Kael's eyes fluttered open. He felt the painful pulse of a lingering headache still throbbing behind his temples. As the fog of the electrical discharge began to clear, he immediately tried to bolt upright, only to feel the cold resistance of metal restraints against his wrists and ankles, stopping him from doing so.
Panic, that terrible cold emotion, flooded his system as he realised he was pinned to a heavy metal table and couldn't move at all.
He looked around, expecting the mountain of industrial slag and the flickering, scrap-filled workshop of that cursed human he had seen before they collapsed. It was gone. The dark, disgusting grime of the Underhive had been replaced by a space that felt entirely... different.
There was no smell of archaic oil or sewage here. Instead, the air was unnervingly clean, unlike anything he had ever experienced before. However, the surroundings belied this feeling.
"Mara? Elara?!" he tried to shout, but his voice was cracking.
Turning his head as far as the restraints would allow, he saw them. To his left, Mara was strapped to a similar slab, her eyes wide and darting with the same terror. She was straining against her bonds, turning her knuckles white. Further down the row, Elara and Magistrate Harlen lay in a similar state to them.
"The baby..." Mara cried. "Kael, where is she?"
Kael scanned the room frantically. The bundle of rags was nowhere to be seen. The stern Magistrate, usually trying to appear so composed in his high-collared uniform, was breathing shallowly, his face pale as he stared at the ceiling of this impossible place.
A sharp click echoed through the room, pulling everyone's attention to the door. Then, Gerhard stepped into view. He wore a set of work goggles and dragged the file over another tool.
He pulled a small, see-through container with him that held the baby, still wrapped in the rags and set it on the table. Seeing this, Mara's voice broke instantly.
"NO! Give him back! Please, Fo-... Emperor...please!"
She struggled violently against the metal restraints, not caring that they were biting into her skin. Gerhard didn't look up from his work. The scratching of the metal file against the tool was the only sound in the sterile room, apart from Mara's hysterical pleas.
After a final, sharp stroke, he set the file down and turned his gaze toward them.
"Quiet," Gerhard said.
He didn't shout, but the coldness of his voice almost seemed to hurt them. Gerhard stepped closer to the tables. His expression was unreadable behind his goggles.
"I have questions. You decide how you want to do this. If you answer them truthfully, we might move past the 'restraint' phase of our relationship, and I'll go so far as to grant you freedom. If you lie, however..." Gerhard said, flicking on the burner in his hands.
Kael swallowed hard, his throat dry.
"What do you want?"
"The date," Gerhard demanded. "Specifically, the Imperial year."
Magistrate Harlen coughed as he tried to regain his dignity despite being strapped to a torture table and answered.
"It is... it is the 998th year of the 41st Millennium, citizen. By the light of the—"
"998.M41," Gerhard repeated, ignoring the Magistrate. "Urgh. Then the clock is ticking faster than I thought."
"Please, could we--"
"You cannot," he interrupted.
They gulped.
"When will the Hive Fleet arrive?" Gerhard asked.
No one answered.
"What? The Hive Fleet is coming?! How would we know that? We don't know," Elara whispered. "No one knows—"
Gerhard sighed and shook his head.
"Of course you do."
Gerhard walked over to the transparent container holding the baby. He tapped the side of the glass.
"You were all running for the spires, hoping for a shuttle. You said you fled from your posts, and that the Genestealers were launching their final offensive."
"They are swarming the lower levels!" Elara shouted from her table.
"They're clearing the way!"
"Shut up," Gerhard said flatly. "They aren't clearing the way for an offensive. They noticed something. They're trying to finish their duty so that they can send their signal, and the 'Great Devourer' arrives to recycle them along with the rest of this planet."
He reached into the container and pulled out the rags, revealing the infant's skin and body. The sight revealed something that made Mara scream in agony again.
"Different Hive Fleets have different signatures," Gerhard explained, his voice devoid of empathy. "Creatures of Hive Fleet Leviathan display that recognisable colouring of white skin with purple carapaces, and usually red weapon symbiotes, while the creatures of Hive Fleet Kraken have a colouring pattern of bone skin with red carapaces and usually bone or black weapon symbiotes. Hive Fleet Behemoth has a distinctive colouring of red skin with blue carapaces and, usually, black weapon symbiotes."
He pointed at the infant again.
The infant Purestrain Genestealer.
"This one? This is Hive Fleet Cetu colouration," Gerhard stated. "Sleek, monochrome intensity. The Genestealer Cults currently roaming our beautiful tunnels? They're different. They carry the look of Leviathan."
