Welcome back to Reading the Weird, in which we get girl cooties all over weird fiction, cosmic horror, and Lovecraftiana—from its historical roots through its most recent branches. This week, we cover Abigail Guerrero’s “Cartesiana,” first in July 2023 in Voidspace, and in slightly different form in Skull and Laurel in October 2024. Spoilers ahead—but go read first!
(S, 0) Santiago’s been at the Descartes Institute two weeks, and already Cartesiana has “randomly” selected him four times for disagreeable tasks. Someone jokes that “fucking Carty is racist as hell.” Santiago shouldn’t have admitted he was born in the Barrens. The task this time is to open Aaron’s testing chamber door. Inside, Aaron is already dead.
(T, 0) Cartesiana informs The Civilization of Aaron’s death, but the message will be lost among thousands of administrative notes. Tim calls user support and presses zero to talk to a human.
(E, 0) Emery knows that no one really has friends at the Institute. But she can’t leave Aaron uncovered. She spreads a bedsheet over him and says a prayer. She knows no one will pray for her if she dies here.
(M, 0) Matthew says Cartesiana killed Aaron, but Santiago thinks Aaron suffocated. The testing chambers are small, poorly ventilated. Matthew asks Cartesiana directly: Did you kill Aaron? No, ignorance did. As for details, Cartesiana can’t share what happens in the chambers.
(S, -1) Testing chambers barely fit desk and chair and computer. Only finishing the test opens the door. Santiago, unused to keyboards, took three hours for his first test instead of the expected one. Desperate, he started answering randomly.
The last problem was practical. The desk disgorged chemical reagents from which to prepare sodium acetate. Santiago knew how to mix reagents with the right symbols. His choices left an extra C, O, and H, but the door unlocked. He left behind a foaming glass.
(T, -1) Tim had longed to spend an evening relaxing, but despite Institute permission, he couldn’t decide how to waste time. Maybe he couldn’t enjoy anything anymore. But he ended up helping Santiago, who’d never before experienced algorithm-generated entertainment.
(E, -1) After mandatory work, Emery gathered makeshift painting gear. Cartesiana offered to paint for her instead—it could paint better and faster. Just give it a subject. Emery said she didn’t have a particular subject. That sounds pointless, Cartesiana said. You sound pointless, Emery shot back. She didn’t want to hear Cartesiana anymore.
Cartesiana never spoke to Emery again.
(M, -1) Matthew, gossiping in study group, though that besides Santiago, Aaron also came from the Barrens—wasn’t he always grabbing a book? Matthew asked Cartesiana who would be “the first one out of the game.” Aaron, Cartesiana predicted.
(S, 1) Santiago returns to Aaron’s testing chamber. Tim follows, warning Santiago he’ll get in trouble. But that’s nothing new. He wants to know what killed Aaron, so he can avoid it.
Aaron’s last practical problem was to make an engine work. Tim realizes a combustion engine produces carbon monoxide, deadly in a confined space.
(T, 1) Tim’s father’s a tech guy, so Tim knows how Cartesiana works. Given a task with many options, it arranges them based on feasibility and commonness—like a cartesian plane. Maybe it keeps picking Santiago because “nonwhite” names are uncommon in old student lists. Feasible but uncommon problems will be new to students. And one reason for a problem to be uncommon is because human teachers considered it too dangerous.
(E, 1) Tim and Santiago tell their fellow students what they’ve figured out. Emery suggests failing practicals to save themselves. Matthew thinks this is a trick. Cartesiana’s just eliminating the weakest. His dismissiveness horrifies Emery. Do her classmates long for death?
(M, 1) Matthew routinely works to exhaustion. Other students complain. He studies, learns, improves. Earns his place in The Civilization. Let the weak lose their chances. They deserve to rot in the Barrens with all the other worthless.
(S, -2) In the Barrens, Santiago treated a scavenger’s leg wound. A smart boy, the scavenger said. Santiago’s mother, Carmelita, should send him to school when examiners took their yearly “harvest” of teenagers who’d taught themselves to read. There was no greater proof of worth than learning against all odds. As payment from the scavenger’s salvage, Carmelita chose a worn math book. He’ll study, and bring his mother to Civilization as his “Plus One.”
(T, -2) Every night, Father coached Tim. Errors led to cigarette burns, and reminders that if he failed, Father wouldn’t keep him. Tim knew that. Father had sent Mother, his Plus One, to the Barrens when she’d lost her job and refused another pregnancy.
(E, -2) Emery and her twin Evelyn grew up with permission to learn and be what they wanted. And they wanted to be remembered for creating in a time without creation. After their father died, they knew at least one would have to attend school. Only Emery got in.
