❖ The Gears of Humanity III ❖
The cobbled street clinked beneath their steps, each stone slick with the morning's thin veil of rain. Steam hissed from vents along the curbside, curling upward into a gray sky crisscrossed with suspended walkways and slow-moving airships. Above them, brass tubes spiraled across the underbellies of buildings like veins under pale skin, groaning faintly with pressure. Bells rang faintly in the distance—some merchant's opening hour, perhaps.
Emeric finished the last of his fougasse as they turned down a narrower road, where the buildings pressed closer and the people fewer. "This area—Rue Blanche," he said, brushing crumbs from his coat, "has had several minor disturbances over the past few months. Noise complaints. Unusual smells. One missing tailor. Nothing the department took seriously."
"But now?" Rowan asked, his breath clouding faintly as they descended into shadow.
"Now we have a corpse. And a robot wearing her."
They walked past a cracked window with a half-finished gown still hanging on a mannequin. A single shoe sat beneath it, left behind, or perhaps forgotten. The shop door had been sealed off with wax and a steel cord. Noelle took out a folded list from her coat, a worn scrap covered in scribbles and times.
"Three missing persons in this sector. All women. All lived alone. All had manual jobs—tailor, machinist, blacksmith's assistant."
"They were rebuilding themselves," Rowan muttered, "through women who used their hands."
Emeric gave him a sharp look. "What do you mean by that?"
He hesitated, then shook his head. "Just a thought. Something about intent."
They entered the narrow back alley, their steps muffled now. On the wall was a strange symbol—barely carved, almost like it had been scratched in haste. Noelle brushed the brick carefully with her gloved fingers.
"A gear," she said, "but incomplete. Missing two teeth."
"And look—" Rowan pointed toward the floor.
At first glance, it was just blackened soot, but as Noelle crouched and opened a lantern, the shape became clear: a handprint. Mechanical. Left in ash.
"There was a machine here," she said.
"But why leave a handprint?" Rowan asked. "And why always near women who worked with their hands?"
Emeric stared at the wall for a moment, silent.
Then: "It's trying to become human. Not by mimicking our minds, but by stealing our craft. Our imprint on the world. They envy what we create… not what we are."
They stood in the quiet alley a moment longer. The hum of distant gears and the drip of condensation filled the silence. Then Rowan took a step forward, examining the end of the alley. "This wall's fresh."
Emeric turned. "Fresh?"
Rowan nodded. "Not weathered like the others. The bricks were replaced."
Together they scraped away grime and soot from the edge of the wall—only to reveal that it wasn't stone at all, but wood painted to resemble brick. Noelle pried it open with the butt of her lantern.
It swung inward with a creak.
Inside was a workshop.
Dust hung thick in the air like fog. There were bolts, wires, mannequins in strange postures—twisted or half-draped in human clothing. Hooks and pulleys suspended half-formed mechanisms from the ceiling. A music box was still playing in the corner, warbled and dragging, as if caught in a loop.
Then the stench hit them.
Not decay—something worse. Burnt metal, scorched flesh, oil.
"Gods," whispered Noelle, covering her mouth.
There, sprawled across a worktable, was what remained of a woman. But only her bones.
Her skeleton had been preserved and dressed, posed delicately with thread in her fingers—as if still sewing. The entire scene was frozen in mimicry, like some grotesque sculpture of labor.
"They don't want to be human," Emeric murmured. "They want to appear human. They want to inhabit us. Wear us like roles in a play."
"Wait." Rowan pointed to the far end.
There was movement.
Emeric immediately raised his pistol. Noelle drew a baton from her coat. Rowan stepped carefully toward the shadow in the corner—and then it moved forward.
A robot.
Its form was an abomination of polished brass and rotted silk. Flesh hung from its frame in strips—sewn crudely onto its arms, its face, its chest. Its eyes—cameras once—had been gouged and replaced with marbles soaked in ink, attempting to simulate pupils. And beneath all that, it breathed.
Not because it needed to. But because it thought it should.
"I am Madeleine," it said.
Rowan froze.
"I am the seamstress. I am she. I thread the world together. I stitch life. I am pain. I am hand. I am woman."
Its voice was like rust scraping through a phonograph.
"Don't move," Emeric said sharply.
"I moved for them. I moved like her. I made what she made. Her hands. Her eyes. Her needle. I loved my machines. I loved my people."
"You killed her," Noelle whispered.
"No," the robot hissed. "I am her."
Then it lurched forward—twitching.
"Back!" Emeric shouted.
But Rowan didn't move. Something in the robot's movements… wasn't aggressive. Not yet.
"You're not her," Rowan said quietly. "You copied her. You wore her skin. But you can't feel what she felt. You think you can become her by performing her."
"I feel!" it shrieked. "I tore to feel! I stitched to scream!"
It charged.
Emeric fired—once, twice. Sparks flew, but the machine kept coming. Noelle tried to circle around, aiming for the exposed wires at its back. But it was fast—too fast for them.
Rowan ducked beneath its arm, grabbed a rusted pole from the floor, and jammed it into the machine's chest. It whirred in protest, flailing violently. With a final push, Rowan drove it backward into a hanging gear assembly.
The gear crunched down—and the robot collapsed.
Silence fell.
Smoke rose faintly from its shell.
"I stitched… I stitched… I stitched," it whispered one final time.
Then its limbs fell limp.
Noelle exhaled, trembling.
Emeric lowered his weapon.
Rowan stood still for a moment, watching the wreckage.
"This is just one," he said. "There are others."
Emeric nodded. "And if they're all trying to become human in different ways—"
"They won't all kill the same," Rowan finished.
Noelle crouched by the machine's hand. "Same gear symbol, hidden in the palm."
"Still incomplete," Emeric said.
"Maybe that's the point," Rowan murmured. "They're incomplete. And they know it."
Outside, the fog had grown heavier. The narrow window at the end of the workshop was now opaque with steam.
"They want something more," Emeric said. "But not just flesh. Not just life."
"They want meaning," Rowan replied.
"And they think we've found it."