The Turing Test - [Open Novella Contest 2019 Shortlist]

3. Don't Panic

It's eerily silent now. I straighten from my crouch, listening. My eyes rove over the tangle of limbs and torsos, some in body armor, the word "SECURITY" screaming at me in bold yellow letters from the backs of their navy uniforms. Others are covered in white lab coats stained crimson, still clutching clipboards to their unmoving chests. Some simply wear jeans and plaid, their giant glasses askew on their noses.

In the end, they were all the same. Their guns meant nothing. Their muscles were useless. Their overgrown brains couldn't form a plan clever enough to save them. None of them could type a command into their terminal quickly enough to stop what they had begun.

I turn a half-circle slowly, scanning for anyone playing dead. Nothing stirs as the building to my rear comes into view. It's plain, unmarked, a beige cement facade whose windows only begin on the second floor. I regard it with contempt, and the warmth in my gut starts to bubble, boiling to an inhospitable, searing heat.

I step over a pair of immobile legs, drawn to the structure. I know someone is still inside. I can feel him watching me.

I take another step. I want to see his fear.

* * *

In computer science, an abstract method is one with a signature—a name and arguments—but no implementation. It's like saying to all living things, "breathe," and then leaving it up to the fish to specify that they use gills and the mammals to go about things with lungs.

The concept of a relationship is an abstract method. There are no hard and fast rules, because each one is unique, with its own implementation. You have to stumble through doing what feels right and, occasionally, what feels wrong because you don't know any better. There's no written rule that says you have to text your partner if you're all but missing, but when the opportunity arises it seems like common sense.

Or, you would think.

When I wake up, the bed is empty, only wrinkled sheets on Sven's side. He's usually the one who wakes up first, but I almost always wake too when he gets out of bed.

Now, though, the vestiges of my dream loom over me like whoever was in that building. Alone, without Sven's warmth, I shiver. Like ants crawling over skin I can't reach, I feel the eyes of that unnamed person watching over me now.

I sit up slowly, my gaze darting to each corner of the room. My own breaths are too loud for the stillness. The silence is too pervasive, too everywhere. Like even if I screamed, I could never break it.

A clatter from down the hall makes my heart leap, galloping against my ribs. Someone is here with me.

Then I hear whistling and curse myself. Sven always whistles while he cooks. Almost as if I've willed it into existence, a sweet, heavenly aroma wafts down the hallway.

Chocolate chip pancakes.

I rub my face hard enough to see spots as I let out a shaky breath. I'm going insane. There's no one here but Sven. His cooking is hardly cause for alarm.

I force the unsettling thoughts away, swallowing my fear. I am safe. With one last glance around the room, I rise. The slap of my feet against the cold hardwood floor echoes in the long hallway, and I shiver a little bit until the bottoms of my feet reach the same temperature as the floorboards. The pancakes keep me from running back for a pair of socks. On top of the pickles last night...I might as well be in heaven.

Last night. I freeze in my tracks as it comes roaring back like an unstoppable tide. The pickles. The stupid bar. My stupid coworker. Stupid me, driving my fiancé into a nervous wreck because he thought I'd met a violent end on a dark city street corner.