The Labyrinth of Souls

by Nelson Lowhim

  Turing nods. Then flashes those pearly whites.

  “Why are we focusing on art?” I walk through the elevator door when it gets to the top, and we’re back in that office. Now it has even more people who are huddled over screens.

  “It’s a multi-pronged attack... I mean strategy. Or strategery.” Turing smiles. “The point is to, with the art, learn how to better win over hearts and minds. You know, show people some heart.”

  That doesn’t make sense, but I like it.

  “All art is propaganda.” It’s Yusef. He’s standing next to Turing with a hurt look on his face.

  Turing smiles. “Yusef isn’t entirely on board with the whole art part. He thinks it’s a waste of time.”

  “And you’re heading the main one of offline recruitment.” Turing pats me on the shoulder.

  “And online?” I look back and forth between Turing and Yusef. Something’s changed between them.

  “I told you this.” Turing says, tilting his head almost perpendicularly and squinting.

  “Don’t remember.”

  “Ah,” Turing says, snapping his fingers. “That imperfect memory. Well, we’re online, spreading the word. Programs basically learning and taking over comments and helping to make people look.”

  I convince Turing to let me see. At first Yusef balks, but he does as Turing says. They show me just the code. I ask them to explain more. After all, I’m going to take over this entire operation. The stakes are high. What I saw in the intersection, Behemoth’s handiwork, it lingers in my mind. As long as Turing listens to me, we’ll be able to do something and do it now.

  They finally explain that all they have created are smart algorithms that go about and make comments and counter comments that take on everyone who holds too close a view to those we’re against. To those in power.

  “You’re writing this?” I ask Yusef.

  “Of course. It’s a masterpiece. It’s better than any dialogue any writer has ever come up with.”

  “Uh-huh. But it lacks imagination,” I say, suppressing a smirk. “We need more, if we’re to change minds.”

  Turing, resting his hands on his chin leans in, looking at us both. “Go on.”

  “We need to take the fight to them. Not just to use the tools they’ve given us. If we do that, we’re only playing by the rules that they want us to play by. We’re the insurgency, right?”

  They both nod.

  “So we have to do that.” I point at Yusef. “Write, Shakespeare, and write good. Can we track people’s IP addresses?”

  “Sure,” Yusef says, taken aback by my words. I feel the smugness go out of him, as the air around us loosens up.

  “We have most of the contracts with the NSA and other digital intelligence agencies.” Turing grins.

  That gives me pause. If we’re this deep into the system, then we might be further along than I thought. Still, I think that there might be a way to accomplish what it is I want... and yet I don’t like it that only Turing seems to know the pies in which our fingers are. I need to find out more, and he seems almost gleeful about what’s under our auspices and what’s not, but that’s neither here nor there. I want to deal with this part here: “Then do that. Every time someone goes up against us, we follow their IP, who they know, who they’re consorting with. We find that network and we make sure we track it. Then we find out what sort of person they are. And then...” I make a fist with my and spread it. “When we need to put a little pressure, that’s when we take this to a visual war. We send them pictures of things they don’t like. The dark side of what they’re doing.”

  “You mean like pictures of them doing something?” Yusef says. “That level of hacking...” He looks over to Turing. “I’m not sure that it can be done.”

  “I don’t mean their pictures. I’m just saying that if they enjoy drones bombing the shit out villages in some mountain town, then they should have posts of dead children on all their twitter feeds and Facebook feeds as well. On their phone, on everything tied to the net. We hit them with the images of what they want. We rub their faces in their shit,” I say, again, holding out my hand and somewhat giving a rubbing motion with it. I can see that Yusef and Turing are both nodding.

  “Sounds great,” says Yusef.

  Turing nods faster.

  “Not so fast,” I say to Turing. He slows his nods down. “Can we go after the TV stations, put up graphics? We need to target older people too.”

