AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Thunderwing, Spinister, Ruckus, Alpha Trion and the Quintessons belong to Hasbro/the official mythos. Valckasta, Thunderwing's city, is on loan from Raksha the Plumed Serpent, with my thanks. All other characters are mine.
The title and the song clips come from a song by Monster Magnet, off the album "Dopes to Infinity." Finding a "theme song" for Ritter was terribly hard. I needed something that was powerful, eerie, sinister, forlorn, and utterly alien all at once.
all friends and kingdom come
Enter now the lion's den
It's long past due that we begin…
TIME SETTING: 2006 MINUS ONE MILLION YEARS
TARGET STATUS: TERMINATED.
***Running systems scan.***
PRELIMINARY CHECK REPORTS SHELL SECURE.
***Commence in-depth status check.***
FUEL LEVEL: 95.34 % and repowering.
WEAPONS CHARGE: 90 % and repowering.
WING SHIELDS: 83% and repowering.
CHAOS ENERGY FLOW: High and regular.
DAMAGE: None. All systems optimum.
***All systems now at 100% power.***
~reset~
OPERATION: SEARCH AND DESTROY.
***Acquiring target parameters.***
TARGET: CYBERTRONIAN LEADERS…*blip* COMMAND OVERRIDE.
TARGET: QUINTESSONS.
***Searching.***
OPTICS ACTIVATED. REPORTS NEGATIVE. RADAR ACTIVATED.
~ping~
RADAR REPORTS NEGATIVE.
***Commence communications band sweep.***
COMMUNICATIONS NEGATIVE. SECTOR DEVOID OF LIFE.
***Access conscious mind.***
SUPERFICIAL ACCESS GRANTED.
~processing~
DEEP ACCESS ESTABLISHED.
***
00101111010010100101010
***
***
***
Hello….?
I think…
*I*.
There is an *I*. I exist. I feel.
How long has it been? How long since I was last aware of myself?
I am the one called Ritter, the Mighty Death. I am a black stealth ship, a triangular wedge that slices through the infinite void of space. My wings are made of a synthetic material which even I do not know how to duplicate; it is an ancient Quintesson construct, lightweight, strong, and impervious to laser blasts. Purple insignias adorn those wings. They are the mark of Cybertronian military hardware, the mark which is now known as Decepticon. Two triangular plates of transparent material form my cockpit windshield; they glow bright lavender with the raw energy of Chaos. I am armed with a full compliment of rockets, one laser, one larger arm-mounted cannon, a long energon blade, and a weapon unique in the universe: the MAO (Magnetic Amplification Output) Cannon. I am one with the darkness and
I am heading…
***Locate heading.***
COURSE BEARING 424 TO VAN WHITBOURNE/RITAXA INTERCEPT.
***Why?***
???ERROR.
Damn you…"Why" doesn't process well. I must program that function into my next
shell.
Try again.
***Review memory banks for last course change and reason.***
LAST COURSE CHANGE EFFECTED TO REMOVE PROJECT SKR-X7A FROM VICINITY OF BLAST.
Yes. To get clear of the Quintesson vessel before my rockets exploded it. I remember now as my memory banks reveal their information to me.
The latest records detail the events since my last awakening, the events of the past few…the past few…*vorn?* I was out that long, lying in wait for that Quintesson armada for *vorn?*
My memory banks confirm the statement. Four and a half vorn lying stealthcloaked, almost in stasis, until my target arrived. A brief while stalking, and finally, closing in for the kill. Six Quintesson cruisers, twelve destroyers and a flagship. A considerable kill…
I am…happy? No. Satisfied.
I ask on a whim, knowing I will receive no answer.
***Define: happy***
NO SUCH ENTRY EXISTS.
My memory banks cannot tell me everything. They record only what I have experienced. And my most recent kill, while satisfying, is no different from a thousand kills before it. I make a note in my kill log and delete the rest. My memory banks are large, but not infinite…and I would not waste precious space on routine business. Eons of existence result in so many memories.
Currently, I am heading nowhere in particular. With no targets in range and no planned instructions of how to find more, my programming has reached its limits. It is at such times that my programming seeks its last resort…my conscious mind, the tool that can find a new object for its hunt.
To business, then. I've just destroyed the Quintesson flotilla that had been due to pass this way to investigate the sudden loss of the Quintesson colony on Garron-9. Having wiped out both colony and flotilla, my work here is done. I doubt the Quintessons will send out any more ships, and even if so, it would not be economical for me to wait for them. Fully awakened at long last, I am eager to hunt. For a moment I wish I had interrogated one of the Quints on the flagship, and then I put it out of my mind. It is not mine to regret. I will find the Quintessons, wherever they may be. I am eternal. I can hunt them for as long as it takes to destroy them all.
~…and then?~
***And then?***
??? ERROR. NO FURTHER PROGRAMMING.
The programming is the outer layer of my mind, and the only part which operates on a full-time basis. I can stalk, hunt and kill without conscious thought. To override my incessant drive to hunt requires conscious effort—painful effort—and even then I do not always succeed. My memory banks are filled with tactical scenarios; which scenario is executed at any given time depends on the information filtered to my processor by my senses. It is only when these banks fail to turn up answers that the programming accesses my core consciousness. The layers of programming are strong and thick, a silicon barrier separating my consciousness from contact with the world outside. My mind is their prisoner, to be called upon only when needed.
The programming is my hell and my salvation. I am immortal. I can shift my core consciousness from one body to another. I build the shells and then occupy them. I upgrade myself, modify myself. Over the eons I have improved on my original design, refining myself into an ever more precise instrument of destruction.
Why I have these abilities to build, I do not know. I was created to kill, not to create or to effect repairs. But I do not question too deeply. I can perform the task and that is enough. Questioning will only lead to another aching headache, and if I persist, my programming will reset and I will lose conscious awareness once more.
I can also occupy the bodies of other Transformers and force them to do my will. I do not like to do this. Their thoughts can still conflict with my own. My own thoughts already echo within the layers of programming, slamming into the silicate walls of circuitry. There is enough noise inside my mind as it is. There is too much noise, too many distractions, in this too solid world. Even the light of the stars is oppressive.
***Phase shift 60% Other Side 40% Solid Realm.***
If there were beings watching me, they would now be wondering where I've gone. The molecules of my body have turned to tachyons, particles moving faster than the speed of light. They cycle in and out of this dimension, into and out of a parallel dimension I call the Other Side. I am fully stealthcloaked now, undetectable even by infrared. My molecules blink in and out of existence too quickly to be traced. I am, quite literally, not all there. As my molecules cycle, my optic sensors can see both worlds…the fixed stars and planets that hang in the skies of the Solid Realm, and the whirling chaos that is the Other Side.
The Other Side is an empty dimension. Its atoms roil incoherently. Matter forms, reforms, and evaporates into energy. Energy coalesces as matter. The cycles are random, chaotic. I hang in the very heart of the Void.
Here is the only place I can find peace from the screams in my head. Oblivion is soothing. But I never phase-shift my entire mass to the Other Side. I do not think I would like losing contact with the Solid Realm. I am the only sentient on the Other Side—the only thing which is not part of the constant cycle of creation and destruction.
I believe I hang on the brink of insanity in both worlds.
It is the Chaos battery in my chest that makes my phase-shift possible. The Quintessons ripped it from the Other Side eons ago and planted it in my chest. It gives me the massive amounts of energy needed to turn my body mass into tachyons. It powers my shell, meaning I never need fuel as other Transformers do. It feeds my very laser core, rendering me immortal. It made of me The Mighty Death and it separated me from all other Transformers forever. It is the heart of what I am.
So I do not die. So in creating an immortal soldier, the Quintessons created their own doom. So I will hunt them to the end of time, killing them wherever I find them, using the abilities they programmed into me.
The Quintessons intended for me to kill my own kind. But I will not slaughter my fellow Transformers. And the others are…are my fellows, Chaos battery or no. I hunted them once, at the Quintessons' behest, but no longer.
