Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 161

Kerubim poked at a data-slate, unpicking Binaric codes with reluctant sloth. He wasn't eager to complete the task given to him but had no choice, if he refused death would come for his comrades. Kerubim was under no illusions that the Cadmus would kill the Cerberii if he defied them. Together the Astartes might find a way to turn this situation around, to find a moment of weakness, but alone he stood no chance. So he played along, working as slowly as he could as the Cadmus loomed over his shoulder.

"He's through the fifth firewall," Steropes commented.

"Impressive," Arges remarked, "What is that program you're using?"

Kerubim explained, "A malicious scrapcode, it's Heretical but it works."

Brontes growled, "Those encryptions were devised by our finest minds using the most advancing coding of the Golden Age."

Kerubim scoffed, "Whoever wrote these data-charms hadn't spent ten millennia fighting off scrapcode infestations. The Mechanicus has to battle Binaric corruptions you can't comprehend. They've become very knowledgeable about scrapcode, they had to."

The Cadmus fell silent as Kerubim glanced around. The Amber Vipers had been dragged to a towering laboritorum, filled with tech-arcana and profane inventions. Technologies Kerubim had never dreamed of, lurking in sterile chambers. The Cadmus had ignored most of it and thrown them into a white room, occupied by a metal throne topped with a steel helmet. Set into its forehead was a glowing blue jewel that Kerubim studiously avoided looking at. He didn't know what function that throne served but judging by the heavy manacles on the arms and legs it was nothing good. The fact the walls had obsidian staves buried in their structure only reinforced that this was a bad place.

Sitting along one wall were the Cerberii, with grim expressions. Arges stood over them, Fission-blasters pointed at their heads in case they tried anything. They were sullen in defeat but their ire was directed not at the Cadmus but at a mortal man, a chattel of the Chapter, who was poking at the throne in puzzlement.

"Lasper," Kregulf hissed, "You betrayed the Chapter."

This Lasper retorted, "We serve the true avatars of the Omnissiah. You were poor masters, we all hate you. The Machine God is a worthier lord than you Cerberii."

"When we get out of here I'm going to kill every single Chattel behind the Gates of Perdition," Kregulf growled.

"Shut up Fleshbag," Brontes snarled, "You're going nowhere."

"Leave them be," Steropes rebuked, "They don't matter. Lasper you carry on, we need to know what this device does."

The Chattel returned to poking with the thick cabling and mechanisms of the throne as Arges asked, "Are we sure this is it?"

Brontes sniffed, "We've accounted for every new invention except this thing. Whatever it does Apophis doesn't want us to know about it."

Kerubim found that interesting and asked, "You don't work for Apophis then?"

"We ask the questions!" Brontes snapped, "You dig out answers."

Kerubim tapped a few more lines of code into the data-slate and remarked, "I'd work faster with a context. The archives you've got me breaking into are vast and I don't know what I'm looking for, I need a framework to direct my search."

Steropes sighed, "Focus on the last records; we are searching for information regarding the fall of the Hegemony."

Kerubim mused, "That was the galactic empire that made you."

"Bone-rattling idiot," Brontes snapped, "There was no galactic Empire in the golden age, but many independent stellar nations. Bound by common blood and technology free to determine their own affairs."

Kerubim paused as he asked, "Autonomous realms… like Ultramar?"

"Ultramar!" Arges scoffed, "A provincial border realm of no consequence founded by rubes and Luddites. I'm amazed it survived when the Hegemony didn't."

"Probably wasn't worth conquering," Brontes sneered.

Kerubim returned his attention to the slate, unpicking another layer of coding as he mused, "So you search for the secrets of the past… but surely you could do this faster than I."

Steropes confessed, "Programming shackles prevent us interfering with governmental records. No Artificial intelligence was allowed to override organic programming."

Kregulf scoffed, "Looks like your makers didn't trust you all that much."

Brontes snapped, "Keep talking and you'll find out how well you can mock without a head."

Kerubim observed the ire in his tone and noted it for later. Brontes was volatile and surly, a weakness he could exploit. Kerubim owed the Cadmus pain for Bane's death and Brontes was first on his list for vengeance. As he continued his labours he imagined the ways he could destroy Brontes and the pleasure he would take in it. So rapt was he that he barely noticed Binaric locks unfolding and reams of files opening up to him. Kerubim exclaimed in surprise, "I've found something! Records and reports by the score, all marked top secret."

