"Motherfucker!"
The word cracked across the rooftop with enough venom to make the nearest servo-skull change direction mid-flight.
Evelyn stood at the edge of a rusted cargo gantry, one boot planted against the lip of an old container while the hive stretched beneath her in layers of smoke, steel, and miserable architectural decisions. Sirens wailed somewhere in the distance. Not the common kind either. Hive cities screamed often enough that most alarms became background noise after a while. Manufactorums exploded, gangs fought over corners, sump-lines ruptured, and somewhere some idiot always found a way to turn industrial machinery into a public health crisis.
Though the urgency of this was different; the tell was in the rhythm. The kind found in lockdowns and security— that meant someone important had just realized people were dying near something they were not supposed to lose.
Evelyn knew exactly who that something was... in fact, she felt it.
Her fingers curled around the railing hard enough for old metal to complain. The feeling beneath her ribs was not pain, not exactly. Pain belonged to nerves, tissue, blood, and all the other inconvenient limitations she had willingly accepted when she made this body. This was deeper. A tug on a thread tied somewhere behind her existence. Annoying, sharp, and far too familiar.
A name in mind came up: Numen.
— of course it was Numen.
The man had been awake in this universe for what amounted to a cosmic sneeze and had already found a way to become the center of an armed security breach.
Evelyn exhaled through her nose and looked toward the distant Administratum block where the alarm lights pulsed through smog like a dying heart.
"Unsupervised for five minutes," she muttered. "Five."
The thread tugged again— harder this time.
This time something came with it. A flash of panic not quite his. Heat. Smoke. The sensation of metal fragments cutting air. A sharp, ridiculous thought about dignity fleeing somewhere around a flashbang.
Her expression flattened.
"Oh," she said softly.
The humor left her voice.
Decision made, Evelyn stepped away from the container stack and began walking.
The casual shape of her changed before the first block was behind her.
Not all at once. Nothing so dramatic as light, music, or the universe politely pausing to admire itself. That was the sort of nonsense she could have done if she wanted attention. This was quieter— practical— a correction made by a body that had never been entirely natural in the first place.
The outfit she had worn while sitting on cargo containers and picking apart stolen weapons had been exactly what she needed then: loose, dismissive, forgettable in the way only a woman with too much confidence and not enough paperwork could be. A scavenger's shape. A bored troublemaker's shape. Useful for wandering the hive without looking like she was about to start a war.
That Evelyn had been allowed to look casual—
— this one was moving toward gunfire.
The jacket changed first; not destroyed, not discarded, simply folded out of relevance as the shard-body beneath it reasserted its preferred field-state. Cloth tightened into something more durable. Straps settled where straps needed to be. The loose scavenger silhouette narrowed into cleaner lines meant for movement, violence, and not getting caught on exposed metal while running through a hive full of bad decisions.
Her hair shortened as she walked, dark strands drawing back around her jaw in a practical cut that left her eyes clear. The softness of her previous presentation receded. What remained was still Evelyn, unfortunately for everyone involved, but less like the woman who had been muttering to herself over a stolen autogun and more like someone built for bad intentions: lean muscle, steady eyes, old fatigue hidden behind sharper amusement.
The change was not vanity— that took effort— this was function.
The body she wore in the hive was not the same thing as the one that smiled between worlds. It was a local vessel, a shard poured into meat and bone with just enough of the real Evelyn behind it to be dangerous without announcing itself to half the galaxy. Too much power would draw attention. Too much presence would make the wrong things look up. The Warp loved anything bright enough to notice, and Evelyn had not lived this long by walking into rooms wearing divinity like perfume.
So she had made herself smaller. Human enough to pass and sharp enough to matter— but limited enough to avoid becoming a beacon.
A holster settled against one thigh. A knife rode at her lower back. The half-stripped autopistol she had been working on shifted along its sling, pieces correcting themselves with faint metallic clicks as if the weapon had suddenly remembered a better version of its own design. Magazines found places along her belt. Small tools vanished into pouches. Various items of questionable legality arranged themselves into something approaching a combat kit.
Legal rights were a fascinating subject... to which Evelyn had elected to ignore them.
Something behind her eyes blinked awake.
Not the Monarch Framework. Nothing grand, ancient, or dressed in imperial arrogance. Hers was simpler. Cleaner. Less like a throne room and more like a tool drawer someone had forgotten to label properly.
A small translucent pane appeared at the edge of her vision.
No borders of black and gold or declarations of sovereignty.
Simply text.
[Template System Online]
User:
Evelyn Shard-Instance
Core Function:
Experience Emulation
Ability Integration
Equipment Projection
Current Capacity:
1 Active Template
Template Stack:
Dormant
Synchronization:
Incomplete
Available Template:
Frontier Pilot
Load Template?
[Y/N]
The system did not answer. It was not that kind of system yet. Barebones. Primitive. Expandable. A seed rather than a tree. Cosmic Evelyn could have fed this vessel entire legends, warlords, monsters, heroes, gods, all stacked one atop another until the body collapsed under the weight of borrowed histories. She could have made this shard into a walking apocalypse by accident.
Instead, she had given it a beginning.
A pilot.
Evelyn selected yes.
Experience unfolded through her nervous system like someone else's muscle memory being poured into her bones. Just impressions. Nothing like full memories or identities. Momentum. Recoil control. Wall angles. Tactical spacing. The instinctive awareness of verticality. How to move through hostile terrain when floors were suggestions and cover existed in three dimensions.
Her balance shifted and her breathing changed. The gantry beneath her seemed less like a platform and more like a launching point.
[Template Loaded]
Active Template:
Frontier Pilot
Integration:
12%
Skill Imprints:
Advanced Mobility: Partial
Small Arms Handling: Basic
Field Improvisation: Basic
Combat Awareness: Basic
Jump Kit Familiarity: Locked
Titan Link: Unavailable
Equipment Projection:
Limited
Available Gear:
Sidearm Pattern
Pilot Knife
Fragmentary Tactical Kit
Warning:
User physiology exceeds template baseline.
Recommendation:
Do not overcompensate.
Evelyn blinked before she laughed once.
It was short and sharp.
"Do not overcompensate," she repeated. "Cute."
Her hand opened.
Light flickered in her palm, not bright enough to be divine, not stable enough to be technology in any proper Imperial sense. Something between memory and matter folded into place. A compact sidearm formed first, ugly and practical, then a combat knife with a blackened edge. Neither looked entirely native to the Imperium. That was fine. The Imperium had enough weapon patterns that most people stopped asking questions after the first thousand.
She checked the pistol by reflex before she paused. The movement had been too smooth and simply not hers. The origin of which belonged somewhere else.
Template bleed. Useful. Dangerous later, if she stacked too many without discipline. A person could become crowded inside their own skull that way. Evelyn knew that better than most. Becoming everything was easier than remaining someone.
Her smile faded a little... then Numen tugged again through the bond.
