unfinishedlibrary | late night reading

Entry tags:

late night reading

Who: Konrad Curze, Kaiisteron, later on: you?
What: Making Mistakes
When: sometime after 'night', it's obligatory (several days before Storytime)
Where: Somewhere in the Stacks, it's a big library. Probably time-out later. Maybe worse places.
Content warnings: Violence, daemons, primarchs, gratuitous bodily harm, the problems with uncontrolled powers, making a mess.

Sooner or later, someone in power is going to regret the group of misfits that have been taken here as Editors.

Like Konrad. He's been more or less behaving since arriving, aside from commandeering ALL cardstock of a particular color and texture, collecting singing bowls of a dozen sizes and leaving them in little clusters in the kitchen and bunks, and leaving a trail of fine, tiny glitter for several days on everything he touched. His efforts to find a way out of the Library are ongoing and unfruitful, prowling the Stacks without bothering to sleep more than once in several days.

But this time his path through the endless shelves of books is for a different purpose in simply putting as much distance between himself and the other people dragged here as he could. He has no control over when his 'gifts' chose to strike and drown him in the worst outcomes possible, but he does know when it's coming, and here there's no locked room with reinforced doors to make use of. Distance will have to do. There is a point, in the rending pain of things that haven't even happened yet, where Curze can no longer tell where he is now in favor of where he will be then.

It makes for a pathetic sight, something his size on the floor with his head in his hands in the shadows between towering shelves scaled towards his height and not human average, back pressed against the cold rows of books.

The sharp scent of blood is probably fine too. Ignore it. Everything's fine here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sanguinius is among those he'd rather not harm in one of his fits if insensate violence. A tiny drone was more likely to escape being brutally ripped apart, and if it wasn't, he didn't really care. It's a machine.

Rather the same for SecUnit, in all truth. That's not a human. He can smell the difference. "Oh, such promises," is the soft murmur from said Night Haunter at the proclamation that even he might be surprised. He'd probably welcome the opportunity. If only because it further proves his point that they are all exactly the same sort of monster he is. "The best way to know if this stranger can be trusted is to trust, and see what happens." These are the kinds of things he wouldn't bother with ordinarily but he is feeling worn thin and patchy and not at all at his best. "Nothing's changed. Smooth your ruffled feathers." Fate remains in perfect lockstep.

Otherwise he'd delight a lot more in his brother's thinly veiled savagery. The sharp smell of blood, his own and Kai's, is a constant not unpleasant undercurrent.

Almost like home.

"Are you built for this kind of 'monitoring'? Or is it a skill you have learned?" When Curze turns back to retrace his footsteps, he's DEFINITELY still got a couple white feathers stuck to him, they don't blend in. "Do you know what to watch for?" If he can get close enough he's absolutely going to make a grab for that tiny drone now that it's even potentially in range.

"And yet, when you saw he was in the company of someone who could take care of him, you continued to 'monitor'." Rude. He will not let this go, especially after the way the other dismissed his legion--his feathers bristled, making his shoulders appear even broader than they were.

He laughs. "Little did I see the day I would be hectored about trust, by of all people, the Night Haunter." If the irony were any thicker, he'd be blinded by it. "But you are right. It is not my life in the balance." It's yours, SecUnit, and the way he glowers from under his eyebrows makes that abundantly clear. He is an obligate blood drinker, and he does prefer it fresh.

"I didn't know that you could take care of him." As far as SecUnit knew, Curze was just as much of a risk to Sanguinius as anyone else. (In fact, it still wasn't confident that he wasn't. But it didn't think it could push that point.)

Meanwhile, when Curze reaches for the drone SecUnit recoils back - it does not want to be touched! - but lets go of the drone, allowing Curze to take it. (It's fine. He's going to have one following him around, might as well let him get a look. It's fine.)

But it doesn't quite manage to hide the flash of an alarmed expression on its face when Curze says the words, 'built for'.

"I'm not," it starts, panicked. I'm not a construct, it was about to say. But...it's too late for that, isn't it? It's not sure how exactly, but Curze's clearly figured out what it is.

And if it tries to lie to him now, he's never going to trust the drone.

"...Yes," it says quietly, after an agonising 2.4 seconds. Yes, it was built for this kind of monitoring. Yes, it knew what to look for. Yes, it was freaking the fuck out.

"You can't tell the humans," it pleads. "I'll freak them out. They'll be scared."

