"My darling! You're back."
Christina's body had grown larger again. An enormous mechanical monster assembled from gears, cables, power conduits, and a heap of other metal creations bounced about, her "arched back" striking the ceiling with a remarkably crisp clang.
"Good to see you again, my most esteemed and dependable Bishop."
"What! You have other Bishops? My heart is broken. It hurts, it hurts!"
Evan gave the enormous mechanical creation a sidelong glance. Are you talking about your heart... or your engine? This thing has to run on an engine...
"My armor is damaged. Help me inspect and repair it." Evan headed into the old changing room out of habit. He couldn't take this suit of armor off by himself.
He casually pulled open the iron door, then nearly smashed his head into a steel wall.
"This is..."
"Look, isn't this door adorable? I stuck it on the wall as a decoration. Pretty, isn't it? Mwah!"
Evan looked at the massive iron door, taller than he was, then at Christina, who nearly reached the ceiling. "Your esteemed self has truly distinctive taste."
Then his Archmagos leaped up with a bang, spun a hundred and eighty degrees, and landed with her back to Evan.
"You used to call me Christina. Now that you have another Archmagos, it's all 'your esteemed self.' I waited here so faithfully for decades, only for a heartless man like you to come back!"
Watching the lump of metal emit frenzied mechanical noise and occasionally bounce about, Evan suddenly realized that this might be her only entertainment.
Apart from the exhibits in the Langjuxu Museum, Christina really did spend every tedious day studying machinery and materials, just as the Techmarines spent their days immersed in their laboratories, analyzing xenos technology.
The difference was that battle-brothers often sought