It's Not A Party Until Someone Gets Hurt
The living quarters that Spinister and Needlenose shared were not particularly large, but they did have a window, and they were better than the larger rooms where many Decepticons were packed in like the spectators at a gladiatorial game. There was one recharge berth, a computer terminal, a desk, a chair and a cabinet. Needlenose had made a few attempts at redecoration, but all that came of them was rewiring the lights. He currently occupied the chair and was reading his mail on the computer. Spinister sat on the berth, cleaning his laser rifle.
"I ought to show up, just for kicks," Needlenose remarked absently.
Spinister knew that his partner wasn't speaking to him, but he asked anyway, "Show up where?"
"Oh, a bash. I still get invites from old colleagues. I think they know I won't show." Needlenose shrugged.
"Some kind of party?"
"Oh, please. Don't be outmoded. 'Bash' is the term. Not as formal as a showing or fair and often a lot more fun, though not as profitable," he explained wistfully, leaning closer to the computer terminal. The letter itself looked like an elaborate abstract pattern. Spinister had to put some effort into finding meaning amongst the decoration. Needlenose half-turned and mock-chastised, "I don't read your correspondence over your shoulder."
Spinister ignored him and jibed, "How can you read that thing, anyway? My optics are going haywire just looking at it."
"Eh, if you think that's bad, you ought to see this guy's bashes. They'd be apt to burn your optics right out if his stationary gives you trouble." Needlenose grew thoughtful. "If I went to this bash, would you accompany me? It'd be a change from the firing range and combat sims."
"If you really want to go, I'll come along." Humoring Needlenose was usually less painful, in the long run, than listening to him whine. Besides, a party sounded harmless enough.
"We'll both have break time, then." Needlenose seemed to debate the idea. "We're going. Ought to be interesting to see my old colleagues again."
"So ... do we bring energon as a host gift or what?" Spinister was generally at a loss in social situations and had only the vaguest idea of how such interactions were supposed to go.
"No, don't be ridiculous," Needlenose scoffed. "Supplies or a small piece of art would be suitable. I'll see what I can whip up. You might want to let me touch up your paintjob, you know."
"No. It'll just get trashed again." Spinister had to be constantly vigilant to fend off Needlenose's attempts to 'improve' his appearance. He didn't need to be handsome to do his job.
"I manage to keep myself up." Needlenose ran a hand down his own lower arm, inspecting it for chips.
"Everyone has to have a hobby," Spinister said flatly.
Needlenose's optics widened and he looked horrified, "Physical appearance is not a hobby."
Of course, Spinister's silly partner thought that looks were some matter of life and death. "For you, maybe."
They flew, leaving the Decepticon areas of the city behind. This part of the neutral section of the city was better kept than the rest, though the architecture tended to strange forms. One building was a helix bent over into a parabolic arch. A monstrosity with roofs like swooping solar sails and tall spires for launching starships, now lodged in the metal above, reminded that long ago this city had been a spaceport. Another building was a boring cylinder up to a point, where it branched into smaller and smaller and more and more cylinders, jutting out at crazy angles. Smaller sections like droplets of condensation hung suspended from its great branches. One construction seemed to be the interference of waves given form. As Spinister glanced around, he saw that these were the more modest of the myriad. They were a level below the war-scarred surface but well above the neglected levels where urban lore held that twisted creatures lurked. Needlenose showed none of the discomfort that flyers sometimes showed when underground. That discomfort was something that he had picked up shortly after he became flight capable, and he knew this place from before he had wings. The old familiarity overrode the new fear.
"Will we be safe there?" Spinister had asked, fully prepared to be on guard no matter what Needlenose answered. He just wanted to know what the jet thought.
"Safe? With artists? No. I may be on good terms with Prism, but that means nothing," Needlenose had answered.
Needlenose transformed and dropped out of the air in front of a building that juxtaposed hard angles with curves and darkness with light. The main body was glossy-black and angled, tending to triangular faces. Curved protuberances, perhaps rooms, grew off it and were lit from within with shifting jewel-tone colours, though they wholly obscured whatever contents that they might contain. Spinister settled to the ground, transformed, and made for the door.
