10 Initial User Configuration
"Well... I know how much you love to burn people to death," I explained to the tall woman, blushing as I opened the lid of each of the two crates containing about twenty Volkite weapons I had repaired. It was a small amount compared to the nearly three hundred total weapons that I had found, but it was as many as I could repair in such a short amount of time. I then thought back about my activities over the last week or two.
Genetor Neurosage didn't care one whit about the Volkite thermal ray weapons despite the fact that he said they were both very rare and valuable. That hinted to me that we probably had vastly different ideas about the worth of things.
Well, it wasn't like I could take them and sell them to people. But he didn't care if I gave them to people, so long as they were people who could be trusted with such weapons.
He personally walked me through the repair procedures for each type of weapon, the rifle and the pistol, and allowed me to fix the rest myself, which I was very pleased with. I received six levels of Electronics Repair, and two in Mechanical Repair, but I also got a brand new skill that I was excited with, which was simply called Fabrication.
** Fabrication (LV2): Increases the mental ability to imagine and spot errors in parts and three-dimensional shapes by (LV*10)+(LV*(LV*0.1))% [20.4%.] Utilising non-automated tools also increases the speed and efficiency of fabrication by the same percentage.
This skill had a similar scaling as did many of my technical skills, like Electronics Repair, which meant that it scaled rapidly. By level twenty, I would have over a two hundred per cent increase, and by level seventy-five, God-Emperor-Omnissiah willing, it would be over thirteen hundred per cent.
And that was providing a mental effect, which I thought was much better. Although it was nice to see how my hands moved with almost preternatural speed when I was repairing something, I was much more pleased with something increasing my imagination by a similar amount, even if it was only about 3D shapes.
I received this skill when we had to totally replace some of the parts, like the pistol grips, from scratch. The Genetor repaired a rifle and pistol in "poor" condition to almost perfect condition and wouldn't allow me to give away the weapons until they reached at least good condition, according to my Observation.
As Sister Lucia smiled beatifically at me, I was brought back to the present. She saw that I was giving her weapons, and even though she hadn't figured out what kind they were, she was already so pleased. She stepped forward and said, "What are these?"
"Thermal Ray Rifles and Pistols," I declared proudly, "We call them Volkite weapons. Uhh... they are actually quite rare, so I wasn't able to provide enough for your entire mission." At least not yet. All of these had been repaired by myself over the course of a couple of weeks. I had found over two hundred of the weapons, which was only about one-fifth the capacity of that armoury.
I had a deep personal interest in ensuring that the Sisters here at their mission were as deadly as possible—they were likely to do much of the fighting, especially in missions to seek out and destroy the rebels. The more rebels Sister Lucia and her sisters eliminated, the safer my dad would be. I had kept a few of the Volkite pistols, too. One for my dad, one for Pete if he joined the PDF or Imperial Guard, and one for myself, although they were too large for me to carry comfortably at the moment, so I preferred my compact little LasPistol.
She looked immediately interested and reached down, asking, "May I?"
I nodded, "Of course. Would you like me to explain its operation? Have you seen, heard of or operated this type of weapon before?"
She pulled out one of the pistols, which was unloaded, and one of the power packs and made an interested half-humming noise. She clearly didn't really need my assistance as she all but field-stripped the weapon, making sure it was safe before examining it closely. She said, "It seems pretty straightforward, but no, I have not. Is there anything special I should be aware of?"
I nodded solemnly. I carefully pulled out one of the rifles, which was really large in my hands. It wasn't really that heavy, though, as I had figured my nine levels in Strength were close to what an adult male had available. I didn't know that ten was an average level for each stat, but it did seem to be an average for an adult's Strength, anyway.
As I loaded the rifle, I explained while carefully pointing it at the ground, "Yes. The weapon fires a beam of coherent thermal energy. The pistols only give you a brief pulse—maybe twice as long as what you might expect from a full-sized Lasgun. However, with the rifles, you can fire a beam of about a second at a time before it needs to cool for about the same amount of time."
