Brandt sat with his back to the wall. Always the wall. One entrance, one exit. No blind spots. The bar reeked of sweat and cheap liquor, the kind that stripped rust off metal and stomach linings off men. A dive like this didn't need frills — just a sturdy counter, a reinforced back door, and a bouncer big enough to look like trouble but slow enough to be none.

He ran the numbers, same as always. If the front door came down, he'd have five seconds before the room turned into a slaughterhouse. Two gangers near the entrance, full of bargain-bin augments and bad habits. Twitchy. Unreliable. A trio of fresh-faced PDF recruits in the corner, slamming amasec and slurring about their "new orders." Future corpses, all of them. The Arbites would chew them up if the Guard didn't get them first. And if they made it past both? Some Emperor forgotten warzone would finish the job.

Brandt took another sip. The burn hit deep, curled up in his chest like an old friend.

His eyes drifted over the bar's defenses—not that it had any. The nearest table flipped into decent cover. The counter wouldn't stop a slug. The back door? Locked, but that meant nothing if someone had the right charge. A squad could clear the place in thirty seconds. Less, if they knew what they were doing.

He rolled his shoulder. His left one. The good one. The right was augmetic—military-issue once, now patched together with favors and scrap. It worked, which was more than could be said for most things in this hole.

His fingers brushed his chest, found nothing. An old habit. His service medallion used to hang there, back when a badge meant something. Sold it years ago, traded for parts and a meal. He told himself it didn't matter. Didn't regret it. Regret was for men with options.

He snorted into his drink. The PDF recruits were still talking, still convinced they were different. The conversation drifted over: something about glory, about "making a difference."

Idiots.

Glory didn't pay for augmetic repairs. Glory didn't stop your squad from getting ripped apart because some governor on a core world couldn't meet his damn tithe. Glory was a lie they fed you until the bullets started flying.

The bar's security was a joke. The bouncer was big but slow, one kidney shot away from bleeding out on the floor. The cameras in the corners weren't even real. A place like this survived because it wasn't worth the trouble to hit. Nothing but rats here, and bigger rats waiting outside.

Brandt eyed his next drink. Coin was thinning. Not enough to be a problem. Not yet. But enough to remind him why he never retired like some of the old-timers. A PDF pension didn't stretch far when the gangs and landlords took their cut first.

He stretched his augmetic fingers, felt the servos click into place. Used to be for lifting crates, setting up barricades, reinforcing perimeters. Now it crushed throats, steadied a gun, put down problems. Different work. Same instincts.

Movement at the far end of the bar. A face he knew, another ex-PDF, hunched over his drink like the rest of them. Brandt gave a slow nod. The man returned it. No words. None needed. Same story, different details. Once part of something structured, now just another hired gun.

He went back to his drink. The liquor burned.

The door creaked. Brandt saw him the second he stepped in.

Grizzly moved like he always did—like he owned the place, or at least didn't care who thought otherwise. Same battered jacket, same scar curling down the side of his face like a bad joke. He walked in slow, took his time looking around, not because he was cautious, but because he wanted people to know he wasn't.

Brandt smirked, took another sip.

Grizzly spotted him, gave a small nod, then weaved through the room like he had all the time in the world. He slid into the seat across from Brandt, flagged down the barkeep with a lazy wave, then let out a sigh like a man finally sitting down after a hard day's work.

"Brandt."

"Grizzly."

"Didn't figure you for drinking alone," Grizzly said, eyeing Brandt's half-empty glass.

Brandt shrugged. "Didn't figure you for drinking at all, considering you still owe me."

Grizzly let out a quiet chuckle, shaking his head. "Right. That."

The bartender, an old bastard who smelled like spoiled beer, set down a fresh drink in front of Grizzly. He took a sip, winced. "Emperor's bones, this is worse than last time."

Brandt smirked. "That's 'cause you're still young enough to taste it."

Grizzly exhaled through his nose, leaning back. "Anything new?"

Brandt scanned the bar again lazily. "You mean besides the latest batch of PDF cannon fodder drinking themselves brave?" He nodded toward the recruits in the corner, who were now deep into some slurred argument about battlefield tactics they'd never get the chance to use. "Yeah. Real inspiring."

Grizzly glanced over, smirking. "They'll learn."

"Or they won't," Brandt said, knocking back the rest of his drink.

