by Alex Miles
It is for philosophy to decide whether the criminality in her family was of genes or upbringing, but I believe it was ignorance that corrupted her morals. Her parents never allowed her essential exposure to the educators, instead relating their own human ideas. I had always felt her shame when she threw an asinine statement among my friends in debate, and I had to cut the silence.
Our educators had laid down the law to us, so we did not need to go down to see the workings of the machine because we had that knowledge. Everyone had always had that self-restraint and Junior’s guards had long ago been disbanded as they had never had to deflect anyone. All the useless entrances had been sealed, except the one for the sad day of Junior’s retirement. Then it had been forgotten, except by people like me, and she had played me well.
Experts had debated this machine their whole lives and still considered themselves undeserving to descend into its belly for investigation. Also, they had the Father Judge’s old diagrams and Junior’s diagnostics. It was of vital importance that no one was allowed into Junior’s structure, lest they corrupt the workings, so no one had gone down there for a century. Melanie alone had decided that she should have such an honour as to pass judgement on the machine, based solely on her need to prove a dead criminal’s innocence.
“If you discover this, I hope I am deceased. If I am living, I beg of you not to read on. But no matter the outcome, for now I live in misery.
Under the disused power plant I found the basement staircase and I descended the six-hundred stairs to visit Junior, the murderer.
When I came to the bottom of the stairwell I found a great, ornamental chamber. My oil-lamp barely dispelled the ancient dark, so that I could not tell the exact dimensions. The familiar heat was choking and a misty pollutant stole the air. I saw every decadent embellishment was covered with decades of filth. I passed dusty, symbolic murals and statues displaying mythical happenings. Some showed the time of legendary vertebrates and plants and others showed their replacements created through genetics: the sub-creatures. I almost turned back when I found bodies of the old guards, dressed in their extravagant uniforms, but I could not abandon poor Michael, as everybody else had.
There was a fetid stench; this and the poor oxygen seemed to amplify the heat’s draining power. The dry, grubby heat sucked the breath out of me. Debris and ruins lay everywhere. If the hall was in such disrepair I worried about the state of the machine itself. The darkness, loneliness, silence and stench began to tell on me. I saw tiny things scurrying away from my light and I could hear sounds of scratching within the walls.
If this was the entrance hall, I still had the sprawling dark labyrinth to trek through before I reached the inner workings. To make progress I had to hack the hinges off the great doors with a hammer, and when I walked through the over-elaborate doorway, I felt I was no longer walking on the solid floor, but on a sticky jelly. I reached up and touched the wall. Some gummy substance came off in my hand, a brown and violet paste, like a syrupy coating on a spider’s web. It caused a subtle burning sensation to my hand, as if it was being twisted, though I could see no injury beyond a rash. The whole place stank of the stuff: an alien chemical smell that penetrated everything.
The lantern candle flickered worryingly as I walked down that vile corridor, infested with the gunk and I had to be careful not to brush against the walls. The scurrying sounds and the movements in the dark became amplified. As the gunk on the floor got deeper and thicker, so my boots sank into it. It was only the rumble of the machine up ahead, breaking up the silence, which forced me to carry on. The final, giant, ooze-covered door took an hour to open.
The room beyond was so vast that, again, my tiny lantern could show me little. I was on a large stone balcony with metal walkways stretching off it into nothing. Either side of these walkways descended into a bottomless mesh of gigantic clockwork mechanisms. Looking up and around I saw the infinity of the machine stretching in every direction. There was a grating noise of broken engines and a malevolent buzzing. Everywhere I looked, the jelly dripped viscously.
I walked forward and shone my light down into the workings. Age and the dripping poison had destroyed everything. All around, the cogs had fallen and disconnected. Some cogs twitched spasmodically, unable to perform their original function due to a paralysing layer of slime. Few of the cogs seemed to work at all.
Below the noise of the aching machinery there was a scratching sound, louder than before. I felt an itchiness on my leg and I looked down to see that some two-dozen, tiny transparent insects had stealthily crawled onto me. I brushed them off in disgust and saw that thousands of their fellows were on the floor about me, crawling out of their nest. I staggered backwards, trampling on more of the creatures. All about me the tiny parasites seeped. Their emotionless focus was on the newcomer. I saw the nearest walls begin to move with their multitudes.
I ran from that broken place. My lantern teased that it might extinguish and leave me to perish in the death-black, boiling network of passages. In these halls the scratching of the insects drowned out the machine’s aching groans and I sensed how many surrounded me. When I looked down again I saw they had formed a thick layer around my boots.
Delusional and burning, I stumbled madly through that maze. I finally reached the ooze-free part of the hall and I was able to brush off the worst of the horrors.
I climbed the stairs in full darkness and only stopped when I felt safe enough to tear off my clothes and remove any substance or insect that still clung to me. I allowed myself the luxury of sinking to the stairs. In the dark of that echoing shell I screamed and screamed, out of fear of what He would do to me.