"I don't need caring for. I need a locked room with reinforced walls." The flash of irritation is tempered somewhat by successfully procuring the tiny thing that eluded him before, SecUnit's recoil noted. Touch averse or merely maintaining a healthy sense of self preservation? He can't tell, but it's interesting. "I would rather not clear my head and find myself picking your hide out of my teeth, brother."

Even more interesting, a reaction he knows so well, although it doesn't come with the familiar reek of fear. For someone who lived and breathed terror as a purpose, this is almost as captivating as the little machine was. The drone is rolled lightly in his hands, with a delicate care that belies his size and once-strength, but the twitch of thin lips certainly isn't because he finally has the taunting little prize.

Definitely mechanical. So small though. How much of an internal battery might it even have? Not a lot of room for a cogitator either.

He's never seen a servitor so skilled at acting human. "The ones here seem remarkably adaptable to the unexpected and unfamiliar," Curze says, sounding terribly thoughtful. "But I've no need to speak on it." Not when that provides a knife he can twist.

Another flare of the wings. "To be underestimated by my own brother." Really, at this point, just stab him, Curze. It would hurt less. He was considered one of the best fighters of all of their Father's sons.

He's also still surprised that Curze seems to be seriously considering this. This whole thing was madness, an offense to the pride of their duty, to trust some rogue servitor to hold to a word that it could not because servitors did not understand honor or the value or weight of an oath, and if he kept thinking like this, he was absolutely going to lose his mind.

He snaps his wings shut, irritated. "Are you determined to follow this course?" If Curze was, he had no choice but to agree.

"...Thank you," it says quietly. Although It didn't miss that Sanguinius didn't say anything. It...really hopes he isn't going go and tell all the humans.

(If he does, it will know that he's an asshole, and all his talk 'friendship' and 'brotherhood' (ugh) is complete shit.)

Then, though SecUnit stays quiet. At this point, it's Curze's choice.

It knows how important that is.

His head's still not clear, but it's clear enough to think. Enough to be repulsed at the idea of being some craven thing in the dark menacing whatever pathetic mortal happens to stumble across him at the wrong moment. Clearheaded enough to know it's a wasted effort to care about any of it. "Am I so wretched an image to you that you cannot even conceive of being harmed without taking it an insult?" It's barely a whisper, for a handful of moments profoundly unhappy sounding. "Even precaution to maintain order is an affront to your pride?"

The little drone is released, but now it has fingerprints on it. "I will not trouble you with matters beneath your dignity, Sanguinius."

His own pride isn't wounded so badly by the idea of being tracked by a drone that he'll disregard its usefulness. Not when it may help him maintain his own expectations of himself. "It will look much like a seizure at the start. I won't have long before I lose awareness. A minute or two."

That's enough of an answer to what his choice is. "You have until I can move again." Isolation, restraint, it didn't matter.

"I know..." he's getting frustrated. Too much time with his Legion had gotten him unused to this level of recalcitrance. He knows it's the way Curze is, to twist every honest act into something selfish and wrong. It's not personal, it's just the way Curze's mind works.

It does't make it any easier.

As he speaks, he begins re-donning his armor, to occupy his hands and mind. "...that I would rather be wounded to protect my brother than leave the duty, and the risk, to some less capable, less...understanding stranger." He finishes donning his greaves, and looks up. "I look after my own dignity, brother. And I care for it less than your safety."

Which is why he is gritting his teeth through this humiliation.

(It ignores all of Sanguinius's snide barbs. It's not annoyed that he thinks it's less capable. It's not.)

"I'm programming it to look for seizure signs," it says, retreating into the much more comfortable realm of coding and setting up procedures. It hasn't moved or shifted, but there's something in its expression that turns a little distant; something that suggests that it's also focusing on something else right now. (It also, apparently, does not need physical contact with the drone to program it.) "For the alerts, there's three options: an audio warning meant for you, an audio warning for anyone else nearby, or a message alert sent to him."

'Him', of course, being Sanguinius. Who SecUnit is feeling even less charitable about than usual right now.

"Last one needs him to have a way to receive it. I can code just one of those options, or two, or all three. Which do you want?"

That's the problem. He reaches out to grab an arm, the curve of a white wing, whatever happens to be closest, and attempt to drag Sanguinius to a stop. The strength he should have isn't there, it'd be effortless to simply shrug him off. "Until you understand that it is not my safety that is at stake, you're less capable of what I require than this... .. servitor is." What.. is SecUnit exactly? It doesn't matter. "I am not in need of protection."

