Hibiki

It was a room as dark as any decorated to the Eternal Emperor's preference, though Hibiki knew the guest just deposited unceremoniously in the small pool of light in front of him would see just fine all the same. The cyborg lay as Hibiki's Imperial Guardsmen had dropped him, half on his side, the red paint on his sleeveless left arm shining. The prosthetics, disabled, neither twitched nor attempted to push him upright.

Hibiki took the small black remote from the hand of a bowing Guardsman, who promptly retreated from the room. The face of the remote held only a row of old-fashioned, hard plastic slide switches. After watching for a long moment to see whether Horace would attempt to rise on his own, Hibiki slid the first of the switches to the up position.

The cyborg didn't move.

Hibiki resisted the temptation to reach out and poke the outflung metal hand with his toe. "Get up, Bolt. Aren't you honoured to be in the presence of your emperor?"

"What the fuck do you want, arsehole?" Horace pushed slowly up to hands and knees. "Fifteen percent? Really?"

"I doubt you could kill me with thirty before my guards responded to the panic button, but it would be unpleasant. However I am quite certain that you can stand normally under fifteen percent of your own power. Do stop making such a production of it, dear boy."

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The cyborg sat up onto his heels, scowling a storm up at Hibiki. He had to reach down with a hand to steady himself as he rose to his feet. Incapable of slouching, he stood at attention, facing Hibiki, and waited.

"I have a task for you."

"Oh, really? And what need does the almighty emperor have for a humble archivist, milord?"

The Emperor spoke flatly. "I need the Lictor."

"You bastard, I'm a librarian."

"I don't suppose an appeal to your patriotism will have any effect?"

"Hah."

"Or the wellbeing of people of the Empire?"

Horace's eyes narrowed, and he held his tongue.

Hibiki held up the remote, tilted it back and forth between his fingers to play the light over its surface. "Do it and I'll give you this."

"What's to stop you making a duplicate?"

"Oh, nothing," said the Emperor, allowing a hint of mirth into his voice. "But it wouldn't matter. This one has the spouse of your security chip. With the pair, any of a dozen roboticists here or across the Taranto could change your codes and render any duplicate I made useless. I'd offer you recommendations, but I know you wouldn't trust me that far."

Horace's mouth was open, not gaping wide but probably wider than he realised. He needed nothing more than a quick internal diagnostic, if that, to confirm the truth of Hibiki's offer.

To ram the point home, the Eternal Emperor said, "Do this, and you are finally free of me."

The cyborg was quiet for a long moment. Hibiki saw his metal fingers twitch slightly, read in the motion a rush of desperate violence suppressed. Finally, disgust twisting his lips into a sneer, Horace said, "What do you need?"

"Lachlan has sent one of his boys into rather serious danger." Vox did not need to clarify to Horace of all people who Lachlan was. "You're to shadow him. Ensure he lives to deliver whatever he learns to us."