"You Win."
Riley leaned back in the cold, tal chair, its rigid fra biting into her spine. She exhaled a slow, resigned breath that misted faintly in the chill air.
She had lost.
Resistance was pointless.
She had no leverage left.
The steel walls around her were sterile, featureless, and humming with faint vox-static. Overhead, a single lun flickered, casting long shadows across the interrogation chamber.
Across from her, Qin Mo grinned, a predatory glint in his eyes.
"As punishnt, I’ve decided to reassign you," he said, his tone mockingly light. "You’ll be transferred to the next outpost... as a rifleman."
Riley bolted upright, alarm flaring in her eyes.
"You can't punish !" she declared firmly.
"You need alive. Don’t you want to delete your criminal records?"
Qin Mo scoffed, a low, amused sound.
"You?"
His tone dripped with condescension.
He plucked her data-slate from the table, its surface glowing dimly. With a subtle gesture, he linked it with his helt’s neural link.
Then, he gave a simple command.
"Access Tyrone Hive's Adeptus Arbites database. Make a hundred copies of my records. Then delete them a hundred different ways."
[“Acknowledged.”]
His AI responded imdiately.
[“Duplicating records now—”]
“Wait, I was joking! Don’t actually copy them! If this backfires, it’ll be a disaster!”
[“Records deleted.”]
Qin Mo paused.
He manually searched his own na.
No results.
Not a single trace.
His entire criminal record had been expunged as though erased by the Emperor’s own hand.
"...That was easier than I expected." he muttered, genuine surprise lacing his words.
"Does the Arbites never upgrade their firewalls? I was planning to design a virus to infiltrate their systems offline. But this? This was too easy."
Riley stared, horrified.
The intricacies of Data security was a labyrinth beyond her ken.
She only knew one thing.
Her last bargaining chip was gone.
"Your Na is Riley, Riley Weather, Correct?"
Qin Mo typed into the console.
Riley’s eyes widened in terror as she realized his intent.
“No—NO! STOP!” she scread.
"Delete her records."
["Acknowledged. Deletion complete."]
Qin Mo turned the display toward her.
Her na had vanished from the digital archives.
She was now a ghost in the Arbites archives—a non-entity.
Riley’s expression twisted through a spectrum of emotions.
First, shock.
Then, rage.
Then, grief.
Then, despair.
Then, rage again.
And finally—
Confusion.
She had no inkling of what fate awaited her now.
Qin Mo smiled.
"You will be implanted with the mories of a fallen soldier. Then, you’ll be sent to the battlefield."
He paused, his tone shifting imperiously. "But for now, I have more important matters to handle."
Rising from his seat, he strode to the door.
Turning to the guard outside, a hulking figure in power armour, he issued a final order—
"Lock her up."
Grot nodded.
"Understood."
He entered the room, while Qin Mo headed toward the briefing chamber.
....
Grey lay on his cot, glaring at his newly severed arm.
Across from him, Qin Mo sat hunched over a workbench bathed in the sterile glow of multiple holoscreens, each one displaying overlapping layers of schematics, energy flows, and bio-feedback graphs.
In one hand, he sketched intricate designs; in the other, he manipulated holographic circuits with a precision that spoke of both brilliance and madness.
He was utterly absorbed in his work.
His goal?
To craft an augntation far superior to a re organic limb.
"Don’t worry." Qin Mo murmured without looking up, his voice a blend of reassurance and clinical detachnt.
"Your new arm will be faster, stronger, and far more precise than your original."
He tapped a schematic. "I’m integrating a telekinetic module. You'll be able to move objects remotely, or crush them with a re thought. It responds directly to neural intent."
He leaned in closer. "It will also feature a built-in psyker suppressor, powered directly by your own heart."
Grey froze, his eyes widening in disbelief.
"Wait, what? You’re wiring it to my heart? What if sothing goes wrong? Will this give a heart attack?!"
Qin Mo shrugged.
"There’s a 1% chance of complications. But don't worry, death isn’t one of them. Trust my craftsmanship."
"I have a bad feeling about this," Grey grumbled, his tone laced with apprehension.
Qin Mo scoffed lightly.
"Your original arm wasn’t perfect either.
Didn’t your back ever ache? Didn’t your joints ever fail you?
Don’t be a flesh-purist.
Flesh is weak. Flesh is failure."
Grey’s voice dropped, raw with mory.
"My mother died of sickness.
I understand better than anyone—
Flesh is fragile."
"Then stop whining and hold still."
Qin Mo began the surgery. chanical arms descended from the ceiling, each tipped with tools designed for bio-chanical integration. Cool antiseptic mist hissed into the air.
Using his abilities, he fused flesh and tal seamlessly.
A sterile blue glow bathed the room as synaptic welders humd to life.
The new augnt beca one with Grey’s body.
Tubes pulsed as blood vessels wove into synthetic circuits like creeping vines.
Nerves linked with artificial synapses.
Sparks danced for a mont, then faded.
The transition was flawless.
....
Grey sat up slowly.
He flexed his new hand experintally. Sleek black plating moved with uncanny grace, fingertips glowing faintly with sensory feedback nodes.
Then, he tested it.
A battered cup on a nearby crate floated gracefully across the room.
With a thought, he pulled it into his grasp.
"It feels… real." Grey muttered in awe.
"Even more than before."
Qin Mo nodded approvingly.
"Your arm can now detect vital signs with a re touch. It can analyze toxins in the air, among countless other functions.
It responds faster than thought. It adapts, predicts, compensates. You’ll learn its full capabilities in ti."
A slow grin spread across Grey’s face.
"This is better than my original arm. I wonder just how far you could push augntation."
Qin Mo’s eyes glead with a dangerous promise.
"I could rebuild you on a cellular level. I could make you a living war machine."
Grey chuckled
"That’s tempting."
Then, Silence.
Qin Mo suddenly asked—
"Did you kill Laun?"
Grey froze, caught off-guard
He didn’t know how to answer.
If he denied it, Qin Mo might think he actually considered betraying him.
If he admitted it, Qin Mo might resent him for acting prematurely.
Qin Mo smirked.
"You did well."
Grey blinked, confused.
"But next ti don't act before I do. I wanted to kill him even more than you did."
Grey stared, then asked quietly.
"Then why did you show him so much respect?
Weren’t you trying to lure him out and finish him off yourself?"
Qin Mo shook his head slowly.
"Not everything must be solved imdiately."
He turned back to his workbench and resud designing new weapons with a surgeon’s calm, as if the subject of murder had rely been a footnote.
Grey peered over his shoulder at two schematics illuminated on a holo-display.
One was a design for a new standard infantry weapon.
The other—
A detection device of alien complexity.
Grey could understand the rifle.
But the other…
"What’s this for?"
Qin Mo grinned, tapping the blueprint lightly.
"Now that I control the defensive line, it's ti to go on the offensive.
We will strike at the heart of the enemy."
Grey interjected, "But we don’t even know where their leader is."
Qin Mo’s grin widened as he replied.
"We will find him. This device will locate him."
....
The leader of the Genestealer Cults—the Patriarch.
A monstrous, six-ter-tall xenos abomination, its grotesque fra rippling with alien muscle and chitinous armor.
Its mind was the nexus of their entire Broodmind, an interconnected consciousness shared across the hybrid faithful, every drone, acolyte, and magus bound to the Patriarch like neurons to a brain.
It was their origin.
Their prophet.
Their god.
Qin Mo’s plan?
Force the heretics into an all-out attack.
Let them overextend.
Force them to reveal the hidden tendrils of their psychic network.
Then, using his device, he would trace the network back to the Patriarch’s lair.
And when he found it?
He would throw everything he had at it.
If the Patriarch could not be slain—
He would extract its blood.
With that, he could craft a weapon to exterminate the entire cult.
Grey smirked, his voice resonating with grim determination.
"Whatever you need to do. Wherever you need to fight.
I will go."
Qin Mo nodded.
"You will."
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