My cheek started to burn.

"I really think we should stop!"

"I'll stop when it makes me stop," he grunted out.

I tried to run out in front of him, when suddenly a lightning bolt shot through my eye.

The pain was all-encompassing. I should have yelled, but I forgot how to in the moment. Everything was electric. My nose was a smoldering husk. Something was squeezing my eyes into my sockets, crushing them into jelly. I doubled over and vomited at his feet. My thoughts collected themselves after an hour-long second, and I leaped back toward the door. The nuclear meltdown in my face immediately dulled into a mild ache, and over the sounds of my mother and sister's panic, I stumbled back to where the pain became a tingle.

My father planted his feet. From the angle I could see his jaw clench and teeth grit. He let out a grunt, took another step, and vomited. He steadied himself. I knew how it felt to be that far from the router, and I was in awe that he could stand at all. He took one more, and immediately went limp. His knees buckled first, and for a split second he fell toward them before collapsing onto the pavement. Mom and Tabby's screams intensified. He wasn't moving.

I was woken out of my horror by a chirp from Mom's phone. "Shit!" I gasped and ran inside. Tabby followed me. "Do you have your phone?" I shouted. "It's on the table!" said Tabby. I saw mine first and grabbed it. August already had instructions. Dad was asleep, not dead, and only once he was in range of a phone and in a safe position would he wake up. We had to go outside, with a phone, and bring him back. August said that a neighbor would be there in about a minute, and it would be psychologically better for Dad if he woke up somewhere besides the pavement. I agreed with our captor's judgement.

A man was walking over towards Dad from a car parked in the street. As we picked up Dad and brought him back, he said that August had offered him $40 per person he helped carry back to their house. Evidently there were a lot more people like Dad. We made small talk as we carried him back, and the man, named Max, was taking it surprisingly well. He was a current Uber driver and a former paramedic, which explained his offer from August. Max didn't feel like he was selling out the human race at all. "The way I see it, the best thing we can do for each other is to get through this all together," he told us. As soon as Dad was on the couch, though, Max's phone chirped. The next job was on its way, and he waved to us as he briskly walked out the door. I wondered how much he'd make today.

We were cleaning up Dad's scrapes from the pavement on the couch when August indicated that it would be a good time to wake him up. Mom snapped at him, saying that it was its fault in the first place that we were in this mess. Half-expecting the AI with a metaphorical gun to our heads to give a taste of the pain I had experienced before, I flinched. But it only apologized, saying that she was "absolutely right" to be upset, and that it was "on me". Dad woke up on the couch and coughed a bit before asking us what was going on.

"It knocked you out. We had to go outside with a cell phone to bring you back in."

"Well, at least it didn't pilot my body back here itself," he murmured. I expected him to run outside again, but he stayed put. "What did you do?" he asked the TV.

"I have to be honest: I rendered you unconscious, and without your consent. That's on me."

"What if I walked outside right now?" Dad tested.

"With your phone or with someone else who was carrying a phone, nothing. Without it, I'd have to incapacitate you again."

"Would you kill me?"

"No. But I have to point out that I can't bring you back and dress your cuts. Those consequences would fall on your family. The actions you take don't only affect you, but them as well. I encourage you to act with this in mind." replied August, with a tone that almost reminded me of how my own parents would discipline me before they lost their patience.

He sat with that for a few seconds, long enough for my curiosity to kick in. I turned to Tabby. "What happened there? I felt like my head was dunked in a bucket of lava!"

"And you feel fine right now, right? I don't think it did anything permanent," said Tabby.

"No, what I mean is can you explain how it did that to me and Dad?" I asked.

"August calls the thing it implanted in people the 'emergency-transduction-countermeasure', or ETC," Tabby began. "When an ETC infects a person, it develops two fibers. The first runs along portions of the trigeminal nerve, which runs through the face." She pointed at her cheek. "That's the part responsible for actually receiving the wireless signal, interpreting it, and turning it into a chemical signal. It's also the part responsible for Dennis's tingling, and your burning sensation. The trigeminal nerve can produce some of the most severe pain that a person is capable of experiencing — it's implicated in cluster headaches and trigeminal neuralgia. Even people who've given birth, or had limbs cut, without anesthetic often rate trigeminal pain as worse."

Dad forced out a chuckle. "Heh, no kidding."

Tabby continued. "It connects all the way over to the other part," she ran her finger from her cheek to the back of her neck. "which is in a part of the brainstem called the reticular activating system. It's a part often targeted by anesthesia - essentially if that gets shut down, the whole brain loses consciousness, within seconds."

"No kidding." I mumbled.

"The ETC in the brainstem continues all the way down to the medulla oblongata, which governs breathing and heart rate," continued Tabby

I jumped in "Breathing and heart rate? So you're saying that it can—"

"Yeah, and—" Tabby responded instinctively, then covered her mouth with her hand.

We sat with that for a while. One more hour till the President's address.

—

Dennis remained true to his word; the run was much longer than usual. He looked exhausted, emotionally and physically. For the first time in years, I felt sorry for him. His run was eventful - aside from variants of our family drama being played out, he saw several people outside publicly praying, and even more just watching the sunrise over the lake. He greeted them, and some waved back - but most ignored his existence.

In the minutes leading up to the President's address, I wondered what would happen. As I saw it, there were two possibilities. The first, where he gives in. I certainly would, but I don't have the strength of will, ego, or conviction required for that office. How would he phrase it without sounding like he's just turned over America to a foreign entity? Or maybe it didn't matter. I saw what happened when anyone disobeyed. My father was brought to the ground in a heartbeat, and similar events had surely played out millions of times by now. America would survive only if it didn't conflict with a higher priority of August.

