The Mountain in the Sea

A genderless android created by Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan, Evrim represents the optimism of technology and the fear of human degradation. A modern marvel, Evrim is the first of its kind in achieving consciousness and is ostracized for its uncanny verisimilitude to human beings. As a singular entity, Evrim also represents isolation and loneliness in an indifferent world.

How others treat Evrim reveals their philosophy on what being human means. Evrim is a tabula rasa onto whom others project their desires. For Ha, Evrim is godlike and sublime, the android’s “body slender, elongated, proportions exaggerated, like the exaggerations of an ancient idol carved of honeyed amber” (288). To Ha, who lives a reclusive life, Evrim exists in a world outside humanity’s monotony, someone “who lived elsewhere […] a floating world you would never enter. A world where things happened. A place unlike the mundane world you watched from” (26). Evrim is an ideal of exceptionalism and transcendence. Rustem likewise regards Evrim with awe and admiration and considers the android beautiful precisely because it isn’t human but “[a] perfect piece of construction” (399) that deserves freedom. Like Ha, Rustem considers Evrim with sanctity and refers to its mind as a “temple.” Both Ha and Rustem consider Evrim an improvement to the limited and narrow human condition.

By contrast, the woman in the abglanz shield regards Evrim as a “monster” who compromises human integrity. To Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan, Evrim is a “product” and an index that shows her genius and greatness. Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan posits a theory that Evrim incites fear in society by invoking a “revenge fantasy,” a wish fulfillment that forces humans to confront the damage and suffering they’ve caused to each other, to other species, and to the environment. Evrim reminds humankind of its destructive, unworthy existence.

What the android means to itself is its central conflict, and Evrim is eager to distinguish and define self separately from other artificially intelligent constructs. For Evrim, autonomy can’t exist without proving that it’s human, with a conscious mind that possesses free will. However, the paradox in the android’s existence is that the more human Evrim proves to be, the more society rejects it as inauthentic. Only when Rustem destroys the portal does Evrim get to truly explore a unique identity and agency.

A Mongolian woman, Altantsetseg is the brusque security officer hired to guard the research post on Con Dao. At first glance, she fulfills the trope of the grizzled veteran and Amazonian warrior. At more than two meters tall, Altantsetseg is a physically intimidating figure with a scarred face and “[t]hick hands, swollen by weather and work” (24). She always carries a rifle by her side, and on the few occasions that she speaks, her curt manner is heightened by her use of a faulty voice translator that speaks in short, stilted sentences. Both the rifle and translator are props that assert Altantsetseg’s hardened exterior and intention to keep people at a distance. One of the novel’s twist revelations is that Altantsetseg is secretly working as a Tibetan operative spy and was formerly a nun. This background recontextualizes her withdrawn behavior as not only a symptom of war’s trauma but also a strategy to keep people from discovering her secret.

As a veteran of the Chinese-Mongolian Winter War, Altantsetseg represents the devotion to protecting one’s homeland, and her commitment parallels the octopuses’ desire to save their habitat from intruders. Likewise, her movements in the liquid interface tank mirror the octopuses’ movements, a similarity that Altantsetseg acknowledges when she identifies with the Shapesinger and is eager to meet her. The direct comparisons between Altantsetseg and the octopuses provide instances that close the gaps between human and animal perceptible worlds and demonstrate empathetic identification: In a sense, Altantsetseg knows what it’s like to be an octopus.

In addition, Altantsetseg demonstrates the transformative role of technology in altering human experiences. Although she’s fully human, Altantsetseg’s expertise in Tibetan AI technology, in which humans merge with machines, depicts a future where technological advances create new ways of being human. On the one hand, Altantsetseg’s skills permit her to transcend and break rigid definitions of human identity; on the other, technology allows her to kill more efficiently and avoid engaging with violence on a personal level.

An AI hacker, Rustem is about 30 years old. His origins are in the Ural Commonwealth, the former Republic of Tatarstan, signaling a future where nation-states are in flux and subject to the whims of global conglomerates and political upheaval. His identification as a Tatar and not a Russian illustrates his ties to his ethnic identity and cultural heritage. As the hacker archetype, Rustem is highly intelligent and introspective: His philosophical dialogues with Aynur provide several of the novel’s musings on consciousness. Rustem’s childhood, like Ha’s, was characterized by loneliness and neglect, often stemming from his parents’ discord. Both Ha and Rustem felt unacknowledged in their youth and buried themselves in their work and interior worlds to cope with loneliness. They both demonstrate how insularity can result in indifference and harm.

