Chapter 75: The Wheelchair-Grit
At the mutant warren, near the fractured effluent pipe, the "Blackwater" had pooled into a viscous, bubbling lake of concentrated filth. The stench of industrial rot and chemical decay hung thick in the stagnant air—concentrated enough to make a normal human collapse into a seizure after one deep breath.
Three massive, highly distorted mutants—each boasting extra limbs and multiple blind, milky eyes—sat huddled together near the pipe, whispering in their wet, gurgling tongue.
"I hunger for fresh marrow," one rasped, its three heads nodding in unison. "The warriors must bring us meat soon. The 'Spire-soft' ones who wandered in last time were far too thin... not enough fat to appease the gut."
Another mutant, its body a mass of distended tumors, let out a wet wheeze. "And the 'Fragrant Flow'... the legendary Amasec. I want to taste the fire-water. I want to feel the soul-burn."
These were the "Sludge-Priests" of the Blackwater Cult. By controlling the distribution of the "Holy Effluent," they held absolute interpretation over the Machine Spirit of the sewage pipe. In this darkness, they were gods.
Today, their godhood would meet the "End-of-Life" cycle.
SCREECH—!
The Survey Crawler skidded to a halt on the rails near the mouth of the primary warren.
The cultists turned their distorted heads toward the light. A second later, the high-lumen floodlights seared their retinas. Screams of soul-deep agony erupted as the mutants scrambled to hide, their nocturnal eyes burning in the artificial "sunlight."
The Sludge-Priests, too bloated to move quickly, huddled together. They looked like two-meter-tall mounds of raw, grey meat.
"CURSED HERETICS!" the Priests shrieked, shielding their eyes with mutated talons. "CEASE THIS EVIL SORCERY! BY THE GOD OF THE BLACK WATER, WE CURSE YOUR BLOODLINE!"
Kian Voss looked down at the tactical flashlight mounted to his shotgun. "Evil sorcery? You're a few millennia behind on the tech-tree, buddy."
He pulled three heavy-duty industrial detonators from his pouch, lashed them together with high-tensile wire, and lit the fuse.
"You lot look a bit 'edematous.' Here—a three-vial prescription. It's a one-shot cure for everything that ails you!"
Kian hurled the explosive bundle. It landed right at the center of the "Meat-mounds."
BOOM!
A massive concussion rocked the tunnel. The Sludge-Priests were instantly reduced to fine chunks of bio-matter. The shockwave knocked the surrounding mutants flat, their internal organs liquefying from the overpressure.
Kian leaped from the crawler, The Bulldozer leveled at his hip. "Sweep and clear! Leave nothing but the walls!"
Shiv and the Joels followed him into the warren, rifles barked in short, controlled bursts.
The interior of the camp was a museum of Sump-horror. Kian walked past tents made of tanned human leather and crude altars built from the femurs of fallen laborers. Mutants shrieked and lunged from the shadows, wielding blades of sharpened bone and rusted scrap.
Seeing the "Unclean" reduced to this state—this mockery of the human form—Kian felt a flicker of understanding for the Imperium's more extreme "Purification" protocols. At this point, death was the only mercy left.
He pulled the trigger.
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!
A mutant brandishing a bone-cleaver lunged at him. Kian put a 35mm shell through the creature's knees, snapping both legs like dry twigs.
Another shrieked from the left, claws extended. THUMP. Both its shins vanished.
A creature lunged from an overhead pipe, its jaws open wide. Kian spun and fired a snap-shot. THUMP. The mutant hit the floor, its lower half a red ruin.
The men behind Kian were bewildered. They watched the mutants wailing on the ground, before having to step forward and put a "mercy-round" through their skulls to finish the job.
"Boss," Shiv whispered during a lull. "Why do you keep going for the legs? Wouldn't a headshot be faster?"
Kian adjusted his grip. "Old habits, Shiv. In the 'Old World,' we call it 'Legging.' You unload on the lower third to slow the server down. It's a tactical reflex. Don't worry about it."
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!
The Bulldozer continued its mechanical sermon. In the tight confines of the pipe, the auto-shotgun was a "Delete" button. The metal storm raked the warren, tearing through the cultists until the survivors broke and fled into the dark.
Kian reloaded his drum, his voice echoing through the tunnel with a theatrical, unhinged glee.
"GAH! RUN, EVERYONE! THE AA-12 HAS TAKEN OVER MY BRAIN! IT'S CONTROLLING MY FINGER! I CAN'T LET GO OF THE TRIGGER-COGITATOR! SAVE YOURSELVES, MINNA-SAN! AAAAAAAHHH!"
He charged forward, firing into the retreating mob, blood mist painting his flak armor.
Shiv watched his boss with a mix of awe and genuine concern. "The Master is... very enthusiastic today."
Silentium stepped forward to fill the gap. He raised his "silenced" iron pipe—the one filled with ball bearings. He used a flicker of psychic intent to propel the metal beads at supersonic speeds.
Pfft. Pfft. Pfft.
Cultists dropped silently, their chests caved in by invisible kinetic impacts.
Shiv blinked, looking at the Psyker's pipe. "Master Silentium... what kind of gun is that? Why doesn't it make a sound?"
The Psyker remembered Kian's rule about being "discrete." He smacked his forehead. "Ah! Forgive me! I forgot the 'Sound-Spirit' ritual!"
The Psyker raised the pipe again. "BIU! BIU-BIU! BIUBIUBIU!"
Shiv stood there, completely dumbfounded. The mutants were dying, but his boss was roleplaying a berserker and the neighbor was making cartoon sound effects. Truly, Shiv thought, I am serving the strangest warlords in the Hive.
Ten minutes later, the gunshots died down. Kian stood over the final mutant—a half-vegetative creature fused to a wall-panel—and put a shell through its skull. The warren was silent.
Kian shouldered the smoking shotgun and lit a Lho-stick, exhaling a long cloud of blue smoke.
"I did not seek this path of blood," Kian sighed, wiping a spot of gore from his visor. "But the AA-12... she is a jealous mistress. Forgive me, for I have sinned."
Little Joel ran up to him, his eyes shining with excitement. "Master Voss! That was incredible! Can you teach me the way of the AA-12?!"
Kian looked the boy up and down, then shook his head with a look of profound regret.
"I cannot, Joel. You have lost the Wheelchair. Without the 'Chariot of the Crippled,' you have lost your innate talent for the 'Legging' style.
Only when your spine is shattered once more, and you reclaim your 'Wheelchair Dharma-Relic,' will you be worthy of the Bulldozer."
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