He was alive... bleeding— still joking— still terrified—
— still him.
"Idiot," she whispered.
The word had no real heat. If anything, it felt warm.
Below her, traffic crawled through the hive layers in slow, diseased arteries. Cargo haulers moved between manufactorum platforms. Enforcer vehicles cut red paths through the streets. Farther ahead, the temporary Inquisitorial facility sat wrapped in lockdown lights, reinforced walls, and the sort of confidence doomed men mistook for safety.
Somewhere inside, Voss and Numen were moving.
Somewhere else inside, a man with discipline, preparation, and a death order was adjusting his plan.
Evelyn could feel the shape of it now. Not details. Not yet. Just pressure. A tightening circle.
That annoyed her— more so actually. Someone had reached for her entertainment. Her investment. Her mistake. Her problem. Possibly her friend— she disliked the word enough to step onto the edge of the maintenance bridge.
The drop below was long enough to kill a normal person and inconvenience a prepared one. Evelyn looked toward the distant glow of lockdown sirens bleeding through the smog, then toward the maze of rooftops, gantries, pipes, and rusted support frames between her and the facility.
[Objective Generated]
Reach Patron Anchor.
Prevent Premature Termination.
Secondary Objective:
Identify Interfering Party.
Optional Objective:
Do Not Escalate Beyond Local Tolerance.
Evelyn read the final line.
"Optional," she said.
The system did not respond.
"Yeah," she muttered. "That's what I thought."
Then she jumped.
The gantry fell away beneath her boots, open air yawning below in a vertical canyon of pipes, bridges, smoke, and distant lights. Evelyn dropped through it with her coat snapping behind her, eyes tracking surfaces with borrowed instinct and personal arrogance. Her boot struck a slanted pipe. She pushed off before the metal could fully complain, caught a hanging cable support with one hand, swung hard, and launched herself toward the next rooftop.
It was not flight.
Not teleportation.
Not divinity.
Just motion, sharpened until it looked unreasonable.
Her shoulder clipped a ventilation housing on the landing. She rolled, came up on one knee, and immediately decided the template was both useful and deeply rude.
[Integration Updated: 14%]
Collision Detected.
Suggested Correction:
Commit earlier.
Evelyn looked at the hovering text, "you commit earlier."
The system remained silent.
She rose and started running.
Far below, sirens screamed. Ahead, the facility bled red into the smog.
Evelyn smiled, and this time there was nothing lazy in it.
"Hold on, idiot."
◃───────────▹
I saw him. The plasma filled the stairwell with blue-white glare— and for a heartbeat, the shadows became honest.
He was tucked behind a support pillar where the descending passage bent left, body angled around steel and conduit. The rifle was already up; barrel tracked the space beside Voss rather than Voss herself.
'Right at me... of course.'
"Found him," I announced.
Voss fired before the word finished leaving my mouth.
The plasma bolt tore down the stairwell and turned the support pillar into a glowing wound. Metal screamed— conduit burst— the shadows below convulsed beneath the blue-white glare, and the man behind them moved like someone who had expected the world to try killing him and had already prepared a polite refusal.
His shot came back a heartbeat later.
Voss shoved me against the wall.
The round cracked past my face close enough to steal warmth from my skin. Behind me, old plating ruptured in a shower of rust, sparks, and shredded insulation. Something sharp kissed the side of my neck. Not deep but just enough to make my pulse immediately start screaming legal objections.
I touched the spot. My fingers came away wet.
Something in me went quiet for exactly half a second... then it came back mean.
"Oh, you ugly little office mistake," I breathed.
Voss glanced at me.
I leaned toward the stairwell, keeping most of myself behind the wall because I had recently developed strong opinions about bullets.
"Hey!" I shouted into the dark. "You missed!"
Another round punched through the edge of the wall, close enough that fragments spat across my cheek.
I flinched; hard.
Still counted.
"Missed again, you budget corpse-wrangler!" I yelled, voice cracking around smoke and pain. "They sent you to kill a man tied to a chair and you're still somehow behind schedule!"
Voss moved on the shot.
She did not fire immediately. She shifted one step, then another, pistol raised, eyes narrowed toward the lower bend. The assassin had answered me. Not emotionally, maybe. Certainly not angrily— but the shot had come from a slightly different angle, and Voss read angles the way priests read scripture.
"Continue," she said.
I looked at her.
My neck was bleeding. My side burned. My ears rang. Somewhere beneath us, a professional murderer was trying to solve me like a logistics problem.
"That is the worst encouragement I have ever received."
"Useful encouragement."
"There's a difference?"
"Now."
I swallowed, tasted smoke, and smiled toward the stairwell with every tooth I still owned.
"Come on, then! What happened? Did the maintenance uniform cut off blood to your brain, or were you born with that much disappointment in your skull?"
Silence.
Then the rifle cracked.
Voss fired into the sound.
The stairwell became light and heat again. Something below sparked violently. A shape ducked away behind the pillar, and for a heartbeat I saw him properly: shoulder burned, mask gone, face plain in a way that felt deliberate. No rage. No snarl. No righteous fury. Just a man doing work.
That pissed me off more.
"Look at you," I shouted. "Not even angry. Just dead inside with a paycheck. How Imperial of you."
Voss gave me a look that suggested I was approaching several theological boundaries.
I ignored it because fear had become a furnace and my mouth had found fuel.
"You hear me down there, murder-janitor? You should do the galaxy a kindness and retire face-first into your own barrel before someone finds your personnel file and dies of embarrassment!"
A shot slammed into the overhead pipework.
Steam exploded across the passage.
Hot vapor rolled over us in a choking wave. I stumbled back, coughing, eyes watering instantly. Voss caught my collar and dragged me behind a conduit housing as another pair of rounds snapped through the fog. The sound was sharp, controlled, patient.
"He's adjusting," Voss said.
"Good," I rasped. "Hope he pulls something."
"Your insults are imprecise."
"I'm bleeding out of three places and verbally dueling a professional corpse collector in a maintenance hallway. My rhetoric may lack polish."
"Less theatrical. More specific."
I stared at her through the steam.
"You want editorial notes now?"
"I want him predictable."
That landed.
The fear stayed, but something colder moved beside it. The assassin was good. Too good to be dragged fully by pride. Generic insults might make him shoot, but they would not make him stupid. Voss needed direction. I needed to give her something she could use.
I looked down the stairwell again.
My mind turned to the burned shoulder— the missing respirator— the way he had shifted his rifle, and the way he kept targeting me instead of her.
"Fine," I muttered.
Then louder, "Your left side's slow!"
No shot.
Voss's eyes sharpened.
I kept going.
"Saw it when you tucked back. Shoulder isn't doing what you want, is it? Bet that stings. Bet you're telling yourself it doesn't matter because pain is just information and you're the kind of miserable bastard who thinks having no personality counts as discipline."
A round snapped through the steam.
Not at my head this time.
At my center mass.
