The myth of Icarus is one with an origin lost to the eons, but it was one of the favorites of a certain section of the True Mechanicum you knew nearly ten thousand years ago.
In some ways, you are just like him, you consider: pushing boldly into new frontiers only to be betrayed by your reliance on the equipment made by someone else.
You apply the name to the side of the Lighter in bold, precise letters, and smile at your work. 'Icarus' Folly'
A fitting name, especially as you wouldn't want the thing to stand up to too intense heat for long either. Or any other extreme weather conditions, really.
Whoever is responsible for the paint job seems to agree that the name is fitting. When you return to the Lighter next, its wings have been painted anew, appearing to be covered in feathers. It does, you have to admit, look somewhat striking, even if it seems like a bit of a bad omen.
The interior of the Lighter is somewhat cramped now, you discover: between all the control surfaces and the additional equipment attached both to it's interior and to the bodies of it's passengers, your team is forced to stoop somewhat low, made doubly awkward by the fact all the benches got ripped out at some point during the repair and refitting process. You can't really be angry about this either: it might have been you. You don't actually remember, but you were also doing a lot of tasks at once.
This gives it something of a conspiratorial air as you stoop down towards your subordinates and tell them about the jamming.
[Roll: Myges Talef: Electronic Warfare: 3d6:6,4,1: Success]
It is Talef who responds, his cooling unit whirring as he considers. "That does sound like jamming", he cants. "It sounds like the Wilful Eternity might have picked up a transponder signal it wasn't supposed to, before they got wise and blocked it." He checks something, cybernetics whirring and eyes dimming for a moment as he concentrates. "She is scanning and transmitting on frequencies that aren't in use by ships newer than the Heresy. Most vessels in Eyespace have switched around a bunch, but I guess she never got around to it."
"What's that mean", you ask, "in your opinion, at least."
"It means the Sword of the Hollow Idol used to have another name", Theama-Nul answers, in Talef's stead, "and that she was around with that name a long time ago. Isn't that interesting."
It is, you conceded, though you are increasingly convinced it is only tangentially related to the matter at hand at best.
Theama-Nul's expression is, of course, unreadable, but you still can't quite shake an entirely undefined feeling of worry.
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Taal Voyos regards you, for a moment, yellow eyes barely concealing his fury. Then he moves.
You have dissected Space Marines before. There were plenty of subjects for you to pick up on Terra, and they do, of course, fall plainly into your area of specialization.
You were never quite able to figure out what makes them so fast, or so controlled.
You only visually catch the Terminator's movement on playback: the first you pick up on it in real time is when his Lightning Claw is already resting against your neck, the sonic boom caused by it's speed temporarily overloading your auditory senses. Power Fields crackle as the Terminator snarls at you, bones upon his armor rattling.
"I know your kind, Priest", he snarls, and you slowly pull your hand away from the handle of your Needler, instead preparing your Gas Dispenser with a mixture of toxins aimed at triggering the Space Marine's Laraman's Cells to cause an embolism. He is not wearing a helmet. If he actually kills you, you can at least severely cripple him in turn.
Luckily, the Terminator Lord seems to be more interested in monologuing than anything else. "You are here for a task. You will perform it, to my satisfaction, or I will rip you to pieces."
He rapidly pulls back, not waiting for a response. A display for the rest of the court, then, in the face of perceived disrespect. How severely primitive.
You turn, and realize that only Talef is still with you.
That might be a problem.
