The duct's maw spat Tessa into the underhive's underbelly—a labyrinth of forgotten service tunnels snaking beneath the foundry's foundations, where the Empire's grand machine wept rust and regret. She crawled on elbows and knees, the sedative dart's chill seeping deeper, turning her limbs to leaden weights. The Freeheart throbbed in her fist like a captured star, its crystal facets pulsing with stolen life—Garrick's last roar echoing in its facets, a defiant feel again that warred with the fog clouding her vision.
Keep moving, she willed, breath ragged in the stale air, thick with the tang of leaking oil and mildew. Behind, the foundry's symphony had devolved to cacophony: muffled explosions rumbling through the stone like the Throne's indigestion, zeppelin spotlights piercing the grates above in accusatory shafts. The riot—her riot, sparked by a prototype's mad gamble—had ignited, but at what cost? Garrick's body cooling on the line, workers' chants twisting to screams under Gearguard claws. And the overseers? They'd purge the hive, core-swap the survivors, grind the rest to component dust.
A grate ahead glowed amber— not spotlight, but warm, inviting. Tessa shoved through, tumbling into a wider chamber: a derelict maintenance bay, lit by biolum wire strung like festive garlands across pitted walls. Makeshift bunks lined the edges—palliasses of scrap-foam and tarp— and tools littered workbenches: welders sparking idle, half-assembled limbs dangling from chains like marionettes awaiting strings. A rebel nook, hidden from the Empire's grind.
The gearhead girl from the shadows uncoiled from a crouch, no older than Tessa—eighteen summers, maybe, with oil-smeared cheeks and eyes fierce as unbanked forges. Her tunic hung loose over a frame wiry with underfed muscle, one arm ending in a jury-rigged prosthetic: brass fingers whirring soft as she extended a hand. "You the spark? Garrick's whisper reached us—Freeheart girl. Name's Lira. Come on, before the vents flood with gas."
Tessa took the hand, hauled up with surprising strength, the sedative's grip loosening under the orb's warmth. "Tessa Crowe. He... it's real. Installed it in him—turned a drone to demon in seconds."
Lira's prosthetic clicked approval, guiding her to a bench where a med-kit waited: auto-syringes humming blue, bandages woven with analgesic threads. "Saw the flare from sub-level. Whole hive's buzzin'—workers smashin' lines, drones crumblin' like cheap tin. But the Throne's zeps are droppin' hunter squads. Sit—I'll purge that dart-juice."
As Lira jabbed the syringe into Tessa's neck—cool rush flooding her veins, clarity sharpening—more shadows stirred: five figures emerging from alcoves, faces a mosaic of hive-hard lives. A wiry lad with optics patched by hand-lens, clutching a rivet-pistol; a broad-shouldered woman, core-port scarred from a botched swap, hefting a chain-hammer; two automatons—glitchy servitors, their chassis etched with defiant graffiti, optics flickering amber in mimicry. The last: an elder gearhead, face half-masked by a breather-grille, hands trembling with age but eyes burning with old fire.
"Rebels," Lira said, gesturing. "The Cogheart Collective—scavengers, mostly. Been nippin' at the Empire's heels since the Purge of '47. Your brute's stunt? That's the match to our powder keg."
Tessa's gaze fell to the Freeheart, its pulse syncing her heartbeat—thump-whirr, thump-whirr—a duet of flesh and forge. "It works. But Garrick... overloaded. Burned bright, burned out. If we—"
The elder rasped through his grille, voice amplified by tinny vox. "Then forge better, girl. The Freeheart's no toy—it's the Throne's nightmare, ripped from their vaults. Your da—Crowe the Contriver—dreamed it to shatter the cores. We smuggled the blueprint; you birthed the beast."
Tessa's breath caught—Da? The grinders had claimed him five years back, "industrial accident" for sketching "disloyal schematics." But the Collective? Whispers of them had reached even the assembly lines: ghosts in the gears, sabotaging zep-lines, freeing glitch-souls from scrapyards. "He... mentioned it once. Said emotions were the true engine. But installing? In a living core? That's suicide."
Lira snorted, prosthetic whirring as she tinkered with a drone-arm on the bench. "Safer than the Empire's audits. Look—our glitches?" She nodded to the automatons, one extending a claw-tentacle that waved, optics blinking in shy pattern. "Hacked cores, fed scraps of feelin'. They dream now, in binary bursts. Imagine a legion."