Voss pulled me aside before it hit, then fired into the line it revealed. Plasma struck the lower wall and blew apart old plating. A harsh metallic impact followed. Not a body falling. Not quite. More like someone hitting cover harder than intended.
That meant progress, and I grinned despite the blood on my neck.
"There you are."
"Do not get pleased with yourself," Voss said.
"Too late," I snickered through pain and pride.
Another shot came through the steam.
Lower this time.
He was changing level.
"He's crouched or descending," I said quickly. "Trying to cut under your angle."
Voss moved without answering. Her sword came up, humming low, point angled toward the stairwell. The red emergency light caught along its edge and made the weapon look hungry.
I leaned back toward the passage.
"Hey! I get it now!" I called down. "You're not here because you're the best. You're here because whoever hired you needed someone disposable enough to burn! Congratulations, you made it all the way to expendable!"
That got nothing.
No shot.
No movement.
The silence that answered was too clean.
My smile thinned.
"...He didn't like that one less," I whispered. "He liked it more."
Voss's gaze flicked toward me.
"Explain."
"He stopped answering. That means I hit something useful or he stopped caring."
"Both are possible."
I rolled my eyes, "love that."
The Monarch Framework shimmered at the edge of my vision, lines assembling over the steam.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
OBSERVATION:
Hostile Asset does not respond to shame.
Hostile Asset responds to exposed operational weakness.
Current Weaknesses:
Left Shoulder Impairment
Target Priority Fixation
Prepared Route Dependency
Recommendation:
Attack the plan.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
I stared at the words.
Then at the stairwell.
Then at Voss.
"The voices say he's not hunting us anymore."
Her jaw tightened.
"What is he doing."
I looked back toward the steam, and the shape of it settled in my head with a clarity I did not appreciate.
"Moving us."
The corridor behind us creaked.
Faint.
Metal on metal.
A second sound answered from below.
The assassin had not needed to win the exchange. He had only needed us to choose where to stand.
I suddenly wanted very badly to stop standing there.
"Voss."
"I know."
"I hate how often you know things after they become horrifying."
"Left."
I looked left.
Wall. Old plating. Rusted warning stencil. A maintenance panel half-swallowed by grime.
"That's a wall."
"Open it."
"With what, my winning personality?"
"Yes."
"That was almost a joke and I hate that I noticed."
She fired down the stairwell again, forcing the shadow below to withdraw. The blast lit the left wall long enough for me to see the lower hinge of the panel hanging loose, rusted nearly through.
There.
Ugly.
Stupid.
Mine.
I grabbed the edge and pulled. It refused to move, because apparently the building had decided my death would be funnier if I had to work for it.
"Come on," I hissed, "open up, you bureaucratic coffin."
Another shot cracked from below. Voss answered as heat rolled over my back.
I kicked the hinge. As expected, pain shot up my leg.
The panel shifted though so I kicked it again, harder, swearing through my teeth. "You absolute rust-eaten bastard, I have been shot at too many times today to lose to furniture."
The third kick tore the hinge loose.
The panel shrieked open, revealing a crawlspace packed with cables, dust, and air that smelled like electricity had died in there and nobody had informed its family.
Voss glanced at the opening.
Then at me.
For half a second, approval crossed her face.
Very tiny, very cold, yet still approval.
"Go."
I ducked toward the crawlspace.
"If there are rats in here, I'm feeding you to them first."
"Move."
"If they're mutant rats, I'm naming one after you."
"Numen."
"Moving."
I climbed inside on elbows and spite.
Behind me, Voss fired again. Below, the assassin answered. Somewhere in the passage we had abandoned, something scraped closer through the dark, patient and deliberate.
I dragged myself forward.
Then shouted back through the gap, because apparently I had learned nothing and intended to die consistent.
"Bad news, murder-worker! We found the employee entrance!"
A shot cracked overhead.
A bullet punched through the panel behind my boot.
I crawled faster.
"Good news!" I yelled, "if your mother saw this, she'd finally have proof the disappointment wasn't her fault."
Voss entered behind me with considerably more dignity than the crawlspace deserved.
"Stop helping."
"No promises."
"You are actively making this worse."
"I know."
"You enjoy it."
"I enjoy winning. This just happens to be the most entertaining route."
"Your definition of entertainment is diseased."
"Maybe, but it has kept me emotionally available."
"That is not a tactical advantage."
"Then why am I still talking?"
Voss did not answer.
Mostly because a bullet punched through the panel behind us and tore a bright line through the crawlspace wall where my thigh had been half a second earlier.
I crawled faster.
The space ahead narrowed almost immediately, because apparently the people who built this facility believed maintenance workers were either boneless or disposable. Probably both. Pipes crowded close enough to scrape my shoulders. Old cables sagged from cracked brackets. Dust coated everything in layers thick enough to have developed political opinions. Every movement dragged noise out of the walls: metal scraping, cloth catching, boots thudding against panels that made the entire crawlspace ring like an enormous, poorly tuned instrument.
Behind me, Voss moved with the grim efficiency of someone making a list of every sound I produced and filing them under future inconvenience.
"You are too loud," she said.
"I am crawling through a metal intestine while being shot at."
"Be quieter."
"I will ask the intestine politely."
Another round struck somewhere behind us.
The wall buckled inward with a sharp metallic cough. A hot fragment spat past my shoulder and vanished into darkness ahead. The shot had not come through the open panel. It had come through the exterior wall of the maintenance passage, angled from somewhere outside the crawlspace.
That realization crawled up my spine before the rest of me could.
"He is shooting through the walls," I said.
"Yes."
"You could sound less calm about that."
"It would not reduce penetration."
"Emotionally, it might."
The Monarch Framework shimmered again, its pale geometry dragging itself across my vision like an irritated advisor forced to attend a disaster meeting.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS
Maintenance Crawlspace:
Secondary Service Artery
Wall Integrity:
Poor
Sound Transmission:
High
Hostile Method:
Targeting by Noise and Predicted Route
Conclusion:
Movement Pattern Compromised
Recommendation:
Create False Movement.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
I stared at the words as another shot punched through the wall behind Voss and filled the crawlspace with sparks.
"Okay," I whispered. "That one's actually useful."
"What do you see."
"The voices say he is shooting where he thinks we'll be."
"Then do not be there."
"Brilliant. Elegant. Why didn't I think of that?"
"Numen."
"Right. False movement."
Ahead, the crawlspace forked around an old conduit trunk. Left dipped lower. Right continued straight before bending into a darker service line. Both smelled terrible, which meant the building had achieved tactical ambiguity through neglect.
I reached for the nearest cable bundle and yanked.
It did not move.
Of course it did not move. Why would anything in this place be convenient? I wrapped both hands around it and pulled again, teeth clenched, my side screaming hot protest. The bundle shifted half an inch. A rain of dust fell into my face.
"Come on, you greasy little vein," I hissed.
Voss fired behind us.
