Thanks go out to Sadame no Kusari, who provided proofreading and suggestions.
This short story is dedicated to all that is both grimdark and noblebright about Warhammer 40,000. Screw the archive panic; if you haven't got a clue what Warhammer Fantasy or 40k is, do yourself a favour and Google it. I guarentee you much reading pleasure.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
"No knight can be brave unless he is in love;
Love gives the knight his courage."
~Source censored by Ecclesiarchial order.
Leize takes another sip from her recaf as she looks down the corridor.
Not that there is much to look at. Most people have a lot to do at this hour, so there are no wanderers or loiterers around, unlike some other Administratum centres she has visited in her lifetime. Besides, nobody in their right mind will wander into her temporary headquarters while she is...occupied.
Speaking of which, it's about time.
Quickly draining the rest of her drink, Leize turns around and glances up at Simon. He answers her look with a curt nod, and enters the security code that will open the "office" door. Powered down servos whine as his silver armour obeys his movements, and a light warble rings as the keypad accepts the commands.
"Inquisitor." Simon turns around and bows slightly, before returning to perfect parade ground rest, his lips murmuring a soundless hymn of purity in meditation.
Leize returns the bow and passes through the automatic door into the office, softly dropping the disposable styroplas cup into the nearby trash bin. For a moment, she stands there as the entry way slides shut, letting the gloom within wash over her. Wordlessly, she takes in the dim shadows and shapeless objects that fills the ex-storage room and lines its walls.
A mental note of satisfaction later, she advances into the center of the room, where Francis looks up from his output station. Glow orbs above him cast half his mask in pale light, and the other half in befittingly ominous shades. After a brief gesture from her to towards his patient, the assistant interrogator returns to his rituals and reports.
"It has been six minutes into stage nine, and seven hours since our latest evaluation began. Regrettably, Inquisitor, I must inform you that even now, our good friend here refuses to change his testimony."
"Really?" Leize raises one eyebrow, her mind considering her final options. "What about psyching? Has Acolyte Johann secured permission to take down the wards and perform a mind interrogation?"
"Negative. With the current warp storm around Primavera II, Lord Inquisitor Wilhelm has ordered all unsanctioned psykers awaiting transit – our friend included – locked out of the warp." Francis pauses for a moment, and then resumes his task with a flourish and a sharp hiss of breath as his display fluctuates.
Leize nods in sympathetic frustration. Performing a mind interrogation on a locked-down subject is impossible short of breaking the lock first. And increased warp activity brings with it increased chances of daemonic possession, especially if the psyker has no experience with regards to daemons in the first place. That alone would be reason enough for Leize to drop mind interrogating, without considering her... opinions...when it came to the Imperium's rouge psykers in the first place.
On the other hand, our subject today has gotten a firsthand experience with daemons and lived to "tell the tale". Ironically, to the very people who would be most interested in hearing such a tale. Not that it will do his final fate much good.
"Very well then, Francis." Leize drifts over to the plain desk set opposite to him and sits down, facing their "preoccupied" subject. A frown settles momentarily on her face as she notes the total absence of motion from the subject, but it is smoothed over in the next instance into an expressionless stare – her working face.
"This will probably be our last one then, seeing how all our other evaluations have already yielded fruit. Restore auditory and visual perception, and stand down treatments to stage seven. It looks like we'll be performing this the old-fashioned way."
A momentary twitch betrays the faint smile on her face as she stares at the youth restrained before her.
"Just like how the Emperor first did it."
The starting penalty is five.
Life penalty, body penalty, freedom penalty, fame penalty, fortune penalty.
Give the penalty that extends so much punishment, mud, darkness and malice.
"Elimination of human rights by castigation, exile, execution; torture and sadism upon the body through digestion"
"Denial by consensus of the colony that eliminates all honour; scorn from judgement and selfishness that takes away men's fortunes."
Die.
Death penalty penal servitude imprisonment custody fine penalty, crime from grudge, crime from self-interest, unconscious crime, self-conscious crime, civil war, inducement, false statement, theft, robbery, kidnap, suicide, rape, arson, bombing, violation, negligent homicide, mass violence, death at work, overconfident accident, misdiagnosis, concealment, violation for benefit, violation for self-protection, violation for love, violation for respect, selfish ****.
