The Labyrinth of Souls

by Nelson Lowhim

  “Man, he’s a thinker,” Mathews says, looking over to Turing and smiling fondly at the machine. “But I wonder if he has anything worthwhile to say.”

  “I’m not sure. That’s why I’m asking,” Turing says, not taking his eyes of me. “I’ve read all his books.”

  “Does he write anything of any use?”

  “It’s not wholly bad.”

  That too stings, even if it’s coming from a series of if-then statements. My throat tightens, my mouth dries. That’s a 100000 hours worth of work dismissed in a breathe, or in Turing’s case, in multiple pulses of binary.

  “I gave him a book that would explain why he shouldn’t write anymore,” Turing says.

  “Is that true? He’s a Luddite, then?”

  “Literature has been solved. But he’s reaction is to be expected.” Turing smiles steel and points to a bag near the frog tank. It’s mine.

  I wiggle my toes in my shoes. “Thanks,” I say.

  Turing pauses, looking me over, then rubs his hands together. I can tell one is bigger than the other.

  “Will you tell us where you got the flesh for the hand?” I ask him.

  Mathews hisses at me, “leave him.”

  Turing places a hand on Mathews’ thigh. There’s an odd tension to the air. “I need to learn more about this world. How to weigh human reactions. You’ll help me learn?” He raises his eyebrows and tilts his head.

  “Certainly,” I say as Mathews nods furiously.

  Trying not to think of how he’s doing that, of how I feel pleasant thoughts towards him, I nod. Perhaps he’s not to blame for what’s been programmed. But if that’s the case, am I to blame for falling what must be one of the simpler behavioral traits to program?

  “What are you thinking about?” Turing whispers.

  Avoiding his eyes, I look up. Mathews is enthralled with the frogs. “Nothing,” I say.

  “I think you’re wrong.”

  “About?”

  “That something that tears a human apart will make him weaker, or spoil him.”

  Turing has been reading my work.

  “Perhaps I should show you.”

  But I don’t really take in what Turing has just said, I get up and cough. Mathews looks over.

  “What’s so great about those frogs?”

  “They’re beautiful. Their skin color.” He points. “And now that I know what they can do, just lie there in wait and not react. But still being able to kill their enemies, that’s... well it’s just fascinating.”

  “The rat?”

  “Yeah, that was real cool, wasn’t it?”

  I’m really starting to hate Mathews. “It was fine. But it wasn’t an enemy. The frog just sat there, and given that it has poisoned skin, killed the rat. There was no intent.”

  “That’s even cooler.”

  “Weren’t you the one who was shit scared of them?”

  “Of these?” he says and points to the glass tank.

  I shake my head and look over at Turing who is observing us. He grins—all steel.

  “You were going to show me something?” I say.

  “Come.” Turing stands up and nods. In the corner of the room is a curtain sectioning it off from view. Mathews comes over and we follow Turing. He pulls the curtain apart. Mathews blanches and turns away. I stare at the body. It’s Khalid’s all right.

  “That’s where I got this flesh,” Turing says, light glinting off his steel grin.

  I glance over the body, taking a step forward and breathing through my mouth as the dried and almost rotting blood-flesh smell is too much. “It’s getting ripe,” I say. “But most of his flesh is here.”

  Turing steps beside me. “We’ll have to get moving before the rot does set in. But I didn’t get my flesh from him, but from a John Doe in the morgue.”

  “You stole it?”

  “John Doe. A nobody. Executed on a rooftop in the Bronx. Police department aren’t even wasting time on the investigation as it’s most likely someone who messed up in a gang.”

