Beneath Ceaseless Skies #206 Read online

  Issue #206 • Aug. 18, 2016

  “The Patchwork Procedure,” by Claude Lalumière

  “What Pada-Sara Means to the Elephant,” by Jeremy Sim

  For more stories and Audio Fiction Podcasts, visit

  http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/

  THE PATCHWORK PROCEDURE

  by Claude Lalumière

  1. Where I Am and How I Came to Be There

  Not even a sliver a light penetrates into my cell. For the past three weeks, since the mockery of what passed as my trial, I have been held at the Prison Commune de Québec by the government of La Nouvelle France Indépendante. Only those sentenced to death are jailed at the Prison Commune, a 200-year-old building in the capital’s historical Vieux-Québec district that is a dungeon in all but name; the conditions here are inhumane, even by NFI standards. There are six other state criminals being held here with me, each of us sequestered in his or her own dank cube of darkness. Do they all know, as I do, that no reprieve is ever granted those awaiting death at the Prison Commune de Québec?

  Only the Russian woman and the homosexual couple speak to me. Two of the other inmates are, the Russian tells me, spies from the Eternal Chinese Empire, whose domains in the New World encompass most of the territory inland from the Pacific Ocean. To the south, the limits of its territories are the Aztec provinces of California, Northern México, and Texas; while the Mississippi River, the Grands Lacs, and the St. Lawrence River provide a natural boundary between the Eternal Chinese Empire and La Nouvelle France Indépendante. Québec, the capital of the NFI and the only land held by the New French on the north bank of the St. Lawrence, is heavily fortified. Immediately to the north of the fortifications that accentuate the steep cliff dividing the elevated city from the lowlands is a Chinese garrison. NFI cannons are perpetually aimed at the Chinese installations, ready to fire at any sign of aggression.

  Although the Chinese agents probably speak French, and perhaps even English, they yell at each other, and sometimes at the Russian woman, in their inscrutable language only. The Russian, whose nation has been under the heel of China since the Sky Dragon airship fleet was first deployed in the sixteenth century, understands them but refuses to translate for the rest of us. The Russian, like the Chinese man and woman, was condemned as a spy, although she claims that she was merely trying to defect, that she had since childhood always admired French culture, always yearned to live the life of a Frenchwoman. Like many foreigners, she assumed that the NFI was the true heir to the dismantled colonial French Empire—after all, following La Révolution Utopienne of 1911, the NFI is where the Utopia of France banished its undesirables: its priests and aristocrats and Aryan supremacists. But no: the NFI suffered a quiet revolution in the 1959, when the ruling aristocrats voluntarily acquiesced to turning over the reins of power to the Union des Nouveaux Français, who put in place a fascist theocracy.

  The two male lovers are New French citizens who were caught trying to defect to the Commonwealth of New England, where such unions are not illegal. Isolated in separate cells, they spend most of their days in tears, apart yet so near, unable to console each other. They each have a double death sentence upon their heads: sexual perversion and treason.

  The final inmate—Arsenault Blanchard, formerly of the Islands of Metropolitan Montreal—never speaks. Every day, I try to draw him out, to learn the reason behind his betrayal, to learn if he is indeed the traitor I was told he is—but to no avail.

  Most days, once a day, we are fed flavourless gruel. Some days, once a day, we are, one by one, escorted to the toilet. In truth, the guards mostly neglect and ignore us, considering us dead already. The stench of piss and shit and despair is deeply etched into these walls. The best that can be said is that we are not actively abused.

  Executions are held the first of every month. The New French gather in larger numbers for this public spectacle, held in the plaza on the grounds outside the prison. During the hunt for my quarry, I attended one such event, which proved to be a lapse in judgment on my part.

  The NFI government does not employ executioners. The guards bring out the shackled prisoners one at a time—I use the plural because the court of the NFI every month produces a handful of condemned to assuage the bloodlust of its citizens. Once the prisoner is secured on the chopping block, a steam automaton is activated. Eerily humanlike in shape and size, the brass machine wields the axe that is welded to its metal hands and severs the head of the condemned.

