“Anything?” a man, of which there were Four, asked Gale Ryke.

Ryke shook his head. “He may look as a man but his mind is that of a monster,” he reported. “He has materialized the hiding of information, granting physicality to secrecy. Moreover, his mind actively rationalizes everything we do to him as being done by a Greenskin in a battle he once fought. We may torture his body, but his mind is more resilient.”

“His mind could be removed,” another man—no, a creature—replied. The voice was thin and raspy, and partially electronic. “There are…ways to get at what we want where the soul cannot protect him.”

“We agreed to keep him in one piece,” Ryke objected. “For the test.”

“I am still uncertain about the need for the test. There are…simpler subjects. Giving so much leniency to an Inquisitor skirts a great deal of risk,” the fourth and final man explained.

“It does, but—” Ryke began, but was interrupted by the first of the Four.

“But I can provide certain safeguards. Even if the test is a failure, I can guarantee our new friend’s demise,” said the first man.

“And as I was going to say, there may be no better subject for a test of this nature than an Inquisitor with practiced military experience,” Ryke agreed.

“You flatter me,” I replied.

“You had said he would remain conscious only enough to feel pain!” the first man exclaimed, shouting at the ‘thing’ with the raspy voice. “He can’t see us, can he?”

“Monster though he may be, I think not,” Ryke replied, then turned around to me and approached me, laying a blood-soaked hand on my blood-soaked face. “Have any sweet dreams, Blackgar?”

“Plenty. You, Ryke?” I asked.

“He knows your name? This is absurd!” the ‘thing’ objected.

“The interrogation was a two-way mental process,” Ryke began to explain.

“Well it sure seems like he left with more than we got out of it,” the first man growled. “This is all far worse than what we agreed to. Much as I’m confident in my ability to kill him after the test, I am growing more and more inclined to get it over with now. What if I just walked up and put a Bolter round in his head, eh? What then?”

Ryke lowered himself in front of me, and did not turn to speak to his allies. “Then I would be sorely heartbroken,” he replied with a chuckle. With what little strength I had left, I lurched for him, and got nowhere for it due to my restraints. That made Ryke explode into a laugh, after which he stood to his feet. “Give him credit where it’s due, Scayn got far further than you did, and far faster. End result is the same, though.”

“Yes, yes, it’s very fun to prod at the Imperium idiots,” the fourth man said. “We don’t have all the time in the world, here. There’s a matter of…appearances. Are we going to keep making small talk, or are we capable of moving things along?”

“I’d love to sit and chat, personally,” I replied.

“Someone muzzle him, for Throne’s sake,” the first man sighed, exasperated.

“We still have not gotten what we need from him,” the ‘thing’ objected. “Callant Blackgar, Ordo Hereticus,” it addressed me. “Your retinue. What is its size? Where will they be in your absence?” it asked, which confirmed for me that they did not have my team, and moreover, that my team had abandoned the hab, knowing their location was compromised. “How many vessels orbit the Conclave off Quintus? You can die quickly if you answer our questions. Who else knows about the assassins?”

“Plural?” I asked, grinning a bloody grin.

“For frig’s sake,” Ryke gave up, and bashed me across the head, knocking me out.

***

I had grown accustomed to the Abseradon smell. But what I next awoke to was far, far worse. Indescribably worse. Putrefaction to the absolute extreme.

Where once I had been restrained to some torture rack, now I was free. Relatively. As I pried my eyes open, I found myself laying in a wet, spongy…something, my arms and legs free to move around. “Ah, he awakens at last!” exclaimed the first man from my interrogation. He was not present in the dark, damp room I found myself in. Instead, he was voxxing in from above, his voice somewhat garbled. “I was a man of some faith once. I will give you time to say your prayers to the Throne, before your end, Blackgar.”

“Did you let Scayn say his?” I said, and found I had the strength to sit up. In fact, I had a great deal of strength. I suspected some time had passed since I was last conscious. While my body was sore and bruised all over, and while I bore stitched wounds I had not before, they were stitched. Speaking of which, my body—I had no shirt. I had some pants on, but that was it. For whatever reason, they left me with my Rosette, which now dangled from a necklace I was wearing.