I inclined my head to the targets at the end of the firing range, and Sister Lucia said, "Go ahead."
I nodded and jumped up onto a milk crate that I had prepared in advance so that I could easily aim over the firing range's table, then casually aimed at the first target and depressed the trigger. As the beam hit the first target, I quickly swept it horizontally across the entirety of all of the firing lanes, striking ten targets before the beam shut off.
The targets were steel, and I hadn't held the beam on any single target long enough to penetrate, yet still, a few molten drops of the stuff sizzled onto the sand-covered ground of the backstop of the firing range. Lucia looked amazed, sat the loaded pistol on the bench, pulled out a second rifle, and repeated my demonstration. Then, afterwards, she fired again but maintained the beam on one of the targets, quickly burning right through the steel target.
"As you can see, with just sweeping the targets there isn't sufficient..." I paused, thinking of the correct word, before finding it in memory of the Genetor discussing the weapon particulars as he repaired it, reciting almost from memory, "...thermal energy transfer to defeat any kind of armoured opponents, but just a brief exposure to the beam would be either lethal or incapacitating to your average unarmoured human or non-Ork xeno."
The large weapon was uncomfortable in my hands, so I hopped back down onto the ground and sat it back on the crate. I had two servitors carry the crates for me, thankfully. By now, we had the full attention of about two dozen Sisters who had been practising with swords in the large area next to their small firing range.
Sister Lucia sat her own rifle down and tried with the pistol, nodding in satisfaction. Even a single pistol shot totally demolished one of the thick steel targets, enough that she seemed to realise that she was destroying things and paused, setting the weapon down.
She started chuckling and said, "These weapons are glorious, little Piper! I think perhaps they're a little too much for our small thirty-metre range here. Even this pistol would be very effective even against the most puissant of armours. I tell you now that our Carapace Armours would not withstand a full beam of these rifles, and maybe not even the pistols. It would depend, and even if it didn't penetrate, it might cook the Sister inside."
I considered that and thought that while she might be right, anyone wearing Power Armour would likely not just stand around while you focused a whole one-second beam on the same spot, either.
She nodded, "But even better is its effects against unarmoured foes, as we're likely to face on this planet. You could decimate an entire rank of enemies foolish enough to stand before the Emperor's Might in the blink of the eye, much like our Heavy Flamers, which we sadly had to leave in Orbit."
She let a few of the other Sisters come and try out the weapons but made them only target the lane where she had already totally destroyed the steel target, probably seeking to avoid further damage to the targets that were probably only designed to handle lasers, stun guns or maybe Bolter Pistols.
Well, actually, using Bolters of any kind at this range was probably not a good idea, either, but maybe they angled the steel so that the explosions wouldn't damage the targets... overly much. I wasn't an expert on explosions... yet.
Sister Lucia and I stepped aside, and she asked, "Where did you get these glorious instruments of the God-Emperor's will? And is it permitted for us to have them?"
I nodded rapidly, "I found them myself in the depths of the..." I almost said Hive, but remembered that's just what I called it, "...Auxiliary Accommodations block. They were in pretty poor condition, and I was able to repair them with the help of the Magos. He said I could give them to you." I paused and then added, "...although, subject to a couple of requests."
She grinned and seemed more at ease now that there were favours being traded, "Oh? What did the Magos desire of the Ecclesiarchy? You may have to speak to someone else. I just kill things, you know."
I waved a hand, "He wants assistance searching for other things down there that have possibly been forgotten, like this."
"Ohoho... perhaps I can help, then. I certainly have a number of bored girls when we're not in the field. But how long could that really take?" she asked, confused, reaching down to take a sip of her canteen.
I blinked and said, "I don't think many people realise how large a complex is beneath our feet, Sister. Nobody really enters it except our people on the bottom floor." I shook my head and said, "There are more than three million rooms down there."
She did an honest-to-goodness spit take, thankfully turning before spraying me with water. She coughed a little and said, "Uhh... I don't have that many girls, little Piper."
