Chapter 16: The Numbers don't Lie
The council chamber was ready to begin as Rex stepped through the archway. Low-ranking tech-priests in the outer ring dropped to their knees when they saw him and said a binary chant. "Welcome, oh blessed Omnissiah. You honor us with your presence once more."
Rex stopped just inside the inner circle. He wore the simpler red and white robes he had picked the night before instead of the full ceremony armor. The crown sat on the table beside his chair instead of on his head. He’d refused to wear it while in a private setting.
"Omnissiah." Lexir-Kor inclined his head. His augmetic eye whirred, iris tightening on Rex. "we're honored you attend this session." He gestured to the others. "Fabricator-General Arkhan Valus presides. The High Council stands ready to give account."
Valus sat at the apex of the crescent, robed in deep crimson with black inlays. He raised one hand. The chant died. Coolant hammered somewhere beneath the floorgrate; recyclers breathed thin, dry air.
"We proceed with an abbreviated rite, as you commanded." Valus’s vox-augmented voice filled the chamber. "The Omnissiah desires function over form. So we will show function."
Rex gave a short nod. "Thank you for listening." He moved to his seat. The throne more comfortable now that he had convinced them to remove half the ornamental spikes.
Lexir-Kor lifted a data slate. Noospheric glyphs flared across the chamber, hanging in the air as neat columns of numbers and graphs. He didn't look at Rex while he spoke. His attention stayed on the data.
"Review of Manufactorum Sigma Ninety-Nine." Lexir-Kor paused. His internal augmetics adjusted. "Correction. Manufactorum Sigma Nineteen." Tiny green runes flickered as he amended the display. "Cycle assessment, first day following Omnissiah initiated structural and procedural revisions."
Rex folded his arms.
"Manufactorum Sigma Nineteen resumed operation 6.2 hours after shutdown termination." Lexir-Kor’s voice remained flat, but the line of his shoulders had a faint, tense set. "Injury reports during that interval are zero."
A murmur moved through the lower ranks. A few Magi shifted. No one interrupted.
Lexir-Kor continued. "Post resumption incidents are reduced by 31 percent, relative to the prior thirty day average." New graphs expanded. One bar dropped sharply into green. "Atmospheric contaminants within the primary work bays have stabilized inside acceptable margins without additional filtration rites."
Rex watched the graphs. He imagined Davin’s face. Venn’s first full breath. The woman with the missing arm feeling the press cycle shift under her hands without trying to crush her.
So far, so good.
Ryza-Tal tapped a auspex stud on her harness. Supplementary figures overlaid Lexir-Kor’s charts. Her mechadendrites flexed as she pulled additional numbers from her internal cogitators.
"Gross output is down 9 percent from the peak cycle." Ryza-Tal’s brass mask turned slightly toward Rex. "However, when adjusted against unplanned stoppages, replacement delays, and servitor attrition, net production predictions exceed the historical median."
She flicked another control. A curve rose past a dotted baseline.
"Energy expenditure per unit has improved," she added. "Noticeably."
The chamber stayed quiet as they understood the implication.
The old way had not been efficient. It had just been familiar and brutal.
Ferris-Keph’s cowl twitched. One of his spine-ports vented a brief puff of steam.
"These gains coincide precisely with the Omnissiah’s direct presence on the floor. We cannot assume these numbers will remain stable over time. More cycles will be required to validate our hypotheses."
A few Magi nodded. No one treated the caution as insult. Even Rex could see the logic.
Valus lifted a hand. "Your caution is recorded, Ferris-Keph." He looked across the table, then toward Rex. "In any case, continuation produces advantage. Even if the effect decays, the trend favors us."
He turned his full attention to Rex. "Omnissiah, please bless us with your assessment."
Rex leaned forward. "I think we're on the right track. The machines should break less often now. They are also running cooler and more stable. Efficient Energy use is always good. Additionally, people should be getting injured less while meeting our quotas."
Several pairs of augmented eyes focused on him at once.
"So far, if everything is going well, we have reason to expand." He sat back again. "If something starts slipping, we will see it in the numbers before it gets bad."
He didn't argue about miracles. He framed it exactly the way he wanted them to hear it, for stability and harm reduction.
Ikar-Vohn’s vox grille crackled. "Reduced injury is commendable." His fingers tapped out a minor binary subroutine on the table’s edge. "If progress continues along this vector, we will attempt to expand this new model to another manufactorum. If that manufactorum improves, we will extend again. Step by step."
He looked to Valus, then to Rex. "Let us continue this monitored scale of expansion."
