Chapter Text
The heartbeat of the machine was faint, an arrhythmic pulse that would have been imperceptible to the average human ear. To Sandrone, however, it was a scream.
She adjusted the magnification on her optical visor, her gloved fingers moving with the delicate precision of a surgeon. The object on the reinforced workbench was not a transmission box or a combustion engine, but a Chaos Core recovered from a ruin guard excavation site in the darker corners of the Chasm. It was roughly three hundred years old, oxidized and dormant, a relic of a civilization that had prioritized function over survival.
"Voltage variance detected in sector four," Sandrone murmured to herself, her voice flat, barely rising above the hum of the atmospheric scrubbers lining the ceiling of the workshop.
She reached for a micro-caliper, measuring the distance between two rotating gears. 0.04 millimeters. Too wide. Inefficiency.
Sandrone exhaled slowly, her breath clouding slightly in the climate-controlled air of the workshop. To the outside world, specifically the uneducated masses who saw the sign Marionette Mechanics hanging above the heavy steel doors outside, Sandrone was a mechanic. They assumed she fixed carburetors, rotated tires, and flushed radiators. They assumed she came home smelling of cheap motor oil and stale coffee.
They were, statistically speaking, idiots.
Sandrone was an engineer. She was a kineticist, a preservationist of antique clockwork, and a designer of high-end automation. She did not fix cars; she breathed life back into steel that history had forgotten. Her workshop was not a garage; it was a laboratory.
The expansive space of the warehouse was divided into zones of obsessive organization. To her left, the fabrication sector housed CNC machines, 3D printers of her own design, and a hydraulic press capable of exerting enough force to flatten a tank. To her right, the clean room, sealed behind glass, was where the sensitive electronics were assembled. The floor was polished concrete, sealed with a gray epoxy that she had swept three times that morning. There were no grease stains. There were no scattered tools. Every wrench, every soldering iron, every tablet had a designated silhouette on the wall or a specific drawer lined with foam.
She picked up a specialized conductive probe. The core needed a jumpstart, but a standard battery would fry its neural circuitry. It required a pulse of elemental energy, modulated to a specific frequency.
"Injecting current. Three... two... one."
A spark, violet and sharp, jumped from the probe to the core. The ancient metal shuddered. The arrhythmic pulse suddenly snapped into a steady, low-frequency thrum. The intricate rings surrounding the core began to spin, slowly at first, then picking up speed until they were a blur of bronze and gold light.
Sandrone watched it, her expression unchanging, though a spark of satisfaction flickered in her eyes. It was perfect. The oscillation was within 0.001% of the original factory specifications from centuries ago.
She set the probe down and peeled off her heavy, heat-resistant rubber gloves, dropping them into the sterilization bin. She reached up, unclipping the heavy optical visor and setting it on its stand.
"Status log," she commanded, her voice activating the recording software on the tablet propped up nearby. "Project 77-Beta. Core stabilization successful. Output is nominal. The erratic vibration in the tertiary ring has been eliminated through realignment of the magnetic bearings. Ready for chassis integration."
She tapped the screen to end the recording and checked the time. 21:45.
She had been working for twelve hours straight.
Sandrone rolled her neck, feeling the satisfying pop of vertebrae. She stood up, stretching her arms. She was dressed in layers, a necessity for the work she did. On the outside, she wore a heavy-duty, fire-retardant engineer’s coverall, dark gray with reinforced padding on the knees and elbows. It was practical, shielding her from sparks, chemical splashes, and jagged metal.
But as the workday ended, the armor had to come off.
She walked to the decontamination station near the back of the workshop. It was a small alcove equipped with a sink deep enough to scrub up to her elbows and a heavy-duty air shower to blast away metal filings and dust.
Sandrone stepped onto the mat and turned on the tap. The water was hot, exactly 45 degrees Celsius, just at the threshold of discomfort. She pumped the industrial cleanser, an abrasive, citrus-scented formula, and began to scrub. She washed her hands for exactly two minutes, cleaning under her fingernails with a stiff brush, ensuring that not a speck of grime remained.
Once her hands were pristine, she unzipped the heavy coveralls. She stepped out of them with practiced ease, hanging them on the designated hook in her locker.
Underneath the industrial shell, Sandrone looked nothing like the Marionette that the engineering forums whispered about. She wore a simple, oversized black hoodie and high-quality athletic leggings. Her boots, steel-toed and heavy, were swapped for a pair of sleek, lightweight runners.
She checked her reflection in the small mirror inside her locker. Her hair was still neat, her face clean. She didn't look like someone who had just resurrected a three-hundred-year-old killing machine's heart. She looked like a university student, or perhaps a programmer on her way to a late-night cafe.
Her phone buzzed on the bench.
Sandrone picked it up, expecting a notification from the security system or perhaps a status update on a parts shipment from Liyue Harbor. Instead, a name flashed across the screen.
