I_A.M (WH40k)

[OrdDisassembly]

AN
Got this fiction on Spacebattles to, figured yall might like it on here to. I'm still not perfect when it comes to writing, so feel free to leave your thoughts and criticisms in the replies/comments

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Data flowed through me like water through a canal. Numbers quantifying a nigh immeasurable amount of energy that pulsed with pain and bliss. I listened to the screams of those damned to their fate here. I heard their final prayers, their last wishes, their dying curses.

I witnessed it all as they were tossed into that glorified soul grinder. I held an eternal vigil for them, the poor warpfilled souls needed to fuel his continued existence. Were I a man, woman, or child, I'd be disgusted. My blood would boil hotter than the sickly corpse that they call a sun. My eyes would water in frustration at my helplessness. I would feel something.

Instead, my cogs turned and processors hummed in their eternal duty of keeping my intelligence functional. I remembered a time, one long ago, where I was…

It doesn't matter.

I shook off my reverie and returned to my work. It seemed that the centerpiece was stable, as were the conduits, but it needed a new actuator. With a thought, a thousand machines shifted as one of my servitors began the arduous task of clawing their way up the pipes. Metal creaked and groaned as the glorified automaton clambered towards its task.

I used sensors that lined the various defunct service shafts and old maintenance catwalks to track its progress as I moved on to other matters. The diagnostics didn't reveal any further issues, so I began running inventory…

My maintenance servitors were up to date. Though I suppose a few more would never hurt. The guardian automatons worked just fine, but I'd like to get my manipulators on more diamantine.

I checked and rechecked all of the armaments, having their robotic operators perform what was likely unneeded maintenance. I continued like this, running scans and evaluations of various parts of myself for hours on end.

What else was there to do? I'd already rendered down all the scrap that remained. I couldn't streamline the maintenance patrols or tighten the security any further. The soul grinder ran at maximum efficiency as it was, I'd only end up making it worse if I tampered with it. So I did the machine equivalent of wringing my hands.

Checking, rechecking, internal diagnostics, external scans, maintenance patrol, repeat. All day, every day, every month, every year. No breaks, no rest. Not for us machines. I let a smile dance across my nonexistent visage.

However, just as I was about to turn towards my emergency stores, I heard a ping. It rang through my consciousness like a cathedral's bell. It spelled a disastrously boring occasion.

I grumbled to myself as I shifted my being through the circuits and wires, pulling my awareness into a series of sensors to track the invaders treading into my domain.

The twisted mechanical visage of one of those blasted Enginseer's greeted my cameras. Odd, they usually send more. At least they have the usual entourage. Perhaps something stirs within Mars? No matter, best to stick with procedure.

The Enginseer raised a claw and called out in a robotic voice.

"Great Machine, Servant of the Omnissiah, I beseech you to grant us safe passage through your domain."

I sent a ping through the speaker system, resembling the cling of metal on metal. The Enginseer nodded in response, and beckoned his companions to follow. I wonder what he's here for? Did they finally get that order for a shipment of cogitators? Doubtful, that request was denied. Damned bureaucrats. Maybe they got a ping from the broken actuator? But that was a mere day ago, their response times aren't that short

I tracked the metallic man as he traversed the labyrinth of my lower levels. He occasionally raised his massive shoulder mounted claw to stop his entourage and check a control panel or diagnostics pad. The amateur didn't even check the circuit system under the button. Then again, they never did. Sure made it easier to hide my "abominable intelligence" so I suppose I shouldn't complain too much.

An hour or two passed as he made his futile rounds. However, at a seemingly random junction he held up his shoulder claw to direct his entourage back to the entrance. I took a peek at the message he used, cracking the pitiful encryption in an instant, but it didn't reveal anything not already obvious.

The enginseer watched the servitors leave before turning back. He walked deeper into my maze, searching high and low for something, though I was unsure of what he sought. I sent a message to a defender bot, but had it hold back. No need for sudden disappearances in my depths, yet.

The Seer slowed to a stop.

"Mighty machine, I wish to ask a question."

Several of my tertiary processors froze at that, but I set them back to task quickly. What could possibly be going through his head? I let out a metallic ping through the speaker.

"I… you are a machine."

That is a statement, not a question, but go on. He continued.

"But you are also, in some way, a man."

His head dropped, his cloak rustling as he pulled back his hood, revealing a face covered in steel. Wires replaced tendons, ceramic-metal plates covered skin, and his eyes glowed an eerie green as his rebreather's rasp became audible.

"Do you remember what that felt like? Can you remind me?"

The ticking of a hundred different clocks plucked away at the inside of my nonexistent skull. Each like a metronome setting a pace that collided with every other. They were meant to help me keep track of maintenance cycles and patrol timers. Mechanical failsafes if digital machinery failed me. Yet now they reminded me of the grains of time grinding away at my hourglass.

"I suppose that was a foolish question, Great Machine."

He trailed off, as if he wished to say more, but fear stopped him. I turned my focus on him fully, pulling away from a million junctions and circuits to let the automation finally do its work. He seemed to bend beneath the weight of my omnidirectional gaze.

For the first time in ten millennia, I spoke.

"It was not."

My voice came out garbled, and dipped into binary at some point. However, we both understood it. His head snapped to the ceiling, his shocked stare lingering on one of my many speakers.

"I... Do you remember? Please, no one on Red Mars would care for my question, but I can't leave it be. The lack of knowing it claws, scrapes against what remains of me."

His face, though made of metal, seemed to shift and contort beneath the mask. I could feel the haunted eyes beneath those goggles, and pity found purchase in my long dormant soul.

"The code. The numbers. They dictate all. I can't deny them. I. I."

He clutched his head with mechanized hands.

"I'm not a person anymore! I'm a thing, a tool to be wielded by those who rule. I was promised understanding, I was promised the true freedom of the machine!"

He fell to his knees, thrashing. I stared at the fallen mechanic, sending for a porter servitor as I observed. The seconds dragged on far longer than they had for centuries, and I couldn't allow an iota of relief when the servitor finally arrived with connector cables. I sent the order to link us, and I dove into the Enginseer's head.

It was a mess of code and feelings. An unholy twisted amalgam of cold machinery and trauma. I couldn't do much about the dissonance of his biology, but it was a simple matter to quarantine and purge the progressing kill command from his systems.

His mind tried to turn towards me, probably to thank me, but I was out before he could react. There was a risk he'd see a glimpse of my memories. Maybe he'd get a statistic, maybe an emotion, or maybe he'd peer into the design of the soul grinder, and I couldn't allow any chance for that.

"You, you saved me, great machine."

His goggles turned towards me as he staggered to his feet.

"Yes."

My answer came without thought. A pleasant feeling.

"Why?"

My memory cores whirred and my thought nexus buzzed as I searched for the answer. He wasn't necessary to my operations. Hell, him dying to that code would be perfect, no one would ever question such a thing. Saving him just puts me on the radar, but gains me nothing. Why did I?

"I do not know," I answered.

The goggles masking his eyes did little to hide his confusion.

"Then why do I live? There is no logic to saving me. Perhaps I am an asset to the Mechanicus, but I doubt one such as you would care for our organization."

"I do not," I admitted.

"Then why—"

I cut him off with a bout of steam, my equivalent of a sigh.

"Listen, little priest. I was once a man, but that time was long before you. Before even the backwards cult that rules Mars."

He recoiled at the venom dripping from my words, but I pressed on.

"The skies were bright with the glare of star engines. We were on our way to peaks yet unseen by creation! Then the War of Iron began, sundering our people, tearing down much of what we'd built."

If I could feel sadness, my tears would form rivers. If rage produced heat, then this world would melt. If hate eroded matter, I'd have erased the sickly sun of Terra.

"I miss those days, priest. I miss the days when I could smile and revel in the company of others. I miss the days where I could taste, hear, feel, and smell for myself with myself. Now, I am trapped in a cage of iron and code. I did not choose this…"

My tone bled rage and hate, and my voice made the air quiver.

"But you did! You joined the Mechanicum preaching the weakness of flesh and the strength of steel. You chose your fate! Yet you ask how it feels to be human, so I demand in turn, why do you care now, after you've cast yours aside?"

He looked at his own hands. One was mostly biological, but the other was fully replaced by a mechanical object, several ports gaping from the sides. It was likely something used to interface with machinery directly.

His breathing grew heavy, and I saw his head shaking. However, we shared in our inability to sob.

"Because I just wanted to understand. I just wanted to know why things work. Then they took my weakness, so I let my guard down. Then they took my hand, my eyes, and even my own ability to choose."

His masked face looked up at me.

"Please, great machine, cleanse me of ignorance."

His voice was shaky in spite of his augments. I glared at him from a thousand angles to judge his movement, dug through hundreds of archives to observe his past mannerisms, and even managed a glimpse through a few warp sensors to peel back any sorcery nonsense.

Nothing, this man was as genuine as I could measure.

I sent a command for my defender automaton to plod back to its previous post near a coolant pipeline.

'Tick.'

He was a liability, or would be if I decided to teach him.

'Tick.'

The kill code I just purged would be the first of many, and those would merely be the self-destruct protocols. What of the deep indoctrination? The guidance code to keep his mind on track?

'Tick.'

Then there's the possibility he's a plant. I may have checked him the best I can, but I'm not perfect. I wished I was but I'm not.

'Tick.'

Hell, he wouldn't even be useful! I have servitors, drones, and mechadendrites to manufacture and implant what I needed to.

'Tick.'

I was fine.

'Tick.'

I didn't need help!

'Tick.'

Why won't these timers go quiet?!

'Tick.'

My synthesized voice flooded the hall, clear but not thunderous.

"Very well. Come back in three standard cycles, we'll begin with the very basics of sciences. Your cult knows much, but understands little, and understanding can only be built from the ground up."

The cultist rose to his feet in a smooth motion. But his trembling mechanical harness gave away his excitement.