"No, no. That leads to the gallery," Needlenose chided gently. "This is a bash, not a showing. We want a side door." He paced around the structure and paused at a section.
"Is that it? I don't see anything," Spinister said. He felt rather frustrated; infiltration was a specialty of his. Being unable to find a simply door was humiliating.
Needlenose insisted smoothly, "It's here, all right. You have to know what you're looking for."
Spinister accused, feeling vaguely tricked, "Looking, nothing. You did something with the energy fields, didn't you?"
"Nah. I was shown the door and just remember where it is." Needlenose levelled his optics to a nondescript spot on the wall, and the door, finally visible, slid open. "Optical interface," he commented. The two entered. Ahead was a short, dark hallway. The door closed behind them, shutting out what little outside light there was. The hallways seemed to be specifically damped against all forms of light, and the paltry light from their optics barely illuminated anything. Spinister did not like the situation one bit. It would be too easy for someone to sneak up on them. Needlenose found the second door and opened it.
Spinister's optics had tried absurdly to make the best of the meagre light, strained to their limits. The illumination from the next room was so great that his optics automatically shut down to spare his mind the information overload. Spinister immediately went for his flamethrower - Singe didn't require aim, or at least, not much. Needlenose, he could tell from the way the energy fields read, took Spinister's hands in his own, preventing him from drawing his weapon. Spinister yanked back his hands and, focusing on how Needlenose showed up to his other senses, smacked his partner on the head.
"Cybertron!" Needlenose cursed. "I knew you were visual oriented, but I didn't think it'd be this bad. Don't try that again. It's not worth it in the end. Our host is a master of light, and lethal cutting lasers are not beyond him. There are enough hidden in each room to carve any offender into abstract art. I know; I've seen it happen."
Spinister's opinion of their host improved considerably even as his discomfort did. His optics, finally adapted to the shifting light levels of the room, resumed relaying visual data. He got the low-grade data first, all contrast, motion, depth, space, ground and figure, as the lower machines saw. The room was circular and fairly large, with a domed ceiling and a shallow concave floor. Objects of varying sizes hovered in the air at sundry heights and positions. Faceless partygoers, as his face recognition capacities were not yet online, weaved and wended their way through the room, avoiding the hovering objects. It seemed easy enough to do; the objects rotated in place. Forms without definition were scattered around the room. Looking over his shoulder, Spinister could not see the entrance that had brought him here, and his enthusiasm waned, not that he had much in the first place. Spinister was here to humour Needlenose and maybe figure out a few things about the jet, not walk straight into a trap.
His high-grade optical system onlined, after his low-grade system had been shown to work. Colour, higher resolution and defined form returned. His previously fuzzy perceptions sharpened, and he could again distinguish objects and faces. There was a small bar and a few sitting areas. The hovering objects were spheres, possibly acid frosted. Some glowed with inner light, some refracted, some reflected like mirrors, and Spinister became aware, watching them, that the globes could switch between these states. The curved walls, domed ceiling and gently sloping floor were akin to the hovering orbs but changed in indistinct sections. Light flashed and danced in the air, layering colour upon colour, casting opalescent transparencies over the room. Reds, orange, and white-hot lights; mirror-metal sheens and radiant ultraviolet afterimages cast the illusions of being in the depths of a smelting pool. He could see metal liquefying and running down the walls in streaks, puddling on the floor, where heat-shimmers arose. The lack of palpable heat belied the illusion but barely.
A rich royal-blue mech with upward pointing solar panel 'wings' stared at them. Spinister had to double-take, looking at him. The mech, whose bearing suggested that he was the master of this domain, did not grow darker where the depths of the shadows touched him. Instead, those shade-spots surged an electric red. His expression wavered between uncertainty and distaste, and he asked, "And you are?"
Needlenose rolled his head slightly and brought his wings forward, a gesture of irritation, as if asking, You can't remember? Then, he undid the panelling on his lower arm, exposing an arrangement of circuits and wires. The blue mech's optics, gold like his solar panels, widened with surprise, and he was immediately apologetic.
