Robotica

Before Robotica there was only the Scrap: an endless plain of fallen parts under a sky that never finished building itself. Then the sky struck twice. The first bolt stood a pile of parts up — torso, legs, a head with one lit eye. The second bolt folded it flat — wheels where the legs had been, a long low humming shape built for speed. The thing woke remembering both. It stood. It folded. It stood again, to make sure. That is the First Built, and every robot since is assembled the same way — gathered from the Scrap, raised in the Forge — ending with the builder’s two taps, tap-tap, to wake what the lightning woke.

Robotica is one great city, Turnspire, set like a lit gear in the endless Rust Flats. Eight factions share it, and standing is measured by the Current: how far does your hum carry? Glimmers hum to their street, Circuits across a quarter, Arcs across the whole city — and the four Arclights, the Roadmother, the Forgefather, the Hearthkeeper and the Trailblazer, carry clear across the Flats. The Turnborn carry the Double Charge loudly: for them, turning between the Stride and the Rush is not a trick. It is remembering.

And Joe walks here too, curious as ever, watching the Turnborn turn at the Foldyards with the particular attention of someone who has seen many shapes. He never sells anything. He only points — and keeps walking, because the city is a gear and the gear keeps turning.