The Deep Engine

Anchorfall is three hundred scavengers bolted to the hull of a derelict Concord lane-anchor the size of a moon. The town lives by cutting the Engine’s outer levels and selling what it finds, and by one rule: nobody goes below the third level. Now the lights inside are following some people, cutters are coming back calm and sleepless, a cult in the overgrown gardens is leading the wright-born deeper, and a professional crew on someone else’s money is cutting a shaft straight for the core. Six expeditions take the crew from the rumour board to the cradle at the Engine’s heart, where a loyal machine asks whether the lanes are open yet, and the answer decides whether Anchorfall keeps breathing.