Factory
#*[[[MISSING TEXT]][].... so by the time we ran back to the gate, it had closed behind us! Godshit, we waited almost a week for that gate to cycle open the first time, following the gearlines carefully to be sure of the timing. All of our supplies are on the outside of the factory, just sitting there... behind a steel wall probably three feet thick. I couldn't tell exactly how thick, as much as Nikolai wanted me to take measurements while we were walking through. We had no idea how much time we'd have before the door closed, but this is rediculous.
Who builds a factory with only one door, then times the door to only open once every few weeks, for only five minutes at a time? The interval could even be longer--years, even. Nik and I only waited this long because the mechanism on the outer wall definitely looked like it was marking off decreasing time intervals. There's no indications of a timer on the inside of the door. Of course. So now we're trapped inside an insane factory, without food or water, no apparent way to get back even to the last break. Nothing to do but push forward, God will provide. That's the theory at least.
This place is daunting. An oppressive heat hangs in the air, which I find nearly comforting, reminding me of the more tropical district of Verdant where I grew up. Nik, with his thick fur, is in danger of overheating. He's stomped off to seek out some fresher, cooler air, or a way out, hopefully both.
It's hard to describe. There's heat, noise, dull red light, and darkness. I'm sitting in a shallow depression just in front of the closed gate, which is shaped like a massive gear. It rolled shut on a track and slid back flush with the wall...or the floor. There's not a big difference. The track in front of the door slopes sharply downward into a bowl, but the bowl is also the wall on the far end of the chamber, curving up to become the ceiling, then back around to our side again. Yeah, it's confusing, I know.
Try it this way: imagine you live on the surface of a very small hollow ball. Like...what were those things they used to teach about? Planets. You're walking on the outside of a very small planet, and if you keep going in one direction long enough, you end up back where you started. The planet's center is down, the sky is up. Now instead of that, imagine you're walking on the inside of the ball. Up is towards the center, and down curves around to become the walls and sky in turn. That's where we are, walking around on the inside of a huge ball, with gravity reversed. Except it's not empty, but filled with conveyor lines, machines building other machines, a constant stream of industry.
But it's going in closed loops. If I follow any conveyor line that loops in great circles across the room, there are cycles of both creation and destruction. Look, here's a belt that crawls slowly along, carrying sheets of some newly-smelted dark metal. The sheets feed through a hydraulic press that stamps down every few seconds to cut some strange shape. This continues along to intersect another line, where another metal form is welded into the same frame. Several passes later on the same belt, the whole structure is starting to resemble a functional form...and then it is dropped into an open-face stream of molten metal that feeds the fabricators. The chamber is only lit by several of these sluggish white-hot rivers and the sparking of welding devices.
Now that the initial panic has worn off, I can't help but find it...beautiful. The constant cycle of making and unmaking mirrors what I strive for internally, what the Unmade God did for us years before. That the Broken be Whole.
I hear Nik coming back, he says he's found something. It sounds important. More later.
Who builds a factory with only one door, then times the door to only open once every few weeks, for only five minutes at a time? The interval could even be longer--years, even. Nik and I only waited this long because the mechanism on the outer wall definitely looked like it was marking off decreasing time intervals. There's no indications of a timer on the inside of the door. Of course. So now we're trapped inside an insane factory, without food or water, no apparent way to get back even to the last break. Nothing to do but push forward, God will provide. That's the theory at least.
This place is daunting. An oppressive heat hangs in the air, which I find nearly comforting, reminding me of the more tropical district of Verdant where I grew up. Nik, with his thick fur, is in danger of overheating. He's stomped off to seek out some fresher, cooler air, or a way out, hopefully both.
It's hard to describe. There's heat, noise, dull red light, and darkness. I'm sitting in a shallow depression just in front of the closed gate, which is shaped like a massive gear. It rolled shut on a track and slid back flush with the wall...or the floor. There's not a big difference. The track in front of the door slopes sharply downward into a bowl, but the bowl is also the wall on the far end of the chamber, curving up to become the ceiling, then back around to our side again. Yeah, it's confusing, I know.
Try it this way: imagine you live on the surface of a very small hollow ball. Like...what were those things they used to teach about? Planets. You're walking on the outside of a very small planet, and if you keep going in one direction long enough, you end up back where you started. The planet's center is down, the sky is up. Now instead of that, imagine you're walking on the inside of the ball. Up is towards the center, and down curves around to become the walls and sky in turn. That's where we are, walking around on the inside of a huge ball, with gravity reversed. Except it's not empty, but filled with conveyor lines, machines building other machines, a constant stream of industry.
But it's going in closed loops. If I follow any conveyor line that loops in great circles across the room, there are cycles of both creation and destruction. Look, here's a belt that crawls slowly along, carrying sheets of some newly-smelted dark metal. The sheets feed through a hydraulic press that stamps down every few seconds to cut some strange shape. This continues along to intersect another line, where another metal form is welded into the same frame. Several passes later on the same belt, the whole structure is starting to resemble a functional form...and then it is dropped into an open-face stream of molten metal that feeds the fabricators. The chamber is only lit by several of these sluggish white-hot rivers and the sparking of welding devices.
Now that the initial panic has worn off, I can't help but find it...beautiful. The constant cycle of making and unmaking mirrors what I strive for internally, what the Unmade God did for us years before. That the Broken be Whole.
I hear Nik coming back, he says he's found something. It sounds important. More later.