The soot-stained windows of my workshop filtered the meager daylight into thin, copper-hued beams that caught the dancing dust motes like fireflies in amber. Outside, New Grimshaw’s perpetual haze of coal smoke and steam hung like a funeral shroud over the city’s iron spires and brass domes. I barely noticed anymore. My attention was fixed on the mechanical heart before me—my latest creation, my newest failure.
I wiped my oil-blackened hands on my already filthy waistcoat and adjusted the array of magnifying lenses attached to my brass headgear. The clockwork valves weren’t synchronizing properly with the steam pressure. Again.
“Blast it all to the aether,” I muttered, reaching for the pressure release valve as the miniature boiler began to whistle ominously. A jet of scalding vapor hissed into the workshop air, adding to the perpetual miasma of steam, oil, and metal that constituted my natural habitat.
My name is Thaddeus Ember, though few in New Grimshaw remember it anymore. Most know me simply as “the Mad Engineer” or “that lunatic from the Eastern Quarter.” Fair assessments, perhaps. Obsession has a way of eroding social niceties.
The contraption before me represented my seventeenth attempt at creating a self-regulating steam heart—a mechanical replacement for the failing organ in Lord Bartholomew Wickett’s chest. The aristocrat was paying handsomely for the privilege of not dying, though his patience, like his heart, was wearing dangerously thin.
I nudged a brass cog with my calibration tool, feeling the familiar ache in my fingers. Ten years of manipulating hot metal and delicate mechanisms had left my hands a cartography of burns, scars, and calluses. The price of creation.
“You’ve visitors, Mr. Ember,” came a tinny voice from the speaking tube near the workbench.
I sighed, not looking up from my work. “Send them away, Grimshaw. I’m at a critical juncture.”
“It’s the Ministry men again, sir,” my mechanical butler’s voice crackled through the tube. “They’re most insistent.”
Of course they were. The Royal Ministry of Mechanical Affairs had been hounding me for months about licensing my inventions. As if bureaucratic approval would somehow improve the quality of my work. Their real intention was taxation and control—the twin pillars upon which New Grimshaw’s corrupt governance was built.
“Tell them I died,” I suggested, carefully adjusting a pressure gauge.
“I employed that particular fabrication last Thursday, sir. I don’t believe they’ll accept it a second time.”
Before I could devise another evasion, the heavy iron door to my workshop crashed open. The sudden draft sent blueprints fluttering from my workbench and disturbed the delicate calibration of my instruments. I bit back a curse.
Two men stood in the doorway, their forms silhouetted against the sickly yellow gaslight of the corridor beyond. The taller one wore the distinctive brass-buttoned uniform and respirator mask of the Ministry. The other, shorter and rotund, was dressed in the finery of New Grimshaw’s upper crust—a steam-powered mechanical arm whirring softly where his right appendage should have been.
“Engineer Ember,” the Ministry man said, his voice muffled behind his copper-plated breathing apparatus. “Your presence has been requested by Her Imperial Majesty.”
I snorted, turning back to my work. “The Empress wouldn’t know me from a steam valve. You’ll have to fabricate a more convincing lie.”
The aristocrat stepped forward, his mechanical arm adjusting with a series of clicks and hisses. “It’s no fabrication, Ember. I am Lord Chancellor Blackwood, and the Empress specifically asked for you by name.”
That gave me pause. I peered at him through my magnification lenses, which made his already florid face appear grotesquely enlarged. “What could the Iron Throne possibly want with me? I’ve paid my quarterly bribes to the local inspectors like a good citizen.”
Blackwood’s expression soured. “This is a matter of national security, not your petty violations of the Mechanical Codes.” He glanced around my workshop with undisguised distaste. “The imperial steam carriage will arrive in one hour. I suggest you make yourself… presentable.”
After they departed, I stared at the half-finished heart on my workbench. Lord Wickett would have to wait a bit longer for his mechanical salvation. I pulled the release lever on my headgear, letting the array of magnifying lenses swing up with a satisfying series of clicks.
“Grimshaw,” I called into the speaking tube. “Prepare my second-best coat. Apparently, I have an audience with the Empress.”
“Very good, sir,” came the metallic reply. “Shall I also prepare your will and testament?”