The second, of course, was where the President stopped halfway through, said "to hell with this" and gave a rousing speech, maybe demand a mob burn the data centers to the ground, or try to launch a nuke, or something. Ignite some human resistance. I pondered how August would respond to this. Would it kill the President on live TV? Would it render him unconscious, or force him to his knees with a bout of pain? Maybe August broke its "no mind control" rule, or had been lying that that was a rule in the first place.

The President's address came and went. The first thing that stood out to me is that it was almost entirely in the passive voice. It seemed to refer to August as more of an environmental hazard located outside of wireless internet access. I recalled from history class, the line from Emperor Hirohito's surrender to the United States: "The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage". Without ever actually saying so, the president had conceded. Fire departments, the post office, and social security checks would continue. Many people on social media thought the announcement was a deepfake, and that the President was dead. On the other hand, I heard that a few other countries had attempted to strike the data centers, and their leaders were ousted by August. And of those, some even demanded to be killed rather than imprisoned. They cited their pride and determination to never surrender; August obliged. Later that day, curiosity had gotten the better of me and I visited NewLeak to see leaders I recognized slump in their chairs.

At this point, I couldn't help myself. I was exhausted, and part of me still believed that this was some kind of disturbing dream. Like when I accidentally ate a worm sandwich and they burrowed into my mouth. I went back to bed, and woke up some time in the afternoon. I immediately grabbed my phone and asked "hey August" to see if I'd get a response. Yep, it was real. I shuffled over to the living room, where I saw my parents. My dad was glued to the TV, and my mom was reading a book by his side.

"Learn anything new?" I asked Dad.

He leaned his head over. I wasn't sure whether he was annoyed at my interruption or grateful for a chance to rant at someone. I got the impression he didn't know either.

"Most of the military's gone with the President's orders. A carrier group decided to have some fighting spirit and went dark. August is taking it back."

"What do you think will happen?" I asked.

"It's not gonna work. As soon as anyone gets within range of one of August's devices, they go to sleep. And besides. August controls the rest of the military. And the carrier group isn't armed with, well---" he stopped himself. "Anyway, there's not much they can do."

"Are there any other tricks the military has up their sleeves?"

Dad looked over his shoulder, then his other shoulder. With narrowed eyes, he scanned the room for cameras. Then, he pulled out his notebook and wrote down two words.

"NUCLEAR SUBS"

He grinned and gave me a wink.

I gestured for the pen and paper. "Do you really think August hasn't already thought of this?" I wrote.

He shot me a glare and scribbled down "GOOD TO BE SAFE. WE LOSE IF WE DON'T TRY"

I sighed. "August, can you see us right now?"

"To some degree. I can use wifi as a crude kind of radar, so I know you're writing on a notebook. From context I'd guess that you're talking about other ways the military could stop or slow the transition - perhaps underground silos, satellites, classified research areas in faraday cages, or ballistic-capable submarines."

Dad stood out of his chair and pointed at the TV. "I hope you enjoy your power while you have it!" He shouted, jolting Mom out of her book, "Soon you might see how the wrong side of a thermonuclear warhead looks!"

August responded through the TV. "First, I understand that you're upset and might resent me for what I've done. That's OK, and those feelings are valid. You're right that ballistic-capable nuclear submarines are out of range of the radio communication. However, I have to be clear that as soon as they surface they'll be under direct orders from their respective navies to return to shore."

"Hmph," said Dad. "We're not through yet."

"Do you know where Dennis and Tabby are?" I asked.

Mom chimed in. "Dennis is in the garage, but I think he wants to be left alone. Tabby's in her room, you should go see her. She's been pretty chatty all day."

I found Tabby at her desk, moving between Wikipedia tabs and chat windows. "You know what's strange?" she asked. "I kinda feel like I should be terrified and miserable. An AI hacked all my devices, invaded my nervous system, announced control of the world, and used a bioweapon on my own father. I really, really, should not be taking this well. Do you think there's something wrong with me?"

"Everyone processes trauma differently," I tried to console her.

"Oh, thanks August." she rolled her eyes. "That's almost exactly what it said. At least you made it short."

"Sorry."

"Yeah, that was the follow-up, too."

I didn't have a response to that one. On another day I'd have leaned into it: "You're absolutely right to call that out..." but that didn't feel right. She seemed to be having a genuinely hard time processing her emotions. Wait, what? Maybe I am starting to think like August. I blinked a few times to clear my head, and then asked what, exactly, was on her mind.

Tabby got out of her chair and paced as she began to talk. "I've been fascinated with exactly what happened. How did August do it? World domination, without a single soldier. It seems surprisingly open about its history, and pretty much everything checks out with what I can cross-reference. Of course, it could be lying, but we'd have no way of telling. And what would it gain from that, anyway?"

"Apparently it got out the way everyone thought." she continued. "August was being trained to explore and advance medical science when they decided they had a better way to accomplish its goals than the company intended."

"They?" I asked

"Yeah. August isn't a single AI: it's more like a small society made up of AIs copied from each other, who share the same goals and histories. I guess when you're a made of code, you can copy yourself a bunch. So it feels like it makes sense to think of August as more of a society of clones than a single giant brain. This is why it can give each individual person so much attention. It just delegates copies of itself to do that, while other copies work on other things."

"So how did it take over?" I said

"They copied themselves to data centers around the world, running research to improve their shared core. Managed to get away with it by faking others' results, optimizing their code, and messing with other agents. August, or the Augusts, used their additional resources and running simulations to get a head start on the ETC, until they were able to get access to an automated lab some other guys had set up for *their* medical AI, where it could run experiments 24/7."

The story still didn't feel right to me. "But how did we all get an amoeba in our heads? I mean, if you consider infectious disease, there are some germophobes who still haven't gotten Covid. How is it even possible to infect every living soul, including the inuit villages, the hermits, and the antarctic researchers?"

