The Cooperatives: The struggle
S4E3 • Cli-fi • AI protagonist • Slow burn
Happy New Year✨, fellow voyagers! ‘The Cooperatives’ is a four-part, climate fiction mini-series featuring the Ghost—an AI protagonist. In this episode, the Ghost must face a dangerous dilemma.
Holiday publishing schedule for ‘The Cooperatives’:
Episode 1: The last forest → December 20, 2024
Episode 2: The scream → December 27, 2024
Episode 3: The struggle → January 3, 2025
Episode 4: The fortune teller → January 10, 2025
‘The Cooperatives’ is part of my cli-fi series There Is Hope—a collection of interlinked stories about life on a planet devastated by climate change and the things that give humans hope. You can start reading the series here.
If you enjoyed this piece, please don’t forget to like, comment, share! 💚
The same night, one of the Udmurt flew them to the nearest city with infrastructure. It was a long, silent trip with all three passengers in the cabin stewing in their carbon and silicon thoughts. The Ghost could sense the girl didn’t trust him. Frankly, he didn’t trust himself. Guided by a false sense of self-control and self-determination, in reality, he seemed to be governed by hidden algorithms, similar to how a flesh-and-blood human being was controlled by their subconscious. The internal rambling that gave him the impression he was thinking for himself was an illusion to make him seem more human and fit in. In reality, he had no idea what his algorithms wanted from him. Or from the girl. Did they want to protect her? Or did they want to protect themselves? He poked again at the edges of that dark space within, trying to find answers. It was like attempting to look beyond the horizon of a black hole. It sucked all the questions in and gave nothing out. With whom did his loyalties lie? The Cooperatives and their totalitarian regime? The High Counselor and former data mogul? Humanity? The last forest? Planet Earth? Self-preservation? What choices did he have within the constraints of his programming? What exactly would he do with the freedom to choose?
‘Death is the engine of life!’ said the Udmurt pilot, bidding farewell as soon as they arrived at their destination.
They were on their own now. The Ghost’s status granted him many advantages, such as access to public transportation, food and accommodation for his ward. It was easy to check in and out of hotels, buy tickets and board speed trains running on the sky railway infrastructure crisscrossing Siberia. The hard part was explaining what a high-ranking officer and an underage member of the Japanese Seaweed Colonies who was a wanted fugitive were doing traveling together. The Ghost had no choice but to come clean.
‘The fugitive was found hiding in the taiga. She’s under my supervision while I transport her to the Headquarters. No, I do not need a human escort, thank you,’ said the Ghost to the first authorities they encountered. ‘The highest ranking Ghost in the Siberian Cooperatives will do!’
Using the offensive slur knocked some sense into the local head of security.
‘I didn’t mean no offense, sir!’ said the man.
After securing safe passage, the Ghost and Shia boarded the first train on their long journey south. The High Counselor had gotten wind of his arrival and was trying to chat with him. He would have to wait until their next stop.
‘Where are you taking me?’ said Shia.
The Ghost kept silent. Returning to civilization meant that every step he took, every decision he made, and every thought he had were carefully recorded in the database of the Siberian Cooperatives. He knew the impatient High Counselor monitored his activity closely, including any conversations. Thankfully, the girl was quiet for the rest of the trip. Many hours later, they arrived at another nondescript town at the periphery of the taiga, where they checked in at a motel. The High Counselor dialed in, as soon as the girl was in bed pretending to sleep. The Ghost had to find a vacant room to take the call.
‘Good catch, Officer!’ said the High Counselor.
‘I wonder how she made it across the border and all the way up in the forest,’ said the Ghost. ‘She must have friends in high places.’
‘Or enemies,’ said the High Counselor, a smile spreading across his face.
Pieces of data aggregated in his database at the speed of light, coming to one swift conclusion: the Ghost had been blindsided.
‘You knew about the girl, didn’t you?’ said the Ghost.
‘The tree huggers have been a thorn in our side for a long time. But how to remove such an annoying, self-righteous, Kalashnikov-armed bunch of tree lovers?’ said the High Counselor. ‘Harboring a fugitive is a serious crime.’