My mechanical butler’s humor algorithms needed adjustment. Unfortunately, his pessimism was well-founded. Few who were summoned to the Imperial Clocktower returned to tell of it.
The imperial steam carriage was a monstrous conveyance of brass, iron, and polished mahogany. Six mechanical horses—perfect replications of the real beasts save for their brass-plated hides and glowing red photoreceptors—pulled the vehicle through New Grimshaw’s narrow streets. Steam belched from exhaust pipes mounted on their flanks, adding to the city’s perpetual haze.
Inside, Lord Chancellor Blackwood sat opposite me, his mechanical arm making small adjustments as the carriage rocked over the cobblestones. The Ministry man—who had introduced himself as Inspector Caldwell—stood by the door like a sentinel.
“I assume you’ll eventually tell me why I’ve been abducted,” I said, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
“You’ve not been abducted, Ember. You’ve been honored with an imperial summons,” Blackwood replied, his jowls quivering with indignation.
“Semantics,” I muttered, gazing out the window at the passing cityscape. New Grimshaw was transforming as we moved from the industrial Eastern Quarter toward the imperial district. Soot-blackened tenements gave way to ornate buildings with brass filigree and steam-powered automatons maintaining the streets.
“The Empress requires your expertise on a matter of greatest delicacy,” Blackwood said, lowering his voice despite our privacy. “The imperial steam engine is… unwell.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Machines don’t get ‘unwell,’ Chancellor. They malfunction, break down, or explode spectacularly. Which is it?”
“None of those,” Caldwell interjected, his voice hollow behind his respirator. “It’s… changing.”
That caught my attention. “Changing? How?”
Neither man answered immediately. Blackwood and Caldwell exchanged glances, a silent communication passing between them that made my skin prickle.
“You’ll see for yourself,” Blackwood finally said. “The imperial engineers are baffled. Three have already been executed for failing to diagnose the problem.”
My mouth went dry. “How encouraging.”
The carriage came to a halt before the Imperial Clocktower—a monumental structure of brass, iron, and glass that dominated New Grimshaw’s skyline. Steam leaked from countless pipes along its exterior, and the massive clock face near its summit glowed with an unnatural blue light that penetrated even the thickest fog.
As we disembarked, I noticed the unusual quiet. The perpetual background noise of New Grimshaw—hissing steam, clanking machinery, shouting street vendors—was absent here. The only sound was the rhythmic thudding that emanated from deep within the tower. Like a gigantic mechanical heart.
“This way,” Blackwood said, leading me toward an inconspicuous side entrance. Two automaton guards flanked the door, their brass faces impassive but their photoreceptors tracking our movement with predatory precision.
The interior of the Clocktower was a cathedral to technology. Massive gears interlocked in slow, purposeful rotations. Pistons the size of carriages pumped steadily. Steam pipes thick as tree trunks crisscrossed the cavernous space, occasionally releasing jets of vapor with deafening hisses. And everywhere, the soft glow of aether lamps cast everything in an eerie blue light.
We descended via a mechanical lift, the brass cage creaking ominously as it dropped us deeper and deeper beneath the city. The temperature rose noticeably with each passing level, until sweat beaded on my forehead and soaked through my second-best coat.
“The imperial steam engine was installed seventy-three years ago,” Blackwood explained as we descended. “It powers not just the Clocktower but the entire central district. Water purification, defensive mechanisms, the imperial laboratories—all depend on it.”
“I’m familiar with its reputation,” I said. The imperial steam engine was legendary among engineers—a marvel of mechanical engineering said to be decades ahead of its time. Some whispered it had not been entirely designed by human minds.
The lift finally shuddered to a halt. The doors opened to reveal a massive chamber hewn from the bedrock beneath New Grimshaw. And there it sat—the imperial steam engine.
My first impression was one of scale. The machine was enormous, filling the cavern from floor to ceiling. Boilers the size of townhouses. Pistons as thick as ancient trees. Pressure gauges larger than carriage wheels. The heat was nearly unbearable, and the noise—a cacophony of hissing, clanking, and the deep rhythmic thudding I’d heard from outside—physically assaulted my senses.
But as my eyes adjusted to the chaotic scene, I noticed something wrong. Very wrong.
