“I’m being chased too.”
I knew this, though it’s not entirely true.
“But enough about me, what about you?” He leans forward, crossing his legs Indian style. Fatherly concern spreads across his face. He smells like weed, like he always did. No perfume, or female sex smell though. I want to crack a joke about that. I don’t. I remember him chasing a man with a large log in hand.
“There you go again,” he says.
“It’s tough,” I say. I can’t let down my guard. And yet, taking another look around the beach and the archway I’ve come through, there isn’t anything here, and a quiet tiredness settles on my heart. “I’m fucked.”
“How so?” he asks.
At least he knows to remain calm. Being in the city, I’m used to effeminate men who try to overreact to things like this. For a civilian, Ben has some decent levels of common sense.
“I can help,” he says, as my thinking turns into uncomfortable silence.
I want to say that he knows nothing of this world where cell phones are Big Brother’s eyes and ears, where hundreds of intel analysts and troops are coming after you. But I can’t say that. A helping hand is just that, right? Then I think that perhaps I’m the drowning man and that having him with me only marks him as someone who needs to be taken down.
“Your wife?” he asks.
The words hit hard, and I lean back, losing my sense of up or down, wrong or right. I lean back, stare at the sky.
“You all right?” Ben’s face appears in the sky.
“I’m not.”
“Get up then.” His hand sneaks under to my shoulder blade and he pulls me up. “We can figure this out.”
“No. You’ll get caught up too. They’ll grind you out just the same.”
That hits him. He draws back before his violence brings back some color to his face. “Thats—“
“They will,” I say.
He tries his hardest not to react. I appreciate that. But I know what he must be thinking. He’s been chased by local cops. Who have no where near the same equipment as the Death Star boys who’re following me. Now he may not have direct experience with the same people as me, so he only has the propaganda about them, so he has an inkling of who may be following me, and he has the lies about how great they are and how much equipment and money they have at their disposal. And he may, at this moment, be realizing that these are the only people who would be coming after me. And if that was the case, he may be really feeling sick, not because he can’t face overwhelming odds, but as a patriot of some sort he may be someone who’s proud of this Death Star, feels that in some way or another it protects him. And so he’s wondering if I’m an enemy of the state. He’s probably wondering if I am about to harm his country. If I am that broken soldier Behemoth alluded to with a sneer I only now remember.
“What did you do?” he whispers.
I feel him slipping away. Even all that violence written in his genes, and he is unwilling to fight this with me.
“I’ve been trying to figure it out myself,” I say.
“It could be a mistake,” he says. “They... you could ask them to take another look.”
So his imagination is working. He knows.
“They don’t take second looks.”
“What did you do?”
And now the accusatory tone starts in full. Luckily, knowing that this is the accepted reaction, I grow angry. Furious even. The weakness of the masses. The simple way in which the organism reacts.
“What about your wife? Think on your wife,” he says.
“I don’t know where she is,” I growl. I can sense his voice is cracking. I can smell fear. “I think that she left when she heard about the troubles.” I wasn’t certain of this a few moments ago, but that it gets him off my back allows me to believe it.
“This isn’t a game, dammit,” he says.
“What about what you do?” I ask. “You’re not exactly law abiding.”
“You’re talking about treason,” he says. “I’ve never done that.”
I’m almost ready to argue. But in his words lie the fact that perhaps he knows exactly what I did, and what they’re after me for. In fact, I now wonder if he doesn’t work for them.
“What do you know?” I grab his arm. I brace myself for a fight.
He stands up, jerking out of my grip. I stand up too, but he’s already moving away.
“Wait,” I say.
“What?” His eyes are glaring. I take it for hate.
I say nothing, feeling small again, and sensing that I know nothing too.
In a second he’s dived back into the water. All that remains is a ripple. I wait for him to surface, but there’s nothing. Soon the lake goes back to lapping at the beach. Clouds, at first high and crystal clear, then low and blurry, move in. It grows colder. I sense that I need to leave. I hop back on the pathway. The wind picks up, smelling of snow. Looking for my shoes, I realize that it’s already dusk out here. And the shapes and shadows on the grass soon morph into darkness. The wind is pushing me to the archway. I’ll be going barefoot again.
Something’s howling and I’m scared now. I jump back into the archway. The robot’s waiting for me. I look over my shoulder and realize that the archway’s walled in. My feet press into the stone floors. It’s smooth, though cold. That cold travels up to my bones, though thankfully it stops at my legs. The robot is still. I wonder if it’s sleeping. I notice a small LED light pulsing.
“Hi there,” I say, wondering how smart this thing is. I peer in closely, trying to see if the camera is still there. I miss the warm lake. I miss home. I miss the touch of my wife. I can see something like a camera lens on the top of this robot. When I touch it, the light starts to glow red. Whirring shakes the thing and soon it’s backing away from me. I decide to follow it.
The hallway seems different now. There are no longer the lights from other doors illuminating the way. Gradually, the hallway shrinks and the walls and ceiling stand only an arm’s length away. The robot stops. I approach it. There’s a door, and the robot seems to have fallen asleep again.
“Is this a game?”