  I had no interest in the barbaric proceedings—an execution should not be cause for public celebration, but carried out only when absolutely necessary with cold and regrettable efficiency—however, my prey was in the crowd. It had taken me six weeks to catch up to Blanchard, as I pursued him on the railways throughout the NFI: from the Grands Lacs down to Nouvelle-Orléans and then all the way north to Vermont—finally, he had settled on the capital. Was he confident that he had shaken any potential tail from the Islands of Metropolitan Montreal?

  If he was still at large, then most likely he had not made contact with NFI authorities and I had not failed in my task. At least, not yet.

  Suddenly, Blanchard was surrounded by a quartet of NFI soldiers. But how could I act now? In such a heavily guarded public space...

  Blanchard turned to look behind him, and his eyes locked with mine. But we did not even know each other... How could he identify me? I was so certain he had never detected me during this long chase.

  And in the blink of an eye I, too, was arrested by New French soldiers.

  Yes, my trial was a sham; but the accusations against me were not: a foreign agent operating within the borders of La Nouvelle France Indépendante.

  * * *

  2. Who I Am and the Context of My Assignment

  My name is Lambert Chandler, and I am the Chief Security Advisor for the President-Mayor of the Islands of Metropolitan Montreal, a fancy title that obfuscates my true role as an assassin in service to the great metropolis and its visionary leader. Historically, Montreal had long been contested territory passing hands back and forth between the colonial empires of France and Britain too often to keep track. A succession of politically savvy governors administered the city not for the good of either empire but for the prosperity of Montreal itself, all the while paying whatever taxes were demanded by the ever-temporary powers-that-be. The result of such careful caretaking is the most impressive and modern city of the New World—a multilingual and multicultural metropolis eyed with envy and greed by every nation yet belonging to none.

  In the aftermath of the Global War of 1881-1911, the colonial powers, save for the Eternal Chinese Empire and the United Emirates of Allah, saw their worldwide political structures crumble. In the New World that meant that both La Nouvelle France Indépendante and the Commonwealth of New England seceded from their former colonial rulers and divvied up the eastern portion of the continent.

  Amid this political turmoil emerged the neutral city-state of the Islands of Metropolitan Montreal, with the Chinese, the New French, the New English, and the Aztecs each having seats on the City Council. These four major powers are appeased by having select members of their ruling elite benefit, at great cost to them and great financial and political gain for the IMM, from limited access to a closely guarded medical secret: the Patchwork Procedure. Every patient is treated under the strictest privacy in the high-security underground wing of the Montreal General Hospital.

  Another source of income for the IMM is the Patchwork Procedure Lottery. Every month, IMM citizens are allowed to purchase as many lottery tickets as they want. The monthly winner becomes eligible to undergo the Patchwork Procedure. Although millions vie for the option of hav
ing access to the procedure few ever elect to do so. The lure of potential immortality is strong, but ultimately it rarely trumps the profound revulsion that overcomes most people when faced with the reality of having the body parts, limbs, or organs of the dead grafted onto themselves. The grotesque appearance of these medical chimeras accentuates this feeling of disgust. The flesh of patchworks takes on a tatterdemalion appearance, as if the grafted parts never truly meshed with the host body. Following the procedure, patients require constant medical supervision and access to a secret cocktail of medications. But they can extend their lives, theoretically forever.

  In exchange for universal health care, every citizen of the Islands of Metropolitan Montreal agrees to donate, after death, their corpse to the Montreal General Hospital, so that their parts may be harvested for the Patchwork Procedure or used for medical research and training.