Plasma thunder rolled through the crawlspace. Heat licked along my back. The next bullet came in lower, drilled through the wall beside my boot, and struck the conduit trunk ahead with a hard metallic clang.
He was getting closer.
Or better.
Probably both.
I dug my heel against the wall and pulled with everything I had. The cable bracket snapped loose. A heavy coil dropped into my lap with enough weight to remind me that improvised plans were just bad ideas with confidence.
I shoved the cable bundle down the right fork.
It slithered over the metal floor with a hollow scrape.
Then I kicked it.
Hard.
The bundle lurched forward, dragging loose debris with it. The noise moved away from us, ugly and obvious. A wounded animal made of wire and spite. I grabbed a broken pipe clip, slammed it against the wall twice, then shoved another loose length of conduit after the cables.
"Go on," I muttered. "Go die for the crown."
Voss paused behind me.
"The crown?"
"Don't make it weird."
The assassin fired into the right fork.
Three shots. Fast. Controlled. Each one chasing the sound exactly where the Framework said he would. The cable bundle jerked under impact, sparks snapping from its insulation. Something inside the wall ruptured and hissed.
Voss moved immediately.
"Left."
"Look at that," I said, crawling toward the dipping passage. "My garbage decoy has more combat value than most management."
"Less commentary."
"That was a eulogy."
We took the left fork.
The passage dipped sharply enough that crawling became sliding. My elbows skidded over old grime. My knees hit every ridge, seam, and bolt the floor possessed. Behind us, more rounds tore apart the false route. The sound echoed through the walls in a way that made it impossible to tell if he had realized the deception or if he was simply making sure whatever he had hit stayed dead.
The crawlspace bent downward.
Then sideways.
Then downward again.
The air changed.
That was the first thing I noticed. Less smoke. Less heat. It still smelled of old metal and electrical rot, but beneath that waited something else. Cold, dry air. Air that had not moved properly in years. Maybe centuries. The kind of stillness that belonged inside sealed containers, tombs, and places people forgot because remembering them was inconvenient.
Voss noticed too.
She stopped behind me.
"Do you feel that."
"I feel many things. Pain is currently chairing the meeting."
"The air."
"Old. Cold. Extremely haunted."
"Move carefully."
"Wonderful. We found a haunted intestine."
The crawlspace opened into a vertical shaft.
I almost fell into it.
Voss caught the back of my jacket before gravity could turn me into a lesson. Her hand closed around the fabric, stopping me with enough force to make my throat produce a noise I did not approve for public distribution.
Below us, darkness descended farther than the emergency lumen strips could reach.
Across the shaft, maybe six feet away, another crawlspace continued. A maintenance ladder ran down one side, rusted but intact. Most of it vanished into the black. Somewhere far below, water dripped at patient intervals.
I stared down.
"No."
"Down," Voss said.
"I just voted."
"Your vote is noted."
"Denied?"
"Archived."
"That's worse."
A shot cracked from behind us.
The round struck the lip of the opening above my shoulder and ricocheted into the shaft with a scream. We both froze. The shot had not been accurate enough to hit us, but close enough to communicate that the assassin had found the left route.
Voss looked down into the shaft.
Then at the ladder.
Then at me.
"Go."
"I hate democracy."
I grabbed the ladder and climbed down.
The metal was cold under my palms, slick with condensation, and old enough that every rung complained beneath my weight. Voss followed close above, pistol angled upward until the shaft swallowed the crawlspace entrance behind us. More shots rang out. One struck the wall above and sent flakes of ancient paint drifting down like diseased snow.
We descended perhaps twenty feet before the ladder ended at a narrow service platform.
It should have continued.
It did not.
The lower half had collapsed into the dark ages ago, twisted metal disappearing into the abyss below. The platform itself extended toward a sealed maintenance door set into the shaft wall, half-hidden beneath cables, dust, and old warning placards that had become illegible through sheer commitment to decay.
Voss landed beside me.
"Door."
"I was hoping you would say miracle."
"Open it."
"With what, my remaining optimism?"
Her gaze shifted to the service panel beside the door.
I followed it.
A small manual wheel sat embedded in the mechanism, surrounded by rust and old devotional markings scratched by maintenance hands long dead. Someone had painted an Administratum serial code above it. Someone else had later scored three lines through the number with a blade.
Not vandalism but denial.
That made my stomach tighten.
Voss reached for the wheel.
The Monarch Framework appeared.
It did not slide into my vision with the same dry irritation as before.
It arrived heavily.
The borders were darker this time. The symbols around them moved slower. Something in the air seemed to notice. Not a noise. Not a light. A pressure. Like an old room remembering someone who had once owned it.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
PROXIMITY WARNING
Dormant Monarchal Asset Detected.
Classification:
Lost Companion
Status:
Sealed
Authority Requirement:
Recognized Monarch
Recommendation:
Proceed.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
I stopped breathing for a second.
Voss noticed.
"What."
"The voices found something."
"Specify."
"They called it a lost companion."
Her hand remained near the door wheel.
"That is not specific."
"I agree, and yet somehow I am the one expected to explain the ancient ghost paperwork."
Another shot rang from above.
The round did not reach us. It struck somewhere inside the shaft and vanished into the dark with a shriek. The assassin was descending or finding another angle. Time, as usual, had taken a personal dislike to me.
Voss turned the wheel.
It did not move.
She tried again.
Nothing.
Then I touched it.
The metal went warm beneath my palm.
Voss went very still.
The wheel turned by itself.
Slowly.
Grinding through rust and years of disuse, the lock withdrew piece by piece. Dust shook loose from the door. Old seals cracked. Something behind it exhaled, and the air that rolled over us was colder than the shaft, dry as bone, carrying the faint scent of machine oil, ash, and something animal.
The door opened inward.
Darkness waited beyond.
I leaned forward.
"Nope."
Voss stepped past me.
"Stay behind me."
"For once, with joy."
The chamber beyond the door was not part of the facility.
I knew that immediately, even before the Framework confirmed it. The walls changed from patched hive steel to black stone threaded with veins of dull silver. The floor was covered in dust untouched by footsteps. Old lamps hung from chains, dead and dry, each shaped like a narrow crown with broken teeth. The room was small, maybe a storage chamber once, but built with a weight the rest of the Administratum block lacked. Everything in it felt deliberate. Hidden and waiting.
At the far end sat a plinth.
No.
A dais.
The difference mattered, apparently, because one was furniture and the other made my spine feel like it had walked into court without a lawyer.
The chamber narrowed around it, black stone sloping inward by degrees until every line of the room pointed toward the thing resting at the center. Old chains hung from the ceiling, not holding anything now, though several ended in broken links thick enough to restrain vehicles. Two smaller pedestals flanked the dais, half-hidden beneath dust and dead cloth, each bearing something long and dark beneath the remains of a covering.
I saw the creature first.
At first, I thought it was a statue.
Then it breathed.
My entire body tried to exit through my spine.
Voss raised her pistol.