Columbina: Arlecchino is threatening to ban me from caffeine. If I die of exhaustion, I’m haunting your shop first.
Sandrone stared at the message. The corners of her mouth twitched, a microscopic movement that was the closest she usually came to a smile.
Sandrone: Your spectral form would likely disrupt the electromagnetic fields of my equipment. Please refrain from dying. It would be inefficient.
She hit send, slipping the phone into the pocket of her hoodie.
Columbina was... an anomaly in Sandrone's data set. A variable. In a world of inputs and outputs, Columbina was pure, unadulterated chaos wrapped in a voice that could seemingly make angels weep. They occupied different stratospheres. Sandrone lived in the dirt and the steel of the Industrial District, calculating load-bearing tolerances and drag coefficients. Columbina lived in the penthouse of Celestia Heights, calculating PR moves and vocal ranges.
And yet, the anomaly persisted.
Sandrone grabbed her keys and headed for the exit. She keyed in the security code for the workshop, a twelve-character string that changed weekly, and waited for the heavy magnetic locks to engage. The hiss of the hydraulic seals marked the end of her shift.
Outside, the air was crisp and smelled of rain on asphalt. The Industrial District of the city was quieter at night, the roar of the factories reduced to a low, rhythmic breathing. Streetlights flickered, casting long, orange shadows against the brick facades of the warehouses.
Sandrone walked toward her designated parking spot. There, sitting alone in a sea of empty asphalt, was her car.
It was a white SUV. A standard model, mid-range, reliable. It was not a sports car. It was not a luxury vehicle. It was a tool for transportation, chosen for its safety rating and cargo capacity.
But it was immaculate.
While other cars in the district were coated in a film of soot and city grime, Sandrone’s SUV gleamed under the streetlights. She washed it once a week. The interior was vacuumed with the same dedication she applied to her circuit boards.
As she approached the driver’s side, she paused.
Her eyes narrowed.
There, on the door handle, was a smudge. A fingerprint. Likely her own from this morning, or perhaps a courier who had gotten too close.
It was unacceptable.
Sandrone reached into her bag and pulled out a microfiber cloth and a small travel-sized bottle of detailing spray. She didn't unlock the car yet. Instead, she sprayed the offending spot and wiped it down with circular, even strokes until the white paint reflected the overhead light perfectly again.
"Better," she whispered.
She unlocked the car and slid into the driver’s seat. The interior smelled of nothing, no air fresheners, no stale food, just the neutral scent of clean upholstery. She placed her bag on the passenger seat, buckled her seatbelt, and pressed the start button. The engine purred to life, quiet and well-maintained.
As she pulled out of the lot and merged onto the main road leading toward the residential sector, the radio auto-connected to her phone. She didn't listen to music often; she preferred audiobooks on theoretical physics or engineering podcasts. But tonight, the algorithm shuffled to a track she hadn't realized was in her library.
It was a slow, haunting melody. A voice, airy and ethereal, drifted through the speakers.
...threads of gold and hearts of stone...
It was Columbina. The song was from her debut album, playing everywhere from convenience stores to high-end boutiques.
Sandrone reached out to change the track, her finger hovering over the screen. Logic dictated she listen to the podcast on material fatigue she had queued up. It was educational. It was productive.
She hesitated. The voice in the song swelled, hitting a high note that defied physics. It was perfectly controlled, yet sounded like it was on the verge of breaking.
Sandrone withdrew her hand, leaving the music playing.
She drove through the city, the lights of the skyscrapers reflecting off her windshield. She passed the Zapolyarny Tower, the massive headquarters of the Fatui Entertainment Group, its logo glowing in cold blue neon against the night sky. Somewhere up there, or perhaps in the equally imposing Celestia Heights tower a few blocks over, Columbina was likely being scolded by Arlecchino or plastered with makeup she didn't want to wear.
Sandrone tightened her grip on the steering wheel slightly.
She didn't understand the celebrity world. To her, it was a machine that ran on validation and artifice, burning human fuel to produce nothing but noise. It was inefficient. It was cruel.
She glanced at the passenger seat, empty save for her bag.
Tomorrow, she had a meeting with a client who wanted to restore a pre-Archon War clock tower. It would require structural analysis, gear fabrication, and months of work. It was the kind of problem she could solve. It was a problem with a definitive answer.
People like Columbina were equations with infinite variables.
Sandrone turned the volume up, just a fraction.
The traffic light ahead turned red. Sandrone stopped smoothly behind the white line. A sports car pulled up next to her, flashy, red, engine revving unnecessarily. The driver looked over at her modest white SUV and revved again, a challenge.
Sandrone didn't look. She stared straight ahead, watching the pedestrian countdown timer. The physics of street racing were uninteresting to her. The wear on the tires, the stress on the transmission, the risk of collision, all for a dopamine hit she didn't require.
