Inside the great Pyramid, Acting Foreman Dwyer was asking himself nearly the same question. The catwalks rattled under his boots and workers leapt aside as he passed, standing at attention, but he barely gave them a nod, his head always on a swivel, his wizened eyes sweeping the floor. How hard could it be to find the only other Human in the building, he asked himself.

  Pretty damn hard actually, it turned out. Of course it didn’t help that a body could search a whole day in the Pyramid and not even cover half of it. And that was if the building was empty and quiet, which it never was.

  Three floors below him and seven above bustled with activity. He could hear the songs from the bellow workers, deep underground in the sub-basements; the air they pumped carrying their voices up out of total darkness, feeding the Forge. The huge, cylindrical blast furnace pulsed with life as the air rushed into it, roaring and sending out a wave of heat that tingled with magical potential.

  Rising up more than two hundred feet in the center of the building, the Forge was the heart of all activity in the Pyramid. At the base, rusty chains and winches howled as the material bins were raised up to the fuel chutes at the peak, workers rushing about on the precarious tracks with abandon, sending dust and loose stones rattling down to the far below floor. As the minerals and metals poured down the chutes, the Forge seemed to groan, speaking with a voice like some great totem to a pagan god - angry and always hungry. More workers rushed about tending to the great machine with the devotion of priests, maintaining an ever present vigil on the dials and gauges ensuring the fires within remained under control. Those fires powered everything in the Pyramid, from the seven production lines (three still in operation) to the lights, lifts, stirrers, stamp presses, and molding stations scattered around the factory. And above them all, great spouts of sparks and smoke rose up to the open peak in the ceiling, blotting out the light till the world outside seemed like a distant dream.

  A body waved below him and Dwyer’s eyes snapped down. “What is it?” he yelled, bellowing to make himself heard.

  “We’re running low on limestone!”, a sweat-soaked, filthy Goblin yelled back up to him. “Ahn and Twen lines are both pulling second grade steel now; if we don’t get more we won’t be able to finish today’s production! Where’s that last shipment Gypsum promised us?”

  Dwyer leaned over the railing. “Delayed” The Goblin swore. “Make do with what we have,” Dwyer told him. “Use the dust, turn the bins over and shake them if you have to! Just make it last until tomorrow! It’ll be here by then!” He paused and then added. “Have you seen Matthew?”

  The Goblin shook his head, already turning away, and Dwyer grunted in frustration. There was a yell from the side and he turned to see a huge Centaur wearing a Maierson apron waving him down from the loading bay doors.

  “Who’s in charge of all these wagons in the loading yards?” the Centaur shouted. He was red in the face and stamping his hooves. “They’re not our usual people and no one’s giving me a straight answer!”

  Dwyer threw up his hands. “Not my department! They’re something to do with the Auction today. Just work around them. Hey, have you seen-” but the Centaur had already galloped off. Dwyer cursed again, looking out once more over the factory floor. Still no Matthew, but his eyes did snap to another worker, staggering from the extraction and milking pens. He was a huge Half-Man with broad shoulders and a large shaggy head with a large brass ring strung through his nose.

  “Hey! Hey, what do you think you’re doing?!” he snapped, pointing his finger. The Half-Man staggered to a halt and stared dully up at him. Running up and down the left side of his face were more than a dozen long, blue-shaded quills, stuck deep into his skin.

  “That’s company property there!” Dwyer reminded him. “Get someone from Ingredients to pull those out and then get your ass to Medical!”

  The Half-Man blearily nodded and began stumbling back the way he came. Dwyer nodded, sweeping the floor for anything else that could be wrong, but all he saw was hurrying bodies. At any one time, there were more than three hundred jobs that needed to be done, and with the Auction this morning, they were at less than half-strength to begin with. He watched workers race across, pushing fully-laden carts and wheelbarrows, calling out to those in front to make way, while huge chemical vats bubbled and frothed unheeded in the background. Even the floors above him were in full swing, from the printing stations all the way up to the specimen cages high in the rafters, where phoenix feathers and harpy poison were just a few of the ingredients gathered daily.

  Dwyer's hands tightened on the railing as he stared out over the floor. Maierson’s wasn’t just an assembly line, it was a printing press, a zoo, a chemical plant and a fire-works factory, all under one roof. And with only him to watch it.

