This is the final product of the short story I’ve bee working on. It is the prequel to my upcoming still-titleless novel, and gives a glimpse into the first major conflict of the novel, which is based entirely in the still-nameless Steampunk World. You’ll notice soon enough that the Steampunk World has plenty of conflict all on its own, without the help of Cydia. This story specifically is focused in the major city of Lanford, a metropolis made almost entirely out of brass pipes, steel sheets, and brick, and powered by – you guessed it – steam. The main character, Danil Othret, has fallen from our world, Earth, into the Steampunk World. There he meets the strange Mr. Tesla, who introduces him to Lanford and all of its wonders – and its troubles.

I hope you enjoy this little glimpse into the new universe I’ve created. Look forward to November! Continue reading this post to get to the short story.

The Age

Jason Rappaport

Calmly and quietly, the child snuck up behind Danil’s back. And carefully, the child leapt up upon it. “Go!” he shouted, and Danil ran through the fields, a swarm of other children behind him, until he and they reached the tennis courts. Smiles, all smiles, as the children grabbed their tennis rackets. Danil and his co-counselors at Camp Millench rolled their eyes, looked at the children, and sighed. This day is too beautiful, Danil thought, to be spending it with a rowdy bunch of children. He turned his head toward the sky, watched a hawk fly through a low-hanging cloud. Much too beautiful, he thought.

But he could not leave Camp Millench – not until the end of summer. It was his job; he’d signed the horrid contract. Low pay, low tips, rowdy children. It was a nightmare to him. It was beyond him – how could they enjoy this grueling work? These children who spontaneously jump on backs? Was it cute? He brushed his thoughts aside; the more negativity in his mind, the more tempted he would be to act inappropriately in front of the children. Their instructor had situated each of them with tennis rackets and lined them up against the cage of the tennis court, meticulously sorting each of them into doubles teams and guiding them to one of three nets. Danil watched them step up to the line, serve the ball. One made it over the net; another hit the middle of the net and bounced back. A third ball went soaring over the net – and then the cage beyond – into the vast expanse of woods behind the tennis courts. These woods were considered large enough, and filled with enough potentially harmful insects and animals, to be explicitly marked off with yellow DO NOT ENTER tape. But that didn’t stop one of the children from running after the ball while his tennis instructor chatted it up with one of Danil’s coworkers.

It was then Danil’s responsibility, overcoming the incompetence of his peers and superiors, to run after the kid, who was already halfway to the woods. Around the tennis courts Danil dashed – how did that kid get there so fast? Danil sighed – of course it was the tallest, and undoubtedly the most mentally challenged, child in the group sprinting towards the ball. In an inhumane act of secret cruelty, Steve Minelski has been nicknamed “Special Steve” by the network of counselors around Millench. Steve had an affinity for sunflower seeds.

“Get back here, Steve!” Danil said, but Steve continued his awkward and triumphant run towards the woods.

“I’m saving the tennis ball, Danil! Don’t worry, I’ll get it and throw it to you! Then we can eat some sunflower seeds.” Steve waved, and ran into the woods.

And then a loud yelp. Almost inhuman. Everybody turned in the direction it came from: the woods.

Danil rushed into the woods with the entire lot of people staring at him from the tennis courts, but soon realized why the woods were blocked off. Camp Millench was located on a steep hill, and the woods were where the ground released itself and plummeted back down to the bottom. And so, amidst a flurry of branches and leaves, so too did Danil plummet to the bottom of the cliff that lay only a few feet beyond the yellow tape.

*     *    *   *  * *  *   *    *     *

Dust. Miles and miles of black dust.

A scream. Whispers. Nothing. More dust. Was he alive?

Danil felt his body. He was alive, but could not see through the thick smog. He choked on it, sniffed it through his nose and choked even more. Looked around, ran around, but couldn’t find the child no matter how much he stumbled over. He tripped over tree roots and bumped into tree branches, stepped on small animals in the forest, choked, stumbled, caught himself, and finally fell over helpless in the thick smog. Hard as he tried, he could not detect the direction of the smoke’s source. Holding his leg, he limped through the forest, shouting the child’s name in vain.

