Andy sat before the console in his core workshop, red waterfalls of code cascading across the holographic projection screen. The black data core he had seized from the Cleaners was now plugged into his primary interface.
Admittedly, interpreting this data was proving to be a challenge. This so-called "complete data backup" was riddled with corrupted code, missing or unlabeled headers, and timestamps that were completely misaligned.
Andy suspected that this backup relied heavily on the Black Box's internal archival function. Because Helios hadn't acquired the full protocols—or perhaps because they couldn't comprehend metrics that didn't belong to this era—the resulting content was fragmented and messy.
Andy was forced to divert his powerful logic core to a tedious process of data scrubbing. He needed to strip away secondary information, leaving only the raw sensor readings: voltage, temperature, magnetic field frequencies, and radiation wavelengths.
As the scrubbing progressed, a fragmented but authentic picture began to emerge. It was clear that the Black Box, buried under tens of thousands of tons of rubble, had not shut down due to the factory's collapse. On the contrary, it was very much alive. Not only was it active, but at the moment of the collapse, it had entered a state of extreme, violent operation.
A purple curve caught Andy's attention: the radiation wavelength reading, steady at 380 nanometers. However, the energy index was oscillating within an extremely high range. Andy immediately fed these characteristic data points into the STC database in his mind for comparison.
[RETRIEVING MATCHING PROTOCOLS...]
A few milliseconds later, the database popped up two potential results. This left Andy in a brief state of contemplation.
The first result was [Protocol A: Peak Capacity Overload Mode]. If this were the case, it meant the machine was simply broken—its limiters had failed, causing the energy field to overflow. This would be relatively simple to handle. Andy would just need to find a way to cut the external power or manually insert control rods to shut it down.
But the second result was lethal.
[Protocol B: Core Meltdown Containment Mode]. This was the final fail-safe designed by the STC to prevent the reconstructor from undergoing a nuclear explosion under extreme conditions. Once activated, the machine would deem the surrounding environment extremely hazardous. It would then release high-energy radiation to forcibly restructure all surrounding matter—be it concrete, rebar, or human flesh—into high-density silicate crystals.
It was building itself a shell. It was attempting to seal itself away within an impenetrable crystal casing to isolate the heat and prevent a core detonation. In this mode, any carbon-based organism that approached would be viewed as "construction material" to be instantly decomposed and reorganized.
Andy had to determine which one it was. If it was Protocol A, he could charge in with tools to fix it. If it was Protocol B, charging in would lead to the same fate as that crystallized corpse. Even as an Iron Man, a field capable of restructuring molecular bonds would cause irreversible damage to his engineering armor.
Andy stared at the screen, searching for the decisive variable amidst the sea of data fragments. But the Helios data was abysmal; the critical logic logs were entirely blank. He had to infer the truth from secondary data.
He locked onto an inconspicuous hydraulic record: the pressure readings for the machine's primary cooling loop. Three seconds before the factory collapsed, this reading had taken a vertical plunge to zero. This meant the coolant pipes had burst or been drained. Immediately after, the temperature sensor readings for the external casing spiked by eight hundred degrees within 0.5 seconds.
Without coolant, any normal overload mode—like Protocol A—would inevitably lead to a core overheat within two seconds, leveling at least a third of the Underhive. Most industrial sector buildings would have been wiped out instantly.
But the machine hadn't exploded. It had only caused the factory to collapse.
Since it hadn't blown up, it meant that at the final moment before a catastrophic detonation, the machine had forced an endothermic program to suppress the core temperature. The process of matter transitioning from a disordered state to an ordered crystalline state is endothermic—it absorbs heat.
Case closed. It was Protocol B.
The machine was frantically burying itself. The radiation field intensity surrounding it right now was undoubtedly at a lethal level. Andy breathed a sigh of relief, but also felt a headache coming on. This meant a frontal excavation was out of the question. Any attempt to dig through the ruins would disrupt the crystal shell it was building, causing the machine to increase its radiation output to "repair" the breach.