Die.
Stealing fraudulent fraud concealment murder theft crime crime personal grudge attack attack attack attack dirty dirty dirty you are dirty atone atone atone atone every violence every crime every victim atone for everything
"This world is ruled by something not human"
Die.
Know the conscience to reform crimes. Know the penalty to reform crimes. People's kindness is here. There is so much it cannot be noticed. Know the violence to hide crimes. Know the power to hide crimes. People's malignance is here. It is so rare that it is noticed. A hundred kindnesses and one malignance. Malignance shines bright to keep the balance and exists as a great "evil" to compete with the masses of kindness.
The starting penalty is five.
Die die die die die die die die DIE DIE DIE DIE **** **** **** ****––––
"Ah––––"
For a moment, I lie there, staring strikingly straight ahead, not really conscious of what's going on around me.
Meanwhile, the feeling of every organ inside me gushing out of my head takes a little longer to abate. Appropriately enough, comprehension hits me just as the last of the nausea evaporates – and a tangible rod of lightning replaces it, lancing through my spine from the base of my neck.
Strange.
I should be gasping for air.
I should be going crazy from the pain.
I should be...dead...right about now.
"––––Ha."
As if rejecting my thoughts, my senses continue to feel. They take in the hurt; take in the tension; take in the numbing ice of violation and the searing heat of annihilation.
They take in the image of a slender schoolgirl seated behind her desk, looking outside the classroom window. For once, her hair is untied, and she's dressed in a soft cream dress going down to her knees. Matching it are ankle-high socks and white leather shoes, everything replacing her usual school uniform and knee-high stockings. It's fuzzy at first, but it's getting sharper, like a camera lens adjusting to clarify the picture, and even I can tell by now that–
Oh. I was just hallucinating for a moment there.
"Welcome back to the land of the living." The inquisitor (...what was her name again? Lays?) shifts in her seat across from me, her desk hiding her exact actions. "I trust that the remainder of your stay here will be comfortable." An edge of sarcasm turns what would have been sincere soprano pleasantries into a stiff reminder of why I was here.
A soft silence, then the Inquisitor continues.
"So...you have nothing to add? Nothing to append to what to you took part in?" She leans forward, folding her hands in front of her as she shifts her weight on the desk. "Not even a suggestion, or a justification?"
Another silence; it is obvious that I am to think, and to give an answer. However, there isn't much to say in the first place.
Terror I experienced a month ago (was it only a month?); terror I experienced for hours and days since entering the Inquisition's "care"; future terror and hardship is apparent to even a thick-headed person like me, with only the mercy of a quick, painless and impending death as comfort.
And yet everything just seems to shrink down, and pale in comparison to what I feel within me. Everything just seems small, in comparison to whom I knew I had lost, without knowing.
I try to clear my head, by shaking it lightly.
Perhaps for the first time since my interrogation began, the inquisitor emotes and noticeably inhales. Her brows crease, and she picks up a light sheathe of papers next to her.
"So let me get this straight."
A few shuffles, and she has the sheet she wants, facing her. Behind her, I notice the robed assistant toggle a few switches, when a sudden surge of tension rips through my body. My senses double in on me, and quadruple in sensitivity as I cringe. Without warning, they refocus unerringly on the lady inquisitor, as she begins.
"Timestamp 6329999.M41. You, 'habber 5436-B86, were in public secondary education block 4-Therhk while lessons were in session when a Class-E Daemonic Intrusion occurred–"
–and cried out, an unearthly howl that seemed to dissolve into a gibbering fit. Horrifying as it was, it was quickly drowned out by screams as Bruce began to transform before everybody's eyes. Eyes became bulbous sacs, hair became razor floss fur, clothes vaporized, limbs turned to jelly, dividing into tentacles, reaching–
I slam a mental lid on the emerging flashback, and try to distract myself with the Inquisitor's rising tone of voice.
