Andy stepped over the shattered remains of the Purestrain Genestealer. One severed purple claw remained wedged in the gap of the alloy valve, pointing inward in a final, unwilling gesture.
Without a second glance, Andy turned sideways and squeezed through. His bulky, earthy-yellow hazmat suit let out a sharp, screeching sound as it scraped against the jagged metal edges of the valve.
He was in.
The moment he passed the threshold, the radiation warning bar in the upper right corner of his vision instantly maxed out, turning a heart-stopping deep purple.
[WARNING: AMBIENT RADIATION INDEX EXCEEDS LIMIT BY 12,000%.]
[WARNING: HIGH-ENERGY MOLECULAR RECONSTRUCTION FIELD DETECTED.]
The air was thick with a visible purple mist. If an ordinary human—or even a Space Marine in Power Armor—were standing here without a specialized force field shield tuned to this specific frequency, they would be obliterated in an instant.
But Andy was fine.
He looked down at his hands. The surface of his hazmat suit was rapidly hardening and crystallizing, forming a brittle purple shell that crumbled into powder with every movement. But beneath that suit was his engineering chassis, a relic of the Dark Age of Technology.
Composed of high-density memory alloy with an extremely stable molecular structure, this reconstruction field—designed to target organic matter and low-density materials—had as much chance of shaking his metal skeleton as a microwave had of melting a block of tungsten steel. Aside from some bubbling in his exterior anti-rust paint, Andy felt perfectly fine.
In fact, this was a place where "if you can get in, the inside is safer than the outside." And Andy was now firmly on the inside.
"The racial perks of being an Iron Man," Andy remarked to himself as he strode forward.
This was the core maintenance corridor beneath the factory. The once-spacious hallway was now a disaster zone. The ceiling had collapsed entirely, and several massive I-beams were twisted into the ground, blocking the path. In the gaps between the fallen steel beams, Andy spotted a few heavy hitters.
Automatic sentry turrets installed by the Helios Group.
Laser cannons and underslung automatic grenade launchers—their black muzzles pointed directly down the corridor. These turrets were currently in a state of "half-life": their indicator lights were dark, and their barrels had been bent by falling rubble.
Andy lightened his footsteps, even manually lowering the output power of his hydraulic pumps, turning himself into a silent ghost. He wasn't afraid of these turrets firing; if they did, it would be little more than an itch to him.
What was truly terrifying was what lay beneath the turrets.
As mentioned before, directly beneath the bases of these turrets—within recesses in the walls—sat several wasp-like drones. These were the original maintenance drones that came with the "Black Box."
Creations of the Golden Age.
Equipped with high-energy plasma cutters designed to sever molecular bonds, those things were deadlier than a Purestrain Genestealer. Slicing through Andy's armor would be like slicing through tofu. Currently, the deployment hatches for these drones were jammed shut by the fallen sentry turrets. If the turrets fired, the shockwave would likely blow away the debris holding the hatches down, letting those caged wasps fly free.
If that happened, Andy's only option would be to run for his life. Ironically, Helios's reckless construction had saved Andy's life in this moment.
Andy carefully crawled through the gaps beneath the turrets, his movements as gentle as a bomb technician's. An obstacle appeared ahead: a purple, translucent humanoid statue blocking the middle of the road. It was a hybrid who hadn't made it out in time; he was frozen in a running pose, the terrified expression on his face perfectly preserved in purple crystal.
Without a word, Andy raised his right hand.
Smash!
A single punch shattered the crystal statue into a pile of glittering shards. The sound was crisp and melodic, blissfully free of any sickening gore.
After clearing the roadblock, Andy rounded a corner, and the view suddenly opened up.
"I'm here."
The core control room. The glass of the observation windows had long since shattered, leaving only empty frames. Andy stood by a frame, looking down at the massive core workshop below.
The area was still flooded with intense purple light, and at the center of that light stood the legendary machine.
