Accept this and defy them.
The faces disappear as the Supervisor leads him through an iron gate into a drafty hall at the base of a soaring tower. Then a series of heavy doors brings them into a great round-walled hall with a ceiling high enough to be lost in shadow. Perhaps this entire tower is hollow.
Beatific technicians walk about the rows of intricate machinery, adjusting tubes of glass and electrode displays. A confusing network of wires and colored glass hangs like a stained-glass window above the contraptions, connected to the machines by coils of cable and rubber-bound cords. This room, the Surgeon realizes in an instant, is one giant machine.
“Welcome to Project Viande,” says the Supervisor, doffing his red hat and gloves. He babbles on and on about the technological skill of himself and his technicians, but the Surgeon understands little of it. His opticals roam the intricate arrays of levers, gears, switches, and transformers. The great machine is as intricate as any Beatific body.
“…and two days ago we came as close to success as we have ever been,” says the Supervisor.
“Two days ago?” asks the Surgeon.
Two days ago something killed my son.
The Supervisor motions to a great oval of glass nestled at the heart of the machine. “Through this multiversal lens we have discovered a world comprised entirely of living flesh,” says Guillaume. “An Organic dimension!” The Surgeon focuses his opticals on the man’s dull ceramic visage. “Our goal is to enable the successful transversal of this world-flesh into our own realm. So…we introduced a viral strain of this Organic matter into an area of the Rusted Zone.”
“The spazmal…”
The Supervisor shakes his head. “We call it the Organism. It seemed to thrive for the first few hours, growing at a pace we hardly expected. Then something happened, some side effect of the transversal process. The Organism began a rapid decay.”
Alain’s words rang hollow in the Surgeon’s skull.
Walls of living flesh…I had to stop…I had to touch it.
“We had no choice but to cordon off the affected area and place it under quarantine,” says the Supervisor.
“Why?” asks the Surgeon. His fist squeezes the steel scalpel in the pocket of his waistcoat. “Why bring this…Organism…into the Urbille at all?”
The Supervisor stands silent for a moment. He turns away from the Surgeon and surveys the technicians at their work. “The Potentates have…certain needs, Wail. I’m going to tell you one of the Urbille’s great secrets.”
“Go ahead…tell me.”
The Supervisor whispers. “The Potentates…are Organic beings.”
Like every other citizen, the Surgeon has seen the Potentates in person once a year during the Parade of Iniquities, when all seven ride through the streets on great mechanical steeds. He remembers their bulbous skulls, their black robes and thick veils, the golden chains decorating their vestments. Their limbs were inhumanly long, their oblong heads balanced on thin necks. Only their shadowy opticals are ever visible to the parade crowds. Sometimes they wave with incredibly long (gloved) fingers at the populace that fears and adores them. No one would ever guess their fleshly secret.
“What exactly are you saying?” asks the Surgeon, though he begins to suspect.
“Organic beings require sustenance,” says the Supervisor. “The Potentates are entirely carnivorous. They desire only meat of a certain grade.”
Neurons blaze inside the Surgeon’s fleshy brain. His opticals blink and his gears moan and creak as if his parts were suddenly aged and worn.
“This…Organism…this transversal…”
“Was an attempt…” says the Supervisor, “…is an attempt…to provide an endless alternative food supply for the Potentates.”
The Surgeon has no words. If he could vomit up the contents of his clockwork guts he would do so…but he hasn’t vomited since he was a child. A small boy, frail and covered in tender flesh.
“We are so close, Wail,” says the Supervisor. “So close to perfecting the process. This world-flesh is the key…finding it was the real breakthrough. We need to assemble a process for countering the rapid cellular degeneration that our reality creates. The next piece of the Organism we bring through will have a better chance of—”
“You said alternative,” says the Surgeon. “Alternative food supply.”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“What do they eat now?” asks the Surgeon. The Supervisor sighs. The Surgeon grabs him by the shoulders. A gendarme steps forward, but Guillaume waves him back.
“What do they eat?” asks the Surgeon in his rasping, weary voice.
“What do you think?” says the Supervisor.
The Surgeon remembers the Transporters, hauling brainless carcasses out of the Conversion Room. Three or four a day.
Again he sees the faces of living stone, hears their voices.
Where does the new flesh come from, Dr. Wail?
Where does the lost flesh go?
“All those bodies…”
“They come here, to the palace,” whispers the Supervisor. “For…processing.”
The Surgeon slumps, and the Supervisor helps him into a chair.
“Now do you see the value of our work?” asks the Supervisor. “How important it is? Have you ever wondered what causes the rabidities? Why these portals to distant worlds keep opening at random throughout the Urbille? They are side effects of this machine! It’s all about Project Viande.”
All our bodies…all our flesh and bones.
“I need you on this project, Wail. Your brilliance can help us find a solution.”
“What about the babies?” asks the Surgeon, remembering the white Angel. Alain’s tiny pink face. “Where do they all come from?”
“Harvested,” says the Supervisor. “From other realities. Places where life has nearly expired. Bringing them into this world is a gift. Their worlds are ruined and dying. We bring them into the Urbille and give them life…families…immortality.”
Where does the new flesh come from?
Where does the lost flesh go?
“Wail, don’t you understand?” demands Guillaume. “If we succeed, there will be no more need for Conversions! A new Organic Age will begin. All we have to do is find another way to feed the Potentates…”
The Surgeon pulls forth the scalpel and drives it into Guillaume’s left optical. Its steel tip enters the Supervisor’s brain and the blade lodges there.
Technicians run for cover as the gendarmes fire their rifles. Thunder echoes through the tower. A bullet grazes the Surgeon’s shoulder, tearing open his elastic skin. There is no pain. He leaps upon the nearest gendarme, turning him to take his comrade’s next bullet in the chest. The explosive shell scatters bronze and copper debris across the floor.
The Surgeon runs into the heart of the chamber, winding between banks of machinery.
“Don’t shoot! The machine!” someone yells, but the surviving gendarme ignores him. A console explodes as the Surgeon runs past it.
He flees through a random series of doors, losing himself in the dank corridors of the outer tower. He hides behind a ventilation grate as a squad of gendarmes march past.
Whispered voices lead him on. Eventually he finds his way outside, and in the light of the silver moon he creeps through the courtyard, passing the iron statues, and hides himself in the mud behind a green hedge. There is commotion within the tower, although the rest of the palace seems lost to silence and shadow. Somewhere within that ancient immensity, the Potentates are dining on the flesh of the city. He takes the rotted spazmal flesh from his pocket and casts it into a drainage ditch full of stagnant water.