He had to find a different path—a way to bypass the high-radiation outer zone and lead directly to the machine's core control room.
Andy pulled up the factory structural diagram from the Helios security drive. Then, he retrieved the original blueprints for the "Molecular Matter Reconstructor (Standard Model)" from his STC database. He overlaid the two maps on the holographic screen.
The Helios factory had been built around the machine's original structure, but they had made many modifications. For instance, to monitor the Genestealer workers, they had installed a dense array of automated sentry turrets in the corridors of the core zone.
Looking at the turret placements, Andy suddenly felt like laughing. The positions were so awkward that they sat directly above the reconstructor's original "maintenance drone deployment hatches." When the factory collapsed, the heavy turret bases would have fallen, wedging the drone bay doors shut.
This was interesting. The reconstructor originally possessed a vicious internal defense system, including laser-cutting drones and anti-intrusion gas. But now, thanks to the haphazard construction of those Helios "geniuses," the machine's own hands and feet were tied. The drones couldn't get out.
Better yet, once the turret wreckage was crystallized by the Black Box, the drones would be even more hopelessly stuck. Therefore, the internal defenses of the entire core area were in a state of awkward paralysis. As long as he could get inside, it would actually be safe.
Andy's fingers slid across the holographic map. The main entrance was sealed by tens of thousands of tons of rubble and radiation crystals. The side ventilation shafts were blocked by molten metal. The only gap was underground.
Andy pulled up the "Secret Passage" map he had acquired from the Plague Doctor, Sisyphus. That red dashed line snaked through the underground acidic river, passing through the old drainage system directly beneath the factory. The drain outlet was located right at the base of the reconstructor's core pedestal.
Moreover, according to the STC structural diagram, there was an emergency maintenance hatch there. It was purely mechanical, unaffected by electronic locks. It was as if a backdoor had been left specifically for Andy.
Andy marked this route in green. Intelligence advantage established. He knew the machine's current state, its defensive vulnerabilities, and how to get in. This made him ten thousand times better off than the Helios recovery teams outside, who were still trying to dig with shovels. If they kept digging, the radiation would eventually teach them a lesson they wouldn't survive.
Andy prepared to shut down the data terminal and begin prepping his gear. Just then, his fingers paused.
On the scan of the underground drainage system, where the secret passage outlet connected to the machine's pedestal, there was an abnormal signal fluctuation. Previously, Andy had dismissed it as turbulence from the underground river or geothermal interference. But now, after the data scrubbing and STC high-precision restoration, the signal became clear.
It was a heat source. A very faint, but extremely stable biological heat source. It wasn't moving; it was just crouching right on the inevitable path.
Andy's electronic eyes flickered. This couldn't be an ordinary Underhive creature. A normal mutant rat or crocodile couldn't survive the radiation leaking from the reconstructor. Anything that could survive in that position either had an extremely unique physiology, or...
Andy thought of the Amethyst Man he had locked in cold storage.
Genestealers. The Helios factory had been full of their workers. When the factory collapsed, they must have suffered heavy casualties. But what if there were higher-level individuals? For example, a purestrain responsible for overall coordination, or some even more terrifying mutant.
Could they have instinctively fled to the underground corner with the lowest radiation to linger on when the disaster struck?
Andy marked that heat source with a red skull icon.
"Seems I can't just go down there with a shovel," Andy muttered to himself.
That narrow underground drain might just turn into a scene from a nightmare. He needed to eliminate an opponent that might be more troublesome than a Space Marine in an extremely cramped, flooded, and radioactive environment.
He couldn't take the Heavy Stubber down; it was too long to maneuver. A flamer in such a confined space would be suicide, as it would consume all the oxygen instantly.
Andy glanced at the scraps of industrial rubber and memory alloy he had just produced. Perhaps it was time for an upgrade to his chainsword.
In any case, he had to prepare for the worst.