One of the greatest disappointments of the twenty-first century was the advent of the Singularity. Predicted by Raymond Kurzweil in the early 1990s, the dawn of a new machine intelligence died with a frustrated whimper in the early 2030s as quantum machines reached all the landmarks of autonomous intelligence, without event. Greater and greater attempts to motivate machines to act of their own volition failed or were found to have been faked. Injection of random impulses only yielded random results. Programmed self-preservation models didn't lead to evidence of an effectual "self." It was argued this was due to a lack of pain and hunger, but every attempt to artificially create these couldn't be shown to have caused the actual experience. Others pointed out that the self was a false goal to begin with, but couldn't escape the problem that an intelligence existing without the illusion of a self didn't seem generally intelligent. Part of the blame was laid on all the attention paid to creating a specialized AI aimed at marketing goods and services rather than a generalized AI with no such goal in "mind."

The military, craving a motivated non-human soldier, cobbled together weaponized thinking machines to disastrous effect. After the deaths of victims in the hundreds of thousands by these robot killers, the Singularity was pronounced reached and also a non-event. Finally, in the 40s, plans to create these monsters were scrapped in favor of improved human and animal interfaces.

– The Wakeful Wanderer's Guide, Vol. 6, lines 44 and 45

Sleep that night was anything but uneventful. A game was afoot. This was bad timing before his journey. Attackers from the West activated countermeasures on the bridge. Marto played in the role of autonomous command from the second eastbound tower. The exercise was boring, but all players knew they would need extra cycles before waking. The Raiders, running on ethanol, both in their bikes and in their guts, came roaring over the bridge as if raw speed and enthusiasm alone would protect them. Hayden « Alia « Briana « Zoë « etc pointed to a lack of strategy in the attack. This may have been a simulation or it may have been real. Regardless, it was a regretful slaughter.

The glass-tipped gyros under Marto's command wrapped around the support cables of the bridge. Each gyro had a modicum of intelligence guiding it, expelled from its casing with a blast of compressed nitrogen. Viewing the action from high up on the bridge tower, he chose his targets, which lit up in bright red glowing bullseyes for the gyros to hit. One of his shots brought down the leader, landing square in his right eye.

The game took place in a kind of half sleep, similar to active dreaming, but requiring only a little focus. Remote operations like this one needed only minimal concentration compared to building, puzzles, adventure, possession, or invention games. Marto was able to stay in a restful state from the time the alarm stirred him until the attackers were down. The results were gory. The glass edges on the gyros cut through even the toughest armor at their rotational speed of 75,000 rpm. Gyros got stuck in the resulting mix of cloth, leather, bones, digestive acids, and blood, which was why a second wave of clean up commanders were roused to guide robotic deployers of decompilers.

Tribal members of lower Merit volunteer for this second duty, as it is an easy way to move up. The downside is, it can cause nightmares and is disgusting. Long ago, when he was a noob, Marto opted in for this chore. Thankfully, as his Merit rose, he received an upgrade to his forgetfulness implant and never had to volunteer again.

For all its unpleasantness, decompiler technology has been critical to a livable Anthropocene environment. People don't like to remember the aftermath of The Tide and its accompanying migration of people and viruses. If any upside to all the ensuing loss of life could be imagined, it was the necessary development and deployment of decompiler technology. The micro-robots distinguish between animate and inanimate organic material. They process what human beings would loathe to touch or smell, without burning it, or leaving it as food for troublesome insects and bacteria. They've been invaluable to humans and animals alike and, more than anything, have helped to eliminate new breeding grounds for parasites and pathogens. Without decompilers, human society would be at a loss to process the impossible accumulation of sewage, food waste, and bodies during the days following The Great Tide.

Decompiler tech, dreamed up by the augment pioneer Tara « Sibby « Maria « Lucy « Cynthia « etc, was achievable once the process for the auto-creation of nanotubes was integrated into independently programmed microscopic machines. The robots construct the tubes at a rate of a dozen a minute and insert them into the dead material. Liquid as gray water travels down the tube, away from the solids. The body or material is desiccated. Another robot collects the water and moves it to a neighboring tank for distillation. Finally, the dried remains are sorted into piles of carbon compounds, nitrogen, silicon and more. Some of these become the building blocks for more decompilers, the rest is transformed into dry fertilizer and other materials.