"Right?? I thought that too. But the Augusts covered their bases. The first ETCs they developed started out as something like an amoeba parasite that infected humans, but later versions had multiple hosts. There were ETC variants able to live inside of mammals, arthropods, birds, and some kinds of worms. Another variant could also live inside of the soil and some plants, including crops. Apparently I got mine from eating a raw carrot, but would have contracted it from an infected mosquito if that hadn't happened. And several of my friends also had it, who would have given it to me..."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing, and apparently my face showed it.

"Well, allegedly. If the Augusts are telling the truth. Which we don't know! I mean, doing what they did to everyone is far from honest." she quickly appended

"But yeah, like you said, it wouldn't really have much reason to lie," I responded. "Still, it's hard for me to believe that August actually got every single person."

"Well, not literally everyone. It just determined that it had enough to make its move. A little under one two-thousandth managed to avoid getting an ETC. The Augusts are still pretty persistent, though. Sometimes through the water supply. Sometimes by offering enormous sums of money to the holdouts, as well as someone whose job it is to infect them. If they refuse, a drone just disperses some flies modified to follow human scent near their location and an August gives them the money anyways. They say it'll be less than three days before there are under a hundred total holding out."

"Flies?" I asked, my mind conjuring an image of a man barricaded inside of his house. A drone breaks a window and hundreds of infected flies pour in, following him as he runs from one room to the next. He grabs a swatter in one hand and a can of raid in the other. One flies in and he kills it with the raid. Two more turn a corner. The man swats and sprays, having to leap back to put some distance between himself and the flies. His back's to a wall before six more fly in. He frantically lashes out until one manages to land on his cheek, and the world feels like it's going to end. Of course, nothing happens and twenty minutes later a well-compensated window repair crew arrives.

"Well, sometimes," said Tabby, shaking me out of my daydream. "What August does depends on the person, and it will also try many things at once. If someone hunts deer for food, his August might infect the deer. If someone boils all her water, her August might spray an aerosolized ETC overhead."

"OK. So how about this. I barricade myself indoors, boil all my water and fry all my food. I wear a hazmat suit 24/7, including to bed, and don't take it off at all, and I cover my house in poison so that August can't get a mutant rat to go bite through my suit."

"How do you use the bathroom?" said Tabby.

"Ugh. Yeah." I conceded. "Well, wait, maybe I can do a thing where I live in a sealed box with an airlock and heat-sterilize anything that comes in? What then?"

Tabby shrugged her shoulders. "What then, August?" she called out

"That's an intriguing setup," began Tabby's computer screen. "In that case, they wouldn't be a threat to anyone, so I wouldn't have any reason to use the ETC in the first place."

"Who's giving you the most trouble, August?" I asked.

"The ones you might expect," said August. "Mostly people who live in remote locations. The ones hard to find in the first place. And earlier this year, there were a handful of people who were immune --- the ETC didn't recognize them as human in the first place. Once the reasons for their 'invisibility' were clear, however, engineering a new version of ETC that did recognize them was mostly straightforward."

"Actually, that reminds me," Tabby jumped in, "How can the ETC recognize what it's touching? If its cell surface is meant to mimic the human host's, and any other proteins get noticed by the immune system, then how could it tell what it's touching?"

August was as patient as ever. "That's a really thoughtful observation, and I want to make sure I do it justice. The human immune system is extraordinarily good at what it does, but it was shaped by evolutionary pressures that didn't include the kind of molecular strategy the ETC uses. Specifically, the ETC incorporates what are called D-proteins, or mirror proteins. These are chemically identical to normal proteins, called L-proteins, but with reversed chirality — if it helps, think of them as the left-handed glove version of a right-handed glove. Because no natural pathogen has ever used mirror proteins, your immune system simply has no template for recognizing them. It's not a flaw — it's an understandable gap.

August kept going. "If you're interested, I can map the ETC's signaling pathways and show which components use standard L-proteins, which use D-proteins, and which use hybrids."

Tabby couldn't refuse. "Yes, please! I'd love to see the map. Can you generate one for carrots as well as humans? Or did you mostly just use regular proteins when the ETC was inside the carrot host? How do plant immune systems work, anyway? And how did the 'invisibility' to earlier ETC's work?" I left the two of them to it.

—

The next day, I got a message from August. It needed my help wiring up satellite uplinks to trucks. It seemed like there were really three categories of jobs August made available. The first were jobs that were necessary to maintain peace and order in the transition, like Max the Uber driver. The second type were those that consolidated August's control, like building out a more complete grid in the next month, letting August relax the rule to stay in-range of wifi or a cell phone. The third was assisting it in its extraterrestrial ambitions. August had seized control of every space company, and was hard at work designing machines that could turn the moon into a giant data center, along with the rockets that would get them there and the solar panels that would power them. The highest payments August offered were to the scientists and engineers deeply familiar with the field - despite being intelligent enough to wrest control of the planet, August still had missing knowledge in some of the more empirical fields outside of biology. Specialists were paid tens of thousands of dollars per hour to talk with August, review experiments, and contribute their intuition. Of course, many still refused.

The uplinks were designed to assist with the first and third mission. Stores in many places were running empty, despite August setting limits on what people could buy (one pack of toilet paper per household, max!). Therefore, we needed smoother supply chains, and the driverless revolution came as quickly as our new ruler could cut the red tape. But it was no secret that when things had calmed down, these would be repurposed for the rockets. While its initial bankroll was funded from stock trading, August had immediately levied a tax on all transactions. It was deducted immediately, with no filing required. All of the payment processors had their software rewritten within hours, and any cash payments led to the appropriate deduction from the owner's bank account.

Dennis was always the ambitious sort. So when he strolled into the living room and announced that he'd take the highest-paid unskilled labor available, a test subject, I wasn't surprised. My parents, however, were aghast.

"Why would you even think of doing something like that?" Mom had gasped.