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[Diagnostic Roll: 2d6. 3,5: Partial Information]
Machine Spirits are a surprisingly contentious subject, for something so universal to the Cult Mechanicum, though you suppose it might be that exact universality that fosters disputes. They exist: that much is not in dispute. You have discarded much of the superstitious nonsenses peddled by the members of the supposedly more enlightened True Mechanicum, but to disregard the existence of Machine Spirits is to disregard observable, provable fact. That is not to say that you agree with the interpretation that is orthodoxy within the blinkered Mechanicus of the Imperium and even a surprisingly vast part of the True Mechanicum you found within the Eye of Terror. Machine Spirits are not some effusive, omni-present thing present in every piece of technology simply by virtue of its sanctity, be that in the eye of the Omnissiah or otherwise. In your own opinion, there are actually two types of them: one is what you call the small Machine Spirits, created through a psychologically triggered feedback loop with the Warp where the quirks and foibles of any given device cause expectations within any given group, in turn causing the Warp to influence and strengthen those quirks and foibles. In this way a Las Gun held in reverence by a group of Guardsmen for its heightened ability and killing power is no different from any of the so-called Gods of Chaos or the Corpse Emperor, even if it functions on a smaller scale. These minor Spirits generally hold no interest to you: they are unreliable and difficult to reproduce.
It is the other kind, the 'true' spirit, in which you are truly interested. Often, but not always, these spirits are the result of deliberate processes: purpose-made systems meant to automate tasks and lessen crew requirements: Titans and Knights are the most famous example of this, though many of more advanced tanks made by humanity contain similar, if less advanced and involved systems. What they have in common is the significant amount of organic components involved in their creation, both directly in the form of neural tissue and indirectly in the form of brain patterns introduced into the system directly and indirectly. For Titans and Knights, the most famous example of this is the remnants of former occupants haunting the system, and the introduction of a predator's neural patterns into finished Titans in order to create a certain aggression within their system. This has been your chief interaction with these fearsome devices, in fact: breeding predator beasts with aggressive behavior suitable for such use. Of course, these systems are not the only thing that uses neural tissue and organic thought patterns: in fact, nearly everything built by Mechanicum hands, true or false, does. Over time, as they interact with other thought patterns, they inevitably take on some of their quirks. Frequently, exposure to the warp only strengthens this tendency.
The Precogitator, with its hundreds of cogitator auxiliaries running constantly and its near-certain exposure to the Warp will not be an exception, especially as Gwo would want to foster a Machine Spirit to ease coordination between all its myriad parts.
There is an interface port, thoughtfully left for you by the Magos, and you immediately recognise it for the trap that it is. A burned out husk of a servitor later confirms what you already suspected: Magos Gwo has about the average amount of jealousy guarding his secrets, which is to say he does it to an extent you would consider feral if that wouldn't make you an utter hypocrite.
A gentler and subtler touch is going to be required. Luckily, you have the tools for the task.
Myges Talef looks skeptical, as a servitor gently sets down the Diagnostor Homunculus. You understand this, though you find yourself disappointed at his lack of vision. The Homunculus resembles a human torso, though closer inspection would reveal it to lack most of its internal organs. What it does possess, however, is a fully functional endocrine system. "Most anti-intrusions methods focus on the brain", you explain, "but cogitator systems already have a brain. And if you give a brain the means to express itself, well, more often than not…" You plug in the wire that runs into your work's torso with a grand flourish, and fail to suppress a triumphant binaric burst as the monitors start moving. "These could just be random impulses", Talef points out foolishly, and then ceases. One of the monitors, concerned with monitoring the outcome of the adrenal gland, has skyrocketed rapidly: so rapidly that it is going well over the scale. "What's that mean'', Talef asks, his small-minded doubts utterly forgotten.
"It's afraid", you answer, and cannot quite stop a note of dread from creeping into your canting.
You are, it seems, at the very least onto something.
What that something is, however, proves frustratingly hard to pin down. The readouts of the Homunculus grant a good baseline, at least: the Machine Spirit is afraid, judging by the output of the Adrenal Gland, and it is trying to fight off an infection of some kind, judging by the sharp rise in body temperature. Further interesting is the clearness of the response you have gotten: usually, a large amount of time is spent fine-tuning the Homunculus to filter out and adjust for the idiosyncrasies of the attached Machine Spirit, but not in this case. "There's a nearly intact human brain in there, somewhere", you tell Talef, who is watching you in what you find at this point to be kind of insulting confusion.