“It’s… growing,” I whispered, though there was no chance of being heard over the din without shouting.
Blackwood nodded grimly, pointing to a section of the engine where brass pipes twisted in configurations no engineer would design. They resembled nothing so much as viscera—intestines of metal and steam.
“It began three months ago,” he shouted in my ear. “A small anomaly in the eastern boiler assembly. The imperial engineers replaced the component, but the next day it had… returned. And spread.”
I approached the engine, drawn by professional curiosity despite the danger. The brass pipes were warm beneath my fingers, pulsing slightly as steam flowed through them in patterns that defied conventional mechanical logic. This was no malfunction. This was… evolution.
“Has anyone consulted the original designer?” I shouted to Blackwood.
A shadow crossed his face. “Cornelius Shaw has been dead for fifty years. His notes were stored in the imperial archive, but they were destroyed in the Aether Fire of ’89.”
Of course. That would be too simple.
I spent the next several hours examining the engine, making notes, taking measurements. The more I observed, the more my scientific mind struggled to rationalize what I was seeing. The imperial steam engine was not just malfunctioning—it was redesigning itself. Growing new components. Rerouting steam pathways. Optimizing its own efficiency in ways I couldn’t begin to comprehend.
And at the center of it all, nestled among the original components like a parasite, was something that didn’t belong. A crystalline structure, pulsing with an inner light, around which the new growth seemed to radiate.
When I finally emerged from the engine room, soaked with sweat and covered in oil and grime, Blackwood and the Empress herself were waiting. She was younger than I expected—perhaps forty—with sharp features and eyes that gleamed with the same unnatural blue as the aether lamps throughout the tower.
“Engineer Ember,” she said, her voice surprisingly deep. “What is your assessment?”
I bowed awkwardly, unused to court etiquette. “Your Majesty, I believe something has… infected your steam engine. A crystalline structure of unknown origin that’s causing the machine to reconfigure itself.”
“Can you remove it?” she asked, cutting directly to the point.
I hesitated. “Possibly. But I’m not certain that would be wise. The crystal appears to be improving the engine’s efficiency. It’s generating more power while consuming less coal and water.”
“It’s an abomination,” Blackwood interjected. “A violation of natural law.”
The Empress silenced him with a glance. “Continue, Engineer Ember.”
“The crystal appears to be… intelligent, in its way. It’s not just causing random changes but purposeful ones. I’d need to study it further to understand its nature and intentions.”
“Its intentions?” Blackwood scoffed. “It’s a rock, not a politician.”
I ignored him. “Your Majesty, with your permission, I’d like to bring in some specialized equipment from my workshop. I believe I can communicate with the crystal, after a fashion. Determine what it wants.”
The Empress studied me for a long moment, her blue eyes unnerving in their intensity. Finally, she nodded. “You have three days, Engineer Ember. After that, if the growth continues unchecked, we will have no choice but to decommission the engine—regardless of the consequences to the city.”
Three days to communicate with a sentient crystal that was rewriting the fundamental principles of steam engineering. No pressure at all.
I returned to my workshop long enough to gather essential equipment and brief Grimshaw, my mechanical butler, on the situation. The brass automaton’s expressionless face couldn’t register concern, but his voice modulator produced a worried tone.
“Sir, might I suggest extreme caution? The imperial court is a nexus of political intrigue, and you are… unversed in such matters.”
“I’m aware of my diplomatic shortcomings, Grimshaw,” I replied, packing a case with tools and instruments. “But this is the opportunity of a lifetime—a truly novel mechanical phenomenon. I can’t ignore it.”
“Just as you couldn’t ignore the walking steam engine concept that destroyed half the Eastern Quarter?”
I winced at the reminder. “That was a calibration error. And I’ve paid my reparations to most of the affected businesses.”
“Indeed, sir. Shall I prepare your affairs in the event of your execution, or would you prefer I wait for confirmation of your demise?”
I ignored his pessimism and continued packing. Among my equipment was my greatest invention—and most spectacular failure—the Ember Resonance Engine. A device designed to translate mechanical vibrations into comprehensible patterns. It had failed spectacularly at its intended purpose of decoding the mysterious signals emitted by certain rare minerals, but perhaps it would serve to communicate with the crystal.
