Editing Of Techpriests and Telepaths (section)

==Part Two==

Litilus awoke to the insistent screeching of an alarm. Which was odd, given that he rarely felt the need for sleep and even then he never slept long enough to need an alarm. What could he have possibly needed to set an alarm for? What reason would he have to remind himself of a specific time? Or…was it a specific day?
 
"No…it couldn’t be…" He muttered aloud in fearful realization
 
Litilus hurriedly turned the clock over and over looking for the display to confirm his fears.
 
"No…no! No! No!"
 
Litilus slammed his head against the wall in futile frustration. He could’ve sworn that it was just yesterday he was obsessively washing his robes to cleanse them of any filthy secretions of the flesh, but numbers don’t lie. Seven days. One hundred sixty eight hours. The clock’s display blinked this value at him with mocking finality. Once again, he had to go visit Akadia…
 
----
 
"I like your squiggly arms."
 
"My what?" Litilus never looked up from his dataslate. Coming prepared this time, he had brought some diagnostic readouts of The Gilded Ambition to peruse as he inhaled the sweet fragrance of Akadia’s tea. Today’s blend was an assembly of various berries unknown to him. Akadia had also prepared for the day, arranging her two chairs such that they were sitting side by side instead of across from each other like when they had first met. Unbeknownst to Litilus, she had done this immediately after he left quarters one week prior.
 
"Y’know, your squiggly arms."
 
Akadia poked one of his metallic tendrils for emphasis.
 
"Ah, yes. Those. They are my mechadendrites."
 
She began to fiddle with the claw tip of the nearest dendrite.
 
"What’re they for?"
 
"They assist me in my day to day duties, such as holding extraneous tools or accessing hard-to-reach locations on vehicles and machinery. 'Many hands make light work', as they say."
 
"Huh. If I had more hands, I’d probably just get bored faster. My grampa had a metal arm, but it wasn’t all squiggly. He couldn’t feel very well with it either and it was kinda clumsy. Can you feel stuff with your mecha squiggly arms?"
 
"I constructed them with the sole purpose of handling delicate machinery too fragile for clumsy, human hands, so no. In fact, their sensors are particularly sensitive."
 
"Oh." Akadia stopped tugging on the mechadendrite and gave it a gentle pat. "Sorry."
 
Litilus returned the gesture, patting her still outstretched hand with the dendrite in question, still not looking up from his dataslate. "Do not worry yourself over it. I cannot count the number of times I have snagged them on something while repairing a Sentinel. Guardsmen never treat those poor things with the care they deserve. "
 
Akadia giggled and blurted out. "I bet they really come in handy!"
 
Only to be met with a blank stare as Litilus looked up from his dataslate.
 
"Well yes, I did just tell you that I often use them– oh. I see what you did there. Clever."
 
"Sorry. That was dumb of me. Besides, I bet you get that one all the time…"
 
"You would make the first, actually. I am not often approached by…outsiders unless they need something from me. Even then most conversation that is exchanged is them trying their hardest not to stare at the mechadendrites. Frankly, I'm honestly surprised that you aren’t more…put off by them. Most people outside of the Mechanicus are."
 
"Like I said, my grampa had a metal arm. Metal face, too. Not like yours, though. Just the jaw. His old war buddies used to call him Nobface, cuz his face was uglier than an ork's. And cuz an ork was the one who punched his jaw in. They were just joking, though, they didn’t really think he was uglier than an ork. Friends joke like that sometimes. At least, they do in my stories." She let that sentence hang in the air for a moment more before she muttered "'Sides…they’re neat, your squiggly arms…just-like-you."
 
Litilus finally set down his dataslate and stared incredulously at the cheery psyker "Err…thanks?"
 
Only to be met by another giggle from the psyker.
 
"Your face just turned the same color as your robes."
 
Litilus pulled his hood forward to cover his face and attempted to redirect the discussion. "You mentioned a 'Grampa' twice in the past conversation. I take it this person is important to you?"
 
"Yeah… he kinda raised me by himself. Until I was eight, at least. Gramma died before I was born and Momma killed herself after she…found out what I was. Dad never forgave me for Momma so that just left Grampa. Fought for the Guard. He and all of his Guard friends fought so hard that the Emperor rewarded him with the world I was born on." Akadia slowly brought her legs up into her chair and clutched her knees to her chest, staring off into the distance. "He was also the last person to talk to me before the Black Ships took me away…"
 
"That sounds like quite the…difficult childhood."
 
