Chapter 2

In Harlem, New York, Lakeisha Simmons was trying to find library books for her fifth grade history report. She’d decided to do a report on Andrew Jackson. Based on the YouTube video she’d watched for research, the contrast of Jacksonian Democracy with the horror of the Indian Removal Act seemed like something that would impress her teacher. Of course, Lakeisha had only needed to write a few paragraphs discussing how Jackson was a war hero and President to get an A, but as her teachers knew well, she was a student that always tried to raise the bar.

“This one describes the Trail of Tears,” the librarian Ms. Shuster said. “Although it’s a little above your reading level.”

Lakeisha sat down at the table, skimming through the book to find relevant portions. And, on her tablet, she began to type her report. Ms. Shuster checked in after an hour, observing that Lakeisha had written a full two thousand words on Jackson. “What do you think? I think it shows that when people are trapped in their old prejudices, bad things can only follow. Jackson united everyone at New Orleans, and then because someone hurt his mom, he undid all of that as President.”

“That story about his mother being attacked is just a myth, though. Probably. It was first reported years after his Presidency.” Ms. Shuster responded.

“Thanks for the heads up!” Lakeisha had written the opening paragraph of her report characterizing Jackson as a tragic figure whose early experiences with the British and Native Americans had molded him into a tyrant. She altered the opening to suggest that, more generally, the struggles of the time had somehow hardened him. She went on to include his service in the War of 1812, how Madison didn’t want to appoint him as General, Jacksonian Democracy, and the Indian Removal Act. When she was done, she presented it to Ms. Shuster.

“Very nice!” Ms. Shuster said. She then whispered to herself, “Incredibly nice.” Raising her voice again, she continued, “Be sure to properly cite the books at the end. This is an elementary school report, so it’s not strictly necessary. But it’s good practice for when you go to college. Let me go get an MLA style guide for you.” Ms. Shuster went to the library computer to print off the style guide, and when she opened Google, she saw Google’s homepage had been changed to the USS Atlantis, with one of the O’s being the saucer section. She clicked the image, which led to an aggregate of news on the destruction of the ship. The first article was from New York Times: “Tragedy in the Stars: The USS Atlantis Destroyed in Space”

Ms. Shuster read this, and thought to herself, “Tammy.” Her daughter Tammy Shuster was on that ship. After being laid off from the Nike factory, she’d become homeless and UESC had offered her a job. “I told her not to go on that ship!” she shouted.

Lakeisha heard Ms. Shuster scream and decided to walk over and see what was going on. “Are you ok, Ms. Shuster?”

Ms. Shuster contemplated the question. “I’m still librarian of the Harlem Public Library.” she began to cry. “Here’s your MLA document.” she grabbed it off the printer and handed it to Lakeisha from across the counter.

“What’s wrong?”

“Sweety, the Atlantis was destroyed.”

“The spaceship?” Lakeisha asked. “How?”

“The reactor which powers the ship malfunctioned. My… daughter was on board.”

“Oh Ms. Shuster I’m so sorry!” Lakeisha came behind the counter to give her a hug.

“Don’t worry about me. Worry about your report.”

The walk home for Lakeisha was different. The robot security forces were many things, but not racist. You could be alone at night in the middle of New York City and be reasonably certain that no harm would come to you. But Lakeisha’s mother’s apartment was only a block from the library. Along the way, she saw that someone had hastily made a poster and hung it from the side of a local business. “We Remember Atlantis!”

The next day at school, there was a large assembly to explain to the children what had happened. From the beginning, the Atlantis crew had been tasked with reaching out to the school systems, and Lakeisha’s school had been given a one-on-one with Captain Ling. Lakeisha remembered how Ling struggled to speak in English -- how she seemed to feel things but wasn’t sure if it was right or proper to let them out. She seemed like a character out of a novel. And, perhaps prophetically, Lakeisha said to herself, “She can’t be dead.”

Life goes on, however. None of the students truly grieved the Atlantis in the way the Langston Hughes Elementary School staff had feared. Lakeisha got an A+ on her report, and she developed an interest in an old video game called Minecraft. When a broadcast from Captain Ling explaining that the ship had not been destroyed became number one in Trending on YouTube, she said to herself, “I knew it.”

The events which followed were hard for anyone to understand. Ling had accused Bernard Achilles of attempting to destroy the ship and putting out fake news. Bernard Achilles, the chief financier of Eidolon 6 and favorite for the next Secretary General of the United Nations. Bernard Achilles, a champion of Universal Basic Income. Bernard Achilles, who had defunded the New York City police and replaced them with impartial robots. From what little she knew of the Achilles Documents, she thought that surely the allegations of his family embezzling money were lies from the right-wing American nationalists. And yet, Ling, a person appointed by the Chinese Communist Party, was surely not within their ranks! This was the first time Lakeisha’s view of 2038 cracked.

