Editing Addicts Acolyte (section)

===CHAPTER ONE===

Joseph Porta didn't always have limitless resources under his command. Once, roughly 77 years before his Cobra Destroyer docked onto Hassel Station, he was a pallid hive boy, starving and roaming among the horrible multitude of Holy Terra. His father, Nicolaus Porta, was a humble duct-repairer for the Adeptus Administratum, the gargantuan bureaucracy of the Imperium. This made him a Menial, lowest Adept imaginable, but even those sloppy black overalls which had been recycled for a two centuries made him a privileged man compared against those billions who couldn’t find work in the Administratum or other Imperial institutions. Porta’s father occupation kept their family always a step away from the Underhive, his family of five always feeded with synthetic protein bars and Soylens Viridiens. 

Sometimes he would even bring donations or leftovers from higher functionaries, and they would all feast. This was very rare, since even the commotion time to work for Porta’s father was roughly three days, so he was away almost always, and this was so even though he was a Menial. Largely because Holy Terra, capital of humanity and seat of the Emperor, was so choked and vast.

There was other Hive Worlds, to be sure, billions of people stacked upon each other inside habitable cubes and spaces, much like interior of space station or a sewer. Holy Terra was a completely different animal. It was a deeply polluted, overpopulated hellhole millennia before birth of Joseph Porta, even before the Imperium. It’s landscape was a hideous amalgamation of Imperial architecture stacked upon equally large ruins. Massive spires, manufactorum and complexes dotted the entire landscape. Such planet could never exist if it wasn’t for the techno-sorcery of Adeptus Mechanicus, and their towering installations at the South Pole of Terra, which converted polluted, yellow smog into somewhat breathable air. Naturally, nobles and high Adepts and rich folk got it for free, as with electricity, teeming masses had to survive by their wits or their strength and work for their basic necessities.

Yet Joseph Porta was someone who would only be inspired by challenges. He began extracting a type of glue from the spare parts that his father scavenged secretly  from work, and mixed them up with gas to create an inexpensive stimulant for the weary. He made sure, as a young and thin boy, to hook up the biggest man in his habitation block to his stuff, so he would have backup in case of trouble. When earnings began rolling in, he bought a stub pistol as an additional safe measure. His father found it, and gave him a talk the kind of he never again received.

Son” gray, wrinkled man who was only 31 standard years old began, “You clearly have the smarts to be something more than a block dweller. Someone like Ordinate Schaht, who bosses us around and eats real food every day.” Nicolaus Porta raised his finger and held it like a sword under his son’s eyes “ Never back down boy, no matter what they throw at you. That’s how your old man became a Menial. Servant of the God-Emperor. I sat at that fucking employment line for ten years. Some died. Some gave up. Some tried to bribe an Arbites and got their skulls smashed in. I just stood there by grit and perseverance. Sucked some arrogant merchant’s dick even for a year’s supply of glucose sticks, so didn’t have to leave the line for work.” His father gave him a package which contained about week’s worth of Soylens, a rusty watch and sixteen Thrones. 

“You are a man now”, he said “and you must leave and find an employment and by a stroke of luck, a family.  That’s all I  could spare, saved for those for two years, ever since I realized you are smarter than most” ” His dad smiled and teared a bit “Good luck son, I’m gonna head to work, some Sub-Prefect at City of Petitioners wants his lumen changed because his precious old eyes find the light too bright. Gonna take me a fucking week to get there for,  for that groxshit. If you want my advice, take the communal barge down to southern quarter, then get a ride or walk three days to sub-orbit terminal, then go to Wondrous Row at the Oceania Hive, Eastern Quarter, Sector Nine if I remember correctly. It’s filled with clerics and our own big-shots who go there to drink and fuck and meddle in not –so-bourgeois affairs. Be an henchman to some official. Guy with a brains and a gun will do well. Not like I wished it on my son but the Department of Hereditary Positions chose your brother to be my successor, and I don’t want you to starve.”

“Goodbye Pop”. Porta hugged his father and left for the local transit station.

After months of grueling journey, Porta found himself staring at a three-kilometre wide hall of the main transit hub of Sector Nine. He had made his way to Oceania Hive, and he had used up all the provisions his father gave him, and then some. It was time to be employed. Porta weaved himself through the detritus of station-dwellers, and after a few days, came across a ragtag group of people, who were armed and created a notable, one-metre wide vacuum around them. Porta waved to them like a old friend. “Good evening, fellow citizens. Got myself a gun and a thirst for combat. You look like doers and not talkers”.

“Unlike you”, hissed one of them. 
This one had a purple Mohawk with a sub-automatic stubber stripped across his armor, made of leather and used metallic parts “You are just a boy with a mouth, we need a man with a gun”. With this, Porta flipped his pistol from his pocket with indecent haste. “Want another asshole, mister? I can back up my words. In my home unit, we had to stab each other for a undigested piece of bread. If we would see a tank of pure water, whole neighborhood would fight for three weeks, until the Arbites would come in with real tanks. Even the Guard would show up when those tinheaded fucks would lose their nerve against me and my homies. Just point out a employer, good sir, and I will kill, I will burn, and so forth.”

Porta thought that his speed-induced rant would not avail to those hardened criminals, but the reaction was positive nonetheless. The whole group burst out laughing, and the Mohawk-guy said good-humoredly “I suppose there is need for jesters with a gun, too. I’ll hook you up with a guy who wants someone to protect and well, serve” he winked “but I assume that won’t be no problem for some hive rat such as you.

“No sir” Porta grinned “Better for a man  to give up his dignity momentarily than to wallow in poverty and shit for eternity” Mohawk smiled even wider “Where did you learn that man?” “I stole a book once from a passed-out customer.” Porta replied. “ Where is this boss so I can report for duty?” Mohawk pointed to a avenue, which had a string of tubes filled with different kind of vehicles which continued into hazy horizon. “Just take a landcar to Alofa, it’s a club on Level 8, 43th Unit, past the waste processing. It’s the one with marble doors, can’t miss it. Only that it’s invitation only, but just say at the door “There is no God but the Emperor, and Cato Sicarius is the Messenger of the Emperor”, and they’ll let you in. When you are in, say to the nearest guy wearing black that you are here on the orders of Deacon Shekel” “Who is Cato Sicarius?” Porta questioned, bewildered for once. Mohawk didn’t answer, said “Ögst” to his team, and with that they were gone, disappeared into the midst of individuals.