Still terrible at editing. But here you go.
Agent Wylie had spent his entire life in Inquisitorial service. Anything before his ascension to their ranks had become a distant memory after the numerous mindscapings he had undertaken to avoid divulging Inquisitorial secrets and ensure his loyalty. He knew that what little he remembered was retained because it was needed to maintain his efficient work or because his psyche depended on it. Everything else was a vague blur or just absent, to ensure he wasn't swayed by other concerns. No family, no friends and no interests to distract him from his mission.
So, when he was told he was being sent to Slawkenberg, he wasn't concerned. He was disappointed to hear that his mission wasn't to slay the Heretic that had been such a thorn in the Imperium's side, especially as his actions had forced the creation of an upstart Ordo, but also forced the Imperium to pull naval assets back across the sub-sector. Instead, he was to determine the origin of a source of one of their most powerful tools. A creation which had turned sieges into unwindable stalemates and their isolated agents into undetectable spectres. The C-bar.
Wylie was to find the facility that produced the construct and find a way to replicate the facilities. If possible, he was to acquire the specs to create such products for the Emperor's legions, granting them the ability to better feed their men, but if not then destruction was his goal, with the entire supply line as his target. Lady Von Hellfire thought that such an important piece of information being kept from the God Emperor's chosen was blasphemy in and of itself, on top of the additional insult of it being used by their enemy. This injustice could not stand, not when such an agent as Wylie was available to rectify it.
That is not to say that the mission was universally popular. This was to be kept from any other Ordos operating in the area, as the upstarts and power seekers of the Ordo Ciaphas would surely object to agents acting in what they viewed as their private territory. They insisted that any attempt to deal with the Black Commissars Protectorate had to go through them and seek their approval. Such a minor Ordo would normally have been ridiculed for such a ridiculous demand, but they apparently had strong allies in the Ordo Xenos at least, and so had to be humoured if nothing else.
Finding a way onto the planet was simple enough although it did involve a great deal of dealmaking and subterfuge. Some Rogue Traders still journeyed near these worlds, even if unofficially and they could be persuaded to drop off a single-man stealth ship for a sufficient amount of money. Being an agent of the Inquisition, this was no problem for him, although it did anger him to have to pay what was supposed to be a loyal servant of the Imperium to do a job that was clearly in the service of the emperor. However, their charter stated that they could not be ordered to do anything by an imperial institution without a clear mandate, and they most certainly believed that the Inquisition lacked it in this case. This was backed up by the fact that they knew enough of the situation to name-drop a certain Inquisitor Brackenreid, known to be operating in the area, and asked whether or not they had approved this mission. The Rogue Trader knew enough to be a thorn in their side if they pressed the issue, and so they received their large bag of money, and Wylie was given his ride into the Slawkenberg system.
Landing in one of the many fields or forests had been simple enough, seeing as how the planet was still largely covered in them. Most intelligent Governors would have had these either converted to Industrial districts or made into mining pits. This was so that the world was prosperous enough to be worth preserving, and yet the Black Commissar had decided against it. The utter madness of maintaining such wastes of valuable land was just another example of the man's madness when more valuable uses could be found for them. Regardless, this oversight served the Inquisition's purposes, just as the unsuspecting Agri-menial who had failed to notice the large cloth which he had acquired from their workplace.
Securing locational information was alarmingly simple. The nearest bunching of hovels which approximated a village had a large map in the centre, alongside an assortment of plaques and an ugly statue of an unkempt man who was probably a local hero. The plaques went on at length about the man, his family and the supposed suffering he had endured for being a Traitor and a heretic, speaking of him as a hero. He was dead, thank the Emperor, but had refused to be useful and name his co-conspirators or say who he believed they could before he died.
The more interesting piece of information was provided by a large paper map, covered with a kind of plastic and nailed to a scarcely used Temple to the Emperor. So one had gone to the trouble of drawing a large red X on the map to mark their current location and then indicate the regional capital, Cainopolis. They had even gone so far as to list approximate travel times, with Transit taking over a half hour, Ground cars being 20 minutes and waking taking around 5 hours. Wylie resolved to "acquire" enough currency to take the transit option.
