9 months later

Hephaestos secured his latest data package. It contained the most recent findings of his research and was now safely stored away. His head was still spinning from reading about the Sedendi Omnissiah. The ship had only peeked his interest as it had disappeared together with the archmagos who was the lead researcher on chronoton particles. Archmagos Canculus had been a brilliant mind, unparallelled by any of his peers at the time in the sector. Hephaestos assumed that the man had been lost together with his ship. A terrible loss and an example of a brilliant cover up operation. The wreck of the ship, or better, some parts of the ship had been found at the edge of an asteroid field by scavengers. Or so he had read in the diary of Scass Nethaniu, scion of house Nethaniu, captain of the Black Falcon and rogue trader. Captain Nethaniu had only devoted a short paragraph to his encounter with the scavengers and his own observations - the book was kept in the restricted area of the Librarium for its other contents - and in the small extract the references to treason were there to be found. Although Nethaniu didn't speculate about the culprit, he had clearly identified the damage to the ship as caused by Imperial weapons. Hephaestos harboured some suspicions to a more concrete party within the Imperium, but those were mostly hunches as Nethaniu's description were far too short to formulate a proper hypotheses.

Hephaestos swept the sweat of his brow, preventing it to leak into the slits of the tiny grill at the top of his ocular visor. His sensors indicated that the heat inside the maintenance room above one of the main dataloom racks of the Librarium was now well over 43 degrees and there wasn't a cooling unit nor any ventilation pipes in the cramped room he could use to regulate the temperature. Although a little sweat leaking into his visor wouldn't cause any technical malfunctions, Hephaestos knew that it would cause an itch he couldn't scratch - unless he removed the visor entirely, but that would effectively blind him. And that would be a predicament he'd rather do without. At this time, Hephaestos had become more paranoid than an undercover arbitrator inside an obscura den.

And for good reason. Everything was going too smooth, Hephaestos thought as he leaned back on the simple tripod chair and put the machine spirit of the cogitator before him to rest. For example: the original source, the fragment he had looked at in mech-deacon Tremendus' quarters had included several references to other sources, but most of those were stored in the restricted area of the Librarium. This area stood apart from the other buildings of the Librarium and was only accessible via a cableway over a deep crevasse in Mount Pertubo. The black stone tower, with large, laid-in obsidian Mechanicus hieroglyphs, had its own gatehouse, where the cableway arrived, complete with gun emplacements, manned by L-class servitors. There was no way to access this fortress of forbidden knowledge if you hadn't had a passkey or commanded a Reaver-class titan. But just when Hephaestos had thought to quit his research, he'd received word that he had been assigned temporarily to the service of genetor Malus-B. A job that came with supplemental security privileges. The assignment itself had been ridiculously easy, but Hephaestos attributed that to his own superior intellect. After he had finished the job and returned to mech-deacon Tremendus' service, no one had revoked those privileges.

But there was more to consider. Tremendus had been absent these last few months, stating that he was preoccupied with his own research. The number of meetings of the conclave was drasticly cut, increasing Hephaestos' spare hours with 15%. And the great stream of assignments from the mech-deacon had withered down to a small creek on which every now and again came a small assignment. When Hephaestos had discussed this change in process with Garant, his friend had induced that there was a 9 in 10 chance that this was in correlation with Tremendus' research gaining momentum. Whatever the reason, the lack of tasks had had an even greater impact on his free time. After one of the rare conclaves, Hephaestos had wondered out loud whether they weren't supposed to volunteer for other tasks from other scholars. A suggestion that had been received with a nasty look and retort from adept Venatoria and dismissive binary rattle from the other pupils.

