An author I greatly respect suggested today that AI can't write fiction longer than 3 pages in length without character plot breaking down.
I think this is an unintentional misrepresentation of the current state of gen AI capabilities. Below are ~2,500 words of fiction I generated using o3. This was my first try and took 6 seconds of o3 'thinking'.
Award-winning it is not; for all I know, bits may be plagiarised; even to a non-fiction-author like me the pacing and other issues are obvious; and I don't think the way the model was trained is remotely fair to authors. But, clearly, AI can already write fiction to some degree.
We need to be open about AI's capabilities. Misleading people about this will just mean they are less informed and less prepared for AI's impacts.
----
Maris awoke to the hush of tide-filtered wind churning through the shell-panels of her floating dormitory. Even before her eyes opened, she measured the tempo of the air. A deep, even draw: forty-five RPM on the intake turbines. Good. No whistle of metal stress. Good. Only the softest susurration, like a singer drawing breath before a first note.
She rolled from her hammock and stretched over the arc of the porthole. Dawn washed the Spiral Sea in pale copper. Beyond the translucent bulkheads, the city of Andarion spread in concentric rings of pontoons, glinting at each horizon like segmented pearls. Up top, everything looked effortlessβfloating villas, sculpture gardens, market colonnadesβbut Maris knew all of it balanced on tension cables and counterweights screwed a hundred meters into the seafloor. And if anyone understood how fragile that balance had become, it was the sound divers of the Acoustics Corps.
Maris checked her dive suit: micro-hydrophones aligned along her ribs, auxiliary gill mask fully charged, vibro-console strapped to her left forearm. She clamped the neck seal, keyed open her locker, and palmed her ident chip against the exit hatch. The door irised wide, releasing a bloom of briny air. Outside, ramp-walkers hurried across translucent bridges, vendors shouted for breakfast buyers, and tour-skiffs sputtered to life. Yet beneath the bustle, Maris sensed an offbeat rhythmβsomething lurking under the certainty that morning would become noon and noon would become night.
A tram delivered her to Level-Three Hydroacoustics. The lab was an inverted bowl of glass and copper that hovered just under the surface. Engineers bustled between server racks, projecting spectrograms across curved displays. At center, Captain Ilara stood over a hologram of the Spiral Sea, her gray, close-cropped hair haloed by data streams.
βMaris,β Ilara said without looking up. βWe received another anomalyβsouth-east quadrant, quadrant thirty-two-alpha. Duration six seconds, amplitude seven dB above baseline.β
βThat makes it the third spike this week,β Maris replied.
βFourth,β Ilara corrected, pinching two fingers through the hologram to zoom in. βWe lost a remote buoy last night. Feed went black.β
βSabotage?β
βHard to say,β Ilara muttered. βBut I need someone who can hear between the notes.β
Marisβs pulse hitched. Sound-diving alone was never ideal, but sheβd been chasing solitary assignments for months, trying to map the new layers of murmur in the ocean. She nodded. βIβll go.β
--
Teo Harker never entered through official ports. The gates scanned for contraband, and Teoβs contraband sang. His violin case, faux-mahogany and battered, held not a violin but a metastring instrument invisible to all but the right eyes. The cityβs import laws restricted advanced resonance coresβtools capable of vibrating alloys into failure. Which meant Andarionβs power converters, bulkheads, resonant foundationsβeverythingβcould be tuned with the right note and the wrong intent.
Teoβs sloop nudged against a maintenance wharf outside Ridge Ring. Night still draped the under-level: here, sky-lights rarely reached between pontoons. He climbed a service ladder and padded into a corridor lit by intermittent neon. Three turns later, he emerged into an atrium humming with illegal trade booths. People called it the Night Forge: a market pulled together by criminals, renegades, and out-of-work artists whose skills the official economy dismissed.
