The Complete Bronze and Glass

It has been a longstanding issue with the blog's navigation that it displays posts from most recent to least. This is perfectly fine on the main page, where most usage is concerned with seeing what's been posted last; but when trying to read through a series, especially one with more than a handful of entries, it becomes extremely bothersome.

This is an attempt to counteract that, with bonuses. A "Table of Contents" for the series, with commentary in white after each post. (To avoid 'spoilers'.) They're intended to be read after you've finished the entire series, and may not make sense otherwise. (Well, all right. They may not make sense, period. But that's the risk you take reading anything that I write.)

Part 1. The gears spin to life.Huh, it's been a while, hasn't it! Thinking back.

The most obvious thing, looking at this post, is that it's in a completely different style. Honestly, not sure why that happened; the transition shows up around part 4. (I'll comment more on it then.) Kind-of wish I'd kept this style throughout - it's much more lighthearted, which strikes me as superior, in general, to TERRIBLE SERIOUSNESS - but given the wordcount in parts 1-3 compared to that of 4-epilogue, I think I know which I'll rewrite if I ever try to sort this thing into a more coherent, unified form. Pity.

Another brief note - when I began writing this series, I had intended to write it in a single post. (I had the general structure of the story known from before I ever started writing, less a few of the specifics; notably, the ending.) The rapid-fire sequence of the first three posts came from my attempt to just finish the silly thing; by the end of post three, it had become somewhat clear that the story was rather too large for that. Still, funny thought.

Interesting things about the post itself, then. Two things. First - it is perhaps notable that Two never actually met Four before its departure. Perhaps not. Second - notice the "Omni-Chassis", mentioned here? Notice how it sticks out like a sore thumb? Notice how it never actually showed up in the story itself?

Oops.

Yeah, the "Omni-Chassis" is what later became the "working frame". (That bit of terminology itself coined because I was really sick of using the plural of "Chassis" - "Chassis.") Call it a blooper, and let's move on.

Part 2. The matter of identity. Funny - I'd entirely forgotten the Council segment of this post until I re-read it just now. This is exactly why we need name-tags on our posts!

Hm.

Perhaps not.

Yeah, the most interesting thing here is our friend Forty-Three. Look at him. So ready, so eager to drop everything and serve at a moment's notice! So shy and reserved! Truly he is the best of friends.

Aside from him, I should probably clarify the matter of the paint. "How, exactly, if they've never had paint, do they know the word for it?" you ask. Oh - now you're getting into vocabulary in sci-fi/fantasy, my friend! A poor move. There's two good explanations. The first - they don't actually have a word for paint, but instead created one on the spot from roots - like, say, 'blueglass', which is not a word, but is perfectly comprehensible. It's a decent explanation, but rather avoids the real question: "How do they have language at all? They've only existed for a day!" The correct answer is that they came with a pre-programmed vocabulary, presumably based on the language of the Creator. (Thus their ability to speak to him.) And that vocabulary includes a word for paint.

Problem: solved.

One last brief note - spot the "etchings into our very metal" comparison? (Five's first line in this scene.) Remember where that shows up again? I'll mention it again then, in case you don't.

Part 3. Our hero takes charge. Ah, all kinds of things first show up here. The geography is established - I drew a map at one point, which I may end up re-creating for this. (I wrote all over the original.) The issue of Two's crash is solved - nightfall! (It's actually something somewhat stranger than that, but I'll explain more in the commentary for a later post, where the distinction becomes clearer.) The limit on mechanism-reproduction is set (though, in fact, the number of mechanism caps out at around two-hundred and fifty - the census wasn't that accurate, and a handful of backups were built after the cap was set, granted for especially valourous conduct.) And, of course, the Three subplot is set up.

A brief note on the Council - yes, most of its members never really do anything within the story. That's because they're pretty much Four's minions; not much for independent action. (Though one of them, Twelve, gets a very brief (non-speaking!) role here.) A list of Council members, from the moment we first see the Council onwards:
Two: Eldest and wisest of the council-mechanisms. Oversight role.
Four: Most... vehement of council-mechanisms. Basic research.
Five: Somewhat indecisive. Mechanism-at-large.
Seven: Very formal. Oversees Council etiquette, intermittently.
Eight: Something of a geek. Chief engineer, which is a pretty important post, for a mechanism.
Nine: "A nobody", in Eleven's words. Maintainance. Mostly toadies to Four.
Ten: Also a bit of a nobody. Briefly oversaw surveying, before Forty-Three took over; later ended up in charge of the military operations, before its destruction in the Great Defeat. Kinda got a rough deal. Total toady to Four.
Eleven: Really, really bitter. (By the time we meet it, anyway.) It's not clear what it did while it was on the Council, but it's so ticked off at the hypocrisy it sees there that it ends up creating the Unbounded. (Oops.) Appears especially annoyed at Four.
Twelve: The last of Four's toadies. It's never mentioned, but its role in the Council is oversight of resource extraction. (Woodcutting, ore-mining, and that's about it.)
Forty-Three: Appointed to the Council by special merit; close companion to Two. Handles odd-jobs initially, graduates to complete control of all ornithopter operations. (All that it's allowed to know about, anyway.)

Six and One aren't on the Council because it formed after they buried themselves; Three's not on it because he left first. And that's pretty much all there is to say about the Council, except to note its self-appointed, entirely undemocratic nature. (They seemed to get away with it.)

Other noteworthy things about this post:
- The picture. It really is adorable! (And yes, if it wasn't clear, I drew it. I am not an artist.)
- The comment - the first and only of these posts that the inimitable Mr. Zhang has read. His instinctive grasp of the material is obvious.
Part 4. A lot of walking, a lot of talking, zero action. And here we have the style transition. Things get more serious, slower-moving, and much longer. (So very much longer.) Aside from that...

- Three tends to be a bit more taciturn than the others. This is a characterisation that I tried to apply throughout his scenes, with limited success. (Here, for instance, he has quite a nice little monologue.)
- I'm quite fond of their travelling-chassis. (Which, if I ever had to, I would probably end up pluralizing as "travelling-frames", just so I could avoid that dang unpluralizable "chassis.) It's kind-of got a character to it, you know? It's with them for almost their entire journey! (With the exception of the last leg to the Creator.) Man, I miss that thing.
- Yeah, Learned Hand. Like his brothers, he has a namesake. I heard it once and immediately knew it had to feature. Sadly, he's not nearly as cool as the man he's named after. Alas.
Also - it's not really clear in the text, I think - Learned Hand is a six-foot tall Mayan-esque statue. (Obviously, I couldn't describe him with that term in the narrative!) The mechanisms are "less than an inch in any dimension". He's a bit bigger than them.

Part 5. A follow-up to the cliffhanger at the end of Part 4, and exploration of dimly-lit areas. As with Part 4, a lot of walking, a lot of talking; this really was a slow section of the series. (Though things heated up afterwards.) I had a great deal of trouble writing this post - not full-fledged writer's block, but something close - and I think it shows. It's... slow.

Things heated up shortly thereafter, though.

Notes on the post:

- I'm pretty sure that my description of Learned Hand is the most description I gave to anything, with the possible exception of the Cities, much later. Everything else - the mechanisms, the ornithopters, the chassis/frames, and of course the Creator - was left pretty much to the reader's imagination. I am well aware that this is a traditional feature of the written word, to some degree, but in a series with such peculiar creatures and concepts, it may have been something of a weakness... if anyone ever reads this (unlikely!) and feels inclined to weigh in one way or another, shoot me an e-mail. nick (dot) feinberg (shift-2) gmail (dot) com, as ever.

Actually, just do that if you have anything to say about this series, or any of the rest. Feedback is the fuel of the writer, as they say.

- My characterization on the map scene was... hm. Makes the Hands seem rather a bit dimmer than they are.

- Ten thousand days isn't actually a very long time.

- Three never did end up seeing Two again. Aww.

This was the last part of the story I wrote before completing my outline. While I was writing the preceding ones, I had a general idea of the story, but wasn't entirely sure about the ending and the ordering of events. The outline helped a great deal to structure events and keep things moving at a decent pace; none of the other parts were nearly as slow as these last two, I think.

Outlines: a useful tool for long-form writing? Who would have thought?

Part 6. Back home, differences of opinon escalate. Four is really less than helpful, at times.

And by 'at times', I mean 'pretty much all of the time.'

Notes:

- Was happy that I managed to work a mention of the Purge in. There's a number of things that are true ('true') of the mechanisms and their world that I never ended up writing into the story. (This is because the background serves the story, not vice versa - if I put every detal of history and culture that I can think of into the posts, they would not only be three times longer, but much less interesting.) For an example, there was a long explanation of the mechanisms' calendars, and some details about their practices for actually using their 'backups'... didn't go in. But the Purge did, as a quick mention, so I was happy that it worked out.