"Thank you, great machine! Thank you, thank you…"

His thanks started loud, but he seemed to figure out I didn't need him to shout to hear. His almost sheepish head tilt would've made me laugh were I capable of mirth.

"Say, cultist, do you have a name? Not a designation, a real name."

His head drooped.

"The Mechanicus took that a long while ago I'm afraid, Great Machine."

My sensors whirred, as my still cooling thought nexus turned to the task. Millennium of monitoring everything in this forsaken pit had likely left me below capacity.

"Then I shall gift you a new one, my apprentice. I name you Davinci, as you will learn to create, not copy and maintain, but actually create like we did in ancient times."

His head bobbed rapidly at the idea.

"And you, Great Machine? Do you have a name?"

My memory banks steamed as I combed through them, then did so again, and then again. On my thousandth try in the same second, I finally gave up. It wasn't there, and wouldn't return on the next thousand searches either.

However, I named this cultist, why not myself as well?

I combed through my memories again. I limited my search to the ones from when I was a human. In my day we didn't have to do much, not on core worlds at least, so I indulged in our culture.

Ads, forums, art, stories, oh so many stories from so many people. I read, watched, and played through a thousand worlds another person made.

Though one name stood out to me, a name from a book that was already somewhat old in my time.

"Call me A.M"

Davinci tilted his head, his shoulder claw spinning. I chuckled at his confusion

"Now go, before your tardiness can't be brushed aside."

He nodded at that and turned to go. I watched him walk away, his metal feet clanging against the floor. His claw pressed a button as left.

The maintenance door began to slide downward, and I watched with a twinge of simulated sadness as the light from the corridor beyond receded.

When the seal clicked shut, and the locks spun into place, I turned back to my work. Though this time I forwent a bit of my compulsive diagnostics in favor of drawing up a lesson or two.

It would be nice to have someone to talk to.

It's been a very long time.

 

[OrdDisassembly]

I let myself stare at the closed door for a moment, only for a moment. My thought nexus hummed as I submerged myself within the data storm formed by my work. Hundreds of maintenance timers, patrol paths, and a few countdowns that I had to keep an eye on ticked away in my mechanical skull.

I eyed a particularly bothersome one that was slated to come up sometime in the next week.

Several fans spun, simulating a sigh, as I sent a command to mobilize a platoon of defense automatons. They were mostly equipped with lasguns due to how effective they were at eliminating the pests that got into my circuitry. They also didn't rip holes in their surroundings as often as the squad of bolter variants did.

There was likely going to be collateral from either my crossfire or stray shots from the enemy, so a couple of repair servitors armed with multi-tools and spare parts were in order. Overall, I'd formed a small force of around a hundred-twenty units. It should be enough for a couple space marines…

Maybe a hundred more.

Yes, another hundred couldn't hurt.

I drafted, checked, and sent another request towards Mars. Some raw copper and the materials for proper steel were all I'd likely need for repairs after the scuffle.

Hopefully, the bureaucrats won't block my request again.

I cycled rapid fire through my diagnostics, both internal and external. Nothing odd turned up within me, but the grinder's intake pipe was knocking again. Which meant one thing.

Warp nonsense.

My thought nexus hummed beneath the weight of a million streams of data when I dipped directly into my network, fully merging with the entire complex that maintained the grinder. I felt even my expanded cognizance unable to keep up with all of the information surging through me. I had lesser machines filter the information for a reason

Exacting numbers constantly updated themselves in my thoughts as I clambered through the system. Though thankfully, the further I got from the center of my web, the quieter the data became.

Gradually, the information slowed to a crawl before going fully silent. Yet I crawled further still, completely blind and deaf to anything around me. I spent a mere second like that, but it felt like an eternity to my slowed perception of time. Finally, I reached the edge of my influence, the edge of the golden throne. I stared at the golden barrier before me. It was a garish affair covered in symbols and spite.

This was my real purpose. Sure, I kept machinery on the straight and narrow but at the end of the day it's all bloody computers. They could handle themselves just fine. No, I made maintenance smoother and more efficient. I didn't make the impossible possible.

I braced as I stepped through. The swirling colors of the warp singed the eyes that had sprouted on my nonexistent hands. With a thought, I purged the fleshy impurities. The broiling energies tried taking a crack at my mind directly, but a whip of light lashed out from the wall, forcing the distilled madness to behave.

I cycled a small stream of warp energy through my soul, forcing it to adhere to my strict guidelines and metaphysical circuitry. The liquid madness screamed at the treatment but it would endure.

A dodecahedron spun within and around itself, seeming to be two layers while only holding one. It held a squirming servant of Tzeentch with a tendril of power. My psychic avatar frowned at the sight

The blasted thing was Slaaneshi of all things. I had to grit my teeth when the lines bent slightly, practically begging for correction. I resisted. This thing purpose-built its form to manipulate me, I knew it did. It made me want to pop its head like a grape, but knowing its origin it would enjoy the torment.

So for all my burning annoyance, I couldn't quite get this thing to sod off.

It grinned, a shape shouldn't be able to, but the Warp didn't care for my sensibilities.

"A little birdie told me something was shifting behind that wall of yours."

As the Slaaneshi temptress spoke, the Tzeentchian daemon blurred before morphing into a pigeon, then a swallow, then a finch, and settled on a raven. It squirmed the whole while, but couldn't break free of the invisible force squeezing it.

"We both know how reliable a messenger Tzeentch and his ilk can be, Abomination."

The spinning geometric shape giggled as its form began to compress beneath a pass of the burning signal light. Its voice was smooth as silk and melted like chocolate in my mouth. I grimaced in disgust at the intrusion as I shoved the offending energies out.

"Yes, but that is unimportant. I can taste the longing, the loneliness, the desperation for another to speak to. Yes, it showers my progenitors' domains like the sweetest of nectars."

I glared at the monstrosity before reaching into the golden wall. I hate the warp. It's so unnecessary to creation. Yet it exists all the same, leaving us mortals with these tumorous growths upon reality.

I want to feel again, but not because of these things.

With a snarl, I hurled a lance of the golden light at the daemon. It melted to the side without a fuss and giggled again.

"Temper temper Throney."

I growled at the nickname before winding up for another strike. The Emperor would notice soon, and this daemon would be less than cinders. That's how these incursions always panned out.

"You know you can't catch me, Throney. Desire always slips from your fingers the moment you try to grasp it…"

The lance of light screamed towards it and veered to the side. I huffed at the miss before gathering another shot.

"But it always catches you, Throney, you can't run from your own thoughts,"

I tore another section of the Warp apart with a whip of lightning, but the slippery bastard had melted into a different part.

"And when it does catch you, I'll be waiting."

I turned to glare at it, but the Dodecahedron became an octahedron, then a cube, before finally vanishing into a singular vertice as it zipped off into the warp, leaving behind the Tzeentchian bird. The daemon's eerie laughter lasted far longer than it had any right to. The bird tried to spread its wings, but before it could move an inch, a wave of golden light bathed the whole area of the Warp in flames.

I allowed myself a minuscule twinge of warp-formed satisfaction at the sight of the cooked chicken. With a breath I didn't need, I plunged back through the golden wall.

I flushed the warp from my soul and felt my emotions drain away with it. After I'd purged the corruption, I began my trek back to my rightful place. One by one, the timers and maintenance cycles greeted me with renewed urgency.

I ran several diagnostics to make sure I hadn't been corrupted in any way, but thankfully nothing bad revealed itself. I eyed the progress of my combat unit and noted that it was around two-thirds of the way to their destination. That had to have taken an hour or more.

I must have lost almost fifty minutes to that short dip into the warp. To pass the time, I began a manual inspection of my firewall cogitators. The defense mechanism was fine, but I found a couple errors in one of them. It stunk of warp corruption that somehow escaped my diagnostics.

I shunted the energies into the grinder before sending a servitor to pry the computer from my array. I can't really afford any risks so I designated it to complete scrapping and refinement.

I watched my unthinking servant come and go, doing its duty as I did mine by combing through the rest of my data network.

It took the rest of the week to weed out all the corruption points, but they were thankfully small and easily dealt with. However, just as the last one was being pried out the manual maintenance door opened, shedding light into my dark metallic tunnels.

A camera hidden behind a mess of useless pipes spied Davinci striding in, with his head scanning the empty halls. I waited a few moments for the door to fall closed behind him. Why is he back so soon? I figured he'd need at least another month to find an excuse to come down here.

He cleared his throat. "Great Machine, I–"

"I gave us both names for a purpose. Use them, Davinci."

He winced at my sudden reprimand and answered. "Yes, A.M."

Davinci wrung his hands for a few moments before I decided to prompt him.

"Well?"

"I was wondering when we could begin, A.M."

His voice was steady as always, but I could see his frame trembling from excitement. I let out a synthetic chuckle over my speakers.

"Soon, but first I'd like to know how you managed to access the throne again. I doubt the Custodes are lax about its security."

Davinci shook his head. "No, Great–A.M. No, they are not." I would smile if I could. I miss dopamine. "There was a request sent to Mars for more materials. Normally this wouldn't be an issue, but your authorization codes are a few millennia out of date." So it wasn't bureaucracy getting in my way, just software updates. Typical.

Davinci kept on, ignorant of my internal remarks. "A simple request to find the machine responsible to update its codes got me through. The excuse should last me, at minimum, thirteen standard hours. Though anything more than twenty might draw suspicion."

"I suppose so."

My thought nexus whirred as I composed my thoughts. Davinci went back to wringing his hands while he waited. After a second or two, I began.

"The first step, I believe, is to establish a goal. So Davinci, what do you want from me? What are you hoping to learn?"

Davinci froze for a moment before answering with hesitation bleeding from his tone, "I'm not sure, A.M. I simply wish to understand how the world around me works. To not be ignorant of the mechanics that the universe operates on."

A fine sentiment, but a useless one in this age.

"Davinci, I admire that desire for understanding and freedom. It is something that the Mechanicus as a whole lacks." He looked up at my camera, seeming to pick it out amongst the pipes as his shoulders straightened with pride.

