Day 268, Year 986 of the 41st Millennium
Lower Hive — Zone Z
The first thing he saw was a pair of heavy black boots, caked with iron dust and old oil stains from the hive's streets. His gaze slowly climbed: matte black armor bearing the two-headed eagle crest on one shoulder and a winged fist emblem on the other, plates of metal polished until they reflected the harsh light.
"Oh…" he breathed, almost without sound.
The man before him stood nearly two meters tall. His face was set beneath an almost-full Arbites helmet; one lens glowed a vicious red beneath receding white hair. In his hand he carried what Eric took for a shock baton, and slung at his side was an Enforcer-pattern shotgun. Each of his steps landed heavily, like the weight of the whole room pressed down.
"Routine sector inspection. We've had reports of illegal weapons trade in this area." The deep voice came through a throat mic, cold and controlled. Magda remained motionless behind the counter, her face and eyes expressionless as always. She pushed herself up slowly from the bench piled with guns and parts and answered in a flat tone.
"These items are all customers' repair jobs. Every firearm is registered — you can check." The Arbites glanced slowly around the counter and picked up an energy pistol. He inspected the serial plate and factory stamp, then pressed a handheld scanner to the barrel. The scanner beeped softly and the display flashed green; he checked the provenance documents Magda handed him.
"Registration valid… Authorized by the Korvax family production plant, Mosaw Arms dealer, Factory No. 9865…" he murmured, then scanned another weapon and scrutinized its paperwork. Each result was the same: every gun was legally registered.
Eric swallowed; his eye twitched. The weapons these people used to shoot each other every day were registered? His own gun had no registration, and neither did he. He didn't dare move a finger — his hand still curled around the coins he'd been about to pay with. He wanted to say something to break the silence, but a cold lump of fear tightened in his chest.
The Arbites turned toward him slowly. The red lens reflected Eric's outline back at him in a way that made him feel like he couldn't breathe.
"And you? I'll have to search you by protocol." The Arbites' voice was still icy. Eric shifted so slightly his sweat prickled at his temple. He carried nothing illegal — only one pistol and, in the eyes of this place, he himself might be illegal — but in the Lower Hive even the smallest mistake could mean arrest or worse.
At that moment, Magda's voice spoke up, quietly but firmly.
"He's a regular customer of mine. He's not involved with the gangs."
The Arbites paused and looked back at her.
"Hmm. Yes — rules are rules. You must be searched and your registration checked," the Arbites said, stepping closer until he was within an arm's length of Eric.
The red lens levelled with Eric's eyes; its glow reflected in his face. At that moment he knew that if he so much as said or did the wrong thing, his life could end right there.
"Spread your arms." The Arbites ordered. Eric lifted his arms and spread his legs slightly in the practiced stance they'd taught recruits. The command was short, without courtesy or hint of sympathy.
The Arbites' thick hand probed the outer layer of Eric's coat, feeling along the shoulders and down in a careful, methodical search. He palmed the outer pockets, checked zips and seams with deliberate pressure — slow and thorough rather than hurried.
Eric felt as if he were being peeled open, piece by piece. The heavy coat that protected him from heat and chemicals was lifted; the gas mask hanging at his neck was nudged aside. His hands trembled. He tried not to stare at the inspector's face, but he failed; his cheeks burned with embarrassment.
The Arbites' fingers ran down to the waist and tested the belt and zipper. When his hand reached Eric's torso, he asked Eric to lift his shirt slightly so the handheld scanner could pass over his skin. The tiny "beep" of the scanner sounded faintly, but it rang loudly in Eric's head. He'd been searched at airports before — this felt worse.
"Don't move," the officer warned. Shame mixed with the cold reminder that a single illicit item could mean arrest — or worse — in the Lower Hive. Eric stood submissively as the Arbites checked the inner pockets and finally saw the satchel slung over Eric's shoulder.
"Bring me the bag." The order was curt. Eric handed it over. The Arbites rifled through the contents without haste but found almost nothing of interest.
The scanner swept the belt again and emitted a sudden sharp tone. A red flare flashed. The Arbites looked up slowly at Eric.
"Open the belt," he commanded, and then eased the buckle aside as if disarming something dangerous. Eric's stomach dropped; his hands went ice-cold.
The thick fingers went to the holster and drew out the small, unadorned pistol. When the handheld scanner found no record, the display blinked red with one clear word: UNREGISTERED.
Eric's heart thudded in his ears. He felt certain something terrible would follow, but he forced himself to answer calmly.
"Unregistered weapon," the Arbites said matter-of-factly. He didn't shout, but his voice carried the weight of the law slamming down on Eric. He removed his glove, grabbed a tablet and typed rapidly, recording evidence. He photographed the gun and Eric's face and added them to the case file.