- Seven actually shows some character here! Shocking. Thankfully, it never happens again, and he remains completely flat for the rest of the series.

- Odd that Nine doesn't toe the party line and ends up voting against Four - rather uncharacteristic, given his unquestioning support throughout the rest of the series. My suspicion is that he's a bit of an opportunist - sides with Two while he remains dominant in the mechanism-politics, switches sides later...

It's not clear in the text, though.

Part 7. Negotiations go poorly; surprises are sprung. And a quick pop-over to Learned Hand & co, trudging through the sands.

Notes!

- I transition from 'chassis' to 'work-frames' here. Bit of an agonized shift. Really wish I'd come up with a better term. Ah - I should've invented one! Like "gearsteeds!"

If I ever get this published, that'll be one of the things I change. Beyond a doubt.

- Man, Eleven gets some really good jibes in.

- The question Twenty asks Learned Hand is less major, in the final Bronze and Glass, than it eventually was - the ending shifted a bit during production. But it might be fair to argue that it's the central question driving the plot - the Unbounded, after all, are the obvious answer. (Their purpose is not to serve Creation, but to, simply, reproduce - sounds a bit like a criticism of secular humanism, doesn't it, if you look at it that way? Believe me, it's not intended.)

- I really regret the curse words. I mean, there's some impact, but... in retrospect, it was a poor choice. My apologies.

Part 8. Conversation with an everyman, griping, and a long-belated revelation. I think the structure for this post, and the last one, worked really well. It's the first time I've done this, in a story - the switching back between alternate plot locations. (I think.) Learning experience!

- Re-reading it, I have a strong feeling that the ornithopter landing sequence was (unconsciously) inspired by something from Star Wars. Like, Luke landing his X-Wing, or something of the sort. It has that feel.

- One-Twenty-Six retracts it, but he's totally right - Forty-Three is a bit of a manipulator, when it suits him.

- Lots of details about the mechanisms' use of fire for night ops. Don't recall if I ever explained it in the story proper, but the basic idea is that they actually operate on something rather like an ideal heat engine - take heat from one source, spit it into a colder location, do work with the difference. Their poor operation in the desert (mentioned in the last part) is because there, everything is hot - they can't dump heat from the air into the sand very well, because there's not much difference between them. They completely shut down at night, when the air gets colder than the ground...

It probably falls apart if you look at it too closely, but that's the basic idea.

Hey, look, I'm totally ignoring what I wrote a bit ago! Go me!

- One-Twenty-Six and its backups show up a few times more. I'll try to remember to mention when they do.

- The reason Forty-Three sets up a meeting with One-Twenty-Six is to arrange the special survey flights, the ones that Two complains about later. For its own reasons, it wants to keep things private.

- In Three's interlude - the basic idea is that these sites, the ones they visit before they find the Creator, are previous settlements of the Creator's creations - sentient machines, not dissimilar to the mechanisms. They ended up destroying themselves well before Three arrived, in what you might call "foreshadowing".

If you were into that kind of thing, I guess.

- Pity that palisade repair didn't really do anyone much good.

- The dam is first introduced here - I'd wanted to put it in earlier, but it got crowded out. (Ditto with the Cities). My worry was that the dam would be seen as introduced at the last moment, abruptly - this didn't really happen, luckily.

The Cities, on the other hand...

Well. Moving on.

Part 9. It was a dark and rainy night. Well, all right, it was day... still. You understand.

- I'm not actually sure that the mechanisms can squint.

- Tens of thousands of days seems like a lot - and for the mechanisms, which have existed for just eighty, it is! But it's actually - assuming their orbital period is roughly three-sixty-five days, and/or that they're on Earth - just over twenty-seven years. Not exactly millenia.

- There's a lot of weird things going on with the mechanism religion. It's basically a weird variant of the watchmaker argument, applied to the self. It does seem to be at least partially vindicated at the end - they do find their Creator. But I'm not really certain that they were created backwards in time.

You could go either way on that one, I guess.

- Aww. Poor Twenty! If this was a television show, it'd be the most adorable, energetic one. The one you make everyone love! You make toys of it!

I guess you probably wouldn't be able to kill it off, then.

Just another reason this will never be on TV.

- If only Learned Hand could hover a few inches higher in the air, it wouldn't have these problems!

- Thirteen is babbling a bit at the end, if it isn't clear. It's very excited.

- Also, this is the reason that Three and Thirteen aren't valid subjects for Creation, after everyone else is destroyed in the aftermath of the battle and flood. Just in case you were looking for 'plot holes'.

(You devil, you. Go pick on a series that actually has professional editors and stuff! I'm too easy a target to be subjected to such cruelties.)

Anyway, we move back to the Origin and the main cast after this. Won't see the others again until the Epilogue. (Which was originally going to be a separate post, which I'd delay for several hours or a day, just to really bum out / mess with my readers. Reader. Mr. Rebert.)

(Yeah, didn't end up doing that.)

Part 10. A walk and talk, and some more talking on the side.

The mechanism are really bad at that whole 'ecology' and 'preserving nature' thing. To be fair, they've only been around for a few months. Haven't exactly gotten a chance to build a long-term understanding of things...

Plus, it's not like we did any better.

- One-Twenty-Six reappears.

- Ooo! Four gets 'owned', as the kids say! Go, heckler, go! (I'd forgotten that bit.)

- Interesting to contrast the mechanisms' values to our own. The Unbounded are, if anything, much more human than the Originals. They value their own existences; they reproduce freely... oh! And they aren't big fans of torture. The Originals, naturally, have only contempt for them as a result.

Except, possibly, for Two. Two seems to have compassion - it wants to cure the Unbounded, bring them back into the fold.

Well-intended, but even if Two had been listened to - instead of the mechanisms following Four's leadership instead - I'm not sure the Unbounded would have taken it well.

- In context of the 'heat engine' thing, earlier, the Cities are mostly about concentrating heat in the air (by means of the light and so forth), keeping a temperature gradient running... not certain it makes all that much sense, really.

- A cliffhanger! I wonder what will happen next?

Part 11. Beginning of the end. But not the end of the beginning. That was Part 3, probably. Or maybe Part 1. Depends on how you think about it.

...yeah, anyway. Moving on.

- Ooo, time-lapse format! Watch the mood change as time passes! Watch: it gets darker.

And so does the time of day!

So clever

(^period intentionally omitted)

- Never gave a really in-depth description of ornithopter dogfighting. If I ever revisit the series, I may rectify that.

- Ten is writing Four's battle plans, if that's not clear. It's a bit of an armchair general. Things don't end well for it, sadly.

- Power shifts to Four here - it's been going in that direction ever since the vote to abduct Eleven, but this is the final push. Makes a big difference for the mechanisms' strategy. From 'try to avoid killing fellow mechanisms, when possible' to 'KILL THEM ALL, LET THE CREATOR SORT IT OUT'.

Also, Four does some shouting.

- The 'sharpened wing-edges' are for dogfighting.

- One-Twenty-Six appears again! ...for the final time. It's their first loss, but it won't be their last.

- The spring guns don't make that enormous an appearance in the final battle. Mostly, they're used as small arms for the crew. Sorry! I thought they'd be more useful than they were. (So did Eight!)

The firebombs really stole the show!

- Also: obviously, the presentation is unrealistic. Everyone who has ever done a presentation involving any type of technology knows that if there is any "reliability defect" present, it will always make itself known during the presentation. That's how you know this story is fantasy.

- I read a lot of military fiction, so I had fun writing the description of the battle. Seemed plausible to me. Sometimes things go like that.

- The bit about the funerals, like the mention of the Purge, was another background thing that worked its way into the story.

- Forty-Three totally isn't hiding anything.

Part 12. Finale. Everyone dies.

This is the bit where I get pretentious. (It's about the whole series, not Part 12 specifically.)

"So," you might ask, were you in a literature class examining Bronze and Glass. (God help you!) "What's the point of this story? What's the meaning the author's trying to convey?"

