Six Thousand Mark

T-01 broke again on a Thursday afternoon.

Ernest was delighted. Hollen looked like he wanted to set fire to his own boots.

It happened at 6,417.3 kilometers on the brass odometer dial—well short of the eleven-thousand mark Ernest had written in ink across the validation master plan. For three straight weeks, the dark green carriage had run a brutal loop: out of the factory gates at six in the morning, along the rutted highway to Oriel, east to Belmont, north through the coal valleys, and back to Machine Works Number Three at sunset. Different drivers, different road surfaces, steady rain, and choking summer dust.

The test crews had grown so used to T-01 rumbling through the gates without incident that nobody looked up from the drill presses when the tires crunched across the yard gravel.

Then the sound cut through the steady hum of the works.

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.