  Jonathan Flagg, the last governor of the colony of Montreal before it consolidated with the surrounding archipelago into the independent Islands of Metropolitan Montreal, was appointed by the British in 1867. A skilled diplomat, he cultivated trade and cultural relations with the Chinese, the Aztecs, the French, the local indigenous populations, and even the geographically distant United Emirates and deftly parlayed Montreal’s postwar status. He became the first (and so far, more than a century later, the only) President-Mayor of the IMM. He is, of course, monstrous to look at by now. Is any part of him the original Jonathan Flagg? Composed of a hodgepodge of harvested body parts, President-Mayor Flagg remains alive thanks to the Patchwork Procedure, which was developed during the Global War by a Montreal physician of Deutsch background named Victor Thaler. Thaler himself is long dead; although he discovered the secret of medical immortality he himself notoriously disdained the prospect of eternal life. Flagg’s current state physician is a man named Morgan Stein. Or, rather, he was until six weeks ago, when his assistant, Arsenault Blanchard, murdered him and fled the island, presumably with the secret of the Patchwork Procedure.

  My assignment: to kill Arsenault Blanchard before he can betray the IMM’s most vital state secret. It appears that I have failed.

  Except... Blanchard and I were tried together, and he never attempted to bribe his way to freedom with his knowledge of the Patchwork Procedure. He remained silent during the entire proceedings (which lasted less than an hour). Was I mistaken about him and his guilt? Was I misinformed or misled by President-Mayor Flagg?

  Blanchard is an enigma.

  * * *

  3. How I Spend the Night before My Execution

  All seven of us condemned prisoners are stone silent tonight. Tomorrow at noon, we will one by one be marched out to be gawked at by the citizens of Québec and to get our heads chopped off by the automaton executioner to enthusiastic cheering and applause. Even the two doomed lovers have stopped sobbing. We are all, I suppose, making peace with ourselves. If any of the others are superstitious, perhaps they are making peace with the deity of their choice.

  So lost in thought am I—pondering the many unintentional wrongs I’ve committed toward my biological father, wondering if perhaps my behaviour was never as unintentional as I like to believe—that it takes me several minutes to fully grasp that there is a great commotion afoot: shouting, screaming, explosions, and other sounds of battle.

  Before long, a phosphorescent green mist seeps into my cell. Its effects are gradual but unmistakeable. I try to hold on to consciousness, but...

  * * *

  4. Abducted!

  The cabin is decorated with the gaudy regalia of the Eternal Chinese Empire. From my vantage point, I can see the sky through a porthole. I am aboard an airship, strapped to a bunk and wearing fresh clothes. If the Chinese stormed the Prison Commune de Québec, if they initiated a military operation within the capital city of La Nouvelle France Indépendante, if they deployed one of their Sky Dragons past the fortifications that symbolize the uneasy truce that has held for more than a century now in the New World, then war has de facto been declared.

  I fear that such an aggression will not only draw into conflict all the powers sharing this continent but once again all the major nations of the world. With the Patchwork Procedure potentially no longer a Montreal state secret, what leverage will the IMM have to remain isolated from the hostilities?

  As I ponder these questions, a muscular Chinese woman I estimate to be in her mid-forties enters my cabin. “I am sorry for this inconvenience, Mr. Chandler. May I now remove these restraints so that we can converse as civilized people?”

  I have no idea what is going on or what the Eternal Chinese Empire wants from me, but at this point, trapped within a hostile foreign airship, there is no better strategy for me than to behave with utmost diplomacy. “Thank you. I would be most honoured to enjoy such a conversation.”

  My captor unfastens the restraints and then introduces herself: “My name is Ying Berresford.”

  I am startled by the English surname; yes, there are many Asians living in England and thousands of Anglo-Chinese families spread across the globe, but no-one in a position of sufficient trust within the ECE as to be posted on a Sky Dragon would retain a European name.

  I stretch to rid my body of numbness, and we settle on two facing armchairs within what I now take in is a surprisingly spacious and luxurious berth.

  She continues, “Mr. Chandler, contrary to what the appearance of this ship may suggest, you are not aboard a vessel of the Chinese fleet.”

  “This is not a Sky Dragon?”