Flying through the void of space, I allow myself to drift wherever my body chooses to take me. My wings and tail assembly turn me, slightly. It seems some part of me…some other section of my mind…knows where it is going. My consciousness does not, nor does it care. I am eternal. Where I hunt has never really mattered to me. My consciousness chooses, at this moment, to recall the past. And I remember the first time I realized that I had a will of my own.
***
I have seen beyond my gaze
And I have gazed beyond today
And their lust shall build a world
Is what the prophets have to say…
TIME SETTING: 2006 MINUS ELEVEN MILLION YEARS
***Access deeper***
With that command I feel it…pain. Pain ripping through my circuitry and then fading into a distant throb.
I have never truly felt anything before.
I look down at my mangled body, at my smelted chest. The torn wires set off a spray of sparks. I can see my torn tubing leaking fluids that mingle and puddle in my chest cavity.
There is a voice in my head that I do not know—at first I think it comes from outside myself. A voice that screams in horror. A voice that has seen such damage before, but only in the bodies of the dying. A voice that told me I was in for ever increasing agony as long as my shell continued to function. A voice that tells me I should have already gone offline.
What has brought me here? Am I being punished? For what?
***Access memory banks for recent events.***
I had done…what I do. I am a machine built to kill. I had been performing my function on preselected target: Cybertronian consumer goods model Beta. Function had been completed. Beta's remains had been piled at my feet. Her shell, stricken by a long blast from the MAO cannon, had experienced a rapid polarization and depolarization of its atoms until the metal components of her body had simply torn themselves apart.
Then I had been attacked by another robot. I had accessed my program directives and identified the robot as A-3, status: major target. I had attempted to bring the MAO cannon to bear on the new threat, but by that time, A-3 had buried his axe deep in my chest. He had been driven by some kind of intense programming that had doubtlessly been activated upon the termination of Beta. I had seen his optics bright with the boost of power inside him. I had had no time to
question the nature of the wailing noise he made; it had been not unlike that which Beta had made as she died.
I had struggled to perform my function again, but my limbs would not respond. My chest had throbbed and the sensation had emanated from the deep gash inflicted by the axe. I had felt strange, and unpleasant—I had felt. I had felt beyond the rudimentary pleasure/pain stimuli which the Quintessons had programmed into me.
My wound had gushed oil; my self-repair functions had been slow—or unable—to react. A-3 had struck me again and my programming had glitched, faltered…I had shut down and reset.
Awakening, the unresponsiveness of my limbs had driven my programming to attempt
all possible reactions, until, in desperation, it had opened the pathways to…
~I~
~What is I?~
***What is I?***
??? ERROR. NO SUCH ENTRY EXISTS.
And then my programming…no, *I*…I am in control and I recognize that the Quintessons are standing over me, and I am no longer in the rebels' base, but inside a Quintesson laboratory. I remember the room from the earliest entry in my memory banks. This is the place where I was created.
My chest burns like fire. There is a needle in my head, an interface probe linking my memory banks to the Quintesson computer. The Quintessons must have found me, retrieved me.
"…damaged beyond repair," the Quintesson scientist is saying.
Another Quintesson answers in an imperious tone, "Remove the Chaos power cell and wings; smelt the shell, and build a second assassin." He sighs. "At least the prototype managed to retain the MAO cannon. We will not have to build another of those for our new hunter."
"We will need another base unit." A third voice—female. "Send the Centurion drones to capture one."
The scientist replies, "Bring me another like this one. A Seeker 7A."
"Are you certain? This one is flawed. Look how quickly it was scrapped."
"Look at its programming log. It was ambushed by A-3. It executed its primary mission. It has been remarkably successful so far in carrying out our orders. The rebels would have overrun us already were it not for our dark hunter….our Mighty Death."
"Why don't we begin an assembly line, then?" demands the second Quintesson. "We need an army of these!"
"Idiot!" the scientist snaps. "There is only one Chaos power cell! Remember how Ssrrrn'ghi was driven mad obtaining this one—and how many proto-universes can we afford to pillage? Do you not recall the time ripples? We're lucky this cell didn't bring the whole structure of space and time crashing down around us!"
I can hear the grumble of assent.
"It's waking!" the female cries. I can only presume the interface probe has betrayed my increasing consciousness to the Quints.
"Then scrap it!" the scientist orders. "Remove the cell and scrap it now!" He snorts. "It should be dead already…"
I realize, vaguely, that "dead" meant the end of the *I*. The knowledge comes not from my programming, but from some well deep inside…and it is spoken by that same screaming voice. I feel a sudden panic. I barely know the *I*, but I do not want to lose it. I have no time to question from where or how this knowledge has come. I must act now, lest I never act again.
***Search tactical banks for possible actions.***
POSSIBLE ACTIONS: ATTACK, TRANSFORM, FLEE.
ATTACK: NEGATIVE. WEAPONS ABSENT.
TRANSFORM: NEGATIVE. TRANSFORMATION COG INOPERATIVE.
FLEE: NEGATIVE. SHELL DAMAGED, WILL NOT RESPOND.
I feel a rising sense of…
***Define sensation.***
???ERROR. NO SUCH ENTRY EXISTS.
~Fear.~
***Search for possible actions, NOW!***
POSSIBLE ACTIONS: ATTACK, TRANSFORM, FLEE…
…ACCESS CHAOS BATTERY.
~selective phase shift, phase deeply enough, and…~
It is half the programming, half *I*, and in tandem, it might save me.
***Phase shift 1% Solid Realm, 99% Other Side, core processor, laser core, chaos battery and phase shifters only…***
I phase-shift my core processor, still thinking, into tachyon particles. I lose vision as my optical sensors are left behind in the Solid Realm. I realize that I could be trapped forever on the Other Side…
…but I will still be *I*, and that is more than the Quintessons would offer me.
I feel the void of the Other Side envelop me. I float—I am safe. I still exist.
***
I hang between the realms for what might have been seconds or what might have been vorn. Only one percent of my mass remains in reality, and as most of me floats through the endless swirl of proto-matter that is the Other Side, I slowly recognize that the one percent has found something in the Solid Realm and latched onto it.
Could this work?
What is there to lose?
***Phase shift 100% Solid Realm***
I return to reality with a sickening jolt. Optic sensors activate to reveal a new world.
I am in a production factory. I am sitting in the corner of a storage hangar, surrounded by inactive Centurion drones. The drones are green, with clawed hands and bulbous heads.
I am in a body. I can see, but I cannot hear. My audio sensors are…
…not present. This body has none. I move my hands in front of my head. They are green, clawed. I turn my head to face the mirrored wall.
I am a Centurion drone.
OPERATION: SEARCH AND DESTROY.
***Acquiring target parameters.***
TARGET: CYBERTRONIAN LEADERS.
***Searching.***
No…no!
COMMAND OVERRIDDEN. SEARCH CANCELLED.
*I* is a Cybertronian. I hunt…my own kind? Are they my kind? Yes. My own kind. The new voice, no longer screaming.
I access my core processor's memory banks and am—dissatisfied? disturbed? --at what they tell me. I am a stealth assassin, created by the Quintessons to slay the leaders of the Cybertronians and break their revolt. The Quintessons desire to retain dominance of the robots. I was their agent, designed to do their deeds in their stead. Designed to kill my own kind.
Very well. If the Quintessons built me as a killer, than a killer I shall be…but I do not follow their orders. From this day forward I shall follow my own.
***Command override.***
***Imput new target—QUINTESSONS.***
***Reset.***
OPERATION: SEARCH AND DESTROY.
TARGET: QUINTESSONS.
***Searching.***
??? ERROR. LONG RANGE SENSORS INOPERATIVE.
Of course…the Centurion body does not possess them.
But I am pleased with my success. I control myself now. The Quintessons have no idea what they have lost…or the price they will pay.
I am awake and I am angry. Emotion is strange to me. My memory banks reveal no previous emotion. My programming cannot define the sensation. In the eons to come, I will learn the word for "rage," but I do not know it yet. I am realizing that from the moment the Quintessons brought me online, I had been an automaton, obeying the programming which they had pumped into my core processor without a thought of my own.
