Cognition, the City of Metal and Wheels

''Clang. Clang. Clang.''

The hammers ring echoed throughout the chamber. Max had been working the past… two? he wanted to say two days. He had lost track of time ages ago, the Committee had kept him working in small and enclosed chambers where he couldn’t see the outside world. He had been in this particular room for awhile, working on putting together some strange new device based on the strange and nearly incomprehensible blueprints he had been given.

''Clang. Clang. Clunk.''

Max dropped his hammer. He decided to take a little break for himself, surely nobody was watching after hours of him hammering away at the strange contraption. He sat, and thought back to the home and family he had been taken away from. He missed his wife and son.

Screech.

The door to the chamber opened, and Max bolted upright. “To be idle was to be inefficient, and to be inefficient is to invite chaos,” was one of the Technocratic Committee’s many maxims. He hoped that whoever had walked in hadn’t noticed him.

The dog who entered spoke “Is the device almost ready…” he looked at his notes, “...Max?”

“I believe that I can have it done in the next few hours, sir.” He wasn’t actually sure if it would take that long, but it sounded about right.

“Ah, good good” the supervisor said disinterestedly. He was already flipping through his notes again, in search of some other task or note he made for himself. After a moment, he found whatever it was he was looking for. “You used to work with steam engines back in Mutt Town sometime ago?”

“Yes sir, I built some of the best engines in the whole Empire.” Max said matter of factly.

The supervisor seemed to ponder this for a moment, flipping through a couple of pages while he thought.

The supervisor soon spoke again, “Are you a religious dog, Max?”

Max was confused, but answered truthfully “Not particularly, sir.”

“Were you ever associated with any Humanists prior to your…” the supervisor took a moment to search for a suitably unfitting word for Max’s current situation “...employment by the Committee?”

This question made a bit more sense to Max, everyone knew the Humanists had found a great cache of Old Ones writings and works out in that land they called Tennessia. Max had long had suspicions that the Committee might have studied some of these old artifacts for ideas. “I can’t say that I ever was, sir.” he stated bluntly.

The supervisor smiled “I think you’re just the kind of dog we’re looking for! After you finish your work on your current project, you will be shifted to Project Nine.”

Max wasn’t sure what working on this so-called ‘Project Nine’ would entail, but he didn’t have much of a say in where he worked these days. “I’m looking forward to it, sir,” he said, lying through his teeth.

The supervisor smiled, and then left Max to continue his work on one of the small wonders the Technocratic Committee had designed. The supervisor read through his notes again as he walked through the halls of the facility, as even he wasn’t fully aware of what Project Nine was working on. He had only heard the vaguest of rumors about ancient Old Ones weapons, as well as some strange, unknown word floating around; spoken in hushed whispers and quietly redacted from most official reports and memos.

The supervisor wasn’t sure what “atomic” meant, but he eagerly awaited whatever miracle it would be.