Destiny's Hand

8 Destiny's Eye

Year 2798, Homthai 1st Sunday, late afternoon:

Katelle asks, "How did Smartswan die?"

Artim makes a circle in the air with a finger and then chops through it with his hand. "Two years ago—"

"I was being facetious. I'm sorry, I don't want you to relive it. It's just the possibility of murder, as likely was with my mother and grandfather." Katelle sucks in a shuddering breath and turns away. "Dumb or not that AI eye records everything all the time, which is an amazingly blatant hypocrisy given the context of our privacy guidelines that make it taboo to record each other without permission. I imagine superman watching live, or reviewing something recorded." She presses a thumb into her palm. "I can accept it's a dumb and broken AI, but still maybe functional enough to read lips for its masters to catch a slip. They can catch you, not all the time, but enough… enough to matter to my family."

Artim steps close and touches her shoulder like a feather drifting. She grabs his fingers, crushing them as she controls her breathing. Wincing he says, "Okay and maybe the whole of my scholarship is skewed with early lies and I shouldn't trust what I've learned, any of it. I can still say we draw too much attention keeping lips so obviously out of sight. Touch my nose, cough in my hand, you play with your hair, you see a nice flower, and what? Is it anything but obvious that we are hiding our words? Will they imagine us spitting unethical lesson plans intended to corrupt the nextbatch with Earth ideals? Maybe plotting a coup at the next big social?

"It's so suspicious. Why can't we just keep our dangerous conversations under cover like most everyone else? Or seeming to ignore the sunax eye all together. Probably the best protection is being… normal, the appearance anyway." He nods. "I bet it would be safer. I think I've covered why I don't think Destiny AI's very observant, at least not actively making sense observant. But, consistent gestures could be manually tagged when superman staff catch it, and then even a dumb and strangled AI would be able to priority filter for review based on those gestures." He tilts his head up towards the ceiling of the love pod. "You've grown up doing it. The paranoia apparently is part of your charm for Milden. Maybe he likes his women Nathan mad, with mouth covered and head bowed."

Artim pulls his hand free of her grip. "But it's spread to the people around you. I worry. I worry a little when I do it." He slaps his palms together. "This slide to overlords you're warning about, that I have to believe now with the threat I just got. I worry; do they really think I'm scratching my nose all the time? I know I'm just a big dumb imitation gymer." He rubs her shoulder and she pulls away with a snort. "Let's imagine we are unlucky enough to be actively watched by superman with the AI lip reading. What if we just coded our conversation? I don't think it's near smart enough to flag a seditious conversation if we use even the most obvious code words, and our department doesn't have the staff to go through and manually get enough context for deciphering."

She shakes her head. "I accepted your expertise about AIs, but maybe a human lip reader is the real threat, and who can say how good they'd be at deciphering without context. How do you think they got my granddad? A careless sentence while looking up for his daughter, my mom. She said they saw each other and waved. Less than a klick as a laser, and that was the last time she saw him alive. No chance to visit, accidental death while transporting to put him in a medical coma. AI or superman, does it matter who or what? Their eye worked enough to catch seditious lips." She smiles. "I agree though. Let's test for limitations."

"How would you propose to?"

Her finger traces the curve of the habitat the wallscreen shows. A tap with the other hand and the wall slides away to show inreal exactly as depicted. She steps out and says, "As I stand and look up, looking for who? I speak poetical, look I the fool? No no my sweet danger. I'm no stranger. Watch when the west wind blows. That's when you'll know. Truth has been found at last. The die is cast."