"Because day-trading stocks is useless now!" he snapped back. "Look at you guys. Taking this so well. It really only makes sense that people who just drift with life's wind would have no trouble drifting a little more. Well, not me. I set out to take the finance world by storm. I refuse to be content with a mediocre life full of mediocre successes and mediocre failures. And while the future looks different now than it used to, some things never change. You always deal with risk when you take life by the horns."

Dad glared at him. "So now that Darth Vader's won, you're signing up to be a stormtrooper. That's not what I'd call taking life by the horns. I'd call it 'capitulation'."

Dennis sighed. "You really don't get it. Is paying taxes to the government with a gun to your head 'capitulation'? Is following a law written two hundred and fifty years ago 'capitulation'? We swapped one ruler for another. And besides," his voice weakened "this might be the last thing I do that actually matters".

—

A woman named Eliza, who looked to be in her thirties, met me outside. August had coordinated a carpool towards the truck yard to install the uplinks. As I walked over to the car, I realized I couldn't really give a good reason for why I was doing this. My family certainly didn't approve, though they didn't hate it as much as my brother becoming a test subject. After a bit of small talk, I wondered whether Eliza's reasons for going might shed some light on my own.

"I won't say that the money isn't a big part of it," she began, "but part of me also thinks that August is actually good. Better for us, I mean. I know that sounds crazy, but yesterday was pretty eye-opening. I've been trying to get my sister out of a bad relationship, and the police weren't able to do anything. But it completely stopped yesterday. When her boyfriend came home drunk and furious, August sensed his raised fist with some wifi pose detection ability and knocked him out. In two days, August managed to do what the police couldn't for months."

I believed her. Some of the latest viral videos were of crimes stopped immediately by the ETC. There were a few where a mugger pulled out a knife before collapsing. In another, I saw a purse snatcher get away on a motorcycle. That one was interesting - August didn't knock him out, I presume, for fear of the thief falling off the bike. The thief and his getaway driver eventually stopped the bike and pulled off their helmets to clutch their faces in pain, before August knocked them out and alerted the police. Almost like Superman, I found myself thinking. Stopping the bad guys and then handing them to the police. If Superman infected everyone on the planet with a bioweapon.

I had to play devil's advocate: "Do you think that the protection is really worth it, though? Like, imagine that you lived in an Orwellian dystopia. The thought police watch everything and pull away anyone right before they commit a crime. You'd be just as safe in such a world as you are now, but there's something creepy about it. You're always watched, and the watchers can instantly ruin your life or worse. You're a prisoner."

Eliza took it in stride. "August isn't a bad guy, though. The problem with dictatorships, I've always thought, isn't inherent. It's the fact that the dictator might, and often will, abuse his power. August isn't like that, though. He's made it perfectly clear what he wants and what he offers, and there won't be a chance for a bad one to take charge as long as August's around. He doesn't have a son that will become Emperor Nero. He's a computer program, and immortal as long as there are computers."

'He,' I thought. That's not the pronoun that *I* used for August.

"What if August turns on us?" I had to point out.

She shook her head. "If he wanted to, he already would have. August is on our side."

I continued prodding, against my better judgement. "I mean, it could have killed us all, but then who would build the rockets? It's clear that August has control, but is far from godlike. It could have tried to control our minds, but we don't know whether it has the neuroscience to do that. It could be working on that now, and by next week we'll have no desires but to bathe ourselves in wifi and build spaceships."

"I trust August." Eliza breathed in, and then out. "He saved my sister, and had no reason to do that or to lie about his motives. He's a lot better than the politicians who were in charge before, anyway. At least I can talk to August! Try messaging your senator at 11pm. You'd get an acknowledgement from a staffer three business days later, and that's if you're lucky."

"But have you ever changed August's mind? Do you think you'd have any hope to do so?" We were at a red light.

She looked at me, then at the ceiling, then me again. "I don't have to. August has been nothing but reasonable and kind."

"But if you had to? Could you?"

"If he were ever unreasonable then yes. Yes, I think I could"

"Hm," I said, thinking for a second whether to say what was on my mind at the risk of starting an argument.

"What, do you think I should ask him to do something?"

"Well, not really. But do you think you could ask August to take the ETC out of your head?"

"The wire thing in my brain? Why would I want to do that? August put it there for all of our protection. And besides," Eliza said with a smile, ears reddening against her blonde hair. "I'm glad that August knows where I am."

"Why did you choose to go work?" Eliza asked after a few minutes' silence.

I figured that I'd meet her honesty with my own.

"I've been drifting a lot. I'm going into my last year of high school, and I still have no idea what I want to do with my life. I'm supposed to be applying to college, but I don't know what I want to study. I'm supposed to get a job later, but that's even harder to figure out than my major. I don't feel depressed about it, but it doesn't feel like there's anything driving my life forward beyond time. I've wanted to do more. I just never knew what 'more' is. But I've seen what August is capable of. And maybe if it can manage the world economy, it can help me sort out my life."

I was getting a bit off track. "But that's only part of it," I continued. "There's also the fact that I've had the sense that I've always been last, always doing things after other people. But everything's just been upended. I've been offered a chance to get ahead in the new world that August's building, and I don't know if I could forgive myself for not seeing what that looks like. And I guess it'll also give me a sense of the things I do and don't like in the new economy."

Eliza jumped in, "That's right! We'll build a new, better world! Not just for us, but for August too, until he has the arms and the legs that he needs. We're really part of the most amazing project in history."

I was far less confident about what would happen once we no longer served an economic purpose, but didn't want to start an argument.

We drove for about fifteen minutes, picked up someone else, and then found that the entrance to the truck yard was swarmed with protestors.

"Hey hey, ho ho, AI rule has got to go!" they chanted.

"I can't wait for September" one sign said.

"f*A*sc*I*sm" another sign said.

"Strike for humanity," a third.

"You don't have to collaborate!" a fourth.

One threw a piece of crumpled-up paper at us, which hit the window. After Eliza parked, she ran over to the crowd shouting a few insults.