"–proceeded to attack his immediate surroundings. Four people were killed outright, and another seven died afterwards from physical injuries inflicted during the attack. But that would be the total extent of the intrusion, because–"
–she was slammed against the wall, sitting limply where she had slid down.
I should have been shocked. Or maybe outraged. At the very least, I shouldn't have had a clue to what to do next as that – thing, whatever had once been Bruce, - continued to flail blindly, sending more desks and chairs flying all across the room.
But as she slumped over, every competing thought and hesitation is swept away by one feeling, one idea, one purpose. One action.
One minute, I am standing with my knees bent and legs spaced apart, trying to evade the whirlwind of limbs and escape from the charnel house that the classroom had become. In the next, I am striding, for lack of a better term, head first into the maelstrom. Perhaps it notices my intentions, before even I am aware of them, as it seems to hesitate for a heartbeat.
That was all it takes as, with my final step, I clench my fist and–
–slam another mental lid on myself, wincing as a migraine sets in. I blink, trying stamp my own will upon me and clear away my fragmented memories, without looking away from the inquisitor. It seems she has paused to keep her own visible anger from going unchecked, and is only now continuing.
"One strike. Unarmed. Un-armoured. No rituals, no prayers, no preparation. Needless to say, no prior training either."
I must have missed her rising out of her chair at some point, because she brings her face as far across the desk as possible while standing, all just to glare at me.
"That was all it took, according to your testimony, for you to not just banish, but wholly eradicate a Chaos spawn. Along with speculation that the psychic backlash from that – and isn't that grand, admitting in passing that you were a psyker! – was responsible for knocking out every living being within a nine-kilometre radius."
Inquisitor Lays is positively steaming by now. For a moment, I almost visualize her with a throbbing vein on her forehead, or smoke wisps drifting out of her ears. Conveniently, pain drives that all away when she starts bellowing.
"And then, you had the nerve to contact the local arbites still conscious, report the entire incident to them, and submit yourself to their custody, all the while denying any warp taint on your person!
BULL. SHIT!"
This time, I can't avoid flinching as the Inquisitor throws the paper sheathes she had been reading from. They whiplash across my face and limbs, their otherwise feather-light touch branding burns and bruises on my tortured body wherever they go.
"What an insult, Emperor so help me, of preposterous proportions against His Servants!"
She strikes a gloved hand on the desk, cracking its surface and deafening me for a split second, and then thrusts a single accusing finger at me. Her glare not even breaking or blinking, she continues.
"I dare not even repeat these incredible statements to the very person who made them. Thousands – millions! – of the Imperium's heroes die every day to bring down a single minion of our Great Enemy. But you, a merely nameless civilian, dare to claim to do, with a touch of your knuckles and a shallow impulse, what MARTYRS can only achieve by their own tears, sweat, and blood!"
Inhaling at the emphasis of the last word, the Inquisitor vents the last of her anger with her eyes closed, before lowering her hands. Composure slowly returning, she gets out of her desk and circles around it before coming face to face with me.
"Inquisitor, this is highly irregular! Proximity is not reco–"
"Shut. UP!"
Inquisitor Lays silences her assistant with a single snarl, then sneers at me, eye to eye.
"Well? Do you have anything to say to that, blasphemer?"
Maybe "sneer" is not the right way to put it, though. It implies a certain self-assured arrogance and a malicious control of the current situation, and the Inquisitor is looking more self-righteous and furious than arrogant and manipulative. But by then, I'm not giving her my full attention.
Whether manipulative or furious, she has given me another moment to think, and unlike the other times, it is while I am still unsettled by both myself and my environment.
Perhaps, if I knew what was coming, I might have controlled myself and answered differently. Perhaps, if I had stopped my drifting mind a few instance earlier in time, or perhaps, if I had given in to my experiences, my moment of weakness would not have coincided with her question. But that kind of regret is commonplace all over the galaxy, and it has yet to stop tragedies from happening.
I half-heartedly feel the dams within me, holding back what I had temporarily driven away, crack apart bit by bit.
The other half of my heart is occupied by Inquisitor Lays' word choice.