  Yusef shakes his head. “We need HUMINT for that. That would take someone in every TV station. That wouldn’t be possible.”

  “Okay,” I say, losing some of my energy. What else? We need to move forward, to probe, to attack. Just sending out tweets won’t do us any good. “We find out all the money, where it’s coming from, we see the network, and we go after them.”

  “Hit the banks?” Turing says, that stupid grin on his face.

  “Not yet. We might need them yet. And can we do that without getting the world thrown at us?” I say.

  Yusef shakes his head. “One thing politicians will send soldiers for, that’s the oilmen and the bankers.”

  Turing seems confused; I give a nod to show Yusef I’m in on his world view. I’m learning to like him. And, if he can create all this, create these social media accounts which speak to the world in a way that’s not spam, then he is a great writer.

  “There’s something else we need to get to. We need to create apps that tell the real news. We have to combat all this somehow. All this march towards war, this need for an enemy. Every time an article comes up, we’re fighting it. Fair enough, but what about the interface?”

  “What do you mean?” asks Yusef, that condescension coming back to his tone.

  “Well, every time some channel puts up an article, we have to at least show people that the money behind that newspaper will profit from that article, or parts of that article. We need to show that. Or the obfuscation it sows in trying to confuse people. Or any part that has been disproven. All this will help.”

  I show Yusef what I mean by the interface. We can either have it as a worm in all computers, or try to proliferate it as an app. So when someone on their phone or browser goes to a website, they can see if an article, it’s writer, the underwriter for that, if it’s all some game. I also talk to Yusef about having the comment accounts and the social media accounts talking to each other in small cells. This will increase their ability to do damage. Yusef still seems impressed and scurries off to write code.

  I’m coming down from my high and smile at Turing, laying my arm around his shoulder. “See that?” I say, meaning that it is something to impress him.

  He frowns. “I don’t get it.”

  “You mean fighting an information war?”

  He raises his hand to silence me. “I understand that we have to fight on many levels, and we now have the money. But what about the lies? You’re saying that much of this is lies?”

  Oh, the machine is trying to be good? That warms me up a little. “No.”

  “But why?”

  I’m not sure how to answer that. “I guess we’re apes.”

  “I hope to understand soon.” He must know that’s not a sufficient answer.

  He leaves me, handing me a bag of money. This time, my time traveling around town isn’t wasted. I spend most of the day talking to homeless men, asking them if they want to earn some cash. They’re cheap. For twenty they’ll be more than willing to do a few favors. I bring them around to the building. Fifteen of them, and Turing takes them down. He’ll run the fingerprints to make sure that none are undercover cops. He’ll run other tests to see if they can do as we need. A few kind gestures, I tell him, and we’ll be able to have willing hands.

  For a week it goes like that, me recruiting homeless people or panhandlers and those who look like they’re down on their luck. Some of the homeless won’t go anywhere, and I at least get them to be our eyes above the street. I grow bored and we put out ads. Soon we have a few recruiters of our own
, willing, with the economy as it is, to work for next to nothing. Every evening, as I work with Yusef on fine-tuning the app, I see scores of homeless people line up outside our building. Turing takes them in, and down to the underground city they go.

  One day, Turing comes up to me, a frown frozen on his face. “They’re not all good.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’re not all good. Well, few are. They can’t do much.”

  “They can watch for us. Tell us things. That’s a start,” I say.

  “Oh?”

  I don’t like Turing’s attitude. “Don’t tell me you don’t know how to use them?”

  “I will...” Turing seems hesitant, something he’s not usually. “But we need to recruit other people.”

  “All right,” I say. I go to talk to the recruiters. All are either fresh out of the college and baby-faced, or people who’ve been working with the homeless for years and years. Expecting them to grovel, I’m surprised when they claim they’re unsatisfied.

