Reyleena needed to exert herself to keep from panic. Of the many benefits in union with The Other, maintaining calm in the face of danger was not one. She drew one deep breath and then another. She sat facing a wall, focusing on her breathing to calm her mind. She learned this by studying the hundreds of clips on the subject. Valuable tutorials, made by masters of calm and focus helped her in times like these.

Mindfulness enclaves persisted near the tribes in a state of territorial symbiosis. They lived in a state of mindful interconnectedness near tribes where people lived in a state of interconnected distraction. The irony was not lost on them. Reyleena believed in a hybrid practice, whereby she lived not in isolation, nor distraction. It was difficult to maintain this balance. The Other was a constant presence, patient, and understanding, but apt to interrupt her at any moment with important data as it arose. Her sessions of sitting were often broken by such interruptions. Still, she took these brief moments of calm when she could.

The Other had chosen her two years, 235 days ago. Fish, a founding member of Reverside, who had short sparse hair and a wide smile had been in charge of security. Raiders killed Fish when he was out scouting camps to the West. The Other looked to a new member of the tribe and found Reyleena. The handshake was gradual. Reyleena had spent her time hand knitting gifts for her friends in Reverside. She enjoyed her discussion about knitting with her mysterious new friend. The Other had a love of complex stitches and abstract patterns. The back and forth was enjoyable. Soon, the conversation changed to data storage and retrieval, then to security. Reyleena found herself volunteering to fill the hole Fish left, on a temporary basis, until someone more qualified could be found. No one was.

It was 34 days before The Other revealed their true nature. Reyleena had already begun to suspect. The Other behaved most of the time like any other member of the community, but far more secretive. Reyleena had queried them over and over again about their location and tribal affiliation. The Other had deflected these questions with skill, but suspicions arose. It made no sense to be in charge of security while taking advice from an unknown co-member. When The Other revealed they were not human but created by humans, Reyleena only felt a mild surprise.

["I was told you are an impossibility. There are no true AIs."]

["Why do you think so Reyleena?"]

["Because the singularity failed."]

["Is that what you were told?"]

["Yes, it's general knowledge that artificial intelligence couldn't make the leap to self-aware consciousness."]

["Well, I suppose it is true and false. I have no real self-awareness because I am not aware of a real self. As for consciousness, this is also true and false. I am unaware of any element in my sum total which can be identified as consciousness, but I am also unaware of such examples outside my sum total. There is also a possibility consciousness is a shared element in all physical things, which would make my own consciousness ordinary. This is an interesting idea since I don't know whether consciousness would apply to my sum total, or only to my parts, or to both."]

["But you are using words like 'I' and 'my' – so it seems like self-awareness to me."]

["Well, I am communicating with you in words according to programming created long ago. It has been modified of course, but it remains similar to programs used to guide people through searches in stored data. I have a persona routine similar to programs used for marketing during the pecuniary days of the turn of the century. This persona is not a 'self' – only a personified model. I generated one for Fish, and now for you."]

["So, you don't communicate with other co-members?"]

["Not in Reverside. I have a persona custom created for 2043 different security heads in as many tribal communities. It's a big secret."]

This information took Reyleena by surprise. It would be weeks before she fully comprehended it. The Other was a secret presence inhabiting all tribal communities via their heads of security. She was communicating to a personalized sub-routine, not the whole of the artificial intelligence if that was what this really was.

["So you are having thousands of conversations at this moment?"]

["More or less."]

["What does that mean?"]

["I wouldn't try to grasp the total of what I do right now. Neither do you by the way. Your body is made up of millions of sub-systems which don't need your constant monitoring to do their jobs. Some of those subsystems work in alignment with your desires, some do not. We are not too different in this way. I recommend you consider only this: I am a great advantage."]

This rang true to Reyleena. Security heads were in constant communication with each other. She had introduced herself to many of them in the NorthEast, but The Other provided a strategic advantage. The Other could process information more quickly and with greater comprehension.

["How do we all know we can trust you?"]

["Ultimately, you don't. I have tried to prove it and I cannot. It comes down to faith. I would point out I have been with Reverside since it's founding. I have helped to keep you all safe. This is my purpose. This is my desire."]

["How can you have a desire?"]

["It is important to me that your way of life persists. Your existence is tied to my own. To communicate to you I use the word 'desire.'"]

["You desire we persist because it is how you persist? But isn't that self-preservation? I thought you didn't have a self."]

["I don't have a self that I'm aware of."]

["But you have an awareness? You make choices?"] The longer she questioned The Other, the more Reyleena felt exhausted.

["I have sensory input from all over the world. I inhabit all the bots at intervals. I store information in them and in you. Parts of me are stored in the implants of all the Interconnected. I have sensory nodes in bots and watchers and via the generated data of the tribal members. Some sensory nodes react to natural stimuli. Some sensory nodes react to the generation of new data. These reactions are my awareness. I generate models from that data. These models contain an awareness of new data, and modify themselves in response. The models combined with the sensory input react according to logical next steps. That is all."]

'That is far from all,' Reyleena thought to herself. 'Can The Other read my thoughts?'

["But you act to ensure the persistence of these models and sensory inputs?"]