Finding the facility had been quite easy as well, even without the typical assets he would have expected to have access to. No interrogators, chemicals-assisted interviews or data recovery have been necessary as the information was surprisingly easy to come by. The information facilities which seem to be strategically placed to offer easy access to as many people as possible, held all the information that the venerable agent needed to find the facility. After acquiring an improvised robe, it has been easy to sneak into one of the cities and access these archives without drawing any kind of suspicion.
Entering the city was as simple as could be, with no alarms being raised by his presence nor anyone trying to stop him. He must've cast a suitably downcast figure as most of the people seemed adamant about avoiding him as much as possible. Even the armed cultists in blue patterned ballistic armour, carrying pistols and Stunmauls, Had not bothered approaching him, and instead simply watched him for a little while before leaving. His encounters with these street enforcers were increasingly sparse as he made his way towards one of the cult's heretical archives.
This place was even less well-defended than The various institutions he had passed on the way in. There were no armoured doors, patrolling enforces, or anytime major security presence, not even infiltrators and spies keeping track of who came and went from the building. The cultist stationed at the door had even offered to help him find what he was looking for. She had no visible armour, instead favouring a clean white ruffled shirt and black skirt. She had no weapons as far as Wylie could tell, although the pair of needles she seemed to have secured in her blond hair bun could be used as improvised weapons if they weren't secretly injectors for poison.
He had claimed to be looking into military food and nutrition. That was a specific enough subject that any guidance she could offer with certainly help him begin searching through the records for what he needed. It was also vague enough that she would have no real way to suspect that he was looking for the C-Bar production facility. She gave him an odd look, before suggesting that he take a seat and she'd whatever she could find on that topic. Less than five minutes later, she came by with a whole stack of books that looked nearly new, an unusual case for informational texts in the imperial, which tended towards being generations old At the very least.
With nothing better to do for the moment, nor any stronger leads, Agent Wylie cracked open the first book which the guard had given him and began reading it from the first page. All of this information, from who wrote the book to have edited and approved its release would be useful for once he infiltrated into the less public areas of this archive and acquired the information he sought. That would probably be best done at night, and would more specifically be done after the guard got bored observing him and moved on to what other duties she would have.
Quietly had just finished the first page of the index, when the first item on the second page caught his eye. At first, he assumed that he was delirious, perhaps imagination had suddenly emerged and was playing a trip on him. However, his eyes didn't spell words that were sprawled across the top of the fourth page. 'The C-Bar' was public enough to be included in this work he had been handed by the ignorant local, and not only that it was the eighth chapter with multiple subsections of information about it. Just from the index, this appeared to include history, perception, production variance, and misconceptions about it. it looked like the cult had accidentally handed him an actual goldmine of information about his goal!
Truly, the emperor smiled on His mission! The history of the creation, or at least the heretical propaganda around it, was laid out before him. it went to great lengths speaking of its early production, its introduction to service with the USA and even the major facility which produced it! This level of information Would typically be the bounty of an entire lifetime of agents and field operatives, but he had acquired it in less than a day of being on this world. It was crucial to act upon good fortune while he could and make as much progress as possible before the agents of the ruin his powers attempted to his glorious mission.
Of course, the recipe itself would never be stored in such an open area, and thus one would have to seek out the information from the facilities themselves. However, they were surprisingly enough, open to the public, which gave the clever infiltrator an opportunity. Putting down the first book which he had been offered by the archives cultist, and completely ignoring the other six she had insisted that he take after he had expressed his interest in nutrition and military food, he began making his plan.
He would sneak in alongside a group, and then wait in an overlooked spot, waiting until the facility slowed down for the night. Once the facility was less populated, he would secure the recipe, and destroy the entire factory, completing both objectives at once. Nobody but the assassins of the Inquisition would've come up with such a clever and dynamic plan. If the Inquisition has any more brilliant agents than him, it was hard to imagine.
*****
The dead silence of the facility after hours, after all of its menials had gone wherever they went when they weren't working, was eerie in the fact that it existed at all. The plan had been to wait until the late shift, which would be naturally less manned as overstaffing it for too long would end up creating too much civil disorder. However, to find the thief facility closed after A certain time was oddly extreme. Most imperial facilities would have run 24 hours, even if they had to alter the workforce to achieve this. And yet the heretic had decided that things were not effective to their mission. Strange.
