Chapter 8: Production Line – Part 2

In some worlds they think all life is made of skin and bone, muscle, blood, nails and hair, but the engineer knew better. She was not important enough to have been given a name, but she had a number and she had an occupation, and the task appointed to her was an enlightening one.

She knew that life could take form in tiny sparks of lightning that danced along copper wires within a shell of steel, rubber and bronze finish, because she was one of the people who helped put those bodies together. Though she did not forge the metal of their skin nor the wires that passed for nerves, nor even lay their coats of bronze, she did tend the machines that brought those components together into a single form. She was the one who made sure their assemblance went without falter, who made sure no fault made its way into the execution of their design, and though she did not wire the mind herself, she saw it wake. She was the first to see light in the eyes of those electric souls, those children of metal, as they took their first steps off the line and into the world of the living.

Or the worlds, to be more accurate. The overseers had never seen fit to answer when she asked how many worlds there were, so she had long since stopped asking. All she knew was that they were numerous, that no product went to all of them, and that once something had been dispatched it could not be returned. That, she supposed, was good for them. Who would choose to come back to the Factory?

Life here was not good; all the rooms and walls were made of metal or concrete, the air was thick with steam and dust, and the heat was unrelenting. Under the pale dim lights of the assembly lines she toiled, moving from station to station, inspecting each machine in turn, ensuring they were oiled and adjusted and running at the pinnacle of efficiency. And sometimes, she spoke to the new souls.

She still remembered when the overseers had given her her job. Not the events leading up to that moment, not her own birth on the same conveyors she now kept running, no one was allowed to remember that, but she could recall looking into the eyes of the man she had been sent to meet, and she could recall his words to her, his account of what her work and purpose would be. Of how she would spend her life. And he had told her then that though each soul, metal or mortal, was supposed to walk off the line and head for their destination without hesitation, every now and then one needed a little coaxing, and that too was her duty.

In the twenty years since her assignment she’d done that duty more times than she could count. Though the occasion was vanishingly rare if you considered the percentage, so many souls were assembled each day that it became commonplace. Most required a few words of encouragement and a finger pointed in the right direction; one or two needed a longer talk, perhaps a stern one, or a physical push to get them going. Confusion had a tendency to breed reluctance, at least in those dark rooms.

And then there were some...

On a shift like any other, the engineer finished rewiring a welding arm that had broken down mid-production of a child of metal. She wiped away the beads of sweat the heat of the room had conjured on her brow and looked up to make sure the arm was back in motion before locking the cover of its circuit-board once again and standing up, hands on her hips, to watch it assemble for a few moments longer.

Soon it was time to move on. Some of the assemblies, the great halls where the parts finally came together and the bodies were built, carried over a hundred production lines at once, but this one only had a dozen or so, all operating to perfection now that the welder was up and running again. Upright with that private satisfaction one always gleans from doing a thankless job flawlessly, the engineer made her way to the door and stepped out into the halls. She had another assembly to attend to.

When she came to it, a body of flesh was just being completed. She paused at the door and watched the machinery weave deftly up and down, leaving in its wake the final touches to the clothing. Once all was according to design, one of the arms delivered a single injection to the back of the neck; the gift of life, manufactured and labelled and cradled in a syringe. In the eyes of the newly-made man, light appeared, and he stepped off the line and adjusted his suit, then his fedora, then turned and walked to the door.

As the engineer stood hurridly aside, he muttered, ‘Pardon me, ma’am,’ and was gone.

This assembly was larger than the other one. Its lines stretched a hundred metres back into shadows that relented only momentarily in wake of the brief sparks which danced in the air as metal was welded and wires spat, their small, violent flashes of blue and red lighting up like thousands of tiny fleeting stars. Only over one of the lines, the darkness persisted without interruption as the machines stood still beside a multitude of forms half-made, stationary on the long conveyor.

