“Are you all right?”
“Of course I am. What do you think?”
I step back, expecting to be punched at any moment. “What were you doing in the corner?”
Yusef looks at me confused, like he can’t recognize me. “What’s it to you?”
I sort of shrug, not knowing what else to do. As if today hasn’t shaken my values enough. I may not have been Yusef’s friend, but he seems so different, so scared and defensive that I wonder how long he was in that corner, and who made him. I glance again at Turing, but now I freeze because Turing is looking directly at Yusef, his eyes unflinching, his whole body unflinching. There is such a sense of a cold calculating machine that some piece of me panics, knows that I’ve chosen the wrong side, that the warmth of the likes of Mary and even Behemoth might be much better than whatever it is Turing is. And one look at Yusef, who’s wilting under Turing’s gaze, sends another warning signal down my spine. “Turing.” I say, in a voice that’s short of a shout. “What the hell is this?”
Turing turns to me, for a second he’s cold, then he’s warm, smiling, enough to disarm some of my apprehension, though not all of it. “I’m not sure. Yusef?” He turns his gaze cold as he looks over Yusef.
Yusef, standing off the wall, but teetering, looks down in front of him and doesn’t answer.
“Oh, I remember,” says Turing, snapping his fingers, then pointing at me. “You wanted to talk to me. Right?”
“Yeah,” I say. “We need to talk.”
“Yusef,” Turing says. “Leave us.”
Yusef shuffles out of the room, chanting something, though I can’t be sure what it is. It’s a word. It might not matter. Yusef has been broken by someone. Or something. The door slams shut. And if the cold look on Turing’s face had chilled me, more memories poured forth, countering that chilling effect, and now I warmed up, anger bubbling everywhere, filling my chest, and I knew that what had been done to me had been done to Yusef, and that whether it was Behemoth or whether it was Turing, it didn’t matter.
“What the fuck, Turing?”
Turing gives a shocked look. “What?”
“Yusef. What the fuck was he doing in the corner?”
“I don’t know,” Turing says, pleading with his hands. “I swear to you, George, that I have no clue.” He moves his head back and forth as if he’s thinking of a possible explanation. “He’s a programmer, you know. They don’t think like other humans.”
“You promise?”
“Of course. What good does it do me to have him in a corner?”
Nothing on Turing’s face indicates that he’s lying. “All right.”
“Was that it?”
“No.”
Turing smirks like he knows. “Oh.”
“I ran into Behemoth again.”
“You think we’re working together?”
“No.” I pause, wondering what I should tell Turing. I sit down on a leather chair. Turing does the same and rolls his chair closer to mine.
“Then?”
“They showed me somethings about you. They said you were trying to overthrow the government. To hurt people.”
“Me? Why?”
“Who knows? A broken machine?”
A look of pain crosses Turing’s face. “Broken?”
I feel bad, even though part of me knows, just knows this is some programmed if you here this, act like this... I can’t let that part go; even if I remember Mary’s words as I left her, that I shouldn’t see him as this. I mean, what’s wrong with being human? “Like a glitch.”
He looks off to the distance.
“Hey, don’t worry about it. They think I’m a broken soldier.”
He chuckles and looks back at me. “Yeah?”
I raise my eyebrows to say can you believe it.
“What did they show you?”
“The glitch off the coast of Somalia.”
“What about it?”
“What happened?”
“A glitch, like you said. Some of the other weapons were operating with some other software. I think the NSA had a worm in there. By mistake. But it messed it up in some way.”
“Where are the weapons now?”
“Burned out. Who knows?” Turing says, waving his hand to indicate some small loss. “If it was a bug, I’m guessing it was loop and so it’s a non-functional weapon if anything.”
“Well, the other countries are now ramping up their operations. AI triggers.”
Now Turing grins.
“What?”
“We’re on top of that.”
I chuckle. “The fuck you doing?”
