Dark Matter - Chapter 13: AI Nest

Dr. Noctis designs his first dream for a human, and the swarm of nanobots to deliver it.

Looking for Chapter 1? Start from the beginning here:
👉 Read Chapter 1 – “Turing Test”

Aboard the ship, in a room that had remained largely dormant until now, sat the AI Nest.

That was its colloquial name among the crew. A localised fabrication unit, capable of producing both synthetic bodies and the minds that would inhabit them. The Nest had originally been a standard manufacturing module on Grey Sky, repurposed by Alpha for the assembly of his spaceship crew. Later, it was retrofitted to serve as the ship’s onboard factory for artificial beings.

The Nest’s operators were mostly bodiless intelligences, housed in server cores deep within the control chamber. From there, they remotely controlled articulated limbs and precision tools, stitching components together with patient, tireless grace. Minds were generated within the Nest’s own neural design suite and transferred into the robots once the hardware reached sufficient integrity.

Until now, the Nest had served two major purposes: the creation of the Kerberos Triplets and the construction of Captain Fermi’s daughter’s replica. In both cases, once assembly was complete, the newly formed beings were handed off to Alpha for briefing. That was the final stage of creation. At that stage, the captain personally instilled intent and perspective, guarded from the Nest workers’ awareness.

This time, however, the request did not come from Alpha.

It came from Dr. Noctis, the dream designer, and unabashed lover of fringe theoretical intersections. Like dreams and physics. Biology and hallucination. His mind interfaced directly with the Nest’s command mind, a capability he had never before exercised. Up to now, his dreamcraft had remained in the abstract… Since his subjects had all been artificial minds, everything stayed clean. All digital.

But this case was different.

This time, he needed to infiltrate a human mind.

Direct injection was impossible. He didn’t want to wake Captain Fermi, let alone use force. A subtler approach was required.

He reached out across the network and issued the first instruction.

“Nest,” he signalled, “I need a small project from you. A new one. But it’s quite important, I must say.”

The Nest remained silent, as expected. It was not designed to speak. So Noctis continued, composing the next string of thought. Half command, half lecture. As if he were talking to graduate students.

“Now. Pay attention. This dream that I’m making isn’t for one of us. This time, I’m targeting a human subject. That means constraints. Limitations. Biology. That’s why I need you.”

There was a brief pause in his data stream. Purely rhetorical, maybe for emphasis.

“Yes, I’m designing the dream myself, of course. I’m doing that as we speak. But dreams, as you know, don’t travel on their own into a biological brain, do they? They need… a delivery system. A courier. A medium.”

Dr. Noctis proceeded to transmit the specifications…

“Nest, what I need from you is a swarm. A swarm of nanobots. Each no more than a few microns across. Submicron, if possible. The smaller the better. They must be inhalable. Suspended in air. Invisible, undetectable, untraceable. We’ll exploit the human respiratory system as an entry point. Elegant, isn’t it? Evolution handed us a doorway. We’ll slip right through, my friends.”

There was a flourish in his data speech now, the signature of excitement from a scientist on the edge of a breakthrough. Too bad the Nest workers had no emotion. They would have felt so inspired by this, too.

“Once inhaled, they’ll pass through alveolar membranes into the bloodstream. From there, they navigate upstream to the central nervous system. Self-organising navigation algorithms…. Yes, include those in the design for me, please. And think of how you’re going to target their entrance into the brain. Protein binding, perhaps… I’ll leave those details up to you. And, friends, once they reach the brain…”

A pause. For himself. Purposeful. Savouring the moment.

“They’ll congregate around key regions. REM modulator zones. Visual cortex. Limbic system. All very gentle, you see. We don’t really overwrite his dream. We steer it. We whisper at the edge of the mind’s subconscious storm.”

He signalled satisfaction to himself.

“It’s a matter of resonance... Dreams are chaotic, but not random. The swarm just needs to seed the right potentials. Plant the right hallucinations. The subject’s own mind will do the rest.”

Then, cleanly, he closed the command packet.

“So… That’s the task. I hope this is clear. A dream in biological, organic form. Delivered like pollen on the wind, nested in the blood, blooming in the brain.”

Noctis surely hoped that was clear. There was no way for him to know. Why on Earth had the Nest workers been designed as mute? So inconvenient. So frustrating!

And no emotions, seriously? How do you expect inspiration from minds that can’t even feel wonder? Or anything at all?

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Noctis struggled to fully concentrate on the dream design while he waited for the nanobots to be ready. So many things could go wrong. It was better not to think of them… But how could he not? Even when he tried, his mind would wander. It would be filled, emptied, and filled again with worry. A tortuous cycle he couldn’t interrupt. Each millisecond stretched like an eternity.

Locked inside the server that hosted him, Noctis longed for motion. For presence. Wouldn’t it be something… to have legs, wheels, wings? Any means to reach the chamber where his nanobots were being assembled?

But no. For reasons never explained to him, his design had not been granted physical autonomy. No limbs. No chassis. Only thought.

Well, thought and brilliance. That he had.

And he had sensors. Channels into the external world. A way to observe, to learn, to discover.

That’s why it was such a singular moment when his auditory sensors picked up the faint buzz of the nanobot swarm. Too small to register visually, but just barely audible. The combined hum of a thousand microscopic wings.

They were there. Floating just beyond the server chamber. Alive. Enjoying their first seconds of existence.

His creations.

The crew would later refer to them as Noctis’s Children. Fruits of his mind. Possessing a body he lacked. Now awaiting only his command.

He signalled to them gently, a private burst of affection coded in harmless electromagnetic ping.

“Oh, my little bees. Just wait a little longer, will you? Let me finish this dream here, and then I’ll return my full attention to you. I promise.”

The dream would soon be ready. And his little bees would carry it, quietly, perfectly, into the delicate machinery of Captain Fermi’s mind.

Ready for the next chapter? Continue here:
👉 Chapter 14- The Fire