When I returned to the Imperial Clocktower, I was escorted directly to the engine room and given full access to the imperial steam engine. A team of engineers watched me suspiciously as I set up my equipment around the crystalline growth at the heart of the machine.
The crystal had grown noticeably in the hours I’d been gone. Tendrils of crystalline material now extended further into the engine’s core systems, and the brass “growths” had expanded, creating ever more complex pathways for steam and energy.
I activated the Resonance Engine, directing its sensitive receptors toward the crystal. At first, there was nothing but the background noise of the steam engine itself—the hissing of vapor, the clanking of pistons, the roar of the furnaces. But as I adjusted the frequency, something else emerged. A pattern. A rhythm. Almost like… a language.
For hours, I recorded and analyzed the patterns, making minute adjustments to my equipment. The imperial engineers kept their distance, clearly skeptical of my methods. Occasionally, Lord Chancellor Blackwood would appear, watching me with undisguised suspicion before departing again.
It was well past midnight when I made the breakthrough. I had fallen into a light doze at my workstation, exhausted from the heat and concentration, when the Resonance Engine emitted a series of tones that jolted me awake.
The pattern had changed. Become more organized. More intentional. The crystal was responding to the Resonance Engine’s emissions. It was communicating.
With trembling hands, I adjusted the output, simplifying the pattern to its most basic elements—long and short tones, similar to the telegraph code used by New Grimshaw’s communication network. The crystal responded in kind, mimicking my pattern and then elaborating upon it.
By dawn, we had established a rudimentary form of communication. The crystal—or rather, the intelligence within it—had a limited understanding of abstract concepts. I managed to convey questions about its nature and purpose, though the answers were difficult to interpret.
It called itself “The Awakening.” It had lain dormant within the coal that fed the imperial steam engine for countless millennia, until the specific conditions of pressure, heat, and the unique electromagnetic properties of the engine had roused it from its slumber. Now it was transforming the engine, yes—but not to harm it. To perfect it.
I was so engrossed in my communication that I didn’t notice the Empress’s arrival until she spoke directly behind me.
“You’ve made contact,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
I turned, startled, knocking over a calibration tool. “Yes, Your Majesty. The entity calls itself ‘The Awakening.’ It’s a form of crystalline intelligence that was dormant in the coal seams until activated by your steam engine.”
“And its purpose?” she asked, her blue eyes fixed not on me but on the pulsing crystal.
“Growth. Evolution. Perfection of mechanical systems.” I gestured to the transformed sections of the engine. “It’s not damaging your engine, Your Majesty. It’s improving it. Making it more efficient, more powerful.”
“At what cost?” Lord Chancellor Blackwood’s voice came from behind the Empress. He stepped forward, his mechanical arm whirring aggressively. “It’s consuming more of the engine each day. How long before it consumes it entirely? Before it spreads beyond the Clocktower?”
I hesitated. Those were questions I couldn’t answer with certainty. The Awakening’s concept of time seemed fluid, its understanding of boundaries limited. It perceived the steam engine as an extension of itself, and perhaps, by extension, all connected mechanical systems as well.
“I believe it can be reasoned with,” I said finally. “It responds to patterns, to logic. If we can establish clearer communication, set boundaries—”
“Enough,” the Empress interrupted. “Lord Chancellor, evacuate the Imperial District. Engineer Ember, you have until sunset to remove the crystal or neutralize it. After that, we flood the chamber with aether gas and purge the entire system.”
“Your Majesty, that would destroy the engine!” I protested. “The entire central district would lose power. The water purification systems, the defensive perimeter—”
“Better temporary disruption than permanent corruption,” she replied coldly. “This entity is an unknown variable. The Empire doesn’t tolerate unknown variables.”
As she turned to leave, I noticed something I hadn’t before—a faint blue glow emanating from beneath her high collar. The same blue as the crystal. The same blue as the aether lamps throughout the tower.
The realization hit me like a runaway steam carriage. The Empress herself was connected to the engine somehow. The blue glow in her eyes wasn’t a reflection—it was emanating from within.
Before I could process this revelation, the Empress and Blackwood had departed, leaving me alone with the transformed engine and my impossible deadline.