No longer.
In the Centurion's body, I set off to discover where I am. Once I get to a position which my internal map can recognize, I can find my way to the Quintesson fortress and…
…no. I am a Centurion now. My method of warfare has always been to strike out of nothingness. I no longer possess my magnetic amplification cannon or my energon blade—only the crude projectile guns of the Centurion body. I do not have my impenetrable wings. My phase shifters are linked only to my core processor, not to the Centurion shell, and so I cannot cloak. I cannot even fly.
I will hunt and I will destroy…but not like this. I will strike as they created me to strike. I will do what I do best.
I set off another tunnel. My mind goes numb, lulled into a sort of limbo as my new body moves through the darkness. There is nothing like this in my Quintesson-induced programming, and yet, the sensation is very much the same.
When I become aware of myself again, I am in what I recognize as a laboratory…no, a repair bay. There are bins of spare parts, precision tools hanging on the wall, and a gurney in the center of the room. I have the sensation that the repair bay is deep underground. There is no other life here, not even a sound from outside to suggest that any other being is nearby.
On the gurney lies a robot which bears a strong resemblance to…
…to *I*. Or does it? To the Quintesson assassin, the Mighty Death.
The robot is black as the void of space; its joints are a very deep grey. The paint is matte, absorbing rather than reflecting light. The pointed wedge of its stealth-fighter nose is folded down over its chest. The triangular glass plates in the flat cockpit glitter in the light. Wings—not the armoured ones, but of the same design—are affixed to the shoulders; the smaller planes that become the tail assembly ride on the hips. The wrists contain a new addition—two rocket launchers in each. The face is lean, a pale grey, and encased in a helmet with a single spike on top.
I realize that I am holding a fine welding tool and I am sautering the last loose plate on the robot's head.
How?
***Locate information, subject: Repair.***
REPAIR DATA STORED IN MEMORY BANK SUB1A.
Medic? The Quintessons programmed me as a medic?
In a way it makes sense…if I were to be injured on a mission, I would have to be able to fix myself sufficiently to carry out my task…and yet, it puzzles me. It does not seem like the Quintessons to program me with such knowledge—certainly not enough to enable me to build a robotic shell from scratch.
In the centuries to come I will wonder how I knew so much of the Quintessons in my first days of conscious thought.
But now, I look down at my completed task. I have built my new shell with hunting in mind, though I have made one small ornamental concession. I have stamped purple logos upon my wings—the trademark sigil of Quintesson military hardware. For some reason, they look…right.
***Why?***
???ERROR. DOES NOT COMPUTE.
***Define***
And I look at the insignia.
TRADEMARK OF QUINTESSON MILITARY HARDWARE. SKR-X7A IS PART OF PRODUCT LINE.
This insignia…tells the world what I am. Yes.
I become aware of another kind of knowledge…a knowledge based upon what the *I* is telling me. *I* had informed me that the sigil belonged on my wings *before* I had asked my internal computer. How unusual. I file the experience for further exploration, when the task at hand is complete.
The new shell is highly reminiscent of my former body, though with a few deficiencies. It does not have the MAO cannon, which is a recent Quintesson weapon, nor does it have the impenetrable wings that once shielded me against laser blasts. Hopefully the rocket launchers will compensate. Most importantly, the shell does not have a core processor or phase shifters…
…but those, I have already. I must only phase into the new body as I had phased into the Centurion.
Will it work? I do not know. I debate a moment, uncertain whether or not to gamble the *I* for the sake of a new body. I could live in the Centurion. I could…probably not fight as well, but I would not be fighting my fellow Cybertronians any more in any case. The robots…their fight was my fight.
They had been slaves, as I had been. They had rebelled, as I was rebelling now. They must win their freedom, or the Quintessons would wipe them out. And that freedom could only be won…by wiping out the Quints.
***Entrench command.***
SEARCH AND DESTROY: QUINTESSONS.
***Store in triplicate.***
STORED.
***Erase target definition: Cybertronian leaders.***
ERASING…
???ERROR.
ERASURE PARTIALLY SUCCESSFUL. OPERATION CANNOT BE COMPLETED.
So I am still partially a slave, a slave in my own mind. A prisoner of the Quintessons even now. It infuriates me. The *I* beat against the walls of Quintesson-imposed programming like a caged beast attempting to escape. I can feel my sanity battering against the inside of my core processor.
I have to turn that rage outward lest I batter the *I* to pieces.
TARGET: QUINTESSONS.
Yes. To numb that rage, I must hunt. And to hunt, I need the body of a hunter. I lay the Centurion drone down atop my new shell, chest to chest, to minimize the odds of my getting lost in the transition and blundering about reality again. I plan my route down into the new body. Then…
***Phase shift 1% Solid Realm, 99% Other Side, core processor, laser core, chaos battery and phase shifters only.***
The Other Side leaps into life before me. The atoms whirl; the nebulae spin. I do not know if I am as large as a universe or as small as a molecule. It does not matter. With so much of my mass shifted over, I am barely aware of the Solid Realm, though I have the sensation of sinking
downward. At last I think I may have settled…
***Phase shift 100% Solid Realm***
The twinkling void of the Other Side is gone. My optics open, gazing into the lifeless bulbous glass head of an inactive Centurion drone. I sit up and push the drone off me; it clatters limply to the floor.
***Systems check.***
I flex all my limbs, test all my sensors, at the behest of my programming.
STATUS 90% OF OPTIMUM. ARMOURED WINGS ABSENT. MAO CANNON CANNOT BE LOCATED. ENERGON BLADE CANNOT BE LOCATED.
I knew that already. No matter. I would reclaim my weapons soon enough.
***Phase shift 60% Other Side 40% Solid Realm.***
I turn into a shadow and head into the tunnels, knowing I will eventually find my way to the surface, and from there, to my target.
***
'Cause I can fry you with my eyes
I can blow you to kingdom come
I can take all your friends away
I've got mushroom clouds in my hands
And a place in my head for you
Better come to the throne today…
There is commotion in the lab when I return. Five Quintessons have begun work on their next assassin. They have a prisoner as well—a green flyer of the SKR-7A series.
"Let me go!" the robot howls, flailing his limbs against the chains that bound him, but his struggles are in vain. The Quintessons know that he cannot break free. They pay him little attention as they prep their combination shop/laboratory for the reconstruction to come. I can see my armoured wings laid out on a gurney, ready for eventual mounting on the second Mighty Death. More importantly, right now, I could see the MAO cannon and my energon blade resting on a table in the corner.
Oh, you Quintesson fools. You do not even suspect…
There are exactly five Quintessons. Five is their number of power. All five scientists are on hand for this operation, which means my timing cannot be better.
"We are almost ready to begin," says a Quintesson whom I recognize as the female from before.
The green Seeker stops struggling and begins to whimper. "What…what are you going to do to me?"
"Why, rebuild you," gloats another Quintesson, a younger female. "Don't worry. You'll be much stronger and faster than before…"
"If we find the Chaos battery," grumbles a bearded male. This Quintesson was my programmer…the designer of the SKR-X7A prototype. He and Ssrrrn'ghi were the masterminds of my creation. Their stink echoes in my head. They shall pay for their folly. To build a killing machine and to expect to maintain control of it…fools, they should never have given me a mind of my own. That mind now hammers against their programming and hungers for their destruction. Aching ribbons of pain pulse through my core processor as my consciousness struggles to keep power over my body.
"What do you suppose he did with it?" another Quintesson demands out of his death's head.
"He?" asks the younger female.
"The Mighty Death. He phased out, taking the battery and the shifters…"
"I fear they may be lost on the Other Side," the bearded head Quintesson says regretfully. "We might need to open the time window again. I am hopeful, however, that the battery may reappear of its own accord. My instruments have detected a tachyon trace growing stronger in the lab. It may be returning to the point where it left."
I step back into the shadows, though I know they cannot see me. Can they have found me out?
The older female hisses. "Is he returning then, the Mighty Death?"