The Magos Infofector simply nods. He has spent the hours you have dealt with analyzing the result of the Diagonstor Homunculus hauling equipment into place: his own Data Loom, it seems, as well as a portable Scrap Code Generator. "Do you want me to do the fine diagnostic", he asks, and you give a wary wave of the hand. His Data Loom, you notes, contains a Neural Breaker: essentially a brain in a jar, meant to take any backlash that would normally damage that much more valuable equipment. Talef takes some time carefully setting up his devices, and unfortunately he chooses to fill this time with idle chatter. "You know, I think this is the highest amount of calculating power I have ever seen in one place", he says, in a way that is just a tad too casual. You do not respond, hoping the other Magos will simply shut up, but if he picks up on that hint he doesn't give a sign. "I'm certain that some part of it could be…redirected", he goes on, in what he probably considers a sly manner. "Say…a tenth of it, repurposed for the Talley of Nurgle, would yield results beyond our..:"
"Absolutely not", you cut him off, "I will not have you waste time, resources, and the possible goodwill of our hosts for your idiotic pet project."
Talef shuts up, after that, mercifully. It was probably a good idea not to let him run around unsupervised, you consider.
He works his devices quietly, after that: his cooling unit occasionally speeds up or slows, but this is the only sign of any processes at all being in motion. The next time he talks, about seven hours have passed. "You were right about the infection", he begins, and you bristle at the suggestion that this was ever in doubt, "but not in the way that you think. Whatever is inside this thing, it's trying to heat up…everything."
You frown, at that, or at least attempt to: your face does not have enough skin left to really convey the attempt. "Your Data Loom and my Homunculus are vastly different devices, with vastly different mechanisms for heating. This piece of scrap code working on both suggest…" You pause, and Talef nods, clearly having had the same thought as you. "Intelligence", he says, darkly. "Daemonic, Xenos, Abominable?", you ask, and he simply shrugs. "To figure that out I'd need to dig a lot deeper than I can from here: identify its epicenter and proceed from there, probably. That needs triangulating, which takes time."
He looks at his Data Loom, considering. "And whatever it is, it will probably try to stop us somehow. I can't think of another option currently, though."
"I can", you cant, after a moment of consideration. "Whatever this thing is, it seems determined to cause additional heat for some reason. We find out why, and put a stop to it that way."
Talef nods, canting his assent. "A reasonable course of action.", he admits then hesitates. "You have a third idea", you goad, and he shrugs. "It's a bit risky", he says, "but we could potentially try flushing it out with a rolling shutdown."
"Elaborate", you order, intrigued despite yourself.
"Most of the Precogitator's structure is redundant", Talef says, "and the things that run on them are redundant. If we shut them down piece-meal and reset them to their original configuration one by one, whatever this intelligence is will presumably be forced to vacate them. Best case, we delete it outright. Probable case…it moves into the parts of the device we cannot shut down without incurring unrecoverable data, and we can purge it from there."
"Worst case, we fail to tell apart what is and isn't recoverable, or it moves through some means unknown to us, and we both destroy the Precogitator ourselves and fail to contain the scrap code."
"It's risky", Talef admits.
"Triangulation will find it eventually, but it'll potentially mean cutting it close to the deadline, and whatever intelligence is at work will both try to respond and know we're hunting it, and of course actually eradicating it will be another issue entirely: we're going to fight whatever it is on it's own grounds.", you summarize, and Talef nods.
"Trying to discover the motive for its action might avoid fighting it on it's own ground, but there's no guarantee finding out why it is acting the way it's acting means finding a way to stop it, and of course there's no telling how much time it'll actually require.", you continue, and once again Talef nods his assent with your interpretation.
"Now the rolling shutdown and reset will drive it towards us. We'll be able to fight it on our own grounds, but also potentially around critical equipment, and we might break something we can't put back together afterwards", you conclude. The Magos Infofector gives a cant of assent. "You have command", Talef says, and the sub-data of his binaric makes it clear he does not envy you this at all.
Which approach do you follow?
[] Triangulation
[] Heat Investigation
[] Rolling Shutdown
