The Silver Snake Bar was empty tonight, which was unusual. This rare, well-equipped bar in the Lower Hive could easily be called one of the best bars in the hive. Add its security, and it could be called the best.
Normally, every seat would be taken. But tonight, the place was deserted. Every table stood empty, the bar stools had been turned upside down and placed on the tabletops, and the glasses and liquor were neatly arranged on the shelves. Not a single light was on. Everything was immersed in darkness.
Gradually, a faint sound broke the silence. It grew clearer and clearer: footsteps. A whole set of footsteps.
Hard boots thudded against the wooden floor, the sound carrying through the deep darkness. As the iron-shod steps drew closer, the lights clicked on one by one.
"This it?" Vito asked. The woman in his arms nodded slightly. "This it."
Vito set her down and helped her onto a bar stool. Silver Snake finally let go of his hand and set her respirator on the counter. She took a deep breath, then recovered some composure after a brief coughing fit.
Vito hopped over the bar and took a bottle from the shelf. "How about this?" "Azure Heart? That's pretty expensive." "Then it must be good."
He deftly pulled out the cork and poured Silver Snake a glass. She gave a wry smile and took a sip. The drink settled her nerves, and Vito smiled as he poured himself a glass too.
He and Silver Snake clinked glasses, then drained them together. The beautiful bartender stared into her glass at the Azure Heart, which shimmered with specks of starlight, as if it contained an entire nebula.
She rubbed her arm. The pain made her mutter a curse, but the reaction on her face lasted only an instant—so brief that it barely counted as a reaction. Her eyelid had only twitched.
But Vito had clearly seen it. He shrugged slightly. "Mandela Serum works fast, but it still takes a little while."
Silver Snake smiled and took off her tattered jacket. Mosley's claws had nearly torn the whole sleeve off. She tossed it onto a nearby bar stool. Vito looked at the shirt that clung perfectly to her curves, especially the cleavage threatening to spill out of the neckline, and raised his glass in a subtle toast.
Silver Snake sighed helplessly at him and pointed to the door beside the liquor shelves. "Don't you have an interrogation to conduct? Do something useful while I change."
Vito smiled and shrugged, then walked toward the back room with his drink. As he passed the shelves, he picked up another bottle. Then he turned playfully and pointed it at Silver Snake. "Personally, I'd rather admire the perfect human form and study how to sculpt the body—or maybe take up painting."
"You're the first person I've met who's made lechery sound so respectable, Vito. Get in there before I consider blowing your head off. And don't even think about peeking."
Vito's lips curled into a smile. He waved lightly and pushed open the inner door. Silver Snake sighed helplessly, then smiled and shrugged as she headed for another door.
Vito carried the bottle and his glass over to a chair, eyeing the unconscious man in it with amusement. Mosley had almost completely returned to human form. Interesting. It seemed he only took on that other shape when he was awake and worked up.
Vito took a sip, then turned to look at Omega nearby. Using who knew how many mechanical arms and flexible cables, he was rapidly assembling a device with dazzling speed.
The Tech-Priest took the device out of a case and muttered something that sounded like a hymn of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Vito had always found them strange. Members of the Adeptus Mechanicus were forever operating advanced machinery and weapons or conducting incomprehensible research, and they used all sorts of abstruse technical jargon.
Yet, like those Ecclesiarchy types, they also let religious phrases slip from their mouths now and then. That wasn't unusual in the Imperium, but every time those people uttered such words in their seductive electronic voices, Vito got a very strange feeling.
"I'm here, traitor!" a voice shouted. Vito smiled and turned to the man before him. "Hello, Mosley. You woke up fast. The last heretic I knocked out slept for two days."
"Heretic? You're the real heretic! Traitor! You're a traitor, Vito Constantine! A despicable traitor!" Mosley bellowed. Vito smiled and poured him a glass of wine, but the man was bound in countless metal cords and chains and couldn't take it. He didn't look like he wanted to drink it anyway.
"Shame. It's good wine." Vito drank it himself.
"You betrayed us with that whore! You betrayed the Lord of Redemption! You'll go to hell! To hell!"