As she moved up along the side of that line, checking each section for faults, she glanced up at the figures every now and then. This was a line for children of flesh, and she looked up into their blank slack faces and saw eyes full of glassy lifelessness. When given life they would animate, but for now their eerie stillness pushed her to hurry.

She found the fault right at the end of the line, where the conveyor met an opening in the wall through which the skeletons were brought. There, one of the gears that kept the line moving had bent somehow and was running loose, never quite making contact with its neighbours. It took only a minute or so to take it out and screw in a replacement; once that was done, she restarted the line and the conveyor began to move again. The machines jumped back into action, grinding and humming as they moved; all was as it should be.

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The engineer made a much quicker return to the front of the assembly. It was her intent to move on to another posthaste, for there were many faults on her list that shift, as there always were, but as she neared the door she heard the sound of something metal coming to life. Knowing it well, she turned and watched as the power source was placed in the back of the neck of one of the children of metal. White pinpoints lit up in its eyes as its head rose; machine arms detached themselves from it, and it stepped forwards off the production line, onto the floor of the Factory.

Though they all shared a coat of bronze, in most ways the children of metal were as variable as the children of flesh: they came in all shapes, all sizes, all strengths and weaknesses, and all purposes. This one was not particularly tall, but not short either; around half a head taller than the engineer, it boasted a slender frame of sleek design that looked to her to be built for speed. But when it walked it walked slowly, limping at first. That was not unheard of for a soul’s first steps.

As it came closer, she began to see more detail in its form; on the insides of its arms were small rectangular holes she knew hid retracted blades; its body moved with a fluidity that was unusual for the children of metal, even down to subtle expressions on its face, expressions the engineer knew were a perfect tool for silent communication on a battlefield; and faint risen lines on its smooth and shiny hull betrayed the locations of what she didn’t doubt were pneumatic cylinders running down its forearms and lower legs. This was not any normal child of metal: it was a war machine.

There was a world of battles and death somewhere, an endless plain where armies clashed in constant conflict and the soldiers fell as quickly as they arrived. As the child stumbled towards the engineer, she drew herself up to her full height, already anticipating what was about to come.

It stopped in front of her and looked into her eyes, leaning with one hand against the wall, a frown creasing its bronze brow. ‘Tell me, where do I go?’ Its voice was gentle, halting and a little metallic; it jumped uncertainly from word to word as though it wasn’t quite sure it was choosing the right ones.

The engineer pointed towards the door. ‘Down that way,’ she said, doing her best to put on a soothing tone. ‘To the lift. It knows where you’re due; it’ll take you all the way there. Then just follow the overseers.’

The tiny white pinpoints in its eyes moved to look where she directed, and the head tilted a little, then shifted from side to side in a slow yet decisive action. ‘No… they will send me to war. Why must I go to war? I do not want to go... there.’

‘You’ll be fine,’ the engineer assured it, reaching down towards her belt, where a small communicator hung dormant but ready. She’d seen a child like this once before: the faulty products, as the overseers called them. They came in both metal and flesh, and there was due process in place to deal with them. All the engineer had to do was report it to the overseers.

‘Just wait here,’ she insisted, ‘and I’ll get someone up to help you.’

The child moved faster than she could react, seizing her wrist in an iron grip, freezing her hand just above the communicator. No matter how much she pulled, the child’s arm and hers remained locked in place.

‘No,’ it said, voice still soft. ‘You mean to call them here. They will make me go. They made me for war. I know what… deception… looks like.’

It let go of her and ran, bolting to the door and out, disappearing into the hallways of the Factory before she could turn to watch it go. Listening to its footsteps recede, she slowly shook her head. It wouldn’t last long. Reaching down to her belt again, she took up the communicator and reported the incident before moving on.

There were some new souls who by some twisted chance fault in their wiring tried to flee fate upon their birth. The engineer knew they never made it far. She knew this war machine would be caught the same as the others, pulled apart for scrap, and made anew. For infinity cannot come from nothing.

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