Fred, a Horse
Mary, a Doll
So it said. From was the first to notice. He took a step back from the tower they were building, and noticed the second name.
“We’ve got a horse,” he said.
And the others looked, and for a moment, the work stopped, while they puzzled over the meaning of this new line.
The original name hadn’t disappeared. They weren’t done with it, whatever that meant. They had just gotten another.
“We don’t have a horse,” Glass noted. “We have a board telling us the word horse. You still sure about your theory, Song?”
Song nodded. “Fred’s a horse. Weird names, though.”
“Hey, I didn’t pick ‘em.”
Without
any more to go on, though, they resumed their work on the tower, and
build and build and build. They quickly got so high up it became
difficult to pass materials back and forth. So Glass began designing a
lift, an elevator, a carrier, a transportation device—she couldn’t quite
settle on the name—but build it she did, and they attached it to the
tower, which almost tumbled to the weight of it. From was unsure about
it, and Cometh was more critical of it, but Glass was sure that it’d
stick and got help from Rubbed and Crimson who carried it to the top and
attached the strongest wires they could find, with counterweights
balancing against it. The pulley system was more advanced, though, as
Song dug back in the warehouse and found a motor and a generator.
Energy, they could get from the walls. They didn’t know where it was
from, but they knew it was power. Class and Prim and Gecko helped set up
all of that so the up-at-it-carrier (working title) began to work
without anyone operating it.
From and Cometh tired of readying the metal and wood for the
construction, and so began looking into a way of making the materials
faster, since that was a more interesting exercise to both of them, and
while Glass was still busy finalizing the up-mover, they had already
thought of several ways they could optimize the ways of cutting wood and
shaping metal, all while enforcing less work on those who did it.
When
the upside transportation launcher was finished, Glass looked back at
her work and saw that it spanned up to what they thought had been the
ceiling, but really proved not to be at all. When they got up there it
just seemed to be higher up than before. Instead, they began seeing
strange machinations, wires, cables and grates and railings and girders.
And, as they rose, the Noise seemed louder than ever before.