Getting Warhammered [WH 40k Fanfic]

155 – Upgrading Bob

Selene watched on curiously as the girl — the woman, really, Zara was by all accounts a grown woman … just a thin one that looked barely a meal above malnutrition — just tried to busy herself with something.

Zara was to be the first citizen of the Imperium of Man — Zedev and his non-existent emotional intelligence didn’t count — who might join in with ‘the crew’, as Echidna liked to call their disorderly group of misfits.

Echidna might have thought the young Psyker’s joining and integration was going to be a bygone conclusion and just a bit rocky at best, but she never lived in the Imperium. Never had to sit through the sermons citizens had to attend from childhood and never really understood the full weight of humanity’s collective faith.

Selene had, and while she had waltzed right out from under the weight of all those things with the nihilistic optimism of one that had nothing to lose and everything to gain — namely, immortality, unlimited power and a stunning alien lover — Selene also knew the vast majority of humans wouldn’t be like her.

No, dogged determination and faith in the Emperor till death was practically sacrosanct and a staple on most worlds. 

For someone chosen to be a sanctioned psyker, for someone who went through the Scholastica Psykana and actually came out outwardly sane?

Zara must have been raised on sermons, fed scriptures and beaten over the head with holy symbols for as long as she could walk. 

Selene didn’t know what it took to break an ingrained faith that strong, she didn’t know what would be left of a person who’s been built up from the ground to be a tool for the Imperium when that very purpose has been torn away from them.

That was the problem, and the main reason for her interest in the woman. She didn’t believe anyone would act so … sane, normal, so mundane after betraying what they’d been raised up to be. 

Selene knew she’d have been a wreck … she had been a wreck. So why wasn’t Zara? What was she hiding? How much of her composure was pretence? How much of her willingness to change was real?

It was time to see for herself. Mental shields up and reinforced again with a second and third layer of active shielding with psychic power pulsing through them like a heartbeat to detect any intrusion or interference, Selene stepped out into the open and approached the violet eyed psyker.

“Hey there,” Selene said, almost smirking at how the woman jolted up at the sudden sound next to her. “Mind if I sit?”

“ … make yourself comfortable?” Zara asked, looking down at the slab of rock that somewhere would be called a bench by someone who thought comfort was something that only happened to other people. 

“Don’t mind if I do,” Selene said easily, sitting down, and for a few seconds of stretching silence just watched the Orks warring down in the pit a few dozen metres down. An arena wouldn’t have been Selene’s first choice of a building to be made outside the fortress, but Echidna wanted a place for her pet Orks to let loose. “What do you think? Curious, isn’t it? Watching Orks fighting to the death for our amusement, though I suppose they do it more so for their own.”

“Yes?” The psyker said, clearly perturbed by a seemingly normal human sitting down next to her on a planet full of aliens. Still, Selene could practically see the moment when the woman decided that cautious politeness was the best choice. “I have never seen Orks this … well behaved?”

“They are killing each other, though?” Selene mused, sending a sideward glance at the woman. “That’s well behaved?”

“They aren’t trying to kill me.” Zara shrugged, the motion seeming forced and almost mechanical. “That makes them better than every single greenskin I’ve come across before them.”

“That’s fair,” Selene said, squinting at the fight below. “You’ve seen a few Orks in your time, I take it?”

“Some, yes.” Zara answered, a dubious look slipping on her face as she was clearly trying to figure out just who it was she was talking to. “Excuse me, but … is there a purpose to your talking to me?”

“There is,” Selene said, almost chuckling at the expectant look turning to frustration on the woman’s face as she refused to elaborate. She knew psykers weren’t the most social creatures — mostly by societal pressure and by the willingness to exclude them from any and all conversations not actually needing their input. “What do you suppose it is?”

“I’d like to say coincidence and boredom on your part,” Zara said. “But I’d likely be wrong. Putting me in my place? Establishing some hierarchy in this … crew I’ve not been made privy to?”

Selene was amused at the curiosity shown clearly on the woman’s face even as she threw up those guesses, though it quickly turned to a darker emotion as she realised why. Zara likely thought there wasn’t anything a random human could do to her that would be worse than what she’d been forced to go through. 