The fifth Quintesson speaks. "The Mighty Death is offline. We saw him perish." He gestures towards the corner of the lab. "That is all that remains of the Mighty Death."
I glance over and recognize my first body, collapsed in the corner. It has already been opened up and gutted of all useful parts. The optics glint dully; the chest cavity gapes wide, its contents half melted.
~first body?~
Why must that voice constantly contradict what my memory banks confirm to be true?
"But he took the Chaos battery…phase-shifted…"
"Part of his death throes. He was damaged to the very laser core. He cannot still be alive. Our robots are durable, but they cannot survive such massive damage."
Death…throes?
~I am dead.~
It is an odd thought. It does not hurt, to be dead. I feel little different, save that I am more…self aware. But an uncontrollable shudder runs through my molecules as I cast my optics on the charred ruin in the corner that was once my old body. I believe I may have seen such a sight before and liked it even less that time—though my memory banks have no recollection of such an
experience. That voice is once again whispering illusions in my mind.
"We shall wait and see," the head Quintesson pronounces. "Ghagg'nir shall watch for the battery while you three begin reconstructing our friend here." He nods to the Seeker, who watches him out of wide, frightened optics. "I, meanwhile, shall commence the programming." The Quintesson floats over to his captive. "Do not fight me. It will hurt you less if I can simply overwrite your old programming."
The green jet summons up the last of his courage. "Don't touch me, Quintesson! You can't destroy who I am!"
"I can," the overseer says calmly, "and I will. I have done it before."
"I won't let you!" the robot blusters, though his voice is laced with tremors.
"You can either stop fighting or else I shall trap your laser core banks behind a triple firewall and work my will with the rest of your mind, while your pathetic excuse for individuality screams in its little box for the rest of time. Is that understood?"
I examine the robot and shiver again, this time out of…
I do not know the word for the feeling, nor have I learned it since.
I do know that I can too easily imagine myself chained to that table. I had previously planned to bide my time, to wait until the five Quintessons were occupied before I struck. This is what my programming tells me to do. But every whimper emanating from the green robot is like a blade through my skin, and I know I cannot wait any longer.
COURSE OF ACTION INADVISABLE. QUINTESSONS STILL ALERT.
***Override.***
I move towards my weapons. For a brief moment I cast a flickering shadow where none should be; the young female looks up curiously, and then disregards what she had seen. I consciously solidify my hands enough to pick up my weapons; then I phaseshift them as well, and they vanish. The Quintessons are too intent on their task to notice.
There is a sudden scream. The head scientist has opened the Cybertronian's head and driven a needle probe deep into his core processor.
And the *I* knows that this needle burns like white flame.
I move across the room until I am right behind the head scientist, with my sword raised high in my hand.
***Phase shift 100% Solid Realm.***
***Strike.***
***
When I become aware again, I am standing in carnage. I remember the battle, but mostly as a spectator. My memory banks reveal their information.
My first kill was the head scientist. Part of me wanted to save him until last. He should have had the privilege of knowing what was coming. The *I* wanted to hear him scream as I cut out his heart. But my programming, ever logical, eliminated that possibility. He was the most dangerous of the five and therefore had to be terminated first. I decloaked behind him and swept my sword through his body from crown to tentacles.
Next came Ghagg'nir, the one who was watching for the battery to reappear. He was expecting a materialization, but he was not expecting me and so was unarmed. I hit him in midsection with a burst from the MAO cannon. He shrilled in agony as the metallic molecules in his skin rapidly polarized and depolarized. His metallic components tore themselves apart, rending the flesh as they did so. Ghagg'nir was out of the fight.
Then the other three were firing their laser scalpels at me, using them as weapons. I shielded with my wing, forgetting that these wings I had constructed for myself were not impenetrably armoured like my old ones. A laser bored deep into the wing, stinging. The pain angered me further. I ignored the unpleasant sensation and lunged forward, letting my damaged wing take the brunt of the blasts as I cracked open my left wrist and launched a brace of rockets
into the Quints' midst. Their laser scalpels were not designed to be used as weapons and the damage to my shell was minor. The resulting explosion killed two Quints outright. As the third writhed on the floor, I used my blade to cleave her in two.
I returned to the one called Ghagg'nir. He was still alive, if barely. He bled ichor from a thousand rends. Perhaps if I had known how to be cruel, I would have watched him die. I think the *I* would have enjoyed that. Programming, however, demanded a swift and efficient kill. A sword stroke granted the desire.
My memory banks replay recollections of me sheathing my blade, turning towards the Seeker…and I am back in the present.
I look at the robot, who is staring at me with horror.
IDENTITY: CYBERTRONIAN REBEL.
STATUS: SECONDARY TARGET.
My gun arm rises of its own accord.
*blip* OVERRIDE.
STATUS: FELLOW CYBERTRONIAN, MILITARY HARDWARE LINE.
I consciously dropped my arm, though I still stared at the green flyer. Fully in control of myself at last, I raise my sword arm instead and the green robot flinches back. I slide the blade under his chains in one smooth movement and sever them.
He opens one wary optic and only then realizes that he is free. He gets up slowly, never once taking his optics off of me. I continue to regard him, not certain what I should do next.
***Search for appropriate response.***
???ERROR. DOES NOT COMPUTE.
My programming cannot answer this question.
He looks at me, at the dead Quintessons all around us, and back at me. "You…appeared out of nowhere," he gasps.
I nod shortly.
"Who…what are you?"
The words come slowly. "I am the one called…Mighty Death."
The robot stumbles, clutches the table for support. "You. You're the one who killed Beta. You're the hunter, the assassin!"
It is true. I do not even think to deny it. I nod again. I was not programmed for deceit.
Again he looks at the fallen Quintessons. "What side are you on?"
I don't know.
***What side am I on?***
???ERROR. DOES NOT COMPUTE.
LOYALTY TO QUINTESSONS OVERRIDDEN BY COMMAND 0001.
CHANGE?
***Negative.***
I think a moment. The *I* is telling me an answer. It needs only to be entrenched in the programming.
***Imput. Loyalty: Cybertronians.***
CHANGE EFFECTED.
"Your side," I say slowly. "Leave now. I have another job to do."
***
Half a megacycle later I decloak some distance away from the laboratory and watch it go up in a ball of fire. Soon, I will go to join my fellow rebels, but first I must ensure that my mission has been fully completed. Under my left arm I carry my two armoured wings. My blade hangs at my side; the MAO cannon is held in the stealthfighter nose on my chest. I am satisfied.
Before leaving, I erased the computers. I sliced the equipment to ribbons. I placed explosives. Now, the building is ash. No data is retrievable. No parts are salvageable.
I check to make certain and my perceptions confirm that my intent has been carried out. All the records of my creation have been destroyed.
There will never be another Mighty Death.
***
There's a line inside my head
I dance at night before bed
But I never took the ride
To the silo shed on the other side…
A-3 does not like me.
He knows nothing of me, save that I am the assassin called the Mighty Death and that I killed Beta, who was his consort. I can only vaguely grasp the meaning of "consort," but I realize that A-3 prized her life as he prizes his own, and that he will not forgive me for what I have done. I have attempted to explain that I was acting under Quintesson programming, but he will have none of it. Granted, my attempts are clumsy—I do not understand the Cybertronians' emotions, do not know the words for what they think and do, and even if I knew the words, I would barely comprehend the concepts behind them. And even if I knew the concepts, I do not believe A-3 would listen to me. He fears me, fears my powers that he does not understand.
I am far more advanced than the average Cybertronian. My stealth-ship alt mode is sleeker, swifter, more powerful than that of even the strongest military hardware robot. My MAO cannon is so developed that the Cybertronian weapons smiths cannot begin to chart its complexity. I could
probably teach them, but I am disinclined to do so. They look at me with a mixture of hate and fear. They loathe me as I loathe the Quintessons. Perhaps their hatred is deserved. I was, after all, created to destroy their leaders and for a while I did it with lethal precision. I committed the very crimes they accuse me of. Or rather…my body did. The *I* was not conscious as yet.