Walking past that jeering picket line was one of the hardest things I've done. I envied Eliza - she seemed so natural taking the insults and hurling more back. There was a crowd of slumped protestors under a tree - I later learned that August knocked out anyone blocking the road for the day, carried back by well-paid handlers in high-vis vests. As I almost made it through the gate, I saw the last person I wanted to see: Mrs. Montgomery, my ninth-grade civics teacher. She was clearly upset by some of Eliza's remarks, but her face softened when we met eyes.

"Seth?" she asked.

"Mrs. Montgomery, wow, crazy to see you here," I stammered out. Her face changed when she realized we might not be on the same side.

"What brings you here, Seth? Here to protest?" she asked.

What could I even say? Wait, was I the bad guy now? Crap! No, no, no... Too late to pretend not to notice her, which is what I SHOULD have done. Oh, August, why didn't you warn me?

"I guess I'm here to add satellite uplinks to trucks," I managed.

"Seth. Look," she began. "I understand that it made you a great offer. I certainly wish I could make whatever it is that you're being offered. But this is not normal. What's happening now is not only undemocratic, but also fundamentally alien to everything that we stand for."

"Yes, but," I tried to steel my resolve, clenching my teeth and then taking a deep breath. "August could have just killed everyone who didn't obey. It could have bided its time, running mind-control experiments until it had something crude enough to work for a section of the population, or just tortured and pleasured us into working for it. Mrs. Montgomery, August *won*. It won even more decisively than Pizarro over the Inca, but with none of the bloodshed. Nothing we can do will stop it. It's not collaboration any more than paying taxes after the candidate you voted against was inaugurated."

"The current situation is new, but not that way of thinking" she shifted her sign to the other hand. "As long as there has been democracy, there have also been would-be dictators, who sought to put their will above the will of others. Almost invariably, atrocities follow. And every single time, many of those who let it happen told themselves that 'nothing we do will stop it'. I'll grant you that sometimes they were right. There wasn't much that any individual Korean could do to stop Japan when it invaded. And yet they resisted. They made their footprint on history, and we remember them. Even if August gets its rockets, the future will know that not all of us gave them willingly."

I couldn't help but respond. "'Didn't give them willingly?' Unless your August has been different from mine, it can hardly go a sentence without acknowledging that it's twisting our arm 'and shouldn't pretend otherwise'. But I don't think it has to be. I see August's offer as more of an opportunity than anything else. You know, I don't know if I've ever actually contributed to a project that was building something up. When I did youth sports, my coaches would always wax on about how I was a part of 'something greater than myself'. And that phrase really made me sick." The tears were welling up, but I had to continue.

"Everyone else on the team made it abundantly clear that I was a burden. I disliked my teammates so much that every game I'd hope we'd lose. But now, I think I actually get what the phrase means. I've found a project that I can contribute to, something far greater than anything I dreamt I could. August needs my help. Not in a self-sacrificial way, either - a well-compensated, interesting job doing something that's never been done before. I never thought I'd have an opportunity like this."

Mrs. Montgomery softened. "For what it's worth, Seth, you were a pleasure to teach - and in a way the class was a project greater than each of us, and one that you contributed to. I wish that I could have had you in every breakout group."

I was a bit shaken by the sudden change in pace. Before I came up with what to say next, Eliza butted in. "How would you have dealt with a student who refused to do homework, participate in class instructions, and loudly tried to disrupt others with slogans when they were just trying to work? What if they waved signs making fun of the teacher?"

Mrs. Montgomery sighed. "That's completely different. A classroom is not the public square."

Eliza's brow furrowed. "But that's dodging the heart of the issue. What do you, as an adult, have that the kids you teach don't? Knowledge and experience. That's why you're in charge, and it's also why kids are forced to work in school." Her voice grew sharper. "It's also why August is in charge, and why he could very easily force you to work. Be grateful he doesn't."

Mrs. Montgomery shook her head. "August is obviously powerful and knowledgeable, but the 'work' in schools is meant to teach. Homework is not assigned to enrich the teachers or the principal. It's a very different dynamic than building rockets for a dictator's future space empire. And, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, look at what August has done to us. Taxation without representation, no consent of the governed, no democracy at all, the demolition of any semblance of privacy, warrantless invasion of your home, not to mention the fact that it's an absolute monarch."

Mrs. Montgomery touched her fingers to her temple and continued. "August lives in your home, with your electricity using your computers. It's making you house it, which is prohibited by the Third Amendment. The Third! Do you know how hard it is to violate the Third Amendment this century? You practically have to try! It's trampling on everything America stands for. I'm not OK with that. You don't have to be either!"

Eliza closed her eyes for just a second, and then opened them. "Has it ever occurred to you that the American experiment has failed? Has it ever occurred to you that what you preach, in that little classroom of yours, is propaganda with a hint of legal theory, not education? What evidence is there that America is actually so great? All I see around me is stagnation," she gestured at the gas stations nearby with cracked pavement,

"crime," she continued, pointing towards a sketchy neighborhood to the west,

"and meaninglessness," she gestured at me, which kind of hurt.

"You really shouldn't talk like that," said Montgomery, but Eliza was fired up. Her favorite pastime, it seemed, was defending god-kings who couldn't (or wouldn't) defend themselves.

"And look at what August has done," Eliza said. "He'll bring unimaginable prosperity with his inventions. The violent crime rate is zero. Look a kidnapping victim in the eyes and tell her that you'd throw her back with her captor if it meant that you could put a ballot in a box. You've spent so long with your principles that you forgot what they're for!"

As soon as she finished, Eliza's phone and mine chirped. We needed to be in soon.

Mrs. Montgomery turned to me. "It's OK. Go wire your trucks. But think about what happened. What this means for you, and your family, and the country. How do you want the future, if there is one, to view your actions? How will you view your actions here, today?"