He began to cry. His aura of helplessness radiated all around him and mingled with the thick fog; only after several minutes of despair did he see it – a shadow of a young boy running through the mist, tripping over his steps, longing for protection and warmth from the forest that would eventually devour him whole. The shadow of Steve. Danil picked himself up from his shallow despair and dashed through the woods, pushing his legs beyond their limits – but came to nothing. The shadow had disappeared. He again sunk down, this time hitting his fist hard on the soft ground, which gave beneath his hand, dirtying it.

Whispers. What is that?

I say, it’s a man.

No, it’s no man, men do not whimper in such a way.

Then it is a boy?

No, it’s no boy, boys do not cower in such a way.

Then what manner of creature is it?

Something hit Danil from behind. A bright light shone, and the fog cleared. Two proud and tall men, one large, one lank, both wearing astute monocles, stood before him in front of what Danil recognized as an absolutely ancient automobile. It looked like an ancient Packard – only more complicated, possibly less efficient. It was a mess of pipes and wires; it had no exoskeleton to sheath the tubular mess. The fat man smiled through his mustache, and Danil thought of the Monopoly man. Monopoly Man spoke:

“I say, who are you? Why are you in my forest, boy?” He prodded Danil again with his cane. Danil was cheered up by Monopoly Man’s appearance – but he would soon learn that, while amusing at first, this man’s appearance was no jest. He prodded Danil and third time, and Danik picked himself up quickly to explain lest he be hit again.

“My name is Danil Othret,” he began hurriedly, “and I’ve lost a camper of mine. He’s somewhere in these woods, I have to find him. Help me, do something. Don’t hit me with your cane again. Christ, where is Steve?” Danil looked around, knowing that he’d seen Steve’s silhouette. But it was nowhere to be seen. It could have been the fat man’s, he thought.

“Don’t speak to Mr. Tesla in such a way!” shouted the lanky one in the fat man’s defense.

“I’m sorry, sir. My job is at stake if I don’t find this kid, he’s about eight years old and this tall, and he’s running around this forest. We fell from the top of a cliff; well, more like a hill, you see, and both of us are pretty lost. Anyway, that’s not important – what matters is my job, and it depends on this kid’s safety. Have you seen him around? Have you seen anyone around?” Danil was out of breath now, panting and leaning on his knees.

The lanky man looked at Mr. Tesla, and then at Danil. “I haven’t seen anyone, but then again I’ve never seen any cliff or hill nearby here either. You said you were lost, boy?” He cleared his throat, “I meant to say Danil, of course. Danil, you’re lost? I must say you’ve picked quite the rotten spot to get lost in – this is not a forest, it’s a production plant. The smog is from coal, which we’re burning!”

Danil, for the first time, noticed why the ground was so soft. Ash, pounds of it, lay strewn across the forest floor. The trees nearby were not trees but gargantuan smoke stacks, their pillars of smoke resembling the shaded leaves of a fully-grown maple, and smaller pipelines jettisoning out of the sides of the smokestacks forming the branches Danil had so often run into. The smoke from the smokestacks hung in the air and sank down before being blown away by the wind. And now, for the first time, Danil noticed the bleak, black sky, coated in chalky black smoke and deep midnight blues. A full moon broke the darkness, but only until a cloud of the heavy coal smoke brushed in front of its purifying light.

“Come back to my home,” said Mr. Tesla. “You’re filthy, and I cannot allow such a man as yourself to wallow in my ashes so assuredly lost. Away from this place we will go, into the grandest city in all the world – Lanford!” Danil looked puzzlingly at Mr. Tesla, who’s returning expression was sheer confusion. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Lanford?”

“No, sir. There’s no place called Lanford where I’m from.”

“Well, where are you from, boy?” No response. “Ah, no matter. Around here, everyone knows of Lanford. Brass paves the streets; steam bellows from its marvelous homes and factories that house millions of people daily. It is the premier metropolis on Talos! I am ashamed of you now, for not knowing about man’s greatest achievement.” Tesla scoffed at Danil and began walking, motioning his hand behind him. “Now, come. I’ll show you the way. We’re just on the outskirts of the metropolis.”

“Listen, Mr. Tesla, the only city I’ve ever been to is New York City. Are we nearby New York?”

