Sickness
The trial of destruction meandered in a haphazard fashion. As we rode on the back of the depot drone in pursuit of our final objective, we silently observed the devastation wrought by whatever monster stalked these dilapidated caverns. Beyond the perfect cuts and severed limbs various other injuries were common among the river of bodies we encountered. Crushed heads akin to pulped rotten fruit, their eyes leaking like snot onto their caved in faces and a puddle of frothing viscera pooled in the craters the assailant left behind. Limbs torn off as if a great beast had grappled them and carelessly thrown them aside. Men split perfectly apart as if a great invisible wire had been whipped through the halls, the left-over marks upon the walls evoked the image of a great claw hewing down mortal men. The strangest cadavers we found was where they were frozen.
They were frozen solid. Fused into the lonely corners of the intersection. The decay and rust all around us began to form a haze that stung my eyes and tainted my tongue with the taste of iron and blood. The ceiling panels above us were long gone and exposed thousands of years' worth of wiring and cabling. They were hanging low from their bindings and splayed apart like blood vessels dragged out of flayed man. It felt as if I was looking at the remains of a gutted beast with its innards exposed to the world. They swayed with the ever-present droning of the air conditioning and life support systems of the hive. Illuminated by the sole light of my torch these raw and corroded wires came alive to menace us with their clawing and sinister state seeking to draw me into their crumbling embrace.
Kneeling down to the nearby corpses the evidence of their demise was no less disquieting. They merrily glittered in the light of my torch, the crystalline shining sparkle of the ice contrasting with the despairing and anguished faces of the gangers and the cruel frostbite imprisoning them. Their previous wounds covering them with blood were flash frozen by whatever attacked them. A tapestry of winter colours decorated their corpses as the frostbite killed their flesh and stained it with a deep gnawing black, blue and bloody red. The chest seemed to have exploded from the violence of the sudden change of temperature, as if a brutal fist had pulled apart their ribcage. Frozen in this eternal debasement, the ice looked to form a crown of static gore surrounding him. Blown apart before me, the frostbite captured a shard of tundra that covered the entire section of the area around us. Long crisscrossing trails of splintered ice and frigid death just as though a malevolent nature spirit ran amok here.
However, a peculiar scene caught my eye, the longer I gazed upon this grisly display I noticed that they were leaking a strange mist. Instantly I noted my Impulse Unit thrummed in anticipation upon the novel display. As my eyes took in the ongoing smog, I began to slowly begin to decipher just what truly inflicted such barbarity. A chime echoed like a dirge in my mind as I nearly keeled over from the realisation. My Impulse Unit nestled within me swaddled me in warmth as I sent silent gratitude. My knees shook and I swatted my habit clean of errant ice while reaching the depot drone.
"I see you have some insight into what is going on Magos? I'm concerned by how unusual this situation is evolving. The assortment of corpses and their state makes me think we are dealing with a group of gifted outlaws or worse." She griped her lasgun stiffly, never once lowering its muzzle while the depot drone's own arms were constantly scanning for hostiles.
"What do you make of this scant mist being emitted? The ambient temperature is not nearly cold enough to naturally form this ice, nor does ice formed from water expel this faint fog." My oblique question puzzled her clearly, this area of lore wasn't taught to those not permitted.
"I'm not privy to the arcana of alchemy beyond the arts of demolition and various poisons. I was tutored in gospel concerning the Motive Force and its divine workings as befitted my station and duties. I didn't need to know the deeper mysteries beyond that. Spit it out Magos, what is this?" Her reply was blunt and tinged with irritation, something I was beginning to think was characteristic for her. Her eye lens flowed into a blended swirl of agitated energetic yellow and interrogating burnt orange.
"Don't you see? This wasn't made by some exotic xenos monstrosity or even esoteric mechanism. That smoke is carbon dioxide, this is the same dry ice that I've used to clean the depot drone. Tell me, are there any servitors deployed down on these levels? Could their programming be stuck or rampant?" The excited explanation tamped down into a tentative musing. The suggestion of rampant servitors clear disturbed her as it did me.
"A rampant servitor? It shouldn't be possible Magos, the protocols involved in servitor creation are strict for that very reason. While being useless criminal filth in their past lives, a servitor with their sinful proclivities intact would be a recipe for disaster gifted with the steel embrace of the Machine God. There shouldn't be anything left but an empty vessel fit for the enactment of the will of the Magi. Although it's not impossible I will admit" It was an uneasy expression that greeted me through the bracing of her shoulders as she finished. She minutely tuned her lasgun to a higher power output with the possibility of a rogue servitor lurking amidst our surroundings.
"I know its standard practice to staff these distant facilities with servitors to maintain security and basic diagnostics. If a minor repair was needed, then the relevant servitor would be alerted as befitted their augments through the local network. We're not that far off from the water treatment plant currently, if the plant is as ramshackle as everything around us is then rampant servitors could be stalking these levels as we speak." It was a grim possibility; servitors were omnipresent in the Imperium especially on Mechanicus worlds. The Mechanicus held no value in human life nor its sanctity. They valued knowledge above all else through a brutal utilitarian worldview. If you weren't useful or possessed of a sacred understanding, then you will be repurposed as needed in the great living machine of the Cult to protect the Ancient's legacy and the machine spirits therein.
A rampant servitor would be rendered insane by the gruesome transformation of their bodies, lashing out with a feral fury and schizophrenic malevolence. Who knew how many mad servitors were roving these halls? Depending on their assigned role when created we couldn't truly know the potential loadout of these unsettled cyborgs. Well, we knew one for certain.
"I think we're dealing with the literal clean-up crew here. Dry ice is used everywhere by the Magi to perform machine cleaning and maintenance. Outfitting a servitor with pumps is quite common in manufacturing. Could the malfunction of the water treatment plant be the rampancy of its skeleton crew?" It was an intriguing thought. Servitor rampancy was admittedly rare, the Mechanicus took the possible deviance very seriously as rampancy was known to have the curious effect of infecting other nearby servitors through local networks and proximity. Factory floors filled with blessed quiet efficiency would be besieged with screeching anarchy and terrified sobbing as servitors would be forcibly returned to their prior selves. Swift and merciless purges would be immediate and bereft of sympathy. Servitorship was a punishment, and all servitors were judged as criminals only fit to be wrung of much utility as possible until they expire, to repent for their disregard for the Emperors Lawful Society.
"I've been part of handling rampancy in the past, it's never a pleasant affair. The machine spirits are twisted and corrupted by their heresy and join them in their wicked wanton aberrancy! They cannot be affixed to new subjects after their exposure to such filth! We had to forcibly recycle the befallen machine spirits to their component elements. A day of mourning was called for that day." An aggrieved tone rasped out of her unchanging mask, shoulders visibly slumped. Shaking her head to banish such memories roused her to growl out a fierce promise.
"Such grievous heresy cannot go unpunished Magos! We mustn't let this rot befoul the noble machines of the hive! Let us go forth and purify this place in the name of the Machine God! "With a determined gait she near dragged me on top of the drone almost joyful to be extracting retribution on such moral threats to the Cult. At once we departed into the winding dismal pit. The sound of rushing water reached my ears along with a heartbroken roar.