Hymn

“Did you fix the jam in section D?”

Bonevo stared at his cigarette, the ember on its end pulsing slightly in the gray draft that twisted around him. He gave the simplest answer he could. “Not yet.”

“God, I hope that doesn’t last,” Kuppasamy muttered, balancing his own unlit cigarette between two bloodied fingers. “Do you realize how much our pulley system relies on your gears? God.”

Bonevo grunted.

He settled against the cold metal behind him, tugging the collar of his jacket up as high as it would go and wishing that it could stretch still higher. The draft whipping through the Machine was especially bad today; he hadn’t gone more than a minute without shivering—bone deep, exhausted—since he started his shift. Shivering wasn’t good when you worshiped with hammers and nails. It meant fuzz in his vision and an aching jaw; it meant bruises and burns on his fingers. But at least he didn’t have to worry about slicing his hands with cables like Kuppasamy did.

“But seriously,” Kuppasamy was saying. “If that dip in operation hits my sector—Fuck. I don’t even want to think about it.”

“I know,” Bonevo said into his smoke. He did his best not to think about it, too. Knowing that your side of the Machine was faltering—that it was all your fault—that things might come grinding to a halt because of your ineptitude, your incompetence, your oversight—Well. Bonevo didn’t like to linger on the churning in his gut that came from that kind of thinking. He settled deeper into his cigarette. “I know.”

“Do you? Because I don’t—”

“I know.”

Kuppasamy pressed his lips together. “Yeah. Yeah, you know.” He finally pulled a lighter out of his pocket and shoved the cigarette between his lips, sheltering it from the damp breeze so that he could get it to spark before the draft assaulted it. As the burning pulsed to life, he let his hands drop, letting out a near-silent sigh as he tilted his head back to see the darkened sky.

“Sky” wasn’t really the right word. Bonevo knew that, on some level—knew that the whirring cogs and creaking joints layered above their heads didn’t count as heaven. But sky was the only word close enough. Nothing else captured the vast, grand nature of the pipes and gears twisting above them like the branches of the tree of life. Nothing else captured the angelic shine of headlamp gleam reflecting off of leaking oil. Nothing else captured the hymn of the clanking bars and rolling whistles. Nothing else captured the Machine.

“Did you hear about Martha?” Kuppasamy asked.

Bonevo jumped. “Huh?”

“Sandros. She—Well—”

“Oh, shit,” Bonevo said, closing his eyes. “Another one?”

“Yeah. A junction came loose and—I mean—”

“Fuck.” Another one. Bonevo had been trying to avoid the stories, but the gossip of the Machine was relentless. “How bad was it? How—how long?”

“It crushed her pretty quickly, but I think . . .” Kuppasamy hesitated. “Well, I heard . . . I heard they could still make out her voice, a few hours—”

“Stop.” Bonevo closed his eyes.

“Right. Sorry.” Kuppasamy watched him for a moment, silent, then said tentatively, “So just . . . watch out, man? Be careful.”

“I am careful, I—”

“I know. But so was she.”

“Stop.”

Martha Sandros had been one of the best workers in his section just a few years ago—so good that she’d been transferred to a higher up position handling repairs rather than just maintenance. She wouldn’t be just a guardian of the Machine, she’d be a priestess. The smile on her face that day she got the assignment . . . Bonevo wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen a grin that bright before, and he certainly hadn’t seen one like it since. It radiated like a furnace in winter. Melted the dripping oil into steam. Framed her head like a halo as she left the gear room.

And the Machine was willing to take even her.

Kuppasamy was talking. “. . . see you. Just make sure you get the gears working, yeah?”

Bonevo looked at his watch, which he could just barely make out in the dim light. Its face was greasy and obscured by soot, but he could see the time well enough—and besides, he sang this hymn day in, day out. Their break was over.

“Yeah,” Bonevo said, pinching the cigarette cold between his fingers. They were too bruised to feel the sting of flame, which was a shame—the warmth would’ve been nice. “I’ll see you.”

He didn’t look over his shoulder at Kuppasamy before he began the trek back to his section. The pipes and platforms on the path back were precarious—slippery from oil, hard to make out in the darkness—but he managed to stumble into the gear room before his watch hissed at him.

Bonevo ran a hand over one of the cogs. He traced its teeth, marveling at its power and precision, at the fine detail in the way its burs cut into the neighboring gears. The circles gleamed in the shimmer of his headlamp, reflecting his face back at him just briefly. Made in the image of the Machine. His fingertips were bruised and their touch dulled, but he could still feel the smooth, cool metal beneath the rust and grease that lined it. There was something immortal under there. Something divine.

“Martha Sandros,” he whispered. “Thank you for your work.” He watched the steady, eternal turning of the cogs.

Then he returned to the hymn of the Machine.