  I let out some air. Khalid’s face is torn up. A bullet entered the back of his head, and he’s facing up now, half of his left cheek and eye gone. The gaping hole is something else to look at, and I know I shouldn’t look, but I do. That hole seems to perfectly enlarge his mouth. This was a man I was recently talking to. The rest of his body seems meek. I’m not sure why that adjective makes sense. “You can’t assume that just because he’s a John Doe that you can take flesh from him.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  There are plenty of reasons why, but I’m guessing that even though Turing has more information than I, has read more than I ever have, he’s still missing something humane. “Why do you have Khalid’s body? Which I’m guessing you stole from the morgue.”

  “It’s not obvious?”

  “No.”

  “I’m going to bring him back to life.”

  I glance over to make sure Turing isn’t joking. All indications are that he’s not. “Fuck, Turing. You can’t bring him to life.”

  “He was a good man? Wrong time at the wrong place? You think this, I trust?”

  “He... just how will you bring him to life?”

  Turing thrusts his fleshy hand into my face. “Maybe not by some definitions alive. But at least he will mimic life. Mimic the Khalid we all knew and loved.”

  I stare at the points where the bullet ripped out of Khalid’s flesh. It doesn’t seem right that he should die and there be nothing left of him but this, this sad still corpse. I try not to pay attention to Turing’s glinting smile, nor to Mathews who now has a hand over his mouth and is trying to look at Turing with all his might and pay no attention to the corpse.

  “Where have you learned to speak?” I ask.

  “You don’t like the idea?”

  “No, no,” I say. “Fine do it. I want to see you do it. I don’t think it possible.”

  “Why? What are you basing that on?”

  I stare at the corpse. That quarter-face hole. The smell of hospital wards wafts up. What does Turing know about life? Well, given that he’s read everything that every human has ever written, then he’s read more than me. But what does he know about it? Must he know more than me? Surely he, or it, has the advantage of no human baggage, of no heuristics.

  “Do it,” I say, trying to make it sound like an order.

  “You sure? Because if there’s a real reason... well outside of tradition—“

  “I said do it, Turing.”

  “Well,” Mathews says. “I thought there were reasons.” His voice is muffled, and you can tell he’s trying hard to breathe through his mouth.

  Turing glances between us. “It has to be more than traditions. Even if they’re universal human traditions.”

  He’s a cocky one, this Turing. “Fine,” I say, waving off Mathews. “This is fine. Just what do you plan to do?”

  “Oh, plenty,” Turing says. “I’ll reconstruct parts of his muscle that have been torn off, and I’ll get some parts to be an exoskeleton.”

  “His brain,” I say. “Turing. His brain is the important part.”

  “That will need the most substitution,” Turing says, running a hand over Khalid’s limp cock.

  Mathews shakes his head slowly and looks at me, as if he wants comforting.

  Turing stares at me. I push away the sinister feel that he’s giving me.

  “And your wife, I know where she is,” Turing says.

  “What? Where?” I ask.

  “We can get to her, but first—“

  “No but first,” I say taking a step towards him. I will help you, I will. I will teach you whatever I can, but first we have to... I have to...”

  “Of course George,” Turing says, smiling placing his metallic hand on my shoulder. Did he choose to place the metallic one instead of the fleshy one on purpose? Or at random? That flesh in the form of John Doe, and now Turing’s hand comes in front of my face. “I will h
elp you... No need to get your panties twisted.”

  Mathews snickers.

  “What?” Turing asks and tilts his head and screws up his face.

  “You can’t say that.” Mathews says. “Where did you learn English, man?”

  “From your archives,” Turing says, removing his hand from my shoulder.

  “Does that archive include TV scripts? Because you can’t say something like that.”

  Turing looks at me.

  “He’s right. It comes off all wrong.”

  “I apologize,” Turing says. “I will help you get to your wife.”

  “Just tell me where she is.”

  “They have her in a building, which she can’t leave,” Turing says, he places his hand, the metallic one, back on Khalid’s limp penis.

  “Under arrest?” I say.

  “She’s not under arrest. They have here there for her own safety.”

  “From me?”

  “She specifically asked for it. Though I’m not sure it’s a choice anymore.”

