Andy held the so-called "holy relic ring" between two fingers, lifting it to his eyes with a look of pure disgust. At that moment, he almost wished he could shut off his tactile sensors.
The surface of the object was coated in a thick layer of dark brown grease—decades of "sacred oils" applied by countless Tech-Priests, mixed with incense ash and dead skin cells to form a crusty patina.
Even worse were the threads. The once-precise threading had been leveled flat by red sealing wax. The Mechanicus had a terrible habit: if a part didn't fit, they assumed it was due to a lack of faith. Their solution was to pack the gaps with high-purity red wax, grandly calling it "Sacred Sealing."
If you wanted to ensure a machine was completely ruined, the best way was to seal its air intake with wax.
The STC interface on Andy's retina was throwing frantic error messages.
[Warning: Part surface contamination 98%.]
[Recommendation: Immediate industrial cleaning.]
Andy didn't have an ultrasonic cleaner; he only had his hands. He leaned down and picked up an oily rag from the floor. The rag was probably cleaner than the priest's robes.
Seeing Andy prepare to rub the "holy relic" against the rag, Gamma-9's eyes nearly bulged out of his head.
"S-Sage!" Gamma-9's voice trembled. "That object carries the blessings of three generations of Bishops! Those sacred oils are—"
"Shut up."
Andy replied with only two words. He had immense strength; as a DAOT engineering unit, his grip could twist rebar into a pretzel. He wrapped the brass ring in the rag, gave it a sharp twist, and scrubbed hard.
The sound of dry wax cracking apart was crisp in the air. Gamma-9 let out a stifled cry, as if Andy weren't scrubbing away filth, but peeling away the priest's very soul. In Warhammer 40K, cleanliness was often viewed as sacrilege, as grime represented the accumulation of history.
But to Andy, cleaning was just cleaning.
In a few quick motions, the blackened ring revealed the original luster of the brass. Andy used his fingernails to scrape the ancient gunk out of the threads until they were spotless. As expected, it was a perfectly ordinary industrial valve without a single decorative carving.
Andy tossed the now-black rag aside and turned toward the screaming air purifier. The machine's vibrations were worsening; a nearby cooling pipe had started spraying water. The apprentices tasked with guarding the machine were kneeling on the floor, banging wrenches against the ground, trying to drown out the alarms with more noise. Unable to solve the problem, they were trying to silence the "speaker" that announced it.
Andy kicked aside an apprentice blocking his path and stood before the gap spewing high-temperature gas. The STC vision instantly locked onto the installation point.
[Target: Main Air Intake Valve Interface.]
[Optimal Torque: 45 Nm.]
[Note: High-temperature surface.]
The heat-resistant coating on Andy's hands allowed him to ignore the scalding steam. He pressed the polished brass valve onto the gap. In that instant, it fit perfectly. The smooth, sliding sensation of industrial standard parts interlocking was so satisfying that Andy's logic core nearly overloaded.
This was how machinery was supposed to be. No damned wax seals, no disgusting oils—just the purest contact of metal on metal.
Andy applied force to his wrist, rotating clockwise. One turn, two turns, three and a half.
Click.
A crisp locking sound echoed. A second later, a miracle occurred.
The massive machine, which had sounded like it was in the final stages of a fatal asthma attack, suddenly stopped vibrating. The piercing screech of metal disappeared, and the black smoke vanished. In its place was a low, powerful, and rhythmic hum—the sound of fan blades slicing through air. The red alarm light at the top of the machine flickered twice before turning a soft, steady green.
Whoosh—
The exhaust vents on either side of the hall suddenly erupted with a powerful current of air. The breeze swept away the persistent, rotting stench of the underhive, bringing in fresh, multi-filtered air.
The refugees who had been coughing and suffocating froze. They breathed in greedily; some even felt a dizzying "oxygen high" from the sudden spike in air quality. Silence fell over the hall, broken only by the steady, healthy thrum of the machine.
Andy brushed the dust off his hands and turned around. He saw Gamma-9 still standing there with his mouth open, the aperture of his cybernetic eye dilating and contracting frantically.
Gamma-9's brain was undergoing a hurricane of realization. A normal person would have felt like an idiot for wearing a critical engine component as jewelry for twenty years. But Gamma-9 was a Tech-Priest. His logic circuits instantly completed a perfect loop of self-rationalization.
"I see..." Gamma-9 whispered, before his volume suddenly spiked. "I SEE!!"
He slammed into a kowtow again, this time with even more sincerity. "This is the ultimate secret of the relic!"
"It isn't just an amulet; it is the missing piece of the Machine Spirit's soul! Archmagos, to save these lowly mortals, you were willing to 'return' such a precious relic to this common iron!"
"What magnificent spirit of sacrifice! What a noble 'Ritual of Return'!"
Hearing this, the apprentices and refugees were struck by a sudden realization. So that was it! No wonder we couldn't fix it before—we hadn't sacrificed the precious holy relic to it!
The gazes directed at Andy shifted from awe to fanaticism. This wasn't just a technical genius; this was a compassionate Living Saint!
Andy looked at the self-righteously emotional zealots with a blank expression. He was tired. Trying to talk sense into these people was harder than teaching an Ogryn calculus. Furthermore, the red warning text on his retinas had become blindingly bright.
[Warning: Battery at 3%.]
[Warning: Entering Forced Sleep Mode soon.]
A deep sense of weakness washed over Andy's consciousness. For an Iron Man, running out of power was death. The fear of his consciousness fading was ten thousand times more terrifying than human hunger. He needed a high-power source now.
What powered this freshly repaired air purifier? A geothermal generator.
Andy looked up at the heavy blast door at the far end of the hall. The STC scan showed a small Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) behind it. Its output was pathetic, but enough to fill his parched batteries.
"Listen..." Andy spoke, his voice carrying a trace of weakness that Gamma-9 interpreted as unfathomable coldness. "This maintenance ritual has consumed too much of my spiritual processing power."
Andy pointed at the door. "I am going into the Energy Core Chamber for deep 'Data Meditation.'"
"No one is to disturb me until I emerge."
Under normal circumstances, such a request would have had Gamma-9 reaching for a weapon. The Energy Core was a sacred restricted area. But now? Gamma-9 didn't hesitate for a second. The "Return of the Relic" miracle had completely shattered his mental defenses. Forget entering the energy room; if Andy had asked to disassemble Gamma-9's prosthetic leg to use as a walking stick, he would have handed it over and asked if it felt comfortable.
"Of course! Of course!" Gamma-9 scrambled over, pulling out an oily magnetic card and swiping it through the rusted reader.
Clunk.
The heavy blast door slowly ground open, and a wave of heat hit Andy's face. Looking at the fuel rods glowing with a faint blue light inside, Andy felt like a starving wolf spotting fresh meat. He resisted the urge to sprint and maintained his "Archmagos" persona as he walked in slowly.
"Close the door," Andy said, his back to the priest.
As the door slammed shut, Andy's tensed body finally slumped. He rushed to the generator set, a universal data probe snapping out from his finger to jam into the crude maintenance port.
"Charge, charge, charge, charge!!"
As the current flooded in, the sensation was so pleasurable Andy nearly cried out. Meanwhile, because he was now connected to the local energy network, his STC database automatically performed a local network scan.
An encrypted message, hidden deep within the low-level code, suddenly popped up:
[Homologous signal detected...]
[Distance: 300 km.]
[Signal Characteristic: STC Standard Template Construct - Fragment - Hydroponic Farm.]