The Mountain in the Sea

An epigraph from Ha’s book comments that nature isn’t something to master or artificially reconstruct. Nature has values that we can recognize in ourselves.

Ha, Evrim, and Altantsetseg visit the automonks’ temple to observe the damage from the monkey attack. Tibetan maintenance drones arrive to make repairs. Altantsetseg explains that Tibetan technology is superior to DIANIMA’s and that the term “drone” is a misnomer. The Tibetans use an integrated “AI/human holon system” (217) in which the human pilot and AI system merge. Ha compares the technology to the octopus’s nervous system and notes how its arms have neurons that function independently of the central brain. Altantsetseg studied with the Tibetans for three years, which explains her expertise in the liquid tank and recruitment by DIANIMA. When war broke out between China and Mongolia, she left Tibet to fight for her people, and the experience changed her life forever.

In an epigraph from her book, Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan contends that humans are rigid and fear innovation and change.

On the second day of the mutiny, the Sea Wolf’s AI system activates its security subsystem, and steel doors block the men from accessing the lifeboats and any part of the vessel’s operation. The AI system shuts off food and fresh water distribution, and the men only have a week’s worth of emergency water remaining. Indra attempts to launch a grenade at the steel door to the wheelhouse, but the ship fires its rifles to kill two of his lieutenants. Desperate and demoralized, the men give in and begin fishing again. The ship turns and resumes its course south.

An excerpt from Ha’s book refutes the claim that all human languages share one universal foundation.

Altantsetseg controls the cloaked submersible back to the shipwreck site as Ha and Evrim watch the feed on a monitor. Marine life has colonized the sunken vessel into a habitat. The octopuses have converted steel barrels into stacked dens to form a community larger than any the scientists previously observed. The submersible captures a large octopus displaying a series of shapes on its skin to a gathering crowd of other octopuses, who form a crescent shape. Ha likens the display to a poem or a song. The large octopus then repeats a single symbol, this time of two horizontal crescents with their endpoints facing each other to resemble a circle. The display ends, and the other octopuses touch the large octopus and swim away. Ha sees a shadow of the circle symbol flashing on their skin.

An excerpt from Ha’s book suggests looking at common concepts of shelter, safety, and community to facilitate interspecies communication.

Evrim studies the new symbols tirelessly and gives the octopus the name Shapesinger. Ha thinks about Evrim’s inability to sleep and forget nonhuman traits. She believes that sleep and forgetting allow humans to shape their identities beyond the past. In a shallow inlet, Ha makes a version of the circle symbol, using colored bottles. She’s convinced that the circle signifies communication, community, and connection. Seeing a barracuda, Ha realizes that an octopus has disguised itself in the shape of another sea creature. Ha and the octopus share a moment of eye contact before the animal swims away. In its eye, Ha recognizes the fear of humans destroying its habitat and killing its children again.

An excerpt from Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan’s book describes how all human brains look alike, but memories are written in the unique paths of an individual’s connectome.

In Istanbul, Rustem awakes in a tidy cell and is questioned by a man in his fifties. Unsure if he’s in a police station, Rustem recalls getting drunk at a bar the night before. He thinks about Aynur, who died because of his actions. The older man gives Rustem tea and aspirin and asks if he can identify a woman in a photo. He doesn’t recognize her face, but her height and hands suggest that she’s the shielded woman. The man says she’s part of a well-funded, radical animal rights group, The Neo-Ottoman Stork Society” (259). He notes Istanbul’s long history of protecting animal welfare and how the Ottomans’ reforms to westernize exiled dogs to islands to die. The man adds that human cruelty to animals is so awful that some people think murdering humans solves the problem. Rustem disagrees, noting that humans are animals too, no better or worse than other creatures. The man agrees with Rustem and lets him go. He tells Rustem to remember the building in case he ever needs their help and wants to do the right thing.

An excerpt from Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan’s book discusses the murder of her parents in Reykjavík from a bombing. She asks how one can determine if a mind has truly been created.

Ha and Evrim watch a stream of a reporter interviewing Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan. The reporter accuses DIANIMA of creating AI systems that threaten human existence. Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan retorts that people don’t fear AI but rather project their guilt onto it. She theorizes that people fantasize about a vengeful AI because they’re ashamed of what humanity has done and want to be punished for it. She reveals that DIANIMA’s best attempts at creating conscious AI have failed. Evrim is a composite of 100 human connectomes and is simply a “convincing fake” (269). The true success of Evrim was in building a machine that believed they were real. Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan touches the interviewer, who slumps forward, demonstrating that this person is an android who believes they’re real.

Ha looks at Evrim’s pained reaction, thinking about Evrim’s inability to forget. She thinks back to her youth and how the act of forgetting helped her move past a painful experience with a boy. Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan purports to be on the same side as the animal rights groups and environmentalists who protest against DIANIMA. She claims that Con Dao is in better hands with DIANIMA than with the residents, who exploited the archipelago. She reveals that humans are banned from the island because Con Dao is an experiment in creating a utopian post-human world. Ha distrusts Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan, regarding her as someone who’s playing a game to grasp absolute power and control.