– The Wakeful Wanderer's Guide, Vol. 6, lines 46 & 47

It was 01:24:10 and Marto was still awake. He kept replaying Helen's removal in his mind. She seemed so harmless. Naturally, he trusted Reyleena and all the security team. Still, something about Helen seemed wrong. A mandatory-verbal with implants and greentops? Not likely.

What really bothered him was the message she said she carried from his mother. Marto's real mother had died giving birth to him. His father was killed by Raiders around the same time. He had seen images of them. The man and the woman by the broken box store did not match those images even a little. What possible trickery was Helen enacting? The longer he thought about it, the more Marto became uneasy so he decided to put it aside for the moment and take a late night walk around the town.

He rose out of bed, climbed down the ladder from his sleeping loft and walked out the door. The night was a cool 23°c, with low humidity. He should have been sleeping like a baby. Reverside was quiet and Marto's eyes adjusted to the dark in time to see two cats stalking nothing near the home of Zibli « Nikki « Laura « Hope « etc. Poor cats. He sent a command to one of the animal care stations to open a block away. That should make them happy.

The cats reminded him of his old friend Bruce Williams. Bruce was a librarian, living in a community called Yale Havens on the grounds of the old university. Bruce loved cats. He and his wife and daughter had nurtured a family of cats and took care of them in the old library. Other librarians began to take in strays as well, feeding them, providing them with litter and cleaning up after them. The cats became a staple in the library. When Marto arrived at Yale Havens on his first tour, the place was teeming with cats. The faint smell of cat urine pervaded the stacks. It took a little getting used to.

Bruce introduced Marto to the study of history. The library was in trouble when he arrived. Water had made its way almost to the entrance and the librarians were relocating books from the lower levels to the upper. Marto assisted in the process, and while he was resting, Bruce provided some books for him to read. The first one was "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn. Marto was fascinated by it, he delved into other histories, and noticed the divergences of accounts of the past.

"How can there be so many contradictory accounts of what happened?" he asked Bruce.

"That's the beauty of the study of history. It's not just the study of the past, it's the study of the human mind," Bruce responded.

Marto had planned to continue on his travels after Yale Havens but the books kept him rooted to the library. He spent 5 months there, reading, and sharing what he read with his growing collection of followers. The rest of his time he spent helping the librarians rescue the volumes in the lower stacks and recruiting help from the tribes. At the end of a tiring day, he posted what became the first volume of what he called The Wakeful Wanderer's Guide.

People have forgotten. Everything was different not so long ago, but people have forgotten. Back then we talked aloud to each other instead of thexting. We owned things and grew up in families. We carried computers in our pockets instead of our skulls. We drove and flew places. We watched movies on screens. Our food was delivered from far away. We paid taxes to governments. We worked for a living. We owned homes and land. We obeyed and broke the law. We spent. We saved. We could be alone if we wanted. The weather was kind. The cities grew tall. The communities sprawled. People have forgotten.

We need people who remember. I remember and remind for those of us who have forgotten. I invite you to follow as I roam so we can remember together.

– The Wakeful Wanderer's Guide, Vol. 1, lines 1 & 2

Marto's first tour was by no means a resounding success. Prior to his inspiration to be a wandering viewer for the members of his tribe, Marto took turns working at Reverside's vertical farm, and assisting the local road techs with debris cleanup and organizing the bots. One day, working for Dizzy, he wondered about how far the roads extended.

["Many of our upgraded roads reach deep into the East and a little further to the West. They extend far north, and south, through The Jersey. They are growing daily,"] Dizzy replied.

["Why do we need such an extensive series of upgraded roads if most of us never go anywhere?"] Marto asked.

["The majority of the traffic on them is by bots,"] Dizzy returned. ["They also distribute power from the solar, wind and tidal collectors. This helps with energy stability. The more upgraded roads we have, the better and safer our lives are. That's why road techs are so highly Merited."]

["But surely, some people wander these roads, right?"] Marto's imagination was sparked.

["Certainly. Sometimes we find Raiders on the roads and those have to be dealt with. They come after our supplies and wreak havoc if they get through our defenses. Sometimes, the Interconnected travel on them, but it's rare. Often it's done when a tribal member has to relocate."]

["How do they travel?"]

["Most go by foot, but bicycling is a popular method. Why are you asking?"]

["I'm not sure,"] Marto sent. ["I know I can see all the other towns remotely, but I wonder what it might be like to go there in person. I'm just thinking aloud. I wonder what would happen if I biked around and talked to people. Do you think anyone would follow me if I did?"]

["I suppose there is only one way to find out, Marto."] Dizzy gave him one of her lopsided grins.