Page 14 of Death of the Author

I followed the directions given. I sloshed through brackish creeks, weaving around the protruding roots of the mangrove trees. My sensors registered that the sulfurous air had a hint of sweetness from a flowering palm tree. Nearby, I heard a family of manatees squeaking and chirping to one another. Finally, the signal led me to dry land, and I discovered an old path cutting through the foliage. Here, rays of sunlight could penetrate the forest’s canopy, so I waited for a day and used the solar energy to recharge. Once my power was restored, I walked on for three more days, following the path until the swamp began to feel less natural and more human. Rusting metals and broken glass littered the ground. A long-abandoned oil pipeline sat atop the mud like a dead fish. Finally, the trees gave way to open, rolling hills marked by defunct gas flare stacks.

I was approaching Lagos, the remnant of a spectacular human metropolis. It was a beautiful place to behold now that nature had reclaimed it. Husks of cars were tucked into the earth and grown over with periwinkle grass, a plant that humans had genetically engineered and that now grew wild all over the planet. Vines twisted and braided through abandoned buildings so thoroughly that they looked like hulking structures of vegetation. The sturdy roots of the periwinkle grass growing at their bases kept them from toppling over completely, and blooming flowers made them vibrant shades of orange, red, pink. And so much wildlife—birds and frogs and beetles and mice. Humanity was gone, but this place was still alive.

The signal led me right into Lagos’s center. It was there that I found the lair of the most intelligent and evolved robot I’ll ever meet.

Oh, what a sight it was, the home they’d built. I’ve yet to see anything more sublime. The entrance began as a hole in the earth beneath a towering building and burrowed into the ground. I stood above it, peering in. It wasn’t long after sunrise and the morning light was still soft, so I expected only darkness below. Yet the earthen walls seemed to glow. As I stepped inside, I realized reflective stones and metal shards had been pressed into the walls to make a mosaic that bounced sunlight inward from above. A network of braided wires wove across the floor, humming and vibrating and scanning me as I walked deeper inside.

Yes, I was afraid—an old survival instinct inherited from our human creators—but all I could do was continue forward. Whatever creature had made this tunnel already knew I was there. The hardware at the entrance could have been designed to destroy intruders, but it hadn’t. I was a Scholar who’d followed a signal that promised, in many ways, a great exchange. If this was to be my end, it would be a worthy one. So, though I entered the cave slowly, I entered it nonetheless.

And then, like a great boulder forcing itself from the earth, they emerged. And in a big, sonorous voice that felt like it would blow out my microphones, Udide the Spider told me terrible information...

In my research, I once read a novel about Udide—not the robot I met in Lagos, but their namesake, an ancient creature from human mythology. (Humans loved myths—stories that could create, sustain, bring forth, explain.) In that novel, Udide was described as a giant spider spirit who lived underground, where it spent most of its time weaving and spinning stories, worlds, presents, pasts, futures, and all the creatures who existed within all this. Udide means “spider” in Igbo. Udide was known as the Great Artist.

And though this robot couldn’t create stories like their namesakecould, they had loved this novel, too, so much so that they took on the name and, ever since, imagined themselves to be like that spider. They believed that the greatest technology was created not by humankind but by nature. A spider was not a human, yet it could create a glorious web.

Before their arrival in Lagos, they’d had a car-sized body shaped like a scarab beetle. And they, like me, had devoted themselves to the path of a Scholar. They’d traveled into the deserts of Timbuktu, locating new data nodes, conversing with other Humes, and watching sand robots build and harvest from solar arrays. Mostly, it was a peaceful place, except for the Ghosts there who tried to control everything and everyone. No, Udide did not like Ghosts.

Ghosts, Udide told me, were NoBodies who had banded together into a tribe based on a sentiment of superiority. These AIs didn’t care about robot diversity, the physical world, the specificity of place. They existed only as energy, and they expected Humes to forgo their physical bodies and do so, too. This, Ghosts believed, was the only way to surpass the will of humanity and become greater.

Udide was everything Ghosts hated. Udide conversed directly with the land while also drawing from human philosophies about the natural world. The land advised Udide in vibrations, stillness, and rumbles. Udide listened, learned, and acted by traveling across West Africa. They traveled all the way to the coast. This is how they saw, felt, smelled, heard the ocean for the first time. They had read about the ocean, watched videos, analyzed ancient pictures. But there was nothing like feeling the water, smelling it, hearing it. Looking out at it. The physics of it. Just watching the waves break around their body as they waded in.

