7.How The World Fell Under Darkness
The movement started slowly at first, but soon expanded
exponentially into every part of life. The old commuter train
that bore Light to his exile was bought and the track scrapped
and recycled to make way for a shining electromagnetic bullet
train. Sleek and silver, it tore through the city like a volt
across a wire, and as quickly as it moved, the city was
transformed around it.
Beneath the hammers of Wily's new army of metal workmen,
buildings were razed to the ground, leveled in a single morning.
New foundations were laid in the same afternoon. Structures,
metal frames piercing the clouds, were erected before nightfall.
Glass and steel wrapped the frames before the sun rose the next
day. Then the armies of machines would move onto the next task.
Never stopping. Never slowing. Never resting.
Morning after morning, the men and women of the city awoke to
find a bright new world. Everything was remade. Made better.
Made brighter. The streets were swept. The undesirables, the
homeless, the criminal element of the city, systematically
vanished.
The single screen on top of the tower sent out signals to the
now hundreds of satellite screens. The factories were fully
automated. The mines run entirely by machine. The men that found
themselves suddenly living lives of leisure crowded the bars,
slowly imbibing the generous severances they'd received, not so
much as a single ill word grumbled towards their replacements.
The city was a bright and shining beacon of light... a
steel-plated heaven.
Years passed.
A generation grew up within the metal arms that embraced the
city. The older generations never told them what the city looked
like before the machines. Why would they？ What good could come
from telling the children of the type of dark, filthy, and
dangerous world that men create when left to their own devices？
That once men slaved away deep inside the earth, risking death
for the sake of survival. That once women left their children,
still asleep in their beds, to grind away mindless hours in the
factories, sacrificing family to secure necessities.
This new world was so perfect that it seemed dangerous to speak
of the old world. As if this new city, sprung from a sea of
darkness, was balanced on a single point, teetering on a crucial
ignorance. It seemed that any misstep, any wrong word, could
topple the city, sinking it back in the sea, that dark abyss of
human suffering, leaving them with nothing. After all, they were
not the creators of this world. They were merely the recipients
of a gift. A gift given to them by a single man and his
countless steel hands. And just as easily as it was given,
couldn't it be taken away？
An unspoken fear dangled above the heads of every man and woman.
Keeping them silent. Keeping them safe.
Even so, rumors started. Ghost stories of a demon. A beast with
a single red eye. He that would pluck you from your bed at night
if you were found with a dissenting word on your tongue. Mothers
told children to stay close as they traveled through the
streets, keep a smile on their faces, and never speak ill of the
machines.
A generation grew up inside the metal hands that gently circled
the neck of the city. Some of them grew up hating the city,
fearing the machines. There was one boy in particular. His name
was Joe.
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