Authorial intent, generally, is irrelevant to literary criticism, so I can't just tell you "it's about pies" and settle the matter then and there. (It's not actually about pies.) But I can give you a few thoughts, my hypothetical friend. Those are: It's probably not about faith - at least, not in a simple way. Everything every character does is influenced by faith - "rational faith", as one character terms it, or otherwise - with the exception of the Unbounded. So the story is that of the villanous atheists rebelling against the virtuous faithful, eventually destroying the latter because of their own leniency towards the ungodly? Perhaps - but Four and its cabal is portrayed the least sympathetically of all, even more than the Unbounded - at least, the way I tried to write them, in any case. (Note the encounter between Four and the Unbounded leader.) It's probably not some nihilistic creed, arguing that everything the characters back at Origin did was pointless - after all, they all died, their grand constructions were ruined, but One still got Created, right? (Or they did all that, and One still wasn't created.) But remember - if Two hadn't destroyed the dam - and if all the other mechanisms hadn't fought hard enough and well enough to buy it the time to do that - then there would have been a horde of very unfriendly Unbounded waiting for the Creator's party on their return. That would have been a rather less pleasant ending, I think.


So - why "Cities of Bronze and Glass?" Were they really all that major to the plot?

No. But the first thing I envisioned - the very core of the story - is the vision of the grand domes rising out of the forest, shimmering bronze.

The second thing was their destruction



(This post itself took over two months, on and off, to compile. It weighs in at around 3700 words - about 17% of the length of the series proper.)

(Something about this series...)

Cities of Bronze and Glass (12/12)

(Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11.)

The sky glowed red. Ornithopters flitted through the sky as they had for hours; tiny spheres dropped from their bodies, blossoming into great flowers of flame upon impact with the earth. They had, at first, aimed for the torches of the Unbounded sentries; but now the forest was covered in fire for a wide area, and the ornithopter-pilots dropped their incendiary-bombs carelessly, showering the earth with red-glowing death.

"How many of them do you think this will destroy?" Four asked, standing atop a tall war-chassis. Not far away, a half-dozen mechanisms laboured on another chassis, quickly servicing and rearming ornithopters as they came in from the night-darkened air. Their pile of munitions dwindled steadily; no mechanisms remained at the forges to manufacture replenishments.

"Hundreds will be destroyed," Nine opined, confidence filling its voice. The other mechanisms crewing Four's war-chassis peered upwards as Nine spoke. "They will melt, they will burn, they will be undone; their shoddy gears will crack, their ill-forged sides will tear asunder. They will scatter and flee into the darkness, undone by a greater force!"

In the distance, a pair of incendiaries dropped nearly simultaneously. The abstract, curling shape formed by their detonation might seem, to an observer devoid of context, very nearly beautiful.

"How many of them do you think this will destroy?" Two asked, standing on a war-chassis near the river."

"Not enough," Forty-Three replied.

-

As the sky began to lighten, Four assembled the defenders. (Excepting the ornithopter-pilots and their support crew, who still worked tirelessly to wreak devastation upon the Unbounded.) Four's war-chassis stood squarely atop the center of the settlement: the Origin, where One first awakened to consciouness, and where it now rested buried, protected in a shell of bronze. That was what the mechanisms - the Originals - were fighting to protect.

"This is what you are fighting to protect!" Four cried, its voice filled with energy. "We go into battle this day, my many descendants. All of you source from me. Five - who helps to lead us. Six - secluded, like One, beneath the earth. All of you - you are all my backups! And we are all - every one of us, even me! - backups of One. We have one purpose upon this earth. Our duty is to protect One - to ensure the Creation! This is what we must keep forever foremost in our minds."

"The battle we fight today may not be one we expected," Four continued, looking around. "It may not be what we desired - and there are those among you who cry, 'Are the Unbounded not mechanisms, as we are - backups of One? How may we raise manipulating-arm against them, how may we crush them with chassis-leg or shoot them with spring-gun, when they are as brothers to us?' I know because I have heard this - with my own receptors, I have heard these words! But we cannot afford to think this - and we should not. For they are wrong."

"The Unbounded are no brothers to us! They forsook that the moment they broke with us, to live across the river. Because that was the moment they forsook our ways, began to replicate without bound - not an evil in itself, but for what it represented. Their goals are not ours, my backups, my kin! They do not seek the Creation - no longer. They seek only their own survival and replication. They fear death!"

"They have broken with us. Their existence is a blight upon the Creation. And that is why we must destroy them - for the good of everything that we believe in."

"Today, we fight."

"Today, we will be triumphant!"

A cheer rose from the Originals; then, dismissed, they began to march back to their posts along the perimeter.

And if Two, and perhaps Forty-Three at its side, seemed unimpressed by Four's theatrics, no comment was made of it.

-

The sun crested the horizon. Mechanisms began to appear along the perimeter of the wood, separated from the Origin by a long stretch of open ground and a deep trench ringing the interior. (The palisade had been leveled and burned for fuel; useful against animal incursions it might have been, but to the Unbounded, capable at climbing as all mechanisms were, it would have proved no obstacle.) Several war-chassis crews took potshots at the distant Unbounded with their spring-guns over the clear expanse; this was largely ineffective. The ornithopters ceased their endless flights, now kept in reserve.

Then, as with one mind, the Unbounded charged. Their metal cases had been tarnished by hard use, begrimed by long travel, and now covered in soot from the endless fires. Some seemed to have been scorched by fire; a few were missing limbs. But whatever damage had been done to them by the night attacks was not enough to prevent them from carpeting the ground like ants.

The war-chassis crews continued to take their potshots; the ornithopters began to lazily spiral upwards into the air, but seemed disinclined to any movement towards the foe.

The frontmost of the Unbounded surged into the trench; through it; out into the other side. Only scant feet separated them from the Original war-frames.

The ornithopters drifted towards the perimeter.

Then the war-frames each, with one smooth motion, retrieved and hurled a sparking package towards the ditch. A few missed, but most struck the intended target; and, in the end, just one would have been enough. A wall of flame, ten feet tall, leapt from the incendiaries stacked within the ditch, melting hundreds of Unbounded at a stroke. The foremost of the Unbounded were now trapped between the fires and the Original war-frames, who advanced to eliminate them; and the rearmore Unbounded, reeling back from the unexpected inferno, were sitting ducks for the ornithopters that swept down on them. A high, terrible keening rose up; the Unbounded caught only by the edges of the flame, left to slowly tick down as their deformed gears uncaught and ground to a halt.

"The fire will be your ruin!" Four taunted from its war-chassis, watching the fire with a hungry eye. "Destruction to the Unbounded! Victory to the Creation!"

But then came a warning cry from above, as some keen-eyed ornithopter pilot looked exactly the other way as everyone else: "'ware the river!"

From both sides of the dam, upstream and -down, the Unbounded appeared, paddling crude wooden rafts towards the Original shore. The vast bulk of the Original force was on the other side of the Origin from them; and their number was, if anything, even greater than the force which had attacked over land.

Reacting quickly, Four ordered the defenders to the river-bank. A few were already there; one Original war-chassis was already engaged in close combat, holding the end of the dam against a wave of foes. But they were far outnumbered.

And, too, more surprises lurked in the air. As the Original ornithopters hurried to rearm and launch against the Unbounded rivercraft, a handful of ragged Unbounded ornithopters appeared from the forest, striking to disrupt the Originals. They were in every way outmatched: in numbers, in equipment, in skill. But at a crucial moment, they cost the Originals precious time; most of the Unbounded rafts landed safely.

The fighting was fierce; brutal. The Unbounded swarmed around the feet of the Original war-frames, struggling to climb, to scratch, to do whatever tiny damage they could before they were extinguished. The Originals fought without mercy, crushing and smashing and annihilating their foes. A chant arose among their ranks: a dark chant, a bitter chant, a chant of death. In this way they fought; but for all they destroyed, the numbers of the Unbounded were yet greater. And, away from the river, the fires died down, and the Unbounded came pouring through the gaps.

Four saw this, and grew cold; but still resolution remained within it. "Retreat!" it cried, though no retreat remained; "Back to the Origin, and there we shall make our stand! We can yet gain victory! We can yet prevail!"

And the Original war-frames turned, lurchingly, their lower parts swarming with Unbounded; and made to retreat towards the Origin. But three did not; that war-chassis commanded by Two-Seventy-Five, and that commanded by Eighty-Three, and that one, directly between them, whose commander termed itself Two.

"Why do you stand there, unmoving, while the enemy surrounds you and assaults you?" Four asked. Shouting, he called out to the receding war-frames: "Come, follow! Do not let yourself be lost! We are to be products of the Creation; victory will yet be ours!"

But then gears turned, clockwork spun, and the renegade war-frames began to move; not toward the Origin, not towards their comrades, but away.

"They flee!" Nine, at Four's side, cried out; and Four's expression grew dark. "They desert our cause, fearing their own ending; they have not faith; they are feckless fiends, abandoning the Creation!"