“Not quite,” Selene said. “I’m merely curious. You’re the first human psyker other than myself here and you’ve been actually taught in a Schola about wielding your powers. You’ve also served with an Inquisitor … which made it doubly surprising that you even entertained the idea of joining us.”

Selene acted nonchalant, her gaze locked on the larger Ork beating a pair of smaller ones to pulp with a third one while she had her chin resting on her knuckles, seemingly entirely absorbed in the fight. She was watching though, a little trick Val had thought her allowing her to clear up her peripheral vision and make it the center-point of her sight so she watched on in slowed time as tiny micro-expressions formed on the psyker’s face.

There was an ingrained twitch, as if she was trying to move away from Selene at the implication that she was a rogue psyker — known to be more likely to explode with daemons than do anything else worthwhile with their life — then stiff stillness at the word ‘Inquisitor’ and finally a hint of understanding.

Her non-physical senses also felt a veritable fortress quickly construct itself around the woman’s mind almost as an afterthought, leaving not even a hint of errant emotions and thoughts to seep through. Not that Selene needed telepathy to read the woman like an open book. 

Selene Voss had been a Rogue Trader first, noble lady second and a guardswoman somewhere down the line. The few months spent as a Psyker and with Echidna hadn’t even made her people skills go rusty, so those tiny expressions were all she needed.

“You want to know why I betrayed the Emperor’s Grace?” Zara asked, though it sounded like a rhetorical question. Still, Selene gave a halfway interested nod as she kept watching the Orks. “Because I can see what happens to those who die, I can see the fate of all those foolish souls who trusted the Emperor to welcome them into his protection to their dying breaths.”

“Is that so?” Selene mused, glancing visibly at the woman. “I was made to believe only Navigators had the ability to actually catch glimpses of the Warp itself, no?”

“Rightly so,” Zara said, her dead expression and faraway look telling Selene more about the things she’d seen than a hundred words could have. “Few dare to take a look, fewer still try to force it when they realise it's harder than merely opening one's eyes. Most of them still die in blissful ignorance.”

“So you want immortality?” Selene mused, leaning back with a hmmm as the fight came to an end. “To run from that dreadful end? To escape oblivion?”

“Oblivion is paradise compared to the fate waiting for psykers like … us?” Zara said, saying the last words slowly as she squinted at Selene suspiciously. “You knew.”

“Yes,” Selene said with a shrug. “She showed it to me.”

“Then what need is there for these questions?” Zara said, appearing mildly frustrated. “I want salvation, just like you. Simple as that.”

“Salvation,” Selene chewed over the word. “I suppose it fits. Why not just … serve the ‘Great Enemy’ like so many others who are terrified of their own mortality? Why stay with the Inquisitor?”

“Because I’m not that desperate, or idiotic.” Zara shook her head, looking at Selene weirdly. “The Immortality they grant comes at a much steeper price than I’m willing to give. What use is it if it’s not even me who lives on, but some warped monstrosity with a thin recollection of what I had been? I have seen ‘ascended’ Chaos Sorcerers before. That is not something I’d ever want for myself.”

“What makes you think the ‘salvation’ Echidna offers is any different?”

Zara fell silent for a few moments, her eyebrows furrowing as she thought before just sighing with a lax shrug. “I guess nothing more than my gut feeling? I’ve … felt what she’d done to that poor woman Thrace let loose on her. It felt right.”

*****

“Deep breaths,” I murmured, hands clasped together as if in prayer. “Deeeeeeeep breaths.”

Letting the air out of my lungs in a huff, I cracked my neck and looked over the results of my latest test and could feel my blood pressure starting to climb again. I might have spent mere hours of objective time on it, but with the speed at which my bio-energy and soul energy charged thoughts flew stretched every second into dozens, more if I wanted.

Meaning, I’ve spent subjective days on this thing and I had absolutely nothing to show for it. Worse, I didn’t even have a direction. The damned Pariah genes just refused to turn any bio-material I had made into having actual Blank properties. 

I even tried warping an already living Ork with the genes, thinking that maybe the Pariah genes didn’t have a soul to twist into the inverse to create a Blank like I’d wanted, but the Orks genes just chewed over my addition before spitting it back out while the poor greenskin in question died from more types of cancer than I’d known to exist prior to the experiment. Every single organ in his body just … gave up and died as his genetic sequence came apart.