Grizzly let the silence hang a second, then tapped the table. "Still watching the doc's back?"

Brandt nodded. "Same as ever. Still keeping Barik entertained?"

Grizzly rolled his jaw slightly, like the question made his teeth itch. "You could say that."

Brandt caught that. He didn't press. If Grizzly had something worth saying, he'd say it. Instead, he let the moment settle, let the drinks do their job.

Grizzly drummed his fingers on the table. "Doc still keeping busy?"

Brandt let out a short laugh. "Busy? He's got more bodies lined up than a forge world assembly line. Cyberarms, optics, patched-together rigs—whatever the scrapheads drag in, he makes it work. Ain't about purity or the Omnissiah with him. Just results. Long as the gangs keep him safe, his tools keep running.

Grizzly nodded, taking another slow sip. "Good for you, then."

Brandt didn't say anything. Just let the quiet stretch.

Grizzly exhaled, rubbing his temple. "Alright, go on."

"Go on what?"

Grizzly gave him a look. "You know damn well what."

Brandt smirked, tapping the side of his glass. "Your debt, Grizz."

Grizzly ran his tongue along his teeth, exhaled sharply through his nose. "Yeah. That." His fingers drummed against the side of his glass, lazily, but there was something under it — something thinking.

Brandt didn't say anything. Just watched him.

Grizzly rolled his shoulders, tilting his head like he was working out a kink in his neck. "Been low on credits lately," he admitted, not quite sheepish, but close enough to make it clear he knew how that sounded. "You know how it is. One job pays, the next leaves you in the dirt. Figured I'd have it squared away by now, but Barik's been keeping me busy in all the wrong ways."

Brandt raised an eyebrow. "That so?"

Grizzly nodded, taking another sip of his drink. He swirled the glass, watching the liquid catch the dim bar lights. "Got a different idea, though."

Brandt let the silence stretch just enough before he spoke. "I'm listening."

Grizzly smirked, resting his forearms on the table. "How about a friendly match?"

Brandt's eyes narrowed slightly. "A match?"

"You know," Grizzly said, grinning now. "A little sparring. Hand-to-hand, straight up. No knives, no guns, just fists. Winner takes the pot, settles the debt. Loser gets to wake up sore and a little humbler."

Brandt snorted. "That right? And where exactly were you thinking?"

Grizzly smirked. "You remember the old freight depot past the slag heaps?"

"The one with the busted cranes and the collapsed mezzanine?"

"That's the one," Grizzly said, tapping the table. "Still standing. Mostly. Place is dead—nothing worth scrapping, nothing worth guarding. Big main floor, open space."

Brandt tapped his fingers against the table, thinking. It wasn't a bad idea. He hadn't had a proper match in a while—not one that wasn't some desperate fool trying to stab his way out of trouble. And he did prefer his debts settled directly.

He exhaled slowly. "No weapons. No outside interference."

Grizzly nodded. "Just you and me."

Brandt tilted his head, studying him. "You sure you wanna do this, Grizz?"

Grizzly smirked, flexing his fingers. "I figure I got a shot."

Brandt let the quiet stretch again, then gave a slow, considering nod. "Alright. We do this proper. You show, we settle things."

Grizzly raised his glass in a mock toast. "Wouldn't miss it."

Brandt clinked his glass against Grizzly's, then knocked back the rest of his drink. The night just got a little more interesting.


The air inside the depot was thick with dust and rust, the kind that never really settled. The place smelled like old metal and stagnant water, the scent of abandonment soaked into every wall.

Brandt rolled his shoulders, feeling the weight of his augmetic arm settle naturally against his side. The floor under his boots was cracked but solid enough. One way in, one way out. High ground options were gone—the catwalks had collapsed years ago—but the open space gave him room to move. That mattered.

Grizzly stood across from him, cracking his knuckles, grinning like this was just another bar bet. His arms were thick with muscle earned through years of street fights and infused with chems. He wasn't light on his feet. Didn't need to be.

Brandt stepped forward, hands loose, weight balanced. "You know, in the old days, we drilled for this." His voice was even, calm. "Form, timing, precision. You break a man down piece by piece, make him open himself up."

Grizzly smirked, rolling his shoulders. "Sounds like a lot of extra steps just to put someone on the ground."

Brandt's lips twitched. "Yeah. And that's why half your fights end with you bleeding."

