Rest came with illness, which seemed like the only situation where rest was deemed acceptable, or even considered. Amaya had visited three tents where people were suffering from some sort of ailment — stomach bugs or heat stroke or something undefined — and two of the three of them had still been doing some form of work as they lay in their beds. This did not seem to surprise Amaya, and she did not admonish them the way she had Noah when he had tried to speak that first night.

For Noah, the annoying part was her not letting him diagnose them. The AI could not fully replace a trained doctor, of course, but it was more robust than people often assumed when it came to evaluating and prescribing treatments for illnesses. Amaya indicated that it would simply make those who were ill uncomfortable, which Noah understood, but it seemed worthwhile to discard rules about tech aversion when it came to a person’s health. In his opinion, it would only be beneficial. He wasn’t asking them to let him implant an AI, only to let it scan them. But no. Amaya had also pointed out that most of its prescriptions would likely be based around medicines or treatments only available in the city, which Noah figured was fair enough. Still, it was frustrating.

“Why don’t you tell them to rest more?” he asked as they returned to her tent.

“They know what their bodies can handle. I trust their judgement,” Amaya replied.

“But what about me? You wouldn’t even let me talk that first night.”

“You — the city folk — you don’t know how to trust your bodies. You will do whatever that little thing tells you.” She said as she pointed to his arm, “You were speaking because you thought it was the proper to do so when someone takes you in, not because it was the best choice for you in that moment. Do you understand?”

“But the integration analyzes our physical state with an incredibly high level of accuracy,” Noah said. “It’s not just telling us whatever. If it told me I needed rest, I wouldn’t have any reason to dispute it.”

“But when it told you what to do with your life, you did dispute it, no? Why trust it on one matter and not the other? If it is as smart as you say, it is either right or wrong.”

Noah paused. “That’s different,” he said.

“Why?”

He shook his head. There was some answer there — the difference between medical data and a life path, but he didn’t know how to frame it in such a way that she would understand. Everyone out here saw everything the AI did as bad, no exceptions. A few members of the tribe had even seemed annoyed when he approached, uninterested in talking to him. Amaya had told him to ignore them, but it was a new experience. With his father being who he was — well, Noah was used to a certain level of respect. At least acceptance. He had trained at premier schools, understood the workings of the infrastructure, and had been planning on dedicating his whole life to the work. And the entire concept here was met with a shrug. It was almost insulting.

“Do all tribes operate like this?” Noah asked over dinner. “Completely non-tech?”

Amaya’s husband snorted, shaking his head as he ate his meal.

“Some use a bit more than we do,” Amaya said. “Our cousin, his tribe, they have a grow truck.”

“They don’t trust the land,” Jawad said dismissively. “They lived too close to the city for too long. I warned them. That damn contraption is way more work than it is worth.”

“And yet you eat the food they grow and send to us.” Amaya smiled.

“I am not so rude as to turn down a gift,” he grumbled.

The days passed, and Noah fell into more and more of a rhythm. Wake, work, eat, work, sleep. On some days, people would gather in the center of the tents and play music. They moved their location once while Noah was with them, and that was a whirlwind. So much to do in such a short time, and he had been amazed by the efficiency of the whole tribe. There didn’t seem to be an explicit order to the operation, as there was no clear leader, but everyone seemed to understand what they were supposed to do and got it done quickly. Setting up took more time; once they had journeyed for nearly two days, Noah motion sick from the sway of the camels, but establishing camp was done with equal efficiency. When the night had come to a close and he was helping Amaya with dinner, it felt like they hadn’t moved at all. As far as he could tell, the stretch of desert looked the same, but the whole tribe had a tension about it, like they were waiting for something.

The answer had come a day later when a large caravan passed through. A flurry of trade commenced, and Jawad tried to talk him into selling some of the miscellaneous tech he had in his bag — the charger for the external parts of his AI system, which was useless now, his digital magnifier, which he had taken off his head and packed away, useful for long reading of dense documents on the screens at home. But Noah couldn’t part with them.

“They don’t have use anymore,” Amaya had reminded them.

“They might have use in the future!” Noah protested.

She gave him a slow smile then shook her head. “If you feel the same way in a week, come and let me know.”