I shrugged, "You don't have to search it all, ma'am. Just some help for a couple of weeks. It'll take years anyway, but we'll probably have everything that is useful found in the next few weeks. After that, we won't need any help."
The Genetor gave me the authority to call upon over a hundred servitors and even ten Skiitari to perform this task when he talked to me today. He was also considering redirecting many menials that had, until recently, been working on the Atmospheric Processor. Now that it was working, their labours weren't as much necessary.
Realistically, I wouldn't want the Sister's help for too long. It would be far too complicated to carve up individual areas of responsibility on an ongoing basis with people who weren't in the Mechanicum and couldn't access the local noosphere, not that I could yet myself. I'd have to get a brother to help me create a model of the Hive and then a cogitator-based system to allocate work areas. The Sisters would then have to check in every day to find out which areas they should search... it just wasn't worth it for a dozen or two helpers.
It was simple to have the Sisters help me search all the obvious areas while having the servitors and, perhaps menials, conduct a systemic search during and after that for completion's sake. They could follow directions and know how to do an optimised search pattern, or they could at least follow directions from people or cogitators who did.
I didn't think we'd find anything in that type of systemic search, not after we had searched all the obvious places, but I had perhaps underestimated how important the maintenance manual printout of the stunner carbines was.
He would search every inch of the Hive now because not doing so would be tantamount to heresy. The only reason they had yet to before was everyone told them it was empty, and cursory searches bore that out. But now that actual archeotech and more were discovered... well, it would take a lot of time, but the Mechanicum would spend as much time as it took until they knew nothing else remained.
We'd be lucky if roaming Tech-Priests didn't show up in historical villages demanding to root through the local nobles' keeps now. Various families had taken a lot of those steel desks, so I could see a brother asking to look through their drawers—just in case.
I was a little curious why he put me in charge of the search, at least nominally. And when I asked him, he seemed to be almost embarrassed and finally just said that since I had found archeotech once, then twice, then it was likely that I would find it again.
I think he realised that what he said wasn't logical because everything in the Hive right now would be found regardless of who was in charge. But I had noticed that the fellow brothers and sisters in the Mechanicum could be remarkably superstitious about certain things. It was a little funny, or maybe even cute.
"Let's sit down for a moment, and if you can tell us where you'd like us to search, I can dispatch some women right away. Plus, it might be good training if we ever had to go against a Space Hulk, if it's as large as you say down there," she said, and I nodded with a smile. I had brought a carefully drawn map of the largest thoroughfares of the floor.
Every floor was a mirror image of the one above it, so that took a little getting used to, but they still had all the same rooms in it, so it wasn't hard to navigate even if you only had a map of one floor.
---xxxxxx---
"Rho Epsilon-5," the Genetor said as he walked in. I had been shifted to a workroom that was next to his so he could supervise my activities more closely. I thought a number of people were jealous, actually—especially Mr Tau Alpha-1000.
"Yes, sir?" I asked, eyes still on the Volkite pistol I was refurbishing.
He glanced at my workbench and said, "I want to discuss what type of augmetics and genetic alterations you consider optimal."
This might be an in-depth meeting, then. I nodded and said, "Let me set this job aside, sir." I then fished out a grease pencil and marked where I had stopped on a sheet of paper that I used for the checklist for the Volkite pistol refurbishment jobs. Then I gathered up all of the free parts and slid them into a small burlap bag, about the size of a coin purse and sat it on top of the sheet of paper so that I would know exactly where to restart the process, and wouldn't lose any of the small little bits and bobs.
[ELECTRONICS REPAIR has gone up a level.]
I grinned. That's why I really liked fixing these thermal ray weapons. They were much more complicated than a Lasgun. Those were dead simple. A Lasgun was so simple an illiterate peasant could build them with very little training. Even Bolters were dead simple—the only technically sophisticated part of them was the huge variety of speciality ammunition options, some of which could only be produced on the most sophisticated of Forge Worlds.