Grizzly chuckled, shaking his head. "Doesn't matter who bleeds, Brandt. Matters who's still standing."

Brandt didn't argue. No point.

He circled slowly, watching Grizzly shift his stance. No discipline in it, just confidence—too much confidence. His weight sat forward, ready to swing, not ready to dodge. The first hit would tell him everything he needed to know.

Grizzly moved first, a wide step and a heavy swing. Brandt sidestepped, barely moving, letting the fist cut through empty air.

"You telegraph like a damn PDF drop drill," Brandt muttered.

Grizzly just laughed. "Still plenty of force behind it, though."

"Sure," Brandt said. "If it lands."

He lashed out quick, a sharp jab into Grizzly's ribs. Not enough to do damage, just enough to test the reaction. Grizzly barely flinched, just grinned wider and swung again.

Brandt caught the shift. No refinement, no strategy—just raw, violent intent. It worked in brawls, in gang fights where the first man down set the tone. But Brandt wasn't some gutter thug throwing wild punches in an alley. He was trained for endurance, for positioning, for efficiency.

Grizzly came in again, this time leading with his shoulder. Brandt shifted with him, used the momentum, let Grizzly stumble forward just enough to throw him off balance.

Grizzly cursed, twisted, reset.

"Cheap move," he grunted.

Brandt smirked. "It's called using your environment."

Grizzly spat on the floor, rolling his neck. "You sound like some old war preacher."

Brandt kept his hands loose, watching, waiting. "Survival's a lot easier when you don't rely on brute force alone."

Grizzly's smirk returned, sharper now. "Survival's easier when you hit first and hit hard."

This time he lunged. Brandt braced, let the impact happen, rolling with it instead of resisting. The force behind it was brutal, like getting hit by a battering ram. But it wasn't precise. It wasn't smart.

Brandt twisted, hooked his foot behind Grizzly's knee, and let gravity do the rest.

Grizzly hit the ground hard. The old floor groaned under his weight. He grunted, shook his head, and laughed. "Alright. That one was good."

Brandt stepped back, giving him space to get up. "You rely too much on power."

Grizzly stretched, rolling his shoulders. "And you rely too much on rules."

Brandt shook his head, exhaling slow. "They're not rules. They're discipline. There's a difference."

Grizzly's grin faltered. Just for a second. His shoulders rose and fell with his breath, but something in his stance loosened, like the fight had already left him. He rubbed the back of his neck, rolling his jaw as if chewing on words he wasn't sure he wanted to say.

"Discipline," he muttered, almost to himself. "You think that keeps you safe?"

Brandt narrowed his eyes. "It keeps you alive."

Grizzly let out a short, humorless chuckle. "Yeah? And what do you do with that extra time? More fights? More debts? More reasons to keep looking over your shoulder?" He shook his head. "You ever stop to wonder if any of this means anything?"

Brandt frowned. That wasn't Grizzly. Not the Grizzly he knew. The man who lived for the fight, for the next big score, for whatever thrill made it worth waking up the next day. He was all impulse and brute force, not… this. Not questions too big for a man like him to be asking.

And then Grizzly moved. Fast.

Brandt's body reacted before his brain caught up. He barely slipped the hit, twisting just enough to avoid a fist that should've been slower—should've been predictable. But it wasn't. It came in clean, precise, faster than any swing Grizzly had thrown before.

Brandt's pulse kicked up. His instincts, honed through years of drills and real fights, didn't register this as just a spar anymore.

Grizzly was too fast. Unnaturally fast.

Brandt stepped back, resetting his stance, watching. Grizzly didn't press immediately. He stood there, rolling his shoulders, flexing his fingers like he was just now getting used to his own body. His expression was unreadable, something distant behind his eyes.

Brandt exhaled, slow and steady. "What's going on, Grizz?"

Grizzly blinked, like he'd just now realized where he was. His smirk returned, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Just thinking, Brandt. About survival. About what it takes."

He moved again. No hesitation. No wasted motion. Brandt barely dodged the next strike, but it wasn't like before — it wasn't a wide, telegraphed swing from a street brawler. It was calculated. Efficient.

It felt like something had changed.

Brandt felt the weight in his gut, the slow creep of understanding. It wasn't a fight. It was a test. Or a setup.