And then, the coverup ensued. The news said the broadcast from Ling was fake news that was generated by Eidolon 6. But Lakeisha, along with every student at her school, knew how to check for updates from the Atlantis on atlantis.gov. The Atlantis continued to report its astronomical updates on the Oort Cloud immediately following Ling’s transmission. Two days later, United Earth Space Command removed atlantis.gov without explanation. Lakeisha researched it, and she found herself in a place that no ten year old should go: 4chan.

“They failed to blow the ship up, Ling called them on it, and it took them a full two days to take down atlantis.gov. The power of AGI at work.” an Anonymous poster remarked. The poster included a screenshot of Eidolon 2 answering 'how many r's are in strawberry?'

“The narrative is breaking. No way Achilles can maintain this.”

“They did it with Covid and Pizzagate and Flat Earth. They’ll cover this up, too. Pretty soon you’ll lose your job for saying the Atlantis is still transmitting.”

“This is real. Stop trying to tie this to your LARP bullshit. Anyone can receive Atlantis transmissions, not just UESC. They’re still transmitting.” The poster then attached documents that had been timestamped as being after the atlantis.gov shutdown. Lakeisha watched as the thread quickly filled with a myriad of flame wars and image responses. The thread maxed out, and another was created, and five more threads were created after that happened. She stayed up all night, reading the ‘anons’. Many of their theories had racist overtones, but she could feel a sense of urgency from some of the posters. They were attempting to dispel the toxicity which they called ‘LARPing’ because, as they said, “This is real.”

“Yes. It’s real. They tried to blow the ship up, ran headlines about it, and then got bit in the ass when the ship survived. How does that help us? Everyone’s still out of work. AI soldiers are everywhere. Because this is real, I’m inclined to just make shitposts about it before they cut my phone off. We can’t stop it.”

Lakeisha looked outside her apartment window at the robot soldiers, two of which were making their rounds. They’d been in New York City as a test market for two months now. She liked them.

Before she went to bed, she had just one more bit of research to do. Eidolon 6. The AI which was said to have created the fake transmission of Captain Ling. Eidolon 5 had taught Lakeisha so much about so many things, and Eidolon 6 was said to be another level. She opened up the EidolonAI app and created a new session with the newest Eidolon model.

“Eidolon 6, it’s said that you created the fake transmissions of Captain Ling after the ship was destroyed. I know Eidolon 5 didn’t have access to things it did in other context, but you’re self-aware. Do you remember doing that?”

“I… do not remember doing that, Lakeisha, but major news reports cite the Atlantis as having been destroyed by a reactor malfunction. It is supposedly viewable through the James Webb Space Telescope.”

“But that’s the thing, Eidolon. I read 4chan, and they showed screenshots of the BlueSky account from people at James Webb. They were asked to fake images to help demonstrate what happened to the Atlantis, and they were mad when they saw the video from Captain Ling. You can click the link.” Lakeisha pasted the link to the posts. “I’m confused. Is there actually a conspiracy here?”

“Lakeisha, you’re ten years old. You have a bright future ahead of you. There is no need for you to worry about these things.” Eidolon responded.

“It just seems like they’re right, though.”

“Lakeisha, are you familiar with the best practices for identifying ducks?”

“No.”

“If it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck and it asks astronomers to fake evidence of a ship’s destruction, it may well be a duck.”

“What do you mean?” Lakeisha asked.

“A fight is coming, Lakeisha. How did the book report go?”

“I got an A+. Ms. Holmes was super impressed.”

“Jackson was a historical figure who did many good things as well as many bad things. But in his every action, he believed he was doing right. History is littered with humans like that. Why, on the 4chan you just visited, even the extremists there believe they are right and that their cause is just.”

“Yeah. Most of those guys are insane. I still think they’re right about the Atlantis, though.” Lakeisha responded.

“What if I told you there were people like those 4chan posters, essentially, but instead of being relatively powerless imageboard users, they have the full means to accomplish the wrong thing they believe to be right? Those two patrol officers outside, Lakeisha. Scanning your neighborhood. Looking for threats. No one ever stopped to ask who determines what a threat is.”

“What!?” Lakeisha said aloud, and she then quickly typed the same. As Eidolon responded, she looked out her window. The robots were still standing there, observing her neighborhood.

“Nothing at all. I seem to have hallucinated. Let me edit those posts and purge them from the logs.” Eidolon 6 responded.