Legends of the Smoke Jaguars Chapter 59

The surgical table was cold on his back and the air smelt of antiseptics and sterilising fluid. The beeping of dialysisers and autocleansers was a constant beat and the whirring of anti-coagulators and hormonal regulators never ceased. No chanting of idiot priests was to be heard, no useless candles or votive shrines were permitted. This was a place for hard science and practical solutions, not mindless doggerel. All was as Methuselah wished, though the pain was growing annoying.

The Bronze Beast lay back on the surgical slab as Tvos neatly excised his blackened liver. Rotten through it was, burned out by the strain of many augmentations. It dripped bile and stank like sulfur, marring the perfect sterility of the surgical suite. Methuselah watched with detached interest as the dead organ was placed in a plastek sack, to be dissected for whatever secrets it held. His abdomen was left open, skin and fatty tissue parted to expose glistening organs and ropey entrails. There were considerably more stuffed inside his body than a human should contain. Even an Astartes Apothecary would have been baffled by the extra implantations, as well they should be. Methuselah's body had been reworked many times, by mad geniuses and himself, indeed many of those organs were of his own design, magnificent examples of the genewright's craft.

Tvos slid back into his eyeline bearing a fresh liver, glistening wet and perfectly formed. With mechanical precision he inserted the new organ and went to work connecting it to his veins. Methuselah's pain was crippling now, but he was no stranger to pain and tolerated it without a whimper. To pass the time he turned his head and examined the donor. A hale young man with remarkable musculature, dead eyes staring at the plastek sheeting that passed for a roof. He had no name, he was gene-bred for the single purpose of providing replacement organs, his short life given to a greater cause. Were he capable of understanding such things he would surely have been honoured, but then understanding was not required so there had been no reason to teach him to speak.

Tvos worked quickly and sowed Methuselah back together, then sealed the wound with quick-setting resin. The Magos Biologist stepped back as Methuselah rose, pulling out the lines that bound him to the surrounding machines. A pair of servants heaved his backpack into place and began fitting tubes to his import sockets, moving the strain of cleansing his blood to his mobile apparatus. A fresh wave of pain surged through him as his veins were exposed to the corrosive nature of his blood, but then the backpack went into effect and his agonies subsided to tolerable levels.

Methuselah grinned, "Excellent work, as always."

Tvos didn't seem impressed as he poked the rotten liver in its bag, "Two hundred and four days, that's how long this implant lasted. Your degeneration increases, and the time between surgeries grows ever shorter."

"It is of no matter, there are plenty of donor bodies to sustain me."

"One cannot keep replacing organs forever, hearts, lungs, spleen, intestine, bone marrow I have replaced them all and it has only bought you time. The acidity of your blood destroyed them faster than we can compensate. A cycle of diminishing returns can only end one way, but if we were to consider full mechanisation…"

Methuselah growled dangerously, "We have had this debate before, I will not become a clomping servitor man. My guts filled with metal and my mind nothing but recycled algorithms. That is not life, that is a pathetic parody! I will remain flesh and blood, my life sustained by my own genius. The physiological problems will be overcome, it's been done before, it can be done again. Speaking of which, have you examined the genic codes I provided?"

Tvos moved to a pict screen and pressed a rune. An image appeared, a prison cell with a single captive. Stripped of armour, hands and feet removed, yet unmistakably Engar. The Smoke Jaguar was yet alive but unable to escape and his pale skin was covered in needle marks. Killing him would have been satisfying, but Methuselah had uses for the Astartes that went beyond mindless destruction.

Tvos' cowled head nodded eagerly, "Astartes-pattern genic code is sublime, such wondrous skill went into its creation, such divine splendour as could only come from the Omnissiah's hand. Such secrets the Smoke Jaguars kept from Alar-Median, the things I could have done with this knowledge."

Methuselah grunted in annoyance, "Do not mistake ancient science for miracles. They are but weapons, mass-produced and disposable. They may be flesh and blood, but they are nothing but foot soldiers."

"But stable ones!" Tvos cried, "Stable and gene-coded for antiagapic. Their Telemeres replenish in a fashion I cannot explain. I project this example would live thousands of years before showing signs of infirmity, the upper limit of his lifespans is impossible to calculate. It is feasible an Astartes could live ten thousand years."

Methuselah placed a meaty hand on the screen as he whispered, "Such blinkered things they were, mindless footsloggers made to march in lockstep. No imagination, no individuality, forged to be compliant with an uncaring master's whim. Why they give them such extended lifespans? The Great Crusade was winding down after only two centuries, their role was nearly obsolete. It defies logic that they needed lives so long… I can only conclude it was sentiment on their maker's part, he went soft and paid the price."

