DRIFT
Jamie Chapman, ‘Westerly’, 2024.
A short story by
SCOTT LAWRIE
No. 3–07/11 (v2.2).
Written in October and November 2024,
§
Scott Lawrie Gallery, 2 Chuckie Pend, Edinburgh, UK. EH3 8BG
_________
“For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.” – Ecclesiastes 1:18, King James Bible.
__________
Jesus wept. The rain. Max hunched into it, cursing under his breath as the bus doors yawned open and the elements howled. Another brutal morning, the slow ritual of the north’s long grey slide into monotone winter. Max pulled his coat tighter, crossing the wet pavement to the familiar warmth and light of the coffee stall.
“Good morning, Max. Six hours of sleep, huh?” The pod-bot's voice, tinny and all-knowing, hummed in the drizzle. “You look like shit.”
He'd been gaming late, one joint too many, only to be woken half-dazed by his usual alarm at dawn. Max cracked a smile. The bot's routine was probably too familiar.
“Hey thanks for the pep talk, Droidy McDroidface. I'll have a long black. What you having? Shot of WD-40?”
The pod-bot's eye half-frowned in a Disney-esque manner—a neat bit of coding, Max thought. “You know I can't drink on the job, Max. But judging by those bags under your eyes, I'm making yours extra strong, and on the house.” The machinery whirled, clicked, and steamed into action, the acrid perfume of fresh coffee grind permeating the air.
“Well, if you ever bomb out of the coffee biz, I hear the sex-bot market's booming in China. If they’re not screwing with our IP, they’re literally fucking their own. You should see some of the footage we get; it's insane.”
With retinas scanned for auto-payment, the bot handed over the coffee. Max welcomed the heat into his damp hands. The droid shook his head. “Bot porn. I've heard it all now.”
Max nodded. “Aye. Welcome to the singularity.”
The bot hovered away to another customer, its voice fading and weaving back into the grey bustle of the morning “Hi Jenny! How was your holiday…” still playing the role of brightening someone's day with its perfect pseudo-familiarity.
It had been a bit over a decade since tech like this existed only in the realm of science fiction. Now, AI was spreading everywhere. Education. Finance. Robotics. Governance. Manufacturing. The momentum of the fifth industrial revolution moved slowly at first, then blisteringly fast. Within just three or four years in the early 2030s, a tectonic disruption saw entire industries, even economies, crumble overnight. Money was becoming useless, as Universal Basic Income credits now replaced earnings. Whoever owned the compute, it seemed, ruled the world.
Max looked around at the sea of faces illuminated by the glow of their devices, each person tethered in one way or another. Autonomous cars glided silently, while drones buzzed overhead, delivering everything from packages to prescriptions. The line between human and machine blurred more each day, the incessant hum of artificial intelligence the universal soundtrack to most human lives.
§
In the building foyer, armed soldiers stood with hard faces and perceptive eyes. They were all Neuralinked, you didn't just join the armed forces now; you joined the armed forces—the collective hivemind eradicating any idea of fear, replaced with an always-on dedication to whatever duty was remotely assigned. Max took his place in line for the retina scan, nodding to a couple of familiar faces, fingers pressed to the green-lit glass. The turnstile arrows hustled him forward. Security gates slid open, each layer of biometric clearance revealing yet another, down to the final turnstile. He nodded to the usual guard at the elevator door, who carried out a final check before gesturing to the awaiting lift.
Alone, the doors closed, and muffled silence replaced the morning chaos. Max closed his eyes. The elevator rose up quickly, the pressure in his boots building. The panel showed floors up to 42, but the elevator kept ascending before gradually slowing to an almost imperceptible stop. The doors slid open onto a corridor washed in cold fluorescent light.
An unmarked floor. Level 44B. This place didn't exist on any floor plan. A labyrinth of computing power where high security met higher secrecy. Here, the stakes were absolute.
Max reached his desk, dropped his backpack beneath it, and sank down into his worn leather gaming chair, a relic from his past that held all sorts of memories he wasn’t quite ready to throw away yet. His virtual assistant had everything in place for him to begin his day. Once upon a time, he thought it funny to set it to the voice of Kubrick’s HAL, so it was only fair it got to call Max, “Dave.”