"Needlenose! I hadn't thought that you would make it. Ah, so this is your new form? I can see some classic Decepticon design ideas and some alien conventions, but it's very you."
"You're looking a lot more conservative, Prism," Needlenose noted cheerily, as he closed up the panelling on his lower arm, the initial slight seemingly forgotten.
"The war does tend to drag one down." To emphasise the point, Prism's solar panels drooped slightly. Spinister realised that those were the panels of a satellite. Perhaps the war really had brought the artist down to the ground. Many of the orbital cities had been crashed or otherwise destroyed.
"Well, it's given me wings," Needlenose said lightly. He retrieved a clear box containing a few microchips. They were elegant in form, even to Spinister's untutored optics, and he knew well their quality from the times when Needlenose had patched his injuries. Prism, all flickers of electric red on a background of blue and gold when he moved, accepted the proffered box gracefully, chary not to touch the giver in the process.
After looking at the contents carefully, he remarked, "You're certainly kept up with the times." Prism gestured obliquely at Spinister. "Is that a slate?"
Needlenose's wings twitched askew and he quickly explained, "Oh no! He's Spinister, my wing-man. You did say on the invitation that bringing a guest was okay."
At the news, the host's 'wings' twitched askew in turn, and he said slowly, "I see." What followed was an unspoken exchange, conveyed in their postures and expressions. Spinister knew that he was missing out on part of it, but he could make out, What on Cybertron are you doing with that? from Prism's expression. However Needlenose answered, it seemed to satisfy his old colleague. They launched into a discussion that seemed part catch-up and part theory. Eventually, Prism wandered off to greet new guests.
Spinister asked when their host was out of range, "His paintjob's gotten more conservative?"
"Oh yes," Needlenose answered. "The electric effect is much subtler than his old acid colouration. Then, his highlights were the start of the spectrum; his shadows the end, and his mid-tones everything in between."
"And what's a slate?" If Spinister had been mistaken for one, he wanted to know what it was.
His wing-man seemed flustered. "Oh, you'll see. It's a bit awkward to explain." He quickly found another partier to occupy his attention. Needlenose fit in this environment, not in the false way that he sometimes affected when in odd surroundings, but he truly belonged here. Spinister was painfully aware that he himself stood out like an Autobot at Darkmount and hated it. The flashes of colour that sang through the air reminded him unpleasantly of a firefight, keyed up his combat subroutines, and made him want to find cover. There was no cover to be found; no corners to conceal him. What was shadow one moment was spotlight the next. The light was liquid in the air, suffusing the room, flowing to the darkest places, and cascading away to pool elsewhere. The fire colours of the smelting scene shifted to cooler metallic hues, and the room took on the look and feel of a carefully synchronised factory.
With Needlenose occupied, Spinister's mind was free to wander. The party was never quiet, due to the constant baseline chatter, he noted. There was no music, though. Spinister did not particularly miss it, but he was given to understand that music was common at such events. Thinking on what little he knew of their host, Spinister decided that Prism must be primarily visual based and that music must just not be important to him.
Someone bumped into him, and Spinister spun around, harsh words already in the air. "Watch where you're going!"
"'Watch'? That'll be a bit hard for me," the offending mech answered. He bowed slightly, an ironic smile tugging at his mouth. The mech had no optics. It didn't look as if he had ever even had them. His helmet came down and covered over where optics would have been. Black and grey overall, he had a set of antennae on his helmet and a second set on his back. Various dials, buttons, switches, and a pair of glossy panels were arrayed on his torso, and his arms and legs had the look of speakers, which put Spinister on edge. "My apologies. You're very curiously damped. Your outputs blend right into the baseline. Otherwise, I'm certain I would have noticed you."
Spinister didn't bother to reply, but the black mech called out, "Lark? Come here, Lark." He held out his arm, and a small winged creature flapped out of the crowd and landed on the proffered arm. The little flier was shiny rainbow hues underneath and dappled browns above. She looked to her master, chirping quizzically, and confirmed Spinister's suspicions. This mech was one of those blasted communications spooks, complete with subordinates. The black mech patted his creature on the head and ordered, "Track down the others who would have an interest in that sort of thing." He gestured to Spinister, and the flier left on curved wings to fulfill her master's orders.