Does intent matter?
It seems not. Personally, I believe that intent can make all the difference.
I avoid the hateful stares of the Cybertronians by stealth-cloaking. I spend much of my time between the worlds, watching the molecular waltz of the Other Side. The *I* fears the Other Side; that strange voice with its illusory memories falls silent in the dancing void. I suspect it is not good for my sanity to spend too much time floating through oblivion, but it is the only place I can find a measure of peace. The others do not like my ability to appear and disappear at will. It unnerves them. They fear that I will scrap them in their sleep cycles.
It is the Quintessons I slay. I kill them in their sleep. I strike out of the shadows before they know I am there. I target their leaders as they told me to target the leaders of my own kind. I help to swing the war in favour of the Cybertronians, and I am…pleased? Happy? Satisfied?
I am obeying my internal orders and it is good.
But it is not enough to make the Cybertronians accept me. I wonder if it matters, their acceptance. I can hunt with or without their approval, that is clear, but I wonder if they know I hunt for them. I wonder if they realize that I hunt the Quintessons so they can live in freedom, rather than in slavery to brutal masters. I am a war machine and should not care what others think as long as the task is done. But somehow, somewhere inside, I feel that I have lost something. A system check reveals that I am intact, but the *I* says it is not something as simple as a bolt or a microchip that I am missing.
There is one who does not fear me. Fera. She is a repaireon of the consumer goods line, painted in pale lavender and soft grey. She is slim, her figure one of rounded curves and delicate joints. She is the one who helped me reattach my armoured wings.
Fera approached me with some trepidation that day when I first walked into the Cybertronians' command post, but at the word of the green Seeker whom I rescued, she agreed to help me. She attempted to turn down my pain sensors only to realize that I had very few of them. My programming monitors my damage. In the med lab I saw other robots screaming and writhing due to wounds that would be mere annoyances to me.
I am not like the others and it disturbs me, even these myriad millennia later.
I was conscious as Fera removed the wings I had given my latest body and then attached my old ones. She marvelled at the material, and I told her what I knew of it. And then, I began to ask her questions.
I enjoy remembering this part.
***
"Happiness. Friendship." She regards me strangely at first, then sadly. "You really don't understand, do you?"
I shake my head no.
"Then…I will teach you." Fera smiles to welcome me. "Do you have a name?"
"The Quintessons called me the Mighty Death."
She gives me a strange sort of grin and touched my shoulder lightly. "That's not a name."
I try again. "Project SKR-X7A."
"That's a model number. We have names of our own now."
"Where did you get them?"
She puts a hand over her mouth, trying to hide her smile. I do not understand why she would do such a thing, when her kind were usually so open about their emotions. She composes herself and speaks.
"Some of us adapted our model names. Others chose based on metals, on legends, on colours, on natural phenomena. My name, Fera, means "iron." So does my daughter's—Feiron. My son is Purple Max, based off his colour and the fact that he's part of the SKR-7A's, better known as the Max series." She pauses and looks at me. "You are…X7A?"
"Yes. SKR-X7A."
She frowns a moment, shaking her head. "You don't look much like the Max 7A's."
"Blame the Quints."
And then her whole body starts to shake. I wonder if she is in trouble—if I accidentally triggered the MAO Cannon—but she is smiling.
She rests her hand on my shoulder again. "You made a joke."
I regard her, confused.
"You'll understand in time," she says.
Oh, it is hard to tell this story without words such as "gentle," "welcoming," "reassuring." Those I have begun to grasp in the eons since. Those are terms which Fera taught me. At the time, I could distinguish vague differences in the other robots' tones and expressions, but I had no idea what they meant.
"But for the time being," she says, "you need a name."
I mumble something which ends in a series of clicks and a slurp.
"What was that?" she asks.
"The old Quintesson word for "Mighty Death.""
"You speak their ancient language?"
"Pieces of it. They used it regularly around the lab, in scientific terminology and the like." I frown. "Me…I…I mean, the part that is not programming…seems to have picked up fragments of their knowledge and their ways."
Fera nods. "That's right. You." She places a hand on my chest. "Your "I" is the part that is uniquely you…that was not given to you by anyone else. It is the very essence of your existence. It is something beautiful and valuable. You should treasure it."
And I want more of it. The *I* starts hammering against my programming again. There is something strangely familiar about Fera's hand on me—more of those ghost memories not in my memory banks—and I want her to continue. I…like it.
"Ritter," she says softly.
***What is "Ritter?"***
CLOSEST MATCH: BEGINNING SYLLABLES OF OLD QUINTESSON WORD FOR MIGHTY DEATH.
"Ritter," I repeat softly.
She smiles. "It's a better name than our language's translation."
I curve my own lips up into a similar smile. "Ritter. My name."
Fera takes my hand in hers, in a gesture of welcome…
And I like it, like it very much, and deep inside I begin to understand what happiness means…
***
Pain, like a blade through my core.
Remembering Fera is a strange activity. It brings to me contentment and anguish all at once. It warms my core and sends the *I* rattling around my head in a manic frenzy.
If I keep my remembrance superficial, I should be able to minimize the pain.
***
Fera possessed infinite patience. She taught me the words for rudimentary emotions: confusion, contentment, anger, fear, satisfaction. I suspect that I still have not fully grasped sorrow, or friendship, or joy. Still, I think I came to understand affection, as I found myself seeking out Fera's company whenever possible. When she was otherwise occupied, if I was not hunting the Quintessons, I would often stealthcloak and follow her, an invisible ghost.
And so I hunted the Quintessons—mostly on my own volition, for A-3 and his commanders did not fully trust me. As long as I had Fera with whom I could pass my time, I did not care. With my help the Cybertronian rebels grew stronger, reclaimed more and more of their planet. I was…I think I was happy, at least to the greatest extent possible for a war machine not constructed to feel.
And then, one day, it ended.
***
In this world where I am king
The atoms roar and strange love sings…
I am stealthcloaked, mostly in rest cycle, invisible in the corner of A-3's command post when I am awakened by the voice of the green Seeker I had rescued long ago. "The Quintessons are leaving!"
~Leaving?~
I am disturbed. I feel anger. They could not *leave*. Not while they survived. They would be hunted down, every one!
A-3's second, Commodore, voices sentiments much like my own. Commodore is the head of the military hardware line; a sharply angled greenish-grey female with serrated shoulder guards and a lean, pointed face. "We cannot let them escape," she says. "We must eliminate them all."
"No," A-3—who now calls himself Alpha Trion—replies firmly. "We cannot split our forces and go after them. If they eliminate those who pursue them, they could then return and retake the planet."
"They will return anyway. Perhaps not in our lifetimes. Perhaps not in the lifetimes of the children we build, or the lifetimes of our constructions' constructions. But someday, when the Quintessons have grown strong once more, they will return to reclaim this world as theirs."
"We cannot gamble now upon a future that may never come to pass!" Alpha Trion argues. "We have our world. Let us rebuild Cybertron and enjoy the peace which we have earned."
"Peace?" Commodore demands. "We cannot stay here and stagnate. We must push outward to the stars…and we can destroy the Quintessons as we go!"
I do not understand Commodore's words about conquest and expansion. Such concepts mean nothing to me. I do, however, agree that the Quintesson threat had to be destroyed once and for all. And instead of doing anything about it, Alpha Trion is bickering while the enemy escapes.
Idiocy. Foolishness. I can feel the cold rage uncoiling inside me as the debate degenerates into a shouting match until finally…
I decloak, crack open my left wrist and launch a rocket through the roof. Both leaders break off abruptly and turn to look at me with expressions that border on fear.
"Stop this ridiculous fighting," I snarl. "Terminate the Quintessons first."
"First I need to make this…this Autobot see reason," Commodore retorts. "My forces carried out the most dangerous missions in the Rebellion, and we sustained the heaviest losses. I am not going to risk my warriors again without the help of the consumer goods!"
"We don't need to risk anyone," Alpha Trion snaps back. "The war is over. Let it end."