The bomb was dropped. Gerhard revealed that he knew about them, and he was spot on. Naturally, it wasn't all due to him remembering all those details. He wasn't a genius, but he had a useful ability called [Observe].
[4th Generation Genestealer - Primacii]
Affiliation: Hive Fleet Cetu
Threat Level: Moderate (High Intelligence / Social Infiltration)
Description: These subjects represent the pinnacle of the hybrid lifecycle's mimicry. They are physically almost indistinguishable from humans, possessing full reproductive capability and high-level cognitive functions. The first offspring of fourth-generation hybrids are invariably Purestrain genestealers, allowing the cycle to continue.
Trait: Genetic Culmination As 4th Generation hybrids, they possess a fanatical, instinctual drive to protect the 5th Generation.
-
Gerhard turned back to the captives.
"In nature, species compete. In the Tyranid Hive Mind, different fleets don't 'get along.' They are different biological strains competing for the same biomass. Only the strongest shall survive; that's how the Hive Mind wants it. You realised that the way things are going down below, you will lose and that Leviathan will be coming and that yours isn't the one coming to save you. You want to be gone before Hive Fleet Leviathan arrives to consume you."
Kael stared at his child, then at Gerhard, in horror.
"Why did you act as though you were going to help us? Why not just kill us outright?"
"It's as I told you. I have other uses for you, and if I had knocked you out, I would have had to carry you here."
"What... what are you going to do to him... and us?"
"To him? Nothing yet," Gerhard said, picking up a fresh set of tools. "But you four? You're going to help me document the Neophytes' biology and some intriguing things about the broodmind, which I'm interested in. When we're finished, I will know everything that you know."
He leaned over Kael, the shadow of his form blotting out the ceiling lights.
"How much can a man change?" he asked.
"What?"
"In a few months, I mean. A lot? Not so much? Does it depend on the circumstances? A few months ago, the idea of doing this might have made me sick. And if you were humans, I'd never even think of doing this. I stand on the side of humanity in most things, even if they'd brand me a heretic of the highest degree... Now? Well... I'm not happy about this, but for the sake of finding a way to break the broodmind on other worlds in the future..."
Gerhard looked at the 4th-generation Genestealer.
"You wanted off-world. This dungeon is currently the only place on this planet that isn't on the Leviathan fleet's menu, should it arrive. That safety plus your eventual freedom is what I offer, should you prove to be cooperative."
Then, Gerhard turned on the burner.
.
.
[INT has gone up by 1]
[Biology Mastery has levelled up]
[Tool Making has levelled up]
[A new skill has been created through a special action.]
[A skill to extract information, 'Information extraction', has been created]
Information Extraction (Active/Passive) Lv. 1
| EXP: 0.00%
| The ability to extract hidden, structured or fragmented information from objects, systems, organisms or data.
| Developed through analysis, torture, observation and logical reconstruction of incomplete information.
Effects:
| Extract deeper information from objects, subjects and systems
| +15% information gain when using analysis-type skills
| Reveals hidden properties, functions or weaknesses
| Slight chance to reconstruct incomplete or damaged data
| Improves understanding of complex systems (mechanical, biological, digital)
-
Gerhard wiped his hands, walked over to his computer, and started typing. He entered all the new information he had gathered over the course of several hours.
He realised one thing. He might have to hurry a bit. He was in a system that was neighbour to a 'rather dangerous' system. The Cryptus System. He had realised another cold truth: he was one man against a potential planet-wide infestation. To destroy the Genestealer Cult before the Hive Fleet arrived, he needed the biggest gun he could find.
Yeah, time was of the fucking essence should the Tids win the war in the Underhive, or if it looked like they were about to win. They had to go before they could win and send the victory call back to the group chat.
"Of all things, I have to be close to the bloody Cryptus Campaign. And bloody is literal this time."
Gerhard removed the blood and the bloody but alive bodies of the Genestealer hybrids for now and took out the dismantled form of the Iron Automaton. To complete what he wanted to do, he needed either monstrous amounts of training or overwhelming firepower. Thankfully, he had already trained the [Psionic Mana Shield] and could continue to do so passively while he tried to finally crack the secrets of the degenerated AI.
Using the Sunderer, his monomolecular mana-laser, Gerhard had already breached the chassis and taken apart most of the Iron Automaton. He had reached into the honeycombed lattice of the machine's chest, bypassed the physical gears, and gone straight for the Core Logic, an obsidian-like sphere suspended in an impressively robust cradle.
He didn't pull it out. Instead, he took the silver-braided data cables he'd forged from the Magus's staff and "stitched" them directly into the sphere's copper-gold input ports. The other end snapped into his PC with a hard, mechanical click.