“Not my operation, that. Ah, your Rosette, yes. Your body is unlikely to survive what will follow, but your Rosette should. For confirming your death, you see. Worry not, we’ll let the authorities take it, return it to your Ordo. We have no need for it,” the voice explained.

“How considerate,” I muttered, and gingerly stood to my feet. I was barefoot, just like Penitent. The floor was wet and squishy. “You got a name, voice in the sky?”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“You could call me Throne if you like.”

“I do not believe I will do that.”

“Ha! I thought not. Vostroya, then.”

“Is that where you’re from?” I asked, taking a small step forward. Still wet and squishy.

“It is. Where are you from, Inquisitor?”

“Pyrras-3,” I replied, which was in fact the truth.

“Neighbors! Ha! Small galaxy. Well, Pyrras, I won’t mince words—this isn’t a particularly kind ending. If you have prayers, now’s the time,” Vostroya told me. I did, in fact. I prayed that this damn conversation was nearing its conclusion. And I prayed I would get to see Penitent again, sometime soon. I found I was missing her company dearly. “Gotta die sometime, eh? I’ll see you on the other side someday, Pyrras. Lights in a few, mind your eyes.”

I shielded my eyes a bit, just in time for Vostroya to kick the lights on in the room. It was still quite dim, but far brighter than pure darkness. In the process of the lights turning on, I had found the missing biomass. It was beneath my feet, mounding up and down across the room like a landscape of flesh. Pulped fluid flowed through my toes, a dense, meat-red stream of processed biocarbon. “Is your test not throwing up?” I asked Vostroya.

“Afraid not, Pyrras,” he laughed. “I believe our test is to your four o’clock,” he told me, and I turned around to find a goliath of a man rising from under a blanket of flesh. Whatever this creature was, it stood at a height well in excess of Penitent, and was more scarified than I was. No, I knew what this was at the sight of it, and it horrified me. I had never thought such a defilement of His Angels was possible, but it was there, rising before me. Towering over me. “They’re not perfect, not yet.”

“I can tell,” I stammered, backing away. “This is heresy of the highest order.”

“Perhaps.”

“No perhaps. What you are doing here, this should not be.”

“And why not?”

“You cannot make an Angel,” I shouted, and my raised voice made the thing glance at me. I continued to back up slowly.

“Then what is that before you?”

“An abomination,” I replied.

“You see an abomination. We see the future. Think of it—mankind no longer enslaved to its own limits. The means to make an Angel of us all. What Xenos filth exists in the universe that could stand before a trillion trillion Astartes, hm?” Vostroya asked, and broke into laughter. “And the best part—and I’m sure you’ll like this, being a Psyker and all—they cannot fall to darkness. They are without a presence in the Warp. Your mind, and the mind of every daemon foe throughout the cosmos, cannot slay them. Now I admit, there’s a few kinks still to work out. This one, before you, is far from the might of His Angels. But even so, I’m quite confident you’ll find it far from your might as a man.”

“This is wrong. This is so, unfathomably wrong. You can’t do this. You can’t manufacture them. They’ll have no loyalty, no sense of—” I objected, but Vostroya shouted me down.

“No loyalty? No loyalty? Inquisitor, we designed their loyalty! And what were you going to say, comradery? Who needs that in the presence of such numbers as would sink continents beneath the seas by their weight alone? Mass-produced, perfect death, in unlimited quantities. Every foe mankind ever knew or could know, stomped out under an ocean of the best fighting forces imaginable. With what we have today, we could take this city in a few hours. With what we could have tomorrow…dear Pyrras, your beloved 8th would not have needed to die.”

“I had already vowed to kill you all out of vengeance, Vostroya, but for this…this demands so much more,” I started, but was again interrupted.

