The cogs moved from left to right, from right to left, from up to down, in an endless movement which in two centuries had been interrupted only a handful of times. People used to saw them as mere cogs, instruments to a purpose.


    But as years went by and mundane institutions became unstable people started seeing something divine in those mechanisms. The blueprints became more and more unreadable, their physics appeared more and more complex until the word divine didn’t become appropriate for describing many of them them.


    Obliviously mechanics knew how a cog turned but the grand scheme of things was out of their reach.


    Looking at them one realizes the brevity of one’s existence. Those cogs were moving before their grandfather was born and they will continue to move after their grandson had died. They were eternal, immune to decay, immune to disease, perfect in any way, unknowledge. Divine.


    <<This fellow ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. What do you think Pxan?>> said James.


    Pxan barely looked at the corpse on the ground <


    >


    <


    >


    Pxan shook his head and remembered where he was <<sorry, it’s because of the headaches.>> he took a better look at the corpse <<do you think that it was an accident?>>


    <<We have no way to know...regardless he is not a citizen and wasn’t living in this zone so…>>


    <<Why care?>>If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    <<Exactly. Probably he was a ruffian of some sort.>>


    Pxan looked at the corpse better <<Did he had a family?>>


    <<No, at least not according to the archives.>>


    Pxan looked in the distance, at those monumental machines built by titans in ancient times <<let’s go talk to the security manager to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.>>


    They found him busy fixing a broken engine, with all his hands black as charcoal. He had a mechanical arm attached to its shoulder, useful for working faster but not for common living.


    <<Unfortunaly there is nothing that I can do.>>


    <<Nothing?>>


    <<No, in order to secure the entire fabric we should get more founds and in order to get more founds…>>


    <<I understand.>>


    <<Regardless I will look into the incident and see what I can do>>


    Some days after the whole zone had bared wires  and a warning sign. Better than nothing.


    <


    > James looked at him with worried eyes


    <<Yes it’s just some tiredness, I have to re-habituate myself to the normal rhythms of work.>>


    James wasn’t much relieved by its answer, something was wrong, something was left unsaid


    Once got back home Pxan trowed himself on the sofa and nearly collapsed into a black sleep. His house was dirty, the floor was full of dust, the bathroom was becoming unusable and the kitchen looked like a car graveyard.


    In the back of its mind he knew what was happening, it happened to him in the past, but with all the work to do and the prosthetics he couldn’t let himself be carried over by dark thoughts.


    “I need help.”