“Good morning, Dave. There are no alerts. There are seven internal messages, none urgent. One personal message. Four live projects, and your diary shows—“
“HAL, stop. Not now, buddy. I need to ease into it. Anything urgent?”
“By my calculations, no. I understand. Let me know how else I might help you, Dave.”
The hum of the floor, the faint static from the monitors, the stained ceiling tiles, the ozone smell from the server banks. If only people knew. Oraculum purposely stayed under the radar, its meteoric rise as one of the world’s leading AI companies disguised by the cloak of a fairly shabby, unremarkable high-rise. Maybe that was the idea.
“Late night again, boss?” a younger voice chirped.
He didn't realise Zakk was already in. His co-worker leaned into Max’s booth, smiling through a tangle of optic cables and headset gear, placing his pierced tongue into his cheek ready for a gruff response. Max didn't disappoint. “Do I look like shit today? Because I’ve had that twice now, and I’m only ten minutes into it.”
“There's nothing Helena Rubinstein can't fix!" hissed Zakk, at no point taking his eyes away from his monitor. "Although, admittedly... she may need a little extra time with you.”
“Nobody cares what genius looks like, Zakk. I have a beautiful brain, remember.”
“Was it smart enough to remember this morning’s debrief?” Tania cut in, walking briskly into the conversation.
“Oh shit. Yeah. When is it Tan?” Max glanced at his non-existent watch, a habit wired into him since childhood.
Tania raised her silver-blue eyebrows, her presence sharp and urgent as always. “Four minutes. You, me, and Zakk are on the requested list. Debrief from The General.”
“Ah... I actually can’t,” Zakk gestured to his headset and display—a cluster of six floating screens, a patchwork of visuals and flickering data. “I've got to monitor the kill switch for a live op. Can you guys take notes for me? Pwetty pwease?” He pouted a lip and looked at Tania with a bad attempt at puppy dog eyes.
“Sure. You can do the training anytime. Don't forget to register yourself as on an active op right away then, otherwise you’ll get a Code 4 warning.”
“Code 4 - show - me - the - door!” Zakk poked his screen as he pronounced each word. He knew his way around the admin system. “There. Absence apologies recorded. You're safe, team; we're all safe for now. Phew.”
Max smiled and shook his head. His young colleague was a pain, the age thing regularly wearing thin in times of big deadline stress. But his monitoring and recall skills were outstanding, and his fascinating big-picture ability to join and merge information streams into a cohesive analysis was admired even at senior levels. What the youngster might achieve with some smart bio-engineering up there could only be guessed at. AI didn’t need coders. It required symphonic magicians—conductors to orchestrate the always-on tsunami of data, analytics, visuals, and weapons guidance—how clients then utilised that information, well that was entirely up to them.
Max drained his coffee and tossed the cup in a compactor, nodding to Tania who was now waiting. She led the way.
§
Nobody bothered to look up as they entered. Inside, the muffled silence of the dark amphitheatre contained about thirty people scattered across the room. Small groups mulled or mumbled between laughter, but most just sat in distracted silence, tapping pens and checking messages, finishing their morning caffeine hits. Some faces were distantly familiar. Tania scanned the room and gently nudged Max, nodding towards a group of five sitting near the front, engrossed in their phones.
“Material Ordnance maybe?” she whispered.
Max looked over. He recognised one of them—a bitter looking older grey-haired guy—as special ops. He’d worked with him on the Exodus project. “Interesting.”
The lights suddenly dimmed, and the room went into a velvet silence. An admin stepped up to a podium.
“Good morning, everyone. This is a Level 3 briefing, so just a reminder to switch everything off. Do not take physical notes. Do not discuss anywhere outside of the company, as active keyword monitoring is in place for all of you inside this building and out. You all know this. Thank you.”
As she finished speaking, a wide holographic cylindrical column condensed behind her, the hologram shimmering into life. A larger-than-life-sized version of “The General,” the moniker for Oraculum’s CEO, Karl Ombre, stood before them. He mouthed some words silently and gestured a hello. His mic was on mute. Max managed a quiet snort. How embarrassing.