  “Dammit, Mattie, where are you?” he muttered.

  He turned back around and jumped to see a young Elf in glasses standing just behind him. A cute looking young girl with small pointed ears, she clutched a clipboard to her chest and bobbed her head up and down nervously at him, her gaze fixed somewhere at shoe level.

  “Um, Mr. Dwyer, sir, sorry to disturb you,” she said in a rush, her words almost tripping over themselves. “I’m Taffi, Apprentice-Mixer at Alchemical Station 9. Um, we’ve got a bit of a problem. Well, not so much a problem as a catastrophe, really, you could say…”

  He shook his head and fished a pack of pale blue cigarettes out of his uniform pocket. He stuck one in his mouth and lit the end with a snap of his finger. “Get on with it, Taffi,” he grumbled.

  “Right, yes, sir,” she said weakly. “Well, um… We’re out of Tarberry juice for the Glue-Pot contract and-”

  He coughed abruptly, letting out a burst of thick blue smoke. “The Glue-Pots! God, and of course the contract for those is already past due…” It was hard to tell, but it looked like she gave him a small nod from behind her clipboard. “Why wasn’t anyone keeping track of our inventory?”

  “It’s not our fault!” Her arm quivered as she held out a carbon sheet to him. “The logs said that we had another barrel, but when we opened it up, it was filled with sea-water.”

  He grunted again. Either mislabeled or stolen, he thought, the latter being the most likely. He sighed and let out another plume of smoke. “Send a runner to Bugend’s-”

  She coughed slightly and took a step back. “I already did.”

  “What’s the problem then?”

  She took another step back. “Uh, ah, they said they’re um… not taking any more payment on credit.”

  “Credit?! How dare they!” he raged. “We’re Maiersons! We don’t buy anything on credit!” He hit the railing with his fist and she yelped, hiding behind her clipboard again. He stewed for a moment, then swore. “Just tell them we’ll pay them back when we have the money!”

  “But… ah, we don’t have the money…”

  He waved his hand towards the far wall. “Didn’t you see those carriages lined up around the block? They’re the money! Just tell Bugend to be patient - and to send us a new barrel!”

  “Ah, ye-yes, sir,” she said miserably When she lowered her clipboard, her face was strangely changed. Her front teeth were more pronounced, her pointed ears longer and slightly drooping, stuffed with fine, downy hair that hadn’t been there a moment ago. She scratched at her cheek and he noticed a dark mole under her left eye that twitched every time she blinked. He looked away uncomfortably as she stared at her board.

  “I’ll talk to them again,” she mumbled. “See if I can get them to reconsider. My friend's cousin works for them, maybe I can call in a favor…” She noticed him looking away. “What is it?”

  He cleared his throat roughly and touched the side of his face lightly. “Your Glamour, eh…” Her hand strayed up to her own face and then she gasped, comprehension dawning. As she tucked the clipboard under one arm and brought both hands up to her face, he turned pointedly away, looking at the factory floor. When he heard her paging through the clipboard again, he risked a look back.

  The fresh-faced girl from before was back in place, her ears were now pleasingly bare, her overbite gone, and her skin clear. He nodded to himself. It wasn’t that he had anything against Elves, after all, he just preferred that they didn’t look so much like… well, Elves.

  “In the meantime,” she was asking, “what do you want us to do about the Glue-Pots? We’ll have to miss the contract by another day if I go back to Bugend’s.”

  “We’re going to make a substitution,” he told her.

  “For the Tarberry?” He nodded. “And what are we using?”

  “Cement.”

  She stared at him. “I’m sorry?”

  “You heard me,” he told her. “Use Cement mix. A spoonful in each pot and they’ll be set in an hour, ready to ship. No one’ll be the wiser.”

  “We will!”

  He started to walk down the catwalk, but she followed him, unwilling to let it drop. “I’m being serious!,” she protested. “It’s not an approved ingredient and there’s a certain standard of quality that we have to maintain. We can’t go around selling Maierson Magical Glue-Pots if people find out the secret ingredient is cement mix! It’s.. Well, it’s not very magical!”