  “Oh yes, it is. We acquired the schematics centuries ago, and we possess several such ships. In fact, we have airships in the image of each of the world powers’ fleets.”

  “We...? Who are you?”

  “We are a group interested in the course of history, interested in people who can help us shape history. And we believe that you are such a person, Mr. Chandler. We believe that your talents are wasted being utilized for such narrow stakes as the interests of one city-state when they could be deployed on the world stage.”

  Appealing to my vanity is certainly a serviceable way to get my attention. Unimaginative and transparent. Unlikely to be honest or truthful. But it indicates that I hold something of value to whomever this Ying Berresford represents.

  I say, “I’m listening.”

  She claps her hands and a white servant walks in with a rolling tray and then rapidly leaves without a word or glance to either of us.

  Berresford says, “Please, eat and drink. And then we shall talk.”

  The sight and smell of the cucumber sandwiches, rice crackers, dried figs, stuffed olives, tapioca pudding, chai tea, and water make me realize that I am indeed very hungry and thirsty.

  She allows me to eat in awkward silence, her gaze pointedly avoiding mine.

  * * *

  5. Ying Berresford Speaks

  [As I sip the last of my tea, Ying Berresford turns to me and says:]

  I will anticipate your questions and endeavour to satisfy your curiosity in all matters.

  First, the Russian woman is—or, rather, was—a statistician of great importance for the Eternal Chinese Empire; her profound knowledge of the inner workings of the ECE, coupled with her keen skills at analysing and forecasting societal trends, make her a powerful asset. We are immensely pleased to have her with us, but that is not the principal reason why we initiated the prison break. The Chinese duo are agents of the ECE on her trail. We will attempt to turn all three of them, but that might prove impossible in the case of the Chinese agents; the Russian should pose no problem, given her disappointments with both the Eternal Empire and the NFI. For now, the Chinese agents believe themselves to be aboard one of their own Sky Dragons. The civilian couple has already been recruited; they needed a haven, which we can easily supply in return for loyal service.

  Our ultimate goal in storming the Prison Commune was to provoke the Second Global War. As a direct result of our incursion, La Nouvelle France Indépendante has already declared war on the Eternal Chinese
Empire. Within the next month, the whole world will be drawn into the conflict.

  China has neither denied nor admitted culpability in the prison break. In truth, it was already marshalling its forces. War was inevitable and imminent. But it is not in our interest to have the ECE, or any nation, dictate either the terms of engagement or the timetable of the Second Global War.

  We remained on the sidelines of the previous conflict, but the stakes are too high to once again trust in the whims of fate. We will manipulate this conflict so as to redraw the map of global power and influence in an effort to maintain lasting peace. So that the whole may benefit from a new golden age, free at last from the threat of looming war or political and economic instability.

  Our organization—the Invisible Fingers—was founded by a coalition of financiers, industrialists, merchants, politicians, and thinkers with a bold vision for the world. An entire planet secretly governed by a benevolent oligarchy. To placate regional and nationalistic interests, we need to keep alive the fiction of disparate nations, states, and empires, but behind closed doors there will be no adversaries, no conflicting interests. Only a cadre of rulers and managers working in unison to bring about a worldwide capitalist utopia. The time is ripe: in every nation, we have positioned agents within the ruling elites. War will create the chaos necessary for the Invisible Fingers to take over all of the world’s governments.

  We imagine that, as an agent of the Islands of Metropolitan Montreal, you desire the IMM to remain as isolated from the conflict as possible? And then remain independent in the new world order to follow? Yes? We thought so.

  In that case our goals are the same—or at least similar.

  In the new world order that will emerge after the Second Global War, we see Montreal as the seat of a new front for the Invisible Fingers, a place for us to hide in plain sight: the League of the United Nations. The IMM will thus remain aloof from the rest of the world and also be the new global metropolis, the ultimate neutral territory, where, under the guise of diplomacy, the Invisible Fingers will henceforth direct the course of history.