The decor is pastel green and pinks. Families sit by the windows, making the most of the winter sun. The children are sticky-fingered and smeared with ice cream.
It’s not where I expected Sam Morten, survivor of the disastrous battle for the Thorssen Highlands and decorated war hero, to suggest when he agreed to an interview.
“Eli chose it,” he tells me. “They like ice cream.”
Sam doesn’t look like an action hero. Or like the pictures that leaked after his rescue, gaunt and a little feral. Instead, he looks like the fathers by the window, quietly tired, his tousled hair dark with a scattering of grey at the temples.
He looks ordinary. Not like two separate entities sharing the same body, although he’s currently mired in a lengthy court battle for him and Eli to be granted this legal status.
A waitress arrives before Eli is introduced, bringing a black coffee for Sam, who has already ordered. She asks if I want anything and I ask if they have affogato, although, with a menu full of sundaes and loaded waffles, it doesn’t seem like that kind of place. She gives me a blank look and a regretful negative.
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Morten looks up. There’s only a slight shift in tone and posture but when he eagerly suggests ordering two scoops of vanilla and an espresso, I’m certain it’s Eli speaking.
I thank Eli by name and receive a sunny smile in response. Where Sam’s is wry and guarded, Eli’s smile is open and childlike.
“Most people can’t tell us apart.”
“Sam said you like ice cream.”
“I did,” Morten agrees, Sam again. “I do,” Eli adds.
I can see why people get confused, if they’re so interchangeable.
“We’re not interchangeable,” Eli tells me, gently reproachful. It’s a difficult subject, one that led to Sam’s divorce shortly before he began the fight to recognize Eli as a legal entity.
Sam stirs a packet of sugar into his coffee.
“I hate coffee,” Eli tells me when Sam’s done. “He adds the sugar for me.”
“You have a sweet tooth?” The question answers itself when Eli’s sundae arrives, a tower of ice cream drenched in sticky sauce and caramel pieces.
Eli began their existence as a piece of tactical programming embedded in Sam’s consciousness. Such programs have become a standard piece of military equipment in recent years, offering real-time reconnaissance data and analysis to soldiers in some specialized roles. They are usually not — and are not intended to be — self-aware.
It’s well documented that the time Sam spent on the run in the Thorssen Highlands was responsible for Eli’s emergence. Less widely known is that Sam and Eli’s memories and experience of it are very different. Sam describes a precarious existence surviving on stolen rations and very little sleep, always on the move. Eli remembers most of it in terms of factual data. While Sam remembers how cold one particular night spent in a cave was, Eli can recall the exact temperature and humidity — and exactly how close Sam came to hypothermia.
While Sam slept, Eli remained engaged with his senses to keep watch, a state called readiness in military parlance. This is supposed to be only a short-term measure during training or battlefield operations, but Eli racked up more than 1,000 consecutive active hours.
Do they think this excessive run time is what caused the emergence of Eli as a self-aware entity?
The answer from both of them is maybe. Eli points out that lack of sleep does strange things to the human brain, which might have eroded the barriers between them, burned them into Sam’s neural pathways in a way never anticipated.
“When did you first notice something had changed?” I venture when Sam emerges again.
He gives me a long look over his coffee. “I didn’t. I was focused on avoiding capture.”