  “Can—“

  “Yes,” Turing says, smiling. “I can get you there.”

  “Now.”

  “Yes. George. Now.” Turing takes a quick glance at Khalid. “Let’s wait a second. Don’t you need some sleep?”

  Huffing, I stare at the feet, with white splotches on his big toe, and think on dirty feet. “I want to see my wife, now.” My voice come out lower than I expect it to.

  “Fine,” he says and nods to Khalid’s corpse, this time stroking the penis. “We’ll be back friend.”

  Turing shuffles along, and I follow him.

  “I’ll stay here,” Mathews says, moving in front of the frogs. I move on, not really wanting to see the man again. Turing pauses, going back and forth from Mathews to Khalid’s corpse, or the curtains which hide Khalid’s corpse. I tug at his metal hand.

  “Come on.”

  He comes, reluctantly, but not without a jerk of my hand, loosening my grip, that reminds me that this man in front of me is a machine and is much too strong.

  Striding long and efficiently, Turing walks in front of me. I follow, not thinking, watching his jeans—he’s wearing black jeans, that are meant to be tight, but are loose on him, perhaps he needs to raid the morgue for some more flesh—then watching the ground beneath his jeans. The immediate white tiles around the door have given way to an old almost rocky section of cement, with cold uneven bumps surrounded by mold or moist valleys. Nothing big enough to roll an ankle on, but big enough to trip on. I keep my toes up, staring at the ground, Turing’s heels, his skinny most likely unfleshy legs. The sounds his footsteps make are sharp, but are absorbed. Up above the ceiling is concave and has that same peeled paint look that the previous room we escaped, the one with water, had. I notice some graffiti here. It’s written in smaller and more shrill a tone than even the tags getting rubbed out above ground. Here it’s all, “help us, we are afraid, the guns are here.” And, “The blood is leaking out, the energy is gone.” And, “kill them all, only show the mercy they’ve shown us.”

  Instinctively, I look for cameras, then remind myself that they make cameras small enough and can hide them well enough, that they can’t be found by a naked eye. Especially not in this low light that leaks out in this hallway. Soon, the hallway takes an upward incline. I can only notice it from the increased pressure on my calves, and the slight angle I’m forced to lean on.

  Turing stops so suddenly, and I’m craning my neck so far up, that I bump into him.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, looking around. With the silent but fertile air, my mind thinks on the time I was bundled up by the raid team. The helicopter ride to my cell. I feel wind on my face, I shiver.

  Turing turns to look at me, accesses me, then turns away and places his metallic hand on the wall. The wall, previously something like a smoothed out cement, is now stone with the same mold between the cracks that grows on the floor. Green, now that I can see from close up. The hint of urine in the smell of the mold makes my mouth salivate. I spit. Turing taps a stone and pulls out a rusty handle. The handle comes out a few inches and Turing places each foot on the wall next to both his hands, each holding the handle and he pulls as hard as he can. The flesh on his hand gives way unnaturally, and I look away, trying my hardest not to think about the body from which he stole the flesh.

  The stone starts to give way, and a crack forms in line with the handle, but further up and down. I step back when I notice the outline of a door. Turing is pulling with all his might, straining, though it doesn’t sound like a human straining, but more like an engine straining, and the stone door creaks and moans and finally it’s opened about half a foot. Turing steps back, dusting off his hair. It’s wiry stuff, his hair. But he really needs to learn how to breathe, or perhaps learn how to look like he’s breathing, or sweating, because right now he looks too unbothered.

  I step forward, trying to judge if I can fit through the crack. Turing places a hand on me.

  “Be careful, at the top we’ll have to slide into some crawl space. It’s inside that where your beloved is.”

  I nod, flinching because he’s placed his fleshy hand on me, and there’s something about it that scares me, or at least the inner me, and one can’t really hide that, can we?

