So, every day she went down to the factory floor to meet the other journeymen and initiates who had stayed when everyone else had departed for Ter.0.
When she was younger, every initiate of the Rivets’ Guild was required to spend a certain amount of time on the factory floor each week. Young Rivets were taught the basics of their trade, and learned that essential quality of a tinkerer: humility. Working the floor inspired respect for how things can come together with elegant sophistication.
But the pedagogy had been abandoned in the wake of the Dragons.
Young men and women—children, really—with soft delicate hands, who had never seen a manufacturing line before, stood before Arianna each day at dawn. Each day, she critiqued their work from the day prior. Even though they had yet to produce a fully functional Philosopher’s Box to her specifications, she permitted the better prototypes a place of honor on the shelves along the back wall of the factory for a day or two before getting dismantled and smelted. The gesture served both as an opportunity to raise the spirits of her workers and function as a red herring for Louie. Arianna had no doubt that upon seeing all the yet-imperfect boxes lined up on the shelves the other day, Louie immediately assumed the Rivets were further along in production than they actually were.
It was this assumption that she would use against him. For if knowledge of stockpiled Philosopher’s Boxes was to make its way to any third party, Arianna would know immediately who the false information came from. It wasn’t as though any of the initiates spoke to Louie; Arianna had gleaned great pleasure so far at seeing the haughty man on the edge of all interactions, never able to penetrate closer.
She glanced up at the catwalk where Louie had appeared the other day. Today, like most days, it was empty. Arianna put it from her mind to focus on the floor. The boxes wouldn’t become perfect with her mind busy elsewhere.
They worked until lunch, breaking to head to the mess hall on the floor above.
The food wasn’t glamorous, but it was consistent, and it was what Arianna was accustomed to from her childhood.
“It seems like you’re doing well with them.” Charles sat across from her, startling Arianna from her thoughts. He usually sat with the young Rivets.
“With Louie?” Arianna couldn’t imagine what about her relationship with Louie looked remotely positive, let alone qualified as “doing well.” It was a sort of peaceful tolerance on the exterior, at best.
“No, no.” Charles shook his head as if remembering for the first time in days that the skeletal man and his ragtag followers even existed. “I mean with the initiates. They’re doing well learning the line. It’s something that many were resistant to, but now they’re all taking a liking for it.”
Arianna scoffed softly, and refrained from making a comment about how “in her day” all initiates were required to spend time on the line. Instead, she capitalized on the fact that she had someone familiar with what had evolved in the Rivets’ Guild while she was away.
“Why is it that the initiates don’t work on the line anymore?”
“Ah, that . . . That was a change the Dragons imposed about six years ago. They wanted most initiates focused on refining.” Charles shook his head, expressing in a single gesture that he felt much the same as Arianna on the matter.
“Shortsighted creatures,” she muttered. The Dragons had the most use for gold, and they put high value on the difficult-to-craft resource. Converting all manpower to its creation made sense. It was, after all, nearly impossible to produce without a lot of time and manpower.
Well, made sense if a child was the one calling the shots.
Yveun’s face appeared in the forefront of her thoughts, and Arianna shook her head to relieve herself of the memory. The Dragon King may be formidable, and may even have had smart insights for Loom—at least regarding the Harvesters—but it seemed he would have driven the true value of the Rivets into dust if he had remained in control much longer. So, a child in only some ways, perhaps.
A giant dais protruding from the ceiling of the cafeteria turned with an audible click that silenced the entire room. Everyone looked up at the transformed signal, interpreting it at the same time. Down the tracks not far from Garre, an engine had triggered the pressure switch. Just as Vicar Willard had promised, more Rivets were on their way.
“Well, I suppose lunch is going to be cut short for us.” Charles stood, taking note of how little Arianna had eaten. “Have you had enough? I can always greet the newcomers with Vicar Willard alone. You are not required.”
“I don’t need that much food.” Arianna stood as well. “There are a few benefits to being the Perfect Chimera, after all.”
“A few? I think I could name several, and I have only known you for two weeks.”
The train station for Garre was slightly north of the main guild hall. Steam engines were quite particular about the ground they ran on, and the soft, marshy earth beneath Garre did not do for a train station. The Rivets and Ravens compromised to create a station just beyond the guild hall proper. It was accessible via a short light rail that gently sloped downward to the station. On the way out, the small ferrying rail was powered mostly by gravity and momentum. On the way back in, when it was mostly uphill, the trains were powered by steam—or magic.
Arianna looked with interest toward the large engine that bellowed down the winding track leading from the northern Territory. On it would be extra manpower to set up her manufacturing line, and hopefully new ways to communicate with the rebellion locked beneath the ground of Ter.4. And, in particular, one Raven-tattooed Revolver.
They arrived just before the train did, and the three present leaders of the Rivets’ Guild stood alone on the long platform as the engine slowed to a stop. Amid the steam billowing over the platform, the shadows of men and women emerged. They all immediately headed for the light rail without hesitation. All of them were Rivets—knew where to go, what to do. Arianna scanned their cheeks for some sign of any other guilds. But there were none.
“We may want to address our own protection sometime soon with the other vicars,” Arianna said to Willard.
“Weaponry is quite tight right now,” the old man replied.
As if she didn’t already know that. “Yes, and I realize that the majority of it must be used to fortify the Underground and the majority of Loom. But there will be no Loom, should we fail to produce the Philosopher’s Box. I doubt it will take long for the Dragon King to check all the other guilds when he returns to Ter.0 and finds no one.”
Willard stroked his chin in thought. “You do raise a fair point. I will whisper to the Vicar Raven this night; perhaps we can see some Revolvers on the next train.”