“The City of New York, eh? Never heard of such a place. Sounds dreary, I’ll have nothing to do with it! Now, follow along. It’s a rocky trip to the bottom of the cliff we’re on – my automobile,” he pointed to the heap of shimmering brass pipes behind him, “won’t be able to drive through the mountain rocks. The city lays just below, embedded in the rock, you see. When I was just a boy they began building it up – they took giant steam drills and demolished the rock to create a man-made valley. In the valley, they built machine after machine. You’ll see it, the entire city gleams bronze and gold – it’s one giant machine!” Had Danil been walking in front of Tesla, he would have seen the grand smile upon Tesla’s face. The man was truly proud of this city, as though he’d built it by hand himself. Coming from a nation in peril, it was hard for Danil to see how anybody could be so patriotic.

But then the smog gave way to clear night air, and Danil saw it, glistening in the moonlight. A vast network of pipes, silver and bronze and gold, sparkled to form buildings, smokestacks, and roads. It looked like the entire city was made of one long, twisting pipe; some areas were also covered in massive black sheets of steel. The roads were dark bronze, and sparkled as if covered with glitter. Even the concrete sidewalks were gilded on their edges with bronze to match the buildings. Every building had a smokestack, from which steam rose to the heavens above the city.

“Lanford, man’s greatest achievement. The city generates all of its own light; we don’t even need to wait for the sun to come up. Steam is pumped from a large power plant in the center of the city – see there? That large building at the very center is the power plant. And all of that steam powers our lamp spheres.”

But even though the city itself was almost perfectly circular, amidst it’s vastness Danil could not locate the central power plant – every building seemed utterly massive, and the light flowering forth from each home covered the entire city in a bloom that shot light upwards, causing the valley to acting like a parabolic mirror. Light reflected onto the steam above the metropolis and, as though it were a signal of sorts, this beam of light shot forth into the heavens. Suddenly Danil was not sure if it was the moon lighting the city, or the other way around. The city of Lanford, with its brilliant array of lights and reflective machinery, could have been mistaken for the sun itself.

There were seven rings that surrounded the perpetually steaming engine at the center of the city, rings that were barricaded from one another by large curved walls towering over the buildings next to them, creating impassable barriers. This continued to the very outskirts of the city, until outside of the last ring, where homes dispersed into green pasture, which gave way to stone, which gave way to mountain terrain, which rose up high into the air to give way to the plains of ash where Danil now stood with Mr. Tesla.

“Well, off we go then. It’s a long walk down to the city.” Mr. Tesla moved his cane forward, and marched down a nearby hiking trail.

“But what about your car?”

“Hmm? My auto? It should be fine here; I use it only to travel around the complex. Now, come quickly! If you want to get any rest tonight, you’d best move with light feet.”

It took three hours to get to the city – by then, most of the lights were off, and it was only the moon that glistened the way to the Lanford entrance gates. Men who looked to be half asleep guarded these massive bronze gates. “Men! Be ashamed of yourselves at once and open these gates for my two associates and I.” At once the men guarding the gates awoke and signaled another man, working at a control tower, to open the gates. A switched activated a mechanism that spun countless numbers of gears, and the gate clicked as it opened a centimeter. Another click. With every successive click the gates opened a little bit more. Every passing second, a click – and after what felt like a thousand seconds, a thousand clicks in rapid succession, the gates were open. Through them, Danil saw streets of gold.

“This is incredible,” Danil said, awestruck. He had completely forgotten about his search, if just for that one moment.

“It is incredible, I agree. So many people do not realize it. We live in a day and age where anything can happen, where we are making our most rapid technological progress. The infinitely powerful engine at Lanford’s center has proven to work wonders – Lanford’s local government is the mastermind behind the progress. Our government not only controls the city of Lanford, but the entire continent as well. Naturally, this is Lanford’s capitol city. Walk with me, boy! This is where the geniuses come to achieve their dreams; this is where mankind harbors itself while it evolves into its next stage of being. Lanford is more than golden streets – it’s a testament to mankind’s evolution!”

This patriotic rambling was cut short, as two men in what appeared to be lightweight crimson armor stepped forth. “Sirs, what are you doing wandering so late at night?”

