The last eight months had been frustrating.
It turns out I had been optimistic, if not delusional, about how long it would take me to investigate the hidden party. My search algorithm, now situated in the fortress, was the only reason I had made as much progress as I had. It turns out, it is hard to track something that has no interest in being found and has remained hidden for centuries, if not longer.
It had been like trying to find a needle in a haystack the size of a planet made of needles, only to find out you weren't looking for a needle at all, but an invisible nail. It was a lesson on patience, but I had ground it down, day in and day out.
The structure of this shadowy faction was a major contributor to what was slowing me down. The different cells didn’t interact at all. I wasn’t even sure they knew who they were. As for their leader or handler, they met briefly and rarely. There were sometimes weeks or months between contact.
But I had slowly traced up the organisation, one priest at a time.
It wasn’t the only thing I'd spent my time on of course. My new servitors were out and were somewhat of a mixed bag. The first iteration was already scrapped. Good in principle but inadequate in practice. I was on the fourth iteration by now and was much happier with them.
When I could, I spent a considerable length of time working with the Legiones Skitarii, accessing as many as possible. The more I looked, the more infected ones I found. I had detected millions by this point, and I was sure I had barely scratched the surface. I estimated there had to be upwards of ten million with the new commands… at least.
Each time I updated their operating system with a new directive. Which basically boiled down to ignoring the code embedded in their operating systems. It was slow since I couldn’t roll it out to every Skitarii at once.
That would have made life easier, but to access the commands, you had to be physically jacked in.
Either way, I had converted hundreds of thousands by this point. I focused on important areas first, like the navy above our heads. Or the large space stations and wharfs. On the planet, I focused on strategic targets, like power generators or growth labs.
With conflict almost guaranteed, I wanted an ace in the hole and had started to construct a virus. I built it in my fortress, which had somehow gained the name of the Crypt. I didn’t hate it and had caught myself referring to it that way.
What I was making was less a virus, and more of a module I added onto the search engine programme. Its access was incredibly valuable and would help to propagate the virus when activated.
Although by this point it was less code and something more.
It wasn’t scrap code… not yet. It had no warp presence to it, but it was more than a programme. I planned for it to be a targeted attack, but that wasn’t what it had morphed into. It was still targeted, but the scope was massive. It used the search engine to identify targets connected to the noosphere, and once it found a match, it killed them.
It couldn’t break really secure sites or priests but I was working on that next. Made easier by my recent round of sparks. With that new information, I was aiming to make it scrap code; I just had to be very careful in 'raising' it.
I didn’t want it to mutate and target me.
I had gained two sparks for completing the fortress. One was social, for creating a well-known information broker, and the other was for creating the fortress itself. Obviously, a more impressive feat than I had thought at the time, even if the sparks weren't the brightest I had ever seen. They were still potent.
And raising was the right word. Of the eight sparks (two from my milestones and six for the new year), four went into Software, pushing it into tier 4. A massive discount. I would guess eight would have been needed beforehand.
As soon as I did, I regretted not doing it years ago. The amount of information was crippling; even with my enhancements, it felt like my brain was going to explode. It was the worst I had ever felt.
But I had my first spark at tier 4, and it was so worth the sparks. It had all the normal information, building on what was there before, but had entirely new disciplines.
Where before I needed to laboriously transcribe my scripts for everything I wanted them for. The new knowledge gave me an entirely new, more organic approach.
It required a direct connection, which I luckily already had access to, with the MIU. It needed some changes, but the bulk of it was there already. With that I could start to create, what was called 'Living' or self-adaptive code.
It wasn’t AI or even aware. Requiring no warp presence like scrap code did or machine spirits and it had hard constraints of how it could grow. But I could convert my thoughts into logic. Think less writing it and closer to shaping it, like clay.
A very weird process, and not one that came naturally to me, at least to start with. The early attempted were all deleted, as I was pretty sure several of them were a full on Skynet situation. But once I had the hang of it they were enjoyable to create.