  “We work all day, we bring in these homeless people, and then, we have to do it all over again?” says a middle aged Hispanic man, obviously not happy with anything we’re doing. “I thought we were here to help them. I just see them disappear. I don’t get to work with them. That’s what you have to do, you know? Work with them over a period of time, to work out their issues. You don’t just throw money at it.”

  I work out that they want money for a center. Soup kitchen with some extras to help the men work on the side. I agree, and soon we’re off. The soup kitchen is the best recruitment tool. We let the recruiters put out the word, and soon we’re inundated. Turing takes down extras whenever the place is close to over flowing. And the recruiters aren’t complaining. We hire more to go out and get other people who are simply down on their luck. People who haven’t seen a proper paycheck for years and are now truly suffering. But it’s never just a paycheck that matters. Bread is motivating factor, but only when it’s missing. Guns are another factor and we hire guns to keep some people safer, then provide bread, then provide a smile, the loving touch. Soon, even those who are well-established positions come over, start helping us.

  Now even the ones like us are losing grip. That parched earth which was meant to affect only a few has now sent institutions collapsing for the single clerk running a part of the system must protect his family and so he tries and stays home and the institution falls. The society does too and the nervous system is attacked by the rabid decay of earth.

  At home the crackdown continues now including as many people as is feasible. All labeled as one and the same as the wretched of the earth who must be cleansed

  The secular and religious language all one and the same all used to evoke fear and faith in our power as a people. But also to never question. Our institutions are strong but for whom do they work? Remember, that power grows from the barrel of a gun, but that never sustains it. Justice does.

  I catch Turing, after a long day of staring at the app, in beta mode now, and thinking of ways to improve what it is that we’ve created. machine stands on the High Line, staring at a sun set. I watch him from afar. There’s contemplation on his face. There’s that appreciation of beauty that I associate with better humans, and there’s something else. For the first time, I see—truly believe—that Turing has heart.

  “T—“

  “George. Come,” he says, not taking his eyes off the sunset.

  I lean up against the railing as a couple, with their faces shining and dressed in clothes that sheen and seem to both hide and flout all sense of stitching—well planned in other words, art in another, and that they’re rich, winning at whatever game it is we’re all playing.

  “You seem deep in thought.” Perhaps I’m too simple to understand that even the complexity that he’s showing right now is nothing more than algorithms in a symphony that seems like us. “Thinking about the sun turning into a red dwarf in time, ending all that’s here?” I give a half grin.

  Turing chuckles, creaks. His flesh looks fresher than ever.

  I’m sure I like him more than ever.

  “No, George. I should though.”

  “How are the homeless people doing?”

  He looks at me for a second, measuring, judging. “Good. You?”

  “I’m all right.”

  “I hear that app is coming along great.”

  “It’s got bugs.”

  Turing waves that off. “You’ll perfect it. The ongoing wars will be fought. Humanity will come to our side, and we will have made the world a better place.”

  He seems to mean it. “Yeah,” I say with as much force as possible. I stare off, the sun crashing hard, the colors orange and red, while the clouds right above us float as mere ashes. Soon the entire sky is ashes, and we have nothing but dusk slowly enveloping us. That’s when I sense something in his demeanor. “What are you thinking about, Turing?”

  “Nothing.”

  I can think of a million questions to ask him. “Can I have a look at the contracts we have with the NSA and DOD?”

  “Of course.”

  I expected some pushback, but this is Turing. He’s my soldier. “Thanks.” But he’s a robot who shouldn’t need a thanks. And I’m still curious about why he’s staring at this sun set so diligently. I want to wax lyrical, but something else runs through my mind instead. “You know, I see you staring at this sun, the colors, how it indicates the sun spinning, and for us humans it feels like an expression of art, or something like that. What does it feel like for you?”

  He turns to me again, his face looking suddenly old. “Like something like me wouldn’t appreciate art? That makes me lesser. Is that what you’re thinking?” He’s angry, spittle flying out as he speaks. “Not that I can’t manip...” He stops, looking at me, studying my face again. What does he see?