“More than you can give, Pyrras. Farewell. Astartes, grab him,” Vostroya called. I did not need to see the abomination move to know that I needed to run. But it was for nothing. By the time I turned around, the beast had already broken into a sprint, blazing toward me on all fours like a hound. I had seen the Astartes move before, and truthfully, I could not discern difference of speed between them and this thing. I must believe there is a difference, but it must be imperceptible to mortal eyes. In a blur, the great monster had pounced upon me by the time I had taken but four steps from it, closing the gap between us like the nightmare that it was. It tackled me into the fleshy ground, pressing my face to the mountainous biomass, and kept me pinned there. If Vostroya wanted it, he could have killed me then and there in an instant. “Pyrras, are you right- or left-handed?” Vostroya called.

“Throne burn you,” I gasped, air punching out of my panicked gut in hastened bursts.

“Bah, I suppose it doesn’t matter,” Vostroya decided. “Astartes, break his right arm.” Before I could blink, pain blasted through my body. The thing had twisted my arm to an impossible angle in an instant. “Astartes, off him. Let him see.”

“S-see?” I cried, reaching away with my one good arm and trying in desperation to crawl onward. “There’s nothing here but your madness and the laughter of a grim universe!” I yelled, pulling at thick flesh for dear life.

“Sit up, Pyrras.”

“You command that thing, not me, heretic,” I spat back.

“Astartes, sit him on his ass,” Vostroya commanded, and I was subsequently hoisted into the air by the unseen monster behind me, spun around, and placed upon the ground as instructed. “Do you see it, Callant Blackgar?”

I looked up at the beast, shivering in pain and sweat. “See what, you piece of voidshit?”

“The precision. The accuracy. The loyalty. I give an order, I speak some words, and your world changes. This is but a prototype. Imagine the real thing,” Vostroya declared, sounding proud of himself.

“I will not envision your heresy for you, scum,” I protested.

Vostroya chuckled. “Hm. Defiant to the last, eh? Perhaps we’ll turn you into one of these. I imagine you’ll make a fine specimen. Astartes, cross the room. I want you to see it, Pyrras, I really want you to see it. I’ll have the Heretek sift through your mind afterward. I’ll need to know if you saw it coming.”

“Will you?” I growled, teeth clenched harder than when the Greenskin jammed its power claw into my chest cavity and jolted me, and painstakingly forced myself to my feet. The last member of the 8th was going to die on his feet, facing the foe, as all the rest did. I grabbed my Rosette with my left hand, my good hand, and readied myself. “Come on, Vostroya! Show me! I wanna see it!” I screamed, blood joining my spittle as I gave the order.

“With pleasure. Astartes, kill him.”

Even with the monster all the way across the spacious room, I did not wait to see it move. To hesitate against an Angel was to embrace death. I began the motions I had intended as soon as Vostroya gave the order, but even so, before I had even begun to move, the monster was on all fours again, a maddening blur of inhuman insanity.

My breath was fire and my gaze was lighting. I shrugged off the necklace they had given me and whipped it toward the beast. As my Rosette left my grasp, psykematic lightning leapt from my fingertips onto the seal of my Ordo, propelling it forward. In the next blink of an eye, the monster raced past me, crashing with a damp thud into a pile of flesh at my rear. As my Rosette sailed across the room, the monster’s head landed some distance away from me. “Not so immune to my mind after all, huh, Vostroya?” I shouted, and heard a significant smashing clash through the vox. I think he was angry.

Slowly, painfully, I strolled across the room to fetch my Rosette. “Chevekian zadnik!” Vostroya shouted, speaking his native tongue. “Test…,” he growled into the vox, though I suspect he was not much talking to me and more reporting in to his group of heretic scum. “Failure. I will bury him.”

As soon as I got my Rosette back in my grasp and slung the necklace overhead, an opening formed in a faraway wall, letting dim, orange light shine into the still-dark room. Viscous fluid began to seep out of the opening. “What’s that then?” I asked Vostroya.

“Your freedom. Have a look.”