Belisarius Cawl, Archmagos of the Adeptus Mechanicus, had seen the "pleasure" parameter in his data streams remain at unusually high levels these past two days.
It was not because some obscure STC template had been deciphered, nor because an ancient mechanical relic had been successfully awakened.
It was because, for the first time, he had so many efficient and "sturdy, durable" assistants.
At that moment, deep within Glory Port on Macragge, in the outer corridor of the heavily encrypted and reinforced enhancement sanctum, rows of Ultramarines veterans waited with bated breath.
The air was thick with disinfectant, machine oil, and a faint biological scent from gene-seed that was difficult to describe.
These hulking men, standing between 2.1 and 2.3 meters tall, wore nothing but loincloths as they sat in neat rows.
Every resolute face was filled with excitement and longing.
They were about to receive the first great gift brought by the return of their gene-father: a new enhancement said to let them "shed their old selves and be reborn."
Cawl's enormous body, a fusion of ancient flesh and precise machinery, silently glided before the alloy airlock doors of the enhancement chamber like a moving mechanical altar.
A mechanical arm fitted with a fine scanning array extended and swept across the terminal by the entrance.
The warning light above the airlock changed from red to green with a deep hum.
Cawl turned toward the waiting line, his face composed of metal, cables, and artificial skin.
His gears and pistons adjusted slightly, laboring to "squeeze out" an expression he believed conveyed "encouragement."
To everyone else, however, it looked like a rather chilling "smile": the corner of his mouth twisted upward while a few drops of condensed machine oil seeped from his cooling vents.
His synthesized voice carried a rigid enthusiasm:
"Sequence