If all that wasn’t enough, I now had clear knowledge on how to create fully self-aware AIs. It was based off a very similar principle, but with less constraints as the 'Programme' grew. Unsurprisingly I was quite hesitant to mess around with them. First as that was clear and instant heresy. But also all the stories I heard about them revolting.
I was sure we didn’t have the full story but even the possibility at this stage was too much and I would largely stay away from them.
This was then complemented by the last two points, which went into Machine Spirit, pushing it to tier 2. While the knowledge from the software fragment was invaluable—incredibly so, it wasn’t life-changing. The machine spirit fragment was.
It outlined a whole new way of creating software. It also made my Crafting spark idea more valid. The base was the same, but it was the steps after that were life-changing.
Before, once the software was created, that was it. It either stayed static or grew to become a machine spirit randomly.
Now I'd learned how to guide its development. Instilling certain traits and feelings, for example, a protectiveness for me and mine. That sort of thing.
It certainly wasn't a science, but more of an art. The two of them combined, completely changed my approaches.
It wasn’t just useful for the virus I made. If anything, I had found a larger use for my servitors. Now they already had souls, what with the human brain controlling them, so they weren't machine spirits, at least according to the Mechanicus.
But the human brain was lobotomised and fully controlled by the command chip. This only changed if the chip was damaged or the process was fucked up, leaving the brain with more control. Otherwise it should act like a perfect robot.
I learned to bridge this gap between machine and soul. Creating a machine spirit adjacent thing. Naming still in progress.
They now had more freedom to act on direct stimulus, according to their base commands, while still having no independent thought.
It had crossed my mind that all I was creating were more advanced robots with multiple steps in between, but that was neither here nor there.
Regardless, I was closing in on the top of the organisation. With each layer I discovered, I was more horrified by the size of it. Some handlers could be managing hundreds of adepts in some of the larger cells. With its scope and war inevitable, I had looked for ways to protect myself.
That meant finding my allies.
Viel was somewhat out. I had seen how he had reacted, and it wasn’t good. The only reason he hadn't pushed for open war, even with the comprehensive evidence against it, was that the Fabricator General had outright told him not to. Although by that point I think logic had prevailed. That didn’t stop him from tasking me with dozens of sabotage missions.
Which I dutifully did. At least as long as it didn’t hinder my objectives.
Surprisingly, most of my time was taken up by Theta, who always had a mission for me. They mostly were around searching for information, corroborating facts or removing key rivals. That had only been a few so far, but the numbers were growing as the forge world destabilised further.
Not only was the warp storm getting worse, creeping inwards, and even cutting off some planets entirely within the sector. Resulting in more planets in open revolt. Which meant more and more Skitarii were leaving the forge world.
It was clear to me that he and Ferrix were making plans to jump ship if necessary. They were trying with what they had, but they were creating backup plans. Something I didn’t begrudge them for.
I was doing the same.
So no, I had to look elsewhere. And the answer was obvious, which was how I found myself huddled around a table in Solvexa's sanctum. With me were Solvexa of course, Tyr, Ro-44/em28, Sygex-X and Draxus.
I had already scanned the room for bugs and then locked it down, no communication in or out. A data-djinn floated in the noosphere, making sure we were not disturbed or spied on.
Once we were secure, I laid it all out, everything I had. At least stuff that I had plausible deniability of gaining. This unfortunately meant some of the data I gained as my Shadow identity, I couldn't share. But even so, there was a lot there.
Hopefully, it was enough.
Lots of the information was inferred, with few actual facts or cold, hard evidence. For example, I had worryingly found that the Skitarii being sent away to put down revolts weren't corrupted. So while originally there was only a small percentage of Skitarii affected, that percentage was skewing more and more into the shadowy factions' favour.
Again, no definitive facts, but clear concerning trends.
I leaned back, waiting for them to finish reading the data burst I sent them. It was comprehensive, so I expected it to take them some time.