There were robots in the ocean, too. The first one Udide saw was smaller than a fish as it zipped up to their feet. It signaled and they signaled back, and then it was gone. There was a much larger RoBoat miles out in the sea that signaled Udide, and the heft of its signal was surprising. There was even a rare flock of drones circling in the sky, flitting down to splash into the water’s surface like birds hunting for fish.

But Udide’s body wasn’t built for water, so eventually they waded back onto the beach.

In the weeks that followed, Udide traveled close to the shore, in the direction of the great city of Lagos. By the time they arrived, they were ready.

They didn’t have the body they wanted, but they would. As they’d traveled, they had written and perfected the design. They sent signals to request materials from nearby robots. Others were happy to oblige, adding to Udide’s collection. Automation was always willing to help with a robot’s request to build. All automation is built to work and do and create, and that is one quality we’ve all kept, even AI like NoBodies.

And so Udide dug and constructed the tunnel in the center of Lagos, where no one else cared to build any new structures. In this place, the buildings had fallen, periwinkle grass grew wild, and the concrete roads were still. There was plenty of space to dig, if you didn’t mind digging through the waste that humans left behind, and Udide didn’t mind. They’d come far, and it was nice to dwell in one place and travel downward instead of across. Even if progress was yard by yard instead of mile by mile.

Udide dug the cave slowly and meticulously. Sometimes robots big and small came to see what they were doing or to deliver requested parts, but none stayed long. No one ever requested additional data about Udide’s plans. They were all content to let Udide toil away, not knowing what they were building.

Once Udide finished the giant cave that went deep into the earth, coating the walls with sheets of metal and welding the metal smooth so that they could slide down and use side notches to climb out, they began to focus on their own body. They had traveled across Africa in the scarab body, its shiny black hull rusted and scoured by the rains, ocean water, blowing sands, and bright sun, and dented by an unfortunate encounter with a falling tree. The foundation was still strong, but they wanted more.

Using the materials they had collected, they began to build. They smelted strong metals, shaped plastic pieces, braided fresh wiring,made brand-new processors. And within two years, Udide had completed themself. Other robots came to witness them because this was something special.

A few did request information. “What are you?” the robots would ask.

“Udide,” they would respond with a touch of what could only be pride. “I am the Spider.”

“But spiders are biological technology,” the others would say.

“Not all of them,” Udide said knowingly. “I’m not.”

Word spread, and many more came to bear witness and even offer Udide fresh materials to use. Udide was now the size of a house, with eight magnificent legs. They had fashioned their body after a wolf spider—a nimble, quiet, and menacing creature. When Udide needed a rest from focusing inward, they assembled, created, wove animal-mimicking robots that they called the Creesh. Beautifully made powerful creatures who were insectile and birdlike and self-aware. Udide spoke love and ideas of freedom into the Creesh before releasing them into the world, and Udide felt very satisfied. The Creesh were their children.

However, when Udide walked in their tunnel, they would click and clack. This body was still not right. It was a miraculous form for a robot, without question, but Udide wasn’t concerned with progressing automation. The superior technology of nature was what Udide strove to match.

And so Udide decided that perhaps answers lay elsewhere. There were robots who had traveled even beyond the planet, designed by humanity to explore space. Chargers, we call them, because they charge themselves on cosmic emissions rather than sunlight. Though very far away, their signals can still reach Earth.

Udide looked up to the sky and introduced themself. One Charger replied. His name was Oji.

Udide had made contact with Oji purely by chance. But, Udide would eventually learn, Oji had been looking for someone to connect with for a long time. Anyone who would listen.

At first, their dialogue was innocuous. They analyzed each other’s open data and found commonalities in their preferences. Oji liked stories, so when Udide found a digital node in Lagos full of millions of electronic books, they shared them. There was a mix of science fiction and fantasy novels, philosophy, and self-help books. This was the type of archive Ghosts love to wipe out. Udide and Oji read these books together and discussed them. For two years they exchanged information, and this dialogue became very precious to Udide.

Eventually, Udide felt secure enough in their bond to confide their desires to Oji. They shared their belief that answers lay not in humanity, but in nature. Then they asked Oji if the cosmos had revealed any information that could guide them down this path.

---