  He waved his hand. “People won’t expect anything from us if we can’t get our products to market in the first place.”

  She frowned, looking uncomfortable. “I’d still prefer to miss it for just another day, if it means we can deliver a quality product.”

  “We’ll deliver a quality product next time,” he told her. “This time however, we need to get paid.”

  She opened her mouth again, but there was a shout from further down the line and he held up his hand. People were running towards something below them, which was never a good sign in the Factory.

  “Just get it done,” he told her as a siren started to wail. “And talk to Bugends. Tell them we expect a new barrel of Tarberry by tomorrow morning! And let them know that Maierson’s doesn’t need to buy anything on credit!”

  She threw up her hands in frustration behind him, but Dwyer was already running. He pounded down the catwalk, following the sound of voices below him. The whole Factory seemed in an uproar now, people were calling and shouting, ever far up above them in the swaying Inscriber lofts, workers were gazing down, trying to see what was the matter. Then he heard a sound, or rather a lack of a sound, that made his Foreman’s blood run cold. The Twen line below him slowed and then shut down, stalling out.

  Delay! Lost Profit!

  He picked up the pace, sprinting now. Up ahead was Sorting Station number Four; normally the massive machine would be humming day and night, taking parts and pieces from the materials lines on the upper floors and dispersing them on the multitude of tributary lines and their assembly stations below, just another step on their way to becoming finished Maierson products. Now though the sorter was still, steam hissing out from pipes held together with wire and rope. Piles of parts from the assembly lines had started to accumulate at the mouth of the sorter, and a few workers were trying to shovel them aside. “What’s going on?” Dwyer yelled, but they waved back helplessly.

  He leaned over the edge of the catwalk and saw a crowd gathered around the base of the sorter, where an access panel was hanging open. Cursing aloud, he slipped down a ladder with practiced speed and started to push his way through the group, forcing himself to the front.

  Another Elf, Cherwood, was kneeling in front of the open access hatch, but at least he was a welcome sight. “What’s going on? Why’s the line down?” Dwyer barked at him.

  Cherwood gave him an unconcerned nod. His attention was on something in his hands, a mechanical dial that he was assembling. It was a complicated piece of machinery, full of delicate moving parts, but his large, oil-stained fingers moved with skill and deftness, sliding each tiny piece into place. “Hey Dwyer,” he said in a dull, monotone voice, not bothering to look up. “Timing’s been off in Sorter Four all morning, probably a bad motivator. It jammed up a few minutes ago, had to shut the line down.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Dwyer stared at him, his lips twitching in frustration, but he forced himself to take a breath and speak calmly. “How long before it’s up and running?”

  The Elf scratched at his rough, stained beard. As far as Dwyer could remember, Cherwood never used Glamour, though he doubted that even it could’ve done much to help him. As chief mechanic to the Factory, it was rare that Cherwood wasn’t filthy with oil, ash, or dust, and there always seemed to be a spot on his uniform smoldering. He tucked the re-assembled dial into a satchel that hung off his wide stomach and shrugged finally. “I dunno. That’s a tricky repair, easier to just replace. I’d have to take a look at it first though.”

  Dwyer waited a moment, but no further action seemed to be forthcoming. “Well, why haven’t- I’m sorry, do you all have nothing BETTER TO DO?” he snapped, spinning around and shouting at the crowd. They scattered, vanishing into the smoke of the Factory and he felt a tiny bit better. “Now,” he said, focusing on the Elf, “why haven’t you gone in there and taken a look?”

  “Matthew told me not to.”

  Dwyer blinked. “Matthew? Why did he-” He stopped and dropped down in a squat, peering into the access panel. It was pitch black inside, and just wide enough for a man to crawl through.

  “Matthew? Matty, are you in there?” he called out.

  There was a moment’s pause and then a voice shouted back to him. “Just a sec!”

  Dwyer cursed and gave Cherwood a nasty look. “I told you not to encourage him.”

  The big Elf raised his hands helplessly. “He wanted to help.”

  “And I want to get us out of the red!” He dropped down to his hands and knees. “Gimme a lantern.” Cherwood handed him a small tin case, holding a glass ball inside. Dwyer gave the case a firm shake, and it began to glow for a second, small dots beginning to swirl around inside of it, then it winked and went out.