  Up the stairs we go, Turing ahead of me. His eyes provide the light, but since he’s in front of me I’m left with the penumbra of the beam and thus I walk slowly, trying to remember the length of each step and the steps, metal, ring out in whatever hollow space we’re in, though I can’t see what surrounds us, or encloses us, but I hear the echo, the stiff tight air that speaks of walls all around us. The stair rungs ahead of me, with holes to prevent slippage, are almost smoothed out in the middle. In the white light, they appear to be rusted. Turing’s feet send off loud rings. The staircase creaks. My legs begin to complain. My thighs moan and tighten, growing hotter, and soon I’m leaning hard on the flimsy hand rail. But still up and up we go, and around and around we step. My heart’s in my mouth, and I’m taking breaks by locking out my bottom most leg by the time we stop. Turing slides open a door.

  “You’ll be able to see her through the crack,” he says, roughly pushing me forward with his hand. I’m sweating, my clothes and shoes all wet, and my crotch feeling especially ripe. The crack, a bright vertical line of light awaits me in the corner of my eye. I pass the door, throwing Turing’s hand off me—I’m sure I see a smile—pass a handful of insulated pipes and place my eye on the crack, still breathing hard, still wanting at least a lungful more of the sweet stuff than I can currently get.

  I’m not prepared for the sight of her. Sitting there, she’s on a sofa with grey leather and she holds what could only be a photo album in her hands. I try to see if there’s someone else in the room with her. All her actions, the way she’s focused on the album, don’t make it seem like that. She’s staring hard at one photo. Now she’s tracing her finger over it. Just her presence starts my heart off into beating, well it was beating before, but now it’s beating heavily, each pump isn’t trying to get blood into the extremities, instead each pump adds to its weight, and it drops into my gut and each pump also sends a burning acid into my muscles. Soon the heat, or burning acid, hits my brain and my eyes well up.

  I feel Turing’s hand on my shoulder. Though I think on brushing it off—for this is no time for machines—I manage to nod. That’s when my wife, or ex-wife, lifts her finger off the album and starts to shake, then sob. Her melancholy hits me harder than ever. I start shaking, and when the emotion threatens to overwhelm me I close my eyes. Tears stream down, my mouth salivates a little. I haven’t cried in some time. A relief washes through me.

  After I dry my tears, Turing grabs me by both shoulders, though less roughly this time. “It will be all right. That’s one thing I’ve learned from reading about your lot. It will be all right.”

  “Thank you,” I whisper. I look into Turing’s eyes, they are red. His smile gleams in the light from the room.
The inappropriateness of his smile relaxes me even further.

  My wife. I turn back and watch as she has now stopped crying and placed the album on the coffee table in front of her. She stares at her hands one at a time, tracing each one with the other.

  “That enough?”

  I turn to Turing who’s still smiling. “What?”

  “You’ve seen her—“

  “I wanted to talk to her,” I say. “I have to see her. I have to talk to her.”

  “Why? How can you be sure she wants to see you?”

  “Turing, please, I have to talk to her.”

  “Well—“

  “No,” I say, hissing now because I think I know what he wants, or what his perceived solution is. “I want to be in front of her. Not have a wall between us.”

  “That’s silly,” he says. “We can’t always have what we want.” He raises his metallic hand in the air to make his point. “You can talk to her just fine through this crack.”

  “Turing—“

  “Please,” he says and raps his metal knuckles on the wall.

  Not sure what to do, after all if he refuses to show me the way into the room, what can I do? My wife looks up, startled that there’s something in the wall. She looks about, then stands up, walking gingerly towards us.

  “Isn’t there a way to get inside there?” I ask Turing, wondering if I can pull him apart, tear off his flesh, or beat him in a wrestling match. How dare he prevent me from seeing my wife!

  Turing’s eyes, still with a red hue, search my face. Is he learning now?

  “You’re a funny species. You’re truly angry. I’ve led you here. A place you would have never found. And yet you are ready to tear me apart,” he says.