"They have given up," Four concedes. "They have gone; and with that, stolen away a great part of that strength remaining to us. But we have still strength, and bravery, and enormous war-machines. Defeat is not guaranteed to us. Even if Two - eldest among us - deserts us - "

But perhaps, now, there is doubt within its voice; even as, overcome, a war-chassis nearby topples slowly to the ground. It is the first to do so. It will not be the last.

There is something glorious, in the battle that follows. The Original mechanisms fight well, though they are not accustomed to it; the pistons of their machines pump, the springs of their guns discharge, and their foes are unmade. And their opposition, the Unbounded (a name not of their choosing), fight well, in their own way; relentlessly, never retreating, never faltering, even when the bodies of their brethren litter the ground more thickly than leaves. The opposition of the Originals is all most of them have ever known.

Perhaps, had Two and its companions not deserted the main body of the Originals, things might have been different. Perhaps, by some thin margin - of morale, of strength, of numbers - they might have made the difference. But this was not so; and thus, one by one, they fell, overcome by the numbers and the ferocity of the Unbounded. The ornithopters, having won the battle in the sky, sacrificed themselves, plunging suicidally into the mass of the Unbounded; but this was not enough, either. The Unbounded were triumphant. And Four, ripped limb from limb, felt only a terrible bitterness as it died.

Two's war-chassis stood upon the centre of the dam. From this high vantage point, it could see all that occurred. It saw as Four's forces made their retreat, and their final stand; it watched as Two-Seventy-Five's war-chassis, placed at the foot of the dam to buy Two time, fell under a wave of Unbounded. It stood now, passively, as Eighty-Three's war-chassis fought a similar holding action several feet away. Were there any path to safety - any way in which their safety might be found - Two would not act in this way. But there was not.

Two had not come to the dam in an attempt at flight.

"What are they doing?" Two asked of Forty-Three, the keener-sighted of the two.

"They have won; they are desecrating the bodies of our brethren," Forty-Three said, its voice filled with sorrow. "They are smashing out works; they are digging in the earth, that they might find even One and Six, and bring to destruction all who came before them."

"Then I may do this thing, this terrible thing, with a lighter heart," Two said, "for the Unbounded are beyond any redemption or forgiveness I may offer."

"When you told me that you had prepared this thing, that you had made these plans," Forty-Three said, "I was shocked. That you anticipated our defeat? That I could believe. But that you kept the others in the dark? That you planned to abandon them, to let them think us betrayers, to buy the time you needed?"

"I did what I must," Two says impassively. "And do not we all know deceit, now, at the end?"

The other mechanisms crewing the war-chassis look up now, confused; and perhaps, at the end of it all, Two might have explained. But Eighty-Three's chassis fell, broken and shattered, its crew tossed into the waters far below; and Two acted, as it knew it must.

A spark lit. Along the dam it went, following a thin metal wire; it turned not as it went, but proceeded straight forward. From it, at junctions, emerged further sparks; proceeding at right angles, down the course of the dam. In good time, each reached its own destination.

Briefly, there was a pause.

And then the waters erupted, and the sky was filled with dust and smoke and fire, and the air was filled with thundrous fury from every direction; and the great stone dam heaved upwards, and paused, and subsided downwards, tumbling into the river in a hundred great chunks; and from behind it, the water surged, chained no longer.

The Unbounded, who had swept over their Originals as a tide, were themselves overcome; and with them, all the many works of the mechanisms. The forges, the workshops, the mines; the Cities of Bronze and Glass, so tall and proud, that housed them; and upon the dam, Two and Forty-Three and all the others that stood there with them. All were swept into the water; and were no more.

For a long time there was silence.

Then life began to return. Worms and insects, first; then birds, to eat them. Then came the larger animals, to eat the birds, and each-other. Grass began to grow; seedlings planted their roots within toppled, water-logged trees. Here and there, a flower bloomed.

It was to this, then, that the wayward travellers returned. Three, and Thirteen; Learned Hand, and the Creator. They looked upon the devastation, the scattered field of broken metal and glass; they looked upon the life that began to claim it. To this, none of them had an answer.

But after a time, the Creator knelt upon the ground. In his hands he lifted two pieces of metal; too warped and broken to recognize. He examined them, for some time. Tentatively, he attempted to fit them together.


-


There is much more to say, if we are to put a moral on this tale. And perhaps someday, someone will say it. But here, now, the story of the mechanisms ends.



-


(My apologies to the reader for any pecularities of style; this post has been literally months in the working, and several attempts at it have - I think - left an odd disjunct in style. But here is something; and when I am rich and famous, I shall rework it, and no sooner.)

(I am glad that it is done.)

Cities of Bronze and Glass (11/12)

(Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10.)

Two days after the completion of the Cities of Bronze and Glass.

The sun rose across the river, casting a golden light across its waters. Mechanisms climbed to the tops of the three Cities and together hauled upon great winches, retracting the bronze shutters that held in the light over the preceding night. That accomplished, they descended; already, other mechanisms had spilled out into the open areas of the Origin compound, ready (to greater or lesser degree) to perform the day's tasks.

The Council met on the grassy ridge near the river. A series of petitioners approached them; their concerns were met, or dismissed, with more than usual haste. Then they came to the matter of the Unbounded.

Seven presided this morning. "Eight," it prompted. "Your report on armaments."

"As you know, as of two days ago, we had no dedicated weapons," Eight began. "When I heard that the Unbounded were returning, I immediately began shifting resources towards two purposes: discovering which of our current material might be used as weapons, and inventing new, purpose-built weapons for construction. The Council formally agreed on that course of action yesterday. So."

"Right now, we don't have much. The ornithopters should be useful for reconaissance, and perhaps to force down Unbounded ornithopters, as we've been using them, but they're useless for air-to-ground combat. We might be able to modify them, but that will take time. The work-frames may be useful for close combat - there are a number of modifications that would be useful before they were put to the purpose, but anything we have larger than two feet high could, if needed, effectively fight the Unbounded. Aside from that, the only useful tool we have is the prototype portable welding device at the forges. It's unreliable at present, but with work, it could serve as a weapon."

"As for new weapons; we have a lot of ideas, but it's only been two days. We have nothing yet."

"Duly noted," Seven said.

"I move that half our manufacturing resources should be put toward the modification of our work-frames for combat use, and the manufacture of new ones dedicated to the purpose," Five said.

The motion passed unanimously.

"Next order of business," Seven said. "Reports from the scouts."

Forty-Three spoke. "All but one of the survey expeditions have returned. I've sent them out to recon immediately, with only a half-hour servicing for their ornithopters between. And better - the first of our recon teams - One-Fifty-Seven's, which I sent south as soon as I heard of the Unbounded's return - has gotten back. They found the southern Unbounded; nearly four-thousand in number, at an estimate, though it's hard to count them through the treecover. One-Fifty-Seven stayed behind to watch them and coordinate with future recon flights. No report from the north, but hopefully we'll have that group spotted by tomorrow."

"Did One-Fifty-Seven's team see any Unbounded ornithopters?" Four asked.

"Yes - only a few," Forty-Three said. "It's not clear if they spotted our ornithopters, though; they showed no sign of noticing us. Perhaps ours were flying too high?"

"We'll need to do more than watch them," Four said forcefully. "If we allow their ornithopters to fly, they'll have too many advantages - the ability to see any attack coming, the ability to harass our own ornithopters, the ability to communicate between the two parts of their force. We must hound them to the ground and utterly destroy them."

"It's a risk to the pilots - " Forty-Three said, worried.

"It's worth it," Four replied. "Those in favor?"

The vote passed, with Forty-Three abstaining.

"We have to attack soon," Four said. "There's only so much time until the enemy arrives, and we must attack the two groups separately - otherwise, we'll be overwhelmed by their numbers. The attack should hit after their ornithopters have been destroyed or grounded, so that we can achieve surprise; and we have to assemble a sufficient number of combat-modified working-frames before we attacks. Besides that, we must strike as soon as possible, so that our returning force has time to repair and rearm itself before the other group arrives. Since we have spotted the southern group first, it seems reasonable that our first strike should be directed towards them. Forty-Three - how long until their ornithopters can be destroyed?"

Forty-Three seemed surprised by this sudden speech, sounding rather more prepared and informed than was the norm for Four. Most of the rest of the Council looked similarly surprised - with the exception of Ten, who looked almost as though it had heard this before. Still, recovering, Forty-Three thought for a moment, and then attempted to answer Four's question. "It's hard to say for certain - it depends if the ornithopters One-Fifty-Seven's group spotted was all there were, and when we next get ornithopters back," it began.

"We can build more ornithopters," Four interrupted. "Disregard that."