This place — Grizzly had picked it on purpose. It wasn't just some abandoned depot, wasn't just a convenient spot for a fight. It was secluded. Too secluded. No one was coming through these ruins unless they had a reason. No stray workers, no patrols. No one to hear if things went wrong.

No one to hear if he screamed for help.

Grizzly stepped closer. Too close. Brandt moved, circling, keeping space between them. He needed distance. Needed time. Needed to figure out what the hell was happening.

"Who sent you?" Brandt shouted.

His voice echoed in the empty depot. His left hand curled into a loose guard, his right crept toward his belt. His fingers brushed cold metal. His body stayed loose, ready to move. His mind raced.

Grizzly exhaled slow, shoulders slack, eyes dull with something close to regret. He didn't answer. Didn't even flinch. Just stood there, watching.

Brandt needed time. He needed an opening. Talking would buy him that.

"Barik put you up to this?" His voice came fast, sharp, pushing, testing. "This about the doc? About a job I don't know I was on?"

Grizzly shook his head. His expression didn't change. "Brandt," he muttered, in an almost pitying tone. "You don't get it."

Brandt did get it. He got it too well. This was an execution.

His fingers wrapped around the grip. Brandt moved fast, unholstering in a single motion. The cold weight of the pistol steadied him, sights locked onto Grizzly's head.

"Stop." Brandt's breathing was shallow. He was trained for this, but the creeping wrongness of it all crawled under his skin. "I swear to the Emperor, you take one more step and I'll—"

Grizzly stepped forward.

Brandt pulled the trigger.

The shot cracked through the depot, deafening in the hollow space. The impact should have dropped Grizzly. Should have sent him sprawling with a neat hole where his skull used to be.

But it didn't.

Grizzly's head snapped back from the force, forcing his body to rock slightly — just slightly. Then he straightened. His eyes flickered back to Brandt, filled with something deep and distant, something Brandt had never seen before. Not in a man.

Brandt's blood turned to ice.

He shot him in the head. And nothing happened.

His grip on the pistol tightened. His mouth went dry. "No," he breathed. "That's not possible."

Grizzly's expression softened. Sad. Understanding. Like he… No —it — almost felt bad for him.

It took another step forward.

Brandt's pulse slammed against his ribs. His fingers felt numb against the pistol's grip. His legs tensed, screaming at him to move. His throat dried.

This was wrong.

And he was not ready for it.

Brandt couldn't even register what happened next.

One moment, the thing stood before him, slow, calm, sad. The next — motion. A blur, a whirlwind in his vision.

His instincts screamed. His finger squeezed the trigger. Another shot, another failure. The bullet hit dead-on and meant nothing.

Then hands.

A crushing force wrapped around his throat, lifting him off the ground like he weighed nothing. His boots kicked against empty air. The gun slipped from his grip, clattering uselessly against the cracked floor.

He tried to fight, but his arms barely moved. His augmetic hand twitched, straining against an iron grip that wasn't supposed to be this strong. His lungs burned.

Then he saw its eyes.

Not Grizzly's. Not a man's.

Just cold, hollow things. Not cruel. Not angry. Just indifferent. Alien.

Brandt tried to scream, but no sound came.

Then — pain.

A white-hot explosion behind his eyes, ripping through his skull, tearing at something deeper than flesh. His body convulsed. His mind screamed. His vision fractured into red, then black, then —

Nothing.


I stood among what remained of Brandt.

Not much.

The air felt heavy, thick with something more than just the stink of blood and rust. My hands hung at my sides, fingers still tingling, still remembering the weight of him.

He was a good man. I knew that. Fought off-world, held the line when it mattered. He lived by a code, even if it didn't save him. Maybe he didn't deserve this. Maybe no one did.

My mind spat the thought back at me. Didn't deserve it? What did that even mean? Who deserved anything in a place like this? I told myself it was about survival, not right or wrong.

Then why do I feel like I just killed something more than a man?

I exhaled, slow. Pushed the thought down. Buried it under the same logic that had kept me breathing this long.

I needed knowledge. Real, useful knowledge. Not scraps, not instincts pulled from some hobos, but something solid. The last one — some nameless vagrant slumped in an alley — had been nothing. Just hunger, sickness, a lifetime of waiting to die. I'd taken him as a test, to see if I could absorb without losing myself like I had with Grizzly.