The sadness behind her eyes had made him try to ignore the feeling. Whatever his hang-ups were here, wouldn’t they just get him into the kind of trouble that doubting his life path did, that falling in with the Reformatters had? He didn’t want to be lost again, but as the days wore on, he became more unsure. Time and time again, people were having to work hours and days for things he could just buy in the city. Most of them seemed to like the work, but it left his hands sore and his limbs aching. How often did they have time for anything else? There was so little room for error. One of Amaya’s children spilled a pot of water they had, by accident, and it had led to a serious discussion about how they were going to make their water supplies stretch to the next oasis or supply. Rationing was put in place — no one else had any water to spare. It wasn’t worth the wait.

“You could dredge wells,” Noah had pointed out. “The oases make it clear there is water out here. It wouldn’t be too hard to set up some sort of irrigation or water-collecting system.”

Amaya had just laughed at the suggestion. “We are tied to the desert, not one place in it. Next you will have us putting up walls, posting guards to protect our water.”

At the end of the week, he approached Amaya. She was alone, the kids out helping her husband tend to the camels. She put down her weaving as he came into the tent.

“You still feel the same,” she said before he could even speak.

Noah nodded.

“I thought this might happen. Not everyone is cut out for life here in the desert,” she said, and then patted the floor next to her and he sat. “Some here would take that as shameful, but I do not. We do not all walk the same paths.”

“What do I do?” Noah asked. “I can’t go back to the city. Or do I have to? If this is all that is left, then I guess I just have to suck it up, right?”

“You could,” Amaya agreed. “It might even surprise you. But I do not think the city is the place for you, at least not yet.”

“Then what? I could go visit that other tribe you talked about, the one that uses more tech. Maybe I would fit in there?”

She shook her head. “No, there is another option. Outside the tribes, outside the city.”

“What?” Noah asked. “Like, another country? I think most of them are pretty comparable to our own cities, at this point. The AI is spreading every year.”

“Ekur,” Amaya replied. “Have you seen the mountains, far off on the horizon?”

“Is there a city there?”

“Of sorts,” Amaya said. “I have only seen it once, when one of our own paths took us close. There are said to be many wise men there, who might be able to give you answers that our simple life here cannot. If you don’t find what you are looking for there, I believe you would have no choice but to go back to the city, in whatever way you chose to do that.”

“How far is…Ekur?” Noah asked.

Amaya laughed. “Scared of the work to get there?” she teased. “No, it is not that bad. From where we are now, you would likely reach the base of the mountain in a week or two. We can give you supplies. You’ve worked hard for us the last few weeks. It would be an easy repayment.”

“Could I…buy a camel from you? Or borrow one?”

Amaya thought for a long moment. “I do not think there is one to spare in the tribe. But my husband may be able to take you three days out on his own, and then you could walk the rest of the way. Would that suffice?”

Noah thanked her. It was hard knowing how much he would have to walk alone, but she was offering to be without help for nearly a week, which would mean a lot more work on her part.

“There’s a lot of this journey that you must do alone,” she said, as if sensing his thoughts.

“I appreciate your help so far,” he answered.

“Well,” she said as she stood. “There’s plenty to do if we are to get you ready for tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Noah asked. “I mean, I don’t think I’m in a rush.”

“You’ve lingered here long enough. Every day you spend here will just make you doubt your resolve, not strengthen it.”

Amaya cooked a large dinner that night. Noah felt embarrassed that all this effort was being put towards him, but the deliciousness of the food soon put him out of that mindset. The next morning, he awoke to three bags by his bedside — Amaya had prepped everything. She walked him through the food, most of it easy to eat on the road, a small, collapsible shelter made ingeniously that Noah felt he might even have some issues putting up, a fire starter for when the desert cold set in, and, the most important element, water. She had even written out a strict water-ration schedule he was to follow that should keep him on path, with a rough drawing of a star map on the other side to guide his path. He did not mention that the AI could have mapped everything of the sort for him, if only he could charge up the outer battery. There was a love and care behind these handmade maps and guides that far outpaced the simple calculation of his augmentation.

Amaya helped him on the back of her husband’s camel, and they rode out after brief goodbyes. The nomads did not seem to care much for long farewells; they liked to keep it simple, straightforward.

“Our paths may cross again,” Amaya said as she waved them off.

Jawad didn’t talk much, which Noah didn’t mind. It gave him time to think as they rode. A group of scholars, in mountains, buried in the desert? Wise men, cut off from the rest of the world? It sounded like something out of the fairytales his mother used to tell him as a child. He rubbed his fingers across the integration on his arm. Would they use tech? How much would they have been able to plumb into the depths of science and the world without the help of the rapid and hyper-accurate calculations the AI was capable of? Would they be anything like the scholar’s city?