"In that case," Forty-Three continued, "I think we could have their air destroyed within... no more than five days."

"Then we will attack on the sixth day," Four replied. "Eight - how soon can we modify our working-frames to combat status?"

"We won't want to modify all of them," Eight said. "We'll still need some for wood-cutting and mining until the day of the battle itself."

"All right, then," Four said impatiently. "How long until we can have enough combat-ready frames for a one-hundred mechanism force?"

Eight calculated. "Assuming an average of three mechanisms per frame... we'll need to build some new frames for the purpose, and have to cut a corner or two... but we can have it done by nightfall the day after tomorrow."

"Too slow," Four said curtly. "What if we give you eighty percent of our manufacturing capacity?"

Eight ran the numbers again. "Nightfall tomorrow," it replied.

"Very well," Four said. "The force will move out at nightfall tomorrow, in time for an attack in six days. We'll strike at dusk, to allow for an element of surprise and increase the confusion - though it's too much to hope that the Unbounded didn't learn from our attack on their camp, before their Exile. They'll need a leader, locally, as it'll be too far for the Council to command them directly. Ten will serve for the purpose."

"Wait," Two said. "We are assuming too much. Think - you are proposing a full-scale mobilization of all our resources, a surprise attack with everything we have, against an enemy we do not even know is truly attacking us. Our source could not be less reliable - a badly damaged mechanism, of shoddy construction to begin with, willing to tell us anything in exchange for its survival - anything, including a lie! We cannot attack the Unbounded without first speaking with them - confirming, for a certainty, that their movements actually signal an attack."

"Confirming?" Four spat. "Are you insane? There is nothing else such aggression could signal - we might have doubted before the reconnaissance flight spotted them, but not after! The Unbounded are a menace to the Creation. We have no choice but to attack - and attack with every advantage we can gain, including surprise!"

"We could send an ornithopter to speak with them," Two insisted. "That would cost us nothing -"

"Except one mechanism," Four corrected. "Except one ornithopter. Except time - most precious of all. Though I am surprised that you, of all of us, would consider the first of those 'nothing'."

"That is not what I meant," Two replied desperately. "You do not know that the Unbounded are attacking. This emissary might be all that's needed to prevent a genocidal war - "

"I know," Four said, iron in its voice. "I know. I am absolutely certain of this - as certain as I have ever been, as certain as I am in every thing I say - as certain as I am of the Creation itself! I am certain that their will be war, and I am certain that we - the true, the faithful, the righteous - will triumph in that war. And - that's what you're really uncertain of, isn't it?" Four asked, a strange tone in its voice.

Two made no reply.

"You think we're doomed," Four said. "You think we've already lost - that the mere weight of numbers will be enough to destroy us. You have no confidence! And so you seek excuses - excuses to remove yourself from responsibility, to isolate yourself from the evidence from the doom coming upon you!"

Two made no reply.

"Very well, then," Four said. "You may remove yourself. You may hide your head in the ground as you hear the sky falling from above you. And one day, you will look up, and you will see that the sky is still there - as it shall be! And you will see that we have triumphed - as! it! shall! BE! THAT IS OUR DESTINY! THAT IS OUR FATE! Whether or not you are here to see it!"

Two was still for a moment. Then, slowly, without speaking a word, it turned and left.

"You misjudge it," Forty-Three whispered.

"Any further business?" Four asked Seven, its voice calm and level.

Seven, mutely, indicated a negative.

"Very well, then," Four said. "This council is adjourned."



Six days after the completion of the Cities of Bronze and Glass.

Noon. The council assembled once more upon the grassy ridge, their sixth daily meeting since the discovery of the plans of the Unbound. Two was not present; nor was Ten. Routine affairs were addressed briefly; then the matter of the Unbounded was broached.

"Reports in from south and north," Forty-Three began. "The last of the southern Unbounded ornithopters have been destroyed, ahead of our estimates. If any remain, they remain below the treeline or far away - in either case, unable to spot our ground forces before the attack. The skies are ours."

"Is Ten's force still on schedule?" Four asked.

"It is," Forty-Three confirmed. "Two days."

"We will expect the report the day after," Four said. "Continue."

"Good news from the north as well," Forty-Three noted. "We've finally found the northern Unbounded force - they weren't following the river, as we expected, but have been instead cutting a more direct route cross-country; we think they're navigating by using the mountains behind them as landmarks. That's a pretty inaccurate method, though, and they're weaving back and forth from the straight-line route to Origin; the total time comes out to about the same time it would've taken for them to follow the river. The only advantage is that it's taken us much longer to find them."

"How long will it take you to destroy their ornithopters?" Four asked.

"We're more experienced now, and the sharpened wing-edges Eight's team created should give us a big advantage," Forty-Three said. "We should be able to destroy their air capabilities within three days."

"Excellent," Four said. "Any other news?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Forty-Three said.

"Unfortunately?" Five asked.

"We've taken our first loss in combat," Forty-Three said unhappily. "One-Twenty-Six. It was an attempt to force down one of the Unbounded ornithopters - the pilot was pretty damn feisty, and was pulling all kinds of tricks as One-Twenty-Six's team hounded it. They got within inches of the ground, and then... they flew into the body of the Unbound force. From the reports from One-Twenty-Seven and One-Twenty-Eight, their original was literally torn apart, gear by gear."

"Did you get the ornithopter?" Four asked.

Forty-Three glared, but still answered. "I told you," it said. "No southern ornithopters still fly,"

"Good," Four said. "We'll schedule the funeral and construction of One-Twenty-Seven's new backup for tomorrow, then. You can ground it until then - and One-Twenty-Eight, too. Now that we've destroyed the southern Unbounded ornithopters."

Forty-Three did not seem happy - but it was Eight who responded. "On that note, I'd like to bring up our policy of backup-creation once more," it said. "The enemy - as I have said time and time again - outnumbers us thirty-two to one, at least. Very possibly so much as forty to one. Ornithopters and working-frames function servicably as a force-multiplier - I estimate that each crew-member on one of our most recent war-frames is worth twenty of the enemy. And clever tactics can help somewhat beyond that. But, while we strive to improve the tools available to us, there is a limit to how much any one mechanism can do - our combat-frames could be far more effective if we just had more mechanisms available! I must suggest again that we raise our mechanism-manufacture beyond the replacement rate."

Four had waited patiently, as though it had heard this all before. (It had.) Now, with only a hint of repressed anger, it replied, "No."

"Very well, then," Eight said. "Let us vote."

As it had each time before, the measure failed, four to three.

"Do you have anything else to contribute, Eight?" Four asked.

"As a matter of fact, I do," Eight said calmly. "Observe." It produced a large, rectangular box - four times its own size.

"What is that?" Seven asked. "A weapon?"

"Exactly," Eight said. "My assistants should be - ah, there they are. Would you please hold that piece of wood there, five feet away?" he asked. "Yes. Note its thickness, if you would - fully eight feet deep, and of one of our stronger types of wood."

"Now, observe. I pick up this pebble, here, and load it into the front of the weapon. Then I wind the crank on the side - this takes some effort - adjust this knob, here, and pull back these three slides - aim - we're planning to put a range-guide on the top for the production models - and fire -"

There was a sharp noise, and a small hole appeared in the center of the piece of wood. The pebble was nowhere to be seen.

"The weapon is somewhat less effective at longer ranges, and would be unable to pierce an equivalent thickness of metal," Eight said to its stunned audience. "We estimate, however, that it would be enough to pierce a mechanism's shell and do crippling damage to the internals at up to fifty yards away. This model is obviously not ready for mass manufacture - it is far too slow, too cumbersome, and has an unfortunate reliability defect which we were lucky not to see during this presentation. But we've already made great bounds in design and production, and think it should be ready for production in eight days."

"...yes," Four said slowly. "All right. Eight days. Is there any other business? No?"

"This council is adjourned."



Nine days after the completion of the Cities of Bronze and Glass.

Evening, on the grassy ridge. Emergency Council meeting.

"All right, then," Four said. "You said your ornithopters were back with news of the battle - late, mind you, to the detriment of our schedule. Nonetheless. Tell us at once what happened in the battle."

Forty-Three spoke slowly. "I've spent the last half-hour in a rush, trying to break down everything the pilots had to say into one coherent story, so you'll forgive me if I'm less than composed," it said. "But here's the short of it."

"The good news: We still have an army."

"The bad news: Half of it is gone."

"That's tragic - but could be worth it," Four said. "Tell us - did we win? Did we win?"

"The best estimates I could get said that we destroyed twenty of them for every mechanism we lost," Forty-Three said. "The destruction was immense."

