Mekki’s Story
Zelia was struggling to breathe, even with the oxygen mask strapped tight across her mouth. The streets of Aparitus were like an oven. Every doorway they passed added to the discomfort, heat pouring out from the volcano furnaces that burned at the heart of every manufactorum. Then there was the noise: the constant grinding of gears, the hiss of pistons and the relentless strike of hammers against metal. How the Adeptus Mechanicus worked in these conditions was beyond her, especially in all those robes.
But work they did. Zelia doubted Aparitus was ever quiet, with the production lines running continually, night and day.
Not that she could see the imposing bastions of industry that belched out fumes she could taste even through the rebreather. The city was drenched in a thick, ochre fog. It was impossible to see where you were going, and Zelia kept having to jump out of the way of servitors lugging heavy equipment, or adepts scuttling from building to building on metal legs. Skimmers and transporters whizzed overhead, the smog swirling in their wake. They’d only travelled a few blocks, but Zelia was already totally disorientated, having to rely on Mekki and the map he’d downloaded before they left the workshop.
‘How much further?’ she asked, her voice muffled by the mask.
The Martian checked the display of his wrist-cogitator. ‘Not far at all.’
‘That’s great,’ she lied, leaning against a wall. The metal was painfully hot, but she needed to rest. ‘Just let me catch my breath, okay?’
‘We do not have time,’ Mekki insisted, peering into the brume.
‘Just calm down,’ she told him. ‘No one’s following us. Not that they’d be able to in all this fog.’
He tapped the screen impatiently. ‘Very well. But we cannot wait long.’
‘Thanks.’ She had another reason for wanting to stop – her curiosity. ‘So… about this Cult…’
He frowned at her. ‘You wish to discuss that now?’
She shrugged. ‘As I said, I need a breather.’
He looked around again, and then moved in close, lowering his voice so she had to strain to hear.
‘Back on Mars, my parents belonged to a faction…’
‘The Cult…’
‘A faction who believed that standard template constructs were limiting human development.’
‘And what are they?’
‘What are what?’
‘The standard template whatever-you-just-said?’
‘Standard template constructs,’ Mekki repeated. ‘They are a record, an index containing the sum total of human knowledge.’
‘So far, you mean?’
He shook his head. ‘Not according to the Mechanicus. The STCs contain the blueprints for every building, every weapon, every vehicle and every tool utilised by the Imperium. There can be no deviation. That’s why the hives of Targian look so similar, for example, to the hives of Aralan or Regallus.’
‘Because they’re constructed using the same plans.’
‘And built with exactly the same tools.’
‘So, your parents thought they could do better?’
‘They thought they should be allowed to try. The Adeptus Mechanicus are narrow-minded at best and fanatical at worst. We are not allowed to innovate, to think for ourselves.’ He lifted the exo-frame that encased his withered arm, the servos creaking. ‘According to the STC, this limb should have been removed at birth, replaced with a bionic device…’
‘But you followed a different path.’
A tech-adept swept past, robes billowing. Mekki grabbed Zelia, pulling her into the shadows until he could be sure they hadn’t been overheard.
‘I knew we could save my arm,’ he whispered. ‘I built this with my mother. That was a happy day.’ He looked at her, tears welling in his grey eyes. ‘My parents always encouraged me to think beyond the STC. I have been inventing all my life.’
Zelia frowned. ‘But if innovation is prohibited…’
‘The faction was betrayed. They were reported to the Inquisition.’
‘And that’s why you don’t trust Jeremias.’
He nodded. ‘We were dragged through the streets. Sent for processing.’
She frowned, confused. ‘What kind of processing?’
Mekki cocked his head, indicating the stomp of heavy servitor boots on the walkways.
Zelia’s skin crawled as she realised what he was saying. ‘So, you mean…’
‘All the stories about servitors are true. Some are grown in vats but the majority are those who dared to break the rules, to innovate…’ His face darkened. ‘To refuse to fight in the Imperium’s wars.’
She felt sick. ‘Like Talen.’
‘We were determined not to suffer their fate,’ Mekki continued. ‘I fought my way out and have been running ever since.’
‘What about your parents?’
A tear ran down the boy’s cheek, cutting a path through the grime of the city. ‘They sacrificed themselves so I could escape Mars.’
Zelia thought of the pain she felt being separated from her own mother. At least she knew her mum was alive. Mekki had never had that.
‘You were alone.’
‘At first, yes. I fell in with some… questionable individuals before I met your mother. She needed help on the Scriptor so I invented the servo-sprites.’
Zelia smiled at the thought of Mekki’s favourite inventions, tiny winged robots no larger than a strike-sparrow. She remembered the day her mum had showed them to her, how she’d laughed as they’d flitted around the Scriptor’s storage bay.
She wanted to pull Mekki into a hug, to tell him that it was all going to be all right, but she knew he wouldn’t thank her. Instead she settled for two simple words: ‘I’m sorry.’
Mekki looked down at his wrist-screen, pretending to study the map. ‘We should be going.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed, tightening the straps of her mask. ‘We should.’
He surprised her as he took her wrist, leading her through the fog. She flinched, not from his touch but as something sharp stung her cheek. ‘Ow?’
It was like being jabbed by an invisible needle. She wiped her face, her fingers coming back wet. She shook the water from her fingertips. That hurt!
She went to look up.
‘No,’ Mekki said, stopping her. ‘It’s started to rain.’
She felt the colour drain from her already sore cheeks. ‘Acid rain?’
Mekki checked the auspex in his wrist-screen. ‘Not potent enough to cause serious damage, but if it becomes heavier…’
She grabbed his hand. ‘Which way to the tower?’
They walked for ten minutes. The rain was clearing the fog, but was also becoming heavier by the minute. Zelia’s face already felt as if it had been scrubbed with an iron brush and the fabric of her jacket was steaming in the downpour.
‘Here we are,’ Mekki said, shielding his eyes so he could look up at the tower that rose majestically in front of them like a gigantic spire. Pipes clung to its sloping sides, fans the size of voidship turbines whirring behind the sigil of the Adeptus Mechanicus, a cybernetic skull surrounded by a sharp-toothed cog.
‘The vox-transmitter is on top of that?’ Zelia asked, her jacket over her head to protect her face from the stinging rain.
‘Indeed it is, although the real question is how we are going to get up there.’ He glanced at the entrance to the building, which was guarded by armed skitarii. ‘I doubt they are going to let us wander in.’
Zelia pulled her omniscope from beneath her jacket, snapping open the telescopic lens to search the spire’s riveted walls.
‘There’s a landing platform,’ she said. ‘Ten. Maybe twelve storeys up…’
‘My question still stands, unless you have learned how to fly?’
Zelia ignored the question as a low-flying grav-truck forced them to duck, the blast of its stabilisers churning up the rubbish on the streets before it. Mekki noticed her smiling as she watched the traffic weaving through the crowded skies.
‘Zelia Lor?’
She beamed at him from behind her mask. ‘Mekki, I have an idea, but I’m not sure you’re going to like it…’