Tomorrow will be the day Graham enters Cydia. You can already see the fruits of Cydian technology present at the end of last night’s writing and all of tonight’s entry. The local climax will also happen tomorrow, with a hopefully enticing and informative monologue by a very depressed President Ford.

Word Count: 56,745

Through the gaping window they witnessed the room full of prisoners splitting apart, and several knights grasping tightly the arms of prisoners walked through the crowd as Moses through the Red Sea. Squirming, hoping to escape, both men thrashed about against the wall with their abdomen, unable to move their clamped arms and legs. The old man simply watched through the window and smiled, saying nothing, enjoying the event as it unfurled – five prisoners were brought up to the front of the room and exemplified in front of the entire Black District. Wheat and Graham saw each one of them, their faces broken and listless, their expressions bleak, their minds empty of all but one thought: We stand here, right now, as a dead men and women.

Amelia Lavan looked at James Fleming, who looked at Ives Judson, who looked at Henry Tesla, who looked at Alex – and they all solemnly bowed their heads and accepted their deaths, one by one, at the hands of the executioner. “No!” Graham and Wheat shouted over and over again, but their voices did not pass through the glass – none of the five Station A members in the boiler room could hear, especially not over the roar of the crowd.

Eventually, and to Wheat and Graham’s delight, it appeared all of the prisoners were displeased that the escapees had been captured and wished to start a riot, but they were quickly suppressed with the knights’ uncommonly high technology. It seems for this purpose they had even more technologically advanced devices, and nobody could explain where they were coming from. The old man expressed how much he enjoyed watching them use the devices, but said nothing more about them.

Fleming was the first brought up to the melting pot, and just as Alex had once described, his jaw appeared to want to fall off the rest of his face; never in his wildest dreams did he ever believe he would face his death. His mortality had never occurred to him; his life was one station after the next, constantly avoiding capture, but now that capture had come he could not bring himself to bear the thought, and he struggled the entire time that the executioner held him down. He was stripped off his clothes and held naked above the pot, then slowly lowered in. Graham could not bear to watch; he covered his eyes, then opened them when he thought the process must have been finished, thankful that sound from the boiler room did not pour over into that small chamber in which he was trapped.

He had opened his eyes too early – early enough that Fleming’s head was still visible, sinking into the lava. He was long dead now, and nothing would bring him back; his face was frozen in a perpetual open-jawed scream, and his eyes had rolled far back into his skull. The entire head glower bright yellow as it melted down, and soon enough the face was so disfigured that it could no longer be distinguished as Fleming’s. No, it was now a simple mass of flesh slowly sinking into the melting pot.

One by one, each of the prisoners from Station A were stripped of their clothes and lowered into the pot. Graham and Wheat kept their eyes closed for as long as possible – thankfully, they both thought, none of their colleagues could see them trapped in this tiny room. They both would rather have died in the refueling than watch that sad event, and when it was through their weeping only intensified a hundred fold. This act was swiftly interrupted as the old man stepped in front of the glass panel, facing both men as their tears drenched their clothes. Almost everyone Graham had met in Lanford was now dead – executed at the hands of a disgusting, greedy government! The two men could only take solace in each other’s presence, and neither knew how long that would last given their current predicament.

The old man spoke once more, “I’m sorry, gentlemen, I have failed to introduce myself—”

“No, don’t bother!” Graham shouted. “I don’t need to know who you are if you laugh at my friends’ deaths – but all that aside, I think I already know. You’re President Ford, aren’t you?”

The old man took a step back, surprised. “There’s no way you could have known that – nobody has ever seen me in public; half of Lanford doesn’t even know I exist! How do you know about me?”

Wheat looked at Graham, also stunned. “Do tell, James – I’ve never heard of this man in my life. I didn’t know we had a president; the government of Lanford conceals most everything, and all the Railroad tries to do is keep everyone alive.”

Graham spoke, “When I was captured by a crimson knight weeks ago, after visiting your house to investigate your arrest, I was knocked out and taken here. During the time I was unconscious I had the strangest dream, and one of them men in that dream was you,” he said, turning to the old man, “President Ford of Lanford continent. You lent me your cane so that I could walk despite my injured leg, but I see what you told me in the dream was not true after all. You need it more than I do, though right now I don’t need it at all.”

“I’m impressed, but I do not believe your story. Someone told you of my existence – everyone else has been led to believe that there is a parliament, a monarch, or a combination thereof. But that you know who I am is of no consequence. Yes, I am President Thomas Ford, at your service, and I’m here to inform you both that as a result of your attempt to escape and your subsequent capture the White District of Lanford shall be expediting the consequences of your special circumstances.”

“What special circumstances would those be, Mr. President?” asked Wheat, irritated.

“I should not even have to answer this. Is it not obvious? You are a conductor of an Underground Railroad station, and the man next to you, I’m quite sure, is not even from this world. Ergo, you are both quite special people, and we have uses for those like you. You shall see soon enough; we used to melt people like you down as fuel, but nowadays we are much more conservative about whom we use for fuel, and who we – ah, well, I shan’t ruin the surprise for either of you. Off you go to treatment!” Making a gesture in the air with his hand, President Ford called out a switch from inside the wall of the room. Pulling the switch activated a mechanism that made the entire wall shift backwards – deeper into the center of the Black District silo – taking Graham and Wheat with it. President Ford waved goodbye to the men, then hobbled out of the room with his cane.