"It's not over—not as long as the Quints are out there!"
"That's the problem with you soldiers. You need someone to fight. And if you cannot fight the Quintessons…will you fight us?"
"Who is "us?"" I ask softly. "We're all Cybertronians."
My words are drowned out by Commodore's sharp reply. "If you Autobots will not help us, you're as much a danger to us as the Quintessons! We will not die for you any longer!"
Both leaders are keeping wary optics on me…but both are too full of hatred for one another to hear what I am saying.
I suddenly feel very old and tired. I turn on my heel, remaining visible as I walk out on them and leave them to their fighting.
***
I am standing on the Ridge, looking up at the stars, when Fera approaches me. I do not know how long I have been there. My gaze flickers in and out of this reality. The stars wink and dance amongst the atoms of the Other Side. I can see both realms at once flickering across my field of vision, and both are surreal. The hypnotic dance soothes me, helps me find some quiet. The programming, the Quintesson voices, the *I*, are all silenced by velvet oblivion.
"The Quintessons are all gone," Fera murmurs, waking me from my thoughts and startling me back to reality. "Are you not coming to join in the celebration?"
"The Quintessons still exist. They have gone out there, somewhere."
She grows quiet. "I pity any world they come across."
"I cannot let them go," I say, almost as a whisper.
"Is this about your programming again?" she asks. "You should stay, Ritter. I may be on the verge of cracking that programming. Perhaps I could delete it, in time."
"No…thank you. The idea of anyone playing in my mind does not sit well with me." I pause, thinking of the words. "Even if it were not for my programming, I think I would leave anyway." I suck air into my intakes. "I do not belong here, Fera. I am not like you. The others resent my presence. They hate and fear me."
"You are not our enemy. In time, they will realize that."
"I could have killed Alpha Trion and Commodore."
Fera takes my confession calmly. "Programming?"
"No. Frustration. They fight with one another. They waste their time on infighting while the real enemy escapes to plot our destruction!" My optics flare a livid purple and my hands clench into fists as I growl the last.
Fera looks at me, startled, and suddenly very unsettled.
I relax at last and force a sad smile onto my face. "You see? Even you are frightened of me."
"No," she replies slowly. "No, it wasn't of you. You…reminded me of someone."
I tilt my head. "I thought I was completely alien to the rest of you."
"Not you. Not your appearance, or your nature. Your words. There was a…a robot I once knew, another medic. Most of us thought him completely incapable of hate. But there was one thing he did hate…the fighting between the warriors and the domestics. He repaired both, all the time cursing the war that caused such pain to both sides."
"Fighting…infighting? I do not know of this."
"Legend has it that our kind existed before the Quintessons came. Even then, we were split along lines similar to today's military hardware and consumer goods."
"Impossible. The Quintessons built us from scratch." I pause, suddenly confused. "Didn't they?"
Fera shrugs. "Regardless, the legends attempt to explain the enmity that still exists today. Many domestics say that the warriors are bloodthirsty lovers of death, worse than the Quintessons. Many warriors say that the domestics are soft-hearted fools, too weak to survive in a harsh universe. I do not agree. I believe we are all one kind. So did Max. He spent his lifetime trying to unite our two feuding clans into one. At the dawn of the Resistance, he seemed to have succeeded. Now…" She sighs heavily. "Your words make me fear that Max's efforts were in vain."
"I would…like to meet this Max."
Fera tilts her head towards the stars. "He is…gone."
"Dead?"
"I don't know," she chokes. "The Quints took him. I…suppose…he's dead…"
She is crying. I do not know what to do. I stand there, staring at her, helplessly.
And then the cry comes up from the city below. "Destruction…treachery…deception. Autobots—TO WAR!"
****
I'd been out on the Ridge for months.
It was the first of many times that I have blacked out and lost awareness of myself on the Other Side. In the sparkling void time has no meaning. Drawing life energy from the chaos battery means I do not hunger, do not tire. The mortals' impatience is spawned from their realization that
their lives are finite. To call me patient is not necessarily to understand the truth: when one is eternal, time is mostly irrelevant.
But in the time I'd been on the Ridge, the situation among the robots had changed again, and drastically. Commodore and her compatriots, determined to spread their race beyond Cybertron, had attempted to assassinate Alpha Trion. Their attempt had failed. Alpha Trion's supporters, enraged, had retaliated…and the war had commenced again, military hardware versus civilian goods.
It infuriated me. How *dare* they. We were all one kind, one Cybertronian race! To waste their time killing one another while the true foe escaped beyond the stars? The thought disgusted the *I*. My programming urged me to kill.
The *I* was equally as disgusted with the notion of killing the warring leaders, but part of me admitted a certain appeal. To descend upon the city, destroying all those in my path until they threw down their weapons and surrendered. To dictate the terms of a peace where both sides would live in harmony. But to do so would render me no better than the Quintessons, and that idea sickened me. I was disturbed that I had even considered such a plan. I blamed my programming for changing me…
…which made no sense, since I did not exist before the Quintessons created and programmed me. The *I* had not existed to be changed…
I decided I did not like emotion. Confused. Sickened. Disturbed. Better the peace of the Other Side, the gentle oblivion…
There were a few who were tired of fighting: Fera, her two creations, thirty-eight other consumer goods models, and twelve military hardware. They vowed to leave Cybertron and find another world where they could live in peace. Their peace was more important to them than their homeworld. Despite my attraction to Cybertron, I agreed. When they left, I went with them as their escort. The military hardware "liberated" an old Quintesson shuttle and we set off into the darkness of space, leaving the rest of Cybertron behind to war as it would.
We journeyed into space for weeks on end until we came across a world with adequate fuel resources. Fera, the unofficial leader of the group, named the planet with a word from the old Cybertronian language. Kilair—Hope.
And I…
I would have stayed on Kilair with Fera. I would have learned to understand the enigma that is my emotional core. Perhaps in time I would even have won the trust of the other robots and been accepted as a fellow Kilairian.
But I am an assassin, a hunter. There is no need on a peaceful world for one of my function. It is, perhaps, inevitable that one night a spiral ship was sighted on the long-range scanners and my programming took over. The *I* shut down. I blasted out into space in pursuit of the Quintesson vessel.
I awoke again several vorn later, having devastated an entire Quintesson armada. My memory banks informed me of my actions since leaving Kilair. I was a long time in returning.
In my absence the Kilairians had constructed a village. I entered stealth-cloaked, as was my wont. I felt and still feel most at home in the shadows, hanging between the realms.
In logical terms I can easily tell you what I found. Fera had taken what is called a mate, a consumer-goods truck. Her two creations—one a peach femme who looked just like her mother, the other a dusty purple male of the SKR line of military hardware—played happily with a third child, a yellow-green truck. Cloaked in the shadows, I watched Fera hug the deep green male with whom she now shared her life.
Logically I can say that there was no need for me on Kilair. My function was not required. Fera did not need me either—she had other associates. Logically I believed and still believe that I serve the Cybertronian race best by harrying the Quintessons, keeping them weak and scattered so that they will never threaten Cybertron again.
Illogically, I can say that I had a second reason for leaving Kilair that day. Inside it felt as if a knife were tearing my core processor apart.
My memory banks could not give me any answers. Each question I asked was answered with error message after error message until finally…
***What do I feel for Fera?***
???ERROR. ACCESS DENIED.
~reset~
Confused and in pain…a pain which adjustments to my receptors did nothing to cure…I phased deeper into the Other Side, burying my mind in oblivion, and returned to the hunt.
When I next returned to Kilair, Fera and her entire family were long since rust.
***
Just one lick upon my thoughts
Or both our worlds will have to go…
I'm just not quite right today
I'm just not quite right today…
TIME SETTING: 2006 MINUS ONE MILLION YEARS
But that is the tale of yesterday…and this is the tale of today.
I awaken from my memories to find myself in the catacombs beneath Cybertron. I am not certain what force brought me here while I was lost in reminiscing. I move on autopilot, as if my programming was directing me…but it is not. I, *I*, am in control, and yet not consciously aware of the reasons for my actions. I cannot guess any possible reason why I should protest.
