"You're controlling the pace of technological progress?" Lorenzo asked.
"Yes. For example, this place."
As the Queen's voice fell, the beam that had been illuminating them scattered. It spread into the dark corners and lit them up.
Lorenzo looked around. Most of the space was still shrouded in darkness, but from the outlines revealed by the light, he saw the things hidden there—one after another, mechanical devices he had never seen before, all sealed in transparent containers filled with protective oil.
Like corpses soaked in formalin, each container held a steel cadaver. They stood like copper pillars, packed densely together, filling the space below.
"New-model steam engines, Otto internal combustion engines, Turing machines…"
The Queen gazed at the copper pillars below and pronounced one strange term after another.