Volkite weapons were much more complicated by comparison. You actually had to have the knowledge of how to repair them and a little skill to do so. But they weren't super complicated. Nothing that could be considered as an infantry weapon would be. It was just by comparison to the standard Imperial Lasgun. I hadn't yet gotten to take apart a Melta or Plasma weapon, but I bet the Volkite weapons weren't any more complicated than that.
The Genetor quietly watched me put away my current job and rumbled with approval at my following of procedure of what to do when interrupted mid-job.
I then followed him into one of his workrooms and sat down on the offered stool. I asked, "What are the options, given my age?"
He shrugged his mechadendrites, "Theoretically... Anything. Everything. Cloned neonates receive significant augmetics as a matter of course in every Forge World. If we couldn't implant bionics with a mind to your future growth, where would we be? Besides, I'm handling your surgeries. You'll receive top-of-the-line equipment customised to your biology."
I blinked and was a little surprised. I thought I might have to wait years to get anything interesting. That made me kind of nervous that I would actually be making a life-changing decision.
"According to your likely genome expression, you'll only grow a further fifteen centimetres at the very most, so most bionics would be possible, anyway," he said finally.
"Whaaat?!" I cried out in shock. I would never break the hundred and seventy cems mark?! Well, the Genetor was a Genetor, so maybe that could be adjusted, I hoped.
"What do you recommend?" I asked, curious.
He chirped thoughtfully and produced a small device from his robes that looked somewhat like a thick plate. He sat it down on the clear worktable. The machine blinked into life, and a three-dimensional image was projected above it. I realised it was a holoprojector.
"Gah!" I yelled, wanting to suddenly cover myself as I realised the image being projected was my completely naked body. Just where had he gotten this image from? I definitely was never naked here. The image wasn't a photograph, as it looked more like a green wireframe shape, but the resolution was... very high! I could see I had a pimple on my butt!
As if he were reading my mind, he mentioned, "There are scanning pylons at the entrance to my buildings. I use them to scan for weapons and explosives on visitors, but it is simple enough to generate an image like this as well. Efficient."
He waved a hand, and the image changed. It was still my naked body, but a number of visible implants were now attached to my body, and I frowned. It was kind of what I expected from seeing all of the brothers, but it seemed to be a bit radical. There appeared to be permanent, fixed augments on my face that obscured much of it that I didn't think my mother would be very happy with. The image was of a human-shaped thing, that wasn't quite human enough to relate to.
He said, "This would be what could be expected for a normal Initiate to receive over a period of years... standard cranial circuitry, respirator, vox, cyber mantle. Cheap, reliable, dependable." Then he shook his head, "However, I do not believe you understand actually how much I personally owe you."
Perhaps I didn't. I tilted my head to the side and said, "I know that the Quest for Knowledge is all important..." but then I trailed off, not really understanding.
He did that bob of some of his mechadendrites that I had come to associate with a nod, "Clarification. You came to me with this discovery because there were no other options. I, too, have taken this discovery to someone for the same reason. The Adept I am giving the discovery to will take it to the Fabricator-General of Stygies VIII. There is an eighty-nine per cent chance that we will have the device in limited production within two T-years. This has the advantage of being both revelatory as well as practically useful and not..."
He frowned, pausing before continuing, "...not so excessively useful that a band of old ... seniors... would like to conceal it. The number of effective ranged non-lethal weapons in service in the Imperium is... low. I expect the Arbites to find the device useful. Useful enough that we may build hundreds of millions of these devices within ten T-years. Every piece of lost knowledge is a revelation, but the revelation that likely will be put back into production is sublime."
I considered that and nodded. The Mechanicum was extremely hierarchical. I had known that, but perhaps I didn't put two and two together. Not only did he have whatever personal debt he felt he owed me, but what happened was public. He had to compensate me to keep his own subordinates pleased because just like you were socially expected to hand over such a discovery, the person you handed it to was expected to compensate you in a way that at least appeared fair.
I then thought about what he said about how he put more weight on it because it was a piece of archeotech that might be produced again. I didn't particularly like that he implied we just sat on discoveries if they were excessively useful.
