Miles Halloway gasped, his lungs burning with the acrid taste of promethium smoke and ancient dust. He was standing in the ruins of a gothic convent. Above him, the sky was a bruised purple, dominated by the hulking, green-lit silhouettes of Necron tomb-ships.
He clutched his bag of Sour Cream & Onion chips like a holy relic. As he stood there, the Hum
Five meters away, the Deathmark—a skeletal assassin that had existed since before Earth was a cooling rock—was not moving. It was perched on a jagged gothic arch with the stillness of a statue, but its internal processors were screaming in high-speed binary. From its metallic wrist, a flickering, emerald-green hologram projected into the dusty air. It was the Plasmancer
"Report, Executioner 7nd-Theta," the Plasmancer's voice grated. It sounded like two tectonic plates grinding together, but with the weary impatience of a middle-manager who had been on a conference call for ten millennia.
"Target: Adepta Sororitas. Status: Expunged," the Deathmark clicked. Its vocal emitter was a masterpiece of cold, clinical precision. "However... a localized spatial anomaly manifested at the point of impact. The target was replaced by... a new variable."
The Plasmancer's holographic head tilted. "A variable? Did the Warp vomit up another screaming meat-bag with a chainsword?"
"Negative, My Lord," the Deathmark replied. It zoomed its ocular lens in on Miles, who was currently standing there in his yellow ducky slippers. "The variable is wearing... primitive textiles. It appears to be holding a crinkled vessel containing thin, fried slices of a carbohydrate-heavy root vegetable."
The Plasmancer went silent. For a Necron, silence usually meant they were cross-referencing their databanks across half a galaxy. The Hum
"Is it a weapon?" the Plasmancer finally asked.
"It is currently... consuming the root vegetables," the Deathmark reported, watching as Miles reflexively crunched a chip in pure, unadulterated terror. "The crunching sound is registering at 45 decibels. It is remarkably loud for a creature facing its inevitable extinction."
"Irrelevant," the Plasmancer sighed, a sound that resonated with the exhaustion of sixty million years of bureaucracy. "The Great Work does not have a budget for 'Carbohydrate Anomalies.' It is a biological error. Delete it. And Executioner?"
"Yes, My Lord?"
"Try not to get any 'root vegetable' residue on the ruins. The Silent King likes this sector's aesthetic. It would be a nightmare to have the Canoptek swarms clean it."
"Understood," the Deathmark said, finally turning its emerald eye toward Miles Halloway.
Miles, realizing he was being discussed like a smudge on a windshield, finally found his voice. "Wait, I—"
"Error," the Deathmark whispered. "Deleted."