Martyrs, she had said…
–she was slammed against the wall, sitting limply where she had slid down–
"Please, Inquisitor."
I begin hesitantly, whispering under my breath. I can already feel the gates of damnation closing in on me, as the question that rages within me betrays the sincerity of what I see, feel, and believe.
"Please, just tell me…what happened to the survivors."
For a moment, Inquisitor Leize stops her theatrics, as she digests what her subject asks.
Then, for the first time in years – or maybe decades, since the Inquisition never really gave her reason to keep track – she chuckles. She laughs. In moments, she was genuinely enjoying herself, black humour be damned.
As good fortune would have it, Francis mistakes her laughter as her continuing her act, so he stays silent.
"–Haa." Finally, she breathes in, having finished her revelling, and smirks at her subject.
"So. All nine actions, crammed into the span of six days and eight hours, all to tell us what an administratum shrink would have told us after a fifteen minute interview – that we are dealing with a truly honest, well-meaning idiot. Something scarcer than even innocence in this universe!"
She throws her arms up in a dramatic flourish, all the while walking back to her seat. Without ceremony, she slumps back in the chair, managing not to break eye contact with her subject.
Wilhelm knew, didn't he, before he even pitched the bet to me? Still as crafty as ever, for someone who is supposed to have retired to desk work and mentoring up-and-coming Malleus candidates.
"Very well. Out of deference to your intentions, I will answer your question in due time. First, though, let's perform a last matter of consideration."
And move on to the moment of truth, of course. It's almost a shame how, regardless of what you anticipate, I'll be doing otherwise. I wonder…will you be revolting, or inspiring?
A light click, and she draws from her belt and places on her desk two items; a syringe…and a laspistol.
Damn it.
Betraying my thoughts to her on the slimmest of hopes.
I should have seen her response from a country mile away–
But before I berate myself any further, the Inquisitor clears her throat, while presenting a pair of tools before her.
"It's very simple, and very cruel.
By the end of all this, you'll either be dead, or not yourself anymore, so let's make a judgement now and get it over with. The official hard and logic-copies can wait a minute or two."
She gestures first to the syringe.
"Mind wiping, or brain scrubbing – the terms are interchangeable. By the right of safeguarding His Imperial Majesty's citizens and property, we erase all higher level memories and experiences you have accumulated up until now, and then ship you off.
The average experience for you will be a gradual transformation into a servitor or a psychic slave. If you're incredibly unlucky, you be sent to help fuel the Astronomican, though I doubt you know what I'm talking about.
Then again, if your testimony is in any way as truthful as I suspect it to be, the Inquisition will grant your memory-less self the right to training as a sanctioned psyker, and find employment for that hideous strength somewhere, some when."
A graceful sweep of her other hand over the laspistol.
"Of course, if all that seems too complicated for you, we can execute you on charges of heresy, unsanctioned psychic activity, and trafficking with the daemonic. I may not be your eventual executioner, but if you've enjoyed my company so far, I would be more than happy to accommodate.
Take your time, of course. Unlike your insane decisions up until now, life-changing choices shouldn't be made on impulse."
I only gave her subtext a fleeting consideration before crudely gathering my wits to regard my options. Which, of course, boils down to death – death of the body, or death of the mind.
Okay. She is somewhat correct, in that they are cruel choices. But they most certainly aren't simple.
–This isn't right–
I mean, I know I'm going to die sooner or later. It doesn't matter whether it's now or it's later, but even if I delay my death later, I still won't really be myself if I get mind wiped.
I would still have regrets. I would still have loss. I would still be unable to do anything about either of them before I was gone, because I would be oblivious to them even as I continued to exist.
–This isn't right–
So that means I should be indifferent to my choices, right?
I shouldn't care whether she executes me or makes me forget everything, right?
Except…
–THIS–
She knows.
The inquisitor knows it's an indifferent decision for me.
So why did she ask me–
–IS–
–No, don't tell me. It's also why she hasn't told me what happened to the survivors.
Because nothing happened to the survivors. Yet.
–WRONG! –
And nothing will happen to them, until I make a decision.