The wall was along a metal track, and fell downward for several minutes inside a dark shaft. Along the way down, neither of the two spoke, though Graham wondered with much intensity how the President could have known that he was not from Talos – it couldn’t have been a wild guess. He thought back to his mannerisms, which must have seemed strange to Talos residents, and knew that one of the knights must have reported him to the President – or at least to higher authorities, and the report simply spiraled up and up the governmental ladder until it reached Mr. Ford, who knew at once that he had to act or risk his entire continent’s stability and security.

Strangely enough, this made Graham wonder if his case was unique. If there was one man from Earth on Talos, who was to say there were not more? There could be an entire legion of Earthlings on Talos, living amongst the people after years of awkward assimilation; and not all of them had to have ended up in Lanford, or Alteria. They could be scattered about the globe. As unlikely as it sounded, Graham was now hopeful – or he would have been had he not the strong inkling that he was about to be killed at the unmerciful hands of the knights.

After several minutes of falling and not a word from either of the two men, they both knew that this strange elevator wall was not taking them to the boiler room, but to some far off section of the tower that nobody had ever seen before. When Graham had feared of death by meltdown his heart had sank more deeply into his chest than ever before, but at the notion of dying by some as-of-yet unknown, and possibly more tortuous method, his heart broke clear out of the back of his body and through the pristine wall against which he was pinned.

At last they saw light, far down below – the wall panel began to slow its movement as it prepared to push forward into the light, where a hole had been cut into the wall with the exact dimensions of the panel. Once the panel was in front of the hole, both men could see where the wall elevator had taken them. It was a gigantic dome-topped cylindrical shaped room whose height spanned several hundred meters. In the center of the room was a thick column lined with human-shaped orifices, though the shapes were much too large to fit a normal human being. Along the curved walls were more of these orifices, and countless electronic arms that waved to and fro, waiting for a human to be placed inside the orifice, surrounded each one.

For an awkward moment, Graham wondered if Ford wanted to use this gigantic pristine chamber to supply the entire Black District with fresh automated haircuts, but the straps present on each limb of each orifice spoke otherwise. As the wall forced itself into place, completing the broken edge of the room, President Ford walked in through an entrance on their far left, clothed in a white lab coat instead of his previous formal suit, and stood in front of a massive array of control panels, each button and switch more foreign to Graham than the next. The entire room was stark white, save for the black column in the center, including the robotic arms that swayed back and forth so rhythmically – this was technology that was beyond comprehension, and did not fit into the world of Talos. It made no sense – where was all this advanced technology coming from? Not even Earth had devices and control panels like these!

“Joseph,” Graham said, “This technology… have you ever seen it before?”

“Never. I didn’t even know we had stuff like this. If I didn’t think I was about to die, I would be in awe of it all! It’s magnificent, and I don’t understand any of it. Does it run on steam?”

“I don’t think so,” Graham said, looking around at all of the clearly electronic equipment, wondering where it could have come from. Perhaps, he thought, the Lanford government was hiding these advanced devices from the public, as they had cleverly hidden their own leader behind the shawl of the knights. But that left no reason not to share it with the public; if better technology had been developed, why wouldn’t the government take advantage of this technology to enhance the standards of living across the world? Why would the Lanford, Alteria, and every continent on Talos collaborate to collectively hinder their own populous?

Ford finished flipped a few switches, and at once Graham and Wheat were released. The two men fell promptly to the ground and held their wrists in pain; to ensure that neither of the two men escaped, two black knights held them at those same wrists while delivering them to Ford.

“This room is quite remarkable, really,” President Ford said. “I can’t remember how many years ago this place was built. Perhaps it was ten years ago, or ten thousand years ago, but it has undergone several very modest upgrades since its inception.”

“I can see that,” Graham said.

“I knew you would, Mr. Graham. Since the day I heard about you I knew you were the most special of all – that you were one not from this world. And I have dreaded meeting you ever since. But who would have known you were so easily brought into submission! Not I; that is certain. We people of Talos, we are weak folk, but we enjoy what we have.”

“You have a lot, from the looks of it. I’ve never seen anything like this before. How did you build it?”

“How did I build it? I did not build it, my friend. I am not that great. But we – the world leaders, you see – have such technologies scattered around the world on reserve electricity. There isn’t enough for everyone, but I have decided that I do not want there to be enough for everyone. Enough to power this room is satisfactory. So off you go – into the chambers with you! You shall become my newest robots. I’ve been developing a new line, and I need some prototype models. Both of your bodies should work nicely, especially the body of a Cydian. Once I get you out of that fetch of yours, I’ll have the most powerful robot on Talos! Knights, store them in separate orifices. They don’t need to talk to one another during their treatment. I want to watch that one, though,” he pointed to Graham, “so put him in Danil’s spot.”