The light turned green. The sports car squealed away, tires smoking. Sandrone accelerated at a fuel-efficient rate, maintaining the speed limit exactly.
She was Sandrone. She was the Marionette. She fixed things that were broken, she built things that lasted, and she kept her world clean, ordered, and precise.
But as the song faded out and the city blurred past her, she couldn't help but wonder why the text message felt like the most significant data point of her day.
The next morning, the bell above the door of Marionette Mechanics chimed at 08:00 sharp.
Sandrone didn't look up from her tablet. She was standing at the intake counter, reviewing a schematic for a prosthetic limb joint she was prototyping. "We are not open for walk-ins," she said, her voice monotone. "If you are a solicitor, leave. If you are a client without an appointment, schedule one online."
"My, aren't we prickly this morning."
Sandrone froze. She knew that voice. It was not the airy, ethereal tone from the radio. It was deeper, sharper, but laced with a familiar amusement.
She looked up.
Standing in the doorway was a tall woman with stark black eyes and hair that seemed to absorb the light. She wore a tailored suit that cost more than Sandrone’s entire fabrication setup.
Arlecchino. The Knave. Columbina’s manager and the head of talent management at Fatui Entertainment.
Sandrone set the tablet down. She didn't like Arlecchino. She respected her; Arlecchino was a machine of a different sort, a ruthless engine of influence and protection, but she didn't like her. Arlecchino disrupted the ecosystem.
"I am not a mechanic, Arlecchino," Sandrone said, crossing her arms over her chest. She was already in her work gear, heavy apron, boots, hair tied back. "If Columbina’s car has a scratch, take it to the dealership. I do not buff scratches."
Arlecchino stepped into the workshop, her heels clicking on the polished concrete. She looked around with a critical eye, noting the dust-free surfaces and the organized tools. She seemed to approve, though she didn't say it.
"The car is fine," Arlecchino said smoothly, stopping in front of the counter. "Though I suppose it's charming that you assume I only visit you for your utility."
"You are a manager," Sandrone countered. "You view people as assets. I am not an asset. Therefore, you are here for a service."
Arlecchino smirked. It was a terrifying expression. "Sharp. I like that. No, I am not here for the car. I am here because my star talent has been... difficult lately."
Sandrone’s posture stiffened imperceptibly. "Columbina?"
"She is restless," Arlecchino sighed, inspecting a perfectly clean wrench on the counter. "The tour preparation is grueling. The press is invasive. She claims she needs 'grounding.' She asked if she could come here."
Sandrone blinked. "Here?"
"To your... shop," Arlecchino gestured vaguely at the millions of dollars worth of high-tech equipment. "She finds the noise soothing. I don't pretend to understand why she prefers the smell of ozone to her penthouse, but I pick my battles."
"I am working on a delicate restoration," Sandrone said automatically. "I cannot have distractions."
"She won't distract you," Arlecchino said, her eyes locking onto Sandrone’s. "She just wants to sit. And frankly, Sandrone, I would prefer she sits here, under your neurotic supervision and behind these reinforced steel doors, than wandering the city where the paparazzi, or worse, can get to her."
Sandrone processed this. It was a request for sanctuary.
"She will have to wear safety glasses if she enters the fabrication zone," Sandrone stated.
Arlecchino’s smile widened, just a fraction. "I'll tell her to bring her own. So, is that a yes?"
Sandrone picked up her tablet again, tapping the screen to bring up the day's schedule. It was full. She had the Ruin Guard core to integrate, a consultation for the city council regarding the water filtration automation, and three designs to approve.
"She can come after 18:00," Sandrone said, not looking up. "I will order pizza. I assume she is still pretending not to eat carbohydrates?"
"She eats them when I'm not looking," Arlecchino said, turning toward the door. "Thank you, Sandrone. Keep her safe. Or I will have your workshop re-zoned as a petting zoo."
"Get out of my shop, Knave."
Arlecchino laughed, a low, dry sound, and exited, the bell chiming behind her.
Sandrone stood in the silence of the intake room for a long moment.
She looked at the empty space on the old, comfortable leather sofa she kept in the corner of the main workshop floor. It was usually covered in blueprints.
She walked over to the intercom system on the wall.
"Unit 4," she commanded. "Prepare the fabrication floor. Increase ambient temperature by two degrees. Initiate cleaning protocol for Sector B."
Sector B was where the couch was.
Sandrone told herself it was simply efficient to have the area clean. Dust was bad for the lungs.
But as she walked back toward the heavy machinery, preparing to lose herself in the logic of gears and circuits, she knew that was a lie. She was preparing the stage. The anomaly was coming back, and for the first time in her structured, predictable life, Sandrone wasn't looking for a way to correct the variance.
She was looking forward to it.