[The movement started slowly at first, but soon 
expanded exponentially into every part of life. The old 
commuter train that bore Light to his exile was bought 
and the track scrapped and recycled to make way for a 
shining electromagnetic bullet train. Sleek and silver, 
it tore through the city like a volt across a wire, and 
as quickly as it moved, the city was transformed around 
it.

Beneath the hammers of Wily's new army of metal 
workmen, buildings were razed to the ground, leveled in 
a single morning. New foundations were laid in the same 
afternoon. Structures, metal frames piercing the 
clouds, were erected before nightfall. Glass and steel 
wrapped the frames before the sun rose the next day. 
Then the armies of machines would move onto the next 
task. Never stopping. Never slowing. Never resting.

Morning after morning, the men and women of the city 
awoke to find a bright new world. Everything was 
remade. Made better. Made brighter. The streets were 
swept. The undesirables, the homeless, the criminal 
element of the city, systematically vanished.

The single screen on top of the tower sent out signals 
to the now hundreds of satellite screens. The factories 
were fully automated. The mines run entirely by 
machine. The men that found themselves suddenly living 
lives of leisure crowded the bars, slowly imbibing the 
generous severances they'd received, not so much as a 
single ill word grumbled towards their replacements. 
The city was a bright and shining beacon of light... a 
steel-plated heaven.

Years passed.

A generation grew up within the metal arms that 
embraced the city. The older generations never told 
them what the city looked like before the machines. Why 
would they? What good could come from telling the 
children of the type of dark, filthy, and dangerous 
world that men create when left to their own devices? 
That once men slaved away deep inside the earth, 
risking death for the sake of survival. That once women 
left their children, still asleep in their beds, to 
grind away mindless hours in the factories, sacrificing 
family to secure necessities.

This new world was so perfect that it seemed dangerous 
to speak of the old world. As if this new city, sprung 
from a sea of darkness, was balanced on a single point, 
teetering on a crucial ignorance. It seemed that any 
misstep, any wrong word, could topple the city, sinking 
it back in the sea, that dark abyss of human suffering, 
leaving them with nothing. After all, they were not the 
creators of this world. They were merely the recipients 
of a gift. A gift given to them by a single man and his 
countless steel hands. And just as easily as it was 
given, couldn't it be taken away?

An unspoken fear dangled above the heads of every man 
and woman. Keeping them silent. Keeping them safe.

Even so, rumors started. Ghost stories of a demon. A 
beast with a single red eye. He that would pluck you 
from your bed at night if you were found with a 
dissenting word on your tongue. Mothers told children 
to stay close as they traveled through the streets, 
keep a smile on their faces, and never speak ill of the 
machines.

A generation grew up inside the metal hands that gently 
circled the neck of the city. Some of them grew up 
hating the city, fearing the machines. There was one 
boy in particular. His name was Joe.]