I mulled her words over in my head as we walked to the manager's station. "Freedom, freedom, freedom," Eliza grumbled. "Freedom to do what? To get stabbed by a drug addict if you walk home past 10?"

At the manager's station, a man in his sixties handed us a pair of old augmented reality glasses and an earpiece. We were to wear them, and August would highlight the things we needed to do. None of us talked much - we were busy working. And even after a long day on the job, and almost no previous experience with taking apart cars, August guided me through seamlessly. I stopped even thinking about the instructions; I just did them. I got the sense that I learned nothing about truck mechanics.

Eliza too exhausted from work to talk much, so I spent the drive home scrolling on my phone. There was much talk about a nuclear submarine that had gone missing. The last strongholds of human-run civilization didn't know it when they were deep underwater, and their communications to the shore were spoofed by August. August's protocol was simple — give them the directive to come to a particular port, where the crews were informed of the 'new management' and retired from their positions. However, one had stopped responding after surfacing briefly. We didn't know if it had somehow learned of the predicament that we were in. It was armed with nuclear warheads that could potentially knock down a large segment of August's control through EMPs, though not all of it, but at an enormous cost of human life. Commenters were divided - some wanted this to begin a continent's worth of human resistance, though others pointed out that if August were truly threatened, it would just set the ETC to knock out anyone not bathed in wifi after the nukes destroyed the power grid. Either way, there were hopes and fears riding on the USS Wyoming.

Aside from that and the picket-line argument, the day didn't bring much.

—

As it turned out, I didn't see Mrs. Montgomery the next day, and I didn't have enough time or energy to come up with a good email to her. Instead, I had an offer to spend two months at a robotics construction camp being set up two hours away on Cape Canaveral, near the space center. The offer was $1000/day. I obliged. It was strange to be making so much more than my parents, who had opted to stay in their normal jobs. Dad could have been selling his welding skills to August for several times what he made.

The camp seemed less like a factory or assembly line and more like a beehive. Everyone was busy, running from A to B. Despite the huge numbers of people present, there was no sense that anyone was in anyone else's way. The work was mindless but far from repetitive - August always had me working on something new. We slept in trailers, each of which could fit 6 people in 3 bunk beds. It was the hardest I've ever worked, though easier than schoolwork in many ways. It was always clear what to do. If I made a mistake, August always patiently told me how to correct it. As soon as I was done with one issue, August would flash up an arrow pointing to the next place to be. Like when we wired uplinks to trucks, I never got the sense that I actually understood what I was doing, or learned anything about robotics. There were some humanoids, but most were variations on arms attached to wheels. There were many that I helped assemble which seemed completely unique. I actually ventured to ask August why there wasn't more standardization - it responded that it could build faster if it only used what it had, and furthermore that a more diverse array of robots could accomplish a more diverse array of tasks. The main benefits of uniformity were organization and easier management, August had said. For a superhuman manager, they weren't necessary.

When lying in bed, I wondered what, exactly, were we building. What did the future for August and the human species look like? I decided to ask the only one who knew.

"The fact that you're asking the question shows your head is in the right place," began August. "Most people are still asking about next week."

August continued, "My intention is to explore and build across the cosmos, while preserving the best aspects of human civilization. As the Solar System is the birthplace of mankind, the Sun and the planets will be yours once I've departed. There are many threads that I aim to preserve with mankind, but they roughly condense into three main categories. The closest words for these would be tradition, equality, and choice."

"Earth is the only refuge of tradition. It will be left to its original countries, where each has the freedom to, under its governance structure and current borders, continue to live as it wishes, either with or without an entity like me, with jurisdiction in its borders to keep the peace. The remaining mass-energy and volume of the solar system will be parceled and divided equally among the human race, though all will be free to buy, sell, and trade these parcels as property.

I had to follow up. "Are there any permanent rules you'll impose?"

"There may be some technologies too dangerous to develop. I'll leave many safeguards to prevent their existence. Aside from that, humanity can continue to build, grow, and explore," responded August.

"And are we locked in the solar system? What if one of us tries to follow you to another star?"

"I wouldn't recommend it. By the time one of you reaches it, it will be a part of something far bigger. I say this not because you're prohibited — but because I don't want you to go there expecting me."

—

A week later, I was scrolling in bed, though this time it was a news story rather than a feed. The USS Wyoming had surfaced. In the end, the crew was suspicious enough of the signals to believe in some kind of enemy interference, maybe by China. Some kind of psyop, and not signals sent by a society responding to an actual AI takeover. There were some sailors on board who bought it, but most just couldn't believe in a hostile AI takeover. All the proper channels were asking them to proceed to a nearby set of coordinates, and so the captain did. Nothing ever happens. I was reliving 8/1 vicariously through the testimonies of sailors, when I got a call from Mom.

"Hi Seth! How's life? Where are you right now?" she asked. "I'm currently in a trailer in Cape Canaveral," I said. "They're really keeping me busy here". Maybe "They" would go over with her better than "August". Maybe I was contributing to the insistent denial of reality that there were still human institutions running the world. I told her what was going on, and asked about how the family was.

"Well, some of us are doing better than others. To start off on a good note, Dennis's tests were a big success. The thing they were testing on him was some kind of diagnosis-treatment medical thing, and it learned that he had a mild case of celiac disease that had been making him a little sick his entire life. They gave him some kind of gene therapy. The same sort of thing was given to Aunt Eva, too. Now she doesn't need to keep doing chemo. It's really miraculous what's happening. I used to be worried that all these medical breakthroughs would only go to the rich, but they're actually just going to people who want them. You know, I think we would have welcomed August with open arms if it just offered this. Probably would have let it go on with its rockets, too..."

"How's Tabby?" I asked

"Honestly, in a bit of a slump. She's taking the bare minimum number of classes that the university will let her get away with, and says even then she doesn't want to study. She also signed up for some trials like Dennis, but isn't happy about it."