  My heart beats fast against my ribcage. I’m not sure why until I realize that as I stare at his face it appears to be melting, that this anger of his is melting off the flesh from his metallic skeleton. This pushes saliva out of my tongue. I spit over the railing, fighting down the urge to suddenly vomit. I stare hard at the horizon.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Turing says. “I know what you mean about art. And your initial statement about feeling is misplaced. It only seems like that... art we can leave for the artists. I think we both can agree on that.”

  I like the peace offering and his anger was probably only a glitch—robots don’t get angry—but... “We can agree,” I say. I look over, his face isn’t melting as much any more. He’s smiling, and seems the friendly Turing that I’ve come to know. “We can agree,” I say again.

  “Art,” Turing says. “It’s something beautiful that you have created here, isn’t it?”

  Not understanding his flat tone, I’m distracted by a beautiful woman walking by, high heels digging into the wooden planks next to us. Her thighs grow thick from her calves, and she glances at me slyly as she walks away. I haven’t had a woman since my wife. That plunges a cold knife into my heart. But nothing else stirs as my wife’s memory easily drowns out the momentary lust of the woman, her perfume now in my nostrils. “We have created something beautiful. We try to match the feeling in our hearts at our best moments and turn it into something else.”

  “Oh, I’ve studied it,” says Turing. “Art is something else. But it is something that’s only placed on the walls of those who win, isn’t it? A most beautiful luxury. Proof...” He’s observing me again. “You know they say that every record of civilization is also a record of barbarism.”

  An insane quote. “Is it?”

  “How do you move past it?”

  I stare at another woman, also perfect with thick thighs swooping out to a round ass. Where is this lust coming from? I smile at her. She, eyes alight, smiles back. I turn back to Turing. “I’m not sure we do.”

  “But you do try to cover it up. Sweep it under the carpet.” That anger is returning to his voice, though this time it’s covered
with disgust; and his face, or the flesh attached to it is melting, blurred.

  I sense the need to defend my people. No, not defend, I remind myself, but to teach Turing right from wrong. “We’re not perfect, that much is certain, but we’re definitely trying, right? Civilization gives us the chance, the time to think about such things, and to act on them. To help the oppressed.” I let out a sigh. Christ, I sound like a slight variation of a military billboard, there to catch idiotic 18 year olds for the good of the nation. “It’s a step forward.”

  Turing nods, the melting of the flesh seems to have stopped, but he seems to hold some of that disgust... no that’s just a glitch.

  We walk off, Turing first, and me to get some coffee.

  That night, in front of a triple screened computer and a thick pile of papers from XXX intel agency, I work through the night, and almost collapse from exhaustion. But the sun comes up, and, against my wishes, my body and mind find a burst of energy. I take a piece of paper with me. On it it lists all the things we’re doing for every one. Half of it I can’t understand, but the rest of it, based on tearing apart or stomping out potential rebellions arising from or on the internet, or sniffing it out before it happens. These are comparably similar to real life, completely offline revolutions. This part scares me, leaves a ringing in my head. Not because of the subject matter, but because they are based on previous successful contracts on the subject. In other words Turing (and Yusef?) have been researching the subject of rebels for years now. From before they met me. And since they have been doing these studies (as well as finding a way to track down people in a network based on previous habits and so forth) that fact plants a dangerous seed in my head.

  Later in the morning, when I’m feeling groggy, I hear a distant boom. A sliver of neurons flash images of Baghdad through my head, but I stifle them, thinking that this is something else. A few minutes later, I hear ringing, a chorus of them, and then murmurs. I find my phone and look through my social feed. A bomb has gone off on Broadway and Lafayette. I stare at it for a few moments, wondering if it’s real, if perhaps we’re doing some sort of insurgent hacking whereby people will be scared, mistrust those in power a little more. I look through the news, and after seeing a few videos, I decide it’s real. I immediately look for Turing.