The Mountain in the Sea

An epigraph from Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan’s book describes her desire to be omniscient and escape the limitations of the physical body.

On a boat docked at a port in Istanbul, a young hacker meets with the older man who questioned Rustem. The hacker is running for his life after failing to break into the same AI system assigned to Rustem. The older man muses on how humans have a compulsion to invent but lack foresight. He quotes philosopher Paul Virilio on the negative consequences of technology: “‘When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck’” (330). In exchange for a passport to help him escape, the hacker tells the older man that a mind on an island needs to be broken into. The AI system has a maintenance portal, an access point hidden in its structure, that allows one to control it. Suddenly, a massive autofreighter crashes into the dock, killing the young hacker and countless civilians on shore.

An epigraph from Ha’s book discusses how idioms about ethics such as being “upright” would be difficult to translate to a species with a different physiology.

Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan brings the team a cake she purchased as a gift and jokes that she doesn’t trust a scientist who bakes.