I returned home and fell onto my bed. I have no strength or courage left to fetch the evidence. I am too afraid to go to the authorities. I fear the idiot machine. I need to find some subtle way to alert the powers to this tragedy, but no action is truly anonymous. I don’t say anything to him, lest I give something away. I am miserable, and the person I would turn to for comfort has been eaten by that mad behemoth. I write this only in the half hope it will be found.”
I put the diary down. She was mad. I had long ago explained to her why damage to the machine was impossible. Melanie had clearly forgotten that the machine self-monitors. At the first invasion of a pollutant Parliament would be informed and they would have removed the failure. However, she can fail; we know this from experience. She is subject to emotion and she has admitted tampering with the machine. The embarrassment would be great when they have to ask Junior for an early diagnostic.
It was with great melancholy that I handed the diary over to the city guard. They were gracious for my help. I was glad my name was removed from all dealings of the sorry affair. I never saw Melanie again, but I move on quickly. Although I feel sadness for her, one cannot be responsible for other people’s failings.
DEEP STITCHES
Even as a medical visitor the prison wardens had treated me with disrespect. They had searched, questioned and delayed me repeatedly. Now they had asked me to wait for my patient in his own cell and much longer than the “five minutes” promised. Irritated by the authorities’ tardiness, I began to pace, but the pastime soon ended when it inflamed aches in my chest and ankles.
Looking over his cell gave temporary optimism at my relative fortune. The steel room was as tall and narrow as an industrial chimney. Near the ceiling the unsteady glow of a gas lamplight exposed the shame of his accommodation. The fittings jealously took up precious floor space; only a lean walkway remained for the occupant. He shared his cell with a mattress, a sustenance syringe protruding from the wall, a broken mirror, his vacuum lavatory and a hybrid desk–typewriter, for his admin as a defendant.
This patient was a former employee of mine and someone who I had reason to treat unkindly. Dr Juste Elm had destroyed many lives for his own immediate pleasures and mutilated my profession in its infancy. His fourteen misshapen victims are among the most tortured creatures to walk our city. Much of the blame f
or their suffering had fallen on my reputation.
I sat down at his desk and drummed my fingers as I considered my regrettable decisions. I was conscious that I came here to do that devil a genuine favour. This and other poor choices were soon to be amended and better capitalised on.
He wants a favour? In the time since my arrival my thoughts of goodwill had turned to plans of the sharpest retribution within my unique medical powers. A grieving mother or fresh amputee would look on him in pity. I wanted to speak to him, deliver, finish with him, and forget him, until his obituary.
He had turned up a week ago to ask this favour, a few months after the city prefects had apprehended him. The recent disgraces to hit the industry, his not being the least, had pressed our business to the brink of legal existence and initiated a state of panic buying.
On that day the authorities had chosen poor weather for the city. In the chilly climate the colourful smog had congealed creating a cool sauna. It was accompanied by a fleshy taste in the wind, confessing that tepid waste was blowing in from the pastoral factories.
On the journey to my surgery, I had the usual five-man escort, for the protesters. These campaigners are few but fanatical. Liberals and conservatives stood among my enemies. Comfort being more valued than causes, a total of three protesters were present today.
I entered the lift and asked for the top floor. In our business, image is everything. From our ascending lift window the city’s grey towers formed a valley that disappeared into marshy planes of smoke. Our neighbourhood was the most sought after real estate and was covered with statues and fake plants. Bridges criss-crossed the buildings, heavy with important pedestrians and vehicles.
On entering the lobby, the clicking of many typewriters told that the company’s administrators had already arrived. Mr Botts hurried up to greet me. “The morning appointment is waiting for you in the consultancy room.”
“It is acceptable for him to wait a little. His name again, please?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think he gave one.”
Mr Botts was training to be Juste’s replacement, but he was better suited around the typewriters. I keep him out of charity. If I were to squeeze him a little harder, maybe I would get a little more out of him.
Everything in the business must be clean; while this is not necessary, clients are vulnerable to association. Their treatment is expensive and the patients need to realise this. I would be happy to cut my overheads and pass on the saving, but they have voted in the only way that matters. The rooms were all made from the best fake wood and onyx, with embellishments orthodox to medicine.
I put on my traditional doctor’s uniform and ascended the stairs to the consultancy room. This large office was decorated in a classical fashion. The walls were hidden with simple soul diagrams, phrenological head sculptures, medical instruments from écraseurs to trephines, fake skeletons of long-extinct creatures, paintings of the great doctors and elderly academic books, all warmed by a grand fireplace. The floor was empty save for my central desk. There were two doors, one to the lobby and the other to the glass operating room. All was designed with an aura of establishment: we are a young science and do not want to be associated with quackery.
The first client was waiting for me; sitting inanimate as I walked over to be seated at my desk. He was a hatefully young male, maybe not yet twenty. He wore a suit woven from other people’s money. Skinny and timid, he sat with the hunch of one aspiring to be the beta male. He was the son of some faceless merchant and had refused to give me any details, either by telegram or recorded message. He kept his eyes on some invisible nothing on the floor.