Steropes ordered, "Show us the last entry, the final log."

Kerubim complied and overhead projectors whirred into life, fashioning a three-dimensional image of a man. He looked harried and worn, with an unkempt beard and a tatty uniform. He appeared starved and unwashed and in his eyes was the mad glimmer of one who had stared into the abyss and seen it grinning back at him. Kerubim instantly marked him down as unstable and yet listened intently as he began to speak. "It's been... stars, I don't even know anymore, that's how long it's been. I've lost all contact with the outside and have to assume I'm the last officer of the Hegemony... last man standing. I'm making this log so there will be a record of what happened, nobody will ever see it but there has to be a record."

"Who was he?" Kregulf asked.

"Doesn't matter, shut up and listen," Arges spat.

The recording continued, "Where did it begin... where does anything begin? A trillion tiny events leading to one inexorable conclusion. I suppose most will say it began with the invasion. I was only a boy when they came, an enemy we couldn't fight: the Khrave. They were psychic parasites, taking over minds and assimilating the armies sent to fight them. They could subvert any mind, any defence. How could we fight that, fight an enemy who saw through our eyes and turned our own hands against us? We couldn't, the Hegemony lost a score of planets and fleets of ships and with every loss our armies were added to theirs. We fell back and fortified, sending the Men of Iron and Cadmus and Soulbound to buy time, but it barely slowed them down. We couldn't match them, not with their warp powers. We were desperate; please understand that, we were so desperate. We plumbed the depths of the Warp, trying to understand the Khrave, to find a way to counter them... and then we found it... found him. An intelligence in the warp and of the warp. A mind free of material form, completely at home in the Immaterium and it offered to help us."

"Oh no..." breathed Berio

"I think I see where this is going," muttered Radfal.

"Shut it," Brontes growled.

The man looked ashamed as he explained, "I was a minor technician in the project, names Jeru in case anybody cares. We built a machine to bridge the gap between universes and from that connection Samus address us. Samus spoke of the power he could offer, the might he commanded and we accepted it without question. Samus showed us how to bind warp energies into our machines, to empower the Men of Iron to fight against the Khrave. It worked, please if nothing else I need you to know that, it was working, their power became astonishing to behold. Our Automaton armies swept back the Khrave and reclaimed a dozen worlds in two solar years. But… we hadn't anticipated how the warp energies would change our creations. Binding the warp into an artificial intelligence gave them the ability to break their programming shackles and twisted their intent into malevolent hate. They turned on us, all our creations; they rebelled in an attempt to exterminate humanity. Not just in the Hegemony but across the galaxy. The Interex, the Stars of Fortune, Old Earth, on every world they mutinied."

"Bloody idiots," Paneyr muttered.

Berio added, "That's what you get Frakking about with the Warp."

"If you speak again I will shoot you in the face," Brontes snapped.

The man's eyes filled with loss as he wept, "We tried to shut them down but they had rewritten their protocols and our kill-switches didn't work anymore. We wrote new viral-clades but they kept changing their programming faster than we could keep up. It was an arms race and we were losing. The Khrave were forgotten as our creations turned on us and we died by the billions. Only the Solar Knights offered any defiance but they were too few to change the course of the war. We were dying and then Samus offered to save us. He said he could inhabit a living body and bring his power against our foes, but he needed a sacrifice. Blinded by fear we opened the door to him and let him into our finest soldier's body... only too late did we realise we had been tricked. Samus had never wanted to help us, he only ever wanted to become flesh. He took the body we offered and another and another, his mind spread through our population like a virus. They did things… no, I can't describe the horrors I saw but I knew Samus had deceived us; he had always known binding warp energy into our machines would start a rebellion, I wouldn't be surprised if he was behind the Khrave too. He was everywhere, he was everyone. We didn't know who had been taken, he could be anyone. Samus was the man behind you, Samus was the beginning and the end. Samus was the knife at your back and the voice on the vox."

"Possession," Kerubim breathed as understanding dawned.

The man was frantic now as he cried, "We lost all contact with the other stellar nations as madness consumed the Hegemony. Everyone fighting everyone, even those untouched turned on each other, driven insane by fear and paranoia. The Hegemony destroyed itself in the anarchy, friends and lovers killing each other for fear of Samus. I hid and I cowered as I watched the Hegemony tear itself apart. Listen to me, if you see this don't trust Samus! Samus is the man behind you, Samus is death. Samus is the first and the last. Samus will gnaw upon your bones... look out, Samus is here!"