I understood his feelings, though, "It's like these Volkite weapons. Seeing them brought back into serviceable condition felt nice, but the idea of them being used again feels even better. I think a machine's purpose is to be used."
He snorted, half out of his nostril and half out of his vox, in a sound that sounded kind of like a servo-motor jamming, turning to face away from me, "Advisement. Do not repeat that opinion." Although he turned away, he wasn't quick enough for me not to detect that he seemed amused in profile. The fact that I could easily detect the machine-man's most common emotions, such as they were anyway, belied how much time I had spent with him in the past couple of weeks.
My Dogma skill told me that nothing I had said was heretical; in fact, I thought it was very orthodox. Spirit was the spark of life, after all, and a machine kept in storage and not utilised didn't have the same capacity to express its sparks; its motive force would be stifled. But I sort of understood what he meant and made a note to be careful of what I said in the future.
I generally used my knowledge of Dogma to self-censor, but that didn't take into consideration the effect powerful people would have on organisations like the one I was now a part of. Powerful people could say whatever they did not like or was inconvenient to them was heresy, even if it wasn't supported by dogma. Anyone who disagreed with them would be a Heretek, after all!
He turned back to face me and said, "Digression complete. My recommendations. Observe."
He waved his hand again, and the image shifted. This one was clearly me, and I looked much closer to my original appearance. The large, bulky exoskeleton scaffolding that wrapped around my back and ribs, which I presumed was the mounting point for the mechanical tentacles, was gone, replaced by a strip of metal going down the centre of my back. There was no faceplate or respirator at all, but there was a small metallic bulge at the base of my skull.
Rather than an uncanny humanoid, it still had a rather feminine appearance, especially when he shifted the image to show myself at "projected full maturation." While I would never come close to catching up with my sister in the chest department, apparently, I might escape my fate as a flatboard and still look like a lady—a dangerous machine lady.
"Firstly, your biology will be modified so that the composition of your bones will slowly be replaced with an organometallic alloy of titanium. Selected cranial circuitry has been adjusted to a superior version, which includes a high-bandwidth noosphere connection and a supplemental vox rather than a total larynxal replacement. A full electoo network configured as a high-speed data transmission bus will be installed parallel to your central nervous system. Finger-port style electrograft for direct wired data connection. The standard cyber-mantle has been replaced with a reinforced spine style for now. This spine can handle several low-duty mechandendrites and can be expanded in the future, but none will be installed now," he explained, highlighting each part of the image in turn.
I stared. It sounded like a lot. I said so, "That sounds like a lot."
"It is a solid foundation. Everything here is designed for future expansion," he said simply, shaking a mechandendrite, "But I would not call it... a lot."
Did I need to talk with my parents before serious life-changing surgery? I mean, I was thirteen years old, so probably not. Still, Mom at least would be a little upset with me if I just came home with all of this stuff like it was a kitten I had found on the street, so I should probably explain to her.
I nodded and asked, "When?"
"Seventy-two hours, plus or minus three hours," he said in a way that was both incredibly precise and not. Still, three days was good. That would give me time to tell Mom.
---xxxxxx---
Elspeth sighed as her most troublesome daughter left the room, walking back into the den. Years ago, she had accepted the fact that the girl was nothing like her. Her life's ambition was to marry a good man and be a mother, and while her older sister was similar to her in that way, little Piper was reflexively against any such ideas.
Still, she would never have expected the path the girl had chosen. At first, she had a mind to stop her, but the girl seemed excessively happy when she was tinkering with things that Elspeth just couldn't bring herself to do it. She looked so happy when she was taking apart whatever gadget she had brought home.
Plus, as Elspeth rubbed the scar that separated her arm from the pale white skin of her new lower arm, the girl had saved all of their lives due to her fixation on machines, so it might be fate, which was something she devoutly believed in.
She just wished that Piper wasn't in such a hurry to grow up. The girl might put on a good face, but she knew her daughter better than anyone. She was scared, and who wouldn't be? Elspeth herself was scared when she went in to get her arm fixed, and that was apparently much less invasive than what was planned for her little girl.