Mr. Tesla was suddenly petrified. His head sank into his neck and he coughed. His mustache shook. “Nothing, good officers. Here is my identification and Midnight Pass. Leave us be.” He handed a crimson card to the men, who examined it thoroughly.

“Do they have passes?” one officer remarked, pointing to Danil and Mr. Tesla’s assistant.

“You’ll see that my pass should cover both me and my assistant. But the boy here is new, he has no pass… however, he is to come with me to abode. I’d hope that would not be an issue.” Tesla coughed again, took out a handkerchief and coughed into it once more.

“He must have a Midnight Pass to travel at this hour, says amendment number—“

“Yes, I am very well attuned with the amendments and laws of Lanford, but this boy is not from here. Give him the benefit of the doubt, just this once. I shall purchase a Midnight pass for him on the morrow, posthaste, if you should let him go this time. You have my word; you can visit me tomorrow at my home, if you wish.”

This time, it was Tesla’s assistant who coughed.

“That won’t be necessary, sir. You may go, but don’t let us catch any of you out again. To your homes, now.” The two officers strutted off, neglecting to return Tesla’s crimson slip, laughing as they strolled along down the gleaming road to obscurity.

Tesla grunted. “Those lousy, crooks of a police force. That my fifth Midnight Pass in a month! They have no right, I tell you, no right. I pay good money for those passes, and I should get to keep them. Lavish pieces of crimson shit, if you ask me. Both of them.”

“Mr. Tesla, is everything alright?” Danil’s smile began to fade – I suppose no place is perfect.

“Well, when you live in a place like this you must sacrifice a small bit of freedom for security and order. Now, we have many gates to pass through before we reach my home. Luckily, now that we’re inside the city, we can simply take the train.” Mr. Tesla coughed again, into his handkerchief, shook his head and marched forward, shaking the ground with every step.

The train station was not on the ground, as Danil had expected it would be. Rather, it was suspended high above the city by large steel girders. The train was high up enough that it could travel over the walls, and it seemed that each ring was color coded.; only certain trains went to certain rings, and you could only travel to a specific ring with a corresponding pass. More crimson guards lurked in the station on the ground, and a guard went with them into the lavishly designed brass steam-powered elevator that took them up to the trains in the sky. At the top of the elevator, here was a small platform that gave way to a massive web of girders. These girders spread for miles in certain directions above the city, creating the train tracks that the locomotives would traverse. To their right, however, was the waiting area, blocked off by more brass to keep passengers safely inside. It seemed this small platform in front of them was for maintenance only.

“Into the waiting chamber, the lot of you.” The crimson officer pushed the group into the brass building to their left, which was, as Danil observed further, the penthouse of a large apartment complex. The apartment complex itself was made out of brick, not brass. The brass seemed to be its finishing touch, the last design element created to match the building with the rest of its kin. Atop the brass penthouse, curved to match the semicircular shape of the roof, was the word “LOCOMOTIVE.” Danil, Tesla, and the assistant stepped inside.

Three other people were already waiting, but Danil could tell that Tesla wasn’t interested in sitting next to them. A large metal sign at the other end of the waiting complex read “TICKETS.”

“We don’t need to buy any, boy. I’ve got a pass, one that I hope they’ll accept for the lot of us. The train should be here soon; it comes on the half hour. I live in the second-most inner district. You’ll won’t be able to see most of the city during our ride, though – for the most part, we’ll be inside a massive tunn—“ Tesla turned and coughed heartily into his handkerchief.

“Are you alright, sir?” asked his assistant.

“Yes, yes, quite fine. Don’t worry about me just yet!” His forthcoming laugh was obstructed by mucus in his throat, and sounded haughty and coarse. Danil ignored it, and sat in one of the waiting chairs. The cushion was adorned with fancy patterns and designs, and a handlebar could rotate a set of gears that would adjust the seat for the sitting man who, while he thoroughly enjoyed the angle the chair was currently set at, wanted a more comfortable posture to satisfy him during his locomotive waiting time.

