13
The aisles of the Imperial Palace were silent. It was almost an antclimax. There were no familiar beeps, whirrs, sounds of a ponderous hard disk. No printers printed, no bulk erase machines erased in bulk. The machines were all switched off. As off as if they had never ever been switched on. No entire chapters of the Adeptus Astartes lined the sacred golden corridor of the Eternity Gate; they were all outside trying to get their equipment back online. A mouse ran past the lonely Titan whose giant footsteps echoed in the unfathomable vastness of the Temple chambers. Quack was playing music at full volume, but the newly-reinstated Princeps Mallard could still hear the silence. He opened the final door...
"WHOA that's a froggin' lotta wires!" yelled Quack, switching off the music abruptly. A light shone in Jack's eyes, and he began playing with the safety catch on his holepunch. Duck almost accidentally switched off Drake's oxygen supply; she had been 'adjusting' his life-support settings in an effort to 'persuade' him to lend her some batteries for her Game Gear.
The Emperor was dwarfed under a solid mass of wires thicker than the Titan's arms. It was impossible to make out what exactly he was plugged into. It seemed to be a wall of interconnected, unimaginably ancient pieces of machinery. The wires alone were more than twenty times the size of the man himself; a shrivelled old man with no soul behind his eyes. Shrivelled and dead, but nonetheless charismatic, with a presence more imposing than the size of a hundred planets. He sat on a throne of black steel, his clawed fingers clutching at the arm rests. Skulls lined his feet. He was every bit as terrible and great and inspiring as the Holy Books said he was.
Mallard moved his arm; the Titan moved as one with him.
The arm moved towards a small white plug on the side of one of the skulls on the right arm rest.
The hand closed around it.
Blue. Mallard saw only blue. A blinding blue; a wave of insanity washing over his mind. Certain death. Fatal. Fatal. Exception. Fatal Exception. Fatal Exception. Fatal Exception. Fatal Exception... Windows. The windows, Asclepius help me, the windows from space, flying at me, everywhere. The windows of fate. I have looked into the forbidden future and I can never return. Illegal. Operation. Illegal operation. Crashing and crashing and...
-You have performed...-
"Mallard! Listen to me! MALLARD!"
-An illegal operation...-
Falling through the windows... windows upon windows upon windows...
"Mallard, don't believe what's on the screen before you! There is no one truth, Mallard!"
-And will be...-
Into a bin... a soon to be emptied bin...
"Mallard, this is an emergency! You have to escape from what you evolved into!"
-Shut...-
"Mallard, after me... CTRL!"
Waves of deletory energy... falling into the oblivion of irrevocable erasure...
"ALT!"
...Must say it... must say the words... Ctr... ctrl... al... t...
"DEL!"
...DEL!!!!! CTRL ALT DEL!!!!!...
"What in the name of Asclepius just happened?" gasped Mallard. His head hurt worse than it had when he woke up badly wired to that Titan. The Eldar, Noppix el Ated, stood over him, inspecting him for injuries
"The Emperor tried to psychically attack you, friend. I stepped into your nightmare and dragged you out." the slender Eldar pointed to another man in the distance. He was a healthy young man dressed in a businesslike black suit. He held a briefcase.
"is this the true face of the Emperor?"
"I wish people wouldn't call me that." the man said callously, "My full name is Emperor Gato Monopol."
"Stupid name." said Noppix, "You should be called Swindler Fatso Monotonous, oh amighty seller of faulty pieces of crap!"
"How can you know they're faulty..." he smiled maliciously, "If you have nothing to compare them to? This is my Universe. There are no other possibilities. You chose your own fate. If you liked it not, you should not have encouraged it."
"I am going to pull the plug on you." said Mallard softly.
"Try. Try attacking me again. I am invincible."
"To attacks." said Mallard. He looked at Noppix. The young Eldar grinned wolfishly. The doctor reached out his hand and sent out a blast of white energy, restoring the rhythm of the man's body, sending blood flowing through his veins, breath into his lungs, an ivory fire cauterising the infections of millennia and purging all illness and disease. Healing him.
"No! The faults cannot be removed! They..." smoke began to pour everywhere. White fire... burning... the Emperor staggered back, clutching his chest. Mallard clenched his fingers into a fist and yanked them back, hard.
And the Titan...