"Yeah…That was probably the worst birthday I ever had."
 
"What’s a birthday?"
 
"You don’t know?! It’s when you get to celebrate the day you were born and everyone is nice to you and gives you presents and a party and you get to eat all the cake you want until you get sick! It’s great! You’ve never had one?"
 
"Not one."
 
"That’s terrible! Sounds like your childhood wasn’t so great, either. I can’t imagine growing up without birthdays…"
 
"It was nothing noteworthy. My parents were deemed genetically compatible by the Magos Biologis, thus their genetic material was combined and distilled into a fetus in an artificial. After a period of incubation time, I was decanted along with the rest of my generation and then we were communally raised and taught the ways of the Machine God. Those who refused to learn were converted into servitors. Just your average childhood, you know?"
 
"That’s…" Akadia tried to stifle her laughter, failing miserably.
 
"What? What’s so funny?"
 
"I'm sorry!" She continued after she regained her composure. "I just…like-the-jokes-you-make. They cheer me up."
 
"I wasn’t making a joke."
 
"You weren’t? But that’s not a normal childhood at all!"
 
Litilus grumbled dismissively. "Oh, like you would know."
 
Joy drained from Akadia’s face at this remark as she stared dejectedly into her teacup "Yeah…I guess you’re right."
 
"No, wait. That is not what I meant. I was trying to say–"
 
"It’s true, though."
 
Her voice was flat. Devoid of the expressiveness Litilus had come to expect from the psyker.
 
"I…think I should probably leave now."
 
"Yeah."
 
Her despondent gaze remained firmly on the contents of her teacup. Summoning all of his courage, Litilus put his entire hand on her shoulder.
 
"I am sorry, Akadia. I want you to know that."
 
"It’s okay…"
 
As he made his exit, the embarrassed techpriest hung awkwardly at her doorway for a moment more.
 
"Oh, and thank you again for the tea."
 
Akadia finally looked up and a feeble smile crept onto her face.
 
"Your face is the same color as your robes again."
 
Before she could say another word, Litilus was gone.
 
----
 
A few days later, Litilus was frantically turning his private quarters inside out. Where in the Warp did he leave his dataslate? He finally had some time to work on his personal projects and the damned thing was nowhere to be found! He had even triple-checked all of his various hiding places (after all, the best way to keep those damned meatbags and their squishy, greasy fingers off of things they shouldn’t touch is to remove it from their sight entirely). He sat down by his workbench and gave up his search, annoyed by his own recent incompetence. Where was his mind at these days? He was never this scatterbrained and disorganized. Could it really be that those damned meeting with Akadia were affecting his mind this much? And for that matter, why had he even bothered to remember her name? No sooner had he begun to ruminate on these pressing questions when there was a knock upon his door.
 
"No, I will not double-check your lasrifle. The error most likely lies with the user, not the device." He called out listlessly, not even bothering to get up from his moping roost. An all too familiar voice called back to him.
 
"Umm, I don’t have a lasrifle. I do have a laspistol, though, but I didn’t bring it with me. Oh! But that’s not why I'm here. I wanted to bring you something because I think this belongs to you because it’s not mine but I found it in my room and you’re the only person who ever visits me so here it is. Oh wait, you can’t see it…Can you open the door please maybe if it’s okay with you?"
 
Litilus grumbled as he trudged through the mess he had just finished making on his way to his door. What greeted him on the other side was not the pale face he had expected, but rather a blank screen shoved in his face. As he plucked his missing dataslate from Akadia’s trembling hands, he noticed that her eyes were downcast, focusing on a particularly interesting piece of flooring.
 
"Sorry for taking so long to get it back to you! I wanted to find you and give it back as soon as I noticed you left it but I was nervous and thought you wouldn’t want to see me again so soon but I also know how much I hate it when one of my books goes missing so I just kept fretting over it for a day or two or maybe three – I lose track sometimes – and then it took me a while to find someone who could show me where you were because everyone pretends they need to be somewhere else whenever they see me and then when I finally found your quarters you were never there so I was going to just leave it by your door but I was afraid something might happen to it and then I got nervous and ran off and I kept doing this until just now and I just wanted to–"
 
"Thank you! I have been looking everywhere for this!" Litilus interrupted, more focused on his reclaimed dataslate than her frenetic confession. "I was about to have to go back redo everything from scratch and Omnissiah knows how long that would have taken…"
 
The jovial techpriest even went as far as to forgo his usual misgivings about personal contact and clap Akadia on the shoulder in his joy at being reunited with the missing dataslate.  She nearly jumped in surprise at the sudden physical contact before cracking an unsure smile and addressing the area around his face and the ceiling instead of the floor, still too nervous to make direct eye contact.
 