"It's just a trifle," Spinister muttered, hoping to deter the black mech. Spooks were always so blasted nosy, and he liked to keep his secrets.
"Oh, anything but. I've known fields that read dead or inanimate, but yours is different." The spook looked disturbingly fascinated, and Spinister didn't like being fascinating one bit.
Spinister looked around for an opening to escape. Before he could slip away, Lark returned with a small crowd.
"It's not no output," one remarked. "You'd be able to pick up the lack. This is really different."
"How'd you manage it?" another piped.
"Trade secret," Spinister said coolly, trying to break away from the crowd.
A crowd member nodded sympathetically and cooed, "Oh, of course, of course."
"No wonder he's got that substandard aesthetic. He's more about what can't be sensed than what can," a different one interpreted.
A third waved his hands wide and said excitedly, "He's like a cut-out pattern where the gaps are more important."
Spinister finally managed to lose the crowd of artists determined to find some deep meaning in his muted energy outputs and utilitarian frame. They were looking too hard, all of them. His outputs were damped so that he could move without being detected by foes, and he was not beautiful because beauty would do him no good on a battlefield. Spinister wasn't about making any statement, unless it was, I'm built for combat. He tracked down Needlenose and trailed him, hoping that they would find the chip designer more interesting.
Sometimes, someone would ask about him, and Needlenose would handle the talking, which suited Spinister, who was neither talkative nor sociable by inclination, just fine. A few were genuinely befuddled that the chip designer could boast a close comrade. The Needlenose that they knew was too self-absorbed to have that sort of relation, and on the off chance that he did, Needlenose would not be seen with such homely company. Also, Spinister didn't have an artistic circuit in his body, so to speak, and wasn't a patron or admirer, which made why Needlenose kept him around all the more baffling. Those who perceived that Spinister's energy fields could not be distinguished from Cybertron's own were less surprised. They could understand why Needlenose might keep Spinister as company. Needlenose was fairly sensitive to such energy fields, which made Spinister interesting company as much as chameleon systems would make a mech interesting to a visual based mech.
Sick of following Needlenose like a lost cassetticon, Spinister stalked off to investigate the bar. He was no heavy drinker, as he disliked dulling his wits, but it was something to consume the time. Spinister was about to ask the bartender, a bulky yellow, green, and silver machine, what she had, when Needlenose pulled him aside.
"What now?" Spinister asked, exasperated.
"That's Alkali. She's a chemical emotive sculptor," Needlenose hissed.
"She what?" Spinister was getting very sick of not understanding half of what came out of anyone's voiceboxes here.
"Alkali sculpts emotions by dosing her works with various potions. She'll get a mech to 'freeze' in a certain emotion and amp his energy outputs so that passer-bys can experience the emotion. Alkali's likely to take one look at you, figure you're clueless, and try to dose you with something. She'd probably think it was funny," Needlenose explained.
"So she's a drug pusher," Spinister reduced.
In reply, his partner cuffed him on the helmet. "No! Anyway, the dangerous thing about her cocktails is that they're stressful on the spark and generally lead to death in a few days if over-used, though I heard Alkali's been working on that."
"Then who on Cybertron would take that kind of thing?"
"You think they come willingly? Alkali's one of ours – a Decepticon! She uses captured Autobots, in general."
"I'm surprised the spooks haven't sunk their hooks into her yet, then. Her abilities could be quite useful to their purposes."
"To wager a guess, they've tried, and they didn't come back."
"I'll come back," Spinister assured, but another group had already swallowed Needlenose. He turned back to the bar. Alkali, who leaned forward, did indeed sport a violet symbol and the traditional red optic visor, in addition to an odd pattern of black spots on her armour, now that Spinister could see her better.
She grinned twistedly and asked, "What'll you have? A shot of Blue? Existential Despair? Rapture? What, what? I've got it all."
