When Stas first realized where he had ended up, his first instinct was to shove his head into the machine and end this terrible nightmare.
Yes, out of all the possible universes Stas could have found himself in as a "newcomer," cruel fate chose one of the most monstrous for him.
Waking up in the body of one of billions of powerless factory workers in an imperial hive was not the fate you would wish upon anyone. The fragmented memories that came with the body only confirmed his dreadful situation.
On the other hand, when Stas managed to resist the urge to jump into the working machine and continued mechanically performing his repetitive tasks, he realized that it could have been much worse.
After all, this universe was known for always having something even worse.
Stas could have appeared in the world-forge of the technopriests, where workers were denied even a name and had only a digital identifier, with even fewer rights than in the ordinary imperial cities. Not to mention the risk of becoming a servitor, which increased at a geometric rate.
Or he could have become a worker in one of the demonic forge worlds, where he could be sacrificed at any moment to power one of the hellish machines.
Finally, he could have become a servitor, forever trapped in his mutilated, mechanical brain. A permanent observer, deprived even of the chance for death or oblivion.
That was why Stas resigned himself. But not in the way one might expect in his situation.
Oh no.
Stas simply accepted that he would die, and his death would be horrible and painful.
After all, working at the factory more than fourteen hours a day, with terrible food and no social package, is not a time-spanning horrible death?
And if Stas was going to die, why not make it at least interesting?
- Hey, you bag of bones! Why aren't you working?! - The fat foreman was already approaching Stas when a melancholy smile stretched the man's lips.
- Um, - the foreman hesitated when he saw the strange expression on the worker's face. - What are you doing? Uh, well... - Whatever the foreman wanted to say, it was drowned out by the squeal of the circular saw gnawing into human flesh.
Although Stas looked as if he had just come out of the Nazi "spa resort" Auschwitz, but the strength in his thin but wiry arms was more than enough to pick up and throw the shrieking foreman right on the rapidly spinning saw points.
The whole shop froze in horror, looking at the sacrilege in progress with huge eyes, for everyone had a good idea of what would happen next.
The guards on the upper level quickly grabbed the batons and, panting, ran downstairs to turn the rebellious worker into meat stuffed with crumbs of his own bones.
But Stas didn't care. With an almost elusive smile and an easy gait he walked straight at the guards approaching him.
The man saw no point in running, hoping that this would be the end of it.
*****
One of the workers raised his head and scrutinized the face of the rioter walking past him. It is not known what he found on it, but a mad, cruel smile appeared on his own dirty and stubble-covered face.
"As promised, the Gods have given a sign!"
- Brothers! - he roared, slinking out from beneath his loom in a slick motion. The fleeing guards almost comically began to slow down, hitting each other and producing a pile of mala before reaching the first rioter only a couple of meters away. - The gods had spoken their word! Here is the one who was promised! Death to the corpse on the throne and his pathetic lackeys!
- Dare! - and dozens of other workers began to pull weapons out of various nooks and crannies. There were few firearms, but plenty of stabbing and cutting weapons.
Meanwhile, the seeds of rebellion began their march to other workshops, raising hundreds and thousands of people for a senseless, merciless and bloody riot!
The guards tried to escape, but there was nowhere to run when the crowd rushing from all sides literally tore them into many bloody shreds.
Stas himself, perplexed, walked forward. He decidedly did not understand why he was still alive.
Cultists and rebels ran past him, each of them respectfully passing him in a circle, afraid to disrespect the Herald of the Will of the Chaos Gods
Some tried to touch his clothes, but most fell to their knees on the floor and tried to gather the dust he stepped his feet on.
And those who succeeded let out loud shouts of joy.
Only Stas himself was not amused at all.
The man walked gloomily forward and to his growing annoyance approached the exit from the factory without any problems. The memory of the owner of the body unmistakably led him to the exit, but it was not what he so desired.
Two hours later, as he stepped onto the dust and ash covered concrete of the Ixodus hive, the fire of the rebellion had long since spilled out of the factory walls and was beginning to spread through this area of the hive.
Meanwhile, the Governor's planetary forces, reinforced by a couple of Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii units, were urgently surrounding the infected area, pulling in all reserves to clear the affected area as quickly as possible.
Stas raised his head and looked up, ignoring the people running and panicking around him.
He couldn't see the sky, nor could he see the ceiling, because after a few hundred meters nothing could be seen through the black smog. It was decidedly unclear whether he was inside some gigantic room or whether there was a way to the sky somewhere up above? Or, if one remembered the height of the hives, to space.
It was also noteworthy that laser beams and flickering fire flashed in the windows of the surrounding buildings every now and then.
Explosion!
One of the walls cracked and pieces of concrete, metal structures and mutilated pieces of people fell down, right on top of Stas.