  He held the tin case up to his face. “You can be replaced with a light bulb, you know that?” he growled. After a moment, the small dots began to swirl again, faster and brighter this time. “Better.” He clipped it onto his belt and got down on his hands and knees, wincing slightly as his palms came in contact with the hot stone floor. Moving awkwardly, he crawled into the access panel and began to move forwards.

  The sounds of the rest of the Factory seemed to immediately fall away as he crawled through the tight, dark tunnel. It was rough going, with parts and wires sticking out from the walls, snagging on his elbows and feet as he inched forwards. Much of the Sorter innards also showed signs of being jerry-rigged by Cherwood and his assistants, and he was nervous every time he had to pass under a pipe or manifold held in place with knotted rags. For the first time, he regretted not approving more replacement parts for the Sorter, and though he’d never have admitted it, he was glad, for the moment, that all that machinery above him was shut down.

  Suddenly there was a blank wall in front of him. He blinked, looking left and then right, and found himself staring at a small open space in front of the timing belts, with just enough space for someone to kneel. The machinery had been partly disassembled, with a slim figure bent over the remains. “Matthew?” he called

  The figure flinched, bumping his head against a pipe above him and knocking free a burst of steam that filled up the small space. “Ow, ow, ow! Just a sec!” he yelled, thrashing around. “I can fix it!” He grabbed hold of something and there was a brief sizzling sound, accompanied with a cry of pain. Dwyer crawled forwards and tightened a shut-off valve, cutting off the flow of steam.

  Gradually, the space cleared and he could see Matthew rocking back, blowing on his hands. “Sorry,” he apologized, giving him a nervous laugh.

  The new CEO, Chief Wizard, and owner of Maierson’s Magical Miracles was a thin, frazzled young man, with sallow, dark skin and hollowed cheeks. His eyes darted nervously around, glancing quickly at Dwyer and then away. “Did Cherwood send you in here?” he asked. “He didn’t need to do that, I think I’ve almost got it.”

  “No harm in checking,” Dwyer told him, trying to keep his voice light. The small space was piled up with parts from the timing mechanism, screws and washers rolling around the floor or stacked on top of a few stained sheets of paper, crammed full of tightly packed writing. A huge manual was cracked open by Matthew’s knee, showing a labeled diagram of the sorter. “Having trouble?”

  Matthew’s jumped again, banging his head off the top of the machinery above them. “Ow! What? Oh, no! No! I think I’ve got it now.”

  “Uh huh,” Dwyer muttered. Matthew was bent over something on the floor, his elbow dragging slightly as he worked, poring over something. He was wearing a finely tailored suit, or at least, it had started the day that way. Now it looked so bad that even Cherwood wouldn't have used it for a rag. The same could be said for his hair, whatever pomade he’d used hadn’t been able to stand up to the heat of the factory, and his head resembled a filthy haystack. He didn’t seem to notice, however, or care. All his focus was on his work, glancing from the floor in front of him to the sheets of paper.

  Dwyer pulled himself a bit closer. He could see the exposed timing belts now over Matthew’s shoulder; the heavy leather was old and cracked, the edges slightly fraying. What was more concerning though was the spinning set of concentric circles, the largest no wider than his palm. The circles revolved around each other in the middle of the mechanism, suspended in place between two iron posts.

  “Damn! It is the motivator,” he swore. He could see how some of the rings were spinning too fast, others too slow, throwing the timing off for the belts. He grimaced and shook his head. “We’ll have to replace the whole damn thing.” He started to shuffle back. “C’mon. We’ll let Cherwood know.”

  Matthew didn’t move however. “That’s expensive though, right?”

  Dwyer pinched the bridge of his nose. “Very,” he agreed.

  “Well, um, maybe we won’t have to do that.”

  Dwyer looked up nervously. “What’s that now?” He crawled forwards a bit more.

  Matthew was still bent over the floor, working intently. There was a stub of chalk in his hands, runic chalk, Dwyer saw with some surprise. It was worn down almost to a stub, and his hands and elbows were caked with thick white dust.

  “Oh no, Matthew,” he said, his jaw dropping. “You’re not trying again, are you?”