The robot doesn’t answer. From beyond the robot, down the hallway, there’s a sound that grates and screams too much for me. When I stare for too long into the dark hallway, the sounds seems to acknowledge my eyes by shooting sparrows of screams at me. Ducking, I decide that the door is the only way forward. My heart in my mouth, I can taste blood now, and I have no reason for confrontation. The door, again in an arch top, is made of a pine wood with rusting hinges that are baroque enough to be centuries old. There is no handle, though. I push against it. It doesn’t even shake. I kick it, and pain shrieks back down my leg.
That’s when my mind picks up a smell: one that reminds me of dusty buildings abandoned in the latest wave of foreign invaders and the natives, tied, humiliated, waiting to die, as their souls and liquid power, or maybe vitality, leak out of their pores and open flesh wounds and open mouths.
A shudder comes over me. It also reminds me that the cages are there, that Behemoth is there. That though I’ve saved a life, that I’ve done nothing more than brought the wrath of a nation to bear on my skin. And I will not survive it. That thought, weakens my next kick, and all my muscles loosen. This is hopeless.
And the noises in the hallway now change to that of scattered footsteps coming closer. At first I doubt this, but as it grows louder, the sound cuts into my skin and I kick the door over and over. It gives way and I stumble inside, falling then looking up, feeling anything but myself. Soon a warm calm darkness comes over me.
Above ground, where the people flow from point to point and that edge node diagram keeps growing, a connection here and there, the world is bucking those that would infect it and suck it dry. The sun, firing through the sky, crashing into the horizon, burning the clouds then coming back through to the earth and up again into the sky. The people ignore this, jostling with one another for space, a fight breaking out. But we
all do our dance and we will the earth to listen to us, to fed us and bath us.
Across the seas, the earth seems angrier; it gives up its secrets and it punishes the people nearby, a blind rage, this. In turn the sky is filled with eyes that spit fire and turn flesh into fertilizer. All the wails and moans dissipate into promises and whispers and sometimes just long tales by the time they drift back here.
And like that I awake. I’m back in the hallway. What was that? A dream? But it couldn’t be. I see the blood oozing out of scratches and I also feel the sharp pain of deep glass cuts on my sides from glass window I just broke through. But this is definitely the hallway. I’m sure I see darkness on one side and the light of the living room on the other. And Mathews’ body still rises and falls in the distance. I twitch, like so many other pre-sleep stutters that pulled me from dreams, but this is no dream. Behemoth is sitting in front of me. He still has claws, but otherwise he’s back to looking like an emaciated man. He licks his bloody arms like a cat, and he purrs. Is that my blood?
I think of saying something, but in response to the thought mechanisms whirring, my brain lets out an immense pain which travels down to my neck. I press my knuckles into my temples, hoping for a respite and clench my eyes until finally the pain dissipates, or at least it focuses on my knuckles pushing further and further into my temples.
When I glance up, my throat dry from the pain, Behemoth is gone. There’s a door, a normal door, in front of me. Light peers out from underneath it. There’s a whirring sound. My muscles flinch, and I snap my head in the direction of the noise. It’s the insects. They haven’t stopped. A few scatter by me. I don’t even think of smashing them and I open the door and slam it shut.
I’m back in the room with the young overweight man hunched over a keyboard with no less then twenty monitors now in front of him. All of them have a myriad amounts of code on them.
“Welcome back,” he says without looking up.
I smell the ocean again, with that seaweed hint underneath it. I look at the window and see a more tropical view of an ocean. This one is Tanzanian. This one has a view of a road near Dar es Salaam. Young boys and some girls without tops sit at the edge as the ocean spits a heavy mist on them. Black rocks with volcanic holes border the ocean.
The whirring sound grows louder and the door starts to rattle. I spin, but the young man, still without looking, has raised his hand.
“They can’t come in...” He clacks away at his keyboard. “I see you managed to keep your bag. And the book, I presume?”
I’m surprised to see that the bag is indeed still hooked over each shoulder of mine. I hadn’t thought of it once. I unzip it and see the book. Human skin. I’m sure I smell formaldehyde wafting off the cover, and visions of a hospital where corpses are harvested for their skin flood my brain.
“Your friend is here.”
I look around and see nothing. A small bump and I turn to see that the robot from before, is somehow here. “How?”
“It’ll show you,” the young man says again, typing furiously on his keyboard.
I try to think of his name, but it doesn’t come to me. There’s something about him that seems different. A whirring sound, increasing in volume, spits out from the robot. I see led lights flashing, but they couldn’t be saying anything interesting... I turn back to the young man.
“My wife. Do you—“
“I know nothing.”
The memory drifts back into my mind. I remember seeing the screens with the goings ons of the city. Perhaps this man can see all. He must know something.
“Behemoth. Do you know who—“
“Shh,” he says sharply. “Don’t just throw his name around like that.”
The derision in his voice is heavy, and I wonder again what I’m doing here, and what I’m wasting my time in a room for. I could have very well have run to the living room. Come back to reality to help and find my wife. I rub my temples, trying to stem the warming sensation growing in my head. There aren’t many thoughts that can comfort me right now. Why is it so bad to mention Behemoth’s name?