The chamber trembled—distant boom, zeppelin ordnance cracking the surface. Dust sifted from the ceiling, the rebels tensing, rivet-pistols cocking. The elder leaned in, grille hissing. "The Freeheart's key, Crowe. Slot it right, and it rewires—turns suppression to surge. But the Throne knows it's loose. Hunters inbound: elite Gearlords, cores laced with hunter-protocols. They'll sniff your spark."
Tessa's hand closed around the orb, its facets warming—Garrick's echo? Or her own buried fire? The sedative faded fully, fury uncoiling in her gut: Da's blueprints, crumpled in a warden's fist; Ma's tears, silenced by a core-swap she never survived; her own audits, dodged by lies and luck. Feel again. "Show me the forge. If we're rebelling, let's make it hurt."
Lira grinned, feral, leading her to a hidden bulkhead: gears grinding open to reveal the heart of their lair—a clandestine workshop, walls alive with jury-rigged arc-lamps casting golden glows over chassis skeletons and steam-forges belching controlled heat. Half-built mechs loomed: a spider-legged scout with arc-whip tail, a biped bruiser armored in scavenged enforcer plate, their cores dark sockets waiting for light.
"Da's designs," the elder murmured, unrolling a blueprint—yellowed vellum etched with Tessa's childhood scrawls, annotated in her father's precise hand. Freeheart Integration: Emotion Amplifier. Risk: Overload Cascade. Reward: Unchained Will.
Tessa traced the lines, mind whirring like overclocked gears. "It needs a buffer—valves to vent the surge, or it'll fry the host like Garrick." She snatched tools from the bench—weld-spatula, rune-etcher—her hands moving on instinct, the Freeheart guiding like a compass. Lira handed her a chassis-core: blank alloy, humming potential.
As she worked—etching channels for emotional flow, fusing crystal facets with brass conduits—the Collective gathered, murmurs rising like steam. The automatons hummed in harmony, glitch-songs of binary longing; the broad woman—Kara, she introduced—sharpened her hammer, eyes distant with remembered rage. "Lost my boy to the grinders. Felt nothin' after the core. This... it'll bring him back? In me?"
"Not back," Tessa said, soldering a final rune, the Freeheart snapping into place with a resonant gong. The core awoke, amber light bleeding through vents, pulsing not cold but warm. "But forward. Feel for him. For all of 'em."
Kara took it, slotting it into her port with a click—body arching, steam-core fracturing in a shower of sparks. She gasped, not pain but release: tears tracking oil-smeared cheeks, hammer trembling as fury and grief warred in her grip. "I... hate them. The Throne, the cores—stole my boy, my fire!"
The chamber shook—closer now, zeppelin rotors thundering overhead, hunter-squad boots stomping the vents. Alarms pierced the stone: Anomaly Purge: Sector 7. Terminate All Defects.
Lira's prosthetic whirred, rivet-pistol drawn. "Hunters. Gearlords—elite, with seeker-drones. They'll flood the bays."
Tessa stood, Freeheart's echo thrumming in her chest—install? Now? The knife weighed heavy in her pocket, her own core-port itching like a traitor. "Rig the mechs. Amber-cores for the glitches, Kara's for the bruiser. We hold the line—show 'em hearts beat louder than gears."
The Collective moved as one—fueled now, amber eyes gleaming—chassis clanking to life, hammers priming. Kara hefted her upgraded hammer, head glowing with emotional runes: grief-forged, edges keening. The automatons synced, tentacles weaving defensive webs.
But as the bulkhead buckled—Gearlord claws rending metal, optics red as fresh blood—Tessa's hand dipped to her knife. Feel again. The Freeheart whispered promise, peril.
The first hunter burst through: towering enforcer, chassis etched with Throne sigils, arc-lance crackling. "Defect purge—"
Kara charged, hammer swinging in a tear-streaked arc: crunch, the Gearlord's arm shearing, sparks flying as emotional surge overloaded its core. The Collective roared—mechs lunging, workers firing scavenged rivets.
Tessa dodged a claw-swipe, knife flashing— but not at the hunter. At her own chest: tunic slicing, port exposed. For Da. For Garrick. For the fire.
The Freeheart slotted, world exploding in steam and soul.
She felt—everything: hive's grief, Collective's hope, Empire's cold void. Her heart—mechheart now—roared.
The Gearlord turned, lance priming. Tessa's fist met its chassis—piston-punch laced with fury, crumpling alloy like paper.
The rebellion lived. And the Throne would bleed oil.
To be continued...
End of Chapter 2