"Don't," I said.
The word came out fast enough to surprise both of us.
She did not lower the weapon.
The creature was not the size of a hound.
That would have been easier.
It was low-slung and compact, built close to the ground like something that had decided height was less important than spite. Its body carried the shape of a dragon only after the idea had been dragged through deep water and taught to hate. Black armor plates layered over corded muscle, each plate edged in dull silver and marked with symbols that made my eyes want to look somewhere else. Four clawed limbs curled beneath it, talons hooked into the stone as if it had fallen asleep mid-threat. A narrow head rested against the dais, horned along the brow, jaw heavy with folded teeth and a hooked beak hidden beneath the upper palate.
Then there were the tentacles.
Eight of them, I thought. Maybe more. They lay coiled around its body in thick, sleeping loops, dark and scaled along the top but pale underneath, where rows of small metallic suckers caught the dim light like coins buried in flesh. One tentacle wrapped protectively around the base of the plinth. Another curled beneath the creature's chin. A third ended in a bladed barb that had punched straight through the stone sometime before it went dormant.
It looked like a dragon had made several poor decisions with an octopus and then raised the resulting child exclusively on violence.
A collar circled its throat.
Broken.
Not decorative, either. The thing was too heavy, too deliberate, too deeply fused with old machinery to be jewelry. Empty sockets ran along the collar's front where jewels or seals had once sat. Only one remained, dim and red, pulsing weakly beneath centuries of dust.
The Framework spoke again.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
LOST ASSET IDENTIFIED
Designation:
Crownbound Beast
Subtype:
Abyssal Wyrm / Companion-Class
Name:
[RECORD DAMAGED]
Bond Status:
Fractured Dormancy
Companion Registry:
Recovered: 1
Condition:
Critical Dormancy
Memory Integrity:
3.7%
Combat Viability:
Limited
Temperament:
Hostile-Protective
Emotional Residue:
Loyalty
Grief
Accusation
Loyalty Anchor:
Awaiting Recognition
Recommended Action:
Establish Contact.
Proceed with caution.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
I stared at the display.
Then at the sleeping dragon-squid nightmare.
Then at Voss's pistol.
"Okay," I whispered. "Good news."
Voss did not look away from the creature.
"Do not say good news."
"We found a pet."
"That is not a pet."
"It is pet-adjacent."
"It is armored, unknown, and dormant inside a sealed chamber beneath an Inquisitorial holding facility."
"Stray pet."
"Numen."
"Fine. Extremely complicated emotional support calamari."
One of the creature's tentacles twitched.
Every joke inside me died in a ditch.
Its eyes opened.
Not all at once. One first. Then another beneath a layered lid. Then two smaller ones set farther back along the skull, followed by a slow red glow blooming somewhere under the armor plates near its throat. Ancient light stirred behind those eyes, dim and furious, like embers that had spent a thousand years refusing to go out on principle.
The creature lifted its head.
Metal clicked under living muscle. Dust slid from its armor in thin gray streams. Its tentacles uncoiled with awful patience, revealing scarred flesh, broken plating, and old wounds that had sealed badly around embedded fragments of silver metal.
Voss's finger tightened on the trigger.
I stepped between them before my brain had time to complain.
Stupid.
Very stupid.
The sort of stupid that deserved a plaque.
The creature stared at me.
The chamber seemed to hold its breath.
Something moved through the bond behind my ribs, but it was not Evelyn this time. This was older. Lower. Meaner. A memory without shape pushed against the back of my skull: ash falling beneath a black sky, rain hissing against hot stone, a field of bodies arranged around something burning. A small furious shape wrapped around my side, teeth sunk into a creature three times its size because nobody had told it the fight was over. A hand, my hand maybe, maybe not, resting against a blood-wet crest while someone laughed like dying was a private joke.
Then the memory changed.
A door closing.
Chains drawn tight.
A command given in a voice that felt like mine and did not feel like me at all.
To wait.
To guard.
To simply survive.
The emotion that followed was not language. Language would have been kinder.
You left.
You promised.
You came back wrong.
Then it was gone.
My knees nearly went with it.
"Numen," Voss said, voice sharp.
"I'm fine."
"You are swaying."
"That is my process."
The creature stepped down from the dais.
Its claws touched the floor with soft, careful clicks. Every movement looked painful, which was impressive, because the thing moved like pain had offended it personally and it intended to settle the matter later. One tentacle dragged a little behind the others. Its left forelimb trembled under its weight before locking straight through what I could only describe as pure spite.
It stopped in front of me.
Then lowered its head.
Not bowing.
Accusing.
Waiting.
The Framework appeared again.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
RECOGNITION PROMPT
Crownbound Beast requests confirmation.
Accept Companion Bond?
Warning:
Asset is damaged.
Asset possesses incomplete memory.
Asset retains emotional grievance.
Asset may resist non-protective commands.
Asset may not survive prolonged combat.
[Y/N]
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
I stared.
A bullet struck the chamber door behind us.
The sound snapped through the room like a whip. Voss turned and fired back through the partially open entrance. Plasma lit the shaft beyond. The assassin had found us. Of course he had found us. The man probably smelled narrative inconvenience.
The creature growled.
It was not loud.
It did not need to be.
The sound came from deep inside its chest, filtered through machinery, old rage, and something wet enough to make the air feel colder. Dust trembled across the floor. The red seal in its collar brightened by a fraction. Several tentacles lifted from the stone and spread around it like a crown made of knives and bad decisions.
My mouth went dry.
"Yes," I said.
The Framework accepted.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
COMPANION BOND ACCEPTED
Crownbound Beast:
Recovered
Temporary Designation Required.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
"Oh, come on, now?"
Voss fired again.
Another round answered from the shaft. It sparked off the chamber wall, leaving a smoking crater in the black stone.
The creature turned toward the door.
It limped.
The sight hit me harder than it should have. Not because it looked weak. It did not look weak. It looked like weakness was an enemy it had been forced to tolerate and planned to murder at the first opportunity.
Temporary designation.
My brain, under pressure and apparently determined to make history embarrassed, chose the first word that felt honest.
"Grudge," I said.
The creature paused.
Its eyes slid back toward me.
For a moment, I had the very distinct impression that I had just insulted something capable of wearing my skeleton as a hat.
Then the red seal in its collar flared.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
TEMPORARY DESIGNATION ACCEPTED
Grudge
Status:
Awake
Standing Order:
Protect the Monarch.
Secondary Status:
Upset.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
"Upset?" I said. "That feels understated."
Grudge bared several layers of teeth.
"Right. Fair."
The cloth on the two smaller pedestals shifted.
I noticed because Voss noticed first.
Her pistol moved a fraction.
"Do not touch anything else."
"I was not planning to touch anything else."
The left pedestal clicked.
The right answered.
Dust slid away from the covered objects as though something underneath had taken offense to being ignored. The dead cloth split down the middle and fell apart in strips, revealing two hand cannons resting in shallow grooves of black stone.