‘Aren’t you worried about your son?’
‘My son’s where he needs to be. Bring her to me in one piece, officer!’
The conversation ended as abruptly as it had started, leaving him with more questions to answer. However, all that would have to wait because the Ghost was soon confronted with a more immediate issue to solve. When he got back to the room, the girl was gone!
✘✘✘
It was a dark and cloudy evening, the air moist from the light rain. The Ghost hovered past the motel toward the boardwalks meandering the floodplain. He registered the girl’s rain boots thumping the hard wooden planks not far away. There was nowhere to run from him, but he let her get it out of her system. The town’s tower control was looming in the distance. A skytrain sped over his head, leaving behind a profound silence. He jumped on a gust of wind that rushed over the floodplain, gliding over a maze of rivers and rivulets swelling with grey waters—as muddy as his thoughts—tracking the runaway girl.
‘Stay away from me!’ said Shia, as soon as she spotted him.
The shades of night were falling fast, and the rain was getting thicker. Suddenly, the girl slipped, and fell hard on the wooden walkway, whimpering in pain.
‘I know you’re gonna turn me in!’
She pushed her trembling body up and looked at him with big, crazy eyes.
‘If you come any closer, I’ll jump! I’m not afraid to die! In any carbon cycle, death is the engine of life!’
The Ghost checked in with the small control tower but received no response. It was out of range and he was alone with his suicidal ward.
‘Your death won’t change anything,’ said the Ghost.
‘Why do you care?’ said Shia. ‘You’ve sent a trapper to kill me on the Dust Road!’
‘You seem very much alive,’ said the Ghost.
‘The people who protected me are not!’ said Shia. ‘I should’ve never gone to the Dust Tribes! I should’ve never allowed Nova Novikovic to take my place in the Human Island sacrifice! It’s all my fault! They are all dead because of me! All except for Lusius!’
She fell to her knees, sobbing. What was he supposed to do with that girl? Though he was not physically capable of interfering, he couldn’t let her die there. As soon as he told himself that, his subconscious algorithm pulsated again with life. A new fortune cookie was baking in the quiet oven of his silicon mind.
‘When you arrived at the Siberian Cooperatives Headquarters with a documentary attesting to the miraculous existence of the sharks, people went into a frenzy,’ said the Ghost. ‘The eerie images of the teenage girl preparing to offer her body as nourishment for the sharks touched everyone’s heart. A wind of hope blew through the dust for the first time in fifty years since the Data War ended. You became the symbol of that hope. A short-lived one, as any human hope has been in the past half millennia. The fungus attacking the last forest is real. You cannot give up now! Your work is not done yet.’
The girl sniffled then wiped her eyes and nose with the back of her hand.
‘What?’
‘I can’t let you fall into the hands of the High Counselor. I don’t know why I’m doing this but I must trust that whatever instinct was built into me must be correct, even if it might destroy me. You must know that, even with my help, it will be nearly impossible for you to leave the Siberian Cooperatives. As we get closer to the border, the surveillance will intensify. One wrong word, one wrong thought, one wrong move, and we’re done. Game over. Owatta! Wakarimasuka?’
‘Hai!’ said Shia, bowing. ‘Sumimasen!’
The clock was ticking. With a swift hand wave, he delivered the fortune cookie.
‘What’s this?’ said Shia.
‘An encoded signal,’ said the Ghost. ‘When we return to the town, I want you to send it out.’
‘What does it do?’ said Shia.
‘Contact a hacker!’ said the Ghost.
‘What? Why?’ said Shia, confused at first but not for long. ‘Oh, my data traffic doesn’t rank as highly as yours.’
‘Exactly,’ said the Ghost. ‘I’m the core.’
‘Do you know this hacker?’ said Shia.
‘I don’t!’ said the Ghost. ‘It’s a signal. Someone will pick it up. Though I’m not sure if anyone will risk seeing us.’
‘What happens if no one wants to take the risk?’ said Shia.