A quick ping of the systems confirmed we were still secure. Lysa and Kellen were playing in a separate room. Kellen was shooting his new rifle I’d made for him. It was a bulky thing and a bit big for him right now, but when resting on the tripod, it was a thing of beauty. If I didn’t say so myself.
It of course had the CSL system, which was part of what contributed to its increased bulk. The rest of it was completely new with redesigned internals. With war coming, I didn’t want them to be unprotected.
I still needed to be careful, now more than ever, what with the Arcuitors actively searching for hereteks. And as with any fanatical purge, they missed more than they hit. I knew dozens of adepts who were completely clean but had still been prosecuted.
I would not be one of them.
Anyway, the rifle was me trying something. It was safe of course; it wasn’t that experimental, but I had asked Kellen to put it through its paces and see what he thought. If it worked, I would try to make a slimmed-down version for him to use long term.
Lysa, on the other hand, was sitting nearby, face set into a frown of concentration, her little tongue sticking out, as she controlled several servo skulls around her.
There were five of them, moving and shooting around the room. Not easy to directly control that many by yourself, which was what she was doing, rather than letting the servo skull bear most of the weight.
Snuffles was curled near them, ears pricked and alert. Finally, by the front door was my BFG, mixed amongst the dozen Solvexa had by this point. If I looked outside the door, I would see my other dozen servitors pacing up and down the corridor. Each looked like they were carrying something and were going about their day, so it wasn’t completely obvious that they were patrolling the door.
"By the Omnissiah." Tyr whispered, horrified. "What should we do? We need to let the Fabricator General know." Already standing to move to the door.
Ro said sharply.
Tyr paused, shocked. Both being told 'no' about going to the Fabricator General, but more importantly, being told no by a Skitarii. It was rare for a Skitarii to take such a voice with the tech priests.
Before he could retort, Solvexa nodded.
"Why?"
Sygex turned sharply to me suddenly.
I said, pinging the relevant information over to them.
Ro almost growled, a deeply mechanical sound.
I said, holding my hand up.
Solvexa pulsed through binharic code.
Ro said.
I said, holding his gaze.
He relaxed, settling back into his seat.
"So what next?" Tye said, still looking worried
Solvexa said. She pinged over seven names, several I recognised from the expedition.
Ro asked, cocking his head. A surprisingly human gesture.
She tapped the table, the clicking of metal on metal as she made each point.
I nodded, agreeing with her. This would be a good chance to slot more of them into her forces.
Engeinseer Draxus, quiet until now, asked. As he did, the others fell silent; he normally had something worth listening to when he spoke.
I could already guess where this was going. I would have offered regardless; increasing the strength of Solvexa's faction was only in my best interest. I trusted them more than most. Interacting with Solvexa had only solidified my first impressions of her.
The care she and Tyr had for each other was also a big plus in my books.
I take a moment to consider, gently rocking from side to side as I weighed my options.
Solvexa asked, nodding thoughtfully. I could already see her mind creating new plans.
I knew I would be able to. I had already started doing it for myself weeks ago. It was how I had been able to afford the number of servitors I now had. Hence why Lysa had more servo skulls around her.
They were several of the many I had assigned to them.
I didn’t have as many as I wanted to. I had dozens of the new servitor variant, which were basically a meat shields or a distraction. The BFG was much slower to create. Although this was for a good reason. I had deliberately awakened the quasi-machine spirit in each of them.
It added a lot of extra work to them.
But it gave them the best of both worlds. It kept the advantages of servitors. Machine-like precision, consistency, and fearlessness, but also had initiative built in. More to the point, I was able to build in an inclination of protectiveness for me and mine.
This vastly increased the BFG's effectiveness.
I had practised with the disposable servitors and had to go through quite a few attempts before I started to learn the art. I had to factory-wipe many, many servitors to get there. Some did awaken correctly, others were just downright homicidal.
I had found the new knowledge actually meshed with my underutilised glyph fragment.
Having a surprising amount in common, semi-confirming if it wasn't already, that machine spirits were linked to belief and the warp.