Occasionally, in my moments of clarity, I will slip among the other Cybertronians…almost always stealth-cloaked, almost always invisible to them. I do not fully understand their ways, even now, and all these years later there is another barrier besides the Chaos battery that separates me from the others. I belong to another time, another era. I do not, cannot, think as they do. Their ways are not my ways.
For eons I have watched them make war upon one another. In those years their hatred for each other has grown and their knowledge of the Quintessons has faded, like the words on an ancient monitor now so obscured by static that they can no longer be read—but for me those words remain as sharp as ever. Try as I might, I cannot understand why they engage in infighting while the true enemy, the Quintessons, still exist. When I do decloak, it is usually among the Decepticons. They are the closest I have to kin. Like me they understand the need to hunt. Like me they understand the need to take up arms to defend themselves from those who would enslave them.
I slowly become aware of my surroundings. I am several layers below the surface of Cybertron in the subterranean reaches of the city-state of Valckasta. More precisely, I am in the sub-sub basement of the Valckastan archives. I have found a console that archives information going back to…By the Void. Going back to the era of the First Great War, the War of Liberation. My time. My age.
I am scanning through an endless columns of names. My hands have almost entirely solidified so that I can work the controls, while the rest of me remains insubstantial. On the screen, the characters blur together, so quickly am I paging through them, and yet I am beginning to sense that I am looking for something in specific. That annoying voice in my mind is silent for once, engrossed in its search, too busy to inform me what it is doing. I feel as if the programming was in control of my shell again, and yet I know that it is not.
What is driving my body now is me and yet not me… It makes no sense and I do not wish to dwell on thoughts that lead to madness.
Outside voices startle me from my thoughts. It is a mercy that they have come in time to distract me from the chaos in my head.
"…see? Nothing down here."
"Ruckus, you idiot." This voice I recognize. "He's here…I KNOW he's here! I can sense him!"
Thunderwing. The only one of all the Decepticons who can occasionally pick up on my cloaked presence.
"Ritter?" I can see them now. This is the voice of Thunderwing's second, Spinister. "Ritter, are you down here?"
The third, the one called Ruckus, is staring at Spinister. "Talking to yourself, eh?"
***Phase shift, mass 100% Solid Realm.***
ACKNOWLEDGING.
I appear out of nowhere in front of them.
Ruckus' optics flare with shock and he points a finger at me, flabbergasted. "What the…" He scrabbles for his weapon.
Spinister overcomes his surprise quickly and he takes hold of Ruckus' gun before the other Decepticon can aim it at me.
Only Thunderwing does not react to see me coalesce out of nothing. "Ritter. You should have the graces to knock before entering my city."
"I wasn't programmed with manners," I respond. It is the truth. Thunderwing looks momentarily irritated. It is only then that I realize he might have taken my words as a sign of anger, or disrespect. I am slowly beginning to grasp the nuances of Cybertronian conversation and culture, but much of it still mystifies me.
Thunderwing knows this. He makes an effort not to react to my response. Instead, he walks over to me. "What are you looking at, hm?"
"The records."
Spinister and Ruckus follow him. "First Great War?" Ruckus reads. "Primus, nobody looks at THESE ol' things. Only reason we keep 'em is so's we can say we've got something that Shockwave ain't got…"
Spinister motions Ruckus to be quiet. "Important pieces of history, but on their own, virtually useless. They are mere shards of the ancient past." He leans over for a better look. "This console seems to be a memorial, containing the records of some long-dead Cybertronians." His exhalation whistles out of his air vents. "Lives lived, lives lost, but none of it means much any more."
"What do you know about them?" I say slowly, glancing over the list of names on the screen. "These robots…who were they?"
"Nothing. If they were heroes, they'd be up in the War Museum," Spinister says. "All we know is what you see…a handful of Decepticon robots, died during the War of Liberation."
I examine the list. My hands work the console, scanning down, down…
One name sends a stab through my core processor. Instinctively I highlight it and hit the SELECT switch.
The following information comes up on the screen.
BLUE MAX
DECEPTICON, NUMBER 399782 of MAX SERIES, model SKR-7A
MISSING IN ACTION DATE 7834 GAMMA
MEMORIAL ERECTED BY FERA, PURPLE MAX AND FEIRON WITH LOVE
Blue Max is a special individual. The Quintessons are wrong—we are individuals, varying in more ways than just our serial numbers—and Blue Max is one of the most unique individuals of all. Despite his original purpose and great skill as an airborne warrior, Blue Max scorned the ways of war to become one of the Resistance's most trusted and able medics. To the robot who saved my life and the lives of countless others, Blue Max, you shall not be forgotten by those whose lives you touched.
Blue Max has been missing for more than a year now. May this memorial be shortsighted. May our predictions be wrong, and may our Blue Max find his way home.
I reach out and run my fingertips down the screen.
Decepticon. So the term did exist that long ago. I had not learned it…
…or I had forgotten.
Perhaps I think more like a Quintesson than a Cybertronian. Consumer goods. Military hardware. That was what I had always called the two Cybertronian races.
I think I shall use our terms for ourselves, rather than the Quintesson terms, from now on.
But terminology is a second concern to me right now. I scroll down to find the image of Blue Max.
He is a proto-Seeker. I can recognize the wings on the back and cockpit on the chest that are characteristic of the type. The design is, of course, more primitive than today's Seekers. The wings are more square than triangular, the engines are much larger and bulkier, the air intakes on the shoulders are small, underdeveloped…
…but it is the face that rivets my attention. A warm, emotional face. He is smiling. The glow in his optics is visible even through the fuzziness that blurs the ancient image. His appearance is eerily familiar in a way that disturbs me. I feel that if I could gaze at that face long enough, all the secrets in the universe might be answered. It seems that at any moment, Blue Max might speak and explain to me all the things which normal Cybertronians take for granted but that I can barely grasp.
Such flights of fancy are unusual for me, as is the seething whirlpool of emotion that twists inside my fuel tank. I do not understand emotion well and rarely display it. Blue Max is the opposite of me in this regard. He is open, well liked. Even I can tell.
His arm is around a female, consumer g…Autobot. The word is Autobot.
This is Fera. I remember.
I look at her, briefly. I feel a sense of loss, like damage in my core processor.
I read the lines below the picture and realize that Fera and Blue Max were also mates…before I was built, before Fera took the green truck as her mate. I had not known this before. It surprises me. I marvel to realize that Blue Max and Fera felt what is called love for each other, in an era of alliance when such love was possible.
I cannot even begin to comprehend love.
Looking at Fera is painful and so I do not.
In front of them are two young constructs: Purple Max and Feiron. Purple Max, of the same model as his father, looks identical to Blue Max save for his paint scheme and the subtle distinction which youth makes in the face. Feiron is the image of her mother.
The children had gone to Kilair with Fera but I had seen little of them. I had kept my distance, fearing that I would hurt the children inadvertently…and they too had avoided me. I do, vaguely, recall the fear in their optics when they looked at me. They could sense that I was not of their world.
Looking at them is painful too. I barely remember them and still they hurt me.
I return my attention to Blue Max and wish he would speak.
"Did he ever come back?" I ask softly.
"I just said, we don't know," Spinister says with some frustration in his voice. "These records are a good ten million years old. Nobody alive remembers this stuff…"
Thunderwing holds up his hand for silence. "Except, perhaps, for our guest here." The Lord of Valckasta leans closer to me. "What does this mean?" he hisses in my audio sensor. "Do you remember this?"
"I knew Fera," I answer slowly, "but I remember nothing before 7836 Gamma." Inside rises an emotion which I begin to recognize as defensiveness. "That was when the Quintessons brought me online."
Ruckus' jaw drops again. "You're…ten million years old?" This time, his loud voice is barely more than a whisper.
I nod shortly, uninterested in him. It is the screen that attracts my attention.
"What brought you here?" Thunderwing urges. "What meaning do these old records hold for you?"