There was a flood of memories, but that time, I stayed afloat. His pain, his desperation, his last moments clawing for breath—I felt it all. But I controlled it. Held it back. Let it pass through me instead of pulling me under.

And now, Brandt.

His mind was sharper. His memories came fast, structured, ordered. Combat drills in cold barracks. The weight of a rifle, the recoil punching into his shoulder. Barked orders, battlefield triage, the smell of burning ozone from lasgun fire. The muscle-deep instinct to scan every room, every corner, to track threats before they became problems.

Fights in trenches, boots sinking into mud that swallowed bodies whole. The rush of adrenaline before a breach, the cold calculation of angles, cover, positioning. Not just brute force — tactics.

His skills settled into place. I felt my balance shift, felt my stance adjust without thinking. I knew how to feint now, how to bait an enemy into moving wrong, how to counter before they even knew they'd lost. Useful knowledge. A set of reflexes that might save my life later.

And somewhere beneath it all, the ghost of his discipline still lingered. The rigid certainty that order meant survival. That structure was what separated soldiers from dead men.

But he was a dead man now.

And I was still standing.

Brandt — his identity, his memories, his face — was merely a key. The door was someone else. Someone who possessed the skills I really needed long-term.

I needed to gather as much useful skills and information as soon as possible. I felt like I was racing against time. Barik knew my secret. I felt it, almost knew it.

Why else would he avoid me? Days had passed, and he hadn't called me in. No meetings, no direct orders, only messages passed through others. Barik never did that. He liked control, liked seeing a man's face when he gave a command. But not with me. Not now.

And the kind of tasks he gave… wrong. Not what Grizzly used to handle.

Before, it was standard work—shaking down merchants too slow on their payments, guarding supply runs, leading a few muscleheads to remind some low-life who really ran this sector. Enforcement. Intimidation. Keeping order, Vulture-style.

Now? Enforcers. Not the usual street scum or rival gangs. Real uniforms. Trained. Equipped. Some of them ex-Guard, some worse. And worse than them—the Arbites. The few that still bothered patrolling this rotting husk of a city.

At first, I thought it was punishment. A quiet way of telling me I'd screwed up at the shuttle. That I hadn't brought back what he wanted, that I was one step away from being another body dumped in the slag pits.

But it wasn't that. I felt it. Barik knew.

Maybe not everything. Maybe not the details. But enough. Enough to test me.

Sending me after enforcers, after Arbites — he didn't want a job done. It was about seeing what I'd do. Maybe he thought I'd hesitate, that I'd show cracks under pressure. Maybe he wanted to see if I'd slip up, if I'd fight like Grizzly should, bleed like Grizzly should.

Or maybe it was a trap. A slow noose tightening, pushing me into fights where I had to use whatever I was now. Where the wrong person might see, where the wrong rumors might spread. Where he wouldn't even have to kill me himself — he could let the Imperium do it for him.

At first, I played it smart. The first few jobs, I did them quiet. Found the weak ones. The desperate ones. The enforcers who weren't in it for justice, just for a steady cut. I let them believe it was business as usual. Bribes, pressure, the right threats at the right time. A missing shipment here, a backroom deal there. Control, not chaos.

For the tougher ones, the ones that wouldn't take credits or look the other way, I got creative. Slipped false tips to rival gangs, let someone else do the dirty work. Made their disappearances look like bad luck, not a hit. A body turning up in the wrong alley, a sudden "accident" with their own men—things no one would trace back to me.

For a while, it worked. Barik kept sending the jobs, and I kept handling them the way Grizzly should. Loud when necessary, silent when possible. Kept the mask on, kept playing the part.

But it wouldn't last.

I could feel it shifting. Barik watching closer. The jobs getting riskier, more direct. The kind of situations where a man like Grizzly should have gotten shot, where brute strength should have failed.

Where I'd have to make a choice. And that was exactly what he wanted.

But I knew staying like that would expose me.

Playing dumb only worked for so long. Barik was watching, waiting for the moment I slipped, the moment I did something Grizzly shouldn't be capable of. If I kept going the way he wanted, I'd walk straight into a situation where I'd have no choice but to show my hand.

I couldn't let him control the board. I had to move first. Had to learn what I was, how I worked. Real knowledge. Not instincts or half-formed memories stolen from some random hobos. Something solid. Something I could use in order to survive.