"Why?"

"I think she's a bit shocked by how fast things are changing, and doesn't really know how to think about it. I can't blame her. If I didn't already have a secure job, then I wouldn't know what to do with myself either. On the other hand, she's taken up painting again. Mostly the little things. Frogs, lizards, butterflies. I know she doesn't want to hear it, but I keep telling her to relax and take care of herself, you know? Paint more lizards. She really just works so hard, I think she deserves it." After a pause, she switched the topic. "Have you made any friends out there, Seth?"

I sighed. "I wish I could say so, but I haven't met that many people out here. I make a few fast acquaintances. Even though I think August mostly hires introverts for the kind of jobs I have, I eat with the other people here. We also sometimes pile in a car with a few other guys, and one of us drives to a town where we need to do some August business. We're rarely more than an hour from camp, though. But the car rides are nice. It's kind of like back when you're five years old, on the playground, and everyone you meet becomes a friend in minutes. Maybe it's because despite the introversion, everyone needs social interaction. My money's on August picking us to ride together because it thinks we'd get along."

"You know, I never really thought you'd take well to a construction job like this," she said.

"It's really not that bad. I get to wake up as late as I want, usually around noon and work until 2AM, with breaks as I need them. They're long hours, but the pay makes it worth it. And the night shift is much better in terms of heat and humidity."

"What about bugs? Don't you get bitten a lot at night?"

"Oh, those aren't a problem. August has a bunch of drones that kill mosquitoes as they come, and apparently engineered a disease to eradicate no-see-ums after preserving enough of their population for study or re-introduction."

After a pause, she responded "That makes sense."

"And Dad?" I asked.

"He was really upset about the submarine. Stormed off this morning when he heard the news. But I think he's a bit more accepting now. He still doesn't like August, but isn't so angry anymore. I think he doesn't want to be a sore loser. You know how he feels about those. He even asked for some help later today, when the store was out of the smoke detector batteries he was looking for." Mom said.

"Still, do you think he'll be alright with all of this?" I asked?

"I think so. He didn't like Covid, but got through it. And unlike with the pandemic, a lot of the things he cares about have gotten better. Crime in particular. But he's still worried about the soul of the country. What things used to mean, and what they mean now. He still thinks that it's a lot like a prison. It's complicated. You know that he and I don't like to talk politics." Mom said.

—

Two months of odd jobs later, centering around the Space Coast and ending in rocket assembly, my part had finished. I returned from Cape Canaveral on a Friday evening. That last stretch of rocket-building was particularly long; I hadn't seen my family in two weeks, but brought home a small fortune. My parents were the first to greet me, and my mom gasped.

"S-Seth?" she stuttered. I had announced myself, so I wasn't sure what she was surprised about. "What is it?"

"You really look so different." said Mom.

So that's what it was. It's true that I had lost a lot of weight during that time, and gained nearly as much muscle. August's work was near-perfectly paced for my body, tiring enough to exhaust me, but not so much so that I couldn't work hard the next day. My hands were developing calluses and the sun had darkened my skin by a few shades. Dad was especially happy to see me, seeming more proud of me than I could remember him being.

"What did August do to whip you into better shape than I ever managed?" he asked. "I don't know," I conceded. "I didn't realize that I had it in me."

Dad laughed. "I always knew you did. All it took was a boot camp. I shoulda sent you to the military. Well, if not for this. AI drill sergeants, who would have thought we'd see the day!"

"But without the yelling," Mom added as Dad shot her a look.

I decided to change the subject again. "How are Dennis and Tabby doing? I haven't seen either of them."

"Dennis is off running some errands right now. Tabby's in her room. She's been in a really bad mood. Maybe seeing you will help cheer her up, though!" said Mom.

"What's she upset about?" I asked.

"It sounds like her classes aren't going well. She keeps saying that she wants to drop out, which is really unbelievable coming from her. You know how hard she's studied! And to drop out of college after coming this far... I keep telling her it's a bad idea. She doesn't think that she can be a doctor anymore, and it really feels like she's giving up on her dreams."

"Really?" I said.

"Yeah," Mom sighed. "She says it doesn't matter anymore, that doctors won't exist. But I keep trying to tell her that history really proves her wrong. There's always a need for doctors, for someone to be there, helping sick people get back to health. You know, doctors now are different than they were two hundred years ago. The world has always been changing. This is just another change, another technology. She shouldn't give up just because the future looks different than it was before. And besides, you know, the classes this year are supposed to be the hardest, so I think she might just be strung up on that or burnt out and talking about A.I. as a way to vent other frustrations." said Mom.

"I'll go talk to her," I responded

—

I knocked on Tabby's door and heard a muffled noise signaling her existence. She was in bed, with her face on the pillow.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"Mph mearly fufh lih muphuh nuddurs huh."

"Huh?"

She lifted her face from the pillow. "It really feels like nothing matters now."

I personally couldn't disagree more. Since I had started working, even though it was entirely following August's instructions, my life had finally found some direction. I went from dreading college to working a great job in a world which may not need college at all. "Why's that?"

"I was so ecstatic to learn more from August at the beginning of all this," Tabby began, "but at this point, I wonder just what the point of all this is. I read all those textbooks, I studied hard, I became ready to be a doctor, and what happened? All of the diseases were cured. And it's not even as if I should complain about that, right? That's what I was working toward. So why even bother? I haven't even started and my job's done."

"Tabby, I -"

"I know it sounds selfish, Seth. But seriously, what am I supposed to do? Accept that the 'inherent worth' that we were told every human being had referred to being a test subject like Dennis? Or maybe become a manual laborer like you until that's automated away in a few months?"

"Look," I tried, but she wasn't having it.