At booth twelve, a trader named Sela welcomed him with a flick of her holographic blade. βTeo Harker,β she purred, flipping the blade into a blossoming sigil before letting it vanish. βOur patron grows impatient.β
βIβm early,β Teo said, equally soft. He slipped the violin case onto the counter. βPayment first.β
Sela waved her bracelet against a terminal; the digits greened. Five thousand universal credits flickered into Teoβs chip. From a sleeve pocket, she produced a wafer of smoke-gray metal. Teoβs heart leaptβliteral Ferrumcrys, a crystalline alloy prized for keeping stable harmonic fields. He pocketed it, then opened his case and extracted the metastring bow.
βWill the bow do the job?β Sela asked.
βItβll turn any upright beam into a tuning fork,β Teo assured. βBut remind the patronβwrong frequency, everything above that beam comes down.β
Selaβs grin widened. βThatβs the point.β
Teoβs stomach soured. Each time he sunk deeper, promising himself it was the last favor; but the Spiral Sea kept calling. The officials who owned Andarion had refused his mother residency years ago. Sheβd died of lung rot on the mainland waiting for a seawalk visa that never came. So Teo decidedβif the seaβs city wouldnβt hold space for the landβs forgotten, maybe it deserved a crack or two along its perfect rings.
Still, as Sela turned away, Teo whispered, βChecksumβs on you. Donβt slip.β
She offered a mocking salute.
--
Maris descended through the resonance wellβa cylindrical shoot that delivered divers straight into open water. Biolum towers glowed along the shaft. She surrendered her weight to the ocean, allowing slow pressure equalization. Then, pushing through the valve at 40 meters, she kicked into darkness. The cityβs underside spread above her like a metal lily pad, strobe lights mapping fragile illusions of permanence across barnacled pylons.
She powered on her rib-hydrophones and listened. Between the drone of turbines, she heard something else: a relentless pulse, as though someone drummed a single finger on an iron door. She drifted toward the pulse.
Two kilometers later, she found the wreck of buoy A-32βa spar of carbon fiber cracked open, electronics spilled like seafloor confetti. Maris hovered, scanning, but saw no sign of collision by marine life. Instead, the break edges shimmered with micro-striations. Vibrational fatigue.
Sabotage.
A thrum vibrated her spineβcloser now, maybe ten hertz above baseline. Her console plotted the origin. She angled her fins and glided through low-visibility silt until a silhouette loomed: an external maintenance platform half-fused to the city rim. Someone stood on it, bow arm raised like a conductor. A single invisible note rippled through the water, pressing against Marisβs eardrums.
She recognized the weapon: a metastring bow. Its resonance could liquefy welds, shatter support columns, or in expert hands⦠topple an entire ring.
She touched her comm. βCaptain. I have eyes on sabotage in progressβsolo attacker, platform S-E one-two-eight. Weapon: metastring. I need extraction support.β
βNo units within ten klicks,β Ilara responded. βHold if possible.β
Hold? Maris considered retreat, but another vibration pounded the water, louder. She saw stress cracks spider across the nearby pylon. One more stroke and that sector might buckle.
Maris kicked hard, closed distance. She rose behind the attacker, surfacing enough to spy the silhouette: tall, lean, hair tied back under a hood. She launched upward, grabbed the assailantβs shoulder, and yanked. The metastring shrieked, flaring crimson as it scraped a metal guardrail. The saboteur whirled, eyes widened behind corrosion-streaked goggles.
They struggled. On the third beat, the bow slipped between them and ricocheted off the platform, vanishing into the sea. Panic flashed across the saboteurβs face.
βYou have no idea what they denied us,β he rasped.
βI donβt even know you,β Maris snapped, pinning his wrist behind his back. βBut if this ring fails, ten thousand people drown.β
βTen thousand chosen over a million left starving on the mainland,β he hissed. βBalance the ledger.β
He jerked free and sprinted along the platform. Maris lunged but stumbled; he vaulted a safety rail and dove into open water. She cursed, commed emergency code, then arced after him. But heβd vanish in the forest of pylons long before backup arrived.
