Nemesis

paused and unbuttoned his tunic. Glancing around, he saw a spray of fresh Saturnine

roses still in their delivery wrappings; he tossed his jacket down next to them and

then followed her into the bedchamber.

Jocasta did not weep as Gergerra Rei went to his death.

The queen enveloped him in long, firm arms as he stepped in, bringing her body

up to meet his, pressing her breasts to his chest, moulding herself to him. The Mech-

Lord’s dizzy smile was shaky and he gasped for air. His reactions were perfect; his

flawless new love for Jocasta—for that was what it was, the most pure and exact

rendition of neurochemical release—was the final product of weeks of carefully

tailored pheromone bombardment. Tiny amounts of meta-dopamine and serotonin

analogues had been introduced to Rei over time, the dosages light enough that even

the ultra-sensitive scanners of his machine-aide would not detect them. The

cumulative amounts had pushed him into something approaching obsession; and

combined with a physiological template based on his taste in female bed partners, the

trap had been set and laden with honey.

Jocasta bent Rei’s head down to meet hers and pressed her lips to his. He

shuddered as she did it, surrendering to her. It was so easy.

Gergerra Rei had been involved in the creation of the Furious Abyss. Not in a

way that could be proven without doubt in a court of law, not in a way that connected

him through any direct means, but enough that the guardians of the Imperium were

certain of it. Whatever his crime, perhaps the transfer of certain bribes, the diversion

of materials and manpower, the granting of passage to ships that should have been

denied, the Kapekan Mech-Lord had done the bidding of the traitor Horus Lupercal.

The small weapon concealed between Jocasta’s tongue and the base of her mouth

was pushed up, held in place by clenched teeth. A lick of the trigger plate was all that

was needed to fire the kissgun. The needle-sized round penetrated the roof of Rei’s

mouth and fragmented, allowing the threads of molecule-thin wire to explode

outward. The threads whirled through the meat of his nasal cavity and up into his

forebrain, shredding everything they touched. He lurched backwards and fell to the

bed, blood and brain matter drooling from his lips and nostrils. Rei sank into the

silken sheets, his corpse dragging them awry, revealing beneath the body of the

actress whose face he had loved so ardently.

His killer moved quickly, shrugging off the illusion of the dead woman even as

the target’s corpse began to cool.

Flesh shifted in small ways, the Jocasta-face slipping to become less defined,

more like a sketch upon paper. The killer spat out the kissgun and discarded it, then

drew sharp nails along the inside of a muscular thigh. A seam in the skin parted to

allow a wet pocket to open, and long fingers drew out a spool and handle affair from

88

within. The killer gently shook the device and padded towards the silk curtains. Rei

had died silently but the machine-aide was clever enough to run a passive scan for

heartbeats every few seconds; and if it detected one instead of two…

The spool unwound into a thin taper of metal, which rolled out to the length of a

metre. Once fully extended, the weapon became rigid; it was known as a memory

sword, the alloy that comprised the blade capable of softening and hardening at the

touch of a control.

Koyne liked the memory sword, liked the gossamer weight of it. Koyne liked

what it could do, as well. With a savage slash, the blade sliced down the thin silk

curtain and the motion alerted the mechanoid—but not quickly enough. Koyne thrust

the point into the aide’s chromium chest and through the armour casing around the

biocortex module that served as the robot’s brain. It gave a faint squeal and became a

rigid statue.

Leaving the sword in place, Koyne took a moment to prepare for the next

template. Koyne knew Gergerra Rei as well as the actress who played Queen Jocasta,

and would adopt him just as easily. The Callidus despised the term “mimicry”. It was

a poor word that could not encompass the wholeness with which a Callidus would

become their disguises. To mimic something was to ape it, to pretend. Koyne became

the disguise; Koyne inhabited each identity, even if it was for a short while.

The Callidus was a sculpture that carved itself. Bio-implants and heavy doses of

the shapeshifter drug polymorphine made skin, bone and muscle become supple and

motile. Those who could not control the freedom it gave would collapse and turn into

monstrosities, things like molten waxworks that were little more than heaps of bone

and organs. Those with the gift of the self, though, those like Koyne, they could

become anyone.

Concentrating, Koyne shifted to neutrality, a grey, sexless form that was smooth

and almost without features. The Callidus did not recall any birth-gender; that data

was irrelevant when it was possible to be man or woman, young or old, even human

or xenos if the will was there.