The Arbites set the evidence aside, handed Eric some forms and instructed him to sign. Eric signed with stiff lips and shaking hands; the signature on the paper felt like an official erasure of his identity in the eyes of the bureaucracy.
When the search finished, the pistol was bagged as evidence and a fine notice was slapped on the counter with no explanation or reprieve. Eric paid the fee and the Arbites left.
"That was rough… you were unlucky today," Magda tried to comfort him. "You were lucky it was Officer Gerico. If it'd been someone else, they might have hauled you off." Eric nodded and slipped the corpse-starch into his pack.
"Thanks," he muttered. He paused for a moment, thinking about how fragile he must look in this body — how visible that vulnerability was even with the mask. Each step forward suddenly felt twice as heavy. Still, he left the shop with the starch and the fine notice that said he would have to go upstairs to pay, or to see Raul — who apparently had connections with the constabulary. That might explain where this little private armory had come from.
Damn — the fine ate up half his savings.
Irritated, Eric kicked a trash can until it dented, then hunted for something to defend himself with on the way home. He found a length of metal pipe that fit his hand.
He made his way back through the dim alleys as usual. Today he passed a group of three mutated humanoids — bald, three-armed, scaled — gathered in a cluster. With only the pipe in hand, he crept up and struck one on the head, then slipped away before they could react. When he reached his building he unlocked the door and stepped inside carefully, as he always did in the dark.
Eric slammed the door and locked it behind him. He tossed the pipe onto the floor, stripped off his clothes, and hung everything back up where they belonged before collapsing onto the cot, trembling with fear and a small, burning shame. That damn cop had searched him — the man himself. He'd been frisked like at airports and at checkpoints before, but this felt completely different. The humiliation was hard to describe.
And they'd taken his pistol and issued him a fine. Why did they care so much about weapons while neglecting missing people, assaults, and other crimes? What kind of logic governed this place?
Whatever. At least it had been an Arbites officer who searched him, one apparently cold and by-the-book — not someone who'd relish beating him with a baton or throwing him in a cell. Still, he'd been ticketed for possessing an unregistered weapon. Who would have thought that every gun in Magda's shop — the ones the gangs brought in for repairs — would be legally registered? Nothing about this place stopped surprising him.
Eric did what he always did: he unwrapped the cloth he used to bind his chest and set it on the nearly-unused chair. He flopped back onto the cot and tried to think through his options.
A big fight seemed to be coming — and it would happen in the same zone he lived in. It probably wouldn't hit his little corner directly; he lived far enough away from the main population that it was mostly isolated and dangerous rather than immediately lethal. Still, he worried about supplies. He could spend his savings buying extra food and essentials to stockpile, since a conflict would make already scarce goods even harder to find. But that would drain his money. He could try to go without, but that wasn't a good plan either — he was already borderline malnourished from eating nothing but corpse-starch, and his skin looked paler from days without sunlight. His muscles ached all over.
"Why don't the factories install semi-automatic machines? Not everything — just automate the packaging, at least," he muttered to himself. He knew grumbling wouldn't change anything, but it helped him blow off steam. He shifted to try to get more comfortable.
When he turned, though, he noticed something damp and odd — a painful, strange tackiness. He thought he hadn't eaten anything bad or drunk contaminated water, not since he'd tried that mutated rat down in the Underhive.
"Huh?" Eric frowned and slipped a hand to the shorts he slept in. He froze when he felt a weird stickiness.
He lifted his head a little and saw faint reddish smudges of blood on his fingertips. It made him panic.
"Fuck… did someone stab me while I wasn't looking?" he muttered under his breath. His other hand fumbled down to check his lower abdomen, frantic, afraid he'd find a wound or a cut he didn't know about. There was no wound — only a little soreness and… blood… flowing from… oh shit!
"What!? What the hell… this can't be," he whispered hoarsely, eyes wide. He didn't know what to do. His mind raced for an explanation, and the only word that came to him was… period. He sat motionless for several minutes after that thought arrived.
"Calm down, Eric… remember you're not in a man's body anymore… and this is normal for women," Eric told himself, taking a slow, steadying breath. He forced himself to accept it: if he could survive this place, he could cope with this too. He hoped so, at least.
He wanted to go buy sanitary pads from Magda right away, but the streets weren't safe. He decided to do a quick fix. He grabbed the cleanest scrap of cloth he could find in his bag and wrapped it roughly to hold things in place. He sat back against the wall and stared at the rust-streaked metal ceiling and the leaking patches.
"God… why do I have to deal with this now?" he murmured. Fatigue hit him like a wave. He turned out the light, pulled the blanket over himself, and tried not to think.