"I don't know," I say distantly, my optics focused on nothing. I can see the fabric of reality fading, can see through the Solid Realm to the dance of the atoms on the Other Side…
Oblivion, blessed oblivion…the peace of the eternal void, the world where I am king. Reality is making my head ache again. I long to cloak and return to the realm I call my home.
Thunderwing presses me again. "Who is this Blue Max?"
I could give the easy answers—Fera's mate. A patriot who sought to unite Autobot and Decepticon against the slavers. A medic captured by the Quintessons.
But I want to know myself.
***Who is Blue Max?***
??? ERROR. ACCESS DENIED.
Damn you…
***Who is Blue Max, DAMN YOU!***
ACCESS DENIED ACCESS DENIED ACCESS DENIED
~reset~
Briefly, I lose awareness. I begin coming out of it quickly, but I am only partially in control of my actions. The programming is overriding me again.
OPERATION: SEARCH AND DESTROY.
***Searching for target definitions.***
TARGET: CYBERTRONIAN LEADERS…
My optics fall on Thunderwing. A readout of his current physical status appears on my inner computer. My hand falls to the hilt of my blade.
*blip* COMMAND OVERRIDE.
TARGET: QUINTESSONS.
***Searching.***
It takes only a second for the scans to come back negative and for my conscious control to come back on line. I blink. I was aware of that one, aware of my targeting in on Thunderwing, and helpless to do anything about it. I would not want to strike down an ally.
What am I doing here beneath Valckasta?
***Search memory banks for reason for my presence.***
SKR-X7A SEEKS VERIFICIATION OF INFORMATION IN MEMORY BANK SUB3Q.
What? I do not remember having a Bank Sub3Q.
***Access memory bank Sub3Q.***
ACCESS DENIED.
***Locate memory bank Sub3Q.***
SUB3Q LOCATED IN LASER CORE CENTER COORDINATES UPPER VENTRAL 89745.
In my laser core. In the middle of my laser core, right next to the Chaos battery. In that tight, compact unit which I transplant from one shell to another—a set of memories.
So there are things in my mind even I do not know about. Well…
***Access memory bank Sub3Q.***
ACCESS DENIED.
Damn you. Damn you, Quintessons. Ten million years in your graves and you reach out to control me still. They were the ones to block off those memories. I can recognize their handiwork in my circuitry.
What could be in there? And…why? If the Quintessons built me, why would they put in memories that they did not want their Mighty Death to access?
~Where did your conscious mind come from? What raw materials did the Quints build you out of? Scraps of steel, yards of cable…or something more?~
~From scratch, or…~
***Accessing memory bank R34 G.***
I can hear the voice of the female Quintesson as if she spoke beside me.
"We will need another base unit. Send the Centurion drones to capture one."
And the reply…
"Bring me another like this one…"
The head scientist, to his green prisoner: "…trap your core personality behind a triple firewall…I have done it before."
Their loathsome voices awake my programming with a vengeance.
OPERATIVE: SEARCH AND DESTROY. TARGET: QUINTESSONS.
I am once more consumed with the desire to hunt.
Yet even that embitters me, because it was the Quints who placed that killing instinct in me. Do I kill because I want to, or because their programming orders me to? Was my greatest act of freedom the ability, long ago, to change my target from my own kind to theirs? Does it matter who I hunt, if I waste my life in hunting?
Waste? I live to hunt. I exist to hunt. It was why I was created.
Why *I* was created…or why the Mighty Death was created?
My gaze returns to the screen. Blue Max…and the femme who loved him…his mate, and his children.
"Is he all right?" I hear Spinister whisper.
"Beats me," Ruckus retorts. "Seems to me he's forgotten all about us."
I almost had. They had been so still, my sensors had ignored them. Of course…my sensors make note only of Quintessons and immediate threats. I incline my head towards them to acknowledge their existence.
Thunderwing is regarding me with barely controlled impatience. "What was the meaning of that little display?" he asks.
"A programming glitch," I reply coolly.
"Then perhaps you can answer my question now. What is the meaning of these files?"
Thunderwing's attitude begins to irk me. Not only can he sense the power that emanates from the Chaos battery in my chest, but also, it draws him. Even I can sense his thirst for the power I possess. I do not turn my back on him. I do not trust him. I am no great judge of character, but while he seems a good enough being at heart, his lust for the power of the Chaos cell threatens to override his judgement—the judgement that warns him not to challenge the Mighty Death.
Thunderwing, you fool. You do not want the existence I lead. You do not want an eternity in the void of the Other Side. You do not want to be severed from all others of your kind. You do not want to see history pass you by, until you become an anachronism, a warrior out of time, no longer relevant to the modern world…
But now, I have no desire to argue with him. My urge to hunt is growing stronger and my head is throbbing, as it always does when I think too deeply on the nature of existence. Too much philosophy will lead me to madness. It amazes me that after ten millennia between the worlds, I have managed to retain a few shards of sanity.
"As your second said," I reply. "Ancient history. Memorials to those long since rusted away." And there is that pang in my core processor again, that sensation of damage where no damage exists.
"You left your hunting simply to admire my records?" Thunderwing says skeptically.
"You're thinking like Shockwave," Spinister murmurs in his liege's audio sensor, quietly so I will not hear, but my keen hearing picks up his words anyway. "Why must there be a practical reason? Perhaps he simply wishes to immerse himself in history. He does, after all, come from a time much older than ours. Perhaps he misses his era, his very world."
Spinister looks at me and realizes I have overheard.
"My era has not ended," I inform him. "In the emptiness of space time is meaningless. I hunt as I have always hunted."
~*always* hunted??~
***Verify.***
SKR-X7A, STEALTH ASSASSIN…
I ignore the readout. It repeats my log of kills as it always does. I do not know why I demanded verification. I know that I was created by the Quintessons to hunt and kill…I KNOW this, it is clear in my programming…
I bow my head. "It is only when I come in contact with other Cybertronians that I realize how different our worlds truly are."
"You came to learn more of our ways," Thunderwing summarizes. "My dear Ritter, you'd learn much more at the court than down here. Even the main War Museum would provide a better insight."
I nod, vaguely. I feel compelled to give Thunderwing a warning. "Your ways are confusing to me. Existence between the realms is a cold and lonely one. The Chaos battery exacts a heavy toll." I stare pointedly at the Lord of Valckasta. Our optics lock and then, Thunderwing glances away.
"Shall we, then?" he asks.
"Another time," I reply. "The hunt calls."
Spinister nods slowly. "Very well. Good hunting, then."
I take one more glance back at the console screen. Blue Max…the medic, missing in action.
Ruckus is also peering at the screen. Something in his glance disturbs me. It as if he profanes the dead simply by looking. I reach out and flip the console control off. The screen dies. The image—the record of Blue Max's existence—flicker and die as well.
Ruckus gives me a disgruntled snort. I ignore him and cloak.
***Phase shift 40% Solid Realm 60% Other Side.***
Ruckus jumps as I disappear. Spinister shakes his head. "Ritter, that's still very disconcerting."
"You get used to it," I reply, right next to Ruckus' audio sensor. The other Decepticon jumps.
~Irk me, will you.~ I think, if I were visible, that I would be smiling. It warms me inside. I do still have emotion, do still have…
Still have? No. I am developing emotion. The Quintessons would not have programmed me with any.
And yet, I feel that I have reclaimed something.
Phase shifted, I pass invisibly through Valckasta's defences. I set a course for the el Kamir trade routes, routes which the Quintessons used long ago. It should be easy for me to find prey there. I watch the dance of the atoms on the Other Side superimposed over the stars and planets that guide my flight through the Solid Realm. I hang, once again, between layers of reality, and in my world I set to thinking. Once I sight a Quintesson vessel, my programming will take over. I must think while I can.
The flight is uneventful. I will delete it from my memory banks. There are no events of note, nothing worth recalling.
My sojourn below Valckasta—Blue Max—that is another story. That memory is stored in triplicate, each copy in a different location in my core processor, each location carefully flagged.
That one I will remember, when all the worlds are dust.