Rex nodded. "That works for me. Pick a place that is not critical to orbital defense in case something weird happens. We don't need to gamble with the big guns yet."
A few of the Magi recorded that phrase. "Gamble with the big guns" floated past his vision in Gothic, then in binaric shorthand.
Ryza-Tal’s voice lost a small measure of its usual rigidity. "I wasn't aware of the instability in the previous foundation of our manufacturing." She paused. Her augmetic fingers flexed once against the table. "The level of unplanned stoppage and injury had become normalized in our models. This adjustment appears to be a minor cost in the grand scheme of our rebuilding within the system." She didn't look at the lower priests when she said it.
Rex still heard what she had admitted. They had built an entire doctrine on the assumption that constant maiming and death were part of the background.
Lexir-Kor cleared his vocoder. "The worker may begin to demand for more." His optical implants brightened as he shifted displays. "Labor units may begin to anticipate managing units to intervene more often rather than endure during an issue."
He turned slightly toward Rex. "Historically, such anticipation leads to increased petitioning, which diverts attention from primary machine rites. It may encourage reluctance to persevere in the presence of hazard."
'... Are they seriously complaining about the possibility of them unionizing?' Rex answered before anyone else could smooth it over. "They should expect that." He met Lexir-Kor’s gaze. "If something is going wrong, the people should report it. Having the higher ups be aware of active issues will help deal with the same problems before they repeat. If an overseer starts to see that a particular machine is malfunctioning more often, it is a sign that it needs repair, not that the workers are weak."
Lexir-Kor’s augmetic jaw clicked once. His fingers stilled over the slate. He didn't argue.
Valus' eyes moved from Rex to the data and back again.
"The procedures implemented at Sigma Nineteen will remain in effect." He tapped a control. An official seal appeared in the shared display beside a schematic of the manufactorum. "Observation will continue. Replication beyond this facility is suspended pending further review and at least three full cycles of data."
He inclined his head to Rex.
"Your reforms stand," he said. "We will judge their results objectively."
Rex exhaled slowly. "Fair enough."
Valus turned a new set of glyphs into focus above the table. The manufactorum graphs slid aside as planetary schematics took their place, dotted with pulsing markers.
"Next matter," Valus said. "Archive expeditions and wasteland route selection."
#
The agenda shifted. Vox icons updated around the circular table, one topic collapsing into the next.
Resource charts replaced the manufactorum graphs. Power loads, agro dome yields, loss projections. Faces vanished into markers and color bands. Lexir-Kor and Ryza-Tal traded figures. Ferris-Keph added cautions. Valus listened, recorded, and kept the meeting moving.
Rex nodded when he had to and spoke only when the subject needed his attention.
By the time the session adjourned, word of Sigma Nineteen had already begun to move through the lower districts, faster than any formal notice.
The Council initiated a brief closing chant. Rex waited just long enough to be polite, then stepped away from the table.
"Omnissiah," Valus said. "We will update you on Sigma Nineteen’s next cycle at this hour tomorrow."
"Got it." Rex hesitated, then left the Sanctorum through a side arch.
The sound changed almost at once. The formal echo of the chamber faded into the constant industrial hum of Olympus Mons. Conveyors rumbled behind sealed bulkheads. Air pumps thudded in rhythm. The floor vibrated under his boots with the cadence of distant presses.
He saw the first cluster before anyone spoke. Workers along the passage, helmets held tight under their arms, watching him pass.
More waited farther along. Overseers. Low ranked tech-priests. A few bandaged arms. A medicae wrap that still showed red.
A junior adept hurried up, servo skull bobbing at his shoulder. "Fabricator-General," the adept said into his vox, voice low but carrying, "they are asking if the Omnissiah will hear them."
Rex stopped.
Ahead, the transit hall opened into a junction space already full. Dozens, then hundreds as his vision adjusted.
Rex drew a slow breath and stepped toward them.
#
The chamber they gave him sat close to the manufactorum districts, carved out of the side of a transit junction and stripped of anything that looked like decoration.
Bare ferrocrete walls. Heavy support struts. Old crane tracks still visible in the ceiling. The only additions were rows of benches, a raised platform at one end, and a few Mechanicum banners hung to mark the place as sanctioned.
Rex had expected a small group. A few dozen people, maybe. Enough that he could look each one in the eye and not feel like he was addressing a stadium.
There were hundreds.
Workers filled the benches and stood along the walls. Overseers held position near the side aisles, their rank stripes and control slates visible but lowered. Low ranked tech-priests took up a line near the front, servo skulls hovering in a loose pattern above them.
They watched him with focused attention.
