Gregory observed a herd of white-tailed deer from his perch in the upper branches of an ancient oak tree. They did not sense the anthropomorphic gray fox or his notebook, he'd shaped them so they would ignore him. A fly buzzed past one doe's head and she flicked an ear at it reflexively, just as coded. Gregory heard a rustling sound off to the northwest and watched the deer's heads shoot straight up, their ears cocked in the direction of the sound. The wolves were coming, right on schedule.The herd sprang into action moments before the pack came into view. The wolves loped across the forest floor, dashing after their swift-hooved prey. Maybe the deer would manage to secure a sufficient head start to escape before they tired, or maybe one of the older or weaker members of the herd would fall behind into the wolves' waiting jaws. A week ago the pack had snagged an old buck who'd caught an infection the day before. The wolves had eaten well that night, and their appetites had returned now for another course.
As the animals ran past Gregory noted a fat doe starting to lag behind. She'd feed the pack well if caught. The doe ran after her herd, the wolves began to pace her... and kept on going past.
Gregory sprang lightly from tree to tree, trying to get a better view of the ongoing chase. By the sim's rules his body was nearly weightless and could cling magnetically to any surface, a compromise from the impersonal "god's eye view" most similar ecosystem sims had employed. Dashing out along the underside of a branch he hung upside-down, following the hunters and their quarry with his gaze. Why weren't they going after the doe?
Something about the formation of the pack and the herd seemed oddly familiar. On a whim he pulled up stills he'd taken of the last week's hunt, and groaned. Not only was the herd moving in exactly the same formation, minus the old buck, but so were the wolves. They were ignoring the new data right in front of them in favor of old data picked up a solid week ago.
With a sigh Gregory closed the sim and quit.
Gregory#Tracker looked up from his book when he received his fork's memories. He stepped over to his desk and pulled up the notes for his simulated ecosystems. Somehow he needed to fix the priorities on the wolves' learning so their ability to remember the past didn't overpower their present. While he was tweaking the code he merged another fork, this one had taken an otter form to observe a pod of killer whales, they were still far from the now extinct mammals in terms of intelligence. The shaping of their minds just wasn't good enough at the moment. Would it ever be?
According to the research papers he'd read, whales had nearly the cognitive capabilities of humans. At the time he'd uploaded, humanity still hadn't managed to create a general artificial intelligence without completely emulating a human brain. Why couldn't they have built one by now? He looked over the books lining the walls of his not-so-modest cabin. So many species lost to the still ongoing ecological disaster that was life on Earth now, only remaining through books and videos and paintings and other dead media. He wondered, were there any museums left on Earth that displayed the bones of those species, or had budget cuts closed them down and sold off the bones as dietary supplements?
From "Cascade Failure" by Joel Kreissman. This and several other stories will appear in Clade: A Post-Self Anthology, out August 1st!
(Edit: now with less errant LaTeX)