Spinister insisted very firmly, in his best voice of command, "Just some kerosene."
"That flyboy tip you off? Ach, tell him he's no fun for me, will you?" Alkali selected a container of what looked to be normal kerosene and poured a portion of it into a cube, which she pushed over to Spinister. He looked at the cube dubiously, while Alkali chattered, "So you didn't take a fall, but I've got all sorts of mixers suitable for normal consumption. Maybe a squirt of aromatic oil or –"
"This is fine," Spinister said softly, brooking no more suggestions.
"Yeah well, you're no fun either." She sounded very disappointed. "I can't even see if you're healthy or not the way you've got that field damped."
Spinister ignored her, pulled out his fuel siphon, and sampled the cube distrustfully. It seemed to taste all right, and the colour wasn't off. Still, he wasn't going to slurp down the thing. Absently, Spinister listened in on a nearby quarrel.
"Shrapnel sculpting is a perfectly valid form of art," argued a spiky mech who dangled shards on cables from various sections of his body. He looked as if he had been shot repeatedly with paint bullets of many colours.
"It's just tossing grenades. Now Armature, there's a sculptor," contended a pewter and brass creature who looked to be carrying a mass of pipes on his back.
"Prism's getting out a slate! You coming?" a reveller asked of Alkali.
"Wouldn't miss it," She flashed a predatory smile and squeezed out from behind the bar, careful of the bottles. Spinister watched her go, puzzled.
"It's a free bar. I was just manning it for kicks," Alkali explained as she left. The party-goers dripped down a staircase that appeared in the middle of the room.
Needlenose found his partner again, wings raised high. He enthused, "You wanted to know what a slate is? Come along!"
Spinister polished off the remains of his cube and followed. The staircase lead down to a hallway. At first, he thought that the hallway was covered in mirrors. Then, Spinister realised that his image was not flipped. He paused, staring at what was not his reflection. Thereafter, Spinister hurriedly caught up with Needlenose. There seemed to only one doorway in the hall, an open one. He could hear beseeching interspersed with wretched sobs and grovelling whimpers coming from there, and his curiosity was piqued.
"Don't hurt me, please. Just boot me out the back with the refuse, and I'll just go away and not trouble you," came the begging.
Inside was a workshop not quite as spacious as the room of the hovering spheres. Spinister would be the first to admit that he was lacking when it came to knowledge about the equipment contained therein. It all looked very impressive, though, with the gleaming metal and spotless surfaces. The workshop itself was shockingly white. The light was whiter than the sunlight on Earth, and that was pretty white. The walls, ceiling and floors were the same pure white with a matte finish.
On went the imploring, "I don't know what you want of me. I haven't got anything, anything at all. I'm not worth the bother."
What drew Spinister's attention was in the centre of the room, everything carefully arrayed around it. A clear hoop of subtle material spanned from the floor the ceiling and spun on its vertical axis, left to right and right to left. Within it was a second, smaller hoop that rotated on its horizontal axis. That smaller hoop contained manacles. A pathetic-looking empty was thereby bound without slack. The hoops allowed it to be rotated to almost any facing; to be considered from all angles. It begged, it pleaded, and the artists were as merciless and uncaring as any pack of Decepticons. So there was the source of the entreaties that he had heard.
"I don't know what I've done, but I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Just let me go, please let me go. I was just picking up trash, no one wanted it," the junk babbled.
Needlenose explained quietly, "That's a slate. We'll disassemble and rebuild it. Slating's a party game."
Spinister stared at the captive empty. So, Prism had thought that Needlenose had brought him here as a slate. That certainly put a skewed twist on things. He wondered how many hapless fools Needlenose had lead to this doom.
"Show some pity on an empty!" the junk bawled. "Oh Primus, preserve me."
Prism extended a cutting laser from his lower arm, a light and accurate tool obviously designed for craft instead of combat, strode over to the bound junk, and deftly stripped out its vocalisers, silencing its cries. He turned to face his guests, smiling warmly. "Now we can begin."