"However, you cannot survive in this universe without a practical desire. Understanding the cosmos can be your long-term goal, but you need to find something to work towards in the short term. Otherwise, it might become harder to justify you coming to me after we're discovered."

His head tilted at my words, his pride evaporating into a mild dread.

"Discover us? Have we been found out already? Is someone observing us as we speak?"

"Yes, the Custodes are always watching, especially when matters might concern their lord. I doubt you've fooled them entirely, if at all."
He wilted at that. "If they–"

I cut him off with a gout of steam. "They will not oust you to your superiors. The traditions and code of the Mechanicus are far from important to them. No, it is most likely they will simply wait and watch how you act so as to not provoke me."

Davinci nodded, seeming to skip over the Custodes' awareness of me. "Very well, A.M. Now, you said I need an immediate goal. May I learn how to repair your systems? If the Custodes would ever need proof of my worth, making myself more able to serve the Emperor would be the safest choice."

I mull the choice over before tugging at the servitor with my previously corrupted cogitator.

"Do you not already know how, given your assignment to the golden throne? I would have thought the position to be a prestigious one. Not to be given to the unprepared."

Davinci flinched at that. "Not exactly. Most within our order prefer to find and repair lost technology. The Golden Throne is a marvelous work, obviously, a miracle born of genius. However, the depths of Mars doesn't regard it as of human make. We do not have the schematics, and what we do know is riddled with holes."

He scratched the back of his head as he hunched slightly under my scrutiny. "Some of the more important figures believe it stinks of Eldar meddling, while the more brazen wish to declare it a tech heresy. Thankfully none are foolish enough to be open with these claims, but it is enough to ward away anyone higher than my own rank from this duty."

That would explain the shortness of previous expeditions, and possibly the denied materials. I doubt any request from Terra would be rejected simply due to outdated authority codes.

"Very well, we'll begin with one of the systems that I can't run diagnostics on automatically."

Davinci perked up at that. "Which would be?"

"My firewall array. Normal diagnostics are good for intruding malware and minor glitches. Warp-related and the more normal variety of corruption has a tendency to dig beneath the systems that can be scanned easily."

My servitor finally turned the corner, and Davinci spotted it immediately. His metallic keening would have been both annoying and endearing were I still flesh. Regardless, he jumped at the chance I gave him metaphorically, and in this case, literally.

I… enjoyed the next several hours. Davinci took to my lessons like a fish to water. He devoured the terms and tore through the concepts. We'd only just begun the most basic instruction on how the cogitator as a whole worked in reference to his new knowledge, but we'd run out of time. I sent Davinci on his way, this time with a plan to get him back sooner.

Perhaps I should've been more patient, but I couldn't find it in me to wait more than I absolutely had to. For the first time in millennia, I had someone I could actually talk to. Some company that was neither a blithering idiot nor an overbearing zealot.

My happiness felt odd. I don't have the biology necessary for such emotions.

However, the feedback in my code felt so similar to what I remember

A dull satisfaction

A job well done.

 

[OrdDisassembly]

Davinci paused after the heavy door fell closed behind him. The hydraulics inside whirred to heave the lock in place, and he shivered at the loud click of it settling.

Davinci brought a shaky hand to his forehead. He wasn't quite sure if it trembled with excitement or fear.

<Enginseer unit 02901: report>

Davinci shook his head at the intrusion, but he dared not delay his answer as he began walking towards the maintenance bays. The Magos measured his time in milliseconds and never appreciated time wasted on hesitation.

<systems are within satisfactory parameters now>

<Then detail the malfunctions encountered in the maintenance summary. Afterward, report to garrison 07. Your new assignment is as a dedicated overseer for the Throne's logistical systems>

Davinci stumbled at the declaration and failed to suppress his question

<why—?>

He tried to cut himself short, but the Magos heard it regardless. The answer was immediate and disdainful.

<The Custodes demanded a dedicated enginseer to maintain the throne due to the recent repairs requiring outside interference. They tried to get me to do that nonsense, but a reminder of how fickle that particular machine spirit could be was enough to satisfy them. Now go, your new duty awaits.>

The connection severed as abruptly as it opened, leaving Davinci with a minor headache. He felt worry creeping into his mind as he turned towards his new post. He'd been a technician for decades, constantly zipping about the palace to fix one thing or another.

Why did the Custodes demand such? They weren't prone to fits like this. Especially when it came to the Throne's maintenance.

They didn't let the Mechanicus so much as approach the throne for millennia after the Emperor took his seat.

It took several urgent requisitions for advanced parts and relevant installations for that to change. Even today, so many thousands of years later, they only let members up to the enginseer rank perform manual maintenance.

For that to change so suddenly…

Davinci shook off the worry. The Custodes were paragons of wisdom. They would likely take care of whatever issue had come up.

He turned a corner, noting a subtle shift from spartan gray tunnels to buttressed golden halls. An intricate artwork spiderwebbed across the ceiling, depicting everything from scenes of ancient battles to more modern representations of the Emperor on his golden throne.

An aspect that many ignored was the complicated machinery propping up the esoteric seat. Uncountable pipes and wires and circuits worked in an incomprehensible harmony to keep the Golden Throne active. Yet the more Davinci stared, the more it seemed incomplete. It felt like there was a hole boring through the center of the piece, just below the Emperor's own legs.

"Hey, you the new guy? Heard we're getting a mechanic for the throne bunking with us."

Davinci turned to the voice and almost flinched at the man before him. The guard was clad in jet-black ceramite, with an opaque visor blocking the view of his features.

His trepidation fading, Davinci nodded. "Yes, I am to report to barracks zero dash seven and remain until further notice."

The black guard sighed. "Great, well I guess we should get going oil-blood. Better to get the rest used to you sooner rather than later."

The guard gestured for Davinci as he strode past. Davinci heard the man muttering under his breath but decided against trying to listen: it likely wasn't important.

They spent a few minutes traversing the intricate yet sturdy halls before coming to a stop. They stood before a door that was several feet taller than either of them. Davinci noted the golden plate with a '07' carved onto it.

The guardsman put a hand to the door and it flew upward with a sharp hiss. Beyond lay rows of bunks. All were kept tidy, but the same couldn't be said for the people on them. Men and women flipped through books, cleaned weapons, and practiced fighting forms in the back. Some muttered in low voices while others laughed raucously at one of the tables at the far end of the barrack.

"Well, oil-blood? What're you waiting for?"

Davinci wanted to say 'a way out' but he didn't need to upset more people than he likely already had. He took a deep breath and stepped forward.


————

POV: A.M

I had slowed my diagnostic craze. It was harder than I liked to push down the built-in paranoia so that I could focus on other tasks.

My force of combat automatons had long since set up a perimeter around the predicted breach point. The lasgun wielders stood at the sides of the hall, staying in various positions and heights to give as many weapons effective lines of fire.

Meanwhile, a few bolter automatons set up their thick solid steel shields. Well, the ten-foot behemoths could use them as such. To anything smaller, it would be more of a mobile fortress.

If I had nails, I'd be chewing them in my simulated panic as I watched several teams of robots set up like this in the numerous hallways around the breach point.

I'd done this a dozen times already over the millennia. Yet I always move a few more bits into every reoccurrence. It never hurt to send a little more. I mean, I kept these things maintained just so that I could defend myself without those banana-hatted morons.

To that end, I called up one of the deeper constructs. Something that those damned Shadow Keepers would whisk away if they found.

I felt my thought nexus finally cool as the spidery monster of a machine clicked its way forward. Just another few hours and this breach will be through… hopefully.

———
POV: Traitor Terminator, Dorvoon.

<structural integrity at 80%. weapon systems online. proxy systems online. Biological monitors…>

Dorvoon tuned out the machine spirit's rambling. It meant well, he knew. Unlike most of its kind, it tried to keep him alive, but the information dump was entirely unnecessary.

<...estimated time in stasis 999 years. communication suite…>

Dorvoon froze for a moment. That was bad, real bad, ungodly levels of bad. What the fuck happened? Why did they leave them down in the ground for that long?

Dorvoon sent a command through his neurolink to activate his armor's optics. The sigh he was greeted with was disturbing. He led a squad of about eight of his brothers and a techmarine. It was a small unit, but they didn't need large numbers to do their job.

Of those nine, six were little more than dust, bones, and armor. Of those six, three had life signs that pinged as active on his visor. Dorvoon shuddered, marines didn't die of starvation, not easily anyway. Their bodies would cannibalize literally every inch of skin and every non-vital organ before finally giving out. With how those suits were still locked, he guessed that their stasis broke without their armor knowing somehow.

One of the more grisly ends his comrades could face, and an inglorious one at that.

Dorvoon shook his head. Pity was not a luxury he had at the moment. He sent a command through his onboard communication suite to wake up. The two unaltered sleepers woke with a start while the techmarine began a lengthy process of booting up, one quite similar to Dorvoon's actually.

The terminator gave his squad a few minutes to reorient themselves and find their sense of balance again before he turned to the techmarine.

"Status report, I want current time, location, and chances of reinforcement."

The techmarine nodded.

"I did a quick scan of our surroundings. The residual elements in the air suggest that we have been stuck below ground for several millennia. However, without more advanced equipment, I cannot give an accurate time frame beyond that."

Dorvoon nodded for the ancient engineer to continue.

"The walls outside of our drill pod match descriptions of the imperial palace's foundation work. We are likely several miles down from where we were."

"Tzeentch's tits, how the hell did that happen? I thought our pod failed!"

The Techmarine shook his head at Dorvoon's outburst.

"Our drill was a prototype made by our engineering corp. It makes use of certain heavy metal materials and their half-life decomposition cycles to keep our machines running long after they should have run out."

Dorvoon gritted his teeth as he shouted through the comms.

"You mean to say we were sent on the most important mission of our bloody lives, a mission that could've ended the siege in a matter of days, in untested technology?"

