After conversing with the lone Cog dressed in priestly attire, the trio did as they were told and followed it to their master.

Now, Ma’at felt quite ill and lethargic. As the hazy lights of the crowded factory flitted across her lenses, unfocused and identical to fireflies dancing in the night air, she ruminated. What was it like to give up your humanity? How had they done so? No procedure known to commoners could change a person’s outward appearance so drastically. Not to mention erasing memories and personalities. Even through the art of magic, such things were evoked only by the most skilled mages, wizards and witches. Only a witch with dark intent could herald something so emotionally destructive. To be erased from the mind was a fate far worse than death. To be wholly separated from the construct, from one’s own body, and left out in the void of non-existence. How cruel it would be to leave a person’s physicality in the land of the living while its consciousness is ripped from it like a rotten tooth. Terrifying. Horrid. But, then, how did they manage such a thing? Perhaps their leader, the Lord of Cogs, was once a man as well. A man who had undergone the same transformation Rosaline had gone through days prior, except permanently. A breakdown of seismic proportions. Their Lord of Cogs, she concluded, must be an Enigma. It was the only logical conclusion.

The Cogs moved out of their way to open the path. Past the assembly lines was a set of iron double doors. The Cog leading them pushed the doors apart with immense strength. They moved into the new room, an old storage area for machine parts and broken tools.

“I wonder what this factory used to make,” Sato pondered aloud.

“CREATION. Some of our kin once worked here before relinquishing their humanity. Sometimes they tell of endless days crafting rotor engines for the regime.”

“Hmph. Airship engines.” Ma’at scanned the towering stacks of boxes upon boxes. Each of them had to be filled to the brim with steel, wire, screws and such. All of it, abandoned entirely. “Did the Union run this place? Why did they leave it?”

“CHAOS. Rioters. Criminals. Murderers. It was not a safe work environment.”

“For the workers?”

“For the Union. Come. The Lord of Cogs awaits.” The leading Cog left them and motioned for them to climb a rusty, mangled staircase.

“One sec,” Tien chimed. She ran forward and equipped her Hammer of Reparation from her case, then hit the ancient metal stairs as hard as she could. A reverberating, resonant echo flooded the building. The mangled stairs erupted into a golden glow, then settled and the light faded. They were rustless, completely gray steel and seemed as though they had just been bolted to the frame.

Ma’at and Sato stared at her.

“What?”

“Was that really necessary? You know, using magic willy-nilly like that is kind of unprofessional.” Sato smirked.

“Whatever. Those stairs were about to collapse, and I’m not interested in breaking a leg anytime soon.”

Tien packed up her hammer and the trio ascended the repaired stairs with more questions than answers clogging their thoughts.

At the pinnacle, another clockwork humanoid stood in waiting. As he turned around to face them all, he revealed himself to be holding a large staff. Unlike the others who covered their faces with rags and sheets, this one had his head completely uncovered. Beneath an elegant, scrappy black mantle he wore a fine suit like the multitudes outside the walls. Though, his was torn in places, stitched in others, and oil and grease stains were apparent on its surface. It was as if a homeless person had attempted to come across as luxuriously wealthy. Maybe that was the point. Maybe it was ironic, placidly worn to symbolize the strange creature’s view on the world. To make it all the more striking, his head had been replaced with a giant cogwheel. Inside the cogwheel, countless other miniature cogs worked tirelessly. Within them, even smaller cogs. And within those, microscopic cogs held them up. Endless, infinite cogwheels spun around and around to make the humanoid move.

He did move with a certain grace. The spinning grew louder in tandem with the more complex actions he performed. He took a few wide steps toward the trio, the infinite cogs whirring ever louder. Then, a voice came from them. A scratchy, stilted voice, but a voice nonetheless. It sounded almost like someone speaking through a spinning fan, but low and distorted like the Cogs in the other room. “Welcome, dear guests, to our humble abode. I am the Lord of Cogs.” He gave them a pleasant bow.

“Quite the home you’ve got here,” Sato replied first, amiably. Even to a talking cogwheel, she was polite as ever.

“Hmm. My thanks. Pardon me, but are you the Maiden of the Rain? I was trying to figure out who you were and I believe I’ve finally gotten it.” The cog that acted as his head turned slightly in anticipation.

“Mhm, that’s me!”

“Ah, I knew it. Incredible. I have to say, you have made Reville a much better place to live. The alley stompers, the orphans… you’ve helped them a great deal.”

“Aw, thanks. I’m just doing what I can. What’s the point of making it out of the slums when you can’t give back, right?” Beneath her shining smile, Ma’at could tell, was a wash of tears. She couldn’t understand why, but the conversation pained Sato more than she was letting on.

The Lord of Cogs tilted his cogwheel in a nodding gesture. “True, true. Very true indeed. Well, you have all come at an opportune time. I’ve been discussing things with the local miscreants, you see, and it seems as though the Union has taken an interest in beings such as I. Such as us.”

“The Union is interested in Enigmas?” Tien asked.

“Quite. They have sent a few goons to my abode these past few days. One of them, a golden-haired pup, dared to injure my helpless Cogs. Despicable, really.”