She stood up and walked into the den, noticing Piper's hairbrush on the table and tried to hide her smirk. The girl was more intelligent than most adults, but she was still a girl. Piper didn't misplace things. If she left it there, it was because she wanted Elspeth to see it.
Piper did a lot of things like that. Over the years, Elspeth had gotten good at decoding these signals. She wanted Elspeth to offer to brush her hair. It was the same as whenever she cooked dinner. She might prepare the dinner, but she didn't put any on her plate. The girl wanted her mom to put a portion of food on a plate and place it in front of her despite the fact that she would never admit to it.
If there was something that the girl could do for herself but she chose not to do, it was because she really wanted her or her dad to do it for her—especially her father, although he was kind of dense to the heart's secrets of girls, regardless of their age, so it mainly fell to Elspeth to notice these things and do them.
Elspeth picked up the hairbrush and asked, "Would you like me to brush your hair, Piper? You're going to have a big day tomorrow."
To Elspeth, her daughter's smile was as bright as the new day sun.
---xxxxxx---
I woke up groggily. Did something go wrong? It was just a moment ago that one of Genetor Neurosage's surgical servitor assistants told me in a recorded voice to count down from ten.
"Observation. You have regained consciousness, Rho Epsilon-5," said the gravelly, mechanical voice of the Genetor, and then I saw his face as he observed me, his optical sensors switching various colours as I suspected he changed to various vision modes.
There were unusual things hanging in front of my vision, which would have startled me if I wasn't so used to that by now, but now, as I fully awoke, I noticed that they were not my numbers but something else. It was the half-mechanical skull logo of the Adeptus Mechanicum and text in High Gothic.
++ AWAITING INITIAL CONFIGURATION ++
Oh. Maybe the surgery happened after all. I coughed, my throat very dry and a bit sore. In fact, I was sore all over, now that I thought about it, "Yes, Genetor, sir."
"How are you functioning?" he asked.
I tried to move all of my limbs and extremities and found that everything was working, "Well, I think."
He bobbed his mechadendrites in a nod and said, his tone curious, "Extremely well. Your recovery from surgical site wounds is... remarkable."
He chirped, <Interrogative, cranial cogitators functioning and status?>
Oh. I could understand that. I didn't know how to reply back in the same way, but my head felt heavier, so I assumed the additional bits, including a Vox speaker, were attached to my lower head as planned. I said out loud, "I could understand that!"
<Good. Rest for now; I will return and perform the initial user set-up> he chirped again and turned around to depart the small room I was lying in.
As he left, I examined everything else that was floating in my vision, and suddenly, my face went pale. I hadn't noticed it right away, but this wasn't coming from my new implants.
** [QUEST] Pending quest, "Go Your Own Way!" FAILED!
** [QUEST] Penalties: None
** Name: Piper Eversly (aka Rho Epsilon-5)
** Title: Noble Daughter
** Strength: 9
** Dexterity: 9
** Vitality: 9
** Intelligence: 13
** Willpower: 14
** Psi Capability: 29 (Zeta)
** Unspent Points: 9
** Skills: Gamer's Body (MAX), Gamer's Mind (MAX), Reading (47), Pain Tolerance (36), Athletics (35), Fatigue Resistance (35), Running (32), Cooking (23), Electronics Repair (22), Memorisation (21), Housework (17), Hiding (16), Language: High Gothic (15), Observe (15), Marksmanship - Light (15), Acting (14), Dissembling (13), Sword Mastery (11), Calculation (11), Mechanical Repair (11), Self-Discipline (10), Prayer (9), Embroidery (6), Sewing (6), Marksmanship - Ballistic (5), Teaching (5), Horse Riding (5), Jury-Rigging (5), Telekinesis (5), Warp Resistance (5), Dogma: Machine Cult (5), Etiquette (4), Lying (4), Programming: Imperial Cogitators (4), Archery (3), Eavesdropping (3), Detection (2), Fabrication (2), and Radiation Resistance - Beta (1)