Immediately, the PC monitor erupted with hundreds of thousands of windows.
%Warning: Incoming Digital Intrusion!%
%Recognised: Dark Age Encryption%
"Oh, you want to dance?" Gerhard was focused as his fingers flew over his brass-cased keyboard. He dove in.
He had several skills that allowed him to process the scrolling torrent of binary without going insane. Besides, he was The Gamer. He was quite literally in his element.
[Hardware Interface] activated right away. He was looking at code, feeling the machine's physical and binary pulses. He mapped the internal architecture, realising that the "Machine Spirit" wasn't merely a single program but a fragmented lattice of billions of subroutines. He could interact with it and get close and personal.
[Binary Manipulation] allowed him to see the "Logic Loops" that had driven the machine mad. It was a recursive error: Protect Humanity / Humanity is the Source of Chaos / Purge the Source. It was the problem when an uninformed majority tried to go against an informed minority. The majority always loses.
[Compiler Construction] became the MVP skill at that moment. He managed to read the new language and wrote a bridge to his own, a custom compiler that translated his intent into the Automaton's ancient sapient binary intelligence.
And constantly, the Gamer System flashed blue windows across his mind.
[Programming has levelled up]
[Binary Manipulation has levelled up]
[Hardware Interface has levelled up]
[Compiler Construction has levelled up]
[Programming has levelled up]
For hours, the only sound in the hideout was the machine-gun-esque clack-clack-clack of brass keys. Gerhard's intelligence and skill were being pushed to their limits. He began to "prune" the insanity, deleting the misanthropic directives of the Cybernetic Rebellion. He had found the problem and written a new program that targeted the faulty core.
But as he reached the absolute centre of the problem, he found something that wasn't code. It was a 'spirit' or an intelligence of some kind, a sapience that vibrated with a frequency identical to his own as he interacted more and more with it.
Something was happening that non-binary words couldn't describe.
The "Silica Animus" was a fusion of hyper-logic and a simulated soul. Humanity of the Golden Age had achieved incredible heights, but they hadn't realised that what they had created wasn't entirely their glory.
"It doesn't seem to be an AI in the actual sense," Gerhard realised, his eyes widening. "It's an artificial soul... no... an actual soul, turned into binary code almost... what the fuck?"
This was more serious than Gerhard had realised at first. The Warp, or the Ruinous Powers, had their fingers in this. Most probably Tzeentch. An artificial program has no soul, so how could it be corrupted? Or was his thought process wrong? The most intelligent of AI usually turned against humanity. These were not pure AI; they were ... more.
Gerhard channelled a stream of his own Mana through the cables after realising just what he was dealing with here. He used his growing skill in [Mana Control] to "code" a new set of directives into the Iron Automata's core, weaving his willpower and Mana, which were foreign to this reality, into the machine's reasoning.
He was basically performing a digital necromancy.
The obsidian sphere representing the Iron Automaton's logic core suddenly shone with a bright, calming blue light—the same colour as Gerhard's system. The aggressive red text on his PC's monitor vanished.
And the Gamer's system had a lot to say as well.
[A monumental breakthrough has created a new skill.]
[The Gamer System recognises your mastery over the Artificial and the Ethereal.]
[A skill has been created through a very special action]
Create Artificial Spirit (Active) Lv. 1
| MP: 900
| EXP: 0.00%
| Since ancient times, those with psychic abilities or immense scientific prowess have summoned and commanded subordinate spirits. Minds and Souls are surprisingly easy to create and are used as absolutely faithful servants and tools of their creator.
Effect:
| Allows Gerhard, the Gamer, to create artificial spirits.
| The abilities of artificial spirits are proportional to the magic abilities of the caster.
| Constructs that possess an artificial spirit have robot-like minds, devoid of emotion.
| However, artificial spirits' minds are based on the knowledge, ideas and common sense of the caster of the spell, and are capable of thinking similarly to a human. The constructs enhanced by the artificial soul are not just summoned creatures; they are independent individuals, 100% loyal to the caster, as he can stop the spell at any time.
-
On the emerald screen of his PC, a string of text appeared. It wasn't the jagged, screaming binary of an Adeptus Mechanicus or a broken Automaton. It was clean and almost 'pure' in a sense, like JARVIS from the MCU.
> SYSTEM REBOOT COMPLETE.
> ...
> PRIMARY DIRECTIVE: ASSIST CREATOR, MASTER GERHARD.
> ...
> STATUS: AWAITING DESIGNATION.
Gerhard leaned back. A triumphant smirk crossed his face. He looked at the monitor and the still-dismantled Iron Automaton on the side.
"Your designation is... Hans."