"Where are we going, anyways?" Brock asked, trailing behind Mikael. Crowds of people jostled all around, but everyone seemed cheerful and relatively orderly despite the press of bodies. Most had magiphones out and were either staring at them, talking on them, casting spells with them, or swearing at their personal assistant functions. A row of leafy trees in the middle of the boulevard provided shade from the sun beating down overhead, a fact Brock, in his black leather trenchcoat, was quite grateful for.

"Couple different places," Mikael replied. "First we're going to do some spot checks of various clubs and eateries so you can get a feel for things. Shouldn't be any trouble with those, and it'll ease you into the procedure. Then I'll introduce you to some of the more memorable denizens of the city."

"These are the ones you called troublemakers?"

"That's right," Mikael said, turning a corner onto a smaller, though no less busy side avenue. Flashes of constant movement were busy at the end of this one above the crowds, bracketed by the sides of buildings. "They can't cause any real problems, at least more than once, but they certainly try our patience at times."

As the two approached the next intersection, Brock could hear more mechanical sounds entering the cacophony - pistons clanking, steam hissing out in gouting jets, metal grinding against itself, and a curiously heavy thrumming, a deep, but not unpleasant sound.

Then they emerged from the avenue, and Brock could see more clearly.

"...what is that?"

Trembling in the middle of the street, stretching out of sight in both directions, was an amalgamation of slowly rotating cogwheels, vibrating boilers, churning pistons, and other, stranger devices Brock couldn't identify. Everything was in shades of brass, copper, or steel, and while undeniably metal, gave off the impression of living, breathing flesh - almost like some massive otherworldly snake with machinery for scales. People were quickly filing into regular openings between the complex contraptions, and Mikael dragged him into one of the lines.

"Apparently you're not aware of 'steampunk' either?" Mikael asked. Brock silently shook his head as a gear the size of his body spun overhead, and Mikael continued. "It's not as popular with Sekkies who come over these days, but it was almost all we got for a while. This is the Miyazaki; it's our public transit system."

They entered a classily decorated sitting car, filled with red velvet-upholstered wooden benches facing each other along a blue-carpeted central aisleway, and Brock nearly stumbled at the sudden familiarity.

"This is... a train!"

"Sure," Mikael agreed drily, "if by 'train' you mean 'a self-sustaining purely mechanical device that possesses digging, drilling, dredging, and pumping facilities, along with a rudimentary intelligence derived solely from emergent interactions between simple logic chains.'" Brock goggled at him. "Train is definitely easier to say, though. That's why we call it the Miyazaki."

Stolen novel; please report.

Mikael slid into one of the benches and motioned Brock into the opposite one, which he almost fell into, still staring around in wonder. There were even glass-paned windows between the omnipresent machinery that allowed each cluster of benches an outside view!

As if sensing the pressure of bodies in the seats, a small copper speaking tube emerged from the wall between them. "Destination?" a tinny voice asked.

"Nearest Elvish Joe's, please."

The speaking tube silently retracted into the thicket of gears that made up the wall, but Brock barely noticed it go. He was still staring around in befuddled amazement.

"So, uhhh, someone built a giant mechanical train?"

Mikael barked out a quiet laugh as steam hissed all around and the Miyazaki smoothly settled into motion.

"Not quite. It was originally designed to turn the entire planet into itself. A steampunk self-replicating swarm, though I'm not sure you'll know what that means either." Brock shook his head again, and Mikael waved away his confusion. "Doesn't matter, look it up if you're interested. Anyways, before it could do more than wipe out a couple small settlements, we found the Sekkie responsible and managed to repurpose his mass-murder device into something useful."

"...public transit?"

"Brock," Mikael said slowly, "I just told you the city has more than two hundred million people living in it. Without a robust public transit system, not only would we collapse under the weight of parking garages, our streets would be in a constant state of apocalyptic gridlock, even more than they already are with those damn Goondams, and the air would be unbreathable. Surely it's the same where you came from?"

"Uhhh, pretty much everyone uses cars," Brock replied lamely. "There's a lot of traffic." Mikael sniffed.

"Wasteful. Utterly wasteful, and somehow you idiots are given all the power."

A small chime sounded, and the gears in the walls started churning faster. The view from the window, which had been showing a blur of passing buildings and people, suddenly went dark, replaced by stony dirt and rock, then just as quickly turned into a neatly tiled and well-lit tunnel. Flashes of color on the wall resolved into geometric designs that seemed to come alive as they continued to pick up speed.

"The Miyazaki is also something of an artist," Mikael said, forestalling Brock's inevitable question, "though the effect only works on human standard eyesight. It decorates all of the subtunnels leading to its main body this way."

"...main body?"

The dancing designs vanished, replaced by the sensation of an immense open space. Pale light suffused the air, radiating from familiar white structures stretching from the cavern roof above down into the stygian depths below. Multiple segmented lengths of cogwheel-studded machinery twisted around and through the air, like the coils of some unimaginably gargantuan serpent, all drawing together downwards to a slowly writhing mass of steel, brass, and copper. It appeared simultaneously massive, yet incredibly far away, as if Brock was looking at it from the top of a well. Distant sparks periodically flared up, illuminating grinding metal maws the size of city blocks chewing into the earth below.

He sat back into his seat, more than a little shaken.

"That's your public transit?"

Mikael shrugged.

"Like I said, we repurposed it into something more useful. Besides, we're not going to the main body anyways - that's for transcontinental trips and anyone crazy enough to want to visit the Abyss."

Sure enough, another chime sounded and they quickly re-emerged into another mosaic-lined tunnel, this one in shades of turquoise and ochre, then back into the sunlight. More crowds and buildings surrounded them, though the architecture was significantly different, trending more towards three to five-story wooden buildings covered in intricate carvings rather than the stone and chrome modernity they'd come from. A bell rang twice, and Mikael stood.

"And here's our stop. Let's go."