The two knights took Graham and Wheat to separate locations. Graham was placed in the center column, right in front of Ford and the control panel, on the lowest level of human-shaped orifices, and Wheat was taken somewhere entirely foreign – Graham could not determine where. At once President Ford began working the control panels. The mechanical arms around Graham began to rev and activate, preparing to place Graham through the torture of become a mechanical being – the torture of destroying his physical body and using the leftover musculature and tendons and ligaments as parts for a clockwork abomination.

Just then, there was a loud rumbling throughout the chamber – and then an explosion. Ford ceased operations and went to examine the explosion, but too late – another one set off just outside the entrance to the chamber. And just like that, Graham knew he and Wheat were saved, for it was Jessica Ames setting of the explosions. Somehow she had managed to infiltrate the Black District – with the help of the rest of the Underground Railroad, no double – and traced Graham and Wheat to this very room. More explosions set off my miniature bomblets rattled the entire room as Ames made her way to the chamber. Ford began to panic, pushing control buttons as fast as humanly possible to jump-start the transformation process. Once he was comfortable with the settings, he allowed the machines to do the rest of the work on their own.

However, Ames was not alone – and Graham saw this as she entered into the chamber accompanied by none other than the large robot he’d become acquainted with earlier in his imprisonment. They burst through the entrance doors like madmen, shooting everything in sight in attempt to free Graham and Wheat, but missing most of their targets. Cleverly enough, President Ford had come prepared; he took out one of the taser-like machines and used it to generate a shield of blue light, which none of Ames’s or the clockwork robot’s technology could pierce.

“Jessica! Thank god!” Graham shouted. “Wheat! We’re saved – they’ve come to save us all!”

The clockwork robot, 0x18015DANIL, advanced towards Ford at a snail’s pace – not fast enough to catch the man as he fled the scene. He waved his arms in the same gesture against the wall where Wheat and Graham had once been strapped, then rode the elevator wall back up to the room overlooking the refueling chamber. Exhausted, Ames commanded the robot at once to destroy the machines around Graham. Not fast enough to relieve the shock of being nearly killed and then daringly rescued, the clockwork robot 0x18015DANIL made its way over with clunky motion, but ripped apart the robotic arms with the force of three tanks, crumpling them up into balls of puny tin foil, and then proceeded to release the metal straps barring Graham to the wall.

“Are you alright?” asked Ames to Graham, who had fallen face first to the ground and was just recovering.

“No, not at all – where’s Joseph? We’ve got to save him, too!”

The two knights were just not rushing over to the scene, one armed with several steam guns and the other armed with one of the taser-like devices. Ames pulled out a gun and dropped it on the floor next to Graham, telling him to make good use of it, and then fired relentlessly at the two black knights. As if by divine providence her first bullet struck the armed knight directly in the forehead between the eyes, and Graham’s own eyes grew wide with envy and fear at the sight of this. The other black knight, now with nobody but himself to defend with his fancy electronic toy, began quaking in fear. He attempted to use it on the robot so that he could not be pounded to death with its crushing force, but Ames took out her own device – the one Graham had left to her that day he’d been arrested at Station A – and used it to counteract the effects of the first device. Suddenly, the remaining black knight was helpless and pinned to the floor by the robot, and it was only moments later that the clockwork robot chunkily knelt down, pinned the man to the floor by his neck, and bashed his skull in with one mighty blow.

But it was too late for Wheat, who was writhing in pain at this very moment. Screaming for help, of any sort, but in vain, the machines performed their painful rituals all around his human, fleshy body. Ames, now ignoring Graham, who was safe for the moment, ran around the room searching for Wheat’s location. The sound of the machines at work filled the room; the stamping of metal, the twisting of gears, the ripping apart of ligaments. High pitched wails from Wheat’s mouth echoed forth and made Graham too scream out in agony.

Wheat was located high up where no normal man could rescue him, and not a soul in the room knew how to operate the technology that would take them up, though it was doubtful the hefty clockwork robot, with its weighty copper and brass pipes and gears, and the even heftier weight of the Carnot Engine at its heart, would be able to stand on an elevator platform without destroying it, and hence destroying Ames’s chances to save Wheat. But Graham knew that it was already too late, they Ames and her robotic companion had spent far too much time rescuing him, and had neglected the one other person who truly mattered, and it was with a heavy heart that Graham said a farewell – albeit a premature one – to the soon-to-be deceased Joseph Wheat.

Realizing the impossibility of her actions and the unforeseen height of Wheat’s transformation process, Ames banged her fist on the wall and began to cry. “Goddammit!” she screamed. “I came too far to deal with this shit! Joseph, you can’t be dying, please don’t yet! I can make it up there, somehow…” She sobbed, as she had sobbed the night that Graham left her for the house of Station A, and for the silliest reasons she began to attribute the loss of Wheat to her own inability to rescue him. As the process finalized and Wheat’s body was cast into metal and pipe, all of Wheat’s pain and agony melted away with the heated molten metal. With Wheat done for, silence penetrated the room, filling it with a gaseous despair greater in volume than any amount of steam any Carnot Engine in Talos could ever generate.