The way that Prism quieted the empty reminded Spinister of the lack of music; its voice simply wasn't important to be heard, like music was not important enough to be played. The partygoers set in eagerly, occasionally arguing over who got to do what. Prism presided over them and made certain that their diverse ideas were bound into a cohesive plan. He appointed subgroup leaders to coordinate the various bodily systems. Indicating Needlenose with a nod, Prism said, "You are in charge of the microchips."
"I'll certainly chip in," the chip designer quipped. The joke was old, but they laughed.
A mostly green mech with silver, gold, and copper traceries scowled. Small sections of his armour were clear, showing off his internal circuitry. He objected, "Why should he lead?"
"He's Needlenose," said another, as if this was enough.
"Needlenose? He's an outdated washout," the green one griped, crossing his arms.
Needlenose circled to face him, a fighter jet buoyed high by thermals, and asked calmly but cuttingly, "Why don't you say it to my face? Afraid I'll notice you've crosswired your left temporomandibular?"
"Rusty burnout, are your optics out of sync? My face is wired perfectly," the green mech retaliated.
"To judge by your speech, your temporomandibular isn't the only thing crosswired." Already, the other chip designers were flocking behind Needlenose, sensing that the green mech was about to take a fall. "Now, I'd point out what exactly was wrong, but I don't make a habit of picking through trash. You'd do well to examine where you put that resistor load, though."
"He should have put it after that juncture," sniggered a short lavender mech with treads on his back.
"Why don't you run along to your master, little 'prentice, and leave this game to the experts?" Needlenose asked acidly. "Haven't you violated your curfew already?"
The green mech trembled, looking as if he wanted to die. Others joined in with mockery, and he bolted and ran in shame, his footsteps' clatter fading to nothing swiftly. Radiating smug satisfaction, Needlenose turned to the other subgroup leaders and Prism to work out his piece, all acting as if nothing had happened.
The microchip needs of the design decided, Needlenose delegated tasks to the others of his group. No one questioned his assignments, perhaps afraid that they would be cut down as thoroughly as the green mech, perhaps out of hero-worship, or perhaps a mixture of both. Spinister noted this with curiosity and a bit of pride at his comrade's authority in this field. Needlenose reserved a few tasks for himself, which Spinister gathered were the more difficult and interesting ones, and the others fawned over his work. Needlenose obviously enjoyed the attention, though he was wary about his secrets.
Spinister watched as layers of components were stripped away until the junk had only what it needed to survive and barely that. Needlenose was just keen as any of them, if not more. Then, they built it back up, art instead of living refuse.
"Hey you, are you just an ornament or are you going to make yourself useful?" a worker demanded of him and gestured. "Get me that spool of wire."
Spinister could have killed him easily, but he fetched the spool without a sound of protest. It gave him something to do, even if the manners of the spool-seeker were lacking. Needlenose would be upset if he made a scene, and he remembered his wing-man's warning about Prism and lasers.
The junk, though that was no longer the right term for it, the filled slate came together. Partiers flitted around it, making little tweaks that they seemed to consider to be of the greatest gravity, but to Spinister, it was done. He could perceive that it was well made and probably pretty in the classic sense: sleek, shiny, and uncluttered, but it lacked a certain hard-edged aesthetic that would have pleased Spinister had it been present. There was nothing deadly about this creature. The creation had nothing to hint at a capacity for violence. The hopeless helplessness that every line of its form screamed further betrayed the design. Despite its fancy rebuild, it remained as miserable as it was before, in Spinister's optics.
A thin, maroon mech with dusty cyan etchings complained, "It needs more detailing. The effect is too bland."
"I find the design too cluttered as it is," an entirely orange partier voiced.
"You would," the maroon one scoffed.
Prism waved Alkali over. "Got any Blank?"
Alkali grinned and assured, "Of course."
"Dose it." He gestured to the filled slate.
Alkali argued, "With Blank? Serenity'll go much better with the lines of the wings."
"The agony it shows now is enough to display the emotional capacity of the design. We need to see the design stand on its own."
Looking ready for a brawl, Alkali seethed, "Ach, emotion's an integral part of the design!"