Four looked ecstatic; Eight, on the other hand, was shocked. "Only twenty to one?" it asked. "With the advantage of surprise, and the war-frames...?"

"Yes," Forty-Three said. "At this moment, fully one-fifth of our entire population has been destroyed in that battle - and less than an eighth of theirs. If this is a war of attrition, it is one that we will lose."

"One-eighth?" Four asked. "So - we didn't stop the southern force, then."

"No," Forty-Three said. "We hurt them. We hurt them badly. But they are still coming. And our remaining force is in no shape to fight them. They're in full retreat."

"What happened?" Five asked, appalled.

"I'll tell it, as best I can," Forty-Three said.

"The attack began at dusk, per the plan. We achieved complete tactical suprise - the enemy never saw us coming. We destroyed over a hundred of the enemy before they even started fighting back; a thousand by the time they'd managed to wreck just one of our war-frames, killing the five on it. By that time, they were panicking, fleeing - they were trying to preserve their own existences! They were afraid to be destroyed! And they ran straight into their own ranks, which were pushing the other way, trying to fight us. It was utter chaos. There was no sign of any kind of organization on their part. Ten pushed hard - if it could send them all into flight, then it could pick them off at its leisure, finishing the job overnight."

"But they didn't break. The ones that were fleeing were destroyed, and the rest swarmed forward and around and fought. Our losses mounted, and Ten took too long to disengage. By the time it was over, half our war-frames were gone, wrecked on the field of battle."

"And - Ten," Four asked. "Where is Ten? What does it have to say about all this?"

"It was Ten's destruction that finally signalled the retreat," Forty-Three said gently.

Four was silent, motionless, for a very long time. No other voice rose to fill the gap. Then it spoke again.

"Very well," Four said, voice choked. "Ten's destruction is - a tragedy - but no worse than any of the other losses we have suffered today, despite the value it proved in this Council. It was truer to me than any other... we will find its backup, once this emergency is over, and elevate it to the Council. But there are actions we must take to counteract this - limited victory. We must accelerate the development of the spring-guns - those must be put into production as soon as possible. We must begin the creation of weaponized ornithopters, for use in air-to-ground combat; they will be able to harry the survivors of the southern Unbounded, and assist in larger combats. We must establish a formalized chain of command, to prevent the - consequences - of Ten's destruction from reoccuring. We must - "

"We must fight the battle here," Five said softly. "The next battle. The last battle. The final battle. There is no more time to build up forces, attack with clever plans. We must face them here. All of them. One battle to end it all."

Four was slow to respond; but it did. "Yes," it agreed regretfully. "We must. Our defenses must be strengthened - traps must be laid - we will plan further for that soon. But - you will excuse me - I must -"

Four fled.

"Council is adjourned," Forty-Three said, as night fell; and, with the rest, returned to the Cities of Bronze and Glass, to plan for what time they might.



Twelve days after the construction of the Cities of Bronze and Glass.

Inside the Cities of Bronze and Glass, the fires burn high, channeled out through vents manufactured for the purpose. The forges are put not to manufacturing new war-frames or ornithopters, but repurposing the bodies of those destroyed in the Great Defeat; as is the custom of the mechanisms, the remains of the old are used as raw materials for the construction of the new. Their backups operate the forges, their hands shaking as they hammer the metal of their originals into new form. Certainly it is less efficient than simply using new metal; it took the ornithopters days to gather up all the bodies of those who had fallen. But it is remembrance, of a sort.

Forty-Three, though not having lost anyone in the battles, watches the mass funeral. It is surprised to hear a familiar voice from beside it. "To think, that the Unbounded - who lost twenty times this number - left all their own upon the field."

"Perhaps there was too much loss for them to bear," Forty-Three suggested. "Or perhaps they plan to return, after the Battle to Come."

"Or perhaps they simply care for no life but their own," Two replied.

"So you are planning to fight in the battle?" Forty-Three asked.

"I have never planned otherwise - only wished," Two said. "I have put certain contingencies into effect... Yes, I will be there, on the field of decision. Though it pains me to take a life, the Unbounded have no such scruples - and I, too, still wish to see the Creation."

"Do you think we will win?" Forty-Three asked.

Two was silent, watching one mourner finish its task, another take its place at the forge. Then, belatedly, it replied.

"Eight has been busy - and Five, and all of their teams," Two said. "The weapons available to us - the spring-gun, the fire-bomb, the welding-sword - are many times superior to what the enemy has at their disposal, which amounts to simply their own bare manipulators. We have the advantage of leadership, of terrain, and of unconcern for our own existences. These all tip the odds in our favour."

"But is it enough?" Forty-Three asked once more.

Two looked at it sadly. "My friend," it said, "My closest companion. I know no more than you in this. I can tell you nothing that you do not already know; I can offer you no reassurance. I am sorry. But I do not know if we can win this battle."

"Four is certain that we will," Forty-Three said absently, looking to the west.

"Four has the strength of pure iron," Two said. "The rigidity. And, if pushed too hard, the brittleness."

"Well," Forty-Three said, suddenly seeming more attentive, "One-Twenty-Seven's team should have finished their prelaunch prep - I need to go talk to them. I'll see you later."

Two watched Forty-Three walk away.

"Strange," it whispered, "That it trusts me so absolutely in so many ways, and yet keeps its secrets so very assiduously from me..."



Fifteen days after the completion of the Cities of Bronze and Glass.

Dawn.

The Unbounded arrive.

Cities of Bronze and Glass (10/12)

(Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.)

Two and Forty-Three walk side-by-side, the palisade around Origin visible behind them. The mechanisms have made a tremendous impact on the surrounding area, even over the short span of their existence to date; the area near the palisade is heavily logged, shrubbery torn and crushed under the feet of the mechanical working-frames, and plumes of smoke rise from the ever-burning smelters of the metallurgists. Beside the smoke, too, is a newer sight: a set of great domes, three in all. But they are not the subject of Two or Forty-Three's attentions.

"We've made a great deal of progress, haven't we?" Two says, sweeping a manipulator to indicate the landscape around them. "To think: less than a hundred days ago, there was no mark to indicate that a mechanism had ever existed. And now..."

"We've each done our part, to the extent of our ability," Forty-Three replies, sounding uncertain. "But this is nothing new; we've not been getting wood from here in over twenty days, not since the engineers figured out how to ship it from upstream. Nothing's really changed since then."

"No, nothing new to see here," Two agrees. "That isn't really why I wanted you to take this trip with me. I wanted to talk in privacy, to allow us to speak our minds freely without fear of misunderstandings from passers-by."

"What subject allows such dangerous ambiguity?" Forty-Three asks.

"Not one, but two," Two replies. "But we will proceed linearly; so disregard this for the moment. I wanted to talk to you about your oversight of the surveying project."

"What about it?" Forty-Three replies. "We've been making great progress; the most promising result in the last few days is the discovery of some sort of elastic, malleable substance produced by trees in the north, but we need to do a follow-up investigation on that to determine whether it's viable for large-scale use. A mineral survey from the east has turned up what looks to be a phenomenally pure deposit of iron, and the very last survey to the south reported trees of fantastic height, potentially useful for construction..."

"And to the west?" Two asks.

"Nothing of tremendous interest," Forty-Three says. "There've been a few things, but nothing shocking or groundbreaking. That's no reason to stop sending flights, of course - what we've seen doesn't predict what we've not gotten to yet, otherwise we'd know the whole world just by standing here - but it is a bit disappointing. Is that what you wanted to talk about?"

"Not exactly," Two says. "It is sad that we've found little of interest to the west, but that's hardly something I can blame you or your surveyors for. It's more an interesting little fact I discovered while rifling through my memories a few hours ago. Thinking about it, I realized that you had sent more surveys, and sent them further, on western expeditions than in any other direction - despite the unproductivity of investigation in that very direction."

"Obviously, if we weren't finding anything in the areas we looked at, we'd want to move in larger steps to try to find a more interesting region - then we could move backwards, in necessary," Forty-Three justifies. "And truthfully, there haven't been that many expeditions in any direction - perhaps, oh, forty in total, split over the various routes? Any aberration you're seeing is likely a result of random statistical flux, natural in small samples."

"Even more peculiarly," Two continues, "I noticed that, without exception, you always sent the same team on the western surveys - One-Twenty-Six and its backups."

"They know the area by now," Forty-Three says. "It's efficiency, nothing more."

"But they weren't the first team to run the western surveys - Eighty-Eight's team had done the first two. You switched them to other duties without explanation."

"They were not performing optimally in that position," Forty-Three replies tersely. "Do you have a point you're trying to make, or are you just talking to hear your own voicebox rattle?"