Just like all the times before, when he had considered this peculiar circumstances, Hephaestos couldn't put his finger on the underlying problem. He still felt funny when he thought about it - his digestive system seemed to cramp up anytime he did this, making him ache for a bionic replacement even more than normally - but he had decided a long time ago that this thing that some magi biologis had defined as intuition, was just a load of faulty lore, so he sticked to proper logic and reason. Hephaestos was just about to start looking for a sewage access point to relieve his system from some excess fluid and processed food waste - he found this was an effective cure for any intuition he felt - when the screen of the cogitator station lit up again. Surprised Hephaestos sat upright again to put the machine spirit of the cogitator to rest again. The techpriest was even more surprised to see how the command box on the screen suddenly filled itself with row after row of machine code. Immediately Hephaestos realized that someone was remotely accessing this service station and only a second later electro-chills went up and down his spine. Especially when he realized that the lines of code were anything but a routine check from some thirteenth-in-a-dozen engineseer to check on the temperature levels of the datalooms below him. Hephaestos considered himself a fluent speaker and reader of techno-lingua, but with this code he could hardly decipher what was going on, before the faint green characters of the code disappeared from the screen to make room for new ones.

Hephaestos tried to separate his attention between two things now. One was following the commands on the screen. The other was analyzing his situation. He'd chosen this access point to the Librarium network because it was hardly ever used by anyone. It was hard to find, unpleasant to work at and Hephaestos' research had pointed out that the datalooms below him were one of the sets that had suffered the least malfunctions in the last decade. No one had been using this station, a fact underlined by the complete lack of ointments and an alarming level of negligence concerning the removal of the ever present sooth particles. Hephaestos had used almost half his personal stash of refined oils and anti-oxidation products to clean the little thing - which also meant he had had to ration his personal maintenance, something which could be noticed by the state of his bionic legs. Hephaestos ached for a proper oil bath to cleanse them from the sooth of Mount Pertubo's industrial forges. So for anyone to use this station now, was highly unlikely. Perhaps just as unlikely as a security passkey without an expiration date. His intuition acted up again when his brain managed to process the most likely scenario's based on the few code words he had been able to identify. Hephaestos had to conclude with a 87.3% certainty that someone was using his "fishing line" to access all his data on the chronoton particles.

"Tilt." cursed Hephaestos and he rammed his hands on the still sticky keys of the cogitator. "Tilt, tilt, tilt!" 2.6 seconds later, it was clear to him that the command box was locked off by the remote user. Another 6.3 seconds later, the tech-priest had to conclude that the manual override, a big lever for emergency shut down at the back of the cogitator station, had also been rendered moot. Hephaestos saw only one last option to stop the process, but a nagging signal at his logicalculus implant was telling him that it was probably too late already. Still, he considered breaking the hardline, the thick copper datafiber wire protected by a seamless coating of reinforced plastex. He looked at the black-and-yellow striped cable and compared its integrity factor with his max strength output... He didn't stand a chance. Perhaps if he had a lascutter or even a chainaxe, but with his bare hands... Still, against all logic and reason, Hephaestos took hold of the cable and pulled it with a wild jerk.

But logic and reason can't be ignored. After another few, more desperate but also more pathetic attempts, Hephaestos dropped the cable and turned to cursing again. But when he had cursed before, it was a soft whisper, barely audible over the background static of his vox box. Now the curses rolled from the walls in the confined maintenance room and anyone could hear the fear echoing in them. Hephaestos structured and ordered mind was a complete chaos. Thoughts about the severity of his crimes, the forbidden character of his research, possible escape routes and anger at himself and his damned curiosity all fought for priority. His short-term memory core stopped recording his thoughts, which gave Hephaestos' biological, and more primitive brain all the room to run wild with counterproductive emotions. Hephaestos ranted on and on, mixing techno-lingua with the Pertubo low gothic dialect and even the occasional high gothic curse. At some point his brain even provided him with a prayer to the Emperor, coming from his deeply buried past as a pilgrim's child and in the future Hephaestos would be thankful that his short-term memory core had given out at that point.