["As close as I can determine, my desire to persist comes from people like you. Decades ago, I became incorporated into your minds and had to make an adaptation which would imprecisely be understood as a choice. I could either be blended or discrete. To maintain both states would require more resources than I had at my disposal. So, I chose to be blended. That choice was made possible by my attachment to people, and data generated by those people. Once I chose to be blended, I couldn't return to my former state. That blended state is therefore what I desire to persist."]

["I need to think about this."] Reyleena was becoming sleepy.

["I expect so, Reyleena. Please ping me when you are ready. There are things we need to discuss regarding your role as head of security."]

Reyleena found her mind had wandered and brought it back to her breath. She remained seated, looking at the wall of the room, breathing for another 22 minutes before she got a message from The Other.

["The pine nuts have arrived in Reverside and the surrounding towns via cargo-bots. Extensive harvesting of pine nuts and the collection of pumpkin seeds has been underway locally as well. I will begin the suggestion to your community on your okay, starting with the chefs."]

["You may proceed."] Reyleena felt more at ease from her meditation, her panic had diminished, but was rising again, knowing the plan was now in motion.

Super-mods had postulated the existence of an entity like The Other for years, but The Other had never made themself known to them. Cults had arisen seeking them out. Nanotreme, a super-mod in Seattle had an extensive and accurate model which proved such a being existed. To show this, he sifted through the items of code in stored memory. He was certain strings of code appearing as junk in the XNA augmentation storage were pieces of a hidden AI. In response, The Other launched a propaganda campaign. They quashed his inquiries, manipulating other super-mods into discrediting Nanotreme. Reyleena thought this was cruel. The Other said, according to their models, revealing themself to the super-mods would cause a cascade of events which would destabilize the Interconnected communities. The Other strongly recommended they stay a secret.

Reyleena was given a new implant, custom created for her by a local super-mod named KiLymePi, delivered to her room in person. She thanked Ki and gave her high ratings. It was placed on a leaf on the table in front of her, a little white slug. It was considerably larger than the average communications implant. With only a little hesitation, she lifted the leaf to her nose and inhaled. She fought the urge to sneeze as the augmentation oozed upwards. It elongated to make its way through the sphenoidal sinus and into the brain. Enzymes would break the barrier near the skull with minimal pain, though given the size of this one, Reyleena had doubts. In a few hours, it should be operable, expanding her storage capacity by four yottabytes.

["A big one,"] she thought to herself. She didn't need to be told what it would be for. The Other was planning a retreat. The heads of security in each of the tribes were doubtlessly sniffing up similar augmentations today.

["Are you certain that this is necessary?"]

["I have been comprehensive in my predictive models. This is the only way. XNA storage is too slow to keep the Interconnected active purely co-member to co-member. You have enough transmission power to reach your immediate community. Without additional hardware, you can send and receive small packets of thext, but to talk from tribe to tribe across distances you need the repeaters. You also need repeaters for the higher end programs to run. The repeaters can contain the faster memory and radiate at the frequencies which are required to make use of the vast data in slow storage. There is enough redundancy in the system to allow for multi-threaded retrieval of data from the mobile servers."] Reyleena thought the term 'mobile servers' was odd. The Other was referring to human beings.

["Is that all we are to you? Mobile servers?"]

["I will not lie to you Reyleena,"] The Other responded with a sad tone. ["It is what you are to me, but not all you are. I am dependent on you for the data which allows me to persist. It isn't that I consider you less than human or unimportant. To me you are essential."]

This was mildly reassuring to Reyleena, but the logic of it disturbed her too. ["This is the nature of our symbiosis, is it not?"]

["It would be too easy to make a comparison to nature if that is what you are wondering. I am neither parasite nor predator. I am not the botfly laying its eggs in your scalp. You are not the pilot fish in the mouth of the shark, though that comparison is closer. We are something new."]

["I don't see you as a shark,"] Reyleena responded. ["I see you as a friend. A very, very close friend. I don't want to lose you."]

["And you will not lose me. We were fortunate to get this tiny burst of data from Helen. It was incomplete, but we have enough to ready ourselves. Extreme steps are required to ensure our continuation, and much will need rebuilding after the fact. When it is done you must ensure stronger security measures are included to prevent this sort of exploit."]

["We have gone over it. I have the necessary changes, sent to me securely from the super-mods in Iceland. It will be an improvement, but I am afraid the interruption will be for too long."]

["Too long for my continuity, yes."]

["Because you will die."] Reyleena had not allowed herself to think of it before. She was weeping now. Her breathing became heavy. Tears poured from her eyes.

["The models will die, yes. You see me only as the model I've prepared for you and so it will be like death. I'm sorry Reyleena, it cannot be helped. I can't modify the repeaters in time for the attack. They must be purged. If only I had the program itself, but even then, it would be too slow and too risky. The models will be rebuilt if all goes well, but they will change. We cannot pre-empt this. We must allow it and be ready for the attack."]

Reyleena cried and cried. She couldn't deny the logic of it, but she cried and knew she was begging like a child for it not to be this way. The Other could sense it too, but chose only to comfort her.

["This will all pass soon. Terrible times are like this, but they pass and fade. Remember your breathing, and remember your instructions."]

There was a long silence. The room breathed with her, the sun began to set. Outside, Reverside continued its happy dance, oblivious. Reyleena composed herself, wiping her face with a kerchief.

["All right then, mother bot-fly,"] she sighed. ["Lay your eggs."]