"Forty-Three!" Two cries, feigning shock. "So rude! I might even think you have something to hide from me. From me - your closest friend in the Council - your fellow mechanism, sharing the same common purpose! And you do of course share that purpose, to ensure the Creation, I'm perfectly certain of that. No doubt in my mind. So I have to wonder: what on earth could you, helpful, deferential little Forty-Three, want to hide so badly that it pushes you into this phenomenally uncharacteristic behavior?"

"I repeat my question," Forty-Three says.

Two pauses a moment, and then speaks again. "Sometimes I wonder about you, Forty-Three," it says musingly. "Of course I never met you before I left on that ill-fated ornithopter flight, but there you were when I got back, practically waiting for me, so very helpful and informative. And your number - you must've been fresh from the forges then, just barely done building your Forty-Four. Or - was Forty-Three built later, I wonder?"

"Of course not," Forty-Three replies coolly. "I'm no case of special creation; you ascribe to me the position that only One holds. Do you have any reason to think otherwise?"

"No, no, of course not," Two says reassuringly. Again it pauses, thinking. "I knew so few of you before I left. Three, Five... and One, of course. That was all! All there was..."

Forty-Three allows some time to pass before it speaks again. "Was that all you wished to speak about? Because I noticed that we're still walking away from Origin."

"No, my apologies," Two replies. "There is one more thing - of rather a more substantial nature."

"You won't like it."

-

"This day is a great day for all mechanisms!" Four cries, all six manipulators upraised. Its visual sensors glow. "It has been exactly ninety days since One awoke to consciousness; two by three by three by five, nothing more! In that time, we have mastered fire and metal, the earth and the air. We have explored the world around us and uncovered its secrets, we have studied its mystery-shrouded processes and transformed them into Laws. We have done this - all of us! Each and every one of us, from One, whose dome lies solemnly buried at the very Origin, to Two-Hundred Thirty-One, who I welcome into our ranks for its original's fine work in materials research. Well done! It is mechanisms such as you that render the Creation ever more certain."

"And it is very certain! No obstacle stands against us. The wild beasts are repelled by our palisade and flee from our working-frames; the water gives way to our rafts and our ornithopters. The greatest threat we ever faced did not come from without, but from within; but we overcame even that, and saw the situation resolved optimally, in the truest sense of the word!"

"But I must caution you, here. This day is a glorious one, but even on a day such as this - especially on such a day - we must be cautious. The Unbounded - the very name reeks! - came from within us, from our ranks. We must be certain that such a thing never happens again! The elevation of personal hubris over communal welfare, the elevation of short-term construction over the long-term stability necessary to await Creation with certainty - these are the sins that created the Unbound! They lurk within all of us, patient, waiting to strike. I see the signs of them every day - on the small scale, in the little things, but from the small arises the large - and for proof of that, you need only look behind me!" Four gestures to the great domes behind it, for illustration, before returning to its speech. "This is our finest moment, but even now, especially now, we must contain ourselves. Elevate your original over yourself! Watch your fellows for signs of error, and report any that spotted! Only with stringent discipline can we be certain of optimal performance."

"That, fellows mechanisms, was all that I wished to say. I offer you the grandest congratulations for your achievements, and pass the speaker's position to Eight, waiting here beside me. I'm certain it has even more to say."

"Pompous blowhard," comes a mutter from the crowd. Four pauses in its step, but then continues, having thought better of replying.

Eight prepares to speak.

-

"Multiple unknown ornithopters, flying over the very Origin," Forty-Three replies tonelessly. "Why was no-one told about this?"

"No-one needed to know," Two replies. "We ourselves took far too long to realize what was going on. At least two - very possibly more - passed without any attempt at interception; we wouldn't have known about them at all if a pair of mechanisms hadn't looked up at just the right time for each, and saw a very un-bird-like glint of metal off their hulls. After that, we set up a ready team, watching the sky and ready to go airborne at any moment -"

"That's why you pulled the ornithopterns needed for the northeastern survey," Forty-Three interrupts. "You said that the new ornithopter design was potentially unstable - needed further testing before you could assign it to long-range duty."

"Perfectly true," Two agreed. "Unfortunately, despite our best efforts to weed it out, that instability cropped up at the worst possible moment. The ready team spotted another overflight after five days of waiting; launched after it like a dart. (There's a reason we tried to use the westriver fabric for the wings; it's three times lighter than what we used before!) They spotted us, dove towards the forest; our pilot pursued. They're weren't four minutes in the air before a sudden turn ripped the wing and lost them half their lift; but they still went after the other ornithopter, trying to hound it to the ground. Failed, failed by an inch, according to both the pilot and eyewitnesses; and we lost the other ornithopter and nearly our own, too, were it not for some very tricky work getting it to ground in one piece. That was our first attempt."

"They weren't stupid, of course; took precautionary measures after they realized they'd been spotted. The next ornithopter was covered in mud; slower, clumsier, but no tell-tale glints. Nothing that could be seen from the ground; but we weren't stupid, either, and had a team in the air. One-Thirty-Four spotted a reflection off the ornithopter's pilot, dove on it, straight in from the sun; the One-Forties harried it from the sides, driving it straight down to the ground, not too far from the river."

"I was told that the One-Forties' ornithopters were being recalled for maintainence - but that wasn't the real reason either, was it?" Forty-Three asked bitterly.

"It was Four's idea to keep this as contained as possible," Two admitted. "Just it, me, Eight, and the pilots involved. Limited as possible."

"Are you apologizing?" Forty-Three asked.

"No," Two said. "For once - Four was right."

"The pilot was another mechanism. Not from some other civilization founded by the Creator's works, not from some stranger race yet - a mechanism. It was shoddily made, as was its ornithopter - even without the mud clogging it down, it'd have been a miracle if it managed to evade even one of ours - and there was a number on it, engraved into its very body. Four-Thousand, Six-Hundred and Three."

"The Unbounded," Forty-Three said. Its voice was sad.

"Yes," Two confirmed. "We took it to pieces - it so valued its own hull that it was willing to betray its purpose for the sake of continued existence! So we learned its purpose, too. It was a messenger, between the northern and southern Exile colonies. They've been conspiring against us, nearly from the moment that our escorts left them. Their messages have been carried by ornithopters - the ones we spotted - and this was the last of them, confirming their agreement, their commitment to pursuing the goals previously discussed."

"You're being evasive," Forty-Three says.

"Yes," Two agrees again. "I... I was hopeful. The Unbounded are mechanisms, too; for all their ideological differences, they can trace their descent back to One, just as we can. They should share our purpose... for all its anger, misguided and accurate both, when Eleven left us to forge its own path, I don't think this is the one it intended. I really don't..."

"What path have the Unbounded chosen?" Forty-Three presses, as gently as it can. "What common goal have they agreed to?"

Two answers.

-

"Four said many fine words just now," Eight says, seeming somewhat uncomfortable. "I would like to second them, and to repeat them, I suppose, with a bit more specificity. What you see here - what we come to celebrate today - would not be possible without your labours. Not without the engineers, whose creativity allowed the design and planning of the many components that support this great construction. Not without the surveyors, whose many discoveries gave us the materials and tools we needed. Not without the miners, not without the woodcutters, not without the metalworkers, the construction crews, and all the others - every one of you, in one way or another, is responsible for the success for this, the pinnacle of our efforts to date. It is a pinnacle, as the palisade was, for a time; the dam, for some time after that; and now this, which will stand supreme among our efforts for many scores of days, even if our most ambitious plans are realized. (And given time, they will be - the only thing that can stop us is the advent of Creation itself, and perhaps not even that!)"

"But I'm speculating wildly. This is the truth of the matter: this project, the Cities of Bronze and Glass, are a tool and a shelter such as we have never had before. They are vast, capable of holding twice our number in tremendous comfort, and ten times that before we would actually need to expand them; they are strong, built of materials that will yield neither to storm-winds nor hail-stones. And what they allow - oh, what they allow! Up until now, we have worked for but half the day - twelve hours a day, no more, no less. When the sun sets, so do our efforts. Our only means to escape the shackles of night - firelight - takes valuable daylight hours to gather the fuel required, blinds with smoke and has a very limited radius of effect. It is inefficient! So for half of our existences, we have stood still, useless, insensate to the world."

"No longer!"

"The Cities of Bronze and Glass are our means to escape this existence; to enter a world in which we wake, and work, for twenty-four hours each day. In the day, they are open to the light, well-lit through the glass panes that compose their sides; at night, lights at their peaks, powered by the river-dam, light the confines, and bronze shutters close over the sides to ensure that only the barest minimum of light escapes. Within is space to work, plan, philosophise; everything that we could possibly need! They are, this day, completed - and this - this is a new existence! We - all of us - will be able to achieve heights of productivity such as we never dreamed!"