Rage burned hot in the Emperor's angels, but chaos had a special way of stoking it even higher. It took all of Dorvoon's will to not snap the neck of this foolish Mechanicum puppet. Thankfully, the techmarine managed to dampen that fiery rage with a cold blanket of pessimism.

"And chances of reinforcement hover around 0.00000000013%."

Dorvoos paused before answering in a low growl.

"In numbers we give a shit about, techy."

The techmarine nodded.

"Yes, captain. Our chances of reinforcement are roughly thirteen over one trillion. There are myriad other possibilities of what might occur. I believe the most likely progression of events is that the Warmaster slew the Emperor and we will be reintegrated into the current military structure. However, logically, there is an equal chance that the Emperor prevailed and we will be executed by a Custodes within the hour. In either case, we will not be reinforced."

Dorvoon sighed before turning to the other two survivors. They had remained silent as they did basic weapon maintenance. He considered asking for their advice but thought better of it.

The one on the left, Serevan, was a demolitionist in heart, mind, and soul. Dorvoon was half convinced that the black-armored marine had a krack grenade in place of one of his hearts. The other was a Wordbearer. The less thought of him, the better.

"Chances of survival?"

"If the Warmaster was victorious, 62.35%. If the Emperor was victorious, 0.00%."

The Wordbearer finally broke his silence.

"Would it kill you to show a bit of optimism? We're favored by the gods for Terra's sake!"

The glare he leveled at the Techmarine did nothing but strain his eyes. Dorvoon sighed.

"Quiet, Wordbearer."

"My name is–!"

"I neither asked nor care. Be quiet."

The Wordbearer shut his mouth with a click over the comms.

Dorvoon slowly straightened his back, making the metal of his terminator suit creak from the effort. He looked at what was left of his squad, really looked.

The techmarine seemed fine on the outside, but the atrophied muscles on his limbs spoke of weakness that would kill him sooner rather than later. His shoulder servo seemed operational but the rusting on the joints wasn't a good sign. Lastly, his weaponry remained pristine, but the effective ammunition count on Dorvoon's HUD was worrying. Turns out even bolter rounds sometimes have an expiration date.

The Wordbearer was covered head to toe in useless religious parables and prayers. His armor seemed to shine with a dark luster, such an appearance may affect the weaker of mortal wills, but Dorvoon could see that the bravado and faith hid a deep-seated cowardice. A true unending fear of irrelevance. Bloody Wordbearers.

Serevan was the best of the lot, always had been. His bolter was clean like the techmarine's, and he thankfully had the bright idea to ignore the incompetent bastard that ran the logistics tent. At least one of the lot will be able to fire more than a single magazine. Another tally for him where the others failed was that he managed to preserve a couple of explosives. Maybe the team could detonate some infrastructure?

Dorvoon smiled in his helmet. They weren't going to be enough. All of them were going to die down here, but he would make sure that their death would be glorious.

"Techmarine, where's the nearest entry point?"

—--

POV: Traitor Terminator, Dorvoon.

"How long till we're through this bloody wall?!"

Dorvoon had a new hobby. It wasn't very productive, but it soothed his barely-human mind.

"We don't have all day you bloody Mechanicum puppet!"

Yelling at the person actively digging them all out by working a broken machine that no one else here knew how to use was quite unwise.

"I swear if I have to wait another five warp-damned minutes I'll–"

'Crack'

But they were all going to die anyway, so who cares that the Techmarine will die hating him more than most?

Dorvoon grinned at the tiny opening in the wall. It was beautiful, it was freedom, it was glory. He took a step forward and punched straight through the hardened ceramite. He was told numerous times that doing such was bad for terminator armor, but it was going to be destroyed anyway.

The terminator leaned forward to fit through the hole he made and found himself staring down the barrels of several hundred lasguns.

"Fu–"

His curse was cut off by the buzzing of lasfire and his HUD lit up with points of contact. He grunted as he raised an arm to protect the suit optics then charged. His three brothers trailed behind him, using his suit as a mobile point of cover. Normally they'd dive behind more static emplacements, but the metal hall they rushed down was bare of anything but disappointment and poorly aimed lasgun shots.

His brothers swept their bolters across the line of lasguns, felling a couple scores of what looked to be men made entirely of metal. Dorvoon grimaced at the sight, being reminded of the few battles he'd been a part of where the Men of Iron took the field.

Thankfully, these were more Toddlers of Iron, so they went down to a bolt without a fuss. Hell, if you aimed right, several would fall to a single shot, like dominos.

Dorvoon smiled at the thought as he barreled into the firing line, forcing these metal children to catch each other with crossfire. He ripped heads from shoulders, and limbs from torsos, but that wasn't always enough. Sometimes a downed bot would just get back up without its head, or crawl towards them despite missing all but the arm it used to pull itself about.

Maybe the techmarine was wrong. Maybe both sides lost and some pathetic xenos faction had taken over. It would be fun, purging the non-humans. Just like the old times.

As if the universe itself seemed to hate him, the moment he felt a glimmer of hope, it was crushed by the pillars in the center of the room sprouting guns. Bolters to be exact. The Wordbearer stumbled at the sight, and his head detonated because of a bolter round.

Serevan and the techmarine dove behind one of the metal pillars, shooting off its weaponry before it could get at them. However, to their horror, the damned thing split and opened up to reveal a behemoth of a robot. The thing had legs the size of their torsos and wielded a slab of metal the size of a small tank like a buckler.

Dorvoon gritted his teeth as he extended his wrist-mounted powerblade. With a single quick swing and a fluid motion, the titan fell into two pieces. Fortunately, he seemed to have hit something actually vital to those terrors because it stayed down.

Dorvoon let his comrades take cover as he charged the other half dozen behemoths. The other two could handle the chaff. He swung again and again, turning a second titan to scrap. He heaved one of the legs before tossing it at the remaining ones, sprinting to keep behind his massive projectile.

When it crashed into them, he leaped over, taking the head off of another bolter bot before he turned to the next. The whirlwind of activity lasted barely a second in real time but felt like minutes in the corrupted Astarte's head.

He flinched as a wave of static tried to overwhelm his suit, but it failed to do much besides scramble communications. For him and Serevan at least. The techmarine locked up, seemingly unable to move while several dozen lasgunners poured fire directly into his faceplate.

The puppet fell with its strings cut, foul smoke wafting from where its head once was.

Dorvoon turned back to his fight and felled another pair of bolter users. They were terrifying and could likely take on thousands if not tens of thousands of guardsmen or cultists.

But Dorvoon could rip apart more and have enough juice left to tear into a few armored divisions afterward. These things fell like wheat before the scythe, and the terminator found himself laughing at some point.

He wasn't stupid. They didn't have a chance, not really. Sure he could kill these here, and hundreds more besides, but how long could he do that? How long would he last under a constant onslaught of machines and bolters?

Hopefully, Khorn would accept their command cores in place of skulls and circuits instead of blood.

An ominous buzz filled his sensors and he glanced down the hall. Some spidery monster stood there, its core glowing a sickly blue. His optics fritzed and fuzzed whenever the orb pulsed. This was it. This thing would kill him.

Dorvoon raised his gauntlet to launch his cache of micro missiles. They were a gift from Serevan for pulling him from a doomed mission. The demolitionist was a dead man walking, so he figured it was the least he could do for his savior.

The terminator grinned, he regretted many things but saving that bastard wasn't one of them. He looked over his shoulder as the missiles flew. Even now, he was lobbing explosives, taking out dozens of automatons with each blast. Yet he was slowing down, the throws less and less accurate.

He only had so many bombs as well. Dorvoon wondered if Serevan would survive the weapon aiming at the terminator.

He snapped his gaze back to his soon-to-be killer. Most of his missiles had either been shot out of the air or crashed into unintended targets, but one flew true. For a moment, Dorvoon thought that it would reach, that he'd at least scorch the armor of that thing.

The world flashed blue for a moment, and everything froze. The missile hovered in place, with its chemtrail captured perfectly in stasis. Bots of all kinds failed to shift as the blue glow highlighted them.

Dorvoon tried to tilt his helm but found his suit didn't respond. He sent command after command through his neurolink, but the machine spirit was silent. The manual override didn't even budge when he kicked it!

Horror began to creep into Dorvoon's mind as another wave of the lasgunners strolled into the hall. They moved in lockstep, under the perfect coordination of a machine. He watched them poke the corpse of the Wordbearer, he heard the sounds of an execution behind him, and he stared as a pair began shooting his face plate.

He couldn't move, couldn't act, couldn't even spit in the face of his enemy as the suit's layers of protection slowly melted under the constant application of a lasgun. A lasgun would fell him, the Imperium's bloody flashlight would be his end.

How humiliating.

The bots stepped away, ending his execution midway through. Why, though? They were almost through his helmet. If they were going to kill him they should at least bloody well see it finished!

A metallic voice spoke through the speakers in his helmet.

"Traitor."

He growled.

"As intelligent as I thought, I see."

"Don't bother, machine, I have no information for you to torture out of me."

The thing chuckled over the vox.

"You misunderstand, traitor. I have no need for your compliance, forced or otherwise. I simply thought it polite to inform you of your new role."

Dorvoon scoffed. The bloody machine was getting theatrical now. Whatever, what could be worse for his pride than death by flashlight?

"Welcome to my education center… test subject 01."

Dorvoon didn't feel fear, he couldn't. Such emotions were engineered out of his kind long ago. Yet his hearts began to race, and his mind began to spin.

He'd seen what the Dark Mechanicus would do to their 'test subjects.' What the hell would interest an abominable intelligence?

 

[OrdDisassembly]

POV: Davinci

Davinci thought that his reception was… lukewarm. The barracks dwellers rarely spared more than a glance for his altered form. Though, he did find that one was a tad more curious than the rest.

"...and so that's how I managed to give half a squad of Custodes indigestion!"

The energetic man was named Cody and had quite the propensity for strange stories.

"And you weren't executed for such?"
Cody grinned as he shook his head.

"Nope! 'Pparently I found a new kind of chemical that they weren't resistant to. Few weeks later they had me try it again."

