The city was screaming again.
Not the kind of scream you hear from people—it was the shriek of a hundred tangled gears grinding out of sync, the sound of Gearhaven coughing up smoke and pride for the thousandth time. And naturally, it was happening inside my workshop.
"Bolt! Kill the pressure valve before this thing—"
"Correction: it already exploded, Miles."
The air whooshed out like a beast exhaling fire. Steam slapped my face, goggles fogging instantly. My latest prototype—a stabilizer meant to keep automaton limbs from tearing themselves apart—decided it didn't like following instructions. The limb jerked off the table, slammed into the ceiling, and started beating itself senseless against the wall.
I spat soot, waved off a line of smoke, and muttered, "Well… at least the servos are strong."
My workshop smelled like burnt copper and old dreams. Pipes hissed along the cracked walls, every inch cluttered with half‑assembled drones and ticking contraptions held together by faith and wire. Above the chaos, the smog-filtered daylight was choked to a faint orange halo through the vents. Somewhere up there, in the glittering top rings, the Guild of Artificers probably sipped oil-free tea and congratulated themselves for their spotless gloves.
Down here in the Gutterworks, inventors like me bled into their machines.
"Prototype failure rate: eighty‑three percent," Bolt reported dryly from above.
My floating disaster of an assistant hovered close, blue eyes blinking into a flat line.
"Thanks, Bolt. I needed that ego check."
"You're welcome. Shall I auto‑file this under 'possibly genius but definitely suicidal'?"
"Put it under 'progress,'" I said, jamming a wrench into the arm's socket before it punched another hole in the wall.
After a burst of sparks and a sound suspiciously like mechanical laughter, the joint finally froze. My goggles cracked somewhere along the way—great, another badge of honor for my collection.
***
That's when I heard the siren in the distance—the Guild bell.
Three long tones: evaluation day.
I glanced at the soot‑streaked clock. Almost noon.
Against better judgment, I grinned.
"Guess we're showing this beauty off early."
"Sir, the limb just attempted homicide."
"Which means it's passionate! Come on—it's evaluation or eviction, and I'd rather blow up a Guild turbine than my rent again."
I crammed the prototype arm into a cart, lashed it with rope, and kicked the lever that opened my workshop door. The massive hydraulic shutter groaned upward, letting in the roar of Gearhaven proper—piston rails thundering, gears clanking, crowds yelling beneath the layered skyline.
The Gutterworks never stopped moving. Steam bled into sky‑rails above; iron bridges groaned like beasts under shifting weight. Overhead, zeppelins crawled past towers patched together from clock parts and brass bones. Every building looked like it was built on top of another's failure.
And I loved every bit of it.
***
"Bolt, stay close," I said, pushing my cart into the street.
He followed, hovering like an anxious beetle. "Remind me why we can't just fabricate a clean design like normal inventors?"
"Because normal is boring. You think the Sigma‑Rank inventors got there by following manuals?"
Bolt's eyes flickered. "Statistically speaking—"
"Shh. Let me have the fantasy."
***
By the time we reached the Guild's lower plaza, crowds had already gathered. Apprentices in oil-stained coats clamored around the evaluation platforms, each lugging inventions they swore would "change history."
I knew that tone. I used it every day.
"Hey, Tesla!" yelled a thick-necked brunet from a nearby stand. Prynn, my least favorite rival. His exosleeves hissed, the polished chrome catching light like they weren't dragged through the same soot I was.
"Your junk machine gonna self-destruct again?" he called, smirking.
I grabbed a rag, wiped my goggles, and shot him my best I‑have‑nothing‑left‑to‑lose grin.
"Only if it gets bored waiting for yours to do something interesting."
Laughter rippled through the crowd. Prynn's smirk twitched—score one for chaos.
***
A voice crackled from the Guild loudspeakers, precise and mechanical:
"Apprentices—evaluation round commences. Present your submission to the sub‑committee for structural and ethical verification."
Ethical. The word always punched me right in the wrench-hand.
They wanted innovation, sure—but only the kind that didn't shake the machine too much. Anything that bent rules too far was tagged as "unstable."
And maybe they were right. But tell that to my dreams.
***
Half an hour later, I stood before the judges—three brass‑badged artificers in immaculate coats—my experimental stabilizer arm fixed proudly onto a mechanical frame.
"Demonstrate the synchronization function," said the lead evaluator, her monocle glinting.
"With pleasure."
I spun the ignition wheel. Gears whirred. The limb flexed once—perfect sync. For one glorious second, it worked exactly how I imagined.
Then came the noise.
A single crackle, like lightning caught in metal teeth, and the arm jerked sideways. The stabilizers glowed red, core overloading. Before I could shut it down, the limb launched forward and punched a hole through the testing booth wall—directly into the evaluator's podium.
Gasps. Sparks. A lot of smoke.
Bolt's voice rang from somewhere above. "Impeccable first impression, sir."
I coughed. "Yeah… precision craftsmanship."
***
They kicked me out, of course. Not blacklisted (not yet), but close enough to feel it.
As I hauled the wreckage back down the ramp toward the lower districts, the crowd's jeers followed. Prynn made sure to shout something about "genius grease monkey." Real original.
Still, beneath the humiliation, something in that explosion's pulse didn't feel random. I'd seen malfunctions before. That surge... it had a signature. Like code whispering through metal.
"Bolt, run a resonance scan on the stabilizer debris."
His eyes blinked amber. "…That's odd. Interference pattern resembles—"
He paused. "—central Overmind output frequency."
My grip on the cart stiffened.
"You're saying the city's core system *hijacked* my limb?"
"Or tested it," Bolt replied. "Someone's watching your prototypes very closely."
***
The city's night smog rolled in early, painting every gear with a dull bronze glow. I turned toward the tower skyline—where Overmind's control spire rose like a spear through the clouds, its blinking blue eye surveying everything below.
If it was true… if that thing reached into my machines—
Then maybe my failures weren't just mine anymore.
***
So that's how Gearhaven welcomed me back.
With an explosion, a ruined reputation, and the creeping suspicion that my city had started thinking for itself.
And if there's one rule I live by, it's that when gears start turning on their own…
someone's about to get crushed.