The car passed through the iron gates of the capital's palace at high speed. Stone walls crowned by soaring arches whispered stories from an era where human hands still shaped the city's geometry. A relic of Herjard's past still clinging to be remembered. The rest of xxx haven't had the same luck.

  Al the way there and through the long, wide avenues, Claudia had only seen factories turning the sky black and machines busy as the human inhabitants of the world once were. The skyline had been a forest of pipes, cranes, and smokestacks vomiting black threads into a pale sky. Steam hissed from the gutters. Machines crawled across every corner, every rooftop, street and building. Tools shaped like vehicles moved goods here and there; others with animalistic forms, built. Others, more human-like, supervised. A hive of iron that needed no rest, only to produce.

  'That was hideous, to say the least,' Robert whispered inside their mind. 'I'm happy the ride is over, and soon—'

  'Silence.' Claudia cut.

  Victor, who was sitting at the back of the car next to her, turned for a moment. "What does she say?"

  Claudia didn't want to answer, but she knew he'd insist until she gave one.

  "Your city displeases her."

  "Why?"

  She lowered her gaze to the soaked bandages that now cuffed her wrists, the absence of her hands a reminder she was not in control. They’d taken her weapons, her tools. The procedure had been clumsy, with no intention of repairing her later. That was their plan; she knew it. After speaking with the Emperor, there was nothing left but to be dismantled.

  "Why?" Vicor insisted.

  Her reflection in the window stared back: the face of Robert. Male, young. Delicate features on a small, yet strong body. The droid had been Donna's masterpiece. Her dream. But Alexander would despise it. Yet, the audience was to make him believe what she brought was not the body of the young, beautiful maid she once was, but the mind of the lovable wife he thought she carried. If that failed, the South was doomed.

  "She never liked cities."

  "It's the grey and the rust." Victor's tone carried his conceit. "Beauty has no productive value. Its sole purpose is to amuse humans. Humans need trivial things. Machines don't."

  Victor looked forward again. “Humans are inefficient. Emotion impairs judgment, and flesh jeopardizes results. Here, every unit works continuously and knows its function. Every action serves the Empire without delays or errors.”

  Robert spoke once more. 'If self-reliance is not centralized, our efforts will be—'

  'It doesn't matter,' Claudia said. The south can handle 'Whatever is left afterwards. They have to.'

  The car ascended a slope onto an inner patio. Nothing that was once green in the entrance gardens was alive. Brown surrounded them. The building where he transport stopped, majestic and imposing, had the scars of neglect at closer look.

  The machine tasked with opening the door halted. Victor didn't leave either; instead, he stared with his puppet-like face, expecting another answer she didn't want to give.

  "She wonders how your maker controls all of it." Claudia pretended amusement. "She actually worries about his well-being."

  "Is that so?" He opened the door. "The Maker is a busy person, so don't expect a long audience."

  "I don’t want it to be either."

  When her door opened, Victor gestured for her to follow. Two iron soldiers flanked the entrance, their weapons over the shoulders.

  In the Hall, thick crusts of mold covered among fractured pieces of marble flooring. Shafts of light leaked through jagged fissures high above. Plaster?scoured walls stained with mold and scabbed fissures. Furniture lay in place as if still functional despise being all rotten and broken.

  She stared up at the endless cables running all over the ceiling. “This is not a palace. It’s another factory.”

  “A functional empire needs a functional heart.”

  As they entered, the noise grew deafening. Gears roared beneath the floor. Copper wires ran through glass tubes like veins. Sparks flashed in the dimness, illuminating walls lined with analog machines, punch cards, relays, rotating drums. The hum of computation, ancient and vast.

  They passed a row of mechanical scribes; humanoid robots tapping keyboards without pause. Lines of numbers scrolled across walls of paper. The scent of burnt insulation clung to everything.

  Victor instructed her to continue through a corridor of glass tanks. Inside floated half-finished bodies, torsos, arms, faces without eyes. Liquid bubbles rose from their mouths like dying breaths. Robert's own reflection shimmered among them.

  Claudia whispered, “So this is what he became.”

  “What he ascended to.” Victor stopped, though he invited her to continue further. She did, and the puppet followed from a distance.

  When they reached the last door, Victor spoke. “Before we enter, you must know this: the Maker expects respect. Address him as Sovereign.”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  She met his glassy eyes. “I’ll call him what he is. Nothing more.”

  Victor stared a moment longer, then opened the door.

  The throne room wasn’t a room at all. It was a cavern of machines.

  Pistons lined the walls. Fans spun lazily overhead. And in the center, beneath a dome of flickering light, stood a massive glass cylinder filled with clear liquid. Wires, tubes, and metallic tendrils connected it to the surrounding consoles.

  Inside the cylinder floated a man, or better said, what remained of one.