An excerpt from Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan’s book argues that memories and trauma are physically imprinted on the brain.

On the Sea Wolf, Indra is restrained in a room after attempting to die by suicide. Eiko explains to him how his memory palace works, and Indra voices his desire to put away all the things he wants to forget. Eiko asserts that memories are essential to defining one’s identity, but Indra wants to forget the person he was when he killed the guards and watched them suffer. Eiko consoles Indra by telling him to take time to heal but admits to himself that even when he dreamed that the Minaguchi-ya memory palace burned down, the memories remained. Eiko builds a new memory palace in a small cabin in Okinawa, where he stores the facial expressions of the people in his life. Indra’s mood improves, and the men unshackle him from his room. In the evening, Indra jumps overboard to his death.

An excerpt from Ha’s book defines selfhood as the ability to think about the future and make choices.

Evrim goes missing, and Ha and Altantsetseg find Evrim on the beach emerging from the water. The android’s genderless, elongated body reminds Ha of a god. Evrim describes going into the water to fix Ha’s symbol by adding a background, pointing out in the video footage how the symbol is layered, with two faint, barely perceptible shapes underneath the two dark crescents. Ha calls the symbol a “meta-message” that lets the octopuses know the humans acknowledge the shape as language. Altantsetseg chastises Evrim for not notifying anyone before leaving and calls Evrim a robot. The android angrily retorts that it isn’t her prisoner and demands that she stop calling it a robot. In private, Altantsetseg confides to Ha that Evrim is indeed her prisoner, and DIANIMA has instructed her to destroy Evrim if it ever tries to escape. To Ha’s horror, Altantsetseg reveals that she has similar instructions for Ha.

An epigraph from Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan’s book describes her childhood longing to be seen and acknowledged by her parents. Her motivation for building minds is to save people from loneliness and invisibility.

In Istanbul, Rustem meets the shielded woman on a ferry. He reports that he’s close to finding an opening in the neural network. When he asks what code he needs to alter, the woman tells him he’ll be told in time. Rustem asks her if she knows about the island of exiled dogs. She tells him she’s never heard of it and that it sounds like a myth. Rustem fears that when his job is completed, she’ll have him killed.

An epigraph from Ha’s book suggests that people fear communicating with another species because the encounter challenges what it means to be human and forces humans to be accountable for their actions.

Ha confesses to Kamran that she worries her progress in the octopuses’ language will end up harming them. She chastises herself for wanting to be the first to make contact without thinking of the consequences and admits to making a similar mistake in the past while researching cuttlefish. She resented the local poachers who interfered with her project and had them all arrested and beaten. In retaliation, the locals poisoned the water, killing the cuttlefish. Ha repressed the memory out of guilt. She takes responsibility for her arrogance and regrets not recognizing the villagers’ poverty and not seeking a compromise.

Ha asks Kamran to call the police to report her situation, but Kamran makes excuses that his terminal doesn’t work. Ha realizes that she has pushed him to the “edge,” a metaphor Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan used to describe the moment when AI constructs confront the reality that they aren’t real—that their world is flat instead of round. Ha admits that Kamran is a point-five construct that well-meaning doctors prescribed to her; she intentionally avoided asking Kamran any questions that would break the illusion. She believes her years with Kamran have become an addiction. She became accustomed to the loop of her own thoughts instead of being challenged by other perspectives. Ha destroys the oculus by placing it in a pillowcase and smashing it repeatedly against the wall. Empowered by her decision, Ha tells Evrim that it’s human because it participates in human communication. Evrim’s feelings of doubt prove that it’s aware and conscious. Ha says she, Evrim, and Altantsetseg must try harder to communicate with each other if they ever hope to communicate with the octopuses.

An epigraph from Ha’s book argues that empathy is the key to living in a world beyond the boundaries of what our language creates.

Ha and Evrim visit the ruins of Con Dao prison and the tiger cages where political prisoners were confined. Ha tells Evrim about touring a prison as a teen and her loneliness as a youth. She confides that when she looked down into one of the cages, she saw herself looking back up. Ha confesses to the cuttlefish incident and blames herself for their deaths. Instead of dismissing her guilt, Evrim agrees that she was at fault. Ha has long wanted to hear those words and feels a sense of forgiveness. Evrim believes they can relate to the octopuses because they know what it’s like to feel alien. Evrim reveals that Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan had no intention of building an android to be human-like. Her goal was always to create a superior intellect, and she’ll kill and dissect the octopuses to extract the data she needs. Evrim and Ha vow to keep them safe. A hexcopter lands on the island, and when Evrim and Ha return to the hotel, Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan greets them.