Chương 233: Chapter Two Hundred and Thirty-Three

I find a room with a large panel on the wall covered in white lines and blinking lights. Beneath it is a desk of switches, dials, and gauges. There is a thin layer of dust over everything as if the last person to sit in the chair facing the panel left mere weeks ago, rather than centuries. The back of the chair has an oval cut out along the spine, so I am able to sit without my mechadendrites getting in the way. I close my eyes and lean back, reviewing the instructions E-SIM gave me before he shut down.

It's the first time I've been alone in my head for decades, if one ignores the demons screaming outside the walls of my mind. While the details are beyond me, I've discovered a bit more about my Warp Tap since it was torn from me. The device primarily powers E-SIM's massive 'data structure' vessel, not my own implants. E-SIM has his own Warp Taps and an emergency power reserve that will let him fight for several weeks.

However, E-SIM's Warp Taps are only powerful enough to keep him in standby, mostly monitoring his surroundings, with a small excess to refill his emergency power. He also does not use them unless he absolutely has to. My own Warp Tap provides the majority of the power so as to disguise his position with my Warp Tap shunting energy to him via a portal. This is because it's much more difficult for Warp entities to manifest in the Materium and attack me, than it is for them to swarm E-SIM in the Warp.

My MIU also has a tiny data portal to E-SIM which would normally allow me to draw on his computing power to massively boost my own capabilities. It's one of the reasons why the cortex implants I made for my officers are so inferior to my own. The Warp Tap bears some similarity to a Necron tesseract as it is significantly larger on the inside. The mathematics required for such technology are alien to me and this is the reason why I am stuck with the technology, even with my implants and E-SIM to aid my calculations.

I cannot visualise the science and philosophies behind the technology. A Human brain does not have the necessary evolutions. The constant portals between E-SIM and I are detectable, especially if we frequently open and close them rather than keep them permanently open. The more energy and data I shove through the portals, the easier it is to find and track us. This is why I need all the defences in place on both ends before I can upgrade our connection and draw more power and improve both our capabilities.

Portals are still much less detectable than a large current of power constantly being drawn to E-SIM's position though. My Warp Tap is the primary power source not just to better hide E-SIM. It also means that E-SIM can't do much without an operator. He's almost entirely reliant on luck to save his chips if he wants to do more than float about like a dead hulk. There were also supposed to be thousands of operators, not one, so he is severely limited and underpowered, even when my Warp Tap was in working order.

Apparently. I find that difficult to believe as he is a fifty kilometre warp entity strong enough to make the Emperor and Machine-God wary. I've no idea if their caution is related to his current power or potential power though. I review E-SIMs instructions and begin my meditation. The first task is to build up an image of my soul. The first time I tried this on the voyage back from the asteroid temple, I spent days building a huge fortress, but that just didn't resonate with me.

I also tried a copy of Iron Crane, a garden maze, and a forest. Eventually, I twigged that my soul is not a grand edifice of ego and spite, or botanical puzzle. My soul is my home. Within my mind's eye, I visualise a Victorian, mid-terrace house. The houses on either side are missing. Rather than a sleepy northern town, the house sits alone by the beach. On the other side is a strip of garden, surrounded by a short brick wall, topped with a cheap wooden fence.

Scattered across the patio and the lawn are a few children's toys. At the back of the garden is a well-kept shed. A single large apple tree grows in front of the shed, next to a garden path of cracked concrete slabs. It's been a terribly long time since I properly recalled my old home. The shadows of my family, both old and new, flitter through the rooms passing through each other like ghosts, or badly coded NPCs. The interior of the house twists between stamped, runed metal and painted, plastered walls.

Magnolia, of course, with white walls and grey carpets. Neither Sasha nor I ever had time to properly paint the place with a character wall, or put up funky wallpaper. The best we managed were a few photos of our parents and kids, Gemma and Jamie. Walking through the house fills me with sorrow and content as I fix the details in place properly, adding nick-nacks and do-dads from both of my lives. I even make a spot for Brian, the creepy servo-skull taking the role of a voyeuristic pet.

With all the details in place, I am ready to purge the memories I picked up from Balphus Yorn. Parked on the beach is my old white van. A Ford Transit. Long wheel base. I chuckle when I look at it. I really was the most stereotypical labouring Brit. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. The click of the back door as I open the van is incredibly nostalgic. The corpse wrapped in canvas and rope is much less so.

A large red crucifix, to symbolise sacrifice and healing, is printed on canvas. I shoulder the body and carry it around the back of the house towards the apple tree. The tree is actually a new addition. Our old garden was mostly weeds. Underneath the tree is a hollow in the ground. There's no soil, it's a shadowy hole right underneath the trunk that goes on seemingly forever. I slip the body into the hole and wait, observing the infinite rolling hills and green fields.