As he made his way across the catwalk, Wylie was increasingly feeling a sense of disorientation. Where was the foreman's office? There should have been clear visual Lines that drew one's attention towards the foreman's office, cementing their significance as the leader of such a facility. That was where such an important file would be held. And yet there didn't seem to be anything like that. That didn't appear to be any kind of major secure storage area in this entire facility. Several lockers had been secured, but those were labelled with titles, such as combustible, explosive, or caustic. why those needed to be locked up at night was unclear to the inquisitorial agent, but those were largely the only secured vaults he could find.
He had already searched the offices and was now navigating the catwalks on the production floor when he finally heard a sound he had been expecting for quite a while. A footstep that was not his own. However, this was not the night sentry making his rounds as would normally be expected in a secured facility, but instead, a half-step, taken too early and then hastily retracted. He wasn't alone in the facility.
His hand moved towards the poisoned blade at his waist, ready to begin assassinating his pursuer, when a red dot blossomed into existence on his chest. and then another, and then two more afterwards, followed by one which moves slowly before settling on the ridge of his forehead. Aiming dots, common amongst weapon systems which lacked implanted optical receptors, and were favoured amongst forces that still used precision, but were not augmented enough to use ultraviolet, dots, or in possession of nightseeing goggles.
The agent had been followed. He had just been ambushed.
All Wylie could do was freeze, as the sheer gravity of the situation played out in his mind. His attackers were all interspersed with the surrounding infrastructure, presumably all taking cover and outside of his throwing blade range. Their rapid reactions suggested they were fairly well trained, even if their momentary slip-up, suggested that it was at least a little bit less than his training. However, a five-to-one advantage certainly made up for any kind of discrepancy that their training held. Further, he couldn't get a visual on any of his attackers, so there was no guarantee that a thrown weapon at this distance would hit any of them before they landed a kill shot. In essence, it was the perfect ambush.
A new pair of footsteps now entered, heavier and more purposeful than the half step which had alerted Wylie to the company that followed him. They grew closer and closer, even as the dots remained stubbornly fixated on their target. Those weren't all footsteps, they were in league with whoever had Wylie in their sights.
Eventually, they got close enough that the dim light of the stars, cast through the overhead skylight, illuminated the man as he joined Agent Wylie on the catwalk. He was a rotund man, red-faced and pale-skinned, with a well-built frame sabotaged by years of drinking and eating, the well-tailored clothes of a common man, and a pair of sideburns which were just as crimson as his slightly thinning hair. It was a face that the agent recognized from any number of briefings on the Protectorate, and those who were suspected to be under its influence. It was one of the men who claimed to know these territories the best and jealously claimed its worlds as his dominion.
Inquisitor Brackenreid, of the Ordo Ciaphas.
"You know, when I informed your overlords that any matters of concern in the Protectorate should be handled through my office, that was meant more as a polite review for the last couple of times that they utterly failed to consider the situation. It wasn't meant as an offhanded comment, but rather a warning to not try this crap again. Perhaps next time I should make things a bit more clear, and just straight up tell them to bugger off when they suggest an operation without my approval." Brackenreid paused for a moment as if considering his next words, but more meant for dramatic fact. "Do you think that would've actually helped at all? Or would they have just ignored me like the last six times I recommended they don't try this?"
Wylie said nothing training too great to allow him to give away any kind of information to the enemy, even if unintentionally. The silence seemed to annoy the inquisitor, as he continued in his tone of command, which still carried the remnants of the underhive he had grown up with and the cadence of the imperial guardsmen he had served alongside. "Come on now, answer the question. We're colleagues after all I value your perspective, even if you don't appear to value mine very much.".
"Do not speak to me as if we are aligned. You're a traitor and a heretic!" Wylie's voice filled with hatred for those who turned against the Emperor. His mind was occupied, attempting to find some way of turning the situation around. He could of course try and fight the rogue inquisitor and his revenue, but that seems to be a remarkably bad idea. For one, they outnumbered him, for another, they were better armed than him and finally, they had him in ambush, and not one of them would've been enough to kill him under conditions. Overall, not an ideal position to be in.
