The central drain tube control hub was an iron-plated watching bunker suspended forty feet above the black glass floor on four massive brass pylons.
Ren Prime and Vane Vale climbed the spiral iron stairs three steps at a time, their boots ringing out in rapid staccato beats. Unit Ren remained at the base of the pylons, his massive iron frame braced against the ladder to secure their retreat. Meanwhile, Mira and Brother Ren waited below in the shelter of a quartz outcrop.
The heavy steel hatch of the control room had been sealed with a royal lead deadbolt stamped with the crest of the Ministry of Energy.
Vane didn’t even slow down.
“Lawful forfeiture of town access,” the merchant barked, hooking the curved handle of his ivory cane through the deadbolt’s locking ring. With a sharp, leveraged twist of his arms and a vicious kick of his calfskin boot, the rusted lead snapped away with a loud SNAP.
They shoved the heavy door open and plunged into the control room.
The inside smelled of stale machine oil, rusted copper, and hundreds of years of dried mouse droppings. The walls were lined with banks of round brass gauges whose needles trembled behind cracked glass bezels. Huge iron lever-stands rose from the floorboards, connected to heavy clockwork linkages that plunged through the floor into the drain tube channels below.