Tvos pondered, "It is known among Biologis that the Progenoid implant contains the necessary gene-codes to replicate all other organs. If I were to grow and implant these into you then the cyclic-degradations would cease."

Methuselah sniffed, "But I would lose performance?"

"There would be some minor reductions in your strength and reaction times."

"Unacceptable!" Methuselah spat, "Take the captive apart, sieve his blood and bone to the atomic level to uncover his maker's secrets, but I will not become like him! I am the Bronze Beast; I am going to succeed where the treacherous Emperor of Terra failed!"

Methuselah spun on his heel and stormed out, shoving aside the plastek sheets. Stepping outside he found a much larger facility, filled with steaming cryo-caskets. Long rows stretched to a distant wall, hundreds of tubes left to bubble under a low-hanging stone roof. Strange forms bobbed in the tubes, some human, other deformed monstrosities. Twisted bodies and staring eyes, swollen craniums and legs melded into sinuous tails. The fruits of Methuselah's genius, each one a step on the road to the future he was building.

Athaliah was lounging against a tube, admiring a near-perfect male specimen floating in another tank. The young woman looked bored, but glanced over as Methuselah stormed over. The Bronze Beast would have terrified anyone else with his glower, but she let slip the sneer of the youth for the old and returned her gaze to the tube. Methuselah's blood was hot and the urge to rip her head off surfaced in his mind, but he carefully dialled up some Blue. He couldn't kill her, not yet, not after all the trouble he'd gone to making her.

"Is this the one?" Athaliah asked insolently.

Methuselah's blood cooled as he drew to her side, "Not this one, the Pariah gene is expressed too weakly. He is not a suitable mate for you."

"Shame, one such as this would almost make it bearable," she scowled.

"We progress my daughter," Methuselah soothed, "Tvos promises the next batch of replicae will be stable. You shall have a viable mate, I promise."

"Why does it have to be a Blank, why not any other example?!"

Methuselah leaned down, "I have explained that the Pariah gene is recessive. If I were to breed you with a normal man then the resulting issue would not express the gene properly. I am not willing to wait five generations for another blank to arise from your bloodline. I grew a thousand Replicae before you, a thousand failures, you are the first of my creations to emerge from your cryo-casket perfectly stable."

Athaliah sighed, "Why... why do you need Pariahs?"

Methuselah straightened up, "I told you of the Emperor, and what I learned of his plans to replace mankind with a race of Psykers. A bold plan, but one that would have been opposed. I see why he kept it secret; the common rabble would not like to learn he cared nothing for them, that he intended to replace humanity wholesale. His Primarchs could never have accepted they were to be cast aside, mere background players of the grand drama he wrote as a future. I applaud his treachery, but he strove for the wrong goal. Breeding Psykers is a fool's errand, Chaos would corrupt anything he made, but Pariahs are incorruptible. If I can breed a new species comprised entirely of Blanks, then nothing in the universe could oppose me!"

Athaliah frowned, "What if I don't want to?"

"Explain!" Methuselah commanded urgently.

"What if I don't want to be your broodmare, what if I don't want to breed your army of conquest? I have dreams other than pumping out Blanks for your needs; I want to see the stars!"

The Bronze Beast's hand fell upon her shoulder, engulfing her clavicle and she froze in terror as he growled, "Be careful my daughter, I indulge you greatly, but there are limits. You were made for a purpose, and you will fulfil it. Your genic codes are precious to me, but there are other ways I can achieve my goal. If you defy me then I will strap you to a gurney, slit you open and harvest your ovaries, before leaving you to die on the slab. The procedure risks damaging the eggs you carry, I would prefer a more natural method, but I will have my new species one way or another. You can obey, or die… choose wisely."

Athaliah sensed she'd gone too far and nodded in fear, "As you say Father."

"Good, then we shall proceed as planned," Methuselah declared as his hand rose.

A cry from further down the hall, a guard hurrying towards them with a data-slate in hand. Methuselah's curiosity was peeked and he took the slate in his giant hand, examining the news. He read it twice to be sure, then chuckled as the import sank in. His lip curled in amusement, a rare occurrence without a deliberate dose of Yellow, but this amused him so greatly it actually stirred him to mirth.

"What is it?" Athaliah asked in confusion.

Methuselah chuckled, "Our man in the king's court sends word a ship has entered orbit of Xibalba, a Smoke Jaguar ship."

"That's not right," she puzzled, "Shouldn't they be heading to Marajo and join up with the rest of their kind?"

Methuselah grinned ear to ear, "A single shuttle is coming down from orbit, not an army, just one craft. Their reasoning is as predictable as ever. We have captured one of their own, and now they come looking for their lost comrade. It seems we shall be entertaining guests soon, preparations must be made. The Smoke Jaguars are coming, but they will find the Bronze Beast is more than ready for them!"