On the evening of the third day, the last night before he was to be left on his own in the desert, Jawad finally spoke freely, in more than simple commands about what to do or what was coming up.

“How does it work?” he asked, passing over some grilled meat.

“This?” Noah held up his arm. Jawad nodded.

“It’s built into me, but I guess you know that. When someone is born, they get a rudimentary implant. It’s to prep the body for integration, otherwise the synapses between mechanical and human have a harder time taking. That one is really more for information gathering — it doesn’t have a display. Kids are too small, and they couldn’t use it anyway, but it will relay information to the parents.”

“How does it know?” he asked.

“Well,” Noah began, trying to figure out how to break it down. “Basically, it records everything going on with the baby physically, and it takes note of everything that happens to it. So, if a baby is crying, it can then calculate with high accuracy what the most likely cause is. If it’s been too long since their last feeding, if they’ve messed their diaper, that sort of thing, and it tells the parents. It can even take note of the baby’s development and give the parents advice if some aspect of their growth is lacking. Like, if they’re behind on their object identification? It will prompt the parents to spend more time doing that sort of thing.”

“Seems like something the parents could do themselves,” Jawad said.

“Right, but sometimes it’s hard to remember everything going on,” Noah said, feeling defensive. “And, that information can be helpful later. It makes sure you keep building up your baby’s intelligence. The algorithms are all tweaked a bit for the different societies, to help parents prepare a kid that will be the best fit in their society. Farmer kids are going to need slightly different aptitudes than scholar kids, and so on. So, it helps with that sort of thing. Once you’ve grown enough, you get the full integration. It’s basically two parts. The casing, in the head and arm.” He tapped each demonstratively. “And then the exterior part. Like, I can take this screen out.” He pulled it from his arm. “And charge its battery at night. Or this little bit here.” He unhooked the integration behind his ear. “Can charge as well. The battery is kept small because it also uses energy generated by the body in movement to keep going, so it doesn’t take as much of an outside charge to keep it up and going, at least for its basic functions. That’s why my screen and stuff still work even now, though most of the higher-level computation has been turned off.”

“That’s a lot of work for something that tells you when you need to take a dump,” Jawad laughed.

“It does more than that!” Noah protested. “Whenever you’re faced with a situation, it analyzes all possible outcomes, all the inputs, and gives you the clearest course of action. I mean, that can be helpful in every part of life, from a problem with a friend to — ”

“What do you want to do with your life?”

“You and Amaya always bring it back to that,” Noah huffed.

“It’s what it all comes down to. How much of your life are you going to live by yourself?” he said with a grin. “I’m sorry. I mean no offense. I had a brother who went the tech way, and I still miss him.”

“He moved to the cities?”

Jawad nodded. “A long time ago. We weren’t even adults, then. He hated work. Always did. Some traders came through, they were moving some tech for the traders, I think, and he got a look at it. Rode out with them the next morning. Didn’t even tell our parents, as he knew they would have kept him from going. I hear from him every few years.”

“Is he happy? Now that he found his own path?”

“He has no family,” Jawad replied simply, as if that answered the question.

They finished their meal in silence, and Jawad was gone by the next morning. Noah could not even see his camel off in the distance. He gathered his belongings and started on his path towards the mountains. For the next few nights, he could double-check his path with his AI, but it seemed like it was fizzling out with each step. Even running up and down the dunes did not seem to keep it going enough to be of any real help. Noah finally gave up, trusting the rough handmade chart, and he kept going.

Finally, after another week of walking, he made it out of the foothills and the mountains rose above him proper. There were three primary peaks, each descending down into overlapping foothills. A burst of scrubby greenery as he made his way up into them gave him some hope. Even after strictly following the water schedule, he was running low and needed to find a place to refill soon. After the first day in the mountains, he came across trees, and not long after that, a small stream. Noah wanted to shout. He filled all his water skins, staying there for a whole day, reveling in the shade and the water, bathing for the first time in weeks. Laying on the bank of the stream, his clothes air-drying beside him, he smiled up at the mountain top. This was definitely something different than anything he had ever encountered before. He was doing it. He was making it on his own. And he would make it to the top.