It might be that time freezes, or it might be that I cut myself off from all of my senses. I don't really know which is which right now.
This...
I hallucinate again.
Is…
I see her again – no, I see two of her, side by side. On one side, she is collapsed on the floor, her uniform unmarred, as if slumber overtook her when she was still standing. Forelocks and shoulder length hair mercifully cloak her face and hide the entry and exit wounds; wounds where the las-round pierced her forehead and granted her the Emperor's peace.
Wrong...
On the other side, she's lined up with other lobotomized equipment, her head shaved clean, her left arm replaced with a mechanical limb. All below her waist are logic machine mountings, power couplings, coolant tubes…cables sprout like wings and feathers from her back and her neck, and in every place where cold equipment meet warm flesh, machine is rusted black with ichor, and tissue is torn, and putrid, and rotting–
This isn't right.
This. Is. Not. Right.
But then…what is?
"I see you've come to an answer, haven't you?"
Inquisitor Lays breaks into my reverie, still leaning back in her seat with an intent look in her eyes.
"Why don't you say it with your own words?" She raises a hand and snaps her fingers. "Francis, bring the recorder if you would."
The masked assistant shuffles from his station to the desk, and deposits the requested box of an electronic to the Inquisitor's right. "Inquisitor. Mic going live…now," he murmurs, and depresses a stud on the box.
"6403999.M41. Evaluation Subject 3973, Inhabitant 5436-B86, Primavera II, Session Nine. First and final plea." Inquisitor Lays states the preliminary recording stamp, and then turns her attention to me.
"Let's hear it, 'habber."
What traces that remain of my vision (if it can be called that) are gone by now. Left behind is only my last concept – what little that survived the outbreak of chaos so long ago, the last bulwark of my being that stands bloody and defiant facing what the universe had thrown at it. I inhale.
I hate to admit it, even to myself, but the Inquisitor is somewhat correct – again. There is no way that I can't be an idiot.
…
–What is right?–
"With all due respect, Inquisitor; I reject both of your judgements."
–Is this right?–
"No matter how desperate, no matter how sinful, no matter how disgraceful or selfish, I cannot accept that this would truly be what the Emperor would desire."
–Is that right?–
"I want to live. I want to breathe the air of my home. I want to see the sun of my world rise and set as the universe turns. By the Emperor's grace, I want to share all that I know, all that I experience, and all that I hope for and am free to do, with those who are nearest and dearest to me. And if I cannot–"
–the image of a slender schoolgirl seated behind her desk, looking outside the classroom window–
"–then, if it would please Him, the Emperor, all I plead for is time to set right was is wrong, and atone with my own two feet, my own two hands, and my own mind, body, and soul, whatever sin I might have inflicted against His Holiness and His Glory. This I offer, before my flesh is destroyed, and my soul departs of this world."
–…so let this be right.
From the bottom of my heart, please, let this be right…–
Silence reigns.
Leize risks a look and peers from the corner of her vision at her assistant, keeping her own posture facing her subject.
Confirming her suspicions, Francis appears every bit as shocked as Leize felt without showing. As uncharitable as it may be, his mask is not enough to hide his dropped jaw, and what little lighting there is makes it evident that his sight, though unfocused from his mind coming to a screeching halt, is centered squarely on 'habber 5436-B86.
Emperor help us, but I had better do something before Francis looses it entirely.
"Assistant interrogator. Cut the mic and the system. And call in the guardian before you excuse yourself, would you?"
The assistant interrogator starts from her voice, and then begins fiddling with the recorder as comprehension strikes. As he does so, Leize leans even further behind in her chair and rubs her temples tiredly. How she does so, when she is already slumping back on it, remains a mystery even to her.
"Flying colours, Wilhelm; two for two. I swear one day I'll get you back for this…"
Still shaken, the interrogator passes behind Leize heading to his initial work station. He slams a master switch on it, his patient simultaneously going limp like a puppet with his strings cut. A swish from behind the inquisitor heralds Francis' departure as he slips through the automatic doors, and an instant later, the giant warrior clad in silver ducks through the same entryway, the doors sliding shut behind him noiselessly.