The robot starts to shake as the whirring of whatever machine’s inside it, increases. It’s annoying though I don’t think that it will harm me. A crash from the ocean grabs my attention and I watch as a storm moves in. The humid air in the room is swept up by a clean cool wind and my skin tightens, my heart races, as I watch a dark cloud come over the shoreline and the children make a run for it. I remember those tropical storms. Heavy drops punch down and soon these aqua-asteroids are tearing up the sand and filling me with warmth and a smell of freshness, fresh soil, rain, cleanliness and life. Mist hits my face.
“Can you close that?” the young man asks. He points at the computers. I walk over to the window. It rattles as a thunderbolt strikes nearby. I feel a shudder and I shut the window tight. Lock it. My mind is blank with nostalgia. I want to swim in it. To merely live in my memories. Am I getting that old and so soon too? Or is all this running making me tired and merely feel temporarily old? And like that my mind is blank, and I stare hard at the whirring beeping robot and the young man typing away, the screens passing through code even faster than before. Who are these people? Fear grips my mind. And as if to answer me the vibrations of a helicopter comes over the room, and disappears just as quickly. I’m being hunted. My wife has been taken prisoner.
The man speaks up, “you should talk to the robot. It’s the only one here who cares to see you through all this in one piece.”
The robot is still only a few feet away, whirring, chirping.
“Well, what do you have for me? My wife’s location?”
The robot moves away from me then stops.
I take a step and it moves away. Assuming it wants me to follow, I do so and as it makes its way to a door I hadn’t seen before. I grip my bag, the book back inside, tight. The door opens, revealing a low yellow light. “Bye,” I say to the young man. He waves with his hand.
I stop before I enter the doorway, however. The young man is holding his breath. Either he’s about to say something or he’s expecting something to happen. Glancing around, I wait.
He lets out a sigh. “I’ve seen your file. Everything,” Again he waves his hand at the screens. “George.”
“And your name?” I ask, feeling silly for asking this far into our conversation. Because I also sense that I should know his name already.
“Yusef,” he says.
He doesn’t have the look of anything Arab. I don’t ask for details.
The robot whirs. I feel my insides stretching, like they can’t take this young man’s words. I stare at the side of his head. His pasty skin and already overweight frame. I take leave.
The door slams behind me and in the darkness that remains, I see the robot’s lights blinking. I take a step towards it, ignoring the odd crunching sound underneath my feet. The whirring sound is everywhere now, and can’t be coming from the robot only. But I can’t see much else except for the Led lights.
As if to answer me a bug, same as the hallway of glass doors, flies into my face. Above me a light comes into view. It’s dark yellow with strips to indicate metal wires to protect it. I squint, now next to the robot; the light isn’t dark yellow, it’s just that there are so many bugs flying between it and me that it seems that way.
“So what now robot?”
It chirps.
“Great. Me you and the insects. You’ve led me to my grave haven’t you?”
It chirps again, this time at a different volume. Perhaps it understands me and is trying to communicate with me. Or perhaps it’s meant to emit random sounds and I’m meant or supposed to fall for it. That’s hard to tell. But even if it’s a complete language of chirps, I don’t have the aptitude to come up with a system to break it down. And yet... The insects bounce off my head, some crawl on my forearms. I brush them off, gently, because I don’t want to bring their ire upon me. That, and the fact that being close to the robot keeps them at bay. I step away from the robo
t to test this and meet a veritable wall of insects, all shrieking as they slam into me.
So the robot is my salvation.
“Well?” I ask the robot again. I’m practically on top of it.
It chirps.
Dropping to my knees I try to see if there are any buttons to be pressed. Sure the insects are at bay. But that’s only for now. I need to figure a way out and this robot is my only choice.
I place my hands on it and feel around. It chirps another series at me.
“Christ, what are you trying to say?”
It chirps back. I’m not sure if it’s my imagination, but the insects seem to be moving in, and the light grows darker.
Perhaps this thing isn’t too heavy. I’m sure I remember the way back to the door. Squatting, I reach one hand under, and the other hand over and try to lift it up. It won’t move, but it emits another series of chirps and this time I’m sure that I’ve heard it before.
I pull back my hands and tap it. The same chirps come back to me. I reach underneath it and it gives off the same one again.
The insects move in. I spit one out that has somehow flown into my mouth. It tastes like an odd sulfuric chemical and my mouth salivates in disgust.
The chirps. They’re done in long and short series, though not all the same. Or none are the same. Is that right?
The light dims even further. I can barely see my hands. My chest tightens. Death by suffocation of insects. Something in my primordial brain screams no. I swat out at the wall of insects moving in, but all I meet are stings of resistance. Not bites, but the smashing of fast moving exoskeletons.
“Damn you robot. I thought you wanted to say something to me. Are you Behemoth?” I yell into the robot, shaking it. Again the chirps the similar tune. I barely hear it over the din of the insects, but now I’m sure of what it is: not exactly the same as the previous ones, yet the same enough.
Long short. It’s all long short chirps. Different tones, but that’s what it is. I think. Perhaps those are words. Binary in some manner, but words nonetheless. So what would “help” be?
The Labyrinth of Souls Page 4