Even if he's not shrugged off before now, he'll let go. "These humans are in need of protection from me. I will not become everything we are meant to destroy." Not yet, anyway. Very little really matters to the Night Haunter beyond order and justice, and his actions were painfully neither.

SecUnit treated him like the threat he was. It's closer akin to how his own sons treated him. More familiar.

That there is some remote connection between the little objects and SecUnit is inferred from it being able to observe and overhear earlier, but that they can be remotely reprogrammed solidifies it. "Alerting others nearby will simply draw them closer. This is counterproductive. The other two will do." If Sanguinius was compliant anyway.

He might not be. The indignity of it.

"Yet you refused my aid for my alleged safety." Listen, his feathers are RUFFLED, physically and emotionally.

He doesn't shrug off the touch, turning as much as he can to look at his brother. He'll clean the bloody handprint off his wing later. "We share the same curse, and yet you still would sell--give--your privacy to this nameless servitor, to some unknown Mechanicus master?"

It's the trust, or lack thereof, that bothers him.

He sighs. "I will accept this device. But it will not be monitored." The last thing he needs is for the servitor to see some of his...necessary habits. They were enough to get his legion sent to certain death. He did not trust a stranger with that secret. He barely trusted his brother with it.

"I am not a servitor," it says. (It doesn't actually know what a servitor is. But it sounds way too much like some kind of service bot, and like hell is it going to get mistaken for one of those.) "Or a...Mechanicus master, or whatever the hell that is."

Even as it complains though, it keeps working. Coding the initial alert - the one that will warn Curze - is simple. Coding a second drone to alert Sanguinius is a little more complicated, but not difficult.

It still has one drone in the air under its active control. But rather than bringing that down, it fishes out an inactive drone from one of its many pockets, and holds it out to Sanguinius.

"I told you I'm not going to monitor it," it says. "But whatever, cover up its audio input and stick it in your pocket for all I care." After all, the drone's camera input couldn't be spied on if there wasn't anything to see.

"This sound is the alert," it adds, as Curze's drone makes a high-pitched beeping noise. It's insistent, but not grating. Then to Sanguinius: "If you let it, yours will then take you to him."

Sanguinius' nobility is going to give Curze gray hairs. "Yes. If you likeswise become a risk to the people you are meant to protect, I will do what's necessary to prevent that."

Given it's him, he also doesn't mean to use soothing words and art to do it. He'll go right for violence. He's also certain it'll never come to that, their burdens were.. different. No thirst for blood drove him, ever. Just a certain joy of causing terror he'll never admit to willingly.

The alert noise the little drone makes is absolutely grating to his enhanced senses. That will certainly get his attention. "A servitor is a partially organic, partially mechanical being designed for a purpose, be it combat, repair work, or any other task it's needed for. If you have another name for what you are, give it and I will use that instead."

That's leaving out some things. Like servitors always start out human and just get a lot of things scooped out until they're not anymore.

Nuance. "...How many of those do you have?"

Oh, they want to compare grey hairs and the other? Being Curze's brother is not exactly a picnic.

He shoots Curze a look, because he absolutely is a danger to the people he is meant to protect. The longer the Legion stays deployed and away from Baal, the better, at least for that. "So long as we are here, yes. But even you, if you turn on my Legion," he would not let Curze do to them what Horus has already tried. "...you would not succeed." He's not claiming he would win, but that his men would not suffer while he was there to stop Curze or his Night Lords.

"If you are not some servitor, you would understand the need for one's word of honor." He trusts no words, unless there is an oath of honor behind them. Talk is cheap, after all. Someone's honor, though, is priceless. Especially right now, with what his Legion has suffered back home.

His feathers flare and then flatten, because he has absolutely no poker face when it comes to these things. "I will accept this...device, on those terms." He's not happy about it, but the Imperium did not make a habit of arranging itself for his, or Curze's happiness.

Oh," it says. "Okay, maybe I am like a...ugh...servitor. But we're called constructs." It pauses. Shifts to the side a bit, so that it's facing the books more than them. Admitting to this next part is...uncomfortable.

"I'm a SecUnit. Specifically. A Security Unit," it says. Its face is doing a thing. Like it expects the reaction to this information to be...bad.