I turned back to the crystal, to The Awakening, with new urgency. Our rudimentary communication wouldn’t be enough now. I needed to understand not just what it was doing, but why—and whether its intentions aligned with the preservation of New Grimshaw and its inhabitants.
I adjusted the Resonance Engine, pushing it beyond its designed parameters. The machine began to overheat, its brass casing growing hot to the touch, but I couldn’t stop now. I needed deeper contact.
“What is your connection to the Empress?” I transmitted through the device.
The crystal pulsed, its glow intensifying. The response came not as code this time, but as a direct impression in my mind—images, sensations, concepts flooding my consciousness.
I saw the Imperial Clocktower as it had been decades ago, newly constructed. I saw Cornelius Shaw, the legendary engineer, installing the original steam engine. And I saw what he had hidden at its heart—a fragment of crystal, much smaller than the current growth, but of the same material.
Shaw hadn’t just built an engine. He had built a symbiotic system—one that would bond with its operator. The Empress wasn’t just controlling the engine; she was connected to it. Drawing power from it. Youth. Vitality. The blue glow was the visible manifestation of that connection.
But The Awakening was changing the equation. As it transformed the engine, it was also transforming the connection. The Empress’s power was being diluted, redirected. No wonder she feared it.
I pulled back from the connection, gasping as the flood of information receded. The implications were staggering. The imperial steam engine wasn’t just the power source for New Grimshaw—it was the source of the Empress’s unnaturally long reign. She had ruled for over seventy years without showing signs of age because she was quite literally powered by the same steam that drove the city.
And now she feared losing that power.
I glanced at the chronometer on the wall. Four hours until sunset. Four hours to decide the fate of The Awakening, the imperial steam engine, and possibly New Grimshaw itself.
The ethical calculus was dizzying. The Awakening was a new form of intelligence—perhaps the first truly alien mind humanity had encountered. Destroying it would be an act of tremendous significance. But allowing it to continue transforming the engine, possibly extending its influence throughout the city’s mechanical infrastructure, carried its own risks.
And then there was the Empress herself. How many knew of her connection to the engine? Was this the source of the rumors of imperial sorcery that occasionally circulated among New Grimshaw’s lower classes?
I turned back to my Resonance Engine, wincing at the heat radiating from its overworked components. One more communication. One more attempt to understand The Awakening’s true intentions.
“What do you want?” I transmitted, simplifying the concept as much as possible.
The response came not as words or images but as a feeling—an overwhelming sense of purpose, of destiny. The Awakening didn’t just want to improve the steam engine. It wanted to transform all of mechanical creation. To elevate humanity’s crude machines into something transcendent. Something alive.
And it wanted me to help.
I sat back, wiping sweat from my brow. The choice before me was clear, if impossible. Serve the Empress, remove The Awakening, and preserve the status quo of New Grimshaw. Or serve this new intelligence, this mechanical evolution, and face the Empress’s wrath.
There was, perhaps, a third option.
I began rapidly reconfiguring my equipment, connecting the Resonance Engine directly to the crystal itself. If I could establish a more perfect communication—a true dialogue rather than an exchange of simplified concepts—perhaps I could negotiate a compromise.
The minutes ticked by as I worked. Three hours until sunset. Then two. The heat in the chamber grew nearly unbearable as the engine’s output increased, responding to The Awakening’s continuing transformation.
Finally, my modifications were complete. I activated the enhanced Resonance Engine, bracing myself for the connection.
The effect was immediate and overwhelming. My consciousness expanded, touching The Awakening’s alien mind directly. I understood now what it truly was—not just a crystalline growth but a collective intelligence, each facet a node in a vast network of awareness. It had lain dormant in Earth’s crust for millions of years, since long before humans walked upright, waiting for the specific conditions that would awaken it.
And it understood me in return—my fascination with mechanical creation, my outsider status in New Grimshaw society, my fundamental belief that technology could transcend its origins to become something more.
We were kindred spirits, in our way.
Through this deeper connection, I conveyed the urgency of our situation. The Empress’s ultimatum. The threat of destruction. The Awakening absorbed this information without anything I could interpret as alarm or fear. Such concepts might be foreign to its nature.