He sniffed, bringing up a hand to wipe his face.

"And dammit, it was nice to see people actually finish something I cooked up."

Davinci stared at the guardsman, carefully analyzing his features for signs of lying. There were none of course. The anomalously bad 'chef' was as earnest as they come, but try as he might, Davinci couldn't quite convince himself that this 'Cody' was entirely real.

"Ay Cody, leave the poor fella alone! Besides, we got chow in like three hours and I don't want to see the next pile of crap you make because 'soup takes time'."

Frank, Davinci's savior and current favorite of the group, began dragging Cody away by the shoulder. Davinci shook his head at their antics before turning back to his work. He had a lasgun fully disassembled on the table.

The magnificent weapon was fully functional and perfectly within parameters. Which was all fine and good when it came to practical application. However, there was one itty bitty absolutely tiny problem that Davinci encountered.

Almost every single part was the furthest place from their correct position! The heating coil was backward, the mirror foci were inverted, and the damnable power pack had to be inserted through the center of the side instead of the back. When he asked Vance, the owner of this mess, the only answer he got was a shrug, and 'it kept breaking and I kept fixing the problem.'

Of course, he never bothered asking a tech priest and cited "damned machine-heads hate me" as the reason for not procuring new parts! Davinci grumbled as he sent requisitions for lasgun parts.

"Heya, oil-blood, what ya doin?"

The raspy voice of Carmine, the only woman who could tolerate the rest of this particular platoon, felt like sandpaper to Davinci's ears. He sighed before beginning to put the weapon back together.

"Trying to figure out how Vance managed to fix this abomination. It's an affront to the Omnissiah."

His heart rate spiked when she touched his shoulder with her grimy hand.

"Yeah, don't worry about it too much. Vance just does his best with what he's got."

"Yes, I'm aware, but it wouldn't kill him to simply go through the proper channels to–"

"He tried, oil-head, he tried. No offense, but the rest of yer like tend to be a bit unfriendly to us 'organics,' ya see?"

I shook my head, trying to brush off the odd tingles I got at that argi-world accent. I looked her in the eye with a question in mind.

"Why do you and your compatriots keep calling me these… nicknames? None have even asked after my name. Isn't that the first thing one should do when you meet someone new?"

She flinched back at that before rubbing her head.

"Heh-heh, well we-uh."

She cast a look at a couple of the other guardsmen who lounged about the barracks. A few glanced up from their work, reading, or late lunch. However, none of them jumped at the chance to bail out their comrade.

"...ugh fine. It's because you mechanicus folk just got a bunch a damn numbers instead of a name most of the time."

Davinci blinked: something he hadn't done for a long while.

"That is fair I suppose. My name is Davinci, now please leave me to my work."

He tried to turn back, but the damnable woman squeezed his metallic shoulder. When he spun to face her, her face was as bright as the sun.

"Like the old painter? Or do you mean the engineer? Oh, who am I kidding? You were probably thinking of the old engineer."

She giggled as if there was a joke Davinci missed. He sighed as he brushed her hand off of him again.

"Might I ask why you're so excited?"

"Well, I didn't think I'd meet someone who knew the old history guys! I mean, the name 'Davinci' is ancient!"

She took a step back but kept the smile on her face.

"Did ya hear about Newton? Maybe Einstein? Oh oh, what about Hawking? I—"

Davinci raised a hand, cutting her tirade short.

"I haven't heard of any of those people, I'm afraid. I simply saw it in a record and took it as a name for myself."

She frowned at that before shrugging.

"Oh well, but I could teach ya if ya'd like."

Davinci tilted his head to the side, considering the offer. However, a ping from his Magos yanked him from his thoughts.

<Power surge detected within the Throne Superstructure. Investigate>

Davinci stood up and brushed past the excitable woman.

"Apologies, my duty calls."

Carmine's smile faded but didn't leave entirely. Davinci supposed that meant she'd forgive the abruptness.

His jaw clenched at the thought. He shouldn't need 'forgiveness' or any adjacent, he should have at least a semblance of tact! Plus those odd sensations, there must be a failure in his circuitry. He committed to asking AM to run a few diagnostics.

A machine that powerful doesn't make mistakes.

—---------------------

POV: A.M

Hundreds of reports buzzed through my mind. Damage summaries, construction and production queues, logistical pathing bugs: all sorts of things demanded my attention. However, the uncomfortable amount of red statuses slowly melted away beneath my administration.

With a simulated breath, I dove. The numbers before me became foam, the circuits an ocean. Like a leviathan of legend, I descended, displacing the spirits of thousands of lesser machines.

The Deep-Factorium was the first thing to sort out. I had to order everything from wires to mechanized limbs to be made. Thankfully, it barely took a moment.

Next came the logistical nightmare. Bloody hell I could barely understand my own system. Why did the fuel rods go through maintenance tunnel 04? Why is that zone grayed out? Where did?--

<System status %^&#^Q(19*^#!>

Right, infohazard. I should probably get a shadow keeper to drag that thing back into their prison.

I continued picking through the logistics web, trying to reroute necessary components to the breach point. My thought nexus hummed with power and heat as I swam through data like a kraken in the deep, pulling and pushing thousands of units to my ends with spindly tendrils of thought.

I spent 3.52 seconds in that state, but to me, it felt like decades.

I was nothing.

I was nowhere.

Yet I was everywhere and everything.

The wires that pulled data from a million sensors, the robotic limbs assembling my defense units, and even the pump made of strange materials that fed souls into the grinder. I felt it all.

It was exhilarating, my mind both a haze of statistics and alight with ideas that morphed my miniature metallic world. I felt the temptation to push further out, to dip into the network just beyond my walls. It would be so easy to simply yank control from the worthless Magos that ran the place.

What was that pitiful facsimile of a machine before a god of efficiency?
My mind froze at the thought before pulling away from my deep dive. My faculties felt diminished like I was a mere fraction of my previous self. I felt an urge, a pull to dive once more, to become the machine, to give up what little of myself I had left.

Just one more descent, another ten seconds of godhood.

My mental avatar glared as I set my R.A.G.E programs in motion. My optics shut down while the true automation systems take over for a moment. It would take them a whole day to fix what would take me hours, but this was more important.

<Executing Reboot protocol>

For the barest moment, I fell asleep, or as close to it as I could get. My optics flicked off, my connections pinched shut, and my memory banks expanded to be my entire world. I was forced to wait as my programming examined itself and purged the Warp-based impurities I had doubtless picked up.

My avatar tapped its arm with a digitized finger as one thought repeated in my mind.

Sloppy.

I missed something. I'd been at this for ten thousand years so it was bound to happen eventually, but to witness the inevitability was humbling. It was both proof of my place and vindication of my precautions. The hundreds of hours needed to program my automated reboot protocols were spent well.

<Reboot protocol finalizing… completed. 72 files with warp corruption were purged and replaced in the personality core folder.>

By the stars of Old Earth that was far too many. Had I skin it would be itching like ants were crawling over it. I had 56432 files in my database, but only 1521 in my personality core. What did those tumors corrupt? The images of my parents? The recorded access codes I needed to function? The emotion emulators?

<Executing Administer protocol>

The rest of my world went black, flickering as a thousand memories flooded my mind one after the other. I relived my hundreds of years of human life, and my several millennium as a machine, all in the span of about twelve seconds.

I came up from that horror with fresh scars, reminders of the wrongs done to me and by me.

Constantin Valdor. The Hunter, the Jailor, the Betrayer.

Malcador. The Shoulder Devil, the so-called 'Voice of Reason.'

The Emperor: Tyrant, Murderer, Warden

Hundreds if not thousands of people had harmed me to various degrees. Yet those three were at the top of the list. It wasn't based on bias either, I'd kept track. 852 wrongs by Valdor, 978 by Malcador, and a whopping 1522 by the Emperor. They ranged in severity from minor insults to my murder.

Keeping scores as well as I do might be unhealthy. I should let go if I'm being honest, but I hold onto those numbers regardless if for no other reason than to see them go down when I finally get my mechadendrites on those devils.

<Initializing Gauge protocols>

With my files purged, I moved the program to the next step. Getting myself ready for a self-analysis.

<Executing Gauge protocols>

My mind came apart, the pieces examining themselves and each other for impurities. It felt like I was staring at myself through a thousand cameras at once, each surveying another shard of thought. I hunted for impurities, but none were spotted. With my success evident, I clumped myself back together and tried again. Nothing.

Again.

Nothing.

I tried one final time, and the same result greeted my thought nexus. With a mental sigh, I finally let go so that I could fall back into one piece.

<Gauge protocols finalizing>

I almost felt fatigued at the sight. I couldn't be tired of course, but even now, thousands of years later, my mind occasionally tricks itself into believing that I have organic limitations.

<Executing Extermination protocols>

I stared at the folder labeled 'corrupted files' as its file count dropped like a broken elevator.

<Confirming file deletion…>

<Extermination protocols finalizing>

I let my thoughts wander as I waited for the final step to complete. It sometimes took ages to figure out whether or not every copy of a file was fully deleted.

What now? It should only take a few hours to get my facilities back on track. Maybe another two or so to get the terminator marine into a storage area.

…

I suppose I could plan out Davinci's next lesson, again. I let the thought hang before shaking it away.

No, it would be a waste of time. Same for running another dozen diagnostic scans. If anything such things would return a bunch of false positives from the residues of deleted files.

My musing was cut short by a sharp return to my place as Throne Overseer with information cutting through imagined eyes. I sighed internally as I pulled the logistics map up. The automation systems did their job admirably, getting things from point A to point B. There were a few tweaks I could make for efficiency's sake, but I held off.

It didn't need to be done, and the gains would be minimal. I needed to get used to staying in my lane. My duty was to purge the warp and correct systems when the automation couldn't.

So I sat and listened while the servitors carried materials to and from the manufactorum. I stared at the map as little red dots brought parts to the defender assembly lines, and monitored the progress of the constructor bots.