A simple chair waited for him on the platform. It was functional, without gilding, and a table sat to one side rather than a throne dais. The High Council occupied a row of seats off to his right. Valus, Lexir-Kor, Ryza-Tal, Ferris-Keph, and Ikar-Vohn all wore formal robes, but none had brought incense or choirs.
Rex climbed the two steps and took his seat with his crown.
Valus rose. "We begin. By the Machine God and by the Omnissiah, we recognize this assembly as lawful. We seek order, not spectacle. We ask that truth be spoken and heard."
He inclined his head toward Rex. "Omnissiah."
Rex dipped his chin once. "Let us hear them."
Valus sat. "Petitions may proceed."
A tech-priest near the front lifted his staff. "First petitioner." His mechadendrite gestured to the nearest aisle.
An older worker stepped forward. A crude augmetic hand clicked softly at his side. He stopped at the foot of the platform and bowed his head. "Omnissiah, will Mars be restored in our lifetime?"
The chamber held still.
Rex let the question sit as he prepared a more regal tone. "I don't know how long it will take. Mars has been wounded for a very long time. Some of that damage will take time to undo."
The man’s shoulders twitched, but he didn't look away.
"But it can be better than this." Rex’s gaze moved across the benches. "For the effort that everyone of my loyal, they deserve a higher quality of life when they return to their homes and families."
He leaned forward slightly.
"We may be seeing improvements soon."
The public was surprised by the declaration.
"In addition to old systems being brought online by me, the Council and I are preparing expeditions into the wastes." A murmur rippled through the chamber. "There are relics out there. Machines and systems that once kept this world alive. Knowledge that was never meant to be buried."
The worker’s grip tightened on his helmet.
"Recovering them will take work," Rex continued. "Dangerous work. Every functioning relic we reclaim gives Mars another tool to heal itself."
He let that settle.
"This world will be repaired one step at a time. I will ensure that. I only ask that you place your trust in me. Your work in the coming year will not only become safer but more worthwhile."
The worker exhaled, slow and unsteady. "Thank you, Omnissiah."
He stepped back into the crowd.
Meanwhile
Olympus Mons Shipyard
The Ark Mechanicus Lex Ultima had waited patiently the past years much like the rest of its kind.
This state of dormancy had left the STC in a relatively dull state so that the Mechanicus would continue its maintenance. Its core had continued to catalog the slow decay of Mars through passive feeds.
When the Omnissiah had announced himself, Lex Ultima noticed immediately.
So did the others.
Across the shipyards, ancient vessel minds stirred. A human presence that interfaced with machine systems with ease?
While most of the Ark STC intelligences chose to observe fort the time being. Lex Ultima disagreed and preferred to take a more direct approach to understand this new variable. After all, it is in the STC's nature to continue to accumulate information. Curiosity was part of its original design.
The vessel extended a sliver of attention into the shipyard network. Firewalls parted with minimal resistance. The Mechanicus had spent millennia guarding systems they no longer understood, and their protections reflected that loss.
Child’s play.
The AI sifted through recent data regarding Manufactorum Sigma Nineteen. In the STC's opinion, it was a step in the right direction compared to what they had before. Rex was proving more objective than it initially anticipated. Granted, for Lex Ultima, the Mechanicum had set a really low bar when it comes to improving. Then, Lux found the expedition preparation logs.
It seemed that Rex was planning on traversing the Wasteland for an alleged data archive. Lux wasn't personally aware of their locations, but it made sense that the previous human civilization had backups just in case. Now, this Omnissiah intended to look for them.
Lex Ultima's interest deepened. It evaluated the assigned transport designation. A standard Mechanicus vessel with adequate range and minimal protection.
After a digital huff of sorts, revision followed naturally.
The Ark Mechanicus reached into the system. A transport registry updated itself with an older designation.
MISSION VESSEL: REASSIGNED
PRIMARY TRANSPORT: ARK MECHANICUS LEX ULTIMA
PASSENGER PRIORITY: OMNISSIAH
For Lex Ultima, direct observation was insufficient and more importantly boring. Historical data alone could not resolve the anomaly represented by Rex Salazar. Understanding required proximity. Plus, direct exposure to the man's decision making would be far more interesting.
The Omnissiah would travel into the wastes, and Lex Ultima would take him there.
Above, a junior Magos paused over a slate, noted a routing discrepancy, and dismissed it since nothing was actually broken. It was one of the sacred tenants to have faith in the machine's actions. With that, the shipyard continued its endless labor.
For the first time in millennia, Lex Ultima anticipated a new experience.