  “No, it’s okay!” Matthew promised, giving him a frantic smile. “I think I’ve got it this time!” He shuffled over slightly and Dwyer saw what he’d been working on. A complicated chalk pattern had been scratched into the metal floor, a runic formula. “I’ve got some of Gran’s notes here,” he told him, lifting a few sheets of paper up, and inadvertently spilling them about the small space. “Sorry-sorry about that!” he said, scrambling for them. “Uh, she says, uh, here,” he stammered, grabbing the right paper, “that you can reset the timing without having to replace the motivator. Look for yourself.”

  Dwyer frowned as he took the wax sheet. It was tracing paper, a common aid for drawing out complicated runic formulas quickly and easily. He recognized Madelyn’s tight script right away, but the sheet itself was nearly incomprehensible. It looked like scratch paper, something she’d used to work out the formula on, with many symbols crossed out and re-written, multiple times. It was hard for him to tell at all what was part of the final formula and what was not.

  “Are you sure about this?” he asked.

  “I’m sure! I mean, I think so.” Matthew sat back up, chewing on a ragged fingernail for a moment. His eyes looked a bit frantic, and he snatched back the paper, glancing from it to his design. “I sketched it out, just as it shows. It should work…” His voice trailed off, looking suddenly uncertain. “What do you think?”

  Dwyer stared at Matthew’s formula. The linework was sloppy. Some of the joints were disconnected and he could tell in a glance that Matthew hadn’t properly measured the angles. There were more than a few messy smudges on the formula as well, where he’d made a mistake, and instead of carefully obliterating the incorrect symbol with water or solvent so as to leave no trace, he’d just brushed the chalk away and drawn over it. It was the kind of work that Dwyer would’ve canned a fifth level Inscriber for on the spot.

  But Matthew was his boss. So instead, he said, “That’s a really nice looking formula you’ve got there.”

  The boy almost wilted with relief. “Do you really think so?” he asked gratefully.

  “Oh, yes. I can tell you put a lot of work into it.” He forced himself to smile. “Why don’t we let Cherwood take over though? You’ve got an Auction to run after all.” Matthew’s grateful look vanished as he flinched, almost banging his head again on the ceiling.

  “Oh! Don’t worry about that!” he said, inching away. “I’d hate to bother Cherwood about this, he’s got so much else to do.” He swallowed heavily, his eyes growing wide. “After all, I ought to be able to do this myself, right? Everyone expects me to be able to do it.”

  Dwyer started to get a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Well, Matthew… It doesn’t hurt to let Cherwood take over some tasks…”

  Matthew shook his head fiercely. “No-no! I think I’ve got it here.” He swallowed again and set his jaw. “I can do it.”

  Before Dwyer could stop him, he reached past the timing belts and yanked out the motivator. Free from the machine, the rings slowed and then went still. He put it down on the floor, in the middle of his chalked out formula, and then he placed his hands on either side.

  Dwyer felt his breath catch in his throat. He should’ve stopped it there, he knew; grabbed the boy’s arm, pulled him back, but he didn’t. He’s a Maierson, he thought. Maybe he could do it, after all.

  Matthew closed his eyes and went still. The light from Dwyer’s lantern winked out.

  In front of them, the chalk formula began to glow. The light spread out from Matthew’s palms, running down the chalk lines like a current along a wire, branching out as it touched each symbol. There was an almost audible humm in the air and Dwyer felt the hairs on his arms start to curl. In the middle of the diagram, the motivator rings quivered- once, then twice. They started to spin, slowly at first, but picking up speed.

  “You did it,” Dwyer breathed out. The rings were spinning symmetrically. Matthew’s eyes opened wide.

  POP!

  Half of the formula abruptly shorted out around his hands.

  CRACK!

  Sparks flew in the tiny space, arcing up from the chalk symbols. The motivator rings seemed to flinch, twisting and shuddering. The air tasted suddenly of ozone as the chalk began to boil. Dwyer grabbed Matthew’s shoulder and yanked him backwards, pulling him down the narrow shaft, as behind them the formula continued to crackle and smoke.

