Chương 18: Chapter Seventeen - Mental

She was expecting their return to come with... maybe some amount of fanfare? Not much, but like, an acknowledgement that they had done a good job, maybe? Instead, when they returned to the cross-shaped intersection, it was to find tired enforcers that let them past the barricade. Then one of the Voidsmen checked all of them, flashing a light in their eyes and looking them over.

"No signs of genestealer taint," they said to the lieutenant.

"Good," he replied.

"I'm surprised you made it back."

"So are we, sir," Kevin replied. He nodded, then moved over to the side and sat down heavily on an ammunition crate.

"Um," Alexis said, earning her a few curious looks.

"What now?" The lieutenant eyed her.

"Now we wait for orders from on high. Current standing orders are to guard the exits and main thoroughfares through the ship and prevent the rot from spreading."

"Query: Have any additional orders come through?" Red-C61734 asked.

"Not as of yet," the Lieutenant said. His lips grew thin, and he glanced quickly at the vox operator nearby.

"I believe there are some other issues on the upper deck. For now, for the sake of my men, we are keeping to our prior orders and keeping our noses out of that business." Alexi wondered what that meant, exactly, but she also felt like maybe it wasn't her place to question it. She jumped when someone touched her shoulder, but it was merely Anthony.

"I for one appreciate your assistance, Tech Acolyte Alexis Lambda-3. I will be making a note of it in my official report. Your understanding of the Omnissiah's will is superlative. I am honoured to have fought and survived at your side."

"Oh, uh, thank you," Alexis said. She felt her face flushing red and cursed the weakness of her cheeks. Anthony headed out. He said something about his work calling him elsewhere, and hinted rather overtly that with so many members of their order indisposed, injured, or simply dead, that this was a good time for those that worked hard to stand out. He was probably right, only they weren't the Imperial Guard or an organization like the ship's enforcers.

Promotion was a complex thing in the Mechanicus, and didn't simply arise from a void in their ranks.

"Do you need help anywhere else?" Alexis asked the lieutenant. He frowned, looked her up and down, then nodded.

"We may need more assistance from a willing tech priest, yes," he said.

"I'll keep your name in mind. We have some gear that could use some maintenance?"

"I specialize in servitors," she said quickly. While it was true that the Adeptus Mechanicus were the only ones with the Omnissiah-given right to repair and maintain most complex things, it was also true that they... generally didn't like being called up to do all of the small, menial maintenance work on simple items.

Being called to walk halfway across an entire ship just to sit there and stew while someone worked on a machine with the speed of a geriatric grandmother was a frustration shared by nearly all members of the Adeptus Mechanicus. The Lieutenant frowned, then nodded.

"All the same, I'll keep that in mind. There was a call on the vox recently. One moment. Vox officer, here, please." The young man with the vox pack ran over and saluted smartly, then listened as his superior asked for a specific set of files. Soon enough Red-C61734 was given a small sheet of paper that he read over.

"Observation: There is a call for assistance by the Adeptus Mechanicus on Deck QG2-5." Alexis considered it for a moment.

"That's near the prow, right?"

"Confirmation: Indeed. Specifically, near a section of the vessel we rarely explore. It is also neighbouring the suspected area of intrusion for these genestealers."

"Oh," she said.

"What's there that belongs to the Mechanicus?"

"Answer: Secondary communications array and astropathic relay station."

"If that's broken, we won't be able to ask for assistance, will we?" she asked.

"If assistance is needed," the Lieutenant said.

"Once this small kerfuffle is handled I'm certain we'll be back on track and arriving in the Segmentum Solar in no time." She hoped he was right. The words did seem to bolster the other voidsmen, though.

"I guess I'll go see if I can't help."

"Query: Do you know anything about the repair of such delicate systems?" She shook her head.

"No. But they'll be using servitors, and I can help with those. And I'd rather be out here helping than stuck in my maintenance bay."

"Rebuke: All work is valued in the eyes of the Omnissiah. Reluctant Acceptance: However, I can see why someone of your talent would feel wasted." Someone of her talent? Ah, there her face went, getting all red again.

"Thank you. I'll be seeing you around, then!" She skedaddled before her face could match her robes. Her servitors took a moment to catch up, and then she realized that she had skedaddled in the wrong direction and she had to sheepishly cross the barricades again going the other way.

"That was humiliating," she muttered.

"I'm sure they all believed it to be endearing."

"I don't want to be endearing! I want to be... I don't know. Respected? Ah, this is all too much. How many points do I have, Machine Spirit Vyper?"

"You currently hold 265 points." That was more than she'd ever had! She could probably afford a few good upgrades with that number.

"Okay, I'm going to think aloud, if that's alright," she said as she continued to walk. She made sure to keep her pace slow, so that her servitor friends could keep up.

"Certainly. Go on."

"Right... Two hundred and something points is a lot. I think... how much is half of that?"

"One hundred and thirty-two point five."

"Ah, I don't like decimals. Okay, let's put aside... twenty-five points, for emergencies."

"Sensible. That would leave you with two hundred and forty points. Or two sets of one hundred and twenty if you still wanted to split it evenly."