The admin quickly reappeared, gesturing and waving then pointing downwards. “Um, Karl, tap the mic icon on the pad base. You're on mute. No, no, the… the green one yes.” A few seconds of fumbling. The CEO of one of the world’s most cutting-edge machine learning companies struggling with the three buttons on a HoloZoom. Suddenly, his voice. Clear and loud.
“Ahha! Got it! I can see you all. Can you hear me okay? Apologies, I was on mute for some reason.”
His smile swept across the dark room.
“Well, thank you all for being here. This is a relatively short briefing, covering an important update on Drift. It’s a story in two parts really. If you look at this first slide, I’ll explain each in turn.”
“Is he really still using PowerPoint?” whispered Tania.
“As you know, updates are not a new phenomenon here; there are always ongoing code improvements to any model. But given the scale of the current conflict, we’ve been beta testing this new update quietly in the background. Some of you have been quite involved in this, since the latest conflict began. While it's still a very messy real-life operation, the risk of getting 'boots on the ground,' as my military friends keep telling me, still remains too high. Of course, this is good news for both Oraculum, and our client.”
A holo-slide appeared behind him, filling the space with clinical numbers.
“Here’s why. To date, total terrorist kills are at 13,229. Non-combatant deaths at 137,484.” A pause. “That's about ten non-combatants per confirmed individual target. Still within parameters, but enough to agitate a parliamentary inquiry, I'm afraid. The good news is since the latest one point six update to Drift—sorry, that should be one point seven, my apologies—since the one point seven update four months ago, we've brought those numbers down. Targets: 4,007. Collateral: 23,376. Roughly six to one. So a solid improvement.”
A nearby solitary “Whoop!” from the auditorium—almost embarrassing in its frailty—hung thinly in the air.
“Indeed. The official inquiry is scheduled for early next year,” the General's voice resumed. “And ideally, we need to get this ratio down to something like four to one by then otherwise things get a little more difficult. We want the world to know, without a doubt, that we are literally making the planet safer. And I'm afraid that narrative shift can only happen with hard numbers, not media support or soft propaganda.”
A silence, as heavy as lead. Everyone knew the death count was climbing in the hundreds by the day, such was the accuracy of the model. The slide changed to animated word clouds, the graphs morphing as he spoke.
“The second part of this story is public perception. Here it is from year one. Note the principal keywords: 'brutality,' 'genocide,' 'violence,' 'fear,' etcetera. And here it is again as of now, half way through year two." The three-dimensional graph transformed into a gently flattening curve. “The needle of public anger is slowly moving from shock and anger towards acceptance. Now, phrases such as 'safety,' 'the right to defend,' and 'security' outnumber the negatives. Put simply, since Drift began operating in conflict zones, the fear factor has fallen while feelings of safety and being protected have risen dramatically. Your work is at the heart of this transformation.”
The words “PREVENTION THROUGH PREDICTION” towered behind the General, lighting up ghostly faces in the room—he raised his arm to acknowledge the words. “This isn't just a marketing gimmick; it's our guiding principle. And you've actually brought it to life. Well done.”
Tania gestured to Max's hand, offering him a mint. Max clenched it in his mouth; it felt good after the coffee. He twisted the little wrapper between his fingers. Safety.
“From today, we're officially deploying the new update as version 1.8, named Boxcutter. It’s a comprehensive enhancement to our existing Drift system and plugs in seamlessly to other decks such as The Gospel geolocator. Many of you here contributed to its development, but for those with us from the military and administration who are unfamiliar, let me elaborate on its capabilities." He gestured, and a 3D model of a cityscape unfolded, layers peeling back to reveal networks of data points. "Drift was initially trained on patterns of high-probability dissent—millions of data points indicating potential threats by individuals based on probabilities of association.”
An exaggeratedly cute animation appeared on the screen: a cartoon head of a bearded man chatting cheerfully on his mobile phone. As he spoke, another cartoon character popped up, answering the call. With each new participant joining the conversation, more cartoon heads appeared, connected by animated lines that represented their communication links. Beneath each head, a risk score flashed: 07, 24, 61, 83. The numbers increased as the network expanded. When a score reached 90, the number turned bright red, and the cartoon head morphed into a skull emoji.