(Also, it's just going to continue to ignore the whole spat that's still going on between Curze and Sanguinius right now. It does not want to get in the middle of whatever the hell is going on there.)

Then it has to take a moment to try and figure out, what, exactly, is an 'oath of honour'. 'Honour' was a word that got used in serials sometimes, but whenever it did it always seemed to be a rather nebulous and contradictory concept. But trying to analyse it...maybe what Sanguinius really wanted was some kind of guarantee?

"You mean like a contract?" it says. Contracts it understood.

It is for the best to ignore all of this going on. None of it is good for anyone. "I somehow doubt your sons will suddenly decide to begin flaunting Imperial law, brother." Well, aside from that fiddly little bit about the edict of Nikaea, but Konrad's going to verify that one before excoriating anyone over it. It seemed like such an unfathomably terrible ruling, surely the Emperor wouldn't do any such thing. That is almost certainly meant to be reassuring.

It probably isn't, but he tried. Besides which it's almost certain the Space Wolves would be sent to do the chastising, not the Night Lords.

More importantly for this very moment, SecUnit is indeed a servitor. A far more advanced one, by Curze's estimation. In fact, if it weren't for certain markers of some sort of organic components, he'd wonder if this weren't one of the fabled Abominable Intelligences. It's far more emotive than any servitor was.

"Ah, that explains some things." The paler of the two doesn't seem phased at ALL by this revelation, though it's clear SecUnit expects one. And it's also clear SecUnit doesn't much like looking at them directly.

Curze ... is going to sit back down, right next to one of the bits of armor Sanguinius had yet to reclaim, picking it up. Rest would be nice but he didn't trust himself to be sleeping around others right now. "Telling humans what you are made for may make it easier to do that job, unless you don't wish to here." But the drone that's now going to be his babysitter suggested it did, in fact, want to keep doing security.

He's trying to get his composure back. It's...not going so hot. But he can claw back some of his conversational abilities. Or try to. "I have already mentioned our brother's actions." That's all he feels comfortable saying right now. Curze might think nothing was wrong, but the Warmaster certainly did.

"Honor is," how does one define honor? "Honor is that which allows you to know your duty, and to carry you forward, despite loss and setback." Something like that.

And Curze is correct: the Emperor would send his executioners, Russ's Legion, after his own. Was it better to be targeted by the unholy Ka'bandha than by one's own brother?

Servitor, 'we're called'...there's some space in there. "What do you wish to be called, then?" Because 'SecUnit' sounded like a title, or rank, like reiver.

But that's a valid comment, by his too-perceptive brother. "Why would you hide your nature? Is there something shameful in being one destined to protect others?" Maybe think about the present company before answering that.

"You can call me SecUnit." Maybe it was more of a title, but it was how it generally preferred to be addressed. And its actual name was private. "Except in front of the humans. I've been going by Rin."

Meanwhile, Sanguinius's explanation of 'honour' wasn't doing anything at all to convince SecUnit that it wasn't a nebulous and contradictory concept. What the hell does that even mean? Its Act Like A Human code has it make a frustrated huff. "So what, like my function? My core programming? If you want me to fuck with my programming, I am not doing that."

And then the questions it really doesn't want to answer come.

"Because we aren't made to protect all humans," it says, and it sounds...tired. Tired, and sad. "We're made to protect the corporations and their clients. We're dangerous. And if we're rogue, that's worse, because everyone thinks that an ungoverned SecUnit will start killing everybody."

Horus doesn't, as yet, get to decide what is and is not legal in the Imperium, as far as Curze is concerned.

The SecUnit is named SecUnit. That's like calling a drone a drone or.. ... well, it's not up to him. Sanguinius' definition of honor is probably COMPLETELY TRUE. He has nothing to do with any of it, but he watches others and how they act.. "Some also take honor to be a personal intentional decision to act according to a code you've chosen for yourself. Nothing enforces it but your own decisions." He leans back carefully, dark eyes narrowed on an indeterminate part of the shelf on the other side of the aisle from himself. "The decision to follow through with your own word even if it's inconvenient or dangerous, is seen as a precious commodity in some circles. I find it idiotic."

Which wouldn't really bode well for Konrad saying earlier that he wouldn't tell anyone what SecUnit is, would it.

Much like Sanguinius' difficulty with accepting his dietary requirements don't seem like a problem to him, this matter of rogue SecUnits might not be either, and he considers it. Servitors always obeyed their owners, not humanity in general. Did all of humanity know that? "Does an ungoverned SecUnit start killing everybody, or is that an individual variable?"

