The central network abandoned all pretense of militia tactics, operating with the terrifying mechanical efficiency of an industrial slaughterhouse.
In the heart of the Foundry Quarter, three hundred conscripted dockers and rope-handlers were driven onto the massive structural load frames.
These colossal iron hoisting towers were originally engineered centuries ago to lift naval boiler keels from the dry docks.
Now, Concord converted the municipal lifting machinery into an engine of public terror, stringing steel cables across the tenement roofs.
High above the cobbled square, the puppets hauled on thick braided cables with unnatural, synchronized timing.
Directly above them hung an entire four-story municipal tenement block, housing six hundred sleeping citizens in engine-cured masonry.
The collective intelligence hoisted the entire residential structure twenty feet into the air on a single collective pulley stroke.