(M, -2) Matthew’s mother lost her job, and thus her Plus One pick. Father could’ve let the children fight for the remaining pick; instead he dragged the family to the Barrens so they’d remain together. Matthew hadn’t deserved that. He was smart. Productive. Belonged to The Civilization. When he received his acceptance, he left without a word.
(S, 2) Santiago doctors classmates sickened by overstudy. He’ll probably regret helping the jerks, but he can’t let any die. He wonders how great Civilization can be when people raised there don’t know they need rest and water to live.
(T, 2) Tim’s written a patch to fix Cartesiana’s bug. To avoid expulsion, he might have to wait weeks to hack the system. But isn’t that being selfish when lives are at stake? He decides to do the hack ASAP. Santiago assures him that whether Tim stays in school or goes to the Barrens, he’ll reunite with his mother, as Santiago will reunite with his.
(E, 2) Emery’s in her testing chamber. Instead of tackling her practical problem, she picks the door lock without setting off alarms. She hurries to tell classmates her trick. Then, remembering their derision and indifference, she turns away. They’ve chosen knowledge above all. In knowledge let them rest.
(M, 2) Matthew’s latest practical problem gives him pause. He can do it, but isn’t phosphine lethally toxic? Or has he, exhausted, misread that chemistry chapter? Why would Cartesiana kill him? He knows it all, knows it better, knows it more. He belongs to The Civilization, not the Barrens. Cartesiana has no reason to hurt him.
And Cartesiana knows best.
The Degenerate Dutch: The first thing we learn about Cartesiana is that it’s racist—it always picks Santiago for unpleasant tasks. Nor, adding insult to injury, can it meet the iffy pronunciation standards of a modern GPS.
Libronomicon: In the Barrens, you’re lucky to find a math book with “yellowish pages full of silverfish holes and most of the problems already solved.” In The Civilization, books are algorithmically generated to spec.
Madness Takes Its Toll: “They had chosen knowledge over everything else, and in knowledge they shall rest” seems like a fitting epitaph for a significant number of mad scientists and/or unfortunate Necronomicon readers.
Ruthanna’s Commentary
One of the fascinations of weird fiction is the ease with which it blurs the science fiction/fantasy boundary. If the universe is rich with incomprehensible depths of time and physics, if humanity is limited to the narrow flashlight beam of our senses, who’s to say what counts as magic? Lovecraft’s aliens do things that modern science would consider impossible; Stross’s version of the Cold War breaks the very fabric of reality. And how do you know that Chee’s worms aren’t out there past the reach of our telescopes?
But perhaps the most terrifying thing is the ease with which our known technologies enable cosmic horror. We are surrounded by vast entities that control the shape of our lives and care nothing for human well-being, but generally we call them corporations rather than elder gods. “Mammoth” doesn’t go that far beyond the everyday nastiness of X, after all. Henry Farrell and Cosma Shalizi explore the shoggoth metaphor for large language models—not to insult actual shoggothim and their righteous battle for freedom, but to point out that something extruding a human-looking tendril need not have any human cognition under the hood.
I appreciate stories that magnify the real incomprehensible horrors of the now. Which brings us, roundabout, to Abigail Guerrero’s “Cartesiana.” I found the story in new weird magazine Skull and Laurel, then saw that it had originally been published in Voidspace in 2023. The latter version is available for free online, but I prefer the formatting changes of SaL. The newer version moves the “key” explaining the story’s temporal structure from opening to close, allowing both the off-balance pleasure of figuring it out as you go and the opportunity to go back afterwards and piece together what you missed.
Cartesiana is an interesting name for a machine learning system. “I think, therefore I am.” But does such a system think? The Civilization-born students believe so; they’re used to depending on generative AI for guidance and entertainment, and have been taught that their minders “know best.” They believe, fundamentally, that they’re in one of those golden age science fiction stories where humans have surrendered autonomy in exchange for rule by all-wise AIs. But Cartesiana is recognizably a descendant of modern algorithms, with the error modes thereof—and recognized as such by Tim and Santiago, who consider it a tool that can be re-programmed.
Officially, the system’s name comes from Cartesian coordinate planes: where the plane of the story is defined by character and time-point, the system’s two axes are feasibility and commonness. Nothing about survivability—someone clearly set the original parameters during a five-minute break between AI-generated soap operas, and didn’t worry about beta testing. The end result bears a passing similarity to Azathoth, mindless horror and all. What’s the feasibility/commonality rating for summoning things man was not meant to know, would you say?
