Let's go, Magos." She called to him in a flat tone of voice. 'Before I become tempted to strangle Collin even more.'
(A minute later)
"Thank you for agreeing to the inspection, Magos." Dragon began the conversation on a positive note as she glanced behind her, the sight of the gathered Protectorate heroes standing in the distance reassuring to her.
"I was going to refuse to cooperate, but then I saw you arrive with your suit." He readily admitted, "I found your current design beautiful enough that I wished to admire it up close."
"I noticed your interest." She replied in an even tone, keeping the deadpan from her voice despite wanting to convey it. He couldn't have made his interest any more noticeable what with him pawing at her rear. "Would you mind if I asked what your tinker specialisation is, Magos?"
"It's cybernetic augmentation and/or robotics." He answered without an ounce of hesitation.
"Your mental augmentation is impressive." She murmured. It didn't slip her attention that he keeps answering at precisely 100 milliseconds after she finishes speaking. That kind of information processing speed and timing was firmly beyond normal humans. She will need to recommend that Magos be given a Thinker rating as well. Not that it was strange, Thinker was a common secondary classification for Tinkers- tinkertech that feeds them information one way or another was a common thing. But his rating looked to be at least a Thinker 3.
Her optics glanced up at the massive tinkertech workshop of Magos. It had only been a brief walk through the snow before Dragon found herself standing in front of the absolutely gargantuan front gate of Magos' 'Mars Pattern Command.' The massive influx of trucks bearing construction materials did not escape the Guild's notice either. So large it was, that if it was fully open, one could fit an entire apartment building through it.
Stepping up to the gate, Magos pressed the tip of one of his metal tentacles onto the surface of the door, and immediately after, a sudden burst of electromagnetic signals screeched from his mouth.
"Open in the name of the Omnissiah."
So his front gate was opened by a combination of a tinkertech electronic interface and a single-use passcode that is encoded in a vocal command? Dragon had to nod in approval- she also utilised a single-use passcode for her main base too. Two-factor Authentication and all that.
It was time to find out what else he had in store. It was time to enter Magos' workshop.
"Welcome to a manufactorum of the Adeptus Mechanicus, Dragon." he greeted with immense pride. And with a heavy rumble of metal, the great metal door began to slide open slowly until it was open wide enough for her and Magos to enter side-by-side.
What she saw inside was madness.
Dragon had been expecting advanced technologies, albeit in the same harsh fashion of technology that made up his cybernetics. But this?
This technology looked ancient.
It was like looking at the interior of a massive clocktower. Giant cogs and gears interspersed with power cables that snaked across the floor like anacondas. Tens of thousands of candles lit up the factory floor more than artificial light did. Small, religious altars that enshrined cogs and metal skulls seemed ubiquitous. Tall chicken-legged walkers ran on cogs to power them or on conveyer belts to move them. A blast furnace constantly poured white hot metal into moulds that were cut up by giant axes. It was like 13th century religious monks had discovered incredibly advanced technology and put them to work in the only ways their archaic, backwards societies could imagine.
But worst of all were the factory lines.
They were manned by grievously augmented humans. Slavishly pushing cogs around, soullessly working on assembly lines for his products, waving censers while singing what sounded like prayers. Their skin looked like they were being consumed by the crude and horrifically invasive cybernetics.
This… this was Bonesaw levels of atrocities! But just a few milliseconds before she could alert the Protectorate, Magos spoke up.
"Don't worry, my {Servitors} aren't made of flesh and bone. They never were." He told her, "All you see here are just convincing mannequins. My cybernetics specialisation works on human facsimiles just as well, you see. But most of all, I absolutely refuse to utilise flesh-labour in my manufactorum! Can you believe that the average meatbag produces a kilogram of carbon dioxide in a single 24 hours of its life? I don't think my manufactorum could ever have gotten a carbon rating as good it does if I employed organics. And just imagine the panting and the sweating, ugghhh."
The red-robed Tinker shivered in deep disgust. But Dragon was busy using her infrared and radiometric sensors to confirm that these were indeed mannequins and not people enslaved and modified. And only when the results came back to corroborate Magos' claim did Dragon actually power down her weapons.
"Was this how you were able to construct this base so quickly?" She asked.
"Yes, I use {Servitors} for most of everything." Magos nodded. "Also, I was already prototyping androids and needed to find a productive way of getting rid of the rejects in a productive manner."
"You were attempting to make AIs?" Dragon whispered, unsure how to feel about that.
"No. I don't think I'm capable of making an AI." He feigned a human sigh to express his disappointment, "All my 'computer' designs take up too much volume to fit in a vaguely human form."
Dragon was able to read the 'At least, for now.' portion of Magos' explanation that he had omitted. And Dragon began to see just how formidable a Tinker he was. Magos had managed to capture the casual disregard for factory worker lives of the 1870s, the backwards ignorance of the 13th century religions, and the horrifically inefficient slave labour of ancient earth… but somehow, he still managed to be this effective of a Tinker. Toybox, the premiere organisation of tinkers in existence, and Magos was able to replicate the specialties of about half of them just from what she had seen of his technology so far.