“Raphael…?” Ma’at uttered.

He turned to her. “You know him? I’d like to ask you to kindly slap him across the face next time you see him. A tortuous person to talk to, he is. Unsavory personality. Incredulous. But quite the looker, I’ll give him that.”

“We don’t have anything to do with him. Well, technically, Ma’at and Sato here did work with him on a job a while ago. But Vroque itself simply accepts contracts from any source, be it the Union, an agency, a gang, whoever. What we want to know is where those missing people went. We know they used to live here. They were poor folk, like all of you once were. But your Cog downstairs told us you don’t convert them against their will, correct?”

“That is correct, yes.”

“Then, have you converted a mass amount of people recently? Or… have we followed the wrong thread?” A lump grew in Tien’s throat. She worried that they really had wasted all this time interrogating innocents.

“We have converted a good many. I believe that this job you are on probably does pertain to us, yes. But let me ask you something: what is it that you intend to do with that knowledge, hm? My Cogs do not want to return to their past lives. To them, such lives were torture. Pure, abyssal darkness in which there is no escape other than a loaded gun. I do not speak of normal sadness, normal discomfort with one’s life. I speak of the Dark, the unfiltered Dark. The spaces that the Blissful Sleep cannot soothe. The darkness that cannot be burnt away with shallow, vague promises of a starborn casket upon one’s death. No, true darkness is not the absence of hope, my dear. It is the promise of it, the leading of one’s future with it, entangled in it to the bitter end with love at its center. And oh, how it does end. Then the Dark cuts the thread, and we fall into the black abyss with no ledge to grab. No safety net. There is only the invisible moonlight, the whispering at the edge of oblivion… and then… poof! You’re back… with a cog for a head.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The trio stood in stunned silence with no idea as to how to respond to the elegantly strange man.

The Lord of Cogs reached into his suit pocket and drew out an antique, bronze pocketwatch. Black ichor dripped from its shattered face and created a tiny puddle at his feet. “Haha. Would you look at that? My pocketwatch bleeds the same hue as your hair, my friend.” He stared directly at Ma’at and her fluffy, onyx head. “Those sadistic sycophants will NOT take me nor my Cogs. I don’t care if you’re working for them or not, the time to act is now. If I do not, I could lose all that I’ve built. Without my Cogs, we are doomed to perish without even a record of our names. Don’t you understand that, Maiden of the Rain? Some of us are not so lucky. Many of us will die without fame or fortune. But not if I have anything to say about it.”

Sato was downtrodden and adrift in her memories of the past. A dark cloud loomed over her form, and she turned away from the creature’s rude remarks. Then, she spotted something hovering a fair distance away.

“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ma’at reasoned with the Lord of Cogs.

“It’s true! If you’ll let us go, we won’t do anything to harm them or you, okay?” Tien assured him.

“Over there! Look.” Sato pointed to somewhere far off, amidst the towering boxes.

All of them turned their heads and traced her finger to a small, black object hovering in place. It was a robot, no larger than a human head, floating using a booster on its underside. It seemed to be made of jagged shards of noctite. The number nine was finely printed on its side, along with two lines on the bottom right edge. A single camera lens shined in the dark space that was its front face.

“Is that…?”

“A Nye Inkorpt drone? Out here?”

“I knew it!” the Lord of Cogs shouted. “You are in leagues with those fools! The Union may be a nuisance, but you Inkorpt freaks have been stalking Indigo day in, day out! Time to end this!” With his false accusation seemingly proven right, he placed the pocketwatch into his staff and turned it counter-clockwise. Deafening sounds akin to music rang out in waves from the Enigma. He pointed his staff at the trio, then moved it to the hovering drone. Instantly, a violent cavalcade of gears erupted from the staff’s end and shot out in a scattered torrent. It was utterly obliterated, sending flaming bits of noctite falling to the ground below. “This is reprehensible! After this, we may need to move entirely. Reville is doomed. Doomed to fall to those capitalist, war-mongering idiots at the top.”

They needed to stop the erratic clockwork man at once, before he killed them all. Before he destroyed everything in sight.

He turned back to the trio with his staff. A reverberating, echoing energy orbited it. Chaotic energy within charged to lethal levels.

But before he could unleash a deluge of chrono-electricity, Tien, with her petite yet quick form, had already run to his side. With a heavy swing, she smashed her briefcase into the Lord of Cogs’ head, knocking him to the floor.

Ma’at was right there with her. With double black steel blades, the Sirithisian mercenary jumped on top of him and put both gleaming edges to his throat. Well, what could only be surmised was his throat. It was hard to tell which parts of him were truly affected by physical means and which weren’t.

“I yield! I yield! Fine, you Inkorpt dogs! Kill me, then! It won’t make any damn difference. The minutiae of everyday life will die out. This endless fight for wealth and prosperity… I’m tired of it. Tired of looking up every morning at those sputtering airships, the Enlightened Towers, yearning for a better life. Just end it all. End my suffering.”