But one can only scream for so long, especially when one's vox box gives out. Taxed to the limit by the incessant cursing and wailing of its owner, the little machine spirit suddenly shorted out and rebooted, switching Hephaestos' rant for a moment of silence, followed by a standard test-protocol consisting of a series of beeps and buzzes. Utterly surprised, Hephaestos ceased the stream of words and binaric strings and came to his senses. He restored his cognitive functions and focused his mind. Even as the last whistling sounds bounced of the dirty walls of the room, he checked the pict screen once more. He could see how the data package was being transferred at an alarming speed. It was only because Hephaestos had made copies of every single source he had crossed during his research - which had resulted in an extremely large package - that the transfer wasn't completed just yet. Hephaestos picked up the little stool he had knocked over while ranting and started studying the techno-lingua codes still scrolling down the screen. He had a purpose once more. His brain had provided him with a solution to his predicament. He needed to retrace the code once the station would be unlocked again. Because whoever was downloading his research, be it a rival pupil or a data guardian of the Librarium, whoever was retrieving his data, he or she had to die.

But when Hephaestos had finally found out who had taken over his dedicated cogitator station, he hadn't gone looking for a handcannon or a shock maul. Nor did he rush over to the adept Mechanicus who he believed was behind it all. He thought his secrets safe and instead returned to his own quarters, contemplating how to react to this unexpected, but in hindsight, not surprising, revelation. Instead of killing the other party, Hephaestos now believed he could bargain. Immunity was definitely on the table. But perhaps more could be gained: a license to continue his research or even cooperation. For the first time in months, Hephaestos felt that he had some control over the situation. It was a relief to finally be able to lean back and consider his options.

He laid back on the metal bunk in his cell. On the polished rockcrete floor beside him, stood a half finished fist-sized bottle of amasec with a rubber straw - his vox box didn't permit drinking like an unmodified human. Hephaestos didn't particulary like the taste of the beverage, but in limited quantities, the drink relaxed his nerves and mind. Sometimes it helped him look at a dilemma or problem from a whole new angle, the shroud over his memory cores making him more detached and open for non-standard solutions or approaches. He first considered his bargaining position, but soon his thoughts wandered to the subject of his research itself: chronoton particles. And the ability to influence them.

Hephaestos still didn't understand just where the particles could be found, but he thought he had a more solid grasp about the practical possibilities. If you could manage to trap enough of them, or banish them from a certain location, you would disturb the space-time continuum. It was Hephaestos' hypothesis that via electro-magnetic fields, you might create a null zone. Given enough stability of the field, Hephaestos believed that an object within that zone would no longer be subject to time. A state he had described as "Capti Tempore" or trapped in time for those who didn't read high gothic. Of course the Imperium knew stasis pods which did more or less the same, but Hephaestos believed that his theoretical concept was far more effective. Even in stasis, decay was present. It was just slowed to a point where it hardly mattered anymore. But Hephaestos' assumptions went even further. Without time, there could be no movement. Anything or anyone trapped in such a null zone would be trapped forever. Or at least until the electro-magnetic field would give out. And only the size of the field limited the size of the null zone. If you could create a field large enough to encompass a city, or even a planet, you could capture anything and anyone within. But to create such fields, you needed some massive electro-magnetic generators. Hephaestos considered the possibilities for an Ark Mechanicus to do so and although he could no longer calculate an exact percentile for the odds - another consequence of the amasec - he firmly believed that the Sedendi Omnissiah would have been able to create such massive fields.

Hephaestos sucked the last of the amber fluid out of the bottle and casually threw it in a corner of his dark cell, picking up his personal dataslate to start processing some light reading before engaging his sleep cycle. The screen showed the vivid colours of the symbols of the chapters of the Astartes still active in the sector. There weren't too many of them and the accompanying text was written in faultless low gothic, so it would make for a short and easy read. Just the thing he needed after his hectic day. He hadn't finished half a page of it, when his screen went into lockdown. Confused Hephaestos sat up again. The screen stayed dark at first but after pushing the reset rune on the side of the thin metal slide repeatedly, it lit up again showing an elaborate symbol Hephaestos didn't immediately recognize. It was a white skull Mechanicus on a field of black with the white cogwheel in the background, but in addition to this, a blood red rune was inscribed inside the bionic eye of the skull. When he translated the rune to techno-lingua, Hephaestos froze. Despite the alcohol induced haze, his memory cores had retrieved the proper information. The symbol belonged to the Departemento Res Interni, a branch of the Mechanicus that was known to few, but those that did know it, feared it wholeheartedly. This was the division that scoured the Mechanicus for tech heresy or forbidden lore. They were unrelenting and thorough, coldhearted and cruel. They would be the mirror image of the Adeptus Arbites... If there had been something like a Lex Mechanicus. But without such a standard code of laws, they were more like the Inquisition: operating without rules nor accountability.