At first glance, many would be disappointed. The machine's body—the so-called "Black Box"—was actually quite small. It was a black cube about five meters on each side, with no visible seams or rivets, its surface so smooth it could serve as a mirror. It hovered in mid-air, maintained by an anti-gravity field.
However, the Helios Group had surrounded it with a mountain of auxiliary facilities, making it appear abnormally large. A massive feeding hopper sat over the box like a monster's maw, thick cooling pipes coiled around it like snakes, and several conveyor belts stood silent and motionless.
Andy's gaze shifted from the Black Box to the surrounding warehouses. Inside the finished goods store, which had miraculously avoided collapse, rows of metal ingots were stacked neatly. Silver-white ones, likely aerospace-grade aluminum-titanium alloy; deep grey ones that looked like high-purity tungsten steel; and sealed canisters containing rare catalysts that Andy couldn't even name yet.
Every piece of material here was enough to drive a tech-geek like Roger insane. And now, they were piled there like unwanted trash.
"I'm rich... I'm really rich this time."
Andy felt like he was about to drool (if he could). With this machine and these materials, why would he bother with stamped autoguns? He could start a Bolter production line! Hand-craft Power Armor! With a bit more effort, even Terminator armor wasn't out of the question!
Andy forcibly suppressed his excitement and refocused his gaze on the console beneath the Black Box. This was the operation center built by Helios. Several operators, long since turned to crystal, remained in their final poses, hands frozen stiffly over the keyboards.
Andy jumped down, landing with a heavy thud. He walked to the main console and swept the crystal figures aside, clearing the space.
Clatter. They shattered across the floor.
Andy looked at the red master slot—the interface for the physical key. It was empty. Clearly, the woman named Jesiah had taken all physical control measures with her when she fled. Without the key, this machine was a rampaging beast stuck in a dead loop. It was releasing its "Core Meltdown Containment Protocol" at full power, trying to lock itself down until it either shut down or exploded.
Unless he deactivated this protocol, Andy couldn't even move the materials, let alone take the machine home.
"I'll have to do this the hard way."
Andy extended his specialized data probe finger.
It is necessary to mention a core technological background of the Golden Age—Protocol Levels. In that era of brilliant technology, Artificial Intelligence was ranked in a strict hierarchy. At the top of the pyramid were the "Iron Men," possessing full self-awareness, creativity, and strategic judgment. They were humanity's partners, protectors, and... eventually, their destroyers.
As for this "Molecular Matter Reconstructor": despite being loaded with incredibly complex algorithms and its ability to reconstruct atoms, it was essentially an "STC Construction Unit." It was a tool, a piece of rigid industrial equipment. Written into its base logic was a command: it must unconditionally obey a command unit with high-level authorization.
And Andy was an "Iron Man" with top-level authorization codes.
Theoretically, Andy was the administrator of this printer, and the Helios Group were just monkeys who happened to find the printer. Ordinarily, Andy should be able to plug in, issue a command, and the machine would shut down obediently.
But honestly, Andy was nervous. Very nervous. Because this machine was now insane!
Its logic circuits were flooded with erroneous instructions from the Helios Group, causing its self-protection mechanisms to become hyper-sensitive. It was like being an admin trying to fix a server that was riddled with viruses, throwing errors frantically, and had its firewall set to the maximum level. Even if you have the password, the server might not recognize it anymore; it might treat you as just another virus trying to attack it.
If the hack failed or triggered a counter-strike mechanism... Andy didn't know the specifics, but the thing might just detonate its core. Or it could release a logic bomb specifically designed for electronic brains, frying Andy's mind.
Phew...
Andy simulated a deep breath, though no air actually moved. He stared at the interface where the red warning light was still flashing.
Fortune favors the bold! He hadn't come all this way to leave empty-handed.
Andy's finger slowly slid into the slot.
Zzzzt—!
The instant the probe made contact, a massive torrent of data surged through the interface and into Andy's brain. An explosion of red, garbled code cascaded across his retina.
[ILLEGAL ACCESS! ILLEGAL ACCESS!]