*CLICK! Dzrnnn...*
The aisles of the Imperial Palace were silent. It was almost an antclimax. There were no familiar beeps, whirrs, sounds of a ponderous hard disk. No printers printed, no bulk erase machines erased in bulk. The machines were all switched off. As off as if they had never ever been switched on. No entire chapters of the Adeptus Astartes lined the sacred golden corridor of the Eternity Gate; they were all outside trying to get their equipment back online. A mouse ran past the lonely Titan whose giant footsteps echoed in the unfathomable vastness of the Temple chambers. Quack was playing music at full volume, but the newly-reinstated Princeps Mallard could still hear the silence. He opened the final door...
"WHOA that's a froggin' lotta wires!" yelled Quack, switching off the music abruptly. A light shone in Jack's eyes, and he began playing with the safety catch on his holepunch. Duck almost accidentally switched off Drake's oxygen supply; she had been 'adjusting' his life-support settings in an effort to 'persuade' him to lend her some batteries for her Game Gear.
The Emperor was dwarfed under a solid mass of wires thicker than the Titan's arms. It was impossible to make out what exactly he was plugged into. It seemed to be a wall of interconnected, unimaginably ancient pieces of machinery. The wires alone were more than twenty times the size of the man himself; a shrivelled old man with no soul behind his eyes. Shrivelled and dead, but nonetheless charismatic, with a presence more imposing than the size of a hundred planets. He sat on a throne of black steel, his clawed fingers clutching at the arm rests. Skulls lined his feet. He was every bit as terrible and great and inspiring as the Holy Books said he was.
Mallard moved his arm; the Titan moved as one with him.
The arm moved towards a small white plug on the side of one of the skulls on the right arm rest.
The hand closed around it.
Blue. Mallard saw only blue. A blinding blue; a wave of insanity washing over his mind. Certain death. Fatal. Fatal. Exception. Fatal Exception. Fatal Exception. Fatal Exception. Fatal Exception... Windows. The windows, Asclepius help me, the windows from space, flying at me, everywhere. The windows of fate. I have looked into the forbidden future and I can never return. Illegal. Operation. Illegal operation. Crashing and crashing and...
-You have performed...-
"Mallard! Listen to me! MALLARD!"
-An illegal operation...-
Falling through the windows... windows upon windows upon windows...
"Mallard, don't believe what's on the screen before you! There is no one truth, Mallard!"
-And will be...-
Into a bin... a soon to be emptied bin...
"Mallard, this is an emergency! You have to escape from what you evolved into!"
-Shut...-
"Mallard, after me... CTRL!"
Waves of deletory energy... falling into the oblivion of irrevocable erasure...
"ALT!"
...Must say it... must say the words... Ctr... ctrl... al... t...
"DEL!"
...DEL!!!!! CTRL ALT DEL!!!!!...
"What in the name of Asclepius just happened?" gasped Mallard. His head hurt worse than it had when he woke up badly wired to that Titan. The Eldar, Noppix el Ated, stood over him, inspecting him for injuries
"The Emperor tried to psychically attack you, friend. I stepped into your nightmare and dragged you out." the slender Eldar pointed to another man in the distance. He was a healthy young man dressed in a businesslike black suit. He held a briefcase.
"is this the true face of the Emperor?"
"I wish people wouldn't call me that." the man said callously, "My full name is Emperor Gato Monopol."
"Stupid name." said Noppix, "You should be called Swindler Fatso Monotonous, oh amighty seller of faulty pieces of crap!"
"How can you know they're faulty..." he smiled maliciously, "If you have nothing to compare them to? This is my Universe. There are no other possibilities. You chose your own fate. If you liked it not, you should not have encouraged it."
"I am going to pull the plug on you." said Mallard softly.
"Try. Try attacking me again. I am invincible."
"To attacks." said Mallard. He looked at Noppix. The young Eldar grinned wolfishly. The doctor reached out his hand and sent out a blast of white energy, restoring the rhythm of the man's body, sending blood flowing through his veins, breath into his lungs, an ivory fire cauterising the infections of millennia and purging all illness and disease. Healing him.
"No! The faults cannot be removed! They..." smoke began to pour everywhere. White fire... burning... the Emperor staggered back, clutching his chest. Mallard clenched his fingers into a fist and yanked them back, hard.
And the Titan...
*CLICK! Dzrnnn...*