Eric closed his eyes slowly. The last thought before sleep was a single, annoyed sentence:
"...being in this body sucks." But he clearly couldn't just lie there. He needed pads. Eric got up, switched the light back on, dressed, counted his ammo, loaded the assault rifle and headed out to Magda's shop. Bald three-armed mutants, psychotic freaks, whatever — he'd had enough. He wasn't carrying a pipe anymore; he had a real gun. If he got fined again, fine — he'd deal with that later.
…Why was he so emotionally volatile? Eric wondered.
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Hive Spire — Korvax Manor
Malvik stood in a small workroom beneath the great hall of the Korvax manor. The dim light from an iron lamp cast a narrow circle over the metal table; data chests and maps of Zone Z lay scattered on the floor. He snapped on his leather gloves, picked up Lord Valen's tablet, and began preparing to carry out the orders he had heard from his master.
His fingers danced a small pen across the screen, his eyes quick and cold as machinery. He drew boundary lines on the map: entrances, frequent repair access points, gathering sites of the three main gangs, black-market vendor clusters, the ruined site of the old factory, and water and power conduits that could be rerouted.
"If this is to appear 'legitimate,' we must stage it as an industrial necessity," he muttered. Malvik summoned two subordinates: one to handle intelligence and data infiltration, the other a former house security operative to manage field operations. He gave them clear assignments, issuing the same concise orders: plant forged approval documents claiming endorsement by the Mechanicus and the Arbites; open negotiations with local gang leaders with an "offer" they cannot refuse — steady work, resources, and protection under the civil apparatus in exchange for controlling labor and sharing profits.
"Initially, appoint the Ivorian and Moloch gangs to handle logistics. Let the Delaque act as reconnaissance and counter-intel against rivals. If needed, apply 'incentives' — money, services, or offers they can't refuse," Malvik directed, tapping points on the map.
He then opened the set of forged documents already prepared: approval forms styled to appear as Forge World authorizations and ceremonially stamped Arbites decrees — good enough to fool the inexperienced. "Our intelligence unit will leak a partial dossier to local outlets within the week," he said. "When they see the Mechanicus stamp and the Arbites name, the lesser gangs will step back for fear of provoking the higher authorities."
He turned to the operations team. "Send small teams to cultivate relations with the gang bosses. Make the first offer attractive enough to buy two weeks' leeway. If persuasion fails, apply pressure: burn or sabotage supplies to make it look like inter-gang conflict, then present our 'corrective' proposal." His voice was cool and precise; the tactic was clear — force the gang leaders into aligning with their plan.
On weapons and manpower, he ordered logistics to pre-position machinery components and production chips and to prepare forged licensing to make the new factory appear lawful when the time came. He instructed the weapons division to ready non-lethal control tools and containment kits for workforce management during construction — instruments designed to enforce authority rather than unnecessary brutality.
Malvik prepared the financial channels: secret house funds would route through shell accounts and under-the-table payout wallets to bribe gang leaders during the initial phase, making the arrangement seem credible. He ordered selective bookkeeping to hide the true flow of funds and assigned a risk unit to monitor for interference from Houses Thalric and Malvernis.
Malvik also paid close attention to the public "image." He drew up a plan for the house's photographers and PR team to release articles claiming that House Korvax relied on the Mechanicus for the project and that the investment would save jobs for the local population — accompanied by staged photographs of children getting work. (Author's note: yes, they intend to use child labor, paying with food and water — a practice that, while common here, at least prevents the children from starving.) Those falsified images would help calm middle-class resentment in the neighboring districts.
Before he rose, Malvik stood very still for a moment, staring at the map whose lines now crisscrossed like a spiderweb. He wrote down the names of the people who would carry out the operation. He knew the next steps would demand careful coordination and carry great risk: failure could stab the family in the back, but success would mean enormous profit.
"Begin," he ordered, then slipped on a long coat and left the room for the staging area beneath the manor. His tone remained cool and composed — the temperament of the man who had designed a plan to squeeze lives into economic advantage. Malvik descended the stairs, leaving the map on the table and the forged seals waiting for their moment to be revealed — the scheme to turn Zone Z into a profit-producing machine for House Korvax.
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Day 269, Year 986 of the 41st Millennium — Deep in the Lower Hive, Zone E
A man lay in an alley, waiting for death, utterly hopeless. He was cold and alone; a lifetime of hardship had turned him into a vagrant, and now he was close to dying from hunger. Just before his consciousness slipped away, he heard a whisper — an offer that would erase his pain and replace it with pleasure. He accepted without hesitation. The agony and suffering faded and were transformed into a serene joy and an urge to share it. Slowly he rose to his feet; his eyes had become a milky white, and his skin began to change.
He started to laugh, a quiet, uncanny sound. He meant to bring that happiness to others — to give them the same blessing his elder had bestowed.