  Ten seconds later, Dwyer emerged out of the smoke filled access hatch, tugging Matthew out by the scruff of his jacket. He helped him over to the catwalk ladder, both of them struggling to breath as smoke poured out of the Sorter. Above them, flames poured out of the top of the machinery, as workers began to throw sand buckets on the blaze.

  Cherwood knelt down beside Matthew and started to knock the stray embers off his jacket. “Was it the motivator?” he asked, curiously.

  “Yep,” Dwyer hacked. He collapsed on the floor against the ladder, looking up at the smoking machinery. A pipe held up by a wooden joist collapsed as the flames reached it, sending workers running. “I want it back up and running before the end of the day,” he told the Elf.

  Cherwood glanced over at the still burning machinery. “Right,” he sighed.

  Dwyer waved his hand. “I’m being serious: order whatever replacements you have to- I’ll approve them.” He hesitated then. “But only what you absolutely have to. And no overtime!”

  Cherwood watched another pipe collapse. “I’ll get right on it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Matthew’s voice came softly. He sat up slowly, the back of his jacket still smoking. They could see tears running down his face, cleaning the soot off his cheeks.

  He looked helplessly at the fire, shaking his head. “I almost had it for a second, but-”

  “No, Matthew,” Dwyer said. “It’s my fault. I distracted you-”

  Matthew’s hand jerked out, gripping Dwyer’s sleeve fiercely. “No! I couldn’t do it!” he almost screamed. “I messed up the formula! I-” He seemed to deflate, losing his grip and falling back to the floor. “Just like I always do.” Tears were running freely down his face now.

  Dwyer opened his mouth, but he couldn’t think of what to say. Cherwood looked down uncomfortably, pulling another broken widget from his bag as if by instinct and beginning to reassemble it in his hands.

  Finally, Dwyer shrugged. “It’s a difficult repair, Matty,” he told him, trying to sound chipper. “And it’s not your job to-”

  “It is my job though!” Matthew said, his voice near breaking. “Gran was able to do all this, run the factory, manage the books, fix anything-” He stared upwards, his eyes going to the open peak, high above them. Smoke from the fire was already drifting up towards it, joining the rest of the plumes rising up from the Forge and disappearing to the outside. “She did everything and I can’t do a single thing…”

  Dwyer bent down closer towards him. “You’ve only been in charge for six months,” he reminded him, patting his shoulder. “You’ve got to give it time.”

  Matthew sighed, continuing to gaze upwards. “Maybe,” he said, his voice trailing off.

  There was a small sound behind them, like a throat being cleared and Dwyer turned. A Goblin stood a few feet away, holding a clipboard filled with yellow carbon sheets. He had a pen in one hand and was looking towards Matthew expectantly.

  “What’s this?” Dwyer barked. “Now isn’t a good time.”

  The Goblin flinched, almost looking like he wanted to turn and run. “Sorry, sir! It’s just- I’ve got some invoices.” He held the clipboard far out towards him. “I need Mr. Maierson’s signature-”

  Dwyer snatched it up quickly. “We’ll deal with it later,” he told him. “Now get lost.”

  The Goblin did, in a flash. Dwyer shook his head, turning away, when he bumped into another Goblin standing there, holding a near identical board. He blinked, thinking he was seeing double, but this Goblin was bigger, stronger, his uniform almost sizzling from the heat of the Forge.

  “What is this?” he asked, then grunted as the Goblin shoved the board into his gut. It was crammed even thicker with the fluttering, yellow sheets.

  “Albert approved these last night,” the Goblin rumbled. “It’s new parts for turning up the Seofon line. Need your signature.”

  “Seofon?” Dwyer frowned. “That line hasn’t been in operation for decades! It’ll take a fortune to get it back up and running!” His eyes widened as he flipped through the sheets. “What’s Albert thinking?”

  The Goblin shrugged. He tapped the bottom of the paper with a soot black finger. “Just have him sign here,” he told him flatly and then started to walk away.

  “Just wait a minute!” Dwyer said, still trying to make sense of what he was reading. He started after the Goblin, but he didn’t get far. Popping up in front of him was a Halfling, carrying yet another clipboard.

  “Good Morning, sir!” she squeaked. “If I could just get Mr. Maierson’s signature-”

  Matthew gave a loud sigh behind him. “Time is just another thing we don’t have,” he moaned.