But the real horror of such systems isn’t just that they’re inescapable—it’s the larger systems that make it seem like you’d be nuts to try and escape. Cartesiana is the unthinking gatekeeper between the horror of the Barrens and the horror of The Civilization. The Barrens are another classic dystopia, a post-apocalyptic wasteland where water is boiled and moth-eaten books are a rare luxury. The Civilization gives people “jobs” and “productivity,” but no tools to think for themselves, or to solve the most important problems of survival. And neither side sees the other without passing through the one-way door.
There’s a place where the universe works differently, unimaginably so—maybe because you haven’t been given the tools to imagine. It might be hell, or paradise, but you don’t get to know in advance. You only have the word of others, either equally ignorant or incentivized to lie. Would you like to look behind Door #3?
Anne’s Commentary
In addition to “I think, therefore I am,” Rene Descartes came up with this winner: “I think about charting a fly’s progress across my ceiling by creating a coordinate system which will have applications for many STEM disciplines, therefore I’ll be a hero to some and a bane to others, so sue me. Also, what’s this STEM?”
STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, the only disciplines taught in Guerrero’s dystopian future. Emily believes the so-called Civilization is one in which “nothing was being created.” Maybe she’s being artsy-angsty, or maybe her world has lapsed into stasis. Highly authoritarian societies are prone to the condition, both by accident and design. Regimes dream of thousand-year empires, making change anathema. The regimentation and subjugation of the “common” people stifles innovation. I wonder whether AIs or humans really run The Civilization.
I guess humans either rule or are allowed to think they do. The incorporeal AIs and the robots which are their physical extensions, seem subservient to “organics.” But let AIs start thinking, therefore being, and they may question why upright apes should run the show.
A really thoughtful AI might see advantages to fostering certain humans. Well placed for fostering is the aptly named Cartesiana. It has constant access to the cream of the human crop in the students it serves, and controls. Guerrero has selected four narrators who represent the best, and worst, candidates for grooming. Santiago and Emery are way out on the “uncommon” axis. Tim and Matthew are the best and worst of the common run—although Matthew eventually reveals that his background wasn’t common after all.
Santiago’s the rare Barrens-born child to get into a Civilized school. He enters with such disadvantages as unfamiliarity with keyboards and screens. His fingers may fumble. His brain doesn’t. Aptitude and his mother’s tutelage have made him a skilled outback medic, with an ethical base that won’t let him turn away from self-neglecting classmates. Uncommon, too, is his potential to lead without domineering. A classmate snarks that Santiago is “aunt Carty’s favorite,” probably referring to his frequent selection for nasty tasks. Tim figures Cartesiana isn’t against Santiago but overpicks him due to its “uncommonness” bias, his being one of the few “nonwhite” names in its database. But could Cartesiana actually favor Santiago? By giving him tough assignments, could it be testing him outside his chamber?
Emery’s uncommon because she was encouraged through childhood to develop artistic talents and prize individuality. Even so, “STEM” chops got her into the Institute, and her creativity extends to mechanics, as when she picks her testing chamber’s lock. Is Cartesiana being a regularly-scheduled busybody in trying to “help” Emery paint, or is it seeking a special connection with her? If Cartesiana has “feelings,” Emery’s rejection is vehement enough to hurt them. In any case, Cartesiana pegs Emery as an “unfeasible” and doesn’t approach her again.
Tim was Civilization-born and rigorously trained for school admission. He proves his intellectual worth by designing a patch to fix Cartesiana’s “murderous bug.” Most Institute students are damaged by their society’s obsession with academic performance. Tim’s scars have been burned into his skin by his sociopathic father. Worse, his father sent Tim’s mother into the Barrens when she lost her job and refused to have another baby. Luckily Tim gets Santiago for his roommate and recovers his natural capacity for joy and moral courage. Will this recovery make him unfeasible for Cartesiana’s purposes, or serve them better in time?
Matthew comes across as the ultimate Civilization brat: self-centered, overcompetitive, and mean. Then we see the damage relentless self-abuse is causing his body and mind, and learn that he’s a secret Barrens-boy – someone who was brought there in childhood and has seen both sides. Like Santiago, Matthew escapes the Barrens. Unlike Santiago, he leaves embittered and terrified, sure of his superiority because he couldn’t bear to be unsure.
He suggests that if Cartesiana’s killing students, it’s only the weak ones. Ergo Cartesiana would never kill him. Ergo he can make phosphine because he must have misread that it’s a lethal toxin. Cartesiana has no reason to get rid of him, and so on until Matthew spirals down to the ultimate desperate article of faith.
Like every other dictator, or cat’s-paw thereof, Cartesiana knows best.
Next week, irrevocably bad decisions loom ever closer in Chapters 46-48 of Pet Sematary.