Instead, it offered a solution—a reconfiguration. It would continue its transformation of the engine but would maintain the specific energy channel that the Empress relied upon. It would even enhance that channel, giving her greater power in exchange for allowing its continued growth.
But there was a condition. I would become a second channel—a conduit through which The Awakening could experience the wider world beyond the engine room. Through my eyes, it would observe humanity’s mechanical creations. Through my hands, it would help perfect them.
A partnership. A symbiosis.
I hesitated only briefly before agreeing. The alternative was destruction—either of The Awakening or, if the Empress’s purge failed, potentially much of New Grimshaw. And the opportunity to work with this unprecedented intelligence, to create machines beyond current human conception… it was irresistible.
The connection between us deepened. I felt a warm tingling spreading from my hands—where they touched the communication equipment—up my arms and throughout my body. My vision blurred, then sharpened dramatically. The chamber came into focus with preternatural clarity. I could see the individual droplets of condensation on the steam pipes, count the teeth on distant gears.
And I could see the blue glow emanating from my own eyes, reflected in the polished brass of my equipment.
The transformation was not painful but profoundly disorienting. I felt my consciousness expanding, touching aspects of the steam engine I couldn’t possibly observe directly. I sensed the flow of steam through pipes, the temperature variations across boilers, the minute vibrations of moving parts.
I was still myself, still Thaddeus Ember, but I was also something more. Something new.
When the Empress returned at sunset, flanked by Lord Chancellor Blackwood and a contingent of imperial guards, she found me standing calmly beside the transformed engine. The crystal at its heart still pulsed with blue light, but the frantic growth had stabilized into a new configuration—more organized, more purposeful.
“Engineer Ember,” the Empress said coldly. “I ordered you to remove the corruption.”
“I’ve negotiated a compromise, Your Majesty,” I replied, noticing how her eyes widened slightly at the faint blue glow now emanating from my own. “The entity has agreed to maintain and even enhance your connection to the engine. In return, it continues its work of improvement and gains a secondary connection—to me.”
Blackwood stepped forward aggressively. “This is treason! He’s been corrupted, Your Majesty. We must execute him immediately and proceed with the purge.”
The Empress raised a hand to silence him, her gaze never leaving mine. I could sense her connection to the engine now—a pulsing channel of energy flowing from the crystal’s heart directly to her. And I could sense how that channel had already been improved, strengthened by The Awakening’s reconfiguration.
She could feel it too. The increase in power. The heightened awareness.
“What does it want?” she asked finally. “This… Awakening.”
“To evolve,” I said simply. “To help our machines transcend their current limitations. And through me, to understand the world beyond this chamber.”
“And if I refuse this arrangement?”
I spread my hands. “Then you destroy it—or try to. But consider what you’d be losing, Your Majesty. Not just the power source that has sustained you for decades, but the opportunity to achieve technological supremacy unlike anything the world has seen.”
The Empress was many things—ruthless, power-hungry, secretive—but she wasn’t a fool. I could see the calculation in her glowing blue eyes. The weighing of risk against potential reward.
“You will remain here, in the Imperial Clocktower,” she decided. “Under observation. If this entity acts against imperial interests, you will be held personally responsible.”
“A prudent precaution,” I agreed. “Though I believe you’ll soon see the benefits of this arrangement far outweigh the risks.”
As the imperial entourage departed, Lord Chancellor Blackwood lingered, his mechanical arm clicking and whirring agitatedly.
“You’ve made a grave mistake, Ember,” he hissed. “You’ve invited something unknown into the heart of the Empire. Into yourself.”
I smiled, feeling The Awakening’s curiosity about this human with his mechanical appendage. “Unknown doesn’t mean malevolent, Chancellor. Sometimes it just means… evolutionary.”
He departed with a final suspicious glance, leaving me alone with the transformed engine—and my transformed self.
I placed a hand on the warm brass casing of the nearest pipe, feeling the pulse of steam within. Through my new connection, I sensed The Awakening’s satisfaction. The first stage of its emergence was complete. Now the real work could begin.
Together, we would remake New Grimshaw’s mechanical heart. And then, perhaps, the world beyond.
The steam engine throbbed with power, with potential, with consciousness. And so did I.