Gregory Yates

“…And why is it that you cry out so wretchedly, system-slave? Pain? Anguish? Oh, you make me sick.

"I know more about pain than you could ever imagine. My mind is filled with it. Filled with the agony, and with the horror… but I must stop; my words are meaningless. How could I make you understand? My mind has been dulled like lead, and my eyes no longer see as they should. One would say I am crippled in that respect.

"So I must show you my pain, system-slave. I must touch you with these broken limbs of mine, and teach you the true meaning of futility. For your life, system-slave, is mine. It belongs to me.

“What's wrong? Would you like me to spare you? It would be most novel, after all. Coming this far only for me to send you back to your little home would be a fine thing for me to tell my comrades! But...tell me something, little system-slave. How do you feel, right now? Scared? Angry? It is natural to feel such emotions - it is such a terrible thing to be helpless! I should know, friend. I should know.

“Let me tell you a story. A terrible, terrible story… oh, do not worry, system-slave! I will not be long. I will not dither on the particulars. After all, we have business to be getting down to.

“May I carry on? Good. Sit back. Listen to my tale."

“It started a long, long time ago, back on my homeworld. I was just like you, back then. Younger, of course, but I too was a worker. Just another little ant in the great Imperial nest. And I lived with my family – I forget their names now – in a small prefab west of the Hive on Xeyclone Four. Don’t worry; I don’t expect you to remember Xeyclone. It was never the most famous of worlds. Mechanicus, you see; another grey world full of machines.

“Every day we would go to work in the Industrial Sectors - and every night, we would return. Same hour, same schedule, every day. Never changed. And it was slow, tedious work too; but we were happy for it. We were content. The Adeptus made sure of that. They made sure we were never overworked, and that our families were looked after. Looking back, it all makes sense. They didn’t want us to rebel.

“But what they got was far worse.”

“It started off small. Just one man, complaining of a bad chest. Days later we all had it – a burning, choking sensation in our stomachs that no amount of moprhia would ease. Work was called off. Factories grinded to a halt. Thousands of credits worth of material was wasted, all because of that disease. Steelbane, we were calling it. Hah! We knew so little. So very, very little.

“Of course, months later, it still hadn’t gone. They called the Medicus in, hoping that they would recognise the symptoms. They didn’t. But they did prescribe something – a pill, of some sort, if I remember correctly. A cure. They told us it would make the pain stop.

"It didn’t. It made it worse. It changed us. We no longer recognised ourselves when we looked into the mirror. We no longer saw what others saw.

“Some of us went to the medics. Told them about the problem, told them that they were sick and needed healing. But they were turned away. They were told it was all in their head. That they were insane. But they were wrong, system-slave. Wrong!

“A few more weeks passed, and the sickness gradually worsened. Our skin began to deteriorate, as if it had been scorched by one of the suns. Our once strong muscles, the very mark of the worker’s pride, began to shrink, until they were little more than pathetic lumps of flesh. We were left as hulks. Shadows of our former health. When the medics saw this, they panicked, and finally realised what they had done. But it was too late. We were plagued and there was going to be no cure.

“The uprising started then. We lashed out, with as much hate as we could muster. We tore down buildings in our fury, destroyed the factories that we had once lived for. We burnt our former lives, and found a twisted glee in the ashes. Our families fled then, terrified of the monsters their fathers and husbands had become. We didn’t care. We were so far gone, system-slave! You could not possibly understand.

“Our world was declared Quarantine, and was quickly locked down. Nobody in, nobody out. Orbital security systems were activated, to prevent us from leaving the atmosphere, and the few remaining factory servitors were ordered to dismantle their precious machines. A deathly silence fell upon Xeyclone, and we knew that we were finally alone.

“Time passed. Hard, long months of little food and freezing winter cycles went by. We salvaged what we could from our homes, and fled to the capital city. What else were we to do? Our families were gone, and we had been abandoned by the Imperium of man. All we had was each other - the mutilated victims of the Medics. The first thing we did was destroy the mirrors. We did not wish to look upon ourselves, so much was our torture. Then we adorned ourselves in masks – black, ugly things that we had found hidden in the many chemical plants that lay about the city.

