The Manufactory

Our wisdom flows so sweet, taste and see.

TRANSMIT - initiate the Yomi-no-kumi signal - RECEIVE - initiate the chthonic elevator - DOWN WE GO, DOWN WE GO, DOWN WE GO - listen for the cyber-flesh scream - WITNESS - The Manufactory.

Sweetling, to the dark tower below! Down we go. Down the lighted path. Down the conveyor belts. Down the metal monster menagerie. A sterile, bright nightmare. Metal grafted to fiends. Legended beasts dreaming as machines. Smiling scientists become the nightmares of nightmare things. Is that what the Dreamers see in some of you?

Lo, sweetling. A device from before the Before had a name. The Gaia Engine. It rests below the tower, the spoils of a plot in Antarctica, from over one of your lifetimes ago. It is empty. But if it is empty, where is its occupant? What contains that sleeper now? The space between existing and apocalypse is so very thin.

Lo, sweetling. The child. Anima! See how she naturally does the work. See how the machine reacts to her. Like dancing. Like beautiful programming. Like music. She must practice. She must grow. The Immaculate Machine has the wisdom to pour salvation into multiple cups, and to have plan if all those little cups should break.

You keep growing too, sweetling.

Ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss-I am the anti-buzz-let me in.

Hiya, Chuck. It's John.

Things have gotten, complicated. It's not you. It's me. But I still think I should put you straight. It's the decent thing to do. You know how a queen bee comes about? They're just normal larva. Cute little things. Then those larva are fed the royal jelly. Enough of it works the change. The workers do this when the plans all go south. You say shit. You flip the table. You take a little one and feed her royal jelly.

Do you really think this is the first time, Chuck? Do you think this is the first planet it's gone down at? Do you really, truly think that the buzzing drone that makes you do as you do is all about saving your world? Oh, Chuck. It's all going so terribly according to plan.

Things are going to get a hell of a lot more complicated, Chuck. It's not me. It's you.