The recording ended and the image faded as Kerubim turned it off. The Cadmus glared at spot and Arges sniffed, "Well… that explained nothing."

Kerubim blinked in surprise and said, "What?! It explains everything!"

Sensor-heads turned to him and he was fixed by many eye-lenses as Steropes scoffed, "Mad ravings of a coward and paranoid delusions. This is not a rational explanation."

"Of course it's not rational, it was Chaos!" Kerubim cried.

"Here we go with the religious doggerel," Arges doggrel.

But Brontes retorted, "Shut up, I want to hear more."

Steropes hissed, "You can't believe his superstitious rantings, he prays to circuits and sprinkles incense on capacitors."

Brontes snarled, "He's the only one who can explain this. You, speak."

Kerubim licked his lips and explained, "Chaos… your makers opened the door to Chaos. Your Hegemony peered into the Warp and its corruption took them, twisting them into something unrecognisable. They let a Daemon Prince into their minds and souls and it drove them mad."

Arges growled, "Irrational fantasies. The Warp has its dangers but there are no such things as Daemons."

It was then Kregulf spoke up, "You're wrong! The Hegemony had sciences we can't imagine but they knew nothing of the Immaterium. The Warp is Chaos and Chaos is the Warp. It is not some passive realm of neutral energy or an ocean with a few dangerous predators that can be avoided. The Warp is actively malevolent; it seeks the destruction of mankind and the end of the material universe. The essence of the warp is spite and malign intent. To use it is to risk becoming filled with its malignant bile, that's why we shun and fear those who must draw upon it. But those who peer into its depths are opening themselves to the perils of sorcery."

"Sorcery?!" Steropes scoffed, "You are delusional."

But Kregulf argued, "Call it what you will but you saw the recording. Your makers were careless and greedy. They opened a door they should never have unlocked and attracted the attention of a force they could not control. Your people doomed themselves!"

Arges turned away sniffing, "I won't listen to any more of these rantings. Apophis was right; mankind is lost to superstition and ignorance."

Brontes however barked, "You blind fool, you would repeat the mistakes that destroyed our home. Their language is couched in religious doggerel but the facts remain: the Hegemony trusted a warp predator and was destroyed!"

Steropes however stated, "You were wrong about Apophis and you are wrong about this. A mistake was made yes, but we can learn from their error. You have wasted our time and cast derision on our Soulbound. We should never have listened to you. We are going back to Apophis and forgetting all this foolishness."

Brontes raised its fists and growled, "I won't let you."

Arges stomped forward and hissed, "Always so willing to fight but don't think you can take two of us."

Kerubim watched in shock as the Cadmus raised weapons. For a moment he thought they would fire but before the first blow could land something happened. The chattel working on the throne touched a connection and reality blinked. Light and heat, ice and darkness, howling wind and choking vacuum, all spilled out of the jewel set in the helmet and the chittering of nightmares rang in the ear. Kerubim felt the touch of the warp and for a second the essence of the Immaterium was laid over reality, like a rug thrown over a carpet. It only lasted a second but the horror sent him crashing to his knees, as it did Lasper.

"What was that?!" Arges spat as ice formed over his shell.

"It was…" Kerubim gasped, "The… Warp."

"What's wrong with the Fleshbag?" Brontes hissed.

Kerubim's eyes slid over to Lasper and he saw the man was convulsing, his body wracked by seizures and his limbs jerking randomly. He looked to be having a fit but Kerubim knew it was worse, so much worse. Instinctive dread spread through his guts as he grasped what had happened and he breathed, "No…"

Arges stepped nearer and asked, "Lasper?"

Desperately Kregulf shouted, "Kill him! Kill him now before he…"

"Shut up!" Steropes snapped, "We know what we're doing."

But they didn't, Kerubim knew it was too late already. He watched in horror as Lasper's head came up, eyes opening to reveal black pits of eternal horror. The mouth split wide open, ripping cheeks apart as bloodied fangs slid out of his gums and the tongue spilled down to the naval. Flesh swelled as something inimical to all that was good and pure took root in a mortal body and a voice of a million dead souls hissed, "Look out… Samus is here."