Because if Barik knew, others would follow. The kind of people who wouldn't settle for suspicion. The kind who wouldn't stop at watching. The Imperium, the Mechanicus, the Inquisition — if they caught wind of me, they'd bring more than lasguns. They'd bring things worse than death. And if that day came, I had to know if my body could take it. If I could withstand whatever nightmare they'd throw at me. If I could be more than prey.

Like many other Vultures, Grizzly knew of Draven. A former Mechanicus acolyte turned rogue. Not a tech-priest, not one of the robed zealots whispering to machines. Just another cog in the great, grinding machine of the Omnissiah's will — until he wasn't.

Brandt's scraps of knowledge on him were vague, half-truths, rumors passed between mercs and gangers too cautious to dig deeper. Draven had been part of a forge-world labor contingent, handling biomechanical maintenance, cybernetics, routine aug repairs. A nobody, one of thousands. But then something happened. Some whispered it was a failed experiment, others said it was information he wasn't meant to have.

Whatever it was, he ran.

No one left the Mechanicus and lived, not unless they had something worth trading. Draven did. He vanished into the underhive, took his knowledge with him, and built a new life under gang protection. Now, he was the name when it came to augmetics, neural grafting, bio-mod integration. No rituals, no incense, no prayers to the Machine God. Just tools, expertise, and a price.

But the "Doc", as people called him, was paranoid. Had to be.

If his former kin ever got wind of him, they'd come in force — red-robed assassins, surgical in their brutality, stripping him down to the bolts for what he knew. And if it wasn't them, it'd be the gangs. A man like Draven was leverage, power, the kind of asset others would kill to control. The Vultures had him, but that didn't mean they'd always keep him.

So he built his own defenses.

His clinic sat buried deep in the underhive. A reinforced compound choked with rust and old machine oil, walled off with salvaged plating thick enough to stop anything short of a demolition charge. The main entrance looked like a bunker, lined with heavy servitor mounts — modified, twisted things, half-man, half-machine. They didn't think. Didn't hesitate. One wrong move and they'd carve a man apart with surgical precision.

Inside, the security got worse. Auto-guns mounted in the ceilings, wired to motion triggers so sensitive that even breathing wrong could trip them. The hallways were tight, built for ambush points, the kind of places where escape wasn't an option once you stepped inside.

And then there were the bodyguards.

Draven didn't trust regular muscle. He paid for professionals. Ex-Guard, ex-PDF, ex-bounty hunters. People who really understood tactics, angles, patience. Some were augged, some weren't, but all of them had seen real violence and knew how to survive it.

Men like Brandt.

One of them was Grizzly's friend. Or something close to it. Someone Grizzly had shared drinks with, traded jobs with. A name buried somewhere in his memories.

Was killing him the only way? I thought about that. Some part of me, the part that still flinched at the things I did, still held on to the weight of it. Guilt. A useless feeling, but it clung to me anyway.

Could I have stormed in openly? Maybe. But stabbers — common gangers, hired muscle — were one thing. The tools of the Mechanicus were something else.

Servo-turrets, blessed with machine-spirits that never slept, tracking targets with inhuman precision. Arc rifles that could strip flesh from bone in an instant. Volkite charges, weapons built to burn through steel as easily as flesh. And Draven's own creations, the kind of augments that could make a man much stronger, nearly unstoppable.

I might be more durable than your average human. Might be something more. But I wasn't stupid enough to think I was that much more.

No. Couldn't risk it. I needed to do this another way. Smarter.

And that meant using what I had taken. Using Brandt.

I focused.

Brandt's memories were fresh, still burning through my mind. His stance, his posture, the way he carried himself—it all settled into place. I let my body shift, muscle reshaping, skin hardening where it needed to.

The augmetic arm came next. Not real metal. Flesh mimicking steel. I felt it tighten, stiffen, lock into the weight and structure it was supposed to have. The servos, the plating, even the old combat wear—perfect.

I flexed the fingers. They moved exactly as they should. The right amount of resistance. The right amount of force.

I looked down one last time at Brandt's remains.

Nothing left. No sign of the man he had been. No honor, no funeral, no memory beyond what I carried now.

Somewhere deep inside, a voice — not mine, not fully — murmured the words.

"Farewell, old friend."

I exhaled, pushed the thought aside, and walked away.


"This line... it's secure, yeah?"