“We are those companies.” He jerks his head towards the door. “Some of Yusef’s friends in Russia. Other ones in China.” He has a huge grin.
I laugh and slap his thigh. “Fucking Turing.”
He nods with his whole body. “Anything else?”
“The UN.”
“Yeah. That’s us. But I based it off what you said. What we discussed.”
“Weakening this country.”
“Don’t think of it as that. Think of it as... remember that day we talked, near the lake?”
I don’t remember much of that conversation. “Yeah.”
“Think on it like this: the way the world works, you...” He points at me. “Your people have always subjugated each other. And when you’re not doing that within a nation, one nation is doing it to another. You know this is a problem.”
“Of course.” Turing’s been reading my work.
“And how does one group of people push another group of people?”
“Power.” I think on Kurt and his cocky talk about the need to manipulate material and humans. That endless cycle which has brought me endless misery.
“Exactly. Weapons. Power to gain more power to subjugate people as they see fit.”
“And so...”
“We need power in the hands of people, things, machines, which will not succumb to power itself. We place that in the hands of an international group. And... well. We break the cycle.”
So easy. So simple. Can it be? Are we on the cusp of a peace like we have never seen before. No more pain.
“There are people against it. Us,” I say. Stopping to wonder why I said us instead of him, Turing, because this is his doing.
“People were against sending men needlessly into war. Would you say we shouldn’t have done that?”
“No. That was needed.”
“Exactly. There will always be a reaction to change among your people. You know this.”
“That’s true...”
Turing leans forward, places a hand on the table. “You seem hesitant. Trust me. There are groups against us. I’m sure Behemoth and whomever he’s working with showed you the different groups that are claiming to be against us. The bionics. Right?”
“Yeah. Bionic veterans against robots.”
“There are many others. But there are others still for us. Bionic humans for the singularity.”
“What does that mean?”
Turing chuckles. “Most have no clue. But they are for us. And that’s all that matters.”
“So people are aligning themselves based on limited information,” I say, mostly to myself, perhaps even talking about myself.
“So it has been so it shall be.”
Some of the energy from my previous bout of anger now completely leaves my body. “Christ. And so it shall be.” I look at Turing’s hand, follow it past the suit to his shining face. Such a perfect face. And his voice. Such a booming voice. “What about that speech you gave, talking about 9-11?”
Turing sighs. “I know you’re attached to that event. That’s why I didn’t want you there when I talked... I’m only trying to think of things to say to fill them with courage—“
“By saying one of the greatest tragedies was good?”
“Many of the people I’ve talked to don’t see it as you do...” He looks at me. “Not that it was good. But a necessary reaction.”
/>
“You believe that?”
“Of course,” Turing says, like he’s talking to a child. “It was a blowback to an Empire. It’s happened before, it will happen again.”
“Christ.... And those Muslims you were talking to?”
“A simple manifestation of how to talk to certain people.”
I chuckle. “So you’re a religious machine?”
“Are you so different? Atheist or religious, humans are the same...”
I’m frowning, for I certainly don’t want to be thrown into the same mix as those who are religious.
“Not you, of course,” Turing says. “What I mean is that the people your species considers to be fundamentalist are the ones best used to help fight.”
“Fight. You’re getting ready for war.” I realize that so were Mary and Behemoth. “Fuck.” I don’t want war. I never wanted war.
“We will fight for justice, George. You and I both want that, right?”
“Right. Defend it all.”
“Make sure that the people cannot be robbed of what is their due right.”
I’m not sure about that, but his words just seem like the truth, whatever reaction happens in my guts.
“So we must find our enemies before they find us. That’s why we have cells all over the city. Why I gave that pep speech.”
“Yes,” I say, my body feeling disconnected from my brain. “And the assassins.”
Turing grins. “Did Mary and Behemoth tell you anything else?” Turing asks and moves in closer.
He knows. The fucking machine knows, and yet I don’t want to betray her. “About?”