With a rumble, the debris began to fall all around, smashing the residents rushing or fighting in the streets.
The rumble was so loud that the man had to cover his ears to keep from going deaf.
Finally the rockfall ended and Stas looked at his body with grim calmness. Around him, blood- and meat-covered debris lay in dense rows.
Everyone who stood or ran near the man had been killed by the stones, but Stanislav hadn't gotten a scratch. Only his clothes were covered with a light dusting of dust from the continuous rockfall.
- Is that how it is?! - Stas hissed furiously, looking around hatefully. - That's your plan?! To give me hope that I'll be all right, and then take it away? Like I don't know what kind of world I'm in! Nothing can end well here. And that's why you're all fucked!
With these words, resolutely stomping and bypassing the surrounding debris, the man angrily moved forward, where it was necessary to push away those who prevented him from going to his goal.
All around, however, chaos was beginning to spread more and more. Those who had learned that they had been abandoned and trapped with the Chaosites by the people of Ixodus only added to the confusion, scurrying here and there in terror.
With a rumble, a smoking Adeptus Arbiteres shuttle collapsed just ahead on the road. The armor of the vehicle cracked and shattered from the powerful impact, causing the Arbiters inside to turn to mush and scatter around through the breach.
Stas was about to lose his step when the corpse of an officer, almost unrecognizable because of the damage, judging by the insignia, collapsed right in front of him.
However, what attracted the most attention was the pistol, which had fallen out of the dead hand and fell at Stanislav's feet.
- Damn it! - The man bent down and took the cartridge case with several magazines off the corpse and hung it up. In the next movement he picked up the weapon, which seemed to be just waiting to be used.
Stas had no doubt that he was going to die soon, but the rage in him demanded an outlet, and he hoped to take at least a couple of other freaks with him before he died.
Without another glance at the nearby corpse of the officer and the black, stinking smoke of the shuttle, the man turned his gaze to the unremarkable tunnel at the side.
The memory of the body's past owner suggested that this tunnel led directly to the lower levels of the hive.
A wry grin touched Stanislaw's lips.
That meant it was exactly the way he needed to go.
Where else to look for death but on the lowest levels of the hive?
A moment later, the perpetrator of one of the hive's biggest and bloodiest rebellions, Ixodus, had disappeared down one of the countless paths leading downward.
However, when three days later he was passing through an unremarkable tunnel, the sudden diarrhea of one of the soldiers of the cordon around the infected area created a microscopic gap into which Stas unwittingly passed unnoticed.
The man did not know that when four months later the neighborhood was cleaned up and cleared by the flames, the inquisitor who arrived could not find out where, in fact, the rebellion began.
In the fire of the rebellion, the identity of some pathetic laborer had been lost, of course. And the psyker in the Inquisitor's retinue was unable to pick anything out of the swirling chaos, filth and blood that covered the warp in this place.
Meanwhile, the ominous figure of a single laborer strode stubbornly toward the most terrifying and darkest depths of the Ixodus Hive
Though he was armed with only a single bolt pistol, the inhabitants had better start worrying.
*****
A warp covered in gold.
A glow so dazzling and bright that the hordes of demons that try to break through it every second are instantly burned in agony.
This does not confuse the countless legions of demons, each of whom hopes that he is lucky.
This light, in spite of its ruthlessness, is the very thing that protects the Imperium.
The tired, gaunt old man struggles to raise his head and stares in wonder.
His wrinkled face is hard to read, but his eyes are more expressive. In them you can see distrust and... Hope. Like the flame of a match in a storm.
It seemed that this light should go out at any second, but it persisted in spite of everything.
The old man's lips trembled a little, but immediately froze, without letting him know what emotion he wanted to show.
The light of the astronomicon continued its merciless work, spreading out in all directions and making it clear that.... Someone was still alive.
Against all odds.
*****
He knew everything. Or he tried to know everything. Or he would know everything.
The Architect of Fate looked around in disbelief, staring at the so-familiar web. Something was bugging him. Something had happened that shouldn't have happened. Something he couldn't see that made no sense.
It annoyed him greatly, but Tzinch still couldn't figure out what had caught his attention.
A flurry of excitement on the border with Qhorn had caused him to lower the priority of the matter, shifting the Architect's attention to fiddling with one of his dim-witted brothers.
He didn't realize that after the first invasion, more would follow, pushing the investigation even further into the future.
*****
The one with more luck and the one with more bad luck than anyone else.
Beautiful, even despite the surrounding stench and the illness swirling around her, her lips twitched in a smile.
The great unclean raised his head incredulously, looking away from his gurgling cauldron.
Isha knew that for that smile, she would know the agony of hell.
Still, it was worth it, for for the first time in so many eons, she felt hope again.