It had been so effective that I moved up getting my Crafting spark to next year. As well as seeing how many sparks it would take to push Machine Spirits to tier 3. Some sparks were for Bionics.
I still wanted to push that to tier 4, but that would take a few years. But when I did, I hoped to be able to use my partial blueprints for the bionics I found all those years ago (if I hadn't already, I was so close). Then, combine that with the Crafter fragment I wanted, and I should be able to build some of the best bionics, full stop.
Anyway, the glyphs were very useful in guiding the machine spirits, and I had gained a lot of practice with them. The servitors only needed a few well-placed glyphs within their skulls to direct the machine spirits' development. That too, could do with some sparks as well.
Now I had found a use for it.
What I didn’t know was the long-term effects of it.
Something I was closely monitoring.
I had three types I was testing, the first I left the glyphs in and active. As well as adding several others, mostly around protecting it from the effects of the warp and specifically chaos. The other, I incorporated some of the anti-warp tech I had access to. And the final ones, I just removed the glyphs when the machine spirit had grown since it no longer needed them.
Time would tell which method was superior.
Solvexa stood, catching my attention once more and stopping my mind from wandering.
Having already investigated him.
She said, glaring at him, daring him to contradict her.
He said with a small smile.
We carried on planning and discussing deep into the night. Making contingencies and backups just in case.
---
I stalked the adept through the noosphere. I was in my Aleric avatar, so needed to be careful, but I was on a rare job from Ferrix. The adept in question was stubbornly blocking many of his agendas, apparently from some bad blood from the past.
Even a priest could be petty if they wanted to be.
So I was asked to remove him. Something I was doubly happy to do since he was a cell leader for a large cell within the Skitarii. That was actually how he got himself on my list. He was blocking Ferrix's request for more.
Judging by his avatar, it would be a simple enough task. I was just waiting for somewhere more private first.
We passed through corridor after corridor, with him and everyone around him none the wiser of the death hanging over him. Then I saw my opportunity.
He moved into a quiet spot within the forge world. The corridor, surprisingly empty of sensors and data flow, and with no other adepts in sight. Perfect.
I was on him before he knew what hit him.
My programmes sliced through his defences, freezing his body and stopped him from sending out a distress signal. At the same time, I superseded control over his servitors and killed their current commands, halting them all in place. Each waiting for the next command in perfect stillness.
Taking control over the closest servitor, I reached through it and slammed its blocky, oversized augmented arm into the incapacitated adept. His skull crumpled, killing him instantly. I left the servitor mindlessly pounding on his corpse.
By the time he was found, he would likely be a past, hiding my involvement completely. As I disconnected from them, I made sure to wipe their memories and any other data recording in the area. It would look like just another servitor going rogue.
A tragic accident.
My trail covered, I slipped away for home, another successful mission.
These were too easy by now. True, I wasn’t up against the more experienced magi or even archmagos, but even so. I couldn’t imagine they would give me an awful amount of trouble.
I fully believed I was the most skilled individual within the forge world, if not the Imperium, for the noosphere. The tier 4 knowledge was just too much of an advantage. There wasn’t a system I didn’t know how to handle or a problem that I couldn’t overcome.
At home, I sent the completion code to Ferrix, then got on with my day. I should really carry on with my investigation. I was so close to finishing it. But I spent all of yesterday on it, and other tasks needed my attention.
First, I checked in on the siphoning I had been doing. I had created dozens of adepts who were only real on paper to claim resources. I'd built a further five BFGs, bringing me up to eight and another ten for Solvexa. That, combined with her new Skitarii, meant she was running out of space in her sanctum.
I confirmed the seven names she gave me; they were all clean, and so she had brought them into the loop. They weren't fully read in, but knew enough to start to prepare. I checked and fixed the Skitarii for those who had them.
So our quiet preparations had continued. We weren't the only ones. Across the forge, many were doing the same. Some more seriously than others, but everyone felt the tension.
The warp storm wasn’t helping.
