[hr][hr][center][color=tan][h2][i][b]Aboard the Ark Imperialis[/b][/i][/h2][/color][/center]
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[indent][indent]The gears ticked a steady, consistent beat with the industrial sounds of the piston hydraulics pumping and the gentle arcing of electricity forming a melody. Hisses of steam accentuated notes while the static hums of a generator provided a bass line. Pitched beeps and boops filled in the gaps in regular sequences as data rolled in like a lulling tide of information across the screen. Shuffling about, the sevitors clanked and stomped about, their foot steps weighed down by the machinery they carried without fail in their augmented arms; criminals they once were, forced to become mindless machines that obeyed every order dutifully and made to see their bodies act against their own wills for possibly decades to come.

Orchestrating this concerto of machinery and tinkering was one Architeck Alpha Sayun, tapping his fleshy heels to the sounds of his workshop in progress. It provided a lovely sight and inspiring sound of business to compliment his subordinate architeks with their servitors and apprentices going about. Today was just as busy as any other even if the post-warp travel normalities where taking place. It just meant that instead of forging bolter shells and transforming wrought iron into a fine blade for a Praetorian, he was ordering for the repair of cables, checks of hull integrity and purification of the machines from any warp-born spirits that sought to weed their wicked tendrils into the holy machine spirits. 

His workshop was blessed to be next to one of the dozens of transport terminals, allowing for rapid dispatch of architeks and delivery of materials to his forges from stockpiles elsewhere. He had a storage facility close to him but it was far smaller than his workshop and carried either the most mundane of metals and alloys or the most exotic of isotopes and minerals which rarely found use in a place like him dedicated to repairs and simpler constructions. Perhaps if he had been authorized by the Lord Artificer of the Officio Fabricus to specialize his workshop to circuitry or gadgets that could make use of the rarer materials he would use them. But, it was common knowledge that it was the great forges and factories made from the Mechanicus Forge Ships and their workshop offshoots located towards the core of the Ark Imperialis would get all of the attention and favoritism. He and his outlying workshop at the edge of the outer hull of the ship would get little attention by the higher ups unless he proved that he was worthy.

To this end, he had been feverishly working in his private chambers, surrounded teetering towers of tomes of ancient knowledge that threaten and neatly filed documents, notes and technical drawings that were now spread all over his chamber, and a small data bank that servoskulls zipped to and fro to bring the Architek Alpha for his study. It had been nearly 50 hours since Sayun had slept and 30 since he last ate. He could feel his organics begging for nourishment and his mental implants overclocking to heir breaking points but he couldn't rest now. He was on the cusp of something, he could feel it! Something kept his circuits stirring and his tired eyes fixated on his auto-quill in his hand. There was a bubble of inspiration just begging to be burst by a sharp enough mind and Sayun thought himself the one to do it as he felt tingling in his bionics. "Could this be?" Architek Alpha Sayun looked at his trembling left claw, "Could this be the blessings of the Machine God within me?"

Renewed with a zealous fervor, the ink bled on to the parchment faster than ever as data was reivewed, recorded and transcribed at fast as the limited amount of mental implants Sayun possessed allowed him. He was an architek of a more zealous variety, still believing very much in the Omnissiah despite what had become of Holy Mars. While much of the Ark's inhabitants believed the Emperor of Mankind to be one in the same as the Machine God, Sayun saw them as two separate entities like competing brothers. Needless to say, it had gotten him into more than enough ideological troubles with others (and perhaps all the commotion he once caused was the exact reason he was assigned to such a remote workshop).

The nuero-circuits in his mind began to make connections, links he previously thought obscure synapsed to fruition that formed new thoughts. He could feel it, inching ever closer and closer to enlightenment and greatne––

[b]"AAaaAARRrrRRrHHhhhHHhHHGGGGGggGGGgGgggg!"[/b] the man's face twisted and contorted as pain wraught his mind, clutching his mind with his organic hand as he screamed in pain. His cry soon devolved into mindless blubbering and gibberish as his lack of respect for his own body and implants lashed out in revenge for Sayun's negligence. He had worked himself too hard, his soul and drive too great for his body to handle.

"Alpha Sayun, are you okay?" An architek kicked down the door to the messy chamber and waded through the swamp of papers and scrap metal to the Architek Alpha who was now bent over his desk, face drowning in the diagram his hand still attempted to scribble out, "You really must know your limits Alpha Sayun."

Quickly reciting an abbreviated Litany of Renewed Power, the architek picked up his Alpha and used a handful of delicate tools to fix Sayun's bionic eye which clearly had overloaded and possibly even exploded, "Can you see out of this eye Alpha Sayun?"

"I... know my limits..." Sayun groaned and moaned as his body recalibrate with all of his implants, "My body... just can't... meet them... I'm going... to need... a new eye..."

"Acknowledge." the architek apathetically grunted as he grabbed one of several datapads off of Architek Alpha Sayun's table and began to tap his fingers on its holographic surface, requisition not only a new eye, but also food and drink for the tired Alpha, "You have more duties than to simply wait in here and wait for ideas, Alpha."

"Yes yes, I am well aware. Its just that I was so close too–" Architek Alpha Sayun suddenly went silent, his eyes widening as he probed and scanned his mind before it hit him and he let loose with a bellowing roar: He forgot all the data and information he had created when his systems shut dow, [b]"NO! NO! DAMMIT ALL, NO! WHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHY??! I WAS [i]THIS[/i] CLOSE DAMMIT!"[/b]

"Please refrain from screaming at such decibels Alpha, you are going to scare everyone else into thinking you are having a meltdown and can possibly kill us all." the Architek's words were backed up by a pair of Tau heads that popped into the door frame along with two Apprentice Architeks and their servo-skull.

Architek Alpha Sayun just fell over on to his incomplete, useless notes and sighed heavily, almost at the brink of tears over his loss as some rations found there way beside him. He was so close, but so far. If only just even a single second longer and he would have arrived at some new conclusion. Was a single second so much to ask for for such a humble man trying to expand his horizons and advance innovation? [/indent][/indent]