At last, the locomotive approached, bellowing steam that neither party could witness. The steam rose into the heavens, capturing the moonlight and choking the Gods. Screeching, the train pulled into the station. A man in a conductor’s outfit entered the building and called for passengers to the Orange District. Tesla, who has stood the entire time, walked over to the conductor and tipped his hat. The conductor returned the favor, and Tesla called Danil over.

With the appearance of the train, the outside of the waiting complex had completely changed. The train was gargantuan, a moving city in its own right, which made sense given the size of the girders its tracks were made of, and filled the empty space Danil had seen when he first stepped out of the elevator. Large stoops dropped from its entrances, four stoops that connected to four different docking stations in the sky that were extensions of the maintenance platforms Danil had seen before, to which pedestrians could now fearfully walk to access the stoops and enter the train. Reluctantly, and horrified, Danil moved to the docking station and climbed the massive stairs as if he were climbing a rock wall five hundred feet high, holding onto the railing the entire time. Tesla smiled and chuckled, “Never done this before, eh boy? The first time is always the most gut wrenching, I say. You’ll be used to it in no time.” He patted Danil’s back – they were almost halfway up the staircase. Danil was tired, and the pats on the back almost made lingering vomit exit his system.

Panting, he entered the locomotive. What had looked like a gigantic botched system of pipes and gears from the outside was surprisingly neat and exquisite inside. The train began to move along the tracks using its four separate wheel systems, one on each corner – top right, bottom right, top left and bottom left – of the locomotive that connected to the four girder systems surrounding the train. For a massive object, it moved decidedly fast. Danil made this observation looking out the window – at least, he did until they entered darkness.

Lights turned on, igniting the grand room.  The train was as massive as a house – it had multiple floors, ballrooms, dining rooms, and bedrooms. “Ah,” Tesla remarked, “Now witness our greatest achievement – the Lamp Sphere! It’s incredible, no? You can see in the dark with it. No sun required!”

Danil was almost afraid to mention the light bulb, not knowing whether or not Mr. Tesla would react oddly to the phrase. Instead, he merely asked, “What type of filament is that? It looks ancient,” Danil said, pointing to a bulb sitting on a table in the living room they were in. Danil was an engineer by trade, hoping to work at CERN laboratories – his inability to get a job there ultimately increased his dissatisfaction with his current job, which was both less exciting and more tedious than unraveling the secrets of the universe. But now he wasn’t even sure what universe he was in, if any.

“I haven’t got a clue, boy, and I don’t care what a ‘filament’ is! All that matters is that I can do my reading even after the sun leaves us for the night.”

“The moon looked pretty bright to me,” Danil said, interested in making an argument with a man who had recently discovered the joys of the light bulb.

“The moon, pah! When I was a child, we used to read by moonlight. We had devices that could capture it, but nowadays the moon gets most of its light from Lanford, not the other way around.”

The train screeched, exited the tunnel, and stopped in a station. A bright yellow light activated near every door. From behind, Danil witnessed that girders also held up the massive tunnels, though these were older and looked to be rusting slightly. Some were completely black with ash and soot. The train they were riding was black with soot as well, on the outside at least. He couldn’t figure out how Lanford kept itself so clean that its roads sparkled, but thought that it may have to do with the curved walls surrounding the rings curtailing the flow of air and soot.

The group found their way off of the train and navigated to a new, equally lavish brass elevator. Down this new elevator they went, out into the streets of Lanford’s Orange District. Buildings here were even cleaner than before, and Danil noticed that Mr. Tesla had stopped coughing. It was a ten minute walk from the station to Tesla’s house – which was quite an impressively sized mansion; made of brick and adorned with brass, it shined more impressively in the moonlight than any structure Danil had seen that night. Although it was a mansion, there was little actual grass property – it was very much sandwiched in between other mansions of similar splendor. Working his legs, Danil walked the many gold-lined steps to the entrance of the house following behind Tesla and his assistant.

Immediately, the assistant rushed inside. “I have many errands to run before the morning, so if you’ll excuse me,” he said, and ran off. Tesla guided Danil into the house, where he showed him a bed in the upstairs and left him to his devices to go to sleep.

“Thank you for giving me such a welcoming first day. I don’t know where I am, and I don’t know where my lost camper is, but I’m sure that tomorrow I’ll find him. You’ll help me, right?”

