The Pigtown Flaying
Rosa led Nadiya, Amon, Sister Airi and Acid on a mission in the Sejanus lower hive to investigate some brutal and suspicious murders.
Briefing
Nadiya forwarded the following message on to the other agents in the Obelisk and asked that those who were free assemble in briefing room 2:
+++TO: Ash Lear; Max Drent; Nadiya Zelenko; Acid;
+++DUPLICATE: Inquisitor Kovach;
+++FROM: Siveter Lund;
+++SUBJECT: Magistratum contact
Hello guys, just catching up with my comms traffic here. It’s mostly rubbish about hair extension pills or something.
However, I did have a bit of an odd one come in from the Magistratum. Might be worth checking out.
I sent this to you three as I’m never sure which Inquisitors are around the Obelisk and you’re pretty reliable with comms. Also, pretty sure that both Drake and Michael are away at the moment.
>>> +++TO: Special Case Inbox
>>> +++FROM: Handry, Esteban
>>> +++SUBJECT: Strange murders
Hello, Mr Lund,
We met last year and you gave me your contact details for if anything ever came in that was out of the usual or that we couldn’t handle.
Anyway, we’ve had a couple of gang murders down to the eastern fringes of pigtown. Gang killings aren’t anything unusual down here but these ones are weird - we might have a nasty serial killer on our hands.
Not sure if you’re interested but I thought I’d put it your way in case it's one of your ‘specials’.
The killings are hard to describe - it might be better to send someone down here to see for yourself. Ask for myself or Doc Vacaron.
Emperor Delivers
Capt Handry.
Precinct 26 Magistratum.
+++MESSAGE ENDS
Acid, who had been off the active roster since the Kuunyesu Marooned mission, decided this would be a suitable mission for her as her first step back into active status. Being in the kitchen at the time, she mentioned it to Amon as something he could also consider and he decided to join her. In the briefing room they were joined by Nadiya, Sister Aria and Rosa. Nadiya suggested that with no clear senior agent and with Rosa having recently completed a successful solo investigation, she should take the lead. Rosa readily accepted.
The team having deciding on an overt approach, Sister Airi allowed Acid to help her don her power armour, something that Acid was very excited to do.
The Mission
The team headed down hive and went first to the Magistratum. The bodies were revealed to be two members of the Corbells gang, their flesh and organs having been almost entirely removed from their skeletons. They had been found outside of a slaughterhouse that was temporarily undergoing repairs and refit. They had died sometime overnight.
Acid and Amon investigated the Corbells gang. Acid was particularly stressed about having to go undercover, but fitting in with a hive gang was perhaps the easiest undercover she could attempt given her upbringing, and their cover story minimised lies the lies they would be telling. Whilst they learned nothing useful they did discover the best rat burgers in the hive, and introduced Sister Airi to fired roaches (something Acid refuses to eat after having too many in her youth).
Despite her fear of the inevitable pain of reliving such a horrible death, Rosa tried a séance with the bodies. She could not connect, embarrassing her somewhat in front of Sister Airi who was protecting/observing her. Later she managed to connect with the bloody remains at the crime scene and discovered the pair had been fleeing from the slaughterhouse when they were attacked and sliced apart by some hard to see swarm. All that could be seen were dozens of glowing red lights.
Nadiya investigated the scene and found little of use except possible camera footage. Although the results came back too late to be useful in the investigation they did later corroborate the teams’ conclusions.
Ultimately investigating the slaughterhouse resulted in the discovery of a swarm of small drone auto-butchers whose code had been corrupted to identify humans as meat. This change was performed by Magos Bei Chan as a futile attempt at self defence when underhive scavs broke in and murdered her two days prior.
Aftermath
- The code was cleaned up and the auto-butchers taken offline until they were deemed safe.
- The local Magistratum were informed of the guilty parties in case they ever showed up again.
- They were also reprimanded for not connecting the gang murders with the death of the Magos, a serious lack of effort for a case deemed important enough to warrant the attention of the Inquisition.
- Captain Handry apologised but pointed out their terrible lack of resources.
- Amon made trifle for everyone.
- Acid got very excited about helping Airi take her armour off.
Communications
+++TO: Amon Carlin
+++FROM: Sister Airi
+++SUBJECT: Thank-you.