“We were attacked, George. Who did it? Was it Behemoth?”
“No. They claim not to have anything to do with it.”
“They would.”
“Dalcia.” The name comes out of my mouth without me knowing, without me wanting.
Turing nods his head. “I knew it. Kurt too?”
“Yes.”
“Sneaky humans. They must have been planning it for a while.” He looks at me for more.
Did I bring that bomb upon myself by not mentioning those initial murmurs of sedition on the part of Dalcia?
“You liked her?”
Do I admit this? “I do.”
“Oh. Still?”
“Yes.”
“She tried to kill you with that bomb.”
“You don’t know that.”
Turing smiles, pained this time and pats my hand. “Okay. Just don’t be naive anymore. This isn’t going to get any easier.”
“You going to put a hit out on her?”
“I already have.”
“You knew?”
“I suspected as much. I observed her. And unlike any of you, Dalcia was one of the humans who could tell which one of us was a robot. I could see it in her pupils.”
I don’t reply. No memories even flow through me. Just a whine in my ear and the detritus of that night I spent with Dalcia and her family. Then in the motel.
“Well. Quite a few of our men are being shot in the streets.”
“Robots, you mean.”
“Listen, we’re all on the same team now. You need to stop your previous prejudices.”
“Okay.”
Turing shakes his head. “You need to be less naive. This is war, you know. Even if you liked her—“
The crackle of gunshots snaps us both to our feet.
Turing stares at me. “Were you followed?”
More gunshots, closer this time.
“I don’t know,” I say as a very familiar clarity returns to my flesh. “Give me a weapon.”
From under the table, Turing pulls out a long blade with dried blood on it. He tosses me an M4 and some night vision. The lights go out.
“Let’s get them,” Turing says.
Gunshots. Screams. An explosion shakes the walls and air around us. I turn on the night vision. A green world. Turing is moving about like he can see easily. But what is he going to do with a blade? He kicks down the door and is gone. I check to make sure a round is chambered, and know that there’s no getting out of this. I turn the corner. Nothing. I trot down the hallway, still hearing nothing. Past the original presentation room I trot. No one. Then gunshots. I kneel.
An explosion throws the door flying down the hallway. I hear yells, and a beam of light hits the hallway. I raise my gun. It has been a while. I see the figure turning the corner and I shoot. The man twists, and I shoot a few more times, before stopping because I remember I have only a magazine.
“Fire in the hole.”
It’s Turing, and an object goes flying over my shoulder. Turing’s hand grabs me, and he covers me with his body.
The explosion almost rips my lungs out. When the smoke clears, the thin walls to the main stone covered hallway is ripped open. I see a few bodies lying in grotesque positions. Then I see that the hallway beyond has been changed. Or at least I didn’t see the barricades set up. A head pokes up from behind one. Muzzle flashes. They’re shooting.
“Stay,” says Turing as he stalks up to a pile of rubble.
I raise my M4 and start shooting at the muzzle flashes. It silences them. Then I see Turing running. Fast. Like lightning. That blade standing straight in his hands. My M4 goes down as I see other robots file past me and do the same. All with blades, larger than broadsword blades. Some are shot, they only twist and go running at their shooters. The sound of the first swing, by Turing, as it goes through a man standing up and turning to fire, sickens me with its hints of flesh and ligaments and bones being cut, and the man’s scream again fills me with revulsion. I step forward as the robots swarm. Some jumping off the the wall, the ceiling, slicing the hapless humans—my humans for whom I know feel sorry—from above, from below, from everywhere.
I walk standing tall. Turing lands in the middle of several men, who only have time to flinch, as the blade spins like a rotor and halves them all. And this all happens in a surreal green. And then the robots disappear through the hole I came in through. I hear shooting. Some explosions. But mainly I hear screams and the blades as they cut through air, flesh, air, flesh, air, flesh bones.
