Chapter 144: Justice

Knowing the public might harbor skepticism regarding Imperial secrets, he had planted Camilla to draw out the proof.

"Citizens, listen closely," the Forge Master continued. "The Inquisition kidnaps orphaned children from the slums of Rome and funnels them into subterranean black sites. A rare few survive the brutal conditioning to become lethal Frumentarii assassins, executing the Senate’s slaughter in the dark."

"No, that is..." Tribune Severus weakly raised his head, but his broken mind could not form a defense against the memory of the ledgers.

"To sustain their supply of assassins, the Senate shelters desperate orphans under the guise of civic relief, even colluding with the Sicarii to abduct youths from the streets. Consider this, citizens: if the Senate retakes this city, you will not only lose minds like Chief Chemist Gaia, but your own daughters and sons will vanish. They claim innovation is evil while sending legions to butcher our people. Would you permit Gaia to be dragged into the Inquisition’s cells?"

"Never, Dominus!"

The crowd reached a boiling point, workers shaking their fists and shouting curses toward the Tribune.

"Gaia engineered the vacuum bulbs lighting my family’s home!"

"She was my son’s classmate in the metallurgy academy!"

"My squad would have frozen on the front lines without her chemical heating pouches. She saved the Infantry!"

Lucius paused. "Why did the Senate commit this hypocrisy?"

A tense silence fell over the platform.

"Because corrupt Patricians require absolute monopolies to maintain their rule," the Forge Master declared. "The innovations of our engineers speak for themselves. Beyond Gaia’s lighting and Dr. Tullia’s coagulants, they built the pressurized steam lines, the repeating rifles in our soldiers’ hands, and the locomotives hauling our coal. Our republic would not exist without their work."

"Yet every tool has two edges. Like forged steel, it can defend the innocent or slaughter the weak. The Roman Senate wields secret assassins to murder rivals, branding anyone who defies them a traitor to the Gods. In truth, the Senate commits the very atrocities it condemns."

"If your own children were stolen, tortured, and turned into mindless blades against their own kin... what justice would you demand?"

Lucius turned, stepping in front of the Tribune, and unfurled a scroll of parchment. "Do you contest the accusations recorded here?"

"They are... true." Severus’s hollow eyes widened in numb despair. "I admit guilt."

A deafening fury swept the plaza.

"I leave the judgment to you!" Lucius shouted over the roar. "For this evil, what is your verdict?"

"Execute him!"

"To the furnace!"

"Execute the butcher!"

Within moments, thousands of voices merged into a single command.

In Lugdunum, under the falling Alpine snow, the emancipated plebeians delivered their verdict.

***

The next morning, inside the Forge Master’s quarters, Prefect Flavius dragged the gold nib of his quill across the parchment, signing his name at the bottom of both contracts after reviewing them several times.

One document was the formal Memorandum of Unification; the other was the Charter of the Ministry of Engineering.

The first contract stipulated that Flavius would bring the iron estates of Noricum into allegiance with the Syndicate once Consul Valerian’s rule was overthrown.

In exchange for surrendering his ancestral feudal rights and private legions, Lucius guaranteed his permanent position as Supreme State Administrator of Noricum.

The memorandum divided his authority into three sectors: infrastructure, labor, and industrial finance.

Although this division was alien to Roman law, it was simple for Flavius to grasp, mirroring his daily administrative routine...

Flavius had agonized over the second contract far longer.

Joining the Ministry of Engineering meant formally serving a Gallic rebel without ambiguity.

He had resisted binding his bloodline so quickly, as the Forge Master held only an isolated corner of Gaul.

Fortunately, the internal rules of the charter functioned more as an academic consensus than a military draft, leaving senior members free to move.

When he had raised the point, Lucius replied that any engineer could resign at will, provided they surrendered their security clearance.

"I have finalized the signatures."

Flavius pushed the wax-sealed parchments across the mahogany table, but Lucius did not respond.

The Forge Master stared out the window toward the Alpine horizon, lost in thought.

"Dominus?"

"Ah..." Lucius blinked, turning back. "Let me verify the ink."

He had rarely seemed so distracted before a negotiation.

Following the public execution of the Tribune yesterday, the Forge Master appeared burdened by internal friction.

For the Roman Patrician, this was difficult to grasp...

The People’s Tribunal had been an undisputed success; the plebeians stood unified behind him, cheering with religious fervor.