"Oh! Umm, you’re welcome, I guess. Like I said, I know frustrating it is when something you were looking forward to reading goes missing, so I just wanted to make sure you got yours back. I mean, it was sorta my fault it was missing in the first place and all…"
 
Litilus waved a mechadendrite dismissively, still invested in the dataslate. "Do not worry yourself over it, Akadia, the fault was all mine for being forgetful enough in the first place. Besides, today is the first day I got enough free time to even access the thing."
 
"So…you like to read stories too?"
 
"This dataslate does not contain a storybook within it, but rather diagnostics to the ship. You see, this ship is positively ancient, more so than I believe even the good Lord Captain truly understands. I intend to return to the Mechanicus with a full understanding of the workings of this ship. A mere dream, I know, but it was what drove me to volunteer for this position when the Lord Captain requisitioned the aid of a techpriest from our order.”
 
"That’s…that’s amazing"
 
He cocked his only eyebrow in puzzlement.
 
"You…really think so?"
 
"Well…yeah. To have a goal like that to work for. I'm really only here because Mister van Calrissan promised me less fighting and real food and all I had to do in return was wear a purple robe because apparently purple is a fancier color than brown. Also because he bought the Guard Company I was attached to so I didn’t really have much of a choice. But you, you have your dreams to work for."
 
"You know, most people just stop listening once I have fixed whatever machine they are currently abusing so I never get to talk much about it ever since I signed on this ship, but starships are something truly dear to me. They way the shrug off the lethality of the void and brave the perils of the Warp itself in order to aid man in his conquest of the stars…They are truly the ultimate testament to the Will of Mankind and our greatest technology, as well as the greatest gift the Machine God has ever bestowed upon us."
 
"And the Emperor" Akadia mumbled.
 
"What was that?"
 
"The Emperor. He gives us psykers like me – well not me but the Astropaths and Navigators who are also psykers so they’re sorta like me – to guide the ship and help make sure it gets where it needs to be and keep us all connected."
 
"Yes, yes I suppose so. You psykers are absolutely vital to the proper function of an Omnissiah-blessed ship." He poked his head out into the hallway, looking around for any potential interlopers. "Can…can I tell you a secret? Something I have never even told another servant of the Machine God?"
 
Akadia’s eyes shone in wonder.
 
"Yes, yes! Absolutely yes! I swear I won’t tell another soul! Living or dead! It’s not like anyone else talks to me anyways so you know I'm telling the truth!"
 
"Well…I hope to one day be able to study a xeno vessel. Not because I'm a heretek or anything like that! I just…want to know how it is possible to survive the void without a machine spirit to guide you or the blessing of the Omnissiah to protect you. If we knew that, we could more easily destroy those who would threaten mankind. After all, assembling something and taking it apart require roughly the same set of skills."
 
Akadia smiled warmly at his admission.
 
"I think that’s wonderful, Litilus. And thank you for trusting me."
 
"Right, well, I should probably get back to, you know…" Litilus waved the dataslate awkwardly, unable to find the words to complete his sentence.
 
"Right! Right. I should probably also…go do…a thing…that-isn’t-standing-in-a-hallway. Bye!"
 
And with that, Akadia scampered off. Litilus, meanwhile, had returned to his workbench, eager to dig through all those lovely diagnostics and return to the soothing task of synthesizing cluttered data. And yet, he found himself staring off into nothingness or getting distracted by the most minor things. No matter what he did, he just couldn’t find his focus. Irritated, Litilus shut off his dataslate and went for a walk to clear his head.
 
----
 
Akadia could barely contain her joy as she hurried back to her room. No one had ever shared a secret with her! That was the sort of thing that only happened in her stories because only friends share secrets with each other and she hadn’t had one of those since she was a kid. This was probably the best day in her life since the Black Ships came for her! Overwhelmed by emotion, she flopped down on her bed and simply reveled in the warm, foreign feeling she was currently experiencing. She lost track of how long she had laid there when she heard a knock on her door and hurried to answer it.
 
"Hello again, Akadia. I was wondering if you, well, desired to…talk?" the uncomfortable techpriest on the other side ventured.
 
Akadia beamed. Yes, this was definitely the best day since the Black Ships.