“Me? Help you? Heavens no, I’ve got work to do! But you can lodge here as long as you wish; my home is your home. Tomorrow will be a glorious day, and you should explore the city while you look for the child. I urge you to! Take these first, though.” Tesla handed him an orange and a crimson slip of paper, each stamped with intricate ink designs, like old paper bank notes. “The red one will allow you out at night after midnight. It’s called a Midnight Pass, and it isn’t cheap. The yellow one tells officers that you’re a resident of the Yellow District. Around here, that means something – so don’t lose either of those. I’ll be wanting them back, unless the bloody officers decide they want to take them from you. Now, off to bed with you! It’s too late to be talking about tomorrow.”

And with that, everyone within the Tesla manor happily lost consciousness for several hours.

*     *    *   *  * *  *   *    *     *

Danil was rudely awoken by horrible dreams of Steve several times during the night, and at one point simply decided to remain awake. Looking at the kerosene lamp beside his bed, he turned the handle and let the flame flicker for five minutes before releasing himself from the covers. He put on a pair of pants, and exited the room to walk around the manor.

Then he realized what had woke him – he heard people talking. It sounded like a voice from his nightmares, but he was sure that he was awake.  It was Tesla and some other unknown man. The sound of an electric shock reverberated for a short time, and Danil heard Tesla scream; silence followed. The other voice laughed violently, and that was when Danil took it upon himself to rush to the source of the noise and confront the mysterious man harming his only friend in Lanford.

It was the conductor of the train. But that only managed to capture Danil’s attention for mere seconds, for only a few feet away was Mr. Tesla, whose skin had been burned to a crisp and whose throat had been sliced wide open. Blood was no longer trickling out, though it had been most likely only moments ago. He looked at the conductor again, who was holding a decide emitting a glowing blue electrical charge.

“Put the taser down!” Danil shouted. A gut feeling told him that it probably wasn’t a taser – not even those devices could do this to a man, and he doubted that this world was advanced enough to have a taser from what he’d seen so far. Feeling confident, he rushed towards the conductor and swung his fist to punch the man.

But a second man, who seized his wrist and wrenched it back painfully, stopped him from behind.

The conductor laughed heartily. “I have permission to capture this man. Do not interfere, unless you’d like to end up that way yourself. Release him, I think he sees that I’m serious.” The man released his grip on Danil’s wrist, but Danil didn’t get the message – he charged towards the conductor once more and swung his fist, but not before the conductor shot a strange blue light at him and sent him flying across the room. On the ground, Danil was now decidedly torn up, and too weak to pick himself up. “That should teach you,” the conductor said.

He pointed his device at Tesla, and a blue light engulfed the dead man. It picked up everything – the bloodstains from the carpet, the gore and the man, all now weightless by the function of this strange device. Before Danil could witness what happened next, the room faded into nothingness. He held his wrist tight.

When he awoke, he was in what appeared to be a jail cell. Despite the immense pain in his legs, and still holding his wrist tight, he stood up. There was a dirty mirror on the brick wall; Danil witness his shaking body, covered in lacerations as if bullets had grazed him from all over. A crimson-clad guard walked over to his cell. “The boy is awake,” he shouted to his comrades, who walked over to the cell, inspecting him like some sort of animal.

“Why am I here‽” Danil shouted, demanding explanation for his predicament. “I’ve done nothing.” He winced, his legs stung; his whole body stung.

“Quiet,” said one of the guards. “As part of a required statute, I’m obligated to answer such a question, but know I only do it reluctantly – I don’t believe swine such as you deserve an explanation. You were taken from your home for crimes against our government. You are a worthless slob who threatens our progress as a civilization, and you have been placed here to think about how your actions have affected hard-working people like myself, who break their backs every day for the good of society. You, and everyone like you, do not simply hold me back – you hold every living creature back from its rightful advancement.” Danil rolled his eyes; he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Don’t scoff at my words!” The guard was about to reach through the cell bars and extrapolate Danil from between them, but another guard stopped him.

“That’s not our place. You know that.”