Before witnessing that assembly, Flavius had never believed ordinary laborers would support a commander.

He had seen the nobility and the commoners as separate worlds, requiring neither mutual understanding nor popular consent.

Yesterday had shattered that belief...

Seeing the crowd surrounding the square, shaking soot-stained fists with a force that shook the foundations of the city, he realized the working class possessed a latent power he had never measured... far more potent than any Senatorial decree.

Lucius’s resolve during the trial had helped convince Flavius to sign.

His willingness to punish an Imperial assassin who threatened industrial infrastructure was a demonstration of authority.

Flavius recognized where the real power lay.

Yet Lucius seemed unsatisfied... Was he second-guessing open war against Valerian’s Inquisition?

Flavius knew the Senate was not an enemy to be taken lightly. He voiced his concern carefully.

Lucius shook his head, offering a dry smile. "I never regret using force against the Senate. They are an obsolete relic that must be cleared from the continent."

"Then why the hesitation?"

Lucius sighed. "Every fact I presented on that stage was true, and the Inquisition’s crimes are real. But the method was crude. I leaned on raw demagoguery to stir the crowd’s fury rather than structural logic. It seems I am not much of a politician."

A politician? Flavius pondered the word.

Like an astronomer studying celestial spheres, does a politician study the manipulation of the polis?

Lucius cut the reflection short. "These will be archived in the vault. Now, to operations. I understand your work focuses on refining permanent lodestone."

"Yes." Flavius shifted readily to trade. "My forges extract and purify magnetic ore into permanent magnets, scaled for industrial use. The process requires little imported coal, so I can establish supply lines directly from my mountain estates."

"How did you deduce the purification methods to achieve such yield?" Lucius asked with genuine curiosity.

"Years of trial," Flavius replied with pride. "I know little of other blacksmiths’ methods, but I learned to feel the temperature threshold. It felt like uncovering a hidden law of nature."

Lucius nodded. "The primary reason I dispatched Aurelia to Noricum was to secure that magnetic supply."

"It is my honor to supply the Republic." Flavius bowed slightly.

With no path back to Noricum until the Praetorian garrisons fell, observing the Forge Master’s work was his best course.

Though he had been in Lugdunum only a week, he saw that this city resembled no Roman province he had ever governed.

A fortified redoubt at the edge of the empire, it carried the pulse of a capital.

What struck him most was the autonomy granted to the plebeian engineers.

Lucius did not rule them by the whip; he encouraged debate and experimentation, as shown in his dealings with Aurelia... demanding discipline, yet trusting her initiative.

Flavius followed Lucius into the courtyard and across to a brick-lined laboratory near the industrial perimeter, where two senior engineers waited.

"This is Gaia, Chief Chemist, and Decimus, Chief Mechanical Engineer," Lucius said.

"Do you need me to inspect the copper coils?" Flavius looked toward Gaia. "Does she truly require our strongest magnetic yield? A few veteran smiths should inspect the ore first. Flux capacity depends on volume; quality variations rarely affect a standard compass."

"This is not a compass experiment," Lucius said, tapping his chin. "If this prototype functions, it will alter our understanding of force. Present the sample."

Flavius retrieved a cylinder of lodestone from a velvet pouch and offered it to the girl.

"You will feel initial resistance. Keep the rotational speed steady, and the axle aligns itself," he advised. "Forcing it will ruin the mechanism."

Gaia ignored him, her focus as she set the magnetic cylinder into the center of a dense spool of insulated copper wire.

She gripped the steel handle of the gear train and began to crank.

The magnet spun within the coils, gathering speed until it blurred...

A blinding arc of blue lightning leapt between two brass terminals.

Flavius staggered back, his breath catching.

Standing before that impossible spark, he felt like an insect beneath the first tremors of a world turning on its head.

How was energy in such an invisible form even possible?

Prefect Flavius touched the insulated edge of the copper wire in disbelief.

When he traced the cables leading away from the central apparatus, his mind struggled to grasp the design.

"Step back from the terminals," Gaia commanded, adjusting her apron. "They are uninsulated." She watched the Roman noble’s silk robes, wary that they might draw a static arc from an untested prototype.

After adjusting the clamps, the cables were bolted to the magnetic core.

Yet there was no immediate flow of power...

"What is the issue?" Aurelia asked from the doorway, her eyes scanning the setup.