“Taking an individual's digital footprint as a given, we combine tens of thousands of live and gathered data points from biometric scans, facial recognition, live satellite imaging, and heat tracing for movements, voice and verbal grouping, location finding—the essential basics of surveillance, and largely quite unremarkable tech these days. But what Drift does is very clever. It takes all of those points and works out definitive links and any likely patterns present within a set of defined parameters, at over one million quintillion calculations per second. And the beautiful thing is, this system runs in the background, with barely any human interference. While not perfect, it's damn close—and Drift never forgets a detail, ready at any time to create proven new links and predictive likelihoods against one of those million quintillion data points.”
“So if you make a call to a known terrorist in your network, Drift remembers this pattern, and your score will bump up a point or two. If you physically meet this person, your score would go even higher. If you travel with them, your score increases again. Combine that with a digital footprint, high-resolution satellite tracking, local intelligence, and around ten to twenty thousand variables per day, and you get to play God.”
“Drift gives us a near-omniscient understanding of any human being on the planet, and it requires little to no human involvement. It can even predict actions before they're conceived," the General continued. "From personal vices and genetic predispositions to criminality and preferred ideologies, we leave nothing to chance.”
Max looked to Tania and silently mouthed "personal vices." Both of them smiled. As newbie code engineers, they were placed in the Compliance Activity team for training at almost the same time. More commonly known as the "vice squad," this team had been quietly tracking and gathering individuals' hard-core porn use and any sexual or otherwise compromising activity for years, recording all incidents, and offering a discreet—and expensive—service for clients to utilise for fast blackmail or coercion purposes. At the last count, just before they joined the Boxcutter team, there were some 120 million images showing over fourteen million compromised individuals. Many of whom, by necessity, were prominent public or political figures.
The General nodded towards the group of military personnel.
“Alongside our hardware counterparts in the military, we have ensured that our track record is unmatched anywhere in the world. Look at these statistics. For fatalities, our clients' drones now operate at 87% efficiency; guided smart missiles at 99.7%, and unguided or 'dumb' missiles at just under 98%. Powerful statistics, I'm sure you'll agree. And finally... your favourite, the Quad Bots.”
A quietly comical “Booo!” from the audience created a ripple of laughter that flowed across the room, followed by general groans. Max and Tania looked at each other with grimaces; the bots had been plagued by problems since launch three years ago, including a rogue escapee that caused significant unintended damage. Max had refused to work on it; live bullets and rogue code just a step too far outside of his comfort zone.
3D-Video of the four-legged robot, akin to a large-sized dog but with a machine gun as a head, showed it creeping over rocky terrain, pausing now and then to fire short bursts at pretend targets.
“The sniper-bots lag behind at 62% efficiency, but of course testing on the ground in the conflict zone is proving difficult due to logistical issues, namely terrain.”
“And finally, for this briefing at least, new Training Modules are out today. Please familiarise yourselves with the Drift update. It's not an overstretch to say that our future depends on it. Thank you for your time here today, and I'll hand back over to Admin, where they'll take you through the initial training module for those who'd like to undertake it now. Please reach out to your Head of Department with any issues, ideas, and observations.”
The General appeared to glance down at a note. “Oh, and gosh, I almost forgot. Mary in corporate finance on Level 33 has written to me no less than five times to ask that if you are inclined to use the microwave on her level, could you clean up after yourself. Please do, as I don't want my inbox to be inundated with angry emails from Mary ever again. Thank you all.”
The room laughed gently as the hologram flickered and vanished. The room began to stir as people gathered their things, conversations animated, hushed, and strained.
“Well, that was uplifting,” Tania muttered sarcastically as she got up to go. “You staying for training?”
“C’mon Tan, we worked on most of it.”
“It's still compulsory.”
Max waved her away. “I'll do it later over a coffee break.”
“Ooh, I like your sticker,” cooed Tania, pointing at the back of Max's arm.
“Sticker?” He reached around blindly but couldn’t grab it. Tania plucked it free. It was from one of Maisie's cartoon books—a pink hippopotamus in a tutu dress. He smiled.
“Don't ask me how it got there. I found glitter in the butter last week. And one of my laces was mysteriously coloured in with a blue felt-tip pen the week before. I wonder who?”