Greetings Amon,
First and foremost, thank you for the ill advised introduction to loaded roaches. I understand this was your first field mission in some time, and loaded roaches aside, I just wanted to say I was glad you attended. I never thanked you for your assistance, back on Diaphone. I know that the memories of that day give you troubles. They trouble me. However, the notion that I am not so alone in those troubles makes them slightly more bearable. I can't offer you any camaraderie in the kitchen (I can only brew spirits and Acid appears to be quite sufficient) but I am available if you ever wish to talk, meditate or spar. I've yet to meet anyone here worth their salt in a ring!
Yours Faithfully,
Sister Airi
The path to duty is often a stony one, made smoother by thought for others
+++END MESSAGE
+++TO: Rosa Richter
+++FROM: A(|D
+++SUBJECT: Post Mission
Hey Rosy Cheeks,
Congrats on your first mission as leader! A+, ten out of ten, would definitely be led by you again. It seems your star is ascendant!
I'm sorry if I was insensitive about psychic powers. I see you and Nadiya swanning about throwing lightning at people like it ain't no thang and I guess I never realised what it was costing you on the insides. You seem to handle it so well. And there was me eagerly trying to get hold of a dead body assuming you'd do your thing and totally oblivious to how hard it would be for you. I really am sorry about that.
If ever you want to talk about stuff then, well obviously I'm here as a keen but basically uneducated ear, but you might also consider talking to Gaius Umberto, Kovach's Savant. Whilst you were off on your solo mission I went on a mission that, well it didn't end entirely well. I've been speaking with Gaius a lot since then and he's really helped. This was actually my first active mission since then.
I'm glad you liked the trifle. Nadiya said she ate it but I never saw her so I think she's just trying to be polite. I can't really claim any credit for it, Amon's the chef, I just chop and stir things for him. And sometimes he let's my lick his spoon.
A(|D
+++END MESSAGE
+++TO: Nadiya Zelenko
+++FROM: A(|D
+++SUBJECT: Software
Hi Nadiya
I got the software you asked for. It occured to me it would be easy enough to plant some spyware in there to report back to us. We could modify Siv's donkey tracker to look for patterns indicating corruption. Obviously it's not going to catch someone taking cash bribes to look the other way but it would be able to detect at least some of the dodgy behaviour. Crime reports being deliberately ignored and suppressed, that sort of thing.
Dunno what we'd do with it though. I know that we don't have time to start policing all the bent Maggys in the hive, we've got bigger grox to barbecue. Or indeed what would happen to the hive once we'd arrested basically all of the coppers. Strategy is above my pay grade, I'm just saying we have the tech if you want it. No harm in installing it now even if we don't know what we'd do with it maybe?
What would you say was your favourite part of the trifle?
A(|D
+++END MESSAGE
+++TO: Sister Airi
+++FROM: Amon Carlin
+++SUBJECT: Re: Thank-you
Thanks for saying that, Sister. What happened on Diaphone was the worst thing I'd ever seen, and I can't even imagine what it must have been like for you. It was your home. I'm so sorry. Violence is definitely my thing but that was...something else. Something awful. I can still smell it sometimes, is that weird?
Happy to spar any time. Maybe not with power armour? I think I could give you competition.
Amon
+++MESSAGE ENDS
+++TO: A(1D
+++FROM: Amon
So my mum is moving and sent a box of my old merch from the gladiator days and if you PROMISE not to show any of the others you can have a look if you want.
+++MESSAGE ENDS
+++TO: Amon Carlin
+++FROM: A(|D
YES! I swear. Not a word. Lips are sealed. Master Blaster pinky promise!
+++MESSAGE ENDS
+++TO: Ashar Lear
+++FROM: A(|D
+++SUBJECT: Upgrades
My Cybernetic Sister,
How's the mission with Max going? Amon and I discovered the best rat place in the hive, you guys have to come with us when you get back! Also we introduced Aria to roaches! She loves them! Is there a word for the way colours can clash except for with concepts? If there is, then apply it to a fully armoured battle sister eating a bag of deep fried roaches.
So. Hfff. Got a heavy decision to make and I feel like you're the one most likely to understand. Hope you don't mind if I unload a bit?
Speaking of Aria's power armour, she let me help her put it on and take it off for our mission.
Oh, yeah, I went on a mission again. Sorry to bury the lead.
Anyway the power armour is INCREDIBLE! Seriously I'm still dreaming about those ceremite thighs. The craftsmanship is amazing. Microservos and distributed processing. And that backpack is a fusion reactor! The curves of the plating Ash! The curves! Don't get me started on the articulation of the knee joints!
Anyway I asked Acetae if he could make me some. I mean, obviously whilst Aria looks fucking incredible in them, a corset and power books are not exactly my look, but I know it comes in different styles and frankly if it were necessary I'd put up with some stiff boning for the strength enhancing rig alone, let alone the plate.
Unsurprisingly, I guess, we just don't have the materials or machinery necessary. They only produce them on the best Forgeworlds and even then they take years of work to produce one suit. But, well, have you read much about Tau? I know you caught one on Iosmiri. They aren't advanced enough to make anything like power armour but instead build sort of pilotable exo-suits called Crisis Suits.
Michael has expressly forbidden us from calling it a Crisis Suit, or from making it look anything like Tau stuff, and obviously from using any of the Tau tech you recovered from Iosmiri, but has approved the project.
Given my size, Acetae says he can build something compact enough to be about the size of an Ogryn. I'd be pretty huge but still small enough to move around indoors (carefully).
The thing is, Acetae says to pilot it he'd need to give me another nerve shunt. Same thing we've got that connects our cybernetic limbs, but this one would be bigger and need to connect directly to my skull or upper spine.
I'm kinda nervous about the idea. It's one thing to have something installed on a stump to give me back the use of my arm, but this is a much more serious endeavour and not really necessary, it's not a repair, it's an extra.
What do you think? Acetae is still in transit back with Michael so I've got some time to think about it and decide.
A(|D
+++END MESSAGE
+++TO: A(|D
+++FROM: Nadiya
+++SUBJECT: Software
[BEGIN VOICE TRANSCRIPT, timestamp 02:17 local; note: rustling in background (paper), sound of cogitators. A ping can be heard at 0:32.4, poss. recaf blender completing brew cycle.]
Excellent ideas about the software. We should definitely install that on the servers. Yes.
Of course while I'm tempted to go in and remonstrate with corrupt officers in person, it seems we might be better served by forwarding our discoveries to Magistratum Internal Affairs, then keeping tabs on whether they're followed up.
Since Drake is declared for Hereticus I think it would be within our remit to acquire a cleric to monitor this traffic, and ensure that what we're sending Internal Affairs contains no false flags. Oh, and that IA are actually following up on these freebies. If that reveals even higher levels of corruption then it might be a job for the Arbites or maybe even us.
I should probably send Drake a message about all this.
It turns out you can get quite the discount on servers if you buy in bulk. I just acquired 368 for the mid and lower-hive precincts, and they're getting delivered tomorrow, but it turns out getting them installed requires techpriests and sacred incense and special unguents? Tech support is so much more complicated than I realised! Now I'm desperately scrabbling around trying to find a few willing priests, but now that means the Obelisk warehouse will be full of servers for about a month while they go around installing them, and some of the precincts are saying they don't want to have the downtime, and that they have their servers set up the way they like them EVEN THOUGH THEY DON'T WORK, and I've got letters of concern coming in from the Lord Magistrate who's angry that he wasn't consulted, and that this is out of our jurisdiction, and oh God-Emperor what have I done?
On reflection I think I've fucked up most dreadfully. Um… pause recording, delete last forty seconds.
+ERROR, PAUSE AND EDIT FUNCTIONS NOT AVAILABLE IN LIVECAST+
What? Shit! Um… end recording!
+++MESSAGE ENDS
+++To: A(|D
+++From: Ash
+++Subject: Re: Upgrades
I am trying to imagine Airi eating roaches, and...wow. are you serious?
Also you're clearly machine-sexual. Sorry I didn't realise before.
The nerve shunt stuff is interesting! I guess it depends on how much you actually want this armour. Like, do you want to do more combat stuff? The armour is cool, but is it actually the direction you want to take in your life?
I had a nerve shunt for my limiter i.e. the thing that makes you all not hate me and makes the psykers not die around me. It wasn't fun, but it was absolutely something I needed to do my job. Emperor, to do my LIFE. Everything is better now. If I had to do it again every year to keep the limiter, I would. Before I got it, I figured that if the surgery was botched, nobody could hate me more than already. And if I ended up paralysed, i could talk Jaxx into ending it. That's how much I wanted it.
So I'd say you need to want it enough that you're sure. If you aren't sure, it prob means that you don't want it enough and it's not your thing.
Ash xx
+++MESSAGE ENDS
+++TO: Ashar Lear
+++FROM: A(|D
+++SUBJECT: Re: Upgrades
What the hell is Machine Sexual?! Is that a thing? I don't want to have sex with Airi's armour!! You can appreciate incredible craftsmanship and technology without wanting to put it in your... you know! Some animals have extra brains in their legs. Sometimes I think you're like that but the brains didn't quite make it as far down as the legs...
I don't know. You say that if I'm not sure then I don't want it enough but when I think I should turn it down I find that I'm reticent to give up on the idea. I've been thinking a lot about what else I could do with a full spinal nerve shunt. I've been working on a project I've tentatively called "Skull Swarm" and if I had a nerve shunt it could do some really cool stuff.
I've also been talking to Acetae about maybe joining the Mechanicus. Still being in the Inquistion of course, but being a memebr of both lile he is. On this mission I ran into a bit of a block with the Ad Mech. They didn't like the idea of me in their systems. Obviously with the Inquisitional authority we bullied our way in but basically everything I do is Ad Mech domain and if they welcomed me in as a sister instead of resisting me as an outsider it could really help to open some doors.
So if I did that, I'd need the nerve shunt anyway, and then I could speak to them in Cant Mechanicus and interface with some systems directly.
You're right about the armour, combat is not really my thing and I don't want it to be, but I'm getting myself into dangerous situations anyway so isn't it better to do that in armour? I talked to Michael about Carapace like you guys wear when it gets really hairy (and he wears all the time) but it's so damn heavy that, even if I was as buff as Amon, I'm so small that I'd never be able to lift it all or bend my limbs if I could. With the Assault Rig I could keep up, stay safe, look after my friends and have loads of integrated systems.
Is it really that risky? Acetae says it's pretty safe and he knows people who do it all the time, but he also has 5 cybernetic limbs and tells everyone that they should too so I'm not sure how objective he is.
If it went wrong, would you sort me out? Or get Jaxx to? I wouldn't want Michael to have to do it.
A(|D
+++END MESSAGE
+++To: A(|D
+++From: Ash
+++Subject: Re: Upgrades
Slander! Lies! My brain is right where it needs to be, thanks. Ask anyone who’s been “down there” (LOVE that you call it that). I’m all present and correct.
Can you be part of the Mechanicus without going all the way? I thought it was like the Sororitas, vows for life etc. Wouldn’t you have to swear allegiance to the machine god and wear robes and do all of that stuff? You’re good the way you are, Acid. Don’t go replacing all of yourself with machinery.
I don’t think shunts go wrong very often, but...mate. It’s putting something into your spine. That isn’t a small thing.
I dunno. Maybe I’m not the best person to talk to about this? You’re right, having armour would be really great and whatever ‘Skull Swarm’ is sounds AMAZING but I’m also pretty shit at letter writing (just ask Michael. Wait, don’t ask Michael) so can we talk about this when i don’t have to worry about my spelling?
I’d sort you out if you asked. You know i’ve got your back, whatever.
Ash xx
+++MESSAGE ENDS
+++TO: Ashar Lear
+++FROM: A(|D
+++SUBJECT: Re: Upgrades
I’m not suggesting going full culty, just get my foot in the door and gain the membership perks. I’m already sworn to the Inquisition for life, and that trumps Mechanicus, so it wouldn’t really make much difference. And saying Omnissiah instead of God-Emperor… it’s all just different words for the same thing. I have no intention of replacing any more of myself with machinery than I already am. And unlike you I never had a left arm anyway.
Why do you think you’re a shit letter writer? You seem just fine to me. I can get you some software so you can talk to your tablet and it will transcribe it if you want?
I think… I think I want this. I think I was expecting you to be all for it and that fact you haven’t is making me defensive, and examining those feelings tells me that perhaps I was seeking reassurance not advice? I’ve been talking to Gaius too much. If I start talking about Ids, Egos (no not Nadiya) and Super Egos (no not Max) then give me a slap. Left hand though please. You can use the bionic one if I start talking about conscious, unconscious and preconscious.
A(|D
+++END MESSAGE