They wore no breathing apparatus. Needed none. They trailed a mesh bag in one hand, like a fishing net. No—not like a fishing net: like a sacred object. At the center of the drones’ dancing activity, holy net in hand, sexless, their body slender, elongated, proportions exaggerated, like the exaggerations of an ancient idol carved of honeyed amber, Evrim looked … godlike.

And why not? A true singularity. Not born, but made. With no need to breathe air, to eat food, to sleep. With no gendered binary. What else could one call them? A god.

Ha remembered what Evrim had said to her on the night the fishing vessels tried to break through Altantsetseg’s cordon and were destroyed:

“Computation was never the purpose of bringing me into being. The purpose was to create a true android. An android inside and out: a robot not only human in appearance, but human in…” Evrim hesitated. “I’m not sure what to name it. In consciousness? But they still do not agree as to whether I am truly conscious or not—though I believe I am.”

Ha thought: No. You are not human in consciousness. Or in anything else. You are singular, and new.

Evrim picked up their golden robe from where they had folded and left it on the beach. They tied the belt around their nakedness.

“Did you see any of them?” Ha asked. “When you were down there? Watching.”

“They are always watching,” Evrim said. “And not only from the water.”

Primitive, base instinct. Eyes on me. Something watching.

Stop.

“Maybe you want to tell me next time you decide to take a walk out into the ocean, robot,” Altantsetseg growled.

“I,” Evrim said, “am not a robot, any more than you are an ape.” Evrim looked at Ha. “Come. I have something to show you.”

“HERE.” The three of them were in the lobby, watching the terminal. On it the octopus Ha thought of as the Shapesinger was concluding its song, drawing to the climactic end of the sequence.

“The two crescents. Yes,” Ha said.

“That’s not quite it.” Evrim backed up a few frames. “Here, before the two crescents are formed. There are two other shapes.”

“Wait—I never saw those before.”

“No. They happen so quickly, you wouldn’t make them out. And they are lighter, barely visible compared to the darker shapes. They look like just a part of the flow. But I don’t think they are. I think they are an essential part of the sequence that ends in the double crescent. Even when the final shape is formed, you still see the shadow of the other two shapes behind it—so faintly that you almost can’t make it out.” Evrim leaned forward in their chair, pointing at the screen. “Watch again: First this sequence of three shapes. Next, in what looked like a gap, there are two faint shapes, and then the third, darker one: