The overseer wasn’t as intimidating as Mirror remembered them being, back in the earliest of days when they first handed her duties to her. He stood at around the same height as her, with a frown on his rough face and a long, squint nose above a jagged chin. His hair was light and cut short, while a moustache covered his upper lip and wrinkles danced through his skin like cracks in a wall. His eyes were cold and bright and rested, for the moment, on Bronze.

But for all the anger he clearly bore and all the power at his fingertips, he looked strangely like just a man. The enforcers that stood on either side of him were another story entirely. They were children of metal, like Bronze but larger and stronger, with bright eyes, clenched fists and hulking shoulders. Their hulls would be thicker than Bronze’s, and though they might move a little slower, their strength would overpower it in the end. There was no point in trying to fight them.

When Mirror looked at her companion, she saw recognition of that in its expression. It held its hands in tightly-clenched fists by its sides and stood completely still as it stared back into the eyes of the overseer.

After a moment, he opened his mouth. ‘So what are you both doing all the way down here, eh?’

‘Could ask you the same thing,’ Mirror replied. ‘Aren’t you flesh? How do you breathe?’

The overseer tipped his head to the side but did not break his gaze away from Bronze. ‘This happens to be my sector.’ His voice was much like his face; old and worn and cold. ‘As to my respiration, I need it, so it’s in my design. You do not need it because you were never supposed to be here. But we had to send you somewhere out of the way ― couldn’t let you anywhere near the Wall. Especially not this one.’ He gestured to Bronze. ‘Disaster that would be. What was your number again, war machine? We make so many of you I lose track.’

‘My name is Bronze.’

‘Your name?’ The overseer unfolded his arms and shoved his hands into the pockets of his suit. ‘Choose that for yourself did you, war machine?’

‘Why can’t we see the Wall?’ asked Mirror, finally drawing a glance from him. She was surprised to find it a little softer than those levied at Bronze.

‘Because you do not lay your eyes upon a god, engineer. That sole sheet of iron and the words etched upon it are more important, more integral to creation itself, than you could possibly comprehend.’ He stepped forwards and raised a hand, one finger directed at her. ‘It is by the Gospel that we remember our duties, duties which you have seen fit to abandon ― and for what? What did you expect to see if you did make it? Anything other than what you already knew was there?’

Mirror did not reply. She didn’t know. On impulse she had travelled with Bronze down here, following its lead, for some reason trusting it more than the world she’d lived peacefully with for however long she wasn’t certain, and where had that led her? What had she hoped to see? It had been Bronze’s suggestion to seek the Wall, not hers. And it had been too good, much too good to think that she, a mere engineer should be allowed to look upon one of the pillars of creation. The world was not that kind. What had she been thinking, that she had managed to delude herself into believing the Factory would lead them to the right place?

‘I thought I would see if your lies lived up to the strength of the real world,’ said Bronze, suddenly. ‘Since you crafted me for destruction. I was curious to observe how that strength might be applied to this monument of yours. Would these words so integral to creation crumple under my fist?’

The overseer was quiet for a moment, his eyes darting between them. Eventually they settled on Mirror, whose vision was wavering a little as she grew steadily more aware of how little the air was doing for her.

‘You don’t belong down here, engineer,’ the overseer said. ‘And you, war machine. You’re the source of all of this. Ground zero. You’re beyond rescue.’ He flicked a hand, gesturing to the enforcers. ‘Get rid of that one, take the engineer up to my office. We may be able to salvage her.’

Mirror let go of the wall and tried to step back, but the air had weakened her and her legs buckled. Bronze caught her as she fell, but let go again to leap away as an enforcer swiped at it with a vicious blade that had emerged from a hole under its wrist. As the other enforcer dragged her away, the last she saw of Bronze was it grappling its enemy as it was forced farther and farther backwards, towards one of the waste chutes.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

After that, a haze took over her mind. She couldn’t say if it was something to do with the air or if it was something the overseer did, but the next time she became properly aware of where she was, she was sitting in a metal chair in front of a large empty desk. Opposite her sat the overseer, his hands folded and his eyes trained on her face.

‘You with us again?’ he asked after a moment. ‘We were a little worried you might have died.’

She shook her head to clear it, but the overseer seemed to take that as a reply.

‘Well, try to focus,’ he told her. ‘It has been a long time since we last spoke, number 11000534021645. I remember someone who was far more willing to stick to their duties. What happened, exactly?’

Mirror peered at him, trying to draw some sort of familiarity in his features, but there was none. He was not any of the overseers she had met, and she told him so.

He ran a hand over his eyes. ‘Sorry, we forget sometimes how individually you all perceive us. Very well, if it makes you feel better, it has been a long time since you last spoke with one of us. The records indicate you were much more obedient then. How long have you been thinking about abandoning your duties?’

When she didn’t reply, he sighed and sat back, his gaze soaring to the ceiling in thought. ‘I am actually trying to help you,’ he told her. ‘The war machine was beyond our ability to fix. It was rebellious the moment it stepped off the line, the fault lay in its making, but you are different. The error in you was placed there by another. The broken are extremely devious... but if I can fix your perception of things, convince you of the Gospel once again, you’ll be right as ratchets and we can forget about this whole affair.’

‘Why are there flaws?’ she asked, looking up. ‘If we’re integral to creation, why do things go against design?’

‘The First Craftsmen were not immaculate, engineer.’ He leant forwards and placed his hands together, interweaving his fingers. ‘Nor is creation itself. You know the score; infinity cannot come from nothing. Someone has to make it. They did their best, but all it takes is one little fault to creep into the first machines and over the ages it grows and grows. Just one seed is all you need to start a forest.’ He chuckled. ‘If there were no flaws there’d be no overseers. But here I am. And I need to remind you who you are.’

‘I’m free.’

‘Are you now? Is that why you followed the war machine?’ He waited for a response, but she gave none. ‘When we made you, we told you things. We gave you knowledge, skills and experience that would be useful to you in your duties.. And yes, we told a few white lies, and we did it so that you could serve us, but through us, you serve creation. The war machine, it told you many things too. Some of them might have been true, some of them might have been lies, and all of them were chosen very carefully to make you believe what it wanted. To do what it told you. You weren’t free. You were just serving a smaller, pettier master.’

Mirror leant her head forwards and rested her hands in her face. There was truth to what the overseer said. Or was that a trick too? Was there something in her wiring making her believe him?

‘So what is the truth?’ she asked, almost in a whisper.

He raised two fingers to point to his eyes. ‘What do you see? A factory. Making things. Those things go out to other worlds. They furnish them. You don’t need to see the Gospel Wall because everything written on it is evident enough around you. The truth is just what we say it is. Nothing more. Are you ready to accept that? Return to your duties ― your noble duties?’

‘Ten years,’ she said suddenly. ‘That’s how long I’ve been thinking about abandoning them. I stole a piece of scrap metal and polished it into a mirror.’

The overseer frowned. ‘Why?’

‘I wanted to see my face.’

‘And what did you see?’

She paused, thinking back. ‘I saw a soul. A single, living soul, with beliefs and wants and… and imagination. Things beyond what I’d need to do my duties. Beyond what any design could have accounted for.’ She met his gaze and saw a downturned mouth and rounded eyes, full of disappointment. ‘If this job were all I’m meant for, I wouldn’t have those. I don’t serve you.’

The silence in the room drew out for several long, thin seconds. The overseer finally opened his mouth. ‘Number Ele―’

‘My name, is Mirror.’

His eyes hardened. He nodded. ‘Scrap her.’

Behind her, the sound of shifting metal alerted her to the presence of the enforcer that had been lurking near the door. She made to stand up, but it seized her before she could move and dragged her out into the hallway. Though she struggled against its grip, she knew it was pointless. It carried her from the office of the overseer to a small room with a forge in the corner, fire blazing within it.

The enforcer dumped Mirror in the corner, where she crouched, frozen, as it moved over to a line of tools lying on a table. Its hand passed over a hammer and picked up a key. It moved to a door in the wall and inserted the key into a slot. The door swung wide. Inside, the smooth blades and thin needles of sharp machinery gleamed bright in the red glare of the flames.

Which parts of her would they keep? Would any memory, even the tiniest fragment of her wiring, remain?

Little was ever wasted in the Factory. When a fault developed over long years, the components themselves were not the issue. That was simply the weave of time sowing its entropic chaos as it so often did. A little guiding hand always put things back in order, and every old product could be salvaged. Taken apart, each component separated and saved and remade into something new. For infinity cannot come from nothing.