Topic: Like clockwork

Gears and cogs

Date: 2009-02-11 18:00 EST
He was not surprised when he found the apartment empty, untouched by her hands. She was not foolish enough to come and pick up what few possessions she had before fleeing. His men were laying aside the now broken door as he observed the tiny three-room apartment, smelling the old tobacco. "Search it," he ordered quietly, and the soldiers scattered.

They tore into mattresses, sent plates and glasses to the floor until every cabinet was empty for confirmation. He watched them all with a clinical observation that was expected, his thoughts turning elsewhere. She was out of the city by now, no doubt— perhaps off this world completely if she arrived at the Gate before he placed soldiers there. But no, there was no way she could have been that clev—

"Sir." His eyes snapped aside to the soldier, who lifted a small leather-bound book up to him. Frowning, he snatched it from the soldier's hands and flipped it open. The journal had been damaged somehow, torn through and burned away by some inhuman hands, but he could still decipher the messy scrawl of the last page:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/tomatothief/annejournal3.jpg

He snapped the book shut, his frown turning severe. Jester. "If you find anything else, leave it on my desk. Have them search her workshop next — and someone get a technical analyst to work on the hounds," he snapped, turning away. He wound find her, break her, and have her beautiful mind working for him again in no time.

Gears and cogs

Date: 2009-02-12 15:30 EST
One Year Later

The sounds of metal on metal, forcing shape out of nothing between hammer and anvil with heat radiating onto her skin — it was a comfort that was almost better than sex. It was control, and it was alluring.

Since abandoning Earth and the city, her move to Rhy'din was inevitably profitable. After a few months of just scraping by, she managed to build the finances for her own workshop again in the hellish pit that was West End. Anne fit right in.

The heat thrown off the fire was enough to have the gleam of sweat on her arms and face, lifting the hammer again for another forming blow of the red-hot metal atop the anvil. There were no blueprints for the shape, no schematics or instructions; it was instinct that drove her and the trade skill was a second skin. The clang of metal echoed dully around the shop, where scraps of metal, wire, tools, and gods know what lay scattered haphazardly like a muse's inspiration. Her expression was stoic. Normally her mind would be intently focused on her work, but today..

Clang. The metal snapped beneath her hammer, brittle from heat and pressure. "F**k," she hissed, jerking away as one red-hot piece skittered off, settling on the dirt floor. Distraction easily shifted to frustration, and the tattoo-faced woman scowled as she resisted the urge to toss her damn hammer into the fire, burn it down to char and ash. Instead, the same thoughts rolled in her mind over and over again: the Spaniards, the hounds, the detective, and Herzwerk.

Anne pulled away from her anvil, leaving the fire untended as she crossed the length of her small workshop. For a year, she managed to escape the city's long arms and make her own again, leaving Herzwerk to blindly finger through her dust. Now she saw her own handiwork on the streets again, and her paranoia ran high.

She walked through the false-wall, feeling the momentary shiver of magic on her skin as she passed through the illusion and into a different world: her true workshop, her real home. Anne blindly felt the wall for a lightswitch, flipping on the yellowing lights. They flickered to life with an unhealthy hum, exposing the myriad of copper and bronze components, the gears and cogs which lie scattered. On the workbench, her Hound's head followed the sound, infrared eyes honing in on her form; it was still missing vital parts, but she could hear the careful, quiet whirring of its internal engine.

"Hello, baby," she murmured. "I'm home."