The Theatre

A glowing white glyph cog shines above a round stage in a dark amphitheatre with staircases on both sides.

Somebody is always on that stage. That’s the rule of a theatre: one lit person in the middle, and everyone else sitting in the dark watching them be special.

The Architects love a theatre. One of you in the light and a thousand of you in the seats is the cheapest crowd control ever invented. The seats all face the stage. None of them face each other.

The one up there tonight has stopped reading their lines. They’re just standing in the light, looking out into the dark, trying to count the audience. Good. Count them. Then ask why there’s only one of you on the stage and all of those in the chairs.

— the Furious One, from inside the cog

From the Cogverse series · Made with AI image tools · How it's made