They were ugly in the way expensive violence often was.
Long-barreled, heavy-framed, too large for comfort and too balanced to be accidental. Black metal swallowed the light along the barrels while dull silver traced old lines through the frames, curling around cylinder housings and under the grips in patterns that matched the markings on Grudge's armor. Each weapon had a crest worked into the rear sight: a narrow crown with broken teeth.
They did not glow.
They did not hum.
They waited.
Which was worse.
The Framework shifted.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
LOST ASSET IDENTIFIED
Designation:
Oath-Bound Armaments
Type:
Twin Hand Cannons
Recovered Names:
Last Argument
Final Answer
Status:
Dormant
Condition:
Damaged
Ammunition Reserve:
Minimal
Ballistic Memory:
Fragmentary
User Proficiency:
Insufficient
Warning:
Weapons do not grant mastery.
Weapons remember form.
User must relearn function.
Available Feature:
Grip Correction
Recoil Warning
Emergency Chambered Intervention: 2
Recommended Action:
Accept Armament Bond.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
I stared at the words.
Then at the guns.
Then at Voss.
She stared back.
"No."
"I did not say anything."
"You were about to."
"They have names."
"No."
"One of them is called Last Argument."
"No."
"The other is Final Answer."
"Absolutely not."
A round struck the doorway hard enough to send stone chips spinning across the chamber.
Grudge screamed.
A wet, metallic, hateful sound that made the collar seal flare and every tentacle lash outward at once. One struck the floor and cracked stone. Another wrapped around the edge of the dais hard enough to grind dust from it.
The guns clicked again.
I felt the sound in my teeth.
The Framework waited.
Voss fired into the shaft.
"Numen," she said, "make the decision quickly or move."
"Yes," I said.
The armament bond accepted before I had time to regret how easily that came out.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
ARMAMENT BOND ACCEPTED
Last Argument:
Recovered
Final Answer:
Recovered
Carry Protocol:
Temporary
Combat Use:
Restricted
User Training Path:
Uninitialized
Warning:
Improper discharge may result in wrist fracture, shoulder trauma, loss of accuracy, embarrassment, or death.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
"Embarrassment made the list," I said.
The pistols lifted from the stone.
Not floating. Not exactly. They rose because the pedestals beneath them unfolded into narrow mechanical arms that pushed them toward me with the solemn ceremony of a funeral and the judgmental energy of a disappointed teacher.
I took them.
Immediately regretted it.
They were heavy.
Not impossible. Not unmanageable. Just heavy in a way that made every muscle from my wrists to my spine file a complaint. The grips warmed under my palms, reshaping by fractions until they fit. Something moved through my hands. Not skill. Skill would have been generous. This was more like being handed a memory of proper behavior by two hate-delivery bricks that expected me to stop embarrassing everyone.
My fingers twitched.
The right-hand cannon wanted to be raised.
The left wanted to wait.
Neither spoke.
Both had opinions.
"Great," I muttered. "The guns are judging me."
Voss glanced at the weapons.
"Can you use them?"
"Define use."
"Reliably."
"No."
"Then holster them."
"I don't have holsters."
The guns solved that.
Black bands of old metal unfolded from their grips, slid around my wrists, then loosened into temporary hanging rigs that settled against my hips as if they had always belonged there. The process was quick, intimate, and deeply invasive in a way I decided not to think about until I was less likely to be shot.
"Okay," I said. "I own pants now."
"You owned pants before."
"Emotionally, these are different pants."
Voss did not dignify that with speech.
Grudge moved.
For something damaged, it moved fast enough to make my eyes reconsider their career. The creature launched itself toward the chamber door in a low, furious blur, claws scraping sparks from stone. Two tentacles shot ahead of it, wrapped around the doorframe, and wrenched its body sideways mid-leap with a brutal change of angle. It slammed shoulder-first into the half-open door and drove it outward into the shaft.
Metal screamed.
The door struck something outside with a hard, wet impact.
A grunt followed.
Human.
Very satisfying.
Voss did not waste it.
She stepped to the opening and fired down into the shaft. Plasma roared. The blast lit Grudge from behind, turning the creature into a silhouette of black plates, red eyes, and writhing limbs. A return shot cracked from somewhere above, missed Voss by inches, and punched into the chamber ceiling.
The assassin was withdrawing again.
Changing position.
Voss knew it too.
"We cannot remain here."
I looked at Grudge.
Grudge looked back at me, breathing rough, collar light pulsing unevenly. One tentacle hung limp for half a second before curling again through visible effort.
"Can he move?"
Grudge hissed at me.
I took that personally.
"Okay. He has opinions."
"Can it obey?" Voss asked.
"I named him Grudge and accepted a bond built out of loyalty issues. Let's maybe not use the word obey too loudly."
"Can it understand you."
"That's a much safer question."
Voss fired again.
Another round answered, striking the upper doorway and spraying dust across Grudge's armor. The creature twisted toward the sound, every line of its body promising immediate and unreasonable violence.
"Grudge," I said.
The red eyes snapped to me.
My stomach dropped.
There was recognition there.
Loyalty, yes.
Also hurt.
Also accusation.
It looked at me like something that had waited in the dark because I had told it to, and now I had the nerve to show up without remembering why.
I swallowed.
"Find us a way out."
For a moment, nothing happened.
Grudge stared.
Then one tentacle lashed out, struck my shin with just enough force to hurt, and withdrew.
"Ow! What the hell?"
The Framework flickered.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
COMPANION RESPONSE INTERPRETED:
Acknowledged.
Additional Meaning:
Asshole.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
I stared at the text.
Then at Grudge.
"You and the voices are going to be friends."
Grudge turned away with magnificent contempt and limped toward the far wall. Its tentacles moved over the stone, feeling along grooves I had not seen, pressing symbols that had been buried under dust. It found a seam, bit into the edge with its hooked beak, and pulled.
The wall opened.
A section of black stone simply split apart and folded inward, revealing a passage beyond.
Hidden and ancient.
Descending deeper.
I stared at it.
"Of course," I said. "The angry seafood dragon knows the human resources department."
Voss moved toward the opening.
"Go."
"What about the room full of emotionally complicated royal weapons and abandonment issues?"
"Bring what follows. Leave what does not."
"That is disturbing relationship advice."
"Move."
Grudge entered first, limping but eager in a way that made the darkness ahead look less like shelter and more like something about to regret being dark.
Voss followed.
I took one step, then stopped as the right-hand cannon warmed at my hip.
Last Argument.
A feeling pushed against my palm.
Not a command.
A correction.
My gaze snapped toward the chamber entrance, then higher, where an old chain still hung from the ceiling above the half-open door. The assassin was not visible. The shaft beyond was all smoke and broken light. But the chain anchor was cracked. The Framework drew a faint line over it, not telling me to shoot the assassin. Telling me what would fall if I hit it.
I looked at Voss.