"Naturally, darling. I'd never risk exposing such... sensitive matters. You sound tense, Barik. What's the trouble?"

"Yeah, well, there's been... a problem. That shuttle job you wanted... the one out in the dunes."

"Ah, yes. Such a curious little operation. I trust your men handled it efficiently?"

"Not exactly. They... uh, they went out there, just like you asked. But, uh... they didn't come back."

"Didn't come back? How... tragic. You're telling me your crew vanished? All of them?"

"All of 'em. Grizzly's whole squad. And... here's the main part. Grizzly... he came back. Alone."

"Oh, how deliciously dramatic. But you don't sound thrilled to have him back. What's wrong with your dear Grizzly?"

"He ain't right. You hear me? Everyone's noticed. Movin' weird, talkin' weird. Like he's tryin' too hard to be himself, if that makes any sense."

"Intriguing. Do go on."

"He shows up, covered in dust and lookin'... normal enough, I guess. Starts spinnin' some story about Bonebreakers ambushing 'em out near the shuttle. Says they slaughtered his boys, left him barely crawlin' out alive."

"Mmm. Convenient, isn't it? A lone survivor tale. So... poetic."

"That's what I thought too. Too clean. Too practiced. And then Rissa..." [pauses] "She takes one look at him, and she says he ain't human."

[laughs lightly] "Oh, Barik. Psykers do have such flair for the dramatic."

"This ain't flair! Rissa don't spook easy, and she's shakin'. Says his thoughts don't make sense. Like they're alive or somethin'. Says it's like... like flesh wearin' flesh."

[voice softens] "How... deliciously unsettling. But I don't see why you're blaming me, darling."

"Because you sent us out there! You told me it was just a damn wreck, a quick grab. Now my men are gone, I've got this... thing walkin' around my turf, and you're sittin' there actin' like it's nothin'!"

"Oh, sweetheart. You do paint such a vivid picture. But truly, I'm as baffled as you are."

"Don't gimme that. You knew somethin'. That symbol, the whole way you talked about it — it's more than a wreck, ain't it? What the hell was I sendin' my boys after?"

[after a pause] "Barik, darling, I don't have all the answers. But the symbol, yes... it's tied to whispers. Old, unsettling whispers…

"Cut the crap! You talk like you've read every cursed book in the sector. Don't play dumb now. You're the expert in this unnatural stuff, aren't you? Tell me what the hell I'm dealin' with!"

[soft laugh] "Oh, Barik, such a temper. It's almost charming. But you give me far too much credit. Still..." [pauses] "...this entity you speak of... it's fascinating. Flesh wearing flesh, thoughts alive in their own chaos. Darling, you must let me meet it."

"Meet it? Are you outta your damn mind? This thing ain't a guest I'm invitin' to tea! It's... it's wrong, alright? Rissa nearly pissed herself just being in the same room!"

"That's precisely why I must see it, darling. You've stumbled upon something rare, something extraordinary. I can't let an opportunity like this slip away."

"You're askin' me to set up a meet and greet with... with whatever the hell this thing is? You serious?"

"Entirely serious. Think of it as a favor, Barik. A small gesture for someone who's always been... so useful to me. Besides, don't you want answers too?"

[pauses] "I don't like this. I don't like this one damn bit. But fine... I'll try. No promises, though. You hear me? This thing so much as looks at me wrong, I'm burnin' it down. But you tell me somethin' first... what the hell are you plannin' to do with it? You ain't draggin' me into more mess without answers."

"Oh, Barik, darling, always so suspicious. Don't worry your pretty little head about that. I'll handle it... perfectly."

"Perfectly? That ain't a damn answer. You got some kinda plan or what?"

"Naturally, darling. Have it brought to the usual spot in Malkras. Discretion, of course, is key."

"Malkras… Fine. But listen close — once this thing's outta my sight, it's your problem. You hear me? I ain't takin' it back if it turns ugly. You wanted it, now you deal with it."

"Oh, Barik, you wound me. Have I ever let you down before? Trust me, I'll handle it... and I'll even make it worth your while."

"You better. And don't think for a second I'm gonna let this blow back on me."

"Oh, darling, you're far too valuable to me for that. Relax. You'll see—everything will turn out beautifully. It always does when I'm involved."

"You better hope so." [pauses] "I'll make it happen."

"That's my Barik. I'll be waiting."