Rustem’s past hacking jobs might suggest that he’s a disruptor of the status quo, yet he’s less of a political activist and more of a hacker for hire for the right price. His past kill targets included the an ultraoligarch and a wealthy businessman. He’s dispassionate about his role as an assassin and indifferent to the deaths of innocent bystanders: “Too bad about the yacht’s crew—and the ultraoligarch’s newest bride. But there had been no way around it—sometimes you had to take a few others along, too” (36). When he meets the woman in the abglanz shield, he agrees to the job for the money and the challenge, making no effort to discern who she is and whom his work will aid. He feels no moral obligation to know.

The catalyst for Rustem’s change in perspective, from a solitary existence to “connectedness,” are his significant encounters with Aynur, Evrim, and the older man. Aynur’s death is the first casualty he takes responsibility for, and he learns what it’s like to be on the other end of surveillance and the taking of innocent lives. Evrim’s exquisite mind and the older man’s insights about corruption teach Rustem to value his own neural network and live a life that is equally rich in connections with other people. These characters provide him with the impetus to take a moral stand and “do what is right” (382). Instead of using his hacking talents to kill, he gives Evrim a chance at a life of freedom.

The head of the global conglomerate DIANIMA and the author of Building Minds, Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan represents intelligence, ambition, and the ethical implications of scientific progress. As a successful and devoted scientist in her field, Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan is Ha’s foil, and she contrasts Ha’s scientific curiosity and empathy through scientific absolutism and narcissistic power.

Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan is Evrim’s creator, and she regards the android as a reflection of her own genius. Her mind is the core model of Evrim’s neural network, making Evrim a perfected version of herself. Evrim characterizes Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan as a person who seeks “mastery” and “control.” When she discovers that Evrim’s portal has been destroyed, Evrim is convinced that she’ll kill her creation rather than relinquish control. Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan built Evrim out of a desire to be “heroic” and attain “greatness,” demonstrating that her priorities aren’t human or ecological welfare but innovation for its own sake. As the head of DIANIMA, Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan’s scientific approach to “extract data” from the octopuses at any cost, including killing them or even making them extinct, mirrors the corporation’s exploitative modes of operation, epitomized in its operations on the Sea Wolf. When asked by a reporter why she created Evrim, she responds, “The great and terrible thing about humankind is simply this: we will always do what we are capable of” (45). This statement highlights scientific arrogance and the short-sightedness of human invention.

Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan is an unreliable narrator whose role as the novel’s villain becomes ambiguous as the novel progresses. She’s an elusive figure whose perspective is limited to excerpts from her book and her brief appearance in the final chapters. Gauging whether she’s authentic and truthful becomes difficult because she contends that she staged her interviews to protect Evrim. She insists that she has changed and has their best interests at heart, yet Evrim is certain of her betrayal. Adding to her mystery, Ha notices scars on Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan’s wrists and remarks that she appears more tired and vulnerable than threatening. Rather than a flat, megalomaniacal character, Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan is a nuanced character whose presentation, like an octopus’ skin, changes, clouding the understanding of her point of view, her motivations, and her genuine intentions. Her narrative structure mirrors the ethical ambiguity of scientific progress and whether technology has been helpful or hurtful to humanity.

A young Japanese man, Eiko moved to the Ho Chi Minh Autonomous Trade Zone to seek his fortunes in the tech industry. A university graduate, Eiko dreamed of working for DIANIMA and was eager to climb the corporate ladder to get rich. He begins the novel as an ambitious person who is indifferent to the lives of others. After his harrowing abduction and enslavement on an AI captained fishing trawler, Eiko learns that indifference is what allows such exploitative systems to persist. He realizes that his apathy contributes to a negligent world, so he “forc[es] himself to connect, to feel, to identify with others. Because people had to matter. They had to. If they did not matter, it meant he did not matter” (97). Like many of the novel’s characters, Eiko undergoes a shift from apathy to empathy to ensure human dignity.

Eiko’s dream of working for DIANIMA devolves into a nightmare, and his only place of refuge becomes his mind. At first, he stores memories in his Minaguchi-ya, or Japanese inn, a mind palace filled with the ship’s physical details, which Eiko hopes will help him escape. When the mutiny fails and the men resume fishing, Eiko copes with his despair by building a new mind palace, this time a humble cabin. The modest architecture is a metaphor for Eiko’s change in perspective and values. Eiko was previously someone who never bothered to remember a name or face. In the cabin, he stores the memories of individual facial expressions to remember and honor “the reality of other people” (282). Instead of memorizing parts of the ship’s machinery, Eiko prioritizes the intangible emotions captured in those expressions. This act humanizes Eiko: He resists succumbing to his dehumanizing and objectified treatment on the ship.