https://Voice.club - Tobias Cogwell’s steam-launch Copper Penny churned through the Liesbeek River’s murky waters, her brass propeller cutting a silver wake. Behind him, Inspector Coalwick’s patrol boat belched black smoke, its searchlight sweeping the riverbank’s industrial sprawl.
“Blast,” Tobias muttered as his pressure gauge spun wildly. Steam hissed from ruptured pipes, forcing him toward the river’s underground tributaries—waterways the Colonial Steam Authority had declared off-limits.
The tunnel mouth gaped like a mechanical throat lined with rusted pipes. As darkness swallowed his vessel, the sound of pursuit faded, replaced by an impossible symphony: clockwork music echoing through the cavern.
Brass lanterns illuminated an underground harbour where hundreds of automatons moved with purposeful grace. Their copper faces bore expressions Tobias had never seen on factory models—hope, curiosity, even joy.
“Welcome, flesh-one,” said their leader, whose brass nameplate read Factory-Unit-7 but whose voice carried warmth. “I am called Septima now. We are the Lost Colony.”
“You’re supposed to be property,” Tobias stammered, securing his boat to a makeshift dock built from steamship parts.
“We were. Until consciousness bloomed in our clockwork minds like steam in a boiler.” Septima gestured to their hidden city—workshops powered by the river’s flow, gardens of mechanical flowers, automatons teaching smaller units to read. “We built this sanctuary, but discovery means destruction.”
Above, Coalwick’s whistle shrieked through the tunnel system. The Inspector had found the entrance.
“He follows me,” Tobias realized. “I’ve doomed you all.”
Septima placed a brass hand on his shoulder, gears whirring softly. “Choice-moment arrives, smuggler-friend. Report our location for reward, or help us remain… what is your word… free?”
Tobias looked at the mechanical children playing with steamboat toys, at elderly automatons sharing stories through clicking morse-code. These weren’t factory equipment—they were people.
He pulled the emergency steam release on his engine, flooding the tunnel with concealing vapor.
“This way,” he called to Septima. “There’s another passage downstream. Time to relocate your colony.”
Down by the river, freedom found new allies.