Graham McNeill - Mechanicum

They had been gone less than a day and already she missed them. She wished she knew where they were so she could have tapped into the Martian networks to follow their progress, but she had wiped Dalia's destination from her memory coils.

Right now, they could be anywhere, en route to the far side of the planet for all she knew.

Mellicin had got used to their foibles, strengths and blind spots. She had nurtured them, blended them together until they were a team, working more efficiently and more enthusiastically than any of them had ever worked before.

Now they were off making good use of that mentoring and she was left behind.

She swung her legs out of bed and ran a hand through her hair. It was matted and sweaty, and no amount of time in the sonic shower would make it feel clean. She padded softly from the bed alcove and made her way to the kitchenette to fix a pot of caffeine. If she wasn't going to get any sleep, she might as well use the time productively.

She yawned as the heating ring fired the pot, wiping sweat from her brow as the pot bubbled and hissed. She poured a cup and sat in the dining nook within the polarised glass bay that looked out over the surface of the red planet.

This high up, Mellicin was above the distorting fumes that filmed the lower level windows with grime and pyroclastic deposits. Far below her, the Magma City blazed with light, an ocean of glowing industry in a desert of industrial wasteland. Silver trails of mag-levs spun out from the city, ttavelling to all parts of Mars, but beyond them the planet was shrouded in banks of dust and polluted fogs.

Mellicin put down her cup and leaned her forehead on the hot glass. Lights moved in the city, and glittering transits ferried cargo and supplies to the port facilities.

'Wherever you are, Dalia, I wish you well,' she whispered, feeling very alone.

She frowned as she realised she wasn't alone.

Her biometric surveyors were reading another life form in her hab.

'I was wondering when you would notice me,' said a voice from the shadows.

Mellicin jumped at the sound, looking up in frozen surprise as a lithe, sensual woman glided from the darkness. She was clad in a skin-tight red bodyglove and a pair of finely-wrought pistols were sheathed at her hips.

Mellicin covered her surprise and said, 'I knew you were there, I was just waiting to see when you would announce yourself.'

'A lie, but one necessary for you to feel you are still in control,' said the woman.

'Who are you, and what are you doing in my hab?' asked Mellicin, still too surprised to feel anything but annoyance.

'My name is irrelevant, because soon you won't remember it,' said the woman, and as she moved into the light,

Mellicin saw the golden death mask she wore. 'But for the record, it is Remiare.'

Mellicin's annoyance turned to fear as she realised what this woman was. 'That's half my question answered.'

Remiare cocked her head to one side and said, 'You still think you have a measure of control, don't you?'

'What do you want?' asked Mellicin, pushing herself further into the dining nook.

'You know what I want.'

'No, actually,' said Mellicin, 'I don't.'

'Then I shall tell you,' said Remiare. 'I want you to tell me the whereabouts and destination of Dalia Cythera.'

Mellicin furrowed her brow, as if in thought, and activated her silent alarm. Adept Zeth would now be aware of her plight and a squad of Mechanicum Protectors would soon be despatched to her rescue. All she had to do was stall.

'Dalia?' she said at last. 'Why do you want to know about her?'

'No more questions,' said Remiare. 'Tell me what I want to know and I promise you won't suffer.'

'I can't,' said Mellicin. 'Even if I wanted to. I might have known what you want, but I don't remember anymore.'

'You're lying.'

'I'm not. Adept Zeth had me erase any knowledge of where Dalia was going from my memory coils.'

She regretted her smug tone instantly as Remiare ghosted closer and Mellicin saw the red light of the magma lagoon reflected on her death mask. Her face was the visage of something vile and terrible, a leering monster from her darkest nightmares. Even amid her fear, she recognised the exquisite work of the assassin's gravitic thrusters, the sinuous form of a killer bred and trained from birth.

'Then that's very bad news for you.'

'And why's that?' asked Mellicin, trying to muster some bravado.

'Because nothing is ever really erased, Mellicin,' said Remiare as a silver spike extended from her forefinger.

Despite the heat in the small dwelling hab, Mellicin suddenly felt very cold indeed as she recognised it as a data spike.

'Why do you want to find Dalia?' asked Mellicin, the words coming out in a fear-induced rush. 'I mean, she's nothing, just a transcriber from Terra. All she did was take notes of our work. Really, why do you want her?'

Remiare's head darted forward like a feeding bird's and she laughed, the sound soulless and dead. 'You are trying to keep me talking because you believe help is on its way, but it isn't. No one is coming, Mellicin. I am the only one hearing that insultingly simple silent alarm your implants are broadcasting.'

'I'm telling you, I erased the things you're looking for!'

'You may have erased your memory coils, but the soft meat beneath remembers,' said Remiare while softly wagging her finger. 'The Mechanicum never deletes anything.'

Mellicin glanced down at her cup of caffeine and wondered if she would be quick enough to throw it in the assassin's face. That question was answered a moment later. One second, the red-clad woman was standing before her, the next she was seated next to her, pressing her against the warm glass of her hab.

A hand with fingers like steel rods shot out and gripped her throat, tilting her head back.

'I don't know what you want!' screamed Mellicin as the assassin's data spike pressed against the augmetic orb that replaced her right eye.

'I'll find what I want,' promised Remiare. 'All I have to do is dig deep enough.'

He had always dreaded this, but now that it was his life, he knew there had been nothing to fear. In the world of flesh, his body had been aging and weakening, but here in this world of amniotic suspension he was all-powerful and all-conquering.

In a simulated engine war, Princeps Cavalerio fought and killed like a living metal god, bestriding the virtual arena like a colossus of battle. His enemies died: skitarii crushed underfoot, Reavers torn to pieces in the terrible, smashing hell of engine combat and Warlords blasted apart with weapons fire in murderous killing salvoes.

The world of flesh was over for Cavalerio. The world of metal was now his domain.

Liquid data spiralled around him, fed to him through receptors implanted beneath his skin, filling his sensory apparatus with information that would overwhelm the brains of those less augmented than he. Darts of light, each one carrying a welter of data, swirled around him like shoals of glowing fish as he ended yet another simulation as the victor.

Cavalerio was unrecognisable as the spare, limping mortal that had walked the surface of Mars. A man he had been, but a creation of the Mechanicum he was now. His pallid flesh floated in nutrient-rich jelly, hung from a multitude of cables that connected him to the world around him in ways too numerous to count.

Each day since his incarceration within the casket brought new attachments, new augmetics and new sensations. Only now did he realise how imperfect had his existence been as a mere mortal, confined to a mere five senses.

A thick inflexible cable pierced his spine between the lumbar vertebrae, while other, more delicate wires were plugged into his eye sockets. A forest of cables extruded from the rear of his cranial cavity that would link to the Manifold when he once again took charge of an engine. Both arms were encased in metal to his elbows, and both his feet had been amputated and replaced with haptic sheaths.