She saw the way my hand hovered near the weapon.
"No."
"I have an idea."
"That concerns me more."
"Good. Consistency matters."
A shot cracked from the shaft and struck the floor near Grudge's tail. Grudge made a sound that suggested it was about to start a religion based entirely on murder.
I drew Last Argument.
The motion was not smooth.
It was too heavy, too fast, too eager. My wrist dipped. The grip corrected. Pain flared up my forearm as something in the weapon's frame locked my hand into a better angle.
The Framework appeared.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
EMERGENCY CHAMBERED INTERVENTION AVAILABLE
Target:
Ceiling Anchor
Effect:
Line-of-Sight Obstruction
Warning:
Brace Wrist.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
"I hate that warning," I whispered.
Then I fired.
The hand cannon kicked like it wanted out of my life.
Thunder filled the chamber. My arm snapped upward despite the weapon's correction, pain blasting through wrist, elbow, shoulder, and several spiritual concepts I had not previously believed in. The shot struck the ceiling anchor.
The old chain broke.
A slab of hanging mechanism, dead lampwork, and stone facing tore loose above the doorway and crashed down across the entrance in a storm of dust and black rock. The shaft vanished behind rubble. A bullet punched through the falling debris and went wild into the ceiling, but no second shot followed immediately.
My entire arm went numb.
I stared at the gun.
The gun felt smug.
"Ow," I said.
Voss looked at the blocked entrance, then at my arm, then at the weapon.
"Can you fire again?"
"Emotionally, no."
"Physically."
"Also no."
The Framework agreed.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
EMERGENCY INTERVENTION USED
Last Argument:
Cooldown Required
User Condition:
Wrist Strain
Shoulder Trauma Likely
Accuracy Degraded
Recommendation:
Training.
■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■
I holstered the weapon with the careful reverence of a man returning an angry god to its box.
"Training," I muttered. "Wonderful. The murder bricks assigned homework."
Grudge made a low chuffing sound from the passage.
It sounded suspiciously like laughter.
I pointed at him with my good hand.
"Don't start."
Grudge bared his teeth.
Voss stepped into the hidden passage.
"Numen."
"Moving."
I took one last look back at the chamber, at the ruined entrance, at the plinth where Grudge had waited in darkness long enough to hate me for it, and at the two hand cannons hanging heavy against my hips like promises I had no idea how to keep.
Then I followed them into the dark.
◃───────────▹
Evelyn reached the first cordon at a run.
The Inquisitorial facility did not stand alone. That was the thing about important buildings in the Imperium: they attracted layers. Barricades, patrol routes, checkpoint vehicles, vox relays, auspex posts, portable shrine-markers, men with guns told to look stern and not ask why their superiors looked afraid. A temporary headquarters could become a fortress if enough frightened authority gathered around it.
Tonight, the fortress was confused.
That made it vulnerable.
Evelyn landed on the roof of a low transit kiosk overlooking the outer barricade. Below her, Enforcer vehicles blocked the road in staggered lines. Searchlights swept through smoke. Men shouted orders that contradicted other orders shouted moments earlier. A vox officer kept repeating a clearance code into a handset while blood ran from his nose and one ear. A pair of servitors stood motionless beside an ammo crate, awaiting instructions from someone dead enough to be late.
She tilted her head.
"Messy."
A small pane flickered near her vision.
[Environmental Assessment]
Hostile Activity:
Moderate
Security Cohesion:
Degraded
External Interference:
Likely
Recommended Action:
Avoid Engagement.
Evelyn smiled.
Entirely inappropriate.
"Avoid engagement," she repeated, as though tasting the words. "That's adorable."
The first man saw her too late.
He stood near the rear barricade, lasgun raised toward the wrong rooftop, visor reflecting the glow of sirens. His head turned when her boots touched the ground behind him. Surprise widened his eyes. Evelyn stepped into his space before surprise became sound, one hand catching the barrel of his weapon and guiding it aside with an intimacy that bordered on insult.
"Hi."
The pistol in her other hand kissed the underside of his chin.
She did not fire.
The butt of the weapon cracked against his temple instead. He dropped without ceremony.
[Integration Updated: 16%]
Close-Quarters Transition:
Acceptable
Recommendation:
Maintain Momentum.
"Oh, I planned to."
She moved before the next guard finished turning.
There was something almost lazy in it. Lazy in the way a predator crossing warm stone looked lazy until something smaller made a mistake. Evelyn flowed between angles, letting borrowed skill and old arrogance meet somewhere beneath her skin. A lasbolt hissed past her shoulder. She leaned away from it with a smile, close enough to feel heat brush the edge of her jacket.
"Careful," she said.
The shooter blinked.
Evelyn shot the lamp above him.
Darkness swallowed the corner.
She was already inside it.
The knife came out.
It did not flash dramatically. It simply appeared in the right place, passed through a strap, opened a hand, cut a rifle sling, and vanished before anyone decided to bleed loudly. The man stumbled back, suddenly weaponless, suddenly aware that a woman was standing much too close with much too much amusement in her eyes.
"You boys look busy," she murmured. "Mind if I cut in?"
He swung at her.
She caught his wrist, stepped around him, and used his own momentum to introduce his face to the side of an armored vehicle. The sound was ugly. She winced slightly.
"That one was on you."
Two more guards came around the barricade.
They were not ordinary Enforcers.
Evelyn saw it in the way they moved. Too coordinated for panic. Too focused for confused security. Their armor lacked obvious markings. Their weapons were compact, suppressed, and angled toward anyone approaching the facility rather than anything leaving it. One raised a hand toward his vox bead.
She shot the bead.
The man's ear went with it.
He screamed.
The second fired.
Evelyn was already sliding beneath the line of shots, boots skidding across oil-slick pavement. Her shoulder nearly clipped the ground. She came up inside his reach, pistol tucked close, muzzle pressed against the joint beneath his chest plate.
This time she fired once.
The shot punched through armor at an angle and folded him backward against the barricade. He hit the ground gasping, alive for the moment, probably reconsidering several career choices.
The first man, missing part of his ear and most of his composure, tried to bring his weapon down.
Evelyn stepped in, close enough that his rifle became awkward, close enough that he could smell the smoke in her hair.
"Who are you working for?"
He tried to spit at her.
She moved his rifle aside and broke two of his fingers around the grip.
The spit became a strangled noise.
"Poor choice."
His eyes flicked toward the facility.
Then toward the road behind her.
Not fear of her.
Fear of something connected to being seen talking.
Evelyn's smile thinned.
"There it is."
He reached for something inside his coat.
She drove the knife through the fabric and pinned his hand to the barricade.
A small black charm fell from his sleeve.
It hit the ground between them.
A circle broken by eight uneven cuts.
Evelyn looked at it.
The air around her seemed to lose several degrees.
"Oh," she said.
The man started praying.
Not to the Emperor.
Evelyn hit him hard enough to interrupt theology.