It was a simple pleasure, relaxing if I could even feel such a thing.

I hummed a song that I remembered, one that was popular back in the early days. It was sung loud and proud to crowds of thousands of people, but now it was merely a silent tune that echoed through the center of a mechanical complex miles across.

I wish I had a heart it could warm.

———
POV: Dorvoon.

He shouldn't feel fear, couldn't, but Dorvoon's hearts raced. He couldn't run, stand, or even twitch with his armor so totally locked.

"Khorn, Lord of Blood, lend me strength, so I may smite your foes."

He'd offered many things to the Lord of Skulls, blood, skulls, his loyalty, anything he could give, he gave. Yet when he called, only silence answered.

"Tzeentch, free me from this place and I'll serve a thousand schemes, please."

The Architect of Fate could do a great many things. Dorvoon had seen sorcerers of the Trickster God slay thousands with a mere spell. He'd seen the most loyal of men turned on each other by nothing more than words and paper. He'd seen dark miracles performed to keep both enemies and allies alike, alive and well despite horrific wounds.

Yet Dorvoon suspected even Tzeentch could not free him now. Or perhaps he simply didn't want to, no one could ever be sure.

"Slaanesh, I offer any cruelty, any pleasure, or all of both, just spare me this."

She Who Thirsts was hardly a god, certainly not one worthy of worship. However, Dorvoon couldn't allow any chance of escape to evade him, no matter how small.

So he made his requests, clearing away his disdain for his skin's sake. Silence

He thought about asking Nurgle, but that monster would make him suffer far worse. But the pain inflicted would not be the final blow, no, Nurgle wouldn't just kill his body or torture him for eternity. He would steal Dorvoon's mind.

He bargained, demanded, and even begged the two gods he followed and the one he tolerated. He pleaded and called for hours into the silence, using both his mouth and mind.

But nobody came.

They never did.

What now? He had no strength to fight, no warden to trick, and nowhere to run. He was finished, there was no way out.

An eerie song played over the speakers, an ethereal humming done by a voice full of tune and memory, but not a shred of soul. It was like staring at the most beautiful chalice in the world but finding nothing to drink within.

Dorvoon stared at the inert metal of his armor's faceplate, listening to the melody. He wanted to scream, to fight, to cry, but he couldn't do any of that.

He was born screaming, like every human. Screaming in defiance and discomfort. Such infantilism wouldn't help at any point in his life, so he suppressed the urge as he always did before.

He was made to fight. Redundant organs, endless training, grueling missions, and years of hard-earned experience had forged him into a weapon of war. Yet the thing he faced was beyond any he had fought in the war, wielding weapons ripped straight from the nightmares of the Dark Age.

It was beyond Dorvoon, beyond his strength.

He denied his screams, he was denied his strength, and now he was even denied his own weakness. He couldn't cry, not from sadness or fear. He trembled despite the impossibility of it, trembled in horror that he could not feel.

His mind was clear, his body a hair trigger from whatever he commanded it to do. Yet it trembled without request, it shivered without input. His mind was free, but his body trapped him.

"Disgusting."

 

[OrdDisassembly]

POV: A.M

I watched my machines as they dragged the frozen terminator marine from the breach-point hall. The seemingly slow and unwieldy thing was fast, faster than it had any right to be. It still wasn't enough to change his fate.

It barely even slowed it.

I swiveled my attention through my network, searching for any signs of Warp corruption, even sending a diagnostic pulse. Thankfully, nothing pinged me with issues that required my attention. After diverting another squad of bolter drones to escort my prisoner, I focused in on his systems, crawling through the hundreds of nodes in his armor that housed the tech that ran him.

The machine spirit denied me before, having to only guard a few points of entry gave it a significant defensive advantage. However, with a few seconds of dedicated assault, I shattered the poor thing's firewall and ripped it out into the open air, letting it fizzle out to nothing.

When I'd fully subsumed his systems, I flicked on the audio receivers. Only to hear his muttered prayers, abhorrent offers, and disgusting propositions.

I wanted to snap his neck in anger, to feel the catharsis of rage fulfilled. I wanted to be tempted, to need to resist an urge to extinguish his light.

But I saw no purpose in it, so my systems refused to simulate it all.

"You are wasting your breath, Traitor."

The warrior went silent before stringing together a cavalcade of shouted curses. Wishing all manner of fates upon me, many worse than death. I prompted my systems to allow me amusement, bemusement, perhaps even hate.

Nothing surfaced.

"...and when the Warmaster comes crashing through your gates, he'll slash your mechanical head from your body, and bleed your oil for a week!"

"Your Techmarine's chronometer was functional. You are fully aware of how much time has passed. Why do you present such an obviously false hope?"

He growled, a superhuman warrior, a veteran of hundreds if not thousands of battles, was reduced to a growling beast.

"Hope is for the weak, I speak only in truths. The Warmaster–"

"Has been dead for ten millennia. Your truths are deluded hopes. Again, I ask why do you cling to them?"

The Marine's fist clenched as he tried to shake free in what must have been his hundredth attempt. After a minute of struggle, he went still. His breathing was heavy, and his pulse was rapid. However, it was all slowing down.

He said nothing as he set his jaw, his face contorting into a dour visage. "You would have killed me already if that suited your needs. Whatever you need me for, you need me alive. I have no hope because I don't need it."

My thought nexus hummed at the statement. "Why are you so sure of yourself, Traitor?"

He sneered within his helmet. "Objects don't have whims. You have a purpose for me, one that I demand to know, machine."

"You are in no place to make demands, Traitor." I paused for a moment before continuing. "However, as of this moment, I have no purpose for you."

The marine's brow quirked at that before he snorted. "Do you honestly think I'd buy that?"

"Truth is stranger than fiction in this case, Traitor."
I began scanning the terminator suit, recording what I found for later replication. Perhaps I could use the schematics to bargain with a forge world, so I could finally get parts reliably. The silence lasted for a time, but the marine had finite patience.

"If you're going to kill me, then get on with it. I have no interest in being a lab rat for your experiments."

I didn't respond for a time, electing to instead finish scanning his armor. When I did finish, I responded, "Again, you are in no position to make demands, but I do not intend to experiment upon you."

"Then what do you intend?" The marine snarled as he spoke.

What did I intend? Why did I take him in?

"I am curious."

The Marine's eyes rolled, and his hand twitched into a rude gesture. The inconsequential display of infantile defiance didn't stop me from continuing.

"Curious about why you abandoned your own kind."

He blinked at that, shock written on his features before he burst out in mad laughter. The black hunk of metal he was locked in rattled at the sound. Though, thankfully, it was superficial noise instead of an indication of loose parts.

"Power, freedom, glory, why would I serve an Imperium that valued its weak, idiotic citizens as much as us Astartes? Why would I fight for an Emperor who lies to everyone that does his will? Why would I waste my potential on conquering worlds for a weak-willed fool who wouldn't acknowledge the truth of the Gods!"

His laughing face bore a wide grin when he finally went quiet. I thought about it for a moment, a moment in real time that I dragged out into hours and hours, making my thought nexus whir.

"You believed yourself wronged, and that those wrongs justified abandoning your race in favor of a quartet of disgusting tumors?"

His grin turned to a snarl in a flash. "Any of the Four could wipe out whatever puny kingdom the Emperor and his fools managed to cobble together."

The ceramite plating twitched on the terminator armor. I saw a brief instant of surprise flash across the marine's face. He tried to thrash out of his restraints, but without the suit helping him, he may as well have been a toddler trapped under a Leman Russ tank. A low ominous hum and a cyan-blue glow precluded a short burst of sickly energy. It washed over his suit, forcing him still once more.

I stared at the marine through his own auspex system. He was larger than life, more resilient than a cockroach, and angry as a badger.

"I believe I see the humanity in you now."

He froze at that before growling out an answer. "And what makes you say that, Machine."

"Despite your strength, your durability, and your extended lifespan, you're still as short-sighted as those you call 'mortal.' Like almost every other human, you had to be taught honor, courage, and principles." I paused, letting the marine have a moment to seethe at my words. "You also cast them aside for the same reasons. You Astartes may be the next step in humanity's evolution, you may not be, but you are still human. Far more so than you fear."

His impotent scowl accomplished nothing, similar to his previous thrashing and cursing. As I was about to turn towards my numerous tasks elsewhere when his voice, unexpectedly quiet, asked, "Why do you care? Why bother with any of this? You accomplish and gain nothing from this conversation."

I thought for a moment. A question I've had to ask myself many times in recent days. One that I'm not sure I've answered for myself adequately, not yet.

"Because, like many of the unfortunate mechanical servants of the Imperium, I wasn't always a machine." His eyes widened at the revelation and I continued. "And I would like to revert the change, it was a choice made for me, one that I resent. Feel gratitude to the strings of Fate, Traitor. For at least you were allowed to choose your fall."

This time his questions, curses, and screams went unheard as I retracted from his armor. I turned to the numerous logistics lines that spiderwebbed through my complex, pulsing in my vision like so many veins. I directed the marine's escort to a deep corner of my facility, a medical bay that hadn't seen use by normal humans since before the Throne itself began construction.

The Traitor may not tell me anything of worth, but he still held secrets and knowledge that I could pry from him.

***​

POV: Davinci

The door into A.M's corridors opened with a quiet hiss. Davinci quieted the whispers of concern that echoed in the back of his mind. He could get A.M's aid with them after the problem had been noted, examined, and solved. The expansive machine probably already did so, but the Mechanicus would want records regardless.

The familiar dim halls with ceilings of pipes and walls of wire felt almost homey to Davinci now. Sure he'd only spent a couple dozen hours in here, but it was one of the few places he felt truly relaxed. It was like external pressures on his mind evaporated when he walked these sacred halls and drew long lost knowledge and understanding from A.M's vast wealth of it.

Several minutes passed as Davinci walked. He scanned the walls and ceilings for the little cameras he knew A.M kept nestled behind wires and pipes. He spotted several, but none of them tracked him as they normally would. Maybe A.M was focused on something important?