"No, I'm not. I am a Radical though." The overweight traitor both denied and confessed. "I suppose I'm the first radical of my ordo, but I can't imagine I'm going to remain such for long. It's the nature of our group that eventually we all either bury ourselves in denial or come to terms with what we face. How we deal with that determines whether we are Radical or Puritan. What I've been facing is no less than eight different assassination attempts from people who I was extensively trying to help. So I can't say my perception hasn't been at least partially skewed." The traitor rolled his eyes at that statement as if his recollections were embarrassing.
"So I'm gonna make a suggestion to you. You walk away now, and I make sure that you get most of what you want. How's that sound?"
"You know that I can't turn away from my mission. Even if you're a traitor and a heretic, you know what I must do!"
"I still deny both of those claims, but you are right that you must complete your mission. Although I doubt it's explicitly to destroy this facility, that seems more like a backup plan. Even your boss isn't mad enough to launch full a campaign of blood on the world that keeps handing her defeat after defeat. Even more so when she has more pressing concerns. So I'm going to offer you something a bit more interesting.". The rotund man holstered his pistol and drew out a dataslate from his pants pocket. With expert precision, he slid it across the floor towards the agent. It collided with agent Wylie's foot with a soft thud, the agent's eyes not so much as skipping down to it, despite the noise.
"That there is the entire process for making the C-bars, including a copy of the STC that one would need to create them. As good as if Ciaphas Cain himself was telling you how he made it. ". A smug little grin crossed the sideburned face of the inquisitor, "Since apparently, you need it handed to you. The documentation on how to acquire it for yourself was in one of the other books that you didn't bother reading. The second one that the librarian put on the little pile for you."
"How do you know that? You were observing me?"
"No, but when a man comes into town with no recognizable accent or history and comes in wearing an imperial bodysuit poorly hidden beneath an improvised robe made from a lowery bedsheet, people very quickly figure things out. And we are a very gossipy community."
Right, the heretical grapevine was very fast on this planet. A couple of spies had been able to transmit his presence to the wider public without him noticing before the day was out. There was at least some kind of intelligence operation happening on this world, one which he would have to dismantle on his way out if he managed to kill his ambushers before they ended him. That was probably the only way this was going to go anyway, despite the Inquisitor's claims, it seemed unlikely he was just going to be able to walk away from this.
"And, of your associates, will any of them talk?" Wylie hadn't seen any of the people who had him in their sights, but it didn't pay to be too presumptive. Some of them might've had aspirations beyond their station and thought they could elevate it by rating out their Boss. Besides, they were all heretics and traitors. They would probably revel in the chance to kill an agent of the Inquisition.
Brackenreid seemed to give a little look at each of the origins of the markers, smiling as he did so. " I don't think you have anything to worry about here. Higgins and Harps are experienced enough to know how the galaxy operates, Murdoch is loyal to causing as little suffering to his fellow man as possible. Hodge doesn't want another overly zealous idiot's death on his conscience and Crabtree didn't want to shoot somebody regardless, so you walking away is a win for him. As for myself, I'm not about to kill a useful asset for humanity if I can avoid it."
Did he just admit it in front of everyone? Sacrificing his anonymity all to make some stupid boast? He'd already said something similar earlier, but Wylie had shot that down. Were all of these men simply stupid enough that they didn't think any of this was real?
"They all know your… Alliegences?". In response, the whiskered inquisitor threw up his hand, and an inquisitorial rosette flashed into existence. None of the dots dance more than usual to that statement. They did know, and they were comfortable with that knowledge. They couldn't be agents because otherwise, he wouldn't have justified their loyalty, they had to be local. But if they were local, why did none of them react?
"They should, I've told them all at least a few times. It's one of the benefits of having the Emperor figuratively sign off on All your actions. Beyond a few particularly stupid things, I have broad approval to do what I need to do to protect humanity. If that means spending time away from the imperium and filing reports, that's as good as the most Puritan as far as my obligations are concerned.".
The agent's eyes flicker between the data pad, the inquisitor and the various dots of light, making calculations that no ordinary man could. Everything from the temperature of the room to the average reaction time and diet of an inquisitorial retinue. Everything came to a single conclusion, one truth. he was outplayed, outmatched, and outdone by this overweight idiot, who didn't even realize he was being corrupted by chaos through his association.