[Objective Updated]
Secondary Objective:
Identify Interfering Party.
Progress:
Symbolic Corruption Detected.
Recommendation:
Report Pattern.
Evelyn looked toward the pulsing facility lights.
"Report to who?"
The system remained silent.
"Exactly."
A heavy stubber mounted near the second barricade swung toward her.
The gunner shouted something brave.
Evelyn smiled at him.
It was the kind of smile people mistook for invitation right up until the consequences arrived.
The weapon opened fire.
She ran toward it.
Rounds tore through pavement, chewed sparks from the kiosk, shattered a roadside shrine into painted fragments. Evelyn crossed the distance in bursts, using the moving pattern of the gun like music. Step, drop, roll, rise. A lasbolt clipped her sleeve. A stubber round grazed her hip hard enough to spin her half sideways. She laughed when it happened, breathless and annoyed, because pain in this body was real and reality had become very smug about it.
"Okay," she said. "That one counts."
[Warning]
Impact Trauma Detected.
Recommendation:
Reduce Exposure.
"Stop flirting."
She vaulted onto the hood of an Enforcer vehicle, pushed off the windshield, caught the edge of the stubber mount, and kicked the gunner in the throat on the way over. He collapsed backward. She landed behind the weapon, spun it around with both hands, and looked at the remaining men at the barricade.
For a second, nobody moved.
Evelyn leaned against the gun shield.
"Hi."
Several weapons lowered by instinct.
That was a mistake.
She fired the heavy stubber into the empty air above them.
The roar shook the barricade. Men dropped. Some out of training. Most out of terror. Evelyn swept the barrel down just enough to cut across the road in front of their boots, carving a line of sparks and broken stone that strongly implied where disagreement ended.
"Stay down."
They stayed down.
Smart men existed after all.
She left the gun smoking and hopped off the mount. Her hip throbbed. Her shoulder still remembered the rooftop collision. Her borrowed instincts kept trying to correct her posture in ways that made her want to argue with herself. The template was good. Incomplete, but good. It made violence efficient. Evelyn made it personal.
A vox set crackled on the barricade table.
"Outer line, report."
Evelyn picked up the handset.
A male voice repeated, "Outer line, report. Confirm containment."
She looked at the unconscious men, the broken charm, the bleeding symbol on the pavement where someone had stepped on it.
Then she smiled.
"Containment's fucked."
Silence.
"Identify."
Evelyn leaned one hip against the table and looked toward the facility.
"You first."
The line cut.
[Integration Updated: 21%]
Combat Adaptation:
Improving
Template Stability:
Acceptable
External Attention:
Increasing
Recommendation:
Proceed with caution.
Evelyn tossed the handset aside.
"Caution and I are seeing other people."
A service entrance sat beyond the barricade, half-hidden behind a row of cargo lifts and portable shrine-panels. Two men guarded it. One saw her coming and made the intelligent choice to run. The other raised his weapon.
Evelyn sighed.
"Always one romantic."
She kept walking.
◃───────────▹
The executor heard the facility change.
Most men would have missed it beneath the sirens, the gunfire, the failing vox traffic, and the groan of old metal under stress. He did not. Sound was information. Pattern was information. Absence was information.
Something had gone wrong outside.
Outer cordon reports stopped mid-cycle. The support frequency cut once, returned for three seconds, then died with a burst of static and a voice he did not recognize.
Female.
Amused.
Unregistered.
Then the line cut.
He stood at the edge of the shaft and listened to the darkness below.
The target had deviated from the projected route. The Inquisitor had adapted. A sealed passage had opened where no passage existed on any map supplied by his employer. Something inside that dark had moved with mass, intent, and old violence. It had struck the chamber door hard enough to dent reinforced metal outward.
Not human.
Not servitor.
Not standard Imperial bioform.
Then came the shot.
One discharge.
Large caliber. Heavy report. Not plasma. Not las. Not any pattern carried by the Inquisitor during the breach. The sound rolled through the shaft with too much weight, too much authority, as though the weapon had been sleeping for centuries and woke offended.
The shot did not target him.
It targeted structure.
A ceiling anchor broke. Stone and dead mechanism collapsed across the entrance, cutting the shaft from the chamber below. Dust rolled up through the dark in a slow gray breath.
The executor did not move until the debris settled.
Then he reloaded the rifle one-handed.
His burned shoulder dragged through the motion. The injury mattered now. Not much. Enough to alter timing. Enough that the target had noticed. Enough that the target had weaponized noticing.
That was unacceptable.
The target lacked training, but lacked training in a way that made him difficult to place inside normal prediction. He spoke when fear should have silenced him. He moved badly, then usefully. He found routes by accident, then exploited them with intent. The Inquisitor shaped him into noise, and the noise had become data.
Now the target had acquired something below.
Possibly two somethings.
The executor adjusted the sling across his wounded shoulder and considered the new field.
Inquisitor Seraphine Voss remained the primary tactical danger. Trained. Disciplined. Armed with plasma and power blade. Capable of adapting under pressure.
The target remained the objective. Untrained. Unstable. Protected by unknown systems or instinctive anomaly. Increasingly difficult to predict.
The creature below represented a proximity threat. Damaged, judging by its movement. Still dangerous. Its aggression had been immediate and protective.
The ballistic asset represented an unknown escalation. The target's discharge had been poor. Pain response likely. Recoil mismanaged. Brace inadequate. No established firearms discipline.
But the shot had hit.
That was the problem.
An incompetent man with a cooperative weapon could become useful faster than doctrine allowed.
Annoying but not dangerous yet.
The executor withdrew the black writ from its cylinder and unfolded it once more.
UNKNOWN MALE SUBJECT RECOVERED BY INQUISITORIAL FORCES.
TERMINATE PRIOR TO CONFIRMATION OF IDENTITY.
BODY RECOVERY PREFERRED.
BODY DESTRUCTION ACCEPTABLE.
INQUISITORIAL CASUALTIES: DISCOURAGED UNLESS OPERATIONALLY NECESSARY.
No line concerning awakened companion-assets.
No line concerning unregistered archaic weapons.
No line concerning an amused female combatant cutting through the outer cordon.
No line concerning sealed impossibilities beneath an Administratum facility older than its own records.
That was the problem with writs.
They never survived contact with reality intact.
He folded the parchment again.
The circle with eight cuts stared up at him for half a second before vanishing into the cylinder.
His employer had wanted the target erased before confirmation of identity.
Confirmation, then, was the true failure condition.
The target did not need to understand what he was.
Others only needed to see enough to begin asking the correct questions.
The executor looked down into the blocked shaft.
Below, the target was moving deeper.
Above, the woman was moving closer.
Between them, the facility was no longer a cage.
It was becoming a convergence point.
He stepped back from the collapsed entrance and turned toward the auxiliary route his employer had marked as unnecessary.
Nothing was unnecessary.
Not anymore.
The hunt had changed shape.
So would he.