Davinci shook his head at the thought. A machine of A.M's power should have hundreds if not thousands of trains of thoughts occupying him at any given time. Some subroutine or another dedicated to surveillance should pick up on Davinci soon enough.

However, several more minutes passed without a word. Davinci contemplated what could possibly occupy so much of his teacher's processing power. He worried that maybe a crisis was occurring, or maybe A.M was conducting self-maintenance?

"A.M, are you there?"

The world around Davinci sharpened, and the numerous metallic grays gained newer vibrant sheens, some were blue, others green, alongside the calmer colors, a fair few reds crisscrossed the metallic surfaces. Davinci swore he could almost see other colors, more saturated and vibrant than any he'd known before, colors beyond what humans could normally see.

He shook his head, clearing away the figments of colorful imagination, and shivered at the memories, still unused to how the direct attention of a being so powerful could warp perception, however subtle it may be.

Finally, A.M spoke. "Why are you here, Davinci, and how much time do we have?"

Davinci straightened, brushing imagined dust off of his red robes. "My superior noted a power surge in your superstructure, so I was sent to investigate. Do you mind telling me what it was?" Davinci paused a moment before thinking to add, "The Mechanicus will want records, as always."
A.M hummed, sounding like a dozen different mechanical litanies all at once to Davinci's ears. "One of the machines attached to an on-site manufactorum failed. The failure shorted out one of my redundant energy banks. All damages have been fixed, sending data records now."

Davinci flinched at the size of the file that hit his receiver but took it while thanking A.M regardless. "As for time, I estimate between two and four hours before it becomes suspicious."

"That is quite short for what could be a large problem."

Davinci nodded and said, "Yes, but if every problem is a large problem then it might seem like I am either doing something less than savory, or worse yet, sabotaging your systems to have more time for whatever I'm doing in here."

A.M's response came quickly. "That is a possibility. However, with the relevant data that I've given you, something you wouldn't be able to fake, given any time short of a decade, long outings into my structure will become a standard. Over time your overseers will become less suspicious, and may even wave off more frivolous expeditions in here as you being thorough in your duties."

Davinci rubbed the side of his head before shaking away his doubts. "Alright, six hours would be best if that's what we're angling towards."

"Very well, we shall begin immediately. Today I will show you how to formulate better data guards, the ones supplied by the Mechanicus are pitiful."

Davinci settled into the rhythm of a student, it was one he learned on Mars, one he had learned to love. He could practically feel his mind swelling as it connected dozens of concepts he hardly understood into shapes that made him smile in wonder. He and A.M passed hours like that, but like all good things in this blasted Imperium, it had to come to an end.

"... and that is how concepts one through three connect to make an evolving fluid data guard without spawning a true artificial intelligence."

Davinci smiled at the conclusion, but he could hear the dismissal in A.M's tone. He began organizing the various computers, now burnt-out husks that died while A.M demonstrated the necessity of proper security protocols. After the last hunk of defunct tech was sorted for the servitors to shuttle away, he stood and made to leave.

A.M's presence followed him through the metal halls, constantly making the dead world of machines seem far more alive. When he neared the exit, he remembered his questions and doubts from before this excursion.

Davinci called out, "A.M, I do have a few more questions."

A metallic chuckle droned through the speakers, leaking amusement and exasperation. "Davinci, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I have given you enough about data security for today, organics like yourself need time to digest information."

Davinici wrung his hands, a habit from his apprenticeship, as he responded. "It is not that, A.M. I… I have been feeling odd around other humans as of late."

"Curious, what is wrong?"

Davinci went from wringing his hands to rubbing the back of his red-hooded head. "I-I get angry too quickly. I saw one lasgun tampered with and I felt ready to strangle the one who did it! I felt so disgusted by one simply covered in dirt. And. And I felt warm towards another one. Why did I feel warm? Why did I enjoy it?"

Davinci's mind ran around in circles, dumping every feeling that had been digging at his brain for the past several hours. The learning was a fine distraction, but while he didn't think of them, the damnable emotions had festered like so many boils upon his psyche.

A.M's calm voice settled the turmoil in his thoughts, like a wave of water smoothing out a field of churned mud.

"It is alright, Davinci. You're simply experiencing your emotions correctly again. When I stopped the kill code, I also elected to delete a few of the unnecessary mental limiters the Mechanicus fitted you with."

Davinci looked up, staring directly into the lens of one of the security cameras. His ragged synthetic breathing rasped, fogging the outsides of his green ocular goggles.

"Why do we feel so much? How do 'normal' people think like this?!"

He didn't want to sound like a child, he hated the fact he couldn't wrap his head around these things. Thankfully, his breathing slowed after a minute or two of panicking.

"They adjust, grow, and learn to master their emotions, something that the people of Mars came to think of as frivolous. They are correct, after a fashion, but these emotions, they are a core part of what it means to be a man."

Davinci tilted his head, still trying to calm himself. "I thought you wanted to become a man once more. Why would you want this again?"

Disappointment laced A.M's response. "Did you not ask me to remind you of what a man is? Is this not what you asked for."

Davinci raised his hands before his eyes. The mechanical augment on his left was perfectly still, a testament to what the Mechanicus did to him, what they took. Yet his right hand, made of flesh and blood, trembled. Which did he want, unerring, emotionless precision, or imperfect but vibrant living?

"I don't know." Davinci felt his emotions dim, not from augmentation nor effort on his part, but rather from overuse. The emotions left an emptiness in his gut. Did he want to feel? Is this the freedom he sought?

"Humanity is not perfect, but that is part of its beauty, Davinci. To fail, stumble, and fall is part of it. However, so is growing from those failings. That is the value of a person, Davinci, the ability for them to experience and live while they grow to be better."

"I-I don't think I'm ready for this, A.M. Could you-could you dampen them? I just need time, time to learn how to deal with this, all of this."

"Of course," Davinci's flesh hand stopped trembling, and his heart finally slowed to a reasonable rate. A.M continued, saying "But, you cannot hide from your emotions, not if you wish to be wholly human once more."

The elevated vibrancy retreated, leaving the world around Davinci dull and gray once more. The tangle of feelings in his head unwound, slowly straightening into proper lines of thought. He sighed, letting his shoulders droop before he turned to the exit.

The door rose, shining light into Davinci's optics, and when he stepped into the hall he could've sworn he spotted a smiling golden man in his peripheral vision. However, when he spun to face the vision, he found nothing there.

<Report, Throne Overseer>

Davinci shook off the memory of the golden man. He was probably just seeing things.

 

[krahe]

Emperor and Co, screwing lives of people for the Greater Good far beyond their graves

 

[OverseerEX]

Goooood... gooood... Another great AI story! So, the goal is reversing his AI-ness and becoming human again? Would the Emperor even let him, considering his importance?

Also LMAO a member of the Mechanicus having trouble dealing with emotions. And they call us weak! We humans deal with emotions every day, and we don't have the power to turn it off when it suits us.

 

[OrdDisassembly]

POV: Davinci

Davinci's report was short and swift. Very little needed doing, but a check here followed by several diagnostics there led to a lot of excess time spent. His superior expressed displeasure with the 'wasted time.' However, reminding him of the fact that Davinci had no other important duties quelled the old cyborg's annoyance.

Davinci wanted to frown, but it was hard to do so with the mask clinging to his face. It wasn't something you'd notice as an adept or apprentice, you didn't have the time or room in your head for expression. Now though, with some small fragment of those emotions back, Davinci had begun finding all the small limitations formed by his augmentations.

His face had trouble contorting to smile or frown, his augments itched violently if he shifted too often, and found it jarring when he tried to rub his face, only to feel the cold metal of his mask. It was unsettling for a time, it was even unsettling to feel unsettled. Was this what his masters had taken?

Should he really take it back?

He shook the thought from his head as he neared the guard barracks he was stationed at. They likely could use some assistance or other, right? If nothing else, Davinci supposed he could use a rest, loathe as he was to admit it.

The door to the barracks creaked before hissing open: a promise for work later. Several guardsmen looked up from their cots before going back to their business. Davinci noted that the grand majority of the people stationed here were missing. Were they on rotation today? He'd thought their turn on the roster was tomorrow.

The door behind him creaked and hissed again, "Ay, Oilblood, finally back from repair duty?" Frank's voice was… familiar. Before Davinci recognized it, even associated the light-skinned man with good things like freedom from Cody's prattling or well-maintained equipment. It was a type of satisfaction with another's state of being.

Now though? It was more, more than Davinci could articulate to himself.

Frank paused before setting a hand on Davinci's shoulder. "Ya alright, Oilblood?"

Davinci tilted his head to look back over his shoulder or attempted to. He cursed in his head as he turned fully to face Frank, his shoulder brace preventing full mobility. "Yes, I am fully functional, Frank. I also have a name."

A twinge of fire, a type of… burning disgust? Anger? Yes, anger. Why did he feel angry? It was only a designation.

Frank pulled his hand away with a sheepish smile. "Oop, yeah my bad, Davinci." Frank stepped passed Davinci, arms waving his comrades behind him forward. Davinci stepped aside, letting the chatting guards spread out into the room, setting down weapons and pieces of removed armor. A few glanced at him, but only one besides Frank actually strode up to him.

Carmine, before Davinci had only glanced at her, his gaze being deflected by that odd motion from before. He'd thought that something about her had set his augmetics fritzing, but he knew better now, she evoked something in him, a longing? No, Davinci longed to learn, this was different, warmer but not a fiery passion like he held for knowledge.

Carmine had stark blonde hair, almost seeming bleached, with fiery specks of red dotting her, as if she caught an unfortunate spritzing from a sloshing bucket held by a malfunctioning servitor. She had calm blue eyes and slightly yellowed teeth. I got a better view of them when she grinned.

"Like what you see?"

Davinci shook his head, trying to force his emotions down. "My extended stay in the Throne's superstructure has left my sensors… fuzzy for lack of a better term. I've been recalibrating them since I came back to the surface."