"Alkali, please," Prism said mildly, reasonably in a tone that Spinister had heard many times before from superiors, just before they lashed out and thrashed whoever was nearest, only to return to a deceptive quiet the next moment.
"Okay, okay. One dose of Blank, coming up," Alkali grumbled. Perhaps the sculptor also knew that tone of voice. She located an intake port, withdrew a vial, and emptied it into the ex-empty's lines. As Alkali stepped away, the slate's countenance blanked, its field stabilised, and it ceased what meagre struggles it had offered. She remarked meditatively, "You know, the look of an undosed slate is pretty interesting. The pain, the despair, the horror, the confusion – they never know what's coming to them. Maybe I'll try to sculpt that next."
Needlenose waved a hand over the slate and remarked, "Can barely read the artificiality on the fields."
"Barely? Most can't at all. Ach, you're that high-sensitivity pest," Alkali scowled.
"Back to the chemistry lab for you, then. I'm not the only 'high-sensitivity pest' out there, you know." Needlenose looked insufferably smug.
The artists considered the work and circled around, hunting for merits and flaws, using the hoop-rig to consider it from a number of orientations. Once they were done, they transformed it to its alternate form, a flying wing, all sleekness with nothing protruding to break up the lines. Even when they deployed the landing gear, the fluid styling remained unbroken. Spinister found this mode the more appealing of the two as he could easily imagine it as some sort of bomber and said so when questioned, the artists wanting an outsider's perspective for a change.
It was getting late, and Spinister noted that some of the other guests had left early, most conspicuously the chastened green mech, and that some seemed to be hasty to go. Journeys could be dangerous, Spinister knew well. He was one of the reasons why it was unsafe to travel. Prism called the remaining guests down into the workshop, as a few had wandered back up for drinks. "It is getting time to depart, and I could not let my dear guests go without something by which to remember the events. Now, does anyone want the brain module? I thought that we had a vivincorporator here."
"After Alkali's dosed it?" a guest asked dubiously.
"Ach! I've improved the formula. One dose isn't going to stress a brain module to death," the sculptor insisted defensively.
"I'll take it, then," that guest replied, shrugging.
"Vivincorporator?" Spinister asked Needlenose, for what felt like the millionth time of asking something that seemed obvious to everyone else here.
"Oh, come on. You ought to know this," Needlenose teased. "The leading practitioner's a Constructicon."
"Sticking brain modules in stuff is an art?" Spinister's optics narrowed. What next?
"Hey, maybe one of these Decepticons could convince Scrapper to attend a bash," the vivincorporator mused.
"Never met the guy, myself," Needlenose excused, hands up.
So the slate was pieced and portioned to the guests, each receiving a section created by another. What was the fun of getting back one's own work, anyway? Needlenose came out of it with the optics, a vivid iridescent green set designed by Prism himself, and he seemed greatly pleased with the souvenir.
"We really have to be going," Spinister told his partner once he received his unconventional party favour. They had a farther distance to traverse than most. Also, he had seen certain unexpected things about Needlenose at this bash and needed some time to reflect.
Needlenose nodded and sighed wistfully, the let-down noise of hydraulic pressure escaping. He tracked down their host, informed him that they would be leaving, and gave his thanks.
They passed out of the hallway of not-mirrors to the room of spheres. The lights had all but drowned in inky blackness, and only sun-specks wheeled lazily around them. It was an uncannily accurate representation of a star field, and Spinister had to check to make sure that he was not floating. He asked, "What's Prism's alternate form? He has to be some sort of satellite from those panels."
"He's an optical telescope satellite," Needlenose answered.
They exited through the hallway of darkness, and the door disappeared behind them as Spinister looked back. They walked a distance from Prism's abode to have decent space to lift off. Before they could do so, the rude green mech of earlier approached them, timid and cringing.
"I wanted to apologise, Master Needlenose," he ventured tentatively.
"Oh?" Needlenose chuckled unkindly and started walking toward a shaded alley. Spinister followed at a length, curious what his wing-mate would do. Talking with the green fool seemed to be a waste of time.