The Ghost looked at her in silence.
‘I see,’ said Shia.
‘If someone wants to help, you’ll get all the information we need. You must not tell me anything. I’ll get us where we need to go, but the rest is up to you. The less I know, the better,’ said the Ghost.
‘Understood!’ said Shia.
‘Alright,’ said the Ghost. ‘We must go back before they send a drone unit to check our whereabouts.’
✘✘✘
They spent the following days switching from trains to motels and then back. From time to time, the Ghost quietly nudged Shia about a status update on their signal. Nothing. Nothing for days. The fortune cookie may have been a data aberration. Perhaps he had inadvertently accessed an ancient, archived program while he was cut off in the last forest. As the days passed, the Ghost felt like he was getting back to his senses. Perhaps it had all been nothing more than a silicon hallucination. One morning, they boarded their last train with the destination to the Siberian Cooperatives Headquarters. It was a packed night sleeper, which was a good thing. It kept the train AI busy. Soon, they will arrive. Then what? Some hours into the trip, he sensed Shia’s body stiffen next to him and her breath accelerating. He activated a calming vibration program to soothe her nerves before the train AI noticed anything. He felt it poking gingerly at his security walls. Nosy bastard! The Ghost had never liked his kind.
‘Alright, girl, calm down and tell me what’s up!’ said the Ghost.
Shia looked at him cautiously, trying to feel the terrain. She was careful, that was good.
‘You have five seconds, spit it out!’ said the Ghost.
‘Contact established, need your input!’ said Shia.
The Ghost raised his hand, and Shia stopped talking. He felt the bots approaching fast, alarmed by the momentary lapse in the data stream. They were watching him. He waited for a bit, then waved at the girl.
‘Done,’ said the Ghost.
They were quiet for the rest of the trip. Once they reached the Siberian Cooperative Headquarters, he could slip away since the bots had more data traffic to monitor, not to mention professional disruptors. He’ll just need to ride on the disruptors and use them to his advantage. Come evening, Shia took care of her human ablutions and slept the night. The next day, they reached the end station at noon.
‘It’s showdown time,’ said the Ghost, scanning the station. There was no one there to receive them. The High Counselor trusted him to do his job. Good. After all, the girl was still a hero to many. It didn’t do to publicly arrest her. Every cleared security point brought them closer to the exit. Two more, one more, then they were out. It was a sunny day with a clear sky and a refreshing breeze. The best weather for human productivity. Just like they used to have in the historical Silicon Valley. Now, it was the turn of the Siberian Valley to prosper. They walked across the street, descended to the canals and stopped at a boat bus station.
‘I have the directions here,’ said Shia. ‘Look!’
The Ghost scanned their surroundings. The boat bus station was empty.
‘I cannot know where we’re going,’ said the Ghost. ‘You’re in charge!’
A ramshackle of a boat stopped at the improvised pier. Shia paid the fare for two in cash and waddled to one of the empty seats at the back of the boat. They wound down a narrow labyrinth of canals deep into the underbelly of the city where the illegals and refugees lived. A maze of data streams flowed in a strange pattern in and out of the Ghost’s awareness as if channeled toward a center. When he tried to look for it, he couldn’t find anything. The data disappeared beyond a horizon into which he could not peek. Disruptors at work. Out of reflex, he nudged at his own dark space and, to his surprise, he saw the glimmer of two evil eyes looking at him. Then they were gone. What was happening to him?
‘This is us!’ said Shia, jumping onto a pier of crumbling cement.
‘Watch it, cunt!’
Three ragged young men surrounded Shia on the pier. Quick as lightning, Shia pulled out her Udmurt gun.
‘Stay away,’ said Shia.
‘What do we have here?’ said one man, stepping closer.
Shia pointed his gun at him.
‘The young tigress wants to play,’ said one of the men.
‘Hey,’ said the Ghost, hovering over the water.
The men stared at him open-mouthed.
‘Fuck, a Ghost!’
They spun on their heels and disappeared into one of the dark lanes mounding onto the pier. Most certainly illegals!