--
Hours later, Teo Harker crouched in his sloop, clutching bruised ribs where the diver had struck him. The bow was gone, but heβd salvaged the Ferrumcrys wafer. And with it, he could craft something louderβa device that would resonate without manual stroke. He lit the cabin lamp and unfolded schematics heβd stolen long ago: Andarionβs central tension-bridge, the axis pinning all rings. If he seeded the bridge with crystalline nodes tuned to anti-frequency, even a whisper of wind would bring the structure to harmonic overload.
He hesitated. That diverβs eyesβfurious but grievingβhaunted him. But memory of his motherβs final cough, the way bureaucrats stamped Denied across her oxygen appeal, stiffened his resolve.
The next chance came in forty-eight hours: the Day of Extending Sun, when the cityβs sails unfurled to collect solar charge and every citizen crowded the upper decks. Maximum casualties, Sela had insisted. Teo winced. Casualties. Could he murder strangers for revenge? The wafer glinted, indifferent.
--
Maris paced Lieutenant Kaitoβs office, studying city maps projected across the ceiling. She gestured at impact zones. βSame frequency pattern traces through each sabotage: 443 hertz fundamental, 886 second harmonic. Thatβs the calibrating pitch of a metastring bow.β
βWhich tells us the saboteur is a musician,β Kaito said dryly.
βNot just musicianβacoustic engineer,β Maris corrected. βThey target joints with precision. If theyβve acquired Ferrumcrys, the danger multiplies.β
She rubbed her knuckles. The attackerβs words echoed: Balance the ledger. From what? Mainland hardship? Environmental displacement? Sheβd grown up in Andarion, but her father often told of ration lines back on shore, where sea storms ruined crops and salt air corroded machinery. Maybe Andarion had become a symbol of privilege loathed by those left behind.
Still, guilt couldnβt equal a death sentence.
Captain Ilara entered, voice low. βWe intercepted chatter on the Night Forge net. A broker named Sela sold Ferrumcrys to an unknown. Exchange happened last night.β
Kaito asked, βDo we have a face?β
Ilara nodded, pulling up stills from a servo-drone: Teo Harker, thirty-one, born mainland, orphaned at fourteen, apprenticed in illegal acoustics. Marisβs gut twisted. The saboteur, unmasked, looked younger than she expectedβbrown eyes alive with unshed sorrow.
βHeβs planning a grand act,β Ilara said. βWe believe the Day of Extending Sun is the target.β
βThen we have forty-two hours,β Maris said. βLet me track him.β
--
Teo crept through subsurface ducts beneath the tension-bridge. No guards this deep. He placed the first Ferrumcrys node against a load-bearing beam, activating its microresonator. A subtle whine filled his skull, like a distant flute. He armed three more nodes along the corridor. Each synced, forming a growing web of vibration that would wait until the nodes detected ninety-kilometer windsβwinds guaranteed during tomorrowβs solar unfurl.
He sealed the panel, ascended ladders, and stepped onto a maintenance gangplank to find Maris waiting, pistol leveled.
βHands where I can see,β she ordered.
Teo froze. βYou followed me.β
βSaboteurs leave footprints. Iβm the janitor.β
He smiled despite fear. βChasing ghosts, diver?β
βI dove into your ghost.β
Wind rattled the gangplank chains. Teo considered bolting; but beneath them, Andarionβs midnight lagoon shimmered, ready to swallow. He raised his open palms.
βI planted Ferrumcrys,β he said, voice quiet. βMaybe you can defuse them. Maybe not.β
βDeactivate them,β Maris demanded, thumb on the stun trigger.
Teo exhaled. βWhy protect this place? You know the mainland suffers.β
Marisβs jaw clenched. βI know suffering. But collapse breeds more.β
Her pistol wavered. The world, Teo thought, always sat on a bladeβs edgeβone gesture, and everything changed. He stepped forward.
βLet me disable the nodes,β he said. βBut youβll still report me.β
βI have to,β she whispered.
