by Birgit Staebler
Sparks was bored. Completely and utterly bored. There was nothing to do and no one to pester, mainly because Megatron was away with the Apocalypse. It had been one of those few times he had managed to trick his shadow and get away. Sparks had only shrugged, acknowledged how well Megatron had pulled it off, and made a third scratch mark into the score board – literally. Using the free time she had, the cat had first scouted through the Decepticon leader's private quarters, then his office, had hacked into his computer as she usually did and then had gone out to find something to do.
Nothing could be found.
Ravage had been company for two days and then Sparks had decided she needed to liven up the routine that had settled in. She hated routine; she despised it. Paying several Cybertronians a visit, getting her ears scratched or her fur combed, she finally ended up with still nothing new to do.
And so she had left for an exploration of the lower levels, those still not explored by any of the Cybertronian factions and those who didn't belong to the Inner Maze. Sparks had discovered several entrance ways into those unknown depths, but she had never mentioned them to anyone. First of all, the Council and about everyone else had enough to do already and second, the entrances where too small, just large enough to allow her in.
Squeezing through, the cat started her slow descend into the heart of Cybertron, totally unconcerned safety-wise. No one had ever attacked her, nothing had ever tried to get her, and she was generally not perceived as a threat. She had met droids, old relics and strange robots throughout her relatively short life, and she had never had a problem with either. Having Megatron to deal with on nearly a daily level gave Sparks a very thick hide, an incredible survival instinct and enough nagging persistence to handle just about anything thrown at her.
* * *
She had been inside the maze-like tunnels for almost two
days now and Sparks liked it. She discovered new and intriguing things,
had made friends with one of the forgotten cleaning droids – who had insisted
on showing her his cleaning detergent collection – and had discovered that
deep beneath the known levels were a lot of very interesting rooms. This
planet was as unexplored as a doorway planet, Sparks thought to herself
as she rounded another corner. She knew that Maverick had once come back
from six months of explorations with an incredible amount of data no one
had known what to make of, and in the end Soundwave had stored and evaluated
it all. It had led to the opening of a new section of Cybertron because
Maverick had stumbled over a self-reliant habitat that had been kept impeccably
clean by ancient droids and no one had used it ever since the start of
the Civil War.
They explore strange new worlds, but their own home planet
is as strange and unexplored to them as the planets they visit. She snorted.
Well, it left her with a hobby.
A soft, almost inaudible noise made the cat stop and
her audios strained to catch the noise again. She had come across a lot
of new sounds, like banging water pipes, creaking air ducts and the whine
of a generator about to die. This one wasn't any of those noises. It sounded
more like... feet? Tiny feet, lightly treading, and small talons clicking
on the cold metal floor. Sparks' tail twitched slightly.
And then it stepped into view.
She had no idea what it was, except a robot. It was small,
about a quarter her size, four-legged, had a long tail, a pointed snout
and whiskers like her. Sparks gazed at the strange creature with mixed
feelings. Her instincts urged her to chase and catch it, and she had no
idea why. Why should she chase it? What should she do with it when she
had caught the critter? The feline instinct added that she would know when
she had it. She told it to shut up. Her civilized side, the personality
core side, told her that what she was facing was a small robot, smaller
than her and possibly a kind of first contact. It had no signs, no faction
markings, and it didn't seem to be armed. Its construction was punctuated
for speed and agility, and those small claws on very flexible finger-like
paws suggested it could climb just about anything.
"Hi," Sparks said calmly, deciding for the frontal approach.
If this creature was hostile, she'd know soon.
Rounded ears swiveled like radar dishes and the whiskered
nose twitched. The creature looked torn between fleeing and staying to
talk. "Hi," it said eventually.
Well, that solved the puzzle about whether or not they
spoke the same language. The voice was strong, telling her she wasn't facing
a whiny little droid, and it was male.
"My name is Sparks," she now introduced herself. "Who
are you?"
The nose twitched again. "Whisper," the critter then
said.
"Okay, Whisper..... nice to meet you." She smiled.
Apparently the smile didn't have the wanted reaction
because Whisper drew back with a gasp.
"What's wrong?"
"I...." He shook his head. "I know it's stupid and I
can't explain it, but somehow I think I should be afraid of you." He shrugged.
Sparks frowned. "Afraid of me? I haven't done anything
to you and neither do I want to. I don't even know what you are."
Whisper shrugged again. "Like I said, I don't really
know. What are you?"
"Uhm, I'm a cat."
Whisper frowned. "Now I feel like running away and hiding."
"If it's any consolation, and I don't think it is, I
feel like chasing you all over the place." Sparks shrugged as well. "Makes
no sense. I hope it's a programming flaw." Considering how she had come
to be, Sparks thought it was just a minor flaw and the first one she had
discovered so far. "Do you live here? I never saw anything like you before."
"Oh, yes, me and my community," Whisper explained. "We
have lived here for generations. We keep to ourselves because life Up There
is too dangerous for the likes of us. Our world is Down Below, under the
surface. Much more room as well," he added with a chuckle. Sparks smiled
slightly and they walked down the narrow corridor. "You come from Up?"
"Me? Yes. I live there and I have to tell you, you are
right: very dangerous and sometimes getting too crazy and weird for description."
Whisper nodded. "Those of us who went Up told us. Very
big robots, no room for us, and we get chased a lot. They call us ... vermin?"
The black cat shrugged. "Like I said, I never saw anyone
like you before, but I know vermin. Let me tell you, you look nothing like
them. Vermin are..." Sparks' nose crinkled into a look of disdain, "worse."
"Worse?"
"Uhm.... they are not exactly nice to look at and they
aren't intelligent. Well," she conceded at his frown, "at least not very
intelligent. You