"You requested me, Inquisitor?"
"Brother Simon." Leize turns her seat half-way so she can face both her subject and the guard. "It would appear that Inquisitor Lord Wilhelm is proven correct."
"Inquisitor Leize," Simon rumbles, and inclines his head, with what seems to be a faint twinkling in his eyes.
"If you dare say that your Grey Knight senses were tingling, I will risk history's wrath and be the first Inquisitor to charge a Grey Knight with blasphemy."
"But I would never dare," counters the warrior, and Leize turns back towards her subject with a sniff. For an ancient soldier that could cleanse the fires of hell if he had to, that gleam of mirth that Brother Simon gave whenever he spoke with familiar people was nigh insufferable.
"You have Acolyte Johann's report from Sorellet?
Silent confirmation, as the battle brother nods slightly.
"Splendid. This is a perfect opportunity to enlighten the two of us, as we both seem to be curious to it."
She waits a heartbeat, and then glances at the subject mischievously. Just in time, too, to catch the subject's moment of mixed comprehension and surprise.
"Aye, Inquisitor."
Bringing her attention back, the daemon-slayer squares his shoulders professionally, and began.
"From Acolyte Johann's executive summary, knowledge – and, more importantly, rumours and discussions since – of the daemonic intrusion is actually quite limited among the general populace. Only the immediate witnesses to the event, and the arbite elements that took the subject into custody, know anything of what has taken place, and even then, it is fragmented. Combined with the apparent lack or hypothetical destruction of any daemonic gate or daemonic taint within the region, it is as if no trace of the attack has been left, save the irrefutable material evidences.
As such, it is the acolyte's recommendation – both to you, Inquisitor Leize, and to Lord Inquisitor Wilhelm – that the Inquisition does not intervene in force with the survivors. Using what authority you had vested in him, he has already examined and released those who were rendered unconscious back to their duties. Secondly, he has performed selective memory management on all immediate witnesses so they will recall nothing about the victims, inhabitant 5436-B86, and the day in question. Finally, he has, through government channels and in the governor's name, released a statement that claims the entire event was the result of a hab-sector wide failure of the natural gas mains, resulting in the knock-outs. That is all."
Leize closes her eyes and shakes her head.
"Even Johann is being presumptious? Risking his future prospects like that, in case we needed a sacrificial lamb? Those Hereticus watchdogs would die of stroke just contemplating all the protocol he broke. But at any rate, we know now their fate, yes?"
The knight nods.
"Thank you, Brother Simon. Perhaps, if you would do the honours…"
"My pleasure. You've done more than enough on our behalf."
This time it is Leize who reaches over to the recorder, while the silver-clad giant strides up to the restrained 'habber.
"Inhabitant 5436-B86. By now, you have probably realized that, though they may not be completely different, there are more ways to deal with rouge psykers than just putting them down or unceremoniously binding them into the Emperor's employment."
He smiles a little.
"After all, even we Grey Knights need initiates. And, as thankless a task looking for them may be, the Ordo Malleus has always volunteered recruiters and potential recruits from their, ah, copious amounts of spare workers and resources."
Earning a death glare from the Inquisitor and a stony, silent gaze from the subject, Grey Knight Simon allows himself a grin.
"No more sarcasm now, brother knight. The mic is live."
"Thank you, Inquisitor. 6404999.M41. Evaluation Subject 3973, Inhabitant 5436-B86, Primavera II, Session Nine. Final judgement and procedurals.
As of today, 3973 has completed the last of initial nine detestations, and has also provided suitable judgement of character under standard stress procedures, all glory and majesty to His Holiness the Emperor. Combined with positive returns from test batteries one through three during sessions two, four and seven, he is now eligible for induction as per the charters, rites and traditions of the Ordo Malleus Chamber Militant.
Therefore, in the name of His most Imperial Majesty the Emperor, I hereby serve notice of recruitment to Inhabitant 5436-B86; that a year and a day hence, he is to report to the fortress-monastery of Titan, the moon of Saturn, to begin training and induction into His Holiest of Armed Forces, the Grey Knights..."