"I spoke out of turn and should not have questioned, sir."
Needlenose waved a hand dismissively, pacing deeper into the shadows, and asked, "So what's an apprentice like you doing so far off his master's leash? It can be dangerous, you know."
"I'm a journeyman, Master Needlenose," the green mech answered in a quavering voice, following Needlenose with rattling steps.
Sounding like he was genuinely interested, Needlenose pried, "And does anyone follow your progress?"
The journeyman seemed to relax, a little, which Spinister knew to be a grave mistake. "Not really, no sir."
Needlenose continued that gentle, deceptive interrogation, "Do you have coworkers?"
"No, Master. Gloryhogs would steal all the credit." So the little fool had no idea how valuable a tream could be.
"Creation-mates?" Needlenose was circling now, like some feel creature of the Toxic Sludge Swamps.
The journeyman rubbed his chin thoughtfully and then shrugged. "I don't think so, sir. My creator was never close, Master Needlenose."
"Then why did Prism invite you?" Needlenose sniffed.
The disdain made the journeyman look away. "Oh, I tagged along with Fracture, sir."
"He a friend of yours?" Needlenose affected an air of sad sympathy.
"Just an acquaintance - I haven't any friends, really, Master Needlenose." He still wouldn't look at Needlenose, which was unwise.
"I wonder why. So you have no one." Needlenose's optics grew bright and cold with anticipation. "In that case, I'm not Master Needlenose."
"You aren't, sir?" The green mech's voice wavered more than ever with confusion and uncertainty, and he clattered now with nervous tension, too late.
"I'm a veteran of the Mayhem Attack Squad." In a snap, Needlenose drew his twin electrostatic overloader rifle and shot the green mech where he stood. The shot was good, electricity crackling over his frame and the junior artist hit the ground hard in a smoking, sizzling heap that promptly exploded. Needlenose knelt and waved a hand over the remaining most intact pieces. He pronounced with satisfaction, "Dead."
As soon as they were back, Needlenose put away the optics in the cabinet on the shelf reserved for 'random artsy junk,' as Spinister privately called it, and flopped down on the recharge berth. Spinister took the chair and looked at the sprawled-out form of his wing-man. He could see the structure and lines of the jet on the robot, and he knew how Needlenose could and did fight. The jet kept up his appearance carefully, but Spinister could remember wounds that had torn and cut and melted and rent and pierced Needlenose's shell, gashes that spilled his fuel and were almost the death of him, and here he was alive and whole.
At the party, Spinister had seen things dazzling and pretty but only in a shallow way. They were fragile and useless and defenceless. Needlenose had his flaws, but Spinister had seen him and claimed him as his own and would much rather regard him than some delicate crystal sculpture. A killer and a survivor, functionally streamlined and armed to destroy, the jet was a useful, valuable ally, and Spinister was glad again that he had seen it in Needlenose and took him under his guidance before anyone else did. He had been a bit worried that his wing-man would play it soft at the bash, being surrounded by neutrals, but his conduct, especially with the slate, had dispelled Spinister's worries.
"Culture shock, eh?" Needlenose asked lightly.
Spinister, despite himself, couldn't help gushing just the tiniest bit, "Why didn't you tell me you had such a cruel streak before? You've been holding out on me, Needlenose. The way you participated in the slating of that empty, how you maintained order over the chip designers, and your dealings with that green lout were most befitting of a Decepticon."
His wing-mate shook his head and said with grave seriousness, "Art is the most sacred goal, and treating life as a medium for art shows the highest reverence that can be conveyed. I wasn't being cruel; I was bringing divine light to the desolate soul of that empty. The green one had no art in his soul and had to be killed."
Spinister stared, appalled.
Needlenose wiggled his wings and chuckled, "I had you going, there. A load of garbage, isn't it?"
"Utter rubbish. Don't scare me like that," Spinister said firmly.
"I had to get you back for all those times you've snuck up on me," he scolded. Needlenose paused and then purred, all understanding, "Come over here; I'll make it up to you."
The End