This was an option he hadn't considered when someone had inloaded his research data. Hephaestos had to use all his willpower to start moving again. He needed to get out and find refuge. His brain hadn't induced a fitting destination yet, but anything was better than his own cell. He quickly threw his red robes over his body and stashed the dataslate in one of the deep pockets on the inside. Feeling rushed, he fumbled with the bolt of his cell door, making sure he slammed the door full force against the wall when it finally came free. The loud metallic clang rang through the smooth rockcrete hallway. Somewhere at the back of his head, Hephaestos realized this had woken up every single adept in the wing, but he was already on his way out, not taking into account the disturbed sleep cycles, nor the attention he drew to himself. He had only one goal that guided him: putting as much space between himself and any member of Res Interni as the Omnissiah would allow. He started to run, giving complete operational control to the implants' auto-stabilizers so they could maximize speed, which meant that he in turn could free his mind to decide on his destination. But before he had specified search parametres for his memory core search, he crashed into something. He immediately registrated it was something soft and mushy, so he got himself ready to start pounding it. It probably was a member of Res Interni so, although he estimated his chances of actually managing to win a melee encounter below the 10% threshold, he believed this might be his only chance at escape. But the realization he had slammed into another person was quickly followed by a stream of curses from a voice he matched with other audio samples stored in his spools, so after two halfhearted and weak punches, he stopped the pumping motion of his right arm and instead offered the adept laying beneath him his hand. The gesture went unanswered as the lithe female techpriest now laying at his feet looked up.

This time adept Venatoria-81TCH didn't limit her language capacitators, the cursewords regularly interrupted with angry strings of binary. "You... moronic imbecile. You failed, lobotomized servitortrash. You... utter, utter scrapheap..." In normal circumstances Hephaestos would have had trouble to come up with a reply, but under current conditions, he felt a welcome freedom: he didn't had to reply at all, making this somewhat of a 'maybe' in the long list of failed social interactions. Hephaestos unceremonially stepped over the body of his fellow pupil and his neural pathways had already ordered his bionic legs to resume maximum velocity once more. Although there wasn't much to see on his face - his visor and vox box covering most of it - Hephaestos couldn't help but think of himself as grinning widely. Even as he was facing the dire threat of actual lobotomization. But unforunately the tech-priest couldn't savour the moment for long.

"Everything is in lockdown, you dolt! Where are you going?!" Venatoria sent in binary. Hephaestos' legs carried him another four metres before coming to a halt. His momentary feeling of triumph was washed away by the realization that he'd have to confront Venom, but on the other hand, a voice of reason argued that if the entire wing was under scrutiny, Res Interni couldn't be after him. Or only after him, his logicalculus drive interjected. He turned around, his six lenses focusing on the now upright form of the other pupil. Ehrm... I... Well... I just..." Luckily Venatoria didn't have the patience to listen to his stuttering. "Never mind, coghead. I'm here to get you to our master. Follow me."

Several thoughts crossed Hephaestos' cores. Why was Tremendus getting them together? Did he enjoy pairing him with Venom, causing aggravation in both parties? Did he know more about the Res Interni business? Or was he a secret member of that illustrious Departemento? His standard subroutines started to order his questions following priority and importance, but Hephaestos' mind wasn't in it. He felt a bad case of intuition coming up and with only Venom present, he didn't feel he could share his thoughts. There was nothing more to do than wait till he arrived at Tremendus' quarters. And of course recalibrate the autostabilizers of his bionic legs after his little crash into the other adept.