"Yeah! Okay. I think... the plan is this. We're gonna put half of those into my friends. Better armour, at least? Maybe some other upgrades? The other half is going to me. Is that fair?"

"Very much so. Might I make a suggestion?"

"Sure!" she said. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"The organization that you're part of seems to favour personal augmentations and cyberware. How would you feel about mental-integrations for such things? If you intend to continue your growth in that direction, then I'd suggest, as a first step, a system similar to a Mind Impulse Unit." Alexis stopped cold.

"A MIU?" she asked. That was something she was aware of, of course, but MIUs were rare, and expensive. There were two sorts, broadly speaking. The first and more common was a device worn around the head. Some pilots had them, and several members of the Mechanicus used those as well. They were difficult to produce, but not quite archeotech. It required a lot of training to use properly, but in the end, the user could direct machines with their minds alone.

Better ones gave impressions and information in return as well. Servitor Overseer Ash-Theta had a very simple one built into his hood that allowed him to direct synthetic servitors with a thought. Then there were proper MIUs. Those were bionic implants that connected a user's mind directly to the machine. It was the kind of thing a magos might have, or one of the vaunted Astartes. Not a lowly barely-a-Tech Acolyte.

"No, not a MIU." She sighed, almost relieved.

"Those are inefficient and require extensive training. They are also generally not tailored to the user. What I'm suggesting is superior." If she could un-sigh, she would.

"But... why?"

"It would allow you better control over your servitor allies, better data sharing, and not to be ignored, it would be a prestigious step up within the ranks of your order, which seems to be at least somewhat meritocratic."

"It'd be expensive, no?" she asked.

"A decent catalogue for implants may range from 75 to 100 points. The implant I'm suggesting itself would cost approximately the same. Or more. Though you could simply choose to upgrade it part by part."

"Upgrades?" she asked.

"An interface fitted to your retinas would be useful, or one connected to your optic nerves. It would also allow you direct control over any prosthetics or cyberware."

"How much would that all cost?" she asked.

"That depends on how much you want to spend." Alexis continued to walk for a ways, moving to the side when a group of menials led by some overseers rushed by. Some of them made the sign of the cog, and she returned it out of reflex. Deck QG2-5 was a ways away still, she had time. So she took much of that time to think, and in the end, she settled on a question.

"If I take a MIU, can I have upgrades for my friends that would let me interact with them?"

"Certainly." That decided it. She found a room that wasn't occupied along the way, which happened to be a small storage space next to a worker's mess hall (that reminded her, she hadn't eaten anything in a while. The excitement had let her forget, but it was approaching her equivalent of evening, and she had skipped lunch).

"Okay... let's start with the catalogue?" she asked. Vyper was happy to help, and pointed her towards a range of options. Some of them seemed a little too... heretical, maybe? So she went with something nice and basic. New Purchase: Strategic Operator Cyberware Points Reduced to: 165 That was the start. Then came the actual item itself. New Purchase: Strategic Command Neural System Points Reduced to: 75 It came, of course, in a box. She opened it, then stared.

The MIU was suspended in a glass vial, with a long, plunging injector in the box next to it. A small paper with instructions showed her how to load the injector, then shoot herself in the nape of the neck, aiming upwards. This was... her first time moving away from just being flesh. It was a big first step.

"H-how about we get something for my friends, too?" she asked as she set the injector back down into the box.

"Of course." New Purchase: Command Co-Processor x3 Points Reduced to: 30 The processor was a small chip with several filaments coming off of it, each one finer than a hair. She could only barely catch sight of them when the light came in through their ampule from the correct angle. It came with a similar injector, and instructions that weren't much different. She started with loyal old 054-648. The injector was pressed to the back of his neck, not far from the base of his skull.

She pulled the trigger, and hissed in sympathetic pain. The servitor barely twitched.

"He is now linked to a private communications channel, not too dissimilar to the Noosphere, though significantly more secure. The processor is powered via the natural neural electricity his brain produces. Full installation time is nine hours."

"Neat," she said. She did K84-321 next, then KYS. Both seemed to take the insertion without issue.

"M-maybe a snack, next?" She spent a good twenty minutes chatting with Vyper about options before settling on something cheap. New Purchase: Type 04 MRE Points Reduced to: 28 What she expected to receive was a typical meal pack. They had had a few of those before on the ship. The Rogue Trader had made some trades with a regiment of the Imperial Guard maybe... two years ago? She wasn't sure.

In any case, it meant that they had a ton of old equipment going around for a while, and that included several thousand pallets of Guardsman MREs. They had been passed around, and she had been more or less forced to choke a few down. This was better. A sort of plastic tray, made of a very light aluminium alloy, with several compartments built into it. Removing the top of each one started a chemical reaction that heated the food within up in seconds. It tasted divine.

The strange tubers were soft and salty, the meat succulent, and there were noodles, and sauces, and... she soon found her metal spoon scrubbing the bottom, looking for more where there was none. It even came with a drink, something like a recaf, only cold and fizzy and sugary. Time was up. She set the tray aside, then sighed and picked up the injector. She had been wasting time.

"Here goes nothing," she said before quickly pressing it to the base of her neck. She pulled the trigger.