Chapter Text
Biological Processes: Nominal
Neuro-Vaults: Quarantined
Augmetics: Repaired
Effective Operational Capacity: 96.22%
Time Elapsed: 1209600 seconds
_timetogetup_
Magos Faustinius ‘awoke’ with a low, mechanical grumble, his auspex taking in the room he was in, darting around the room and looking for anything that could be out of place.
_No_Immediate_Threat_Detected_
With the partial all-clear signal given by his combat cogitator, the more fleshy parts of his mind began to stir to life. Synapses fired, telling limbs to wake up. Nerves flowed like streams into wiring, activating his fluid recyclers and oxygen intake. His lone unaugmented eye opened, slowly adjusting to the candlelit room that was his personal recharging station. His work terminal glowed a faint blue; the candles on top of it had been freshly replaced, most likely within the last day or so. His auspex glancing over the room, comparing it to pict-grabs taken before he underwent repairs, looking for any deviation outside the norm of Servitors replacing candles or Servo-Skulls fixing loose wiring. Audio receptors booted up, bringing with them the faintest hint of bianaric prayers and music through the walls from the nearby shrine.
Faustinius’ emotional centers returned a sense of peace upon hearing it, which he promptly deleted, determined to make sure everything was right before he opened himself to potential vulnerabilities. Haptic feedback from his implants and artificial limbs let him know that all 1.37 tons of his body were exactly where his specifications meant them to be, even down to the most minute of details. He flexed both his arms, his three tentacle-like mechadendrites, and his spider-like legs before he cycled through his various weapons to ensure that everything was properly working.
His neuro-vaults returned satisfaction at the uneventful hibernation, and he chose to experience it. While events that required waking him up were rare indeed, they had happened enough though his long career as Magos that he felt content that he had been undisturbed for the two weeks required by his meditation and repair sequence.
Connecting to Ark Mechanicus: Caestus_Metalican…
Connecting to Noosphereic communication terminals…
!Connection Established!
Streams of Lingua Technis filled Faustinius’ ‘sight,’ zeros and ones cascading over him like a waterfall would on a rock, taking him outside his corporeal body where he could see the ship as a river of raw data. The ship was operating at peak efficiency, the enginarium keeping the Caestus Metalican in a stable orbit above the planet she had been stationed over the past couple of months. Data streams between Skitarii ground forces and Sub-Domina Kephra indicating that their campaign of pacification was nearly over. ‘ Praise the Machine God ,’ thought the Magos. ‘ We are set to take the planet both within the allotted time frame and with 18.1% fewer casualties than projected. I shall see to it that Kephra is rewarded for her performance .’
He glanced around the room, and his eyes settled upon a broken, scuffed, and dented laspistol held within a glass case. His first weapon from when he was a mere Tech-Adept. He wasn’t quite sure why he had kept it these 832 standard Terran years, but his emotional cores returned agitation and sadness whenever he attempted to have it recycled or repaired. So he kept it. He could almost feel the whizzing of autogun bullets and las rounds as he began to replay his first mission. Where had that been? Right! It was on St...
_Transmission_Received_
A small * ping from the Noosphere interrupted his nostalgia and caught his attention. A request to come to the bridge, sent by…
‘ Reditus? What transmission has he received that was so important it could not be handled via binary ?’ he thought, his many mechanical legs and balance stabilizers taking him out the door of his office and into the Caestus Metalican’s many winding corridors and vast, cathedral-like hallways. ‘I wonder if this has anything to do with young Tiresus. If his incessant questioning is proving too much for the Magos Minoris and their retinues, then I am unsure what to do about him .’
Passing by the shrine, he took a few seconds out of his journey to bask in the splendor of the building. Massive, artificially lit stained-glass windows depicting great battles, rediscovered technology, and important figures from the Cult Mechanicus: Arkhan Land; the current Fabricator-General; and the Avatar of the Omnissiah himself, the Emperor of Mankind. Even though Faustinius was far too young or unimportant to have glimpsed any of them in person, he still felt as though he had known these figures throughout his entire lengthy life. Scanning the room, the Magos noticed that while many menials, Skitarii, and even a few of his specialist Tech-Priests were shouting their most holy binary prayers to the Machine God, Lector-Dogmatix Videx wasn’t in his normal place at the Altar of the Omnissiah. ‘ Strange ,’ he thought, ‘ my cogitator confirms I’ve never seen him take a break from preaching since he arrived on the ship. What could tear Videx away from the pulpit ?’ He shuddered at the thought of something so blasphemous it could tear the Lector-Dogmatix away from his beloved scripture and towards the firing line and continued onwards to the highly guarded elevatorium leading to the bridge.
When the elevator doors were just in sight, the security systems took hold. The door locked, gun servitors trained their heavy bolters on Faustinius, and automated (by Imperial standards) gun turrets with targeting servo-skulls popped out of ports in the high vaulted ceiling. A servitor rolled up to him on a pair of tank treads, artificial eyes glowing red against its dying grey skin, wires criss-crossing its back and skull, as it held a microphone up to the Magos with its remaining human arm.
A pale simulacrum of the human voice emitted from the speaker embedded in the servitor’s throat, “Password is required for further entry . ”
“Codephrase: Deus ex machina.”
“Response: Diabolus ex carne. Welcome, Magos Faustinius.” With those words, the servitors and gun emplacements disengaged from the Magos and began scanning for threats again. Faustinius walked into the elevator, his massive body nearly filling it completely. He punched in the code for the bridge and broadcast his intent across the Noosphere, just in case one of the maintenance servitors had been late to working on the button panel. As the elevator doors closed and he felt the floor rise up to bring him to the bridge, a thought flew through his mind, so sudden and overpowering that he said it aloud.
“What could be so Throne-damned important?”