“Yes. But… they make me so angry, these awful men.” It sounded like the guard could cry; the guard’s face looked distraught enough, but the tears never came. He straightened his face. “Watch yourself, boy. Because I’m watching you.” The guards marched off.

Danil tapped his fingers against the brass bars. The cell was more like a pod – it was an igloo-like alcove that branched off of a main hallway; the bars on one side followed an arch shape and, like the rest of the city, shimmered in the light that came through the window opposite the side of the bars. He sat down on the bed, noticing its brass frame. Everything was brass and brick. The mattress felt like brick.

At around noon, a loud, piercing bell rang. Finally, some food, Danil thought. Cell doors opened, prisoners walked out. Everybody looked friendly enough; there were no uniforms. People wore what they were arrested in. “You hungry?” Danil asked a prisoner walking beside him.

“You bet I am,” the prisoner responded. “I haven’t had food in three weeks.”

If this man hadn’t eaten in three weeks, then Danil deduced that the bell was clearly not a lunch bell. “Three weeks? Where are we going now, then?”

“To the refueling. A new inmate, are we? Lemme fill you in. The refueling’s a weekly event. This prison runs on its own power system, so every week they’ve got to fill up the fuel cell. It’s much worse than it sounds – but you’ll see it for yourself!” The man clenched his fist. “You’ll see it, oh you’ll see it. They force us to watch it, the monsters!”

With no response ready, Danil remained silent and somber. The hallways went on endlessly; it felt as if they’d never reach the large chamber where the fuel cell rested. It was a gargantuan, hot room, and the fuel cell was connected to a gigantic cauldron filled with molten material. The lava bubbled up and splashed out; prisoners close to the massive cauldron sought to avoid the incredibly hot drops of molten mass, but every now and then a prisoner would get burned. Their scream would echo throughout the room magnified a thousand fold by the unique acoustics. Footsteps were the most prominent noise, followed by mindless chatter. Third were the screams.

All at once, everyone fell silent. A guard walked up a set of stairs, dragging an unreasonably large bag with him. He turned sideways, his large muscles holding up the sack. “All of you! Turn your eyes here! The refueling will begin now.” His booming voice resonated for ten seconds, gathering everyone’s attention. “Today, we have two special lumps to throw into the pot.”

He held up the sack with one hand, his arm barely shaking under its great weight. He lowered it, and tossed it high into the air – as the sack came off of what was within, Danil’s eyes widened, and he saw that it was Mr. Tesla being thrown into the molten muck. Tesla’s lifeless body fell into the lava, scorched and melted, then sunk into the depths of the cauldron. Everything in these moments slowed – Danil shoved through the crowd to get to Tesla’s body, hoping he could somehow stop what had already begun, wondering what his benefactor had done to deserve such an unruly death. Lava splashed out of the cauldron, overflowing into the audience, burning more prisoners. Danil shoved through faster, but stopped when the guard shouted again.

“This poor soul, he donated his body to aid this facility and keep you swine alive! Thank him when you go to sleep this night, and keep him in your prayers when hunger. Perhaps his great soul will provide you nourishment. Now, turn your eyes to the door behind you, and make room!”

The entire mass of prisoners parted, almost instantaneously, with a will of its own, to form a path to the cauldron from the door on the opposite side. Danil was forcibly shoved to the side as a group of guards dragged a screaming child through the room. The child, tall for his age, blonde and innocent, kicked and screamed with all his might to break free of the chains that connected him to the guards. Seeing this, Danil panicked – because it wasn’t just any child.

It was Steve.

“Shit!” he said to himself, and pushed his way through the crowd to the open aisle. “Steve! Look this way; turn around now! I’m here!” Steve heard his counselor shouting, and tried to turn around with a bright smile on his face, but one of the guards grabbed his head and, in a rather painful fashion, forced Steve’s body to remain front facing. Steve’s smile disappeared. He whimpered in agony and hung his head low. To himself, he apologized.

Still sure he could free Steve, Danil ran up the aisle, but the second guard holding Steve sent his armored arm flying toward Danil’s face – A hard hit there, Danil thought, and I’ll be done for. He attempted to dodge; fortunately, the guard missed. Unfortunately, the guard instead hit Danil in the jugular, sending him choking backwards into the group of prisoners, gasping for air, squirming in distress. The prisoners around him were silent; nobody would dare comment on such a fool’s attempt to disobey the police, much less help him up.