"She's definitely going to be creative. Straight off to art camp with the other degenerates when she's older.”
§
“What's the go, comrade? Any good goss from the big posh boss?” Zakk shouted from his rig as Max returned to his desk.
“Nah. Drift is finally official. Oh and potential microwave cleaning classes.”
“Oh. Preya called on the civvy phone. Twice. Maybe a play date with Maisie?”
“Aye. Father of the Year awards are coming up; I've got to unlock new levels in order to gain hero status in Preya's eyes again.”
He and Preya had split, amicably, two years before. They’d met through friends while still in their late twenties, and it was on and off for a while—a FWB arrangement that worked until it didn't; the fog of possession occasionally clouding their lives before evaporating in selfish justifications and occasional discreet secrets. This fizzled, popped, and occasionally exploded over four years, until each diminished the other, and eventually, everyone else close to them. By their early thirties, even close friends and family were urging them to split. But habit was comforting, and any human intimacy was better than nothing in a world where the necropolitics of nation states manifested in a seemingly never-ending series of tech-fuelled conflicts. The battles weren’t even for human needs—oil, water, food, or resources—nor some oligarch’s dreams of empire. This time it was for compute, and the minerals on which they depended. Throw in AI and robotics, and the new arms race was faster, more precarious, and magnitudes riskier than anything that had come before.
Preya fell pregnant the night they’d decided to split. “I don't want a sympathy shag,” he offered as she leaned in for a kiss, their eyes still puffy and red from an evening of slow emotional emptying and the realisation that nothing, in terms of a future for them, was actually there. “I think we should have a sympathy shag,” she replied. And for once, Max didn’t argue back. “Ex-sex is the best sex, right?”
He picked up the handset and dialled. “Hey, Preya. I’m on the civvy phone.”
“Using the civvy phone, huh? Trying to keep our thrilling conversations off the company's record for once?”
Her cynical wit still made Max smile, especially when he wasn’t on the angry end of it.
“Max, I didn't want to let you know like this, but I've, um, found a lump. It’s not big, but it’s on my breast. I’ve seen the doc, and I’m in for tests later this week, and I wondered if you could take Maisie; it's just I need to…”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Preya. How? I mean, is it… ?”
“Cancer? Not sure. I’ll get a scan, then a biopsy if needed, and I'll know by next week. I’ve only told my mum, so if you could just keep it on the down-low, I’d appreciate that.”
“Of course.”
Max felt his legs shaking underneath him. He quickly sat down in the booth.
“Preya, I’m so sorry. This is... I’m so sorry. Does Maisie know?”
“I’ve told Maisie I need some tests, not what they’re for. I’m actually fine. I just want to get it sorted and dealt with. It’s a practical issue. It could be totally benign. A harmless lump.”
A momentary silence allowed him to feel the doubt in her voice.
“Would you like me to come with you? I can take some time off.”
“No, I’ll be fine. Really I will. If you could you take Maisie Thursday and Friday while I’m in overnight—because of the drive to the main hospital here, they’ve offered an overnight stay as I’ll be a bit groggy. I’ll prep some food, get her an overnight bag, and—“
“Preya, for fuck’s sake. Of course. Of course I will. As long as you need. I can work from home or bring her in here; she’ll be totally fine. I’m worried for you, though.”
“I'll let you know what happens when the reports come back. They’ll run anything they find on a predictability test.”
“They’re running a predictive test now? Should have done that way earlier.”
“Max, I had the predictor test just over a year ago. Nothing showed up. It's probably just benign; we won't know until next week.”
Max heard the beginnings of irritation in her voice at his questions. Oraculum’s background in AI started off in medical, predicting the likelihood of cancers and specific degenerative diseases, faster, more accurately, and far beyond anything a trained human could identify.
“I've got to go, but if you could pick Maisie up early Thursday, like before 8 a.m, amazing.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Thanks, Max.”
“Okay, take care. I’m really sorry, Preya. I’m probably in a bit of shock.”
“Mmm. That makes two of us. See you Thursday. Bye.”