“Now, I have your papers round here somewhere. Ah yes … I see … yes. I’m pleased to finally meet you, Mr Darl.” He had given a fake name, which was childish, in light of what he was asking me to do.
“Hello,” he said.
There was a pause. To seem more personal, I took off my glasses. “So you have some work for us, I hear?”
“It’s embarrassing – the job I want.”
“Everything is professional.”
The young man shuffled his feet under the chair then broke open his secret. “I want back my virginity. I did not lose it in a great way. It is my biggest regret.”
“I see.” He doubted me and I smiled to reassure him. “But of course. Shame is very unnecessary.” I leaned forward and he retracted back. “She is pretty, this new girl?” He gave a horrified look at my question. I asked because customers usually like a little familiarity. “You understand the process?”
“A little.”
“You are aware there are three stages? The surveying is to be done today.”
“Yes.” He lifted up his hand and waved a pamphlet. It was a rival’s, and it pleased me that they still came to me, as founder of the profession.
“I understand there has been no medication taken for the past five months?”
“No.”
“And no medical conditions?”
“None.”
“This is a radical step to take …” I gave him the usual medical spiel on how intrusive it was. I warned him of every possible danger, even reminding him of our past catastrophes. I wanted him to walk out if he was going to cause me trouble.
His body language shouted that he wanted it over with. I buzzed Mr Botts and the nurses to enter and dress the patient in a more clinical uniform. I donned my medical rubber gloves and guided him over to the surgical glass room.
I allowed Mr Botts to perform the safety-valve tests. He monitored blood pressure and the reflex arc. The results being acceptable, we could begin.
At the centre of the glass office was a black granite slab on which everything occurred. Around it were various metal drawers and scientific instruments that would seem impressive to a layman.
“Lay on the table, please.” He obeyed and the nurses pulled the seven immobilising straps across him. Although no pain was involved, the weak sometimes panic in their sleep and movement disturbs the process.
Two of my keys opened the largest sealed drawer of the laboratory. The tenants of this drawer are almost as expensive as the rest of the building combined. This is where the science is and it is not for display. An uneducated observer might see dynamic, grey sand within, but at closer scrutiny he would perceive millions of spiders crawling over each other. Both of these immediate impressions are incorrect.
The surveyors are closest compared to spiders, but with a dozen long thin legs and the absence of prosoma, abdomen and head. Each surveyor is the volume of a grain of salt; its legs are a few centimetres long and are so slender at their metatarsus that they are invisible. They are unable to reproduce organically and are therefore not classed as living organisms. I prepare them genetically.
I scooped up a few thousand of these valuable creatures with a specialist trowel. Returning to the table I poured them into the young boy’s ear. He let out a slight gasp as cold sensation tumbled in. With artificial instinct they rushed greedily into the ear cavity and the postopoid narcotic they carry brought sleep. This is the first stage of the process, of course, called surveying.
When I was satisfied the surveyors had all engaged in their duty, I dismissed the nurses.
“Would you like me to stay?” asked Mr Botts, in hope of mastering the profession.
“There is nothing needed. I think you are wanted more in the lobby. Leave some tea on my desk before you go, please.” The patient and he were of the same timid species.
I picked up the pamphlet which the client had left on one of the desks. It was made from thick, quality, cream card. On the cover it had embedded in golden italics, “Free Dreams Surgery”, which is a clinic with its own set of scandals. Under it was the silhouette of a head, another silhouette of an ancient white bird superimposed within.
I leant against the slab, holding the pap between my thumb and index finger. It was an advert rather than a medical document:
“Synapse Rewiring [Deep Stitches] is the cutting-edge t
echnology of self-improvement.”
I rolled my eyes and read on.
“You can modify a personality trait, edit an unwanted memory, fall in love with the person of your choice or give yourself a more colourful picture of reality.
“Surveying – When a customer comes to Free Dreams and asks to change a part of their memory or personality the first and most important thing is to work out how their mind functions now …”
The following prose did not describe anything of importance except the time surveying takes and the placement of synthetic organisms into the ear. It compensated for this with pictures of smiling, attractive clients.
This first stage, surveying, is to obtain a poetically named “soul diagram”, that is, a document framing the patient and their memories. Given a notebook the size of the city, I could draw everything about a human personality. What is produced in practice is more akin to an outline sketch, much like two-dimensional photos of a three-dimensional object, but these documents still fill vast tomes.
In the ear the surveyors wade through sticky wax until the end of the auditory canal is reached. They drill a minuscule channel, bypassing anything vital such as the eardrum, and head towards the brain. This channel is about a tenth of the natural surveyor’s diameter, but they are supple enough to squeeze through one by one.
Once inside the cranium the surveyors crawl and squeeze over the surface of the brain. Their legs pierce deep into the cerebrum. These legs harm nothing, due to the fineness and can extend to thirty-five times their original length. They then map all the important neurological connections. There is much that they do not map, body regulation for example, but they know what is important.