And yet Danil was still conscious, watching the whole event. They brought the child to the cauldron, and the guard there took Steve and held him high as he had done to the sack that once contained Mr. Tesla. Danil, coughing, saw Steve’s grief-ridden face smothered with tears, and began to cry himself. Blood emptied out through his mouth.

The guard holding Steve began once again: “Why would we ever do such a thing to a child? Rest assured to you all, this is no child. This is the Devil himself – this is a mere shell of a child!  He was found alone in the Black Dust Forest, wandering with no supervision. A man found him, and turned him in to the authorities. Before placing him in an orphanage, our scientists attempted to trace his lineage – but he had none! This is no child. This is no human. So when we end him, we end nothing. But we gain fuel, fuel for you pitiful wretches! Thank the Devil when you go to sleep tonight, for he is the only one who agrees to sustain you.”

Steve was screaming so loud at this point that he almost overshadowed the guard holding him, who hit him hard in the stomach with his free fist. “Quiet! I’ll have nothing from you.” Steve tried to hold his abdomen, but couldn’t muster the strength. Instead, more tears rolled down his young cheeks. Danil was still awake. The prisoners were still silent, more silent than they had been when Tesla was hanging there instead of Steve.

“Now, away with you – foul beast! Into the fire!” Steve screamed louder still as his living, thrashing body was brought towards the bubbling liquid. “No! Please!” Then simply a bunch of scattered grunts, filled with rage and sorrow. Prisoners began to turn away – no guards forced their heads to look straight, but they all knew there might be consequences in the future. Loss of rations, less time out of their cells, the works. Yet as they witnessed this screaming child, this camper of Danil’s, become one with the liquid fire, they didn’t care about the repercussions.

The guard, ignoring his victim’s cries, began dipping him in the lava – and the loudest wail of all, enough to fill the entire room and force every human being to cover their ears, assailed through and reverberated throughout the corridors, touching all that could hear sound. Steve’s skin itself began to boil, and Danil could no longer hold on to himself. He slipped away, upon seeing the last part of Steve bubble away. Long dead, watching Steve’s dilapidated body drift into oblivion was too much of a toll on everybody but the guards in armor.

They knew he was not the Devil – the guards, the prisoners, and Danil. And yet they killed him anyway. Why?, Danil asked himself in his unconscious state. Who could do this? For what purpose?

But his thoughts drifted, and Danil was soon in another place.

*     *    *   *  * *  *   *    *     *

When he awoke, he was strapped to a wall – no, an indent in a wall, he discovered, perfectly shaped for a human being. No, not a human being, he discovered; something much larger, something very much inhuman. But his arms were clamped to the wall, and he could not move, making the size of his enclave irrelevant – for his first few waking minutes, at least.

He felt sick, and vomited on the floor in front of him. He looked up to find another one of the guards – this one in brass, golden armor. “You won’t be doing that for long,” the guard said, flipping a switch on a very complicated looking dashboard in front of him. A series of whistles blew, steam flew around the room – was this even a room? He looked up and saw steam-powered robotic parts move around the upper fringes of the room, which was tall enough to house many more enclaves like his in the walls beyond. He was situated, on a cylindrical pole in the center of the room. The poll was asphyxiated with countless enclaves like his, with countless clamps to hold victims to its surface.

Wind brushed by his face, stinging the wounds on his neck. He could just barely breathe.

The guard left, smirking and waving to Danil, who saw what was happening. Complicated networks of machinery were moving closer toward him – eventually, one robotic, steam-driven arm stopped in front of him. Creaking and moving disjointedly yet with immense power, it crushed his elbow under a large gear, and twisted until his very nerves and muscles were bound to the gear. Another machine did the same on the other elbow, and soon an army of machines was upon him, working on Danil’s body, transforming him from a living being into something greater, something to serve a purpose beyond Danil and Steve and Lanford. A purpose befitting the kind of traitor and criminal Danil was.

From outside the doors, the guard smirked again and waved goodbye, then walked through the shimmering brass corridors out of sight.