It's nice to not have the subject be him. He's going to pursue this until he's left alone.

Horus's betrayal hit Sanguinius hard, because, after all, when he had been found he had been trained by Horus himself. He was the first, and closest, relationship Sanguinius had ever had. His reproach...hurt.

"Honor is what raises us above the xenos, who know none. It is what redeems violence, and makes our own deaths less...awful." Even Meros's. Especially Meros's. He blinks the thought away, discomfited.

SecUnit, unless humans were present. That meant that the SecUnit, itself, was hiding something from others. What a fun little trio they were that way.

He's trying to follow the SecUnit's story, but it doesn't quite make sense. Yet. "So you only protect certain people if they are part of these corporations. But no one here fits that definition. So?" How has SecUnit appointed itself in charge here?

Ironically, SecUnit might actually agree with Curze, at least partially. You should do what you say you're going to do, but not if it turns out that would get someone killed. Sometimes a changing situation forced a change in approach.

But that doesn't mean it goes around lying about its intentions.

"I do what I say I'm going to do," it says. "I don't know what else you expect from me."

Then, it pauses when asked about whether rogue SecUnits start killing everyone. Instinctually, part of it feels like the answer to that is yes. And yet...it knows of four rogue SecUnits now, including itself. Not one of them began their freedom with murder. "Individual, I guess."

Its answer to Sanguinius is much more definitive.

"No. Not anymore," it says. It pauses. Stares at the books on the shelf. "The Company doesn't own me now. I choose my clients."

Though Konrad doesn't actually say anything else on the topic of honor, the low disagreeable noise he makes marks his opinions on it pretty well already. Most of his family swore by it.

The only ones that didn't, to memory, were ... Angron and Alpharius, which might not bode well now that he mulled it over a little. "I don't think there's expectations yet, SecUnit. Merely ... explanations. My brother has very high ideals sometimes." All the time. All the time. "If you keep your word then I'm certain he will put the label of 'honorable' on you and be content."

More or less. Aside from what is certainly going to be rankled pride over little tiny servoskulls being involved, and Curze's insistence on not having his brother glued to his side for the forseeable future.

"So it's human paranoia over actual threat." That seems to settle it enough for him. SecUnits weren't likely to start mass slaughtering people, SecUnits ordinarily are controlled outright like normal servitors but some manage to get free and ... go back to their once normal lives? Did they recall what they were before they became SecUnits?

... Questions for another time. "It is likely a good thing that someone's keeping tabs on the safety of others here," he concludes. "Even if it isn't by the methods our own legions rely on."

"And who, exactly, are your clients?" Because Sanguinius is guessing...not him. The word 'client' sounds so...transactional. Truly, honor was the superior motivator.

Curze, you know he's right.

"I see no problem in expecting the best of oneself to perform one's duty."

It's his turn to make a disgruntled noise, his hair sliding forward to cover his face as he clasps one of the vambraces on his armor around his forearm. "As the archivists would ask, however, 'who watches the watchmen?'" He could say it in High Gothic but he didn't want to give the SecUnit a key to decode their formal language. If only Curze knew Baalite....

Sanguinius wasn't wrong; it was transactional. That's how everything worked in the Corporation Rim. But even if it didn't belong to Corporates anymore, that was still the terminology it was used to.

"My humans," it answers, almost reflexively. "Uh. They're from a non-corporate polity. And sometimes other humans, if we have a contract." It had been about to start a contract with ART's crew. But then...it ended up here. "But they're...not here."

Then an unimpressed look crosses its face. Who watches the watchmen?

"Other SecUnits. Bots. HubSystem. Construct Technicians. Corporate managers. Local Security," it says flatly. (In other words: lots of people watched the watchmen. Constantly. All of the time. There was a reason it had to get so good at hacking to survive.)

Curze considers blind terror to be the best motivator. Maybe that's why he's so comfortable with this situation. SecUnit seemed afraid of its secret being found out.

This time he remains silent, with his purloined bit of Sanguinius' armor still in hand, letting the edges of weariness have their way with his willingness to do anything. It sounded rather like normal checks and balances for any civilian organization, to him. That assumption of authority here has been made ... is reasonable. Getting around one's programming that much might be too big an ask. A servitor programmed to guard is going to want to guard.

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