Omake: The Death of Arkhan Varnek
The aide approached the mountain of steel, wire, and rust-red cloth that was the mortal form of Archmagos Arkhan Varnek, a thick sheaf of parchment clutched in its mechadendrites.
"The report on the STCs from the conference, as you commanded Archmagos," the aide buzzed.
"Bring me the index child*. I do not have time to review the STCs one by one at this juncture," the ancient cyborg thrummed.
"This is the index honored one," the aide buzzed, its binary tinged with just the smallest hint of trepidation.
A lightning fast mechadendriate lashed out and plucked the sheaf from the aide's grip. Optical sensors poured over tiny script, not even taking the time to turn the pages but peering
through each page.
The great hulk shifted. Robes parted and large radiator panels extended from the back. Fans whirred to life. Liquid coolant lines extended from the ceiling to attach to ports all over the Archmagos's form. Its face split, optical sensors dividing themselves into independent clusters for parallel processing.
In a deep, basso thrum Arkhan Varnek listed off the STCs it would review first. The manuscripts were delivered.
For a time it continued thus, STCs being demanded, delivered and devoured. Finally there came a time when the ancient seemed to slip into a state of deep contemplation.
Then one of the aides noticed the thin line of smoke rising from the Archmagos's cranium.
* Anything less than a quarter of its age was a child to the ancient.
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The coroner settled back, retracting telescoping micro-sensors and withdrawing data taps.
"Any sign of scrapcode?" one of the inquisitors demanded.
"What? Oh, no," the coroner responded distractedly. "Poor bastard got caught up in a race condition and resource locks failed. Far as I can reconstruct from his RAM, about a dozen threads were trying to access the ecstasy grey-matter response at once while a handful more, the ones looking at the Tau stuff, were fighting over the outrage response. Maybe if he had been a bit younger he could have taken it, but with flesh as old as that? Not a chance."
"Death of shock and natural causes then?" a second inquisitor asked.
"Aye, but what a way to go!" the coroner buzzed cheerfully.
@Durin