Still, he had his orders and only one option.
"I acquired the specs as you requested my Lady." Agent Wylie stared down the Lady inquisitor who had ordered his mission. The cloak of feathers, taken from the feathered crests of the heretics of a tribal world which the inquisitor had purged this year, highlighted the sternness and blankness of the woman's face, with the impassive woman's stony visage not portraying any sense of joy at orders being completed. Her office was dark, lit by multiple braisers, which touched off the highlights of her roughspun robe and the metal of her robotic arm. A Slanneshi cultist had once kissed the original flesh hand, and she had been forced to separate from it to prevent the corruption of the flesh.
"And did you encounter any major resistance?" The question was layered in more poison than the Inquisitor's knife would've been, with the simple idea that he might encounter trouble, already carrying the connotation of failure. The rooms antechamber had been lined with the skulls of those who had given the wrong answer to this question.
"Not in completing the objective, my Lady. However, Inquisitor Brackenreid was present."
The rising of an eyebrow followed this new information, its movements as slow and deliberate as its masters. "Was he attempting to acquire it for himself? Or did he perhaps believe that nobody should have it?"
"No, my Lady. He helped me acquire the files. Even-handed them over to me himself."
"I see, so has Brackenreid finally seen reason? Has he accepted that his little pet project is a heretical movement that must be stamped out?" The Lady inquisitor was smirking now, the smirk of an inevitable victory, which the agent was used to seeing on his master's face. After all, even if their plans had failed, it was simply an unfortunate precursor to their inevitable victory.
She often got like that when Brackenreid and Brackenry were involved. She seemed to want them to be both destroyed and at the same time, to be brought back under her authority. Something about two of the Inquisitors she trained, leaving to form a new Ordo had stung at what passed for an Inquisitorial ego.
"No, my Lady I would say it's worse than ever. He admitted to me that these files were actually at least partially corrupted, as they do not come from a pure STC as the panacea did. The recipe itself is corrupted, as it came from the Black Commissar's mind. As much as I wish to deny it, the entire construct is likely tainted by his work."
"He gave you files created by a Heretic? And he admitted to doing so?"
"Yes, my Lady."
The Lord inquisitor regarding the data slate which she had been holding in her hand as if weighing the pros and cons of its information in her mind. And then the metal fist closed around it, compressing the metal of its body into a thin tube, destroying it. Its subsequent voyage into a nearby Brasier ensured that none of the information would be recoverable. The agent wasn't surprised as this was more or less what he expected his master would do once she had known of the information's history. It hurt a little bit to see all of his hard work be destroyed at the moment, but it was necessary, for all the information on that slate was heretical.
"Mark down this treachery by Inquisitor Brackenreid and his band of upstarts. We won't forgive this, nor will we forget his interference in what is rightfully our affairs.". Of course, there was very little that could be done on the matter. Considering that Brackenreid was still a fellow inquisitor, his authority was nearly as high as hers, and he had made significantly more friends in recent years. The machinations of their upstart Ordo seemingly worked around the clock to undermine the Ordo Hereticus and its noble crusade.
"Yes my Lady, it will be done."
Recognising a dismissal, even if the explicit instruction wasn't there, Agent Wylie left his Lady's sanctum, knowing that despite everything, he had done great work in the name of the Emperor and that the Imperium as a whole would be eternally grateful, if unaware of the vast service he had just done it. The work of their Ordo was never truly done, even if the ignorant masses never took the appropriate time to appreciate all the ways that they were protecting them from the ruins of corruption.
That fool Brackenreid would spend his life trying to ring some good out of those worlds he was obsessed with, never realizing that they were damned and that his actions would amount to nothing. Wylie could almost feel pity, if the man hadn't reprehensible for being a radical and of an upstart Ordo, thus making him a traitor to the Inquisition as a whole. His time would come, even if Wylie couldn't say when or how that would be. He did, however, know that if he had a say in the matter, he would not assuredly be involved.
*****
Tim Brackenreid grabbed the last of his round from the bar. He brought the multiple pints of beer over to the table where his friends were sitting, and comparing notes on what they had to put up with. Each of them had had a long and hard day and simply wanted to relax with friends after having done so much, and receiving so little recognition.