I had one last option of course: human test subjects. 

The problem was, I had none at hand and I really wouldn’t feel right just nabbing some poor sod off the street to experiment on. Especially with such a high chance of the very painful death of the subject being the result of my experiment.

My initial idea with Blank genes was to shoot off projectiles of my eldritch flesh which would turn the projectile into a Blank, anti-Warp projectile mid-flight. It would have been the ultimate fuck-you weapon to anyone and everyone wielding the powers of the Warp and it would have been dirt cheap.

Alas, life wasn’t so nice as to give me something that powerful. Still, the chance to make Blanks of my own was there … especially once I had a citizenship on hand from which I could draw test subjects. I wouldn’t just nab my own citizens either of course, but I’m sure there would be a steady supply of idiots who thought doing crime was cool in my city and would as such, volunteer themselves for my experiments.

Still, my only citizens as of right now were Orks and animals. I wonder whether the Tau’ll ever allow some of their own people to settle here? Maybe as an attempt to shackle me with responsibility or something?

At least, the other projects were doing well. My improved Combat form was ready, and the majority of my mind-cores were now back to streamlining most of the designs, including my ‘Psyker Form’, which I used for almost everything other than melee brawling.

Trazyn had been good on his rewards, and barely resisted me when I asked for some of his rarer stuff, likely on account of feeling a bit embarrassed about failing to mind-control me so utterly. I doubted it, but I mean, he was a 60 million year old super advanced alien, and I just spat his fancy mind-control bug at his face. That must have been at least the slightest bit shameful.

Thankfully, Trazyn didn’t tend to hold petty grudges, as far as I knew.

The crown jewel of my genetic collection was still the Norn Emissary’s sword, but Fulgrim’s genetic template and the Swarmlord’s had joined it as close contenders. Sadly, while the Primarch in question had a special organic ability, it was extremely rapid healing.

It was useful in streamlining my healing process and use of bio-energy, but not revolutionary in the way I went about anything. The best part was still just getting to examine and recreate a body designed personally by the Emperor himself and built with pre-Heresy Mankind’s best technology. 

It certainly beat the Custodian template I had and trounced the Swarmlord in some aspects, too. 

I felt a mental ping from the mind-core assigned to watching over dear Bob. Grinning, I let the dozen plans forming in my mind about other projects fall into the background as I opened up a portal to the room the man was just waking up in.

The room around me went from a barely lit underground chamber to a hospital room recreated with all the details I could remember, it even had that distinct hospital smell. The portal hissed closed behind me and I could see little Fae startle and turn, eyes wide in surprise that quickly turned to that adoring glee she had whenever she laid those crystalline eyes of hers on me.

I smiled, but waved her away as I stepped up to the bed where Bob was blinking in a daze, then squinted up at me as I came into view.

I could have washed it all out of his system with a hint of bio-energy, but I wanted some time off anyway and this was as good a distraction as any. Plus, it’d keep him a bit more stational and careful as he slowly got used to his new body instead of being overly-energetic and hasty that overcharging him with bio-energy would leave him as.

“How do you feel?” I asked, putting on a polite smile as I thought about turning my clothes into that of a nurse’s … unfortunately, no one here would appreciate my effort at authenticity. Maybe Selene would appreciate the skin a skimpy nurse outfit would show though. Hmmm. Thoughts for later. Fun thoughts. 

“Like a Titan stepped on me,” Bob wheezed, looking around for a moment before his gaze landed on Fae, who rushed back to his side to intertwine her fingers with his. “Though marginally more alive than I’d expect to be after that.”

“Good.” I grinned. “I’ll let you have some time, I’m sure Fae’ll enjoy nursing you back to full power before we go over what changes I’ve made and what I’ll be expecting of you going forward. Hmmm?”

“Yes,” Bob said, sitting up slightly as he made an attempt to stare into my eyes as he nodded seriously. “I’m at your service.”

“Good man.” I patted him on the shoulder, letting a trickle of bio-energy sweep over his body and organic signals just in case something slipped by my less intrusive senses. He felt nothing of course, and I also found nothing outside expectations, so I just smiled and stepped back before disappearing back into my ‘lab’. 

I could go over a few more experiments while the two lovebirds had their bonding time.