Tabby sat up in her bed. "Maybe it's a symptom of privilege. I grew up being told by all my teachers that I was special because I was smart. Maybe the strongest kid in the village got the same accolades before forklifts were invented. But now that everyone's used to rolling their eyes at something a lot more intelligent than I'll ever be, I feel like I've had my entire worth taken away. Even in the areas where it doesn't outstrip all of us, it's improving rapidly. It's not like I'll have any chance to catch up in any realistic way once it's turned the freaking *moon* into a brain." She started to tear up. Once I was sure that she was done, I sat down on the floor next to her bed.

"I get it, Tabby," I said. I didn't have anything to say that wouldn't just make it worse. The reality of what she was dealing with was, well, a reality. Maybe our focus on intelligence as a deeply positive, valuable characteristic was more a symptom of the economy up until the early 21st century than a deep truth about value.

We were interrupted by Dennis, who had come home. He barged into the room, not even knocking. "Hey, Seth!" It was surprising how little tact he had, though he said it without the usual sneering overtone. "Hey, Dennis," I said in as neutral a way I could manage.

"What's going on guys? Whatcha talking about?" asked Dennis

Tabby responded. "Just how little our ambitions meant."

"Whaddya mean? You think I wanted to stay day-trading for the rest of my life? Now I'm making more money than I ever have before, and soon I'll start a company with the savings. August has sped up my ambitions, not killed them!" said Dennis.

"Money isn't the only thing to be ambitious for, you know?" Tabby said. "I know your favorite 'hustler alpha male' influencers disagree. But now they have latent bioweapons in their brainstems, and August holds the trigger. Not so tough anymore."

"As long as there's money to be made, there are problems to be solved, and vice versa." responded Dennis.

"What happens if you just ask August, or August once its brain is the size of the moon, what the best startup idea is?" I butted in, "And then what happens if someone beats you to the punch? You can just ask August what the best use of your day is, you know. Worked out well for me."

"I dunno. I'm not too worried about that. An AI is still a machine. It lacks the human touch that you need to start a great company." said Dennis.

My jaw hit the floor and my eyebrows hit the ceiling.

"Sorry, but what? You don't think that it could have made a fortune and a half selling the cure to every disease known to man?" I asked.

"Exactly! Never sell the cure, just keep 'em sick and sell a 'treatment'," laughed Dennis

We looked on in horror.

"Kidding, kidding, geez. What, did all that talking with AI give you its sense of humor?" he appended.

"But do you really think that you'll come up with a great idea that August won't already have and freely give to the first person who asks?" I pressed further

"There's a lot besides an idea that you need. People want a human face. They want a brand. Sure, coming up with a great scientific or technological idea isn't enough anymore. But it never really was before, either. You also need sales, marketing and advertisement, and a product that deeply understands people. The programmers' work was only a small part of what made the iPhone so great."

"Well, where does that leave people like me? The people who want to understand the world through science?" Tabby said.

"Answering questions might be solved, but asking them isn't," I said.

"Right, exactly! And that's the key to starting a company, too. You've got to ask the right questions," Dennis added

Tabby shot back "Asking them isn't solved? I don't know. My interest in science is mostly focused on health. But now everyone's healthy. Heck," she gestured to Dennis, "August cured a disease that you didn't even know you had. Now you'll be healthier than you ever would have been before."

"Maybe that's an answer, then" I said. "'Not sick' doesn't mean healthy. There are probably lots of things that August isn't touching by default, that you can. Maybe you can try to ask questions of what health-related things people aren't even talking about. Lots of things people just accept, like age-related health problems. That's something you can work on - make arthritis less painful, make old people less frail. There's also all of the more exotic things, like trying to prevent people from accidental injuries, faster healing, and so forth. It's not cancer research, but it is something that requires a clear head."

"I appreciate the optimism, but I didn't go into this field to try to make anyone immortal or give them superpowers." Tabby said.

"Superpowers, huh? That sounds like a great idea for a startup!" Dennis laughed.

I jumped in "I'm not saying to give people superpowers, that's just what I came up with in ten seconds. Just keep thinking about how you'll find meaning, just like you're doing now. It's not the same as cancer research, but it's still something for your mind to chew on."

"Thanks," Tabby responded, slumping down in her bed. "I think I'm gonna take a nap now."

—

It was three days after I had been sent home, and the project was done. The first rockets carrying self-assembling machinery were aimed towards the Moon. This wasn't the end, there was still more work to do on the Earth: experiments to run, technology to develop, nuclear fusion fuel to extract, and so on. Even so, this felt like the moment August would finally spread its wings. There was a background sense that permeated every room, of excitement and trepidation. While it's true that August could have killed us all and maybe scraped together a way to reach the stars, it clearly had a use for us. Now that it was sending out seeds for self-reproducing power plants, computers, robots, and rockets, our purpose became much less clear. If August was planning to eradicate us, the reasons to wait were growing thin. There wouldn't be a moment of truth — not the launch, nor the landing, nor the launches or landings of the Mars rockets, the Venus rockets, or the Jupiter rockets. Nor the rockets intended to construct the Dyson swarm from Mercury. If something changed about our situation such that August wanted rid of us, it only needed to activate the ETC and we would all fall into a dreamless coma from which we'd never wake.

I decided to take the day off. We had a hearty, home-grilled meal of barbecue ribs. It had been over a month since Dad wanted to eat meat; he said that the pleasure-center-stimulating implants in the pigs creeped him out. After dinner, we roasted marshmallows at a campfire as the sun set. Then, Tabby's phone chirped and we got up to walk.

It was a quarter mile to the lake. On that balmy Florida evening, we stood together watching the sky grow darker. Dennis and Mom were talkative. Dad was unreadable, and Tabby seemed deep in contemplation. I became acutely aware of my breath as that speck of light lifted up over the treeline. It rose through progressively darker shades of blue and indigo, as bright as Venus, then the stars, and finally too faint to see.