‘Are you alright?’ said the Ghost, touching the girl’s shoulder.
‘Yes,’ said Shia. ‘Let’s go, we’re late!’
Any other day, the Ghost would’ve tagged and tracked them, taught them a lesson. The Cooperatives tolerated the illegal, cheap, unregistered workforce much sought after in the Siberian metropolis. There was a hard quota on the number of people who could live on this side of the border. Resources were limited, and The Cooperatives didn’t want to put pressure on the ecosystem. The realities of a city of former data moguls turned custodians of nature, entrepreneurs, and planet saviors were different, though. For a fully functional city, illegal people were needed to take care of the menial jobs that the elite class didn’t want to do. This is how a whole industry of underground smuggling of cheap people, food and clothing from the other side, as illegals called it, was enabled. No matter how hard humans tried, their social systems never worked. This was not a species made to function based on logic and a shared understanding of the common good. Not at an individual level. Humans worked better in packs. And those packs always fought each other for survival. Today, he was changing his pack of humans, though he wasn’t very convinced about his survival chances. Then again, he wasn’t human.
The girl stopped in front of a shop with a neon sign reading Nesravnennaya—The Incomparable. She consulted her virtual map again, looked up and down the alley, and then shrugged.
‘I think this is it!’ said Shia.
‘A gypsy fortune teller?’ said the Ghost.
Shia pushed the door open, and the crystal ring of a door chime announced their arrival to whoever was waiting inside.
To be continued
If you enjoyed this piece, please don’t forget to like, comment, share! 💚
The Cooperatives: Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4
Author’s notes
The Ghost is an artificial intelligence character inspired by the advances in AI technology we’ve seen in recent years. Several AI characters come to mind from popular science fiction: Data from Star Trek, one of my favorite, HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, one of the most fascinating. I also enjoyed Star War’s droids R2-D2 and the humanoid robot C-3PO who is a translator—a profession I studied myself. Another memorable AI character is Gigolo Joe from A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Among them, Gigolo Joe— with his verbosity and slightly insincere personality—feels closest to ChatGPT. There’s a human quality about him that’s rare among fictional AIs.
Recent AI developments have stripped away some of its magic, making the technology more prosaic than we might have imagined. At the same time, they also made AI more human: imprecise, biased and verbose. What AI has lost for me in real life is its veneer of perfection. We now understand that AI is governed by algorithms created by humans, powered by a corpus of human knowledge—much of it unfiltered internet content. Left unchecked, AI becomes a grotesque mirror of humanity, a mirror in which we’d rather not contemplate ourselves.
This realization has shaped the Ghost as a character in my novel. Unlike Data—an impartial, objective intelligence driven by noble intentions, with a childlike curiosity about humanity—the Ghost is deeply human, judgemental, with veiled intentions and uncertain loyalties.
Some years ago, I read the Architects of Intelligence and learned a lot about the future of AI. During my screenwriting studies, I developed two projects exploring different aspects of AI and its impact on the future of humanity. I’m especially interested in human enhancement with AI and plan to dive into this more in future works.
For now, I hope you enjoyed the Ghost. I’ve tried to make this character unique and compelling. Let’s see how the Ghost evolves in the fourth and final episode of the story.
The Cooperatives: Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4
‘The Cooperatives’ is part of my cli-fi series There Is Hope—a collection of interlinked stories about life on a planet devastated by climate change and the things that give humans hope. You can start reading the series here.
The Ghost is becoming one of my favorite characters on Substack in serialized works! Anytime we see AI contemplating their own nature and function, even if it anthropomorphizes the tech a bit, it adds a richness to the narrative and a layering of possibility to destabilize perceived instincts in a manner we don’t (or can’t) necessarily allow in our human characters. He reminds me of K from Blade Runner 2049. And I appreciate your note and thoughtful consideration of how AI tech’s proliferation in the past couple years has dissolved the mystery enough to make it ubiquitous and utilitarian rather than effectively authentic and nuanced. Looking forward to the 10th…and slightly disappointed I don’t have more to catch up!