Penitent's Prayer

Rovi dried the droplets from his face and sat back down at the desk.

He pressed the communications button on the desk.

"Buck."

"Here, Advisor! What are your orders?"

Buck's booming voice came through the speaker.

The clatter of bowls and utensils filled the background.

"Today's Green Soup may taste somewhat... unusual." Rovi chose his words carefully. "It's an improvement brought about by a new process. I need you to do two things."

"Please give the order."

"First, notify the cafeteria to mix twenty percent... no, thirty percent wood shavings and coarse bran into every barrel of soup."

"Ah? Advisor, the soup finally got better—why mix that stuff into it? It'll scratch their throats."

Buck was clearly confused.

"To increase the feeling of fullness." Rovi lied without blinking. "Our food reserves are limited. We must budget carefully."

"Food that tastes too good erodes people's will. What we need are warriors and laborers, not gourmets."

The rough texture could physically remind those eating it:

This was reality.

This was the mortal world of suffering.

Not some paradise of bliss.

Pain was the best Clarity Agent.

"Second." Rovi's voice turned stern. "Starting today, adjust the broadcast content."

"I want the Ecclesiarchy's Penitent's Prayer played around the clock, twenty-four hours a day, without interruption. Turn the volume up—high enough to drown out the sound of them chewing."

"Third, establish a 'Mental Hygiene Supervision Post.'"

"Every four hours of work, or whenever you spot someone wearing that kind of... I mean, that kind of idiotic smile for no reason during breaks, go up and slap them."

"It's for their own good. It will keep them from suffering a mental breakdown due to excessive fatigue."

"Th-this... all right, Advisor. You're always right."

After ending the communication, Rovi looked at the half-box of Green Soup, gradually cooling.

He picked up the spoon again and, expressionless, finished every last mouthful.

If he had decided to make others eat it, then he had to adapt to its toxicity first.

He was the alpha wolf here.

He had to be more resistant to poison, and more clear-headed, than anyone else.

Having dealt with the food crisis, Rovi turned his gaze toward the corner of the office.

A special piece of equipment stood there.

A gigantic glass vat.

Inside it floated an enormous human brain.

Kais, the former Supervisor.

Now, he was no longer a greedy fat man.

He was the Wetware Server codenamed "Kais."

Rovi walked up to the glass vat, his fingers rapidly tapping across the console.

Countless streams of data cascaded down the screen.

Freed from the interference of bodily desires, Kais's brain displayed astonishing computational efficiency.

It had not only flawlessly taken over the granary's internal logistics monitoring.

Under Rovi's authorization, it had begun attempting to infiltrate the Hive City's lower-level public data network.

"Report anomalous data."

Rovi entered the command.

The data streams on the screen instantly froze.

Then they rearranged, filtering out several entries highlighted in red.

This was the Bottom Logic Rovi had set for Kais:

Find the "missing supplies."

In the Warhammer world, corruption was the norm.

Yet the trail of corruption often concealed deadly secrets.

"Logistics Nodes 404, 405, and 409 have been detected with severe discrepancies between recorded and actual accounts."

Lines of frigid code appeared one after another.

"Over the past three months, the above nodes had nominally received 'Waste Disposal' orders from the upper Hive City, but their actual inbound weight was zero."

"At the same time, the energy consumption of these three nodes exceeded standard levels by 500%."

Rovi narrowed his eyes.

These three nodes were small transfer stations located around Granary Seven.

No supplies had entered storage, yet they consumed enormous amounts of energy.

That meant they were conducting some kind of energy-intensive activity.

And they did not want anyone to know.

Under normal circumstances, it might have merely been some gang manufacturing prohibited drugs.

But on the eve of a Nurgle plague outbreak, at a moment like this...

Rovi pulled up the list of people in charge of the three nodes.

As expected, every one of them was an unfamiliar face.

While tracing the deeper layers of the financial flows, Kais's brain had also uncovered a deeply hidden account.

The account's most recent transaction was for a batch of expensive "Life Support Filters."

Medical-grade ones, at that.

"Not for treatment," Rovi murmured. "For 'cultivation.'"

They were breeding something there.

Their earlier speculation had been confirmed.

The attack on Granary Seven was not an isolated incident.

This was a vast web. Someone had established a chain of plague breeding grounds in the shadows of the Hive City.

And because of Rovi's sudden emergence, Granary Seven had become the only hole in that web.

A chill ran through Rovi.

But he quickly suppressed the feeling.

Fear was useless.

Information was the weapon.

He packaged all the data and attached the coordinates of several suspected "Cult Meeting Points" that Kais's brain had deduced through its algorithms.

Then he took a black ring from the pocket close to his body.

It was the token Governor Alicia had given him.

He set the ring into a special groove on the communicator.

An encrypted quantum communication beam pierced through the heavy radiation clouds and shot toward the Governor's Spire at the summit of the Hive City.

Waiting always felt interminable.

Rovi poured himself a glass of water.

The water carried a faint taste of rust, but at least it was clean.

About ten minutes later, the indicator light on the communicator turned green.

The holographic projection lit up.

The figure that appeared was not the silver-haired, violet-eyed governor.

It was her Captain of the Guard, Lilith.

The female warrior was encased in black armor, a Respirator Mask covering her face and leaving only a pair of eyes as sharp as a hawk's exposed.

Behind her lay a dim tactical command room.

Faint explosions could be heard in the distance.

It seemed life up there was not going well either.

"Advisor Rovi, the governor received your previous report. Regarding your achievement in repelling the first wave of 'pests,' she considers it... acceptable."

Acceptable.

In the vocabulary of the Imperium's upper ranks, that meant, "You have kept your head for now."

"Serving the God-Emperor is my duty." Rovi lowered his head slightly and performed a standard Imperium Aquila Salute. "I am contacting you this time because I have more important intelligence."

He pressed the send button.

The data package he had just compiled was transmitted through the Encrypted Channel.

Lilith's gaze swept across the holographic screen.

A few seconds later, her gaze changed.

The coldness in her eyes was replaced by grave seriousness.

"These coordinates... how did you get them? Intelligence mining of this level isn't something an agricultural advisor should be capable of."

"I made use of some private channels left behind by the previous Supervisor, Kais," Rovi lied without changing expression.

"That fat man was greedy, but he was a genius at cooking the books and digging up dirt."

"I merely found some interesting records among his belongings."

Blaming everything on the dead was the safest approach.

Lilith fell silent for a moment.

She seemed to be assessing how credible his explanation was.

Then she nodded.

"This intelligence is highly valuable. Ordo agents are searching for these rat holes, and your data has been a tremendous help."

It was not only approval, but also a warning.

The Ordo had already intervened.