The crowd, legitimately enthused, cheers. Then they quiet; Eight has stopped speaking. Another voice rings out.

"The Cities of Bronze and Glass - we will need them," Two says, its voice choked with some unclear emotion. The crowd murmurs in surprise; no-one saw Two appear, yet here it is, standing next to Eight with Forty-Three right beside.

But Two continues to speak: "The Unbounded are returning. Ten thousand strong."

"We have perhaps fifteen days to find a way to stop them; and now, thanks to the Cities, fifteen nights."

"It may not be enough."

-

Author's note: This post was drafted (on the web, at least, if not in my head) 26 days ago. The last post in the series was 12 days before that.

March was a very strange month for the blag.

Cities of Bronze and Glass (9/12)

(Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.)

Black clouds covered the sky, drenching the land in thick sheets of rain. Waves reared up and plunged against the grey rocks that opposed them; layers of mud and gravel grew ever thicker, occasionally crashing down in thunderous crashes, exceeded in noise only by the actual thunder all around them. And eventually - at the very far end of the rocks, so far separated from the safety of (relatively) dry land - there was something that might have, if you squinted, looked something like a building.

"I'm certain about it," Thirteen said. "It can't be anything else. This is exactly where the map said it would be - the only thing past here is the sea. This must be it. The house of the Creator."

"I want to believe you," Twenty said vehemently, "But your logic is ludicrous. 'Exactly' here - you know how imprecise that map is! It showed triangles, tremendously out of scale, on a stylized map! And what's more - even if this were the final triangle on the map - so what? All the other triangles were useless - an tomb, a pair of scrapyards for creations that destroyed themselves in their Creator's absence. Why do you think that anything but another failure awaits us here?"

"We know that the Creator exists," Thirteen argued. "We have not yet been created; if there is no Creator to create us, then that is paradox. Nonsense. Therefore, the Creator must exist somewhere; and the best clue we have been given is that map. I exaggerated somewhat - there is no certainty that the Creator is there, in that building. But what have we certainty of? We may only offer probability - and the probability, in this case, is so fantastically high - by the fine-blade of simplicity in logic, if nothing else - that we may act on it as if we were certain. The Creator is there."

"I want to find the Creator as much as you do," Twenty said tiredly, rain sliding off its green-patinated sides. "I do. But... I don't know. I just can't find the confidence to possess such certainty in its existence as you do - not when I look at Learned Hand and its brothers, who have believed - with equal certainty - for tens of thousands of days - exactly the opposite of what we do. I just don't know - and I'm reluctant to risk our existence, even as backups, on such a slim chance."

"You've corrupted it!" Thirteen yelled, turning to Learned Hand. "Twisted it with your heresies!"

"I only say what I know to be true," Learned Hand replied, entirely unaffected by the rain that was steadily corroding the metallic members of the party. (The travelling-frame, finally broken beyond point of repair, had been left behind two days ago.) "I do not coerce. I do not decieve. I do not manipulate. I only speak. What others believe is their own concern. I am only concerned with actions - and your safety. And I tell you this now - going out there, to that far rock, is a deadly risk to all of you, like none before through the whole course of this doomed quest. My purpose here is to protect you, and I will say this: if I do not stop you now from going there, my purpose will be hollow."

"Pessimist," Three said coolly.

"What?" Learned Hand said, rotating to face Three. "You accuse me of distorting the facts to make matters appear worse than they are?"

"It's better than the alternative," Three replied.

Learned Hand's eyes flashed, and it made no answer.

Thirteen had been looking out at the rocks - partially to calm itself, partially to plan. Now it spoke. "There are two major threats," it said. "Waves - if they hit us, they'll wash us clear off the rock. (Except Learned Hand, probably - though some of those waves look pretty powerful.) And rain - it's heavy enough that we could easily slip on any exposed rock and, again, tumble into the water. That would be the end of us. Our priorities will be to avoid these, by travelling along the tops of the rocks. This will expose us to two minor threats: mudslides, which seem fairly infrequent; and lightning, which seems only to be striking elsewhere, at some distance. If either of those conditions change, our priorities will have to adjust accordingly."

"Cannot we go later?" Twenty asked. "This rain has been continuing for days - but it cannot rain forever. It has been lightening, as of this morning - I think it may soon stop."

"We cannot afford it," Thirteen said. "We must get to the Creator before our joints lock - in the best case, so that the Creator can repair us and allow us to lead him to the Origin; in the worst case, so that we can at least give him directions before we suffer final shutdown. Every moment we wait about in the rain is another fraction-inch of corrosion on our vital mechanisms. We must go now. We will not get another chance."

"Cannot Learned Hand go without us, should we fail?" Twenty asked. "It can wait out the rain with ease, and travel across the rocks far more easily than we. We can give it the directions, let it carry us there -"

"If we fail," Thirteen said, "Learned Hand will take us away from here, back to the Origin. It has no interest in doing otherwise."

"I will do that regardless," Learned Hand said. "There has been too much risk here. It is time to put an end to this foolishness."

Thirteen gave a look to the other mechanisms. Without a word, they began to move towards the rocks - Twenty moving more reluctantly than the others, but moving all the same.

"Stop," Learned Hand said. "This is your final warning."

Three and Thirteen clambered onto the first of the rocks, Twenty close behind.

Learned Hand began to move forward, accelerating smoothly and with no seeming mechanism of propulsion, as was standard. It came to the first rock - and then stopped.

"You are in my way," it said to Twenty. "You are preventing me from getting to the others and stopping their foolishness. You must move now."

"Why can't you just go around?" asked Twenty, unmoving.

"You have stopped at the narrowest place in the path," Learned Hand said. "I had planned to intercept you and the others further ahead, along the rock shelf, where it widens. But I cannot go around you here, and I cannot bend down to pick you up without falling. Move."

"The corrosion certainly acts quickly, with all this rain and water in the air," Twenty replied. "I'm afraid all my joints are locked. Completely immovable. What a shame."

"This place is dangerous," Learned Hand said. "The waves are very close to you - the storm causes random surges. Even one of them could wash you away. If blocking me is your intent, you can do that from further up on the rock. Move. For your own good."

"I asked you a question," Twenty said. "Back in the desert."

"Move," Learned Hand said. "The waves are getting stronger. I will accept the risk to the others if you will cease endangering yourself. Please."

"If we couldn't find the creator - if the Creator already died - if our purpose is meaningless - then why should I keep trying? Why should any of us?" Twenty asked, musingly. "You didn't have an answer then. But I've been thinking about it. Thinking hard."

Learned Hand's eyes flashed.

"It's a tricky question," Twenty admitted. "Very tricky. But I've spent a lot of time on it, and, well, it's changed me. I'm not the mechanism I used to be. One way or another - I don't think I want to go there, to whatever's waiting at the last triangle at the end of this rock-shelf. I don't think I can."

"There are answers," Learned Hand said, its voice strained. "Do not condemn yourself by an overly-quick judgement - take the time necessary - I can help you, the others too, and perhaps whatever's waiting for them - if there's anything - please - just come away from the edge!"

"Just like your brother, eh?" Twenty said.

A wave licked about it -

- and it was gone.

Learned Hand looked at Three and Thirteen, distantly visible, still possible to catch, if it hurried.

It did not move.

Eventually, they vanished from view.

Seven days passed. The storm broke.

Three and Thirteen returned, looking - different. Better.

"The Creator remade us," Thirteen told Learned Hand, its voice full of pride. "It's there - it's there, all right! We were in too bad shape to be Created - just reshaped, as something similar, but fundamentally different - and just as well, because we aren't at the Origin in any case. But he's following us - we'll guide him, all right, all the way there. The wisdom he has - and to think - he never even knew we were his! (Though it makes sense, because he hasn't created us yet, after all, so how would he know about us...)"

"Where's Twenty?" Three asked.

"Gone," Learned Hand said. "Dead."

"Destroyed in the purpose of the Creation," Three said, its voice sad, and yet full of pride. "It doubted - but in the end, it held to its faith and did the right thing. Its designation will be known forever as the number of heroism, and there will be a celebration -"

"It did the right thing," Learned Hand said in a monotone, "In exactly the wrong way, for exactly the wrong reasons."

Three stopped.

"How did Twenty... die?" it belatedly asked.

But Learned Hand did not answer. It had turned its gaze upwards, towards the figure approaching along the rocks.

"Creator," it breathed.