Jennifer spoke of how she had spent the entire day trying to make ballistic weave and Melta-resistant plate comfortable to wear Underneath silk and had been told that her final product was worse than doing nothing. Now she was being they would have to investigate the idea of making the silk infused with some kind of reactive thread so that it could harden when struck. Jennifer had no idea how exactly one was supposed to make such a thing, and the instructions to figure it out had not exactly been helpful. It had been so bad that she was considering seeing if she could just convince the Liberator himself to cancel the entire procedure, despite the vast sum of money he was willing to invest in their project. The fact that they didn't have anything even resembling a prototype was her strongest advocate for just giving up the whole thing.
Giles had been given the unfortunate job of trying to figure out how to explain the concept of symmetrical warfare and pragmatism to a culture which had a 48-volume book of acceptable conduct when fighting another being, and an entire library of protocols when dealing with more than one person. He had been close to pulling his hair out when his proposal which had taken almost 2 years to write, had been rejected without any kind of Associated Warrior monks trying to figure out how to explain their reasoning to him. Worse than that, they refuse to explain any of their concepts in plain Gothic, instead according to elaborate riddles and metaphors whenever anybody asks for advice. Giles had already lost assistants who had simply thrown up their hands and gone off to do other things, apparently deciding that losing their expected bonuses was worth it if they didn't have to deal with these guys anymore.
Katrina was stuck trying to figure out how to deal with the apparent awakening of metal skeletons on some mineral world they had recently acquired from the Tyranids. The world lacked any kind of life, and yet for some reason, robotic skeletons were walking around, which seemed to take great pleasure in disintegrating anything which got too close to them. Nobody could recall them being built, nor did any record exist that suggested the imperium had constructed them, so their origins were at least slightly mysterious. Fortunately, they seemed to also hate one another to an extreme degree, with two factions, apparently operating in the same area, differentiating only by different ruins on their chest, which none of the assembled could make heads or tails of, but we're probably very very important to the murderous robot skeletons. Katrina had been given the Oh so fun job of figuring out how to either communicate with them or destroy them, with the only clue she currently had being a bunch of symbols, She had no idea how to read, a material that she couldn't identify, outside of it being black and made of stone.
Tim began distributing the pints to his friends, as he listened to each and all of them complain about the various challenges they had experienced in their day. His sympathetic ears heard tales of Ork warbands and Eldar corsairs skirting around their territory. Necrons re-awakenings and Hive fleet movements along with the whispers of Nurgles ilk bubbling on the periphery. He listens passively as his friends explain their woes to him, in the safety of anonymity.
The Libra he placed on the bar would buy both this round and the next, ensuring that a veritable Governors bounty of information would make its way back to the Imperium. Information that the Imperium would have normally required an entire spy network to glimpse, and often ran into misinformation campaigns, which rendered much of their work useless. Instead of all that hassle, Tim listened as everyone unloaded their days suffering on the constabulary Inspector, with his brave constables having already been through the tavern for the night, and making their way back to bed. He would pay for their drinks as well, along with the bag of nuts, which Harps had grabbed on his way out and forgot to pay for. It's no trouble to him having to pick up the tab for both his friends and the Constables. They certainly earned it, after dealing with an Imperial saboteur running around a vital facility.
He'd have to pass the whole affair up to Inquisitor Barnaby at their next meeting. This was too bold of an action to not be met with at least some kind of response, even if only a token one. Their Ordo may be seen as a joke, but it was vital that they be able to operate without major interference if they were to conduct their missions successfully. Their networks could be compromised if any Inquisitorial whackjob with too much time and not enough sense could start sending assassins down their worlds and start strutting around looking for important things to destroy. Such was not the will of the Emperor.
After all, if the price of the veritable gold mine of information he is providing the Imperium, saving billions of lives from this early warning and the resulting strategic placements cost only a couple of Libras at the bar, then that is a veritable boon from the Emperor. Not to mention that it was nice to see their organisation do something productive for once, rather than glaring at each other as each demands that they take care particular brand of horror seriously. So what if his little group wasn't considered a serious Ordo? He was doing great work for humanity, and he was able to do that at the tavern, it was a win-win for everybody.