“This made it better, made the pain easier to bear. We did not have to look at each other. We could almost forget our deformities. We may not have been able to conceal what was inside us; but we had concealed what was without. That was all that mattered - or so we thought. Food was running low. We needed shelter. Talk began of cannibalism, eating our former comrades who passed away. After all, we reasoned, why not? As I said, we thought of ourselves as monsters. To devour human flesh was but one more step on the road we had walked miles upon. So we did it. At first, it was awful. We retched, and cursed our fortune for having to sink to such depraved depths.

“Soon, however, we grew accustomed to it. And we needed more. We no longer waited for each other to die; we just killed, and fed. We became little more than animals, a sick parody of humans underneath twisted masks. And because of this, our numbers dropped rapidly. By the end of the third winter cycle there was little more than a score of us left. Xeyclone had become a dead world.

“We had given up all hope; our fate was sealed. We were going to die alone, on a planet that had betrayed us. How ironic – it was not going to be the disease that ended our miserable existence, but the winter. We sat down and waited for sweet death.

“Then we saw the ship.”

“I do not know - even to this day - how it managed to get through the atmosphere, or past the Adeptus defences. But when I saw it blazing across the sky, looking for all the world like a portent from the God-Emperor himself, I didn’t care. Neither did the others. We cast down our paltry supplies and sped off towards it, the beacon of hope blazing in our hearts.

“We ran for about an hour until, finally, it was in our sight. Such was our joy that we had even taken our cursed masks off. Our faces were once again free to the open air. We thought we were to be freed, you see? We were going to end this insanity!

”We approached the ship, hardly daring to breathe for excitement. It was closed. Why would it be closed, we had thought. Surely if they are here to rescue us, they would have opened the doors by now? Still, we forced them open. And what we found inside almost killed us.

“It was empty. The grey hull clicked with the whirr of automated processes. There was no crew, no rescue team, nothing. An unmanned flight, apparently. Just an information drone that had strayed too close to our planet’s atmosphere. It was…sickening. All our glee evaporated in a single moment, and we all broke down in bitter tears. We sat there for hours, just crying. Alone - we wouldn’t look at one other.

“The radio started beeping behind us, and we almost didn’t hear it through our weeping. But I did. I answered the call, explaining our situation. And do you know what they said, system-slave? They said they were going to help us. After all this time, after all the disappointment, they were going to help us. Liars. When they did come, they came to destroy us. But we struck the first blow, using lasguns we had found hidden in the Refinery days before. Our attack was fierce, and unforgiving. They fell like corn beneath a scythe, and we devoured their broken bodies – along with those of our own - like the ghouls we represented.

“Then we returned to the mount we had crossed earlier, and found our masks buried deep in the snow. We wore them once more.

“And then we left. We flew it out of Xeyclone, without looking back.”

“Now we are here, system-slave, on your world. That is all you are, you know. A system-slave. Just another thoughtless worker for the Imperium’s bloated system. Nobody cares for you. Nobody is coming to help you; there is no ship, no beacon – nothing! Not even that fat, writhing Emperor of yours can save you from me. You are alone.

“Can you see my needle? Look at it shine, system-slave! I am going to kiss you with it. Oh… did I not tell you? Before we left Xeyclone, we took a little sample of the substance we were mining. It turns out that it was radiation that did this to us. That is inconsequential, now. What matters is that it is part of you now?

"Can you feel it? I’m sliding it into your skin, little system-slave… there! All done. I will leave you now.

“Oh, don't be silly. You can’t warn them, when they come to find you. You have no tongue, system-slave. And I cut off your hands! So painful, for a poor little worker like you. So very hurtful.

"I will leave you now, system-slave. Don't be sad; I have an important task for you. I need you to go.”

“Go and infect.”

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