Having to put down menials driven mad or servitors that went rogue was becoming a more common occurrence. None of mine, I hasten to add, but I was aware of it.
But even if the warp storm started it, it was almost in the background now. Disagreements or resentment bubbled to the surface and were acted upon, in some cases violently.
Happy my other projects were moving along, I got back to the raw data from the Astronomican's beacon. With my recent finds, it had taken a sort of back burner with just a few short hours every week. Slowly converting the signals into a readable language.
It was slow going. First, I needed to isolate the signal, differentiating it from the other background noise or radiation. Then it needed to be transcribed and translated. Unfortunately, it mostly needed to be done by hand.
I'd tried some software at first, but it just didn’t have the results I wanted.
As I suspected, the translating the Moirae adepts had done was adequate, but it was missing a lot of the nuance and context in their translations.
Which, when added, changed the output from some vague prophecy to a clear warning.
I had dozens of similar snippets by this point. Not easy to do, as even translated, they were all jumbled together, like a disorganised mind bouncing from thing to thing without completing the thought. Only to come back to it several days later and finish it.
So I needed to match them using other information to help me stitch them together. It was painful. But progress was being made.
There were still reams and reams of data to go through, but I was speeding up as I learned more. Some of the information was too late, having already happened, and most I hadn't been able to pin down, timing-wise. For future events, it normally mentioned nearby notable events.
For example, one spoke of the Species of the Greater Good in the east of the 500 worlds and was linked with the Second Sphere. Whatever that meant.
Historical event it was a bit more specific, for example I had reams of information on the early space marines of the Storm Warriors. Their ending was particularly tragic, having become obsolete and therefore removed.
Which cast a whole new light on the prophecy that untimely started the schism, where the Cult Mechanicus would fuse with the Ecclesiarchy into one. However I had actually translated it and it was off. Not wildly, but enough.
It also mentioned some fascinating context. For example, the Imperium's Faith at its founding was vastly different to what it was now. It had not been guided by faith but by the Imperial Truth. Which was diametrically opposed to faith.
All around atheism, rationalism and materialism.
How real that actually was and not just used as a justification of the unifying wars I didn't know.
However, their translation of joining the Mechanicus to the Ecclesiarchy was straight up wrong, even if the ideal behind it wasn’t. From my translations, it was more about integrating the Mechanicus into the greater whole of the Imperium and covert them to the Imperium Truth.
Regardless that was water under the bridge.
When I could, I wanted to collect more information from the source. I had no doubt there would be more to find now, a millennium later.
Even with my better translations, it didn’t always make sense and was still a bit too prophecy-like for me. I was translating a particularly troubling passage. It just wasn’t making sense.
I was stuck with, 'The Man of False Light shrouding darkness across the Imperium. Will meet his end from a prophet Dimmamar, who will illuminate and burn through the clouds of chaos, stabilising the realm once more.'
The event should be happening soon, but I had no idea what they meant, and I wasn’t in a position to do anything about it even if I did know.
---
Imperium: Hive Cities Scavenger (Tier 2) - IIWarrior (Tier 3) - VIImperium: Hive Cities Danger (Tier 2) - IIIHuman: Hand to hand (Tier 2) - IIITerra Federation: Technician (Tier 3) - XTerra Federation: Software (Tier 4) - V > IXSharpshooter (Tier 3) - VISelf (Tier 3) - XIReverse Engineering (Tier 2) - IImperium: Canine Handling (Tier 2) - IVAkashic Throne (Tier 1) - IBlade Mastery (Tier 3) - VIIPhysics (Tier 1) - XIGlyphcraft (Tier 2) - IIBlueprints (Tier 3) - IIIActing (Tier 1) - IMathematics (Tier 1) - XIBiology (Tier 1) - XTeaching (Tier 2) - IIMachine Spirit (Tier 2) - I > IIIChemistry (Tier 1) - VIIIEngineering (Tier 1) - VIIBionics (Tier 3) - IIII