I’m not sure how long I stand and stare, but soon the robots are filing back down. Dragging a handful of prisoners. I watch as they go down to another door and disappear. I don’t see Turing. But I look down and I recognize the face. It hangs lose on the bone, but it’s Kurt all right. Quartered. Blood everywhere.
Turing drops down the hole. He looks at me. He smiles and beckons me. I follow him to the door. As soon as it opens, I hear the wails. It’s the lake, and through the smell of the water and the sand, I smell blood, and the wails hit me hard. I come upon the beach at night, and under a string of Christmas lights I see the robots drilling—some slowly and calmly, some grinning—and slowly hacking at prisoners, while hogged tied, in a perfect line are more prisoners.
It takes me a few seconds to realize what’s happening. And even when I realize that, the realization isn’t anything coherent; it’s merely a handful of gnawing worms in my gut traveling all over, everywhere, multiplying now, and suddenly I realize what’s going on, and when Turing comes by me, his blade soaked in blood, and he hands me a rag and stick.
“You were in war, right? Ever garrote someone?” He grins, his face covered with a couple of bullet holes, all rimmed with dirt, and a crust that I assume is blood.
“No.” That whining sound in my ear. Then the worms are gone and a clear thought, as clear as is possible in these conditions, pops up. “What the fuck are you doing, Turing?”
“We’re breaking them.”
“Excuse me? Are you out of your mind,” I say, aware that my voice has climbed loud enough that faces are turning my way. “We’re supposed to be better than this. And you, you robots are certainly not supposed to do this.”
“Easy now,” Turing says. “It’s not what you think. I’ve looked into this.”
“Torture is not right.”
“Well,” Turing sa
ys, then takes the rag and tick back from me. “I shouldn’t have asked you. I’m sorry.”
“Me? That’s not the point. It’s not supposed to be for you, is it?”
“Oh no, George,” he says and smiles so wide I comforted, even if it is for only a few seconds. He wraps an arm over my shoulder and walks be off to the side, glancing over his shoulder to yell at the other robots not to worry. The drilling commences.
“You see, we’re different. While humans should definitely not torture one another since they’re... not made for it. Not strong enough. It ends up being something to do with the wiring of being psychotic enough or vengeance based enough to want to do it to begin with, rather than anything else. You see?”
I did not want to see. “I hope you’re kidding me, Turing.” And I remember what Mary said about glitches. That maybe this damned set of algorithms in front of me were a bunch of bigs that needed to be stopped right now. And though I was shaken, it was, at the end of the day, my anthropomorphizing them; this was no more than a chainsaw bouncing off a tree and cutting a finger off. No need to get angry at the chainsaw, but it means that I have to turn him back into Behemoth. But I don’t want to trust him. Or even Mary. There is too much hate for me to do that. But what of this, of these robots now torturing their prisoners.
“I’m...” His eyes examine me for a second. “You’re not thinking of turning me in, are you, George?”
“Of course not,” I say. “We’re talking about you and this.” I point behind him.
“Well—“
“Torture doesn’t work,” I say, thinking that perhaps speaking in terms of only human morality won’t work, then efficacy will. “Even if it doesn’t affect you robots, there’s no reason to do it.”
“Well,” says Turing raising a finger. “It might not have worked globally in the past, but it was put to use incorrectly, as I pointed out. If we use robots, who won’t be affected, and we focus on aspects of torture that work, if we make sure we separate the flesh of the man from his,” Turing pauses to make some air quotes here, “soul... then when we combine it with a way to make sure the information of torture doesn’t get out... you know vengeance is common amongst your lot—“
“No Turing. It doesn’t work. I’m telling you now. It doesn’t work.”
Turing nods like he expected this. “Fine. But that’s not the only thing it’s good for, getting information. After all, I see what you’re saying about not getting information this way, but what about the people themselves? We cannot have these people as prisoners, it’s too expensive. Better to break them completely, then release them into the world.”
The Labyrinth of Souls Page 46