“Shut the hell up! All this whining won’t do shit for you or your followers. Now, look! We’re not from Inkorpt, and we’re not going to kill you!” Ma’at’s voice was full of urgency. She desperately wanted the man to calm himself so that she could do the same.

“You all… really aren’t Nye Inkorpt agents? Surely?” His cogwheels barely moved at all as if to signal that they were finally getting through to him.

“Yes,” Tien said. “We really aren’t. Inkorpt is a competitor, anyway. Why the hell would we work for them?” She tapped Ma’at on the shoulder and grabbed the Lord of Cogs’ hand. With more of his strength than hers, she and Ma’at pulled him back to his feet and Sato handed him his staff. The pocketwatch had fallen out of it. It was on the floor a couple feet away, stygian blood still leaking out from inside the glass inlay.

“Well, then I am deeply sorry. Understand that there aren’t many you can trust in the city nowadays. I don’t just have myself to protect, but also my acolytes. My unjust violence was on their behalf. Please, if you can find it within yourself, do forgive me. I was wrong, and incredibly foolish.” He sunk into himself and leaned forward to emphasize his repentance.

“It’s okay,” Tien reassured him, placing a calming hand on his shoulder briefly. “What really matters is who actually sent that thing.”

“It was definitely spying on us.” Sato nodded.

Ma’at leaned over the platform railing down at the cluttered abyss below. Burning refuse at the bottom let out wispy smoke. The remains of the drone generated a revolting, metallic stench as if it were a dead animal.

The Lord of Cogs gripped his staff tightly. “Incorrigible bunch of lowlives, all of them. I suspect there’s more to this. They may-”

Just then, multiple screams were heard. Distorted, pain-filled screams of machines leaking out of the marquee entrance.

Everyone’s blood ran cold. The cries echoed off of the walls and traveled to each and every corner of the cluttered, abandoned factory.

“No…” the Lord of Cogs muttered, sprinting down the repaired stairs and toward the shut double doors. As he reached a hand forward to open them, a being burst through and fell to the ground in front of him.

“ENEMIES. My Lord… help us… please…”

The Vroque women caught up to him, peering down at the pitiful Cog pleading for life. It grasped at its master’s feet as if it were blind, like a child trying to take hold of its father’s finger. The machines that made up its tired, beaten body sputtered and sparked. The gears that made it move started to slow, then slow even more.

The Lord of Cogs knelt down and took the acolyte’s hand. Upon connecting, they let out a tiny click. “Who has done this to you!? Is it them? Inkorpt!?”

“SAD. I’m… sorry my Lord… I tried. It was all too fast. They are… terrifying… and I am… sad…”

“Quick, Tien! Use your hammer on him! Before he-”

Sato went silent as her friend solemnly shook her head. “I… I can’t. It only works on non-living things. These were people once. They still are people…”

“Don’t you have something to help him?”

Tien dropped her suitcase and began searching through it as fast as she could, scrambling for something, anything that could prevent the being’s departure.

“REGRET. I had hoped, my Lord… deep down… that we could have gone someplace together. All of us. These travelers… helped me remember a dream so very distant…”

“Do not speak, acolyte. We’ll get you help.”

The Cog shook its head in a staggered motion, its metallic amalgamated cranium scraping against the concrete floor. “They have already helped me. The waves… the sand… the flying fish…” The gears in its body slowed to a crawl. “...I can recall them all, at this moment. How much time have we wasted scuttling about in this dark corner… when we could have been on the briny docks of Kohru…”

“Stay with us, Olin my man. We need you here. A Cog lost is a machine dismantled…”

“Kohru… How many fish do you think we’ll catch this time, Kara…?”

“Olin…”

The Cog’s sparking and sputtering stopped abruptly. The gears came to a sudden, rigid halt. Its blinking eye shrunk into a fine, red point until there was no light left. The Cog was eternally silent, an object without personality. A husk of a husk.

The Lord of Cogs’ head ceased its spinning. He slowly placed a hand on the acolyte’s clothed, jagged body for a moment. A silent, passing moment.

After the silence had gone on long enough, once anger had brewed in her heart and came to a boiling point, Ma’at stepped over the deceased Cog and kicked the blasted doors back open in the correct direction.

The sight made her wince. Countless Cogs cut apart and brutalized were left dangling off of walkways, stairs, and assembly lines. Their bullet-like digits hung from sparking wires. Their severed lifeless, abominable, mechanical heads left out in the open as if to make mockery of their reclusive lives. Lives that simply wanted to hide in the dark, remain unknown to all, and continue on to the best of their ability. People who had been used as cogs all their lives. People who couldn’t imagine a world of freedom for themselves, who had forgotten the very meaning of the word.

Were they strange? Were they somewhat deluded? Were they clouded by their hatred of those on higher rungs than them on the ever-growing social ladder? Yes, she thought. But they didn’t deserve something this horrible.

And in the middle of the room, centered and surrounded by the mangled corpses of the clockwork automatons, was one Nye Inkorpt agent. A man wearing a jagged, asymmetrical mask and a puffy military jacket. In his hand was a vicious, glowing blade burning with azure starlight.

The final stage of their plan had begun.