  Alexander’s face was preserved behind a mask of translucent plating. His eyes glowed faintly blue, cables snaking from his skull into the surrounding machinery. The body was supported by a tangle of metal ribs and suspended rods. The sight made Claudia’s artificial lungs seize.

  “Claudia,” said a metallic voice amplified through speakers. “Or would you prefer another name now? Lim perhaps?”

  She lifted her chin. “It’s been a long time, Alexander.”

  "I didn't expect you to call me Emperor, or Your Majesty," "but at least call me Professor." His body flickered through the glass. “You’ve chosen a clever disguise. Though I must admit, I preferred the face you once had.”

  “That body is gone,” she said. “Your armies destroyed it when they bombarded xxxx.”

  “They were not mine by then, yet.” His tone almost softened. “It took me a while to get where I stand now. It's an interesting story, but long. And I don't want to talk to you that much. Actually, I'd prefer to talk to someone else.”

  Victor stepped forward, holding a metallic case. “The Sphere, Your Highness.”

  The hum in the room deepened. Alexander’s lights brightened in response. A machine stepped closer and took the sphere away.

  “What's remarkable about that thing isn't what it achieves," Alexander said. "After all, I had discovered the power of the atom myself. Not so complicated, I must say. What impresses me the most is that a simple-minded maid did it.”

  "I wonder if the papers I left at the university helped you."

  "What papers?" Alexander let out a glitching sound mimicking a chortle.

  “You unfolded the power of fusion,” she said, “but you didn’t foresee its long-term consequences. You radiated half of the world with your bombs. My sphere is clean energy.”

  “What makes you believe I didn't foresee those effects?” he let out another chortle. "Your trinket is just what it is. Another tool. I allowed your visit for another reason only. I was told you carry with you my wife. If she is indeed alive and here, I demand proof. If it was just an excuse to come here to whine about your failures, you'll regret it deeply."

  “I’m not the same maid you used to command.”

  “You will be. Fear and pain make people remember who owns them.”

  “I feel neither,” she said. “I surpassed the stage of flesh way long ago. Unlike you. Who is lagging here?”

  “Enough. Bring Anna to me. Let me speak to her.”

  She smiled faintly, all a fa?ade to show she wasn’t out of moves yet. “I have a request. Tell your troops to leave the south and cancel your alliance with Vega.”

  The lights flickered uncontrollably as Alex laughed.

  "I have a counterproposal," he said. "I'll continue holding my troops until I speak to Anna. If I end up pleased, I may pardon the little, pitiful remains of your Southern friends. If not, I will send the order to finish what they started."

  A little ray of hope gleamed within her. Maybe their plan would work. Maybe Herjard was indeed a beast of many tentacles but just one brain, and if so, they just needed to cut the head.

  Inside her mind, Robert stirred again.

  'It’s time, isn’t it?' he asked.

  'Yes.'

  'Thank you,' he said. 'For letting me see this far.'

  She smiled inwardly. 'I’d never have reached here without you. Thank you, Robert.'

  'Do you think there’s something after for us? For machines, I mean.'

  'I don’t know,' she answered. 'But at least we won't feel sad about it.'

  He laughed faintly.

  Claudia opened her eyes. "She doesn't want to talk to you."

  "Why?"

  "Because she is ashamed of what you have become. Of what you have done."

  "Lies," Alexander's voice cracked behind the speakers. "That's your saying. I want to hear from her. I want to hear her voice."

  "Her voice is gone with her body."

  "Let her speak!"

  The room stilled. Gears and hums seemed to halt to Alexander's distress. All machines, animal or human-like, turned at the man in the tank.

  His tone shifted from anger to triumph. “I knew it. It's all a lie, you could—.”

  Her gaze steadied, but her body lowered. Curved and heavy, as Anna used to be. “Why, gorodoi? Why?”

  A single light flickered. The tank bubbled. "You… you are not her. You are deceiving me!"

  And she was. There was no Anna. Only the memories of how she spoke, how she behaved. Claudia continued, for the sake of a little satisfaction before the end.

  "You once told me you were drunk on dreams. But I just see a man… no, not a man, a thing. A thing drunk with power and rage."

  "Enough." Alexander waved a metal appendage within the tank. “Disassemble them. We’ll extract the neural data.”

  "There're no dreams in the world you have created. No love. Shame on you."

  Alexander’s lights flared, electric fury sparking through the glass. “Enough! Take them apart!”

  The guards stepped forward. Their feet clanged across the iron floor.

  Claudia activated the countdown. In seconds, the laser would trigger the reaction. The sphere dormant inside her chest was now ready to erase them all. It would engulf half of the city in a blast of heat and destruction: enough to end Herjard, or at least, the one the professor had created.

  'Ready?' she asked.

  'Yes.'

  Energy burst from her chest, turning Robert's body into a ball of fire. The sphere felt and rolled. Guards rushed to take it, but legs bended with the heat. The glass cylinder around Alexander shattered, and for the briefest instant, his scream was human.

  Then came the white.