The existential threat of AI had scared human beings for the past century. The Machinehood certainly made themselves sound like SAIs. Welga went back to the beginning of the manifesto, reading more slowly to look for clues that the al-Muwahhidun had written it. A sentence in Section Three tickled at her memory: We find these dichotomies to be false and detrimental to the health and well-being of humans, animals, machines, and environment.

Where had she heard that? After a few seconds, the answer came to her, and it wasn’t from Marrakech. She pulled up the recording of the monk from Eko-Yi: For too long the world has embraced Western dualistic thought, which traps people into wrong living. Black or white. Right or wrong. Animal or machine.

She skimmed the incoming comments. None mentioned the space stations or Neo-Buddhists. Not one screen had a feed from off-world.

Welga waved to get Olafson’s attention.

“The android’s smart-metal came from a space station,” Welga said. She flicked a highlighted piece of the analysis report to his visual.

He scanned the words. “Okay. So?”

“Watch this video snippet and compare it to this section of the Machinehood Manifesto.”

Olafson pursed his lips as he watched, then said, “Let’s run the words through the agency WAI for an author-similarity measure.”

While they waited for the results, Welga updated her notes about Jun-ha Park’s family and appended Ao Tara’s lecture to the general analysis report. She needed analysts to corroborate her suspicions—or prove that she was way off track. With Connor’s words ringing in her mind—we’re doing this together or not at all—her judgment was compromised by desire.

“Seventy-one percent likelihood of author match,” Olafson said. “It’s far from golden, but it’s enough that I’ll take it up with Rice.”

They found the director in the far corner of the room, huddled with several others in furious conversation. When Olafson caught her gaze, she waved them closer. He summarized their findings, ending with the text analysis.

“The smart-matter fragment must come from Eko-Yi,” Welga blurted.

Rice held up a hand. “We need more solid evidence before we can make that conclusion. After seeing this manifesto, I’m going to move the timeline up for action in the Maghreb.”

“But why would the caliph release a bunch of demands to give bots and WAIs rights?” Welga countered. “He’s never wanted that. The Neo-Buddhists want to protect intelligent machines and animals. They must be working together!”