1n1REzE

Peter Watts 37 Blindsight
cite the usual justifications in my sleep, talk endlessly about the
rotational topology of information and the irrelevance of semantic
comprehension. But after all the words, I'm still not sure. I don't
know if anyone else is, either. Maybe it's just some grand
consensual con, marks and players all in league. We won't admit
that our creations are beyond us; they may speak in tongues, but
our priests can read those signs. Gods leave their algorithms
carved into the mountainside but it's just li'l ol' me bringing the
tablets down to the masses, and I don't threaten anyone.
Maybe the Singularity happened years ago. We just don't want
to admit we were left behind.
"All kinds of animals living here. Occasional demons too."
— Ian Anderson, Catfish Rising
The Third Wave, they called us. All in the same boat, driving
into the long dark courtesy of a bleeding-edge prototype crashgraduated
from the simulators a full eighteen months ahead of
schedule. In a less fearful economy, such violence to the timetable
would have bankrupted four countries and fifteen multicorps.
The first two waves came out of the gate in even more of a hurry.
I didn't find out what had happened to them until thirty minutes
before the briefing, when Sarasti released the telemetry into
ConSensus. Then I opened wide; experience flooded up my inlays
and spilled across my parietal cortex in glorious high-density fast
forward. Even now I can bring those data back, fresh as the day
they were recorded. I'm there.
I'm them.
I am unmanned. I am disposable. I am souped-up and strippeddown,
a telematter drive with a couple of cameras bolted to the
front end, pushing gees that would turn meat to jelly. I sprint