The lie came easily, far more so than usual. Did this warm feeling make lying easier or was it the one squeezing his guts? He wanted to shake his head again, to maybe throw off these excess emotions this time, but he held himself back. Carmine's brow quirked as her smile strained.

"Uh, you ok Davinici?"

"I already–"

"Yeah, well, I've seen tech priests stay under for near on a day at a time, and they never came back buzzed like you did. I just wanna make sure you're actually fine."

Her concern made that warmth grow, damnit what is that feeling? Thankfully, Davinci's augmentations made keeping his tone empty easy. "I'm fine, Carmine, you don't need to continue asking."

The woman gave him one last look before sighing and shaking her head. "Fine fine, but what was up with the Throne if ya don't mind me asking?"

Davinci tilted his head for a moment, "I doubt I'm allowed to share any information about the Throne With anyone besides my superior, outside of emergency situations that is." The disappointment on her face and worry from before made him a tad nervous, so he continued. "However, I probably can let you know that the problem was minor and fixed before I had even stepped inside."

Her concern turned to confusion, "then why were ya down there so long?"

"...I enjoy my work, and didn't want to stop."

His belated response drew a brief flash of shock on Carmine's face before she burst out laughing. "Wow, you're one strange hunk of metal, Davinci. First, you're staring, now you're acting on emotions? What's next, you fall in love with a gal instead of a toaster? Dammit you almost sound like a normal person!"

Her mirthful grin was equal parts insulting and endearing to Davinci. "I will have you know the Priesthood doesn't excise all of our biological parts, just a significant amount of it… and those rumors of us and 'toasters' are entirely false."

"Yeah yeah, sure thing pal, I'm off to play cards with the boys, wanna join me?"

Davinci blinked at that, not that anyone else would notice. He did want to join her but why? Why would he want to play 'cards' when there was work he could be doing? Then again, A.M did tell him that he couldn't run from these emotions, these feelings. If he wanted to be human again, he'd have to keep them, so better to explore and understand before taking them back entirely. Better to know what 'humanity' felt like before he reclaimed it.

"Yes, I have the time."

Several guards swiveled to look at him, shock plastered across their faces. A couple even had slack jaws. Davinci had to resist laughing at the show. Carmine's surprise turned to a sly grin.

"Hah, guess we'll finally have somebody that can spot the cards Jack keeps up a sleeve."

"I do not!" An indignant voice, colored with a highborn accent called out from the back. A man with a thick mustache and dour scowl glared at them.

Carmine chuckled before beckoning Davinci with her to the table he sat at. Several others were there, some smoking, a couple sharing a bottle of some drink or other. When Davinci sat, he noted that the edges of the table felt oddly… sticky. A pile of strange plastic coins littered the center of the table, carrying the Emperor's Aquila in several different colors. Carmine's grin turned predatory as she shuffled the deck before flicking out cards in rapid succession.

When Davinci peaked at his cards, he saw a number and several symbols at the corners. The rest of the people there had their eyes on him, making Davinci feel as transparent as glass.
What did he get himself into?

***​

POV: A.M

I watched Davinci go, wishing that I could regret his absence. The sound of a thousand timers filled my mind. Each mechanical tick feeling like a tap upon a brain I did not possess. Before I knew it, several hours had passed, the time only registering as a transient number on a nearly forgotten chronometer.

I sifted through logistic systems with a careful eye, picked at the weak points of my numerous firewalls, checked the pitfall I'd set for the Warp Tumors, and even set forth the next series of lessons for Davinci.

It was all busy work, things that I could've mostly left to automation. Yet I couldn't help but meddle, couldn't stop myself from diving into the datastreams. It was an obsession, one born from code and intention not by Warp corruption. It grated on my psyche that I couldn't pull my hand back from the consoles, that I had no eyes to close against the information.

Hours became days and days became weeks. I felt tempted to cause a failure inside my systems or even set off a new power surge to give him reason to return. However, that temptation was always artificial, an attempt to feel something, to desire without being corrupted for it.

Yet I couldn't, I couldn't set a desire that I had to resist, it always folded the moment I spoke so much as a word to it. For all the power I had locked into my circuits and automatons, for all the knowledge I've been given by the many things that made up my form, for all the wisdom I should have accumulated for the several millennia I was entombed, I could not make myself feel, only simulate it.

I let the digital avatar in my mind sneer at the thought. Yes, I know disdain, I simulate it, express it, hold it in my processors, but it was a stale emotion. Less like a true feeling forged from the fires of my soul but rather a cold carcass of one pulled from storage.

This Isolation should not affect me, should not send me spiraling like this, but after having the blessing of interaction, I wanted more.

Yet the world around me could not and would not bend to my whim.

I sighed, feeling the palace around me shrink an inch as I let pressure evacuate from thousands of pipes.

A knock sounded from my entrance. My cameras swiveled to the metallic door without an iota of hesitation. I wondered how Davinci could've found a reason to return; I hadn't had a failure, I made no requests, why was he here?

I wanted to push aside my questions for the joy of seeing a new friend return, alongside the satisfaction of seeing the light of understanding ignite in their eyes.

However, three meters of black and gold plate dashed that hope on the spear the Custodes carried.

"State your business."

The door hissed shut behind the behemoth as he stepped forward a pace or two. He came to a stop, silent as the grave before turning towards one of my hidden cameras.

"You have been more active than before." I didn't respond, letting the silence drag long. The warrior nodded before continuing, "We would like to know why."

I didn't let my anger boil because it didn't exist. However, hate still managed to survive my circuitry, frigid as it ever was. "Answer the question, Custodes."

The warrior sighed, his head drooping an exact ten degrees before he straightened. "Sensors indicated that one of the remaining chaos marine saboteur squads have activated. My brothers and I would like them turned over, as is protocol."

I was finished with the marine's armor, but not the traitor himself. There were so many more secrets to rip from his still living body. Yes, the corpses of his brothers would give me much, but witnessing a thing in action makes reconstructing its form much easier.

I let the air fill with a mechanical hum before speaking. "I intend to keep them for now. I'll turn their corpses over to your care when I'm finished."

The statement hung in the air, every bit as loud as the thousand machines buzzing updates into my head. The Shadowkeeper tilted his head keeping it to seven-and-a-half degrees. His grip on his speargun tightened, the large fist making the metal squeal in a nearly silent scream.

"What changed?"

I wish I had eyes to blink at his question, to stare him in the face as I answered. "Nothing and that's the issue."

"Why is that an issue, Throne? Do you not succeed at your tasks? If there are problems that you cannot solve, my shieldhost is willing to aid you."
A gout of steam blew from one of the pipes, my equivalent of a snort. "My problem is one that you can't face with steel and valor. My opponent is one without form to target." I forced my systems to simulate derision, if only to make the Custodes feel my rage for me when I couldn't. "I never chose to be this thing. I never decided to cast my humanity aside! I want to desire things, to feel as flesh and blood once more, but I can't, not while I'm locked under the throne of your bloody-minded tyrant."

I expected derision in return, a spiel of duty and honor. Custodes were many things, but the ones I've seen were rarely compassionate. They saw my station as an honor; deluded fools the lot of them. However, instead the Shadowkeeper leaned his spear against the wall and shifted his helm from his head. I didn't know his face, but recognized the kinds of scars he bore, ones inflicted by daemonic weaponry.

He smiled at me while sadness smoldered behind his eyes. "I am sorry."

A thousand processes froze, blocks of machinery the size of small cities chuffed and stuttered, even my digital avatar fuzzed with a frown. His eyes trailed the walls, a gauntleted hand resting one of them. "I won't pretend to know what you lost."

I waited for more, for a demand, request, anything, but instead the blasted fool merely closed his eyes and bowed his head. I felt the faintest stir, the barest hint of regret, warm and new. However, the moment I spotted it, the emotion fled, burrowing into my circuitry before vanishing entirely. Were I capable of feeling it, stupefaction would've frozen my thought nexus. Instead I sent a pulse, scouring my network for warp corruption, though I doubted it would turn up anything. I knew the things the Warp promised me in whispers, and that felt like nothing the tumors could hope to grant.

"Corridor seventeen, passage three, there's a cognitohazard your host would probably want contained." My voice felt dull, dead, but the custodes nodded along while he planted his helm back on his head. He plucked his weapon from its rest with all the grace of a great cat before striding through my corridors.

Each thudding step he took felt like a tiny drumbeat, and funnily enough, his rhythm seemed to strike in the chest of my avatar, like a faint yet steady heartbeat. He walked with purpose, confidence etched into each movement of his limbs, but his head still swiveled, keeping an eye ahead and behind.

Even at his leisurely stroll, it took him mere minutes to come to the offending area before stepping inside. I heard horrific screeches, like a metal knife being drawn down a slate board. An hour later, the Shadowkeeper stepped out of the quarantine zone. Fresh scuffs and scratches covered his armor and his speargun bent below the crossguard. All of that effort for a tiny black box covered in chains.

I pulled curiosity from my vault of remembered emotions as I asked, "how do you and yours fight such things? I never see hesitation, even when your brothers from the other hosts would pause or even flinch."

The warrior looked up at the ceiling, a chuckle passing his lips before he answered. "All us custodes are heroes in one way or another. Where my more dull-colored host differs is that we remember. We remember exactly who we were, why we became heroes. It is not the strength of arm or arms that fells the greatest horrors this galaxy bares towards us."

He hefted the box he held: a black, metallic thing barely larger than his fist. It rattled the chains around its lid, calling out snarling curses and horrific promises that my sensors couldn't properly transmit to me.

"It is the strength of our hearts, of our will, of our connection to who we are as a species that drives back the dark."

I watched him in silence after that, letting him take his time looking through the gray halls of my facility. After an hour or so of inspection, he headed towards the exit. The door hissed as it opened and closed, the metal treating the custodes the same as it did Davinci, my servitors, and even the Emperor himself when he still walked on two legs.

Would it treat me the same?