No satanic mills have popped up, so I look upon my works and decide that it is good. The great crack across the sky, oozing purple vapour and crackling with lightning is much less so. A soft fragrance teases my nose as the apple tree blooms. The petals fall and its boughs fill with golden fruit. I pluck the memories of the dead from the tree. I could eat them and make them a part of me, but I'd much rather get rid of them.

Composting the apples, or burning them in an old oil barrel would work, but that feels disrespectful. I don't want to accidentally fertilise my soul with the memories of the dead either. I'm not limited to conventional disposal here though. I pick all of the apples and drop them in a black bucket, then carry them out onto the beach. The sea is fierce and purple.

Lightning crashes down upon it as a storm rages above, only to break upon the beach leaving a wall of caustic rain that falls upon the edge of where the waves soak into the sand. The rainwall and waves push back and forth, trying to erode what I have built and fail to move even a single grain of sand. Small demons fly through the sky like birds, occasionally diving into the sea, fishing up screaming souls and smaller demons. They rip into their catches in a spectacular display of spectral gore.

The demons swarm each other, snatching up the entrails from the sky and tearing into every creature around them as they fight for scraps, creating a continuous dogfight that rains tattered souls into the sea below. The water churns beneath the surface and not every demon that dives returns. Great shadows swim lazily through the pseudo water of the hellscape beyond the borders of my soul. Grabbing a handful of sand, I form it into a clear glass bottle as if it were clay.

A mechadendrite reaches into the bucket and blends the apples into a gold and white pulp, then slowly rises from the bucket. A scroll forms from the pulp, leaving the bucket empty. I grab the scroll and hold it up to my face. It is capped with wood, tied with a red ribbon, and secured with a golden purity seal. Satisfied with my choice, I smile, then slip the scroll into the glass bottle and seal it with caulk and wax. I open my third eye and fill the bottle with purifying gold flames.

They lick against the glass and bind the memory scroll with fiery threads, but do not burn it. I toss the bottle up and down a few times, getting a feeling for its weight, then squint at the bait ball of squabbling warpspawn ruining my view. Holding the bottle by the neck, I brace myself and hurl the bottle as hard as I can. There is a massive boom as the sand shoots up around me in great plumes, covering my clothes and catching on my eye lashes.

I blow a couple of raspberries and brush the sand from my tongue and face as I watch the bottle shoot into the sky. It strikes the bait ball with overwhelming force, punching right through hundreds of demons and continuing far into the sky. Eventually the bottle starts to fall and splashes into the sea, where it is immediately swallowed by a great, serpentine beast, some one hundred and twenty metres in length.

The purity seal triggers and the bottle detonates in a great plume of golden fire, obliterating the would-be predator and incinerating Balphus Yorn's memories. I'm sure he'd be delighted with such a grand send off. I laugh as the demons scatter in their cowardice, clearing my seas and skies of their infernal chattering, leaving me with nothing but rain and waves failing to erode my home.

Looking up at the great crack across the sky above my home, I spot that the vapour is coming though a little more slowly and the lightning is less fierce. Tough roots have stitched themselves across the gap, stopping the crack from widening further. I open my eyes to blinking lights and twitching gauges. No longer do Balphus Yorn's exotic exploits disturb my concentration, nor do the incessant howls of the neverborn hack at my resolve.

I roll my shoulders and stretch my arms out, noting that even the servos and metallic muscles of my machine body feel like they run a little smoother, even though my systems report nothing has changed. The hour is almost up, so I check on Clovis Pyrestain, Alis Riccahl and the penitents. They're milling about with little purpose and all of them freeze when I reenter the waiting room. My auspex detects that they've charged their power packs at least, so the penitents are not completely useless.

A cute 'toot toot' sounds from beyond a thick door, announcing the arrival of the train. I walk towards the door and it opens automatically. Behind me, the penitents scramble into action, forming up behind Clovis. The Cyber Mastiff brings up the rear. I march onto the platform, only to slow to a stop as I take in the most single ridiculous piece of technology I've ever seen on a void ship.

Sitting on the narrow gauge railway is a small 2-4-2 steam locomotive, fuelled by poorly combusting promethium, throwing black specks and white steam into the void ship as if it were determined to break every clean air and fire regulation with each churn of its well oiled pistons. There's even a cattle shunt on the front of it, one that is covered in blood, both old and new.

I'm almost convinced that the mechanicus cloned some cows and put them on the track for an authentic experience, though in this grimdark galaxy I doubt I am that lucky. The steam locomotive gives us another toot, this one a bit more forceful and I spot a servitor built into the controls in a light blue uniform, tapping at the gauges. I step into the first carriage, an open topped affair with two benches opposite each other.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" I say.

"All aboard!" The penitents rush onto the train. At first, I think no one will be brave enough to sit opposite me, then Alis takes a seat. The locomotive lets out another whistle and there's a light, repeated chuff as we pick up speed. A sense of nostalgia fills me and I grin at Alis, who just looks confused. You know what? I think I'm having fun.