He nodded. βThen letβs both survive the report.β He blew out a breath. βI set four nodes. They sync to code 88-gamma. Iβll recite the shut-off sequence.β
They descended. Crouched by the first node, Teo keyed the console. The whine dropped a quarter-tone. They repeated for the second, third. At the fourth, boot error flashed: code lockout.
βSomebodyβs overriding remote,β Teo murmured.
Sela appeared on the upper catwalk, metastring bow drawn, arrow tip gilded with sonic dampers. Her voice drifted like frost. βRomantic, Teo, but unfinished. Step aside.β
Teo rose. βI sold you a bow. Not Andarionβs blood.β
βYou sold revolution,β she corrected, drawing back the bow. βYou canβt unplay the note.β
A low hum built, the Ferrumcrys nodes reacting to her maintained field. Metal beams shivered.
Maris realized shooting her risked dropping Sela into the lagoon unharmed and leaving the bow resonating. She glanced at Teo. βYou know the counter-frequency?β
βOpposite harmonic. But we need amplitude.β
βA metastring bowed backward?β
Teoβs eyes widenedβthen he leapt, seizing Selaβs instrument. She pivoted, firing a vibro-arrow that glanced off railing and exploded, slicing a support chain. The gangplank tilted. Maris grabbed the rail. Sela toppled over the edge, catching a cable, bow sliding toward the dark.
Teo snatched it mid-air. βReverse stroke,β he shouted.
He planted his feet, pressed bow to primary beam, and drew upward. A deep, mournful chord erupted, churning marrow and water alike. The Ferrumcrys nodes flickered red, purple, then fell silent, failsafes triggered by inversed harmonic.
Sela shrieked, climbing her cable. Maris stunned her before she reached level deck. Silence rippled.
Teo slumped against the beam. βThat was everything I had,β he said.
Maris holstered her pistol. βYou saved them.β
He laughed bitterly. βAfter nearly destroying them.β
She nodded. βStill counts.β
--
Captain Ilara reviewed Marisβs report. Sela faced trial. Teo, for sabotage attempt mitigated by cooperation, received commuted sentence: ten years civic service in Hydroacoustics, restricted movement. As Ilara finished, Maris stood outside her office, waiting.
Ilara gestured her in. βYou believe he can be trusted?β
βHe knows the city resonates,β Maris said. βAnd he knows who suffers when it fails. Sometimes you have to hear the wrong chord before you can tune the instrument.β
Ilaraβs lips twitched. βPoetic. Iβll keep his leash tight.β
Maris found Teo the next day in Lab Bay Twelve, fingers hovering over a console, face lit by green diagnostic LEDs. He glanced up, uncertain.
βReporting for duty,β he said.
βThen listen,β Maris replied, sliding headphones toward him. βThe seaβs shifting. We need fresh ears.β
He took the headphones, placed them on, and closed his eyes. The city hummed around themβa complex tapestry of longing, regret, and fragile hope. For the first time, Teo listened not for weakness to exploit, but for fractures to mend. And Maris, standing beside him, realized balance did not come from silencing one frequency and amplifying another, but from weaving them together so the chord endured.
--
The Day of Extending Sun dawned bright. Sails unfurled, catching golden wind. Citizens flooded decks, unaware how close theyβd come to ruin. Beneath their feet, somewhere in the tension-bridge, four crystalline nodes remainedβdisarmed now, reprogrammed to monitor stress and warn of future threats. They pulsed like tiny hearts.
On an observation balcony, Maris and Teo watched the sails bloom.
βStill think the city needs to fall?β Maris asked.
He squinted at light refracting over water. βI thinkβ¦ it needs to open more doors. And I need to help pry them.β
Maris smiled. βStart with tuning our intake turbines. Theyβre five RPM off spec.β
He grinned back. βAfter breakfast?β
She laughed. βBreakfast first.β
They walked toward the market, two figures among thousands, the sea stretching endless around the bright, tenuous rings of Andarion. Above, gulls wheeled, crying a raw, ancient song. Below, in the cityβs bones, new harmonies formedβunfinished, uncertain, yet insistent that survival could sound like music if one chose to listen.