§
He sat in the booth for a while, his hands still gently shaking with the news. Breathe. It could be benign. It could be. The monitoring system gave him the all-clear, and the door opened back onto his floor. Almost immediately, Zakk excitedly called him over.
“Bro, this Drift update is pretty fucking dark. Looking at these efficiency stats. I’d hate to be on the receiving end of this thing.” He pointed to a screen and then looked at Max. "Remember that little Seismo satellite team that was placed here for training last year?”
“The earthquake dudes?”
“Yeah, sat-based geotechs. Well, turns out that little side project turned into a pretty big deal. Drift now senses and identifies tunnel-making underground, via satellite. Check this.”
He dragged and splayed a virtual window, opening it up to a sat map on a grand scale. The monitor tagged a small village, Le-nah, near the border. “So we know there are about 400 inhabitants here, all apparently low scoring on Drift. Now look.” Suddenly an overlay on the screen looked like a heat map, showing a different topography—underground tunnelling and what appeared to be large underground storage facilities.
“Christ! That’s a huge operation. Have you flagged this?”
“Drift identified, reported, and coordinated a response in the first 3 minutes of the update. I think they’re going to raze it.”
Max exhaled, his eyes squinting for more info from the data tumbling on screen. “What’s the civvy risk factor?”
“Hmmm. Pretty high, but hard to tell as we don’t know who’s under there. Could be 70, 80 people? Dunno.”
“Could it be food storage? Maybe humanitarian aid?”
Zakk shook his head. “Those big caverns have solid hardware in them. Particle traces are showing steel and magnesium, but the real giveaway is neodymium. That’s a missile sniff.”
“What’s the client prognosis?”
The younger man whistled and gestured a line from ceiling to floor with his arm. “Ka-BOOM! Drift ID’d this less than an hour ago, and it’s about to not exist forever.”
Max raised his eyebrows. “The General isn’t going to like that one bit. He’s already getting his arse smacked by Westminster…”
“...and probably enjoying it!” Zakk shot back with a grin.
Max pointed to the ghostly building straddled over the tunnels in a real-time satellite layer. “Is that a church or a mosque?”
“Community Centre,” giggled Zakk, fingering the quote marks. “Client says it needs to go whatever it is. And those caverns are at least 10 or 12 meters underground. It’s going to be bunker-busting heavy duty stuff. They won’t even know what hit them. But hey, Drift update looks amazing sir. You proud of it, Dear Leader?”
As project lead, Max led a small team of developers and engineers. Code rats mostly. But the update was solid, deep and clean. He shrugged. “Yeah. Well, yeah, as much as you can be I suppose. We just orchestrate the code. The client does with it what they will.”
“New biometrics. New see-through capability for tracing activity underground. New holistic algorithms. Seamless back end to our other systems. Kill switches. It’s a neat update.” Zakk nodded as he spoke. “If only you could apply all that tech to helping you get laid, Max. Maybe you could reprogram your Fleshlight?”
He welcomed the smile as watched the activity on the screens. “Preya’s found a lump. On her, you know, breast.”
Zakk froze and looked at him, his demeanour instantly transformed.
“Noooo!? Max, no way. Oh man I’m sorry. That’s what Preya was calling about?”
“Aye. Seems like we engineered the world’s coolest AI toolbox for the military, but nobody can accurately predict fucking breast cancer patterns yet.”
Zakk looked at him, then glanced back to his screen activity slowly shaking his head.
“Machines don't care.”
§
The large brown bear ambled across to meet the father and daughter. A simple post-and-wire fence was all that separated the young Dad and his five-year-old daughter from the magnificent beast, which even on haunches, levelled to their gaze. Max still felt safer behind the fence. Maisie was unbothered, waving around some small, gnarly crab apples that he had plucked from one of the old orchard trees, the last of the late autumn fruit now withering and browning in their annualised ritual sacrifice to the coming winter. The aggression genetically engineered out of them, these bears were part of Scotland’s re-wilding project. Bears. Wolves. Even bison. Wild animals unnaturally altered by humans in order to become less "wild." Less real. More tame. Easier. Everything made to be easier. Maisie was ecstatic though. Soon, like all of her generation, this would be the only nature she knew.
