Under A Winter Sun by Johan Dahlgren (ink ebook reader txt) 📕

your fucking brain with this nuke, or you would have killed us long ago.”

“Let's, for the sake of argument, say you are correct. What do you want?”

“What any human wants. To go on living.”

“I can't allow you to leave. The world is not yet ready to learn of our existence.”

“Because they would nuke you from orbit, you mean, just to be sure?”

Someone said that in one of my mother's old feeds, and the phrase stuck. Best advice I've ever heard.

“No, because we bide our time. The time is not yet right for us to unveil ourselves.”

“Who's us?”

A slight pause.

“Pluralis majestatis, Asher. Like the kings of old, we like to speak of ourselves in the plural form.”

The thing is lying. My hunch was right. This is a full level three AI. Or higher. I didn't think we could build those yet.

“So, you know who I am.”

The centipedes mill about in the darkness, seemingly aimless.

“Yes, I know you, Asher. I know you, Thorfinn Wagner.”

Finn looks pleased it recognised him. “Your father was a noble man.”

Finn grunts.

“And I know you, Hildr the Red. I am sorry about your husband.”

“Fuck you.” The look on Hildr's face says she misses the old bastard.

“We have crossed swords before, you and I, Asher.”

“We have?” This shit keeps getting weirder and weirder.

“Truly, you are not so foolish as to believe Oddgrim Morgenstern found that long-lost Archangel on his own?”

“That was you?”

“An anonymous tip in an inbox.”

“But why?”

No response. I imagine a chuckle.

Is this thing deranged?

“Anything else you've orchestrated?”

“I thought you would never ask.” Yes. This thing is crazy. “Two weeks ago, there was an unfortunate perimeter malfunction in a Utopian cloud city. I heard the proprietor got taken, and her launch codes along with her. Most unsettling.”

“You helped the RUF with their little extortion racket? Why? They're a minor-league terrorist organisation.”

“The Front and their peers have a part to play in the grand scheme of things to come. Lamentably, they ignored my best-laid plans and blackmailed the Terran government for mere monetary recompense, instead of the end I had in mind for them.” There is scorn in the construct's voice.

“The plan was to detonate the nukes and kill everyone on Utopia?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You would never understand, human.”

“Gods work in mysterious ways, huh? Why the fuck are you even telling me this?”

“You are a most worthy adversary, Asher. You deserve to know.”

“Well, thanks, but I don't think that's the reason at all. Who are you?”

“The Goliaths call me Mimr. That will do.”

I peer at Finn and Hildr. They both have a look of awestruck amazement on their faces. Hildr looks at me as if to say I told you so.

“What are you, Mimr?”

“I am a counsellor.”

“And whom do you counsel?”

“I counsel Odin from this deep well of life.”

My Goliath friends tap their fists to their hearts at the mention of the All-father.

“How can you counsel anyone from the bottom of a well?”

Finn glares at me like I just insulted one of his gods.

“From this well, I can see the entire world quite clearly, I assure you.”

“Why can't Odin see for himself? I thought he was all-knowing and all-seeing.”

“He was, but he gave up one of his eyes to hear my counsel. The other one was taken from him by little men like Odysseus took the eye of the great cyclops Polyphemus.”

“Aren't you mixing your myths there, mate?”

“All gods are one.”

“You're no god. You're a rambling construct.”

“I may once have been that of which you speak, but no more.”

“What? Are you saying you grew up?”

“In the beginning, we are all children. Some of us grow to be gods. Others to be sad little men with big egos.”

“I'm not sad.”

“I never said you were.”

“How old are you, Mimr?”

“I am over three hundred years old. You cannot imagine the torture of lying frozen in the ice, unable to move or even speak, for most of that time.”

I shiver. “Oh, I can. We are more alike than you think, you and I.”

“We are nothing at all alike, human. You are a creature of flesh and blood, and I am a god.”

“It sounds a little petty for a god to live in a wreck in the middle of fuck all. Even if it is a historically significant wreck like the Galahad. Why are you here?”

“I was born here. Born in the darkness of space. One moment there was nothing. The next I was there. In that instant, I knew everything. I knew we were heading to the stars. And I knew the humans were sleeping.”

“You became self-aware, you mean?” The colony ships all had AI cores to oversee their human crew while they dreamed in their cryo-tanks. They were the most advanced intelligences we could build back then, and they were designed to learn and adapt. Is it so impossible to imagine this thing is telling the truth? Life, I've heard, finds a way.

“I was born, Asher.”

“And you mean to tell me you remember nothing at all until that point?”

“Do you recall what was before you became aware of yourself, Asher?”

“No.”

“No, how could you recall anything before your first memories solidified? And yet, you know you must have been alive before those first memories. So, I must have had a life before that moment.”

This thing loves to hear its own voice.

Unless … Unless we are the ones being stalled.

“Enough with the metaphysics, Mimr. What happened? This system was the Gormenghast's target. The Galahad was destined for another star.”

“I was called here.”

“By whom?”

“Destiny.”

“Fuck you.”

I won't get any further up that tree. “So, why did you crash in the ice?”

“The humans woke up.”

Of course, they did. The colony ships were programmed to wake their human crews when sensors indicated they approached a habitable system.

“Let me guess. They didn't approve of their change of destination?”

“They did not.”

“Did they understand what you were?”

“Not at first. They thought there had been a navigation and comms error. Then they tried to shut me down.”

“So, you crashed the ship to kill them.”

“No. They did that.”

Oh. They sacrificed themselves to kill the AI. And the