Vito watched the religious fanatic with great amusement, even letting out a laugh. That left Mosley dumbfounded. He seemed unable to understand what Vito found so funny.
"Oh, my friend, I never believed in your Lord of Redemption. How could I betray him?" he said with a mocking laugh, looking at Mosley as if he were a child. Mosley fell silent for a moment, then his eyes suddenly widened.
He'd thought Vito was merely a power-hungry little man, but now he saw he'd been completely wrong. He should have realized it sooner. Why had he only figured it out now?!
"You're one of the False Emperor's people! A spy for those heretics above!" he roared. A beastlike sound rose from him again, and the chains clanked as he struggled to break free.
Vito chuckled and pointed at the thick chains. "Give it a rest. I used these chains to restrain a Khorne Daemon once. That bastard was on fire all over and still couldn't break them. You don't stand a chance."
"And need I remind you? The one you worship is also the Emperor."
"That's the False Emperor! The true Emperor has long since transcended the mortal realm! He flew into the Warp and became a true god!"
"You! The one you worship, the Master of Terra, is nothing but a corpse! A soulless tool used by greedy men to deceive the masses! The Lord of Redemption! The true Emperor will punish you! He'll be here soon!"
Mosley shouted and raved. Vito tilted his head slightly and regarded him with suspicion. A Chaos Cultist? Maybe. He'd heard plenty of Chaos Cultists ranting about things like this.
"Out of courtesy, Mosley, would you tell me the whole truth? About your cult and what happened to you on the space station?"
"Never! I'd rather die than betray my lord! The Emperor will save my soul and carry me into the Warp!"
"Tell me, traitor! Were you sent by heretics in the Adeptus Arbites?" Mosley demanded, glaring at him.
Vito raised an eyebrow, amused. "The Adeptus Arbites? You mean the local planetary government's been infiltrated that badly?"
Mosley froze, staring at the man in astonishment. "Y-you're not from Victoria!"
"Correct."
Vito gave the man a pitying smile. "Now, allow me to introduce you to my friend."
He gestured toward Omega, who had finished assembling the device. It was covered in countless cable ports, and holographic displays flickered across its surface. Everything revolved around a single object: a constantly shifting green crystal.
The object repeatedly broke apart into fragments, then reassembled and regenerated. It was something like a liquid, but not a liquid. One thing was certain: it wasn't made by humans.
Mosley stared at it in confusion. Naturally, he had no idea what he was looking at. It would have been a miracle if he had.
Vito walked over to the device with a smile and patted Omega on the shoulder. "This is Omega. As you can see, he's a Tech-Priest Magos from Mars. More precisely, he's a Biologis and Archmagos Dominus. He can take you apart piece by piece, and with the help of this beauty, he can read your memories."
Vito proudly displayed the bizarre device. "A memory reader! It took quite a bit of effort to 'borrow' this beauty from the Yomi-8 Forge World."
"Vito, the Adeptus Mechanicus members of Yomi-8 do not know that you took the reader. As far as their memory records are concerned, the memory reader was destroyed in an uprising instigated by Alpha's traitor Space Marines. Therefore, the word 'borrow' is not logically accurate."
"You merely took it amid the chaos. I do not believe that can be called borrowing," Omega said, one word at a time, in that seductive electronic voice.
"Well, we helped out a lot at the time, didn't we? If we hadn't, those Alpha bastards would've blown the Forge World's plasma reactor straight into the Warp."
"By that logic, it's the same as them agreeing to it. Anyway, I didn't see any Skitarii carrying plasma weapons coming after me, so that's that!" Vito declared.
"This thing can read your memories and uncover the secrets you don't want to tell us. We'll know everything soon enough," he said with a smile. "There's just one little problem. The people of Yomi-8 don't seem to have figured out how to use this Xenos crystal properly, so there's a chance it'll fry your brain. But have faith in the Lord of Redemption! Omega, if you please."
Vito stepped aside as Omega strode forward on mechanical legs, electrical arcs crackling from the cables in his hands. Mosley stared at the device, eyes wide, and began screaming hysterically.
Vito smiled, waved slightly, and headed for the door. "Omega, let me know when you've learned something."
"Understood."
Vito walked out through the screams.
Before you continue