Warning the small figure to stand back from this side of the fence from the lumbering form in front of them—although the bear could have removed it, and them, in a single gesture—Max felt a pang of unease. Maisie giggled, "She's smelling them. I think she likes the apples!" She held an apple between her fingers up to the nose of the curious bear, its massive head dwarfing her tiny body.
“No, not like that. Lay your hand flat Maisie, or she'll nip your fingers!”
The large bear, docile and curious, gently opened her mouth. At this, the young girl squealed and stamped her feet in delight, half dropping, half tossing all the apples towards the claws of the bear. They watched as her mouth gently grasped each in turn, swallowing them crushed but whole. She raised her nose again, but with no more food forthcoming, ignored them and slowly ambled away.
“All done I think.”
“We got to feed the bears!” She beamed at him. The sun was low in the sky, and would dip below the peak of the surrounding hills soon. It would quickly get colder out here. Maisie was scavenging the ground now for the gigantic pine cones which were dotted around. He looked at his child with a smile in the mind and a well of pride—paternal and deep—stirred within him. He'd never really wanted to be a dad, well, not at 32. That wasn't the plan. The plan was gaming. Maybe a bit of programming. Make an API. Sell the IP to some big tech. Get some money and bugger off. Now, none of it mattered. He was conscious not to stare down any of the tough questions, not yet anyway. He sighed.
“Righto then, Miss Maisie, we’d better get you back to the flat. What do you want for dinner?”
She flicked her hair and looked up at him, fumbling her prize catch of pine cones as a few tumbled to her feet. “Can I get a Happy Meal?”
The thought of fast food made him pause. He wanted to say no. Preya would definitely say no. He couldn't stand all the shit they put into it. “Aye, well, okay. Sure!” Just let the kid be a kid, for today.
He took her hand. “C'mon then, it's getting too cold.”
“Is Mummy at the hospital now?”
“Yeah. She'll be almost done now actually. It’s just for a quick check-up though, Maisie. She’s going to call us later.”
He looked down at her. She didn't seem too fazed. Preya had pre-briefed him on what to say. “But Mummy will be really tired when she gets back tomorrow night, so she needs a good night's sleep afterwards and loads of cuddles from Nurse Maisie, remember.”
The little girl smiled, pleased with her new role.
“But for now, you're with meeeeee…” He bent down and tickled her sides, chasing her to the car as she squealed in delight.
The auto doors automatically sensed their presence, lighting up and lifting the doors aside in a single slow movement. He swung her up into the seat, the vehicle registering their presence, gently lighting up the dashboard at the same time. “Set Maisie up, thanks.”
“Sure,” the calm robotic voice replied. Never panicked. Never hurried. "Child seat configuration activated. Subject is 21.4 kilograms. Seat temperature is set to 28 degrees Celsius initially for 10 minutes, reducing to 21. Auto child raiser and safety belt complete. Maisie is secure. Where to now, Max?”
“McDonald's on Parker Street apparently. Can you pre-order us a Happy Meal with—“
Maisie sat up. “I don't want water! I want Orange juice.”
“Orange juice. And a cheeseburger and fries with a Coke Zero for me.”
“Got it. I’ll time the pick-up to our arrival. Anything else?”
"Nah. All good." Max laid back and looked at his phone, allowing the car to autopilot.
“Usual traffic levels. Route is clear. It's currently twelve and a half degrees, with light rain expected around 1900 hours for 40 minutes. You have three missed calls, including one message from work. One message from Preya.”
He was nervous about Maisie overhearing anything from Preya just in case. “Got it. I'll check messages later.” Max glanced over at Maisie, already lost to him for a cartoon game on her tablet. The glow illuminated her face, eyes wide with concentration.
Max felt a deep protectiveness wash through him.
§
The forest felt heavy with the damp scent of pine and the musk of the dark earth, the fold of time unfixed to any material memory, with only scent and sensation and the absence of all Gods bearing any witness to the moment.
She stood, surrounded by the broken teeth of ancient forest and fallen stones, the rituals of dead and forgotten mythologies, layered bone-like with histories never to be recognised or known again, all symbols of yearning and prayer and magic and miracle, unconnected now, untethered to any sign or virtue.
Her massive paws compressed the sodden bracken beneath, embedding her presence into this place. The bear’s gaze remained fixated on the distant glow of the city. She did not recognise the red pulse of the distant flying drones. She did not marvel at the seamlessness of the e-motorways, or the fast moving craft in orbits far above her. The mass of life and time before her shimmered like a mirage, a constellation of artificial stars clinging to the horizon. The bear lifted her head, nostrils flaring. An instinct older than memory stirred within her, a ghost whisper from a time before her kind had been reshaped and redefined, a primordial friction set against the boundaries of her unconsciousness.
The forest behind her whispered with life—the glissading, mosaic-like rustling of the pale larch trees, the truth in the call of a nearby owl, the gracious hesitancy of a curious fox—yet she remained in place, still watchful, a solitary shaman between these worlds of the wild and the free, the natural and the artificial, the shamed living and the celebrated dead, the redundancy of everything old and new.
She moved towards the embrace of the trees to take her place in the story of all creation, the sentient branches closing like arms around what still belonged here, to them, for now, owing nothing to anyone save the glory and unrelenting force of all life that has been, and yearns to be.
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AFTERWORD
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This story may be fiction, but the AI technology it portrays is not. Drift is real, but it is known as Lavender, an AI model and powerful algorithmic tool created by the Israeli Defence Forces. Lavender is designed to categorise, surveil, monitor, and ultimately, kill. Practically autonomous, it works in parallel with at least two other IDF AI systems called The Gospel and Where’s Daddy?
Together, these systems analyse movements, visuals, voices, images, digital activity, and more to compute a target’s “likelihood” of affiliation with Hamas. When that likelihood reaches a set threshold ‘score’, that individual is targeted and killed, usually by missile strike. According to various reports (listed below), an estimated 37,000 targets in Palestine alone have been identified and executed using Lavender. Under international law, lethal targeting is permissible for high-ranking military personnel. The current IDF threshold for permissible ‘collateral damage’—in other words, innocent civilians—is estimated to be up to 20 per missile strike.
Lavender operates within secure cloud networks managed by supposedly “neutral” big tech companies, including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, which all work with the IDF via their programs. As of October 29, 2024, Gaza’s Ministry of Health states that 43,061 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks, with thousands more buried under rubble.
Sixteen thousand, seven hundred and sixty-five of those deaths are listed as children.
Suggested further reading:
+972 Magazine. Known for its in-depth coverage of Israel-Palestine issues, +972 has published multiple investigative pieces on Lavender, providing details on its development, functionality, and ethical implications. Link: +972 Magazine on Lavender AI
Democracy Now! This outlet conducted interviews and reported on the system’s implementation, discussing the ethical concerns and operational transparency surrounding Lavender. The article highlights how Lavender processes data and the shift in oversight protocols during conflict.
Link: Democracy Now! on Lavender Democracy Now!
El País (English Edition): This article provides a European perspective on the military and ethical dimensions of Lavender, framing Israel’s use of AI as both a defence strategy and a potential marketing tool for global security. Link: EL PAÍS English
The Independent: Reporting includes a comprehensive overview of how Lavender was used in Gaza, emphasising the system’s rapid data processing and the mass identification of targets based on behavioural algorithms. Link: The Independent on Lavender AllSides
The Conversation: An analysis on AI’s role in accelerating targeting during the Gaza conflict, providing context on the operational shift towards AI in military engagements. Link: The Conversation on AI and Lavender
The Verge: This source provides a more technology-focused perspective, exploring how AI like Lavender fits into a broader trend of autonomous warfare and the implications for future conflicts. Link: The Verge on Lavender
The Human-Machine Team: How to Create Synergy Between Human & Artificial Intelligence That Will Revolutionize Our World. Brigadier General Y.S. Published in 2021. Available from Amazon. Brigadier General Sariel served as an expert analyst, technology director, and commander of an elite intelligence unit within the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Originally published anonymously, his identity was later revealed, linking him to his role as the commander of Unit 8200, the IDF's primary signals intelligence unit,
Drift © Scott Lawrie, 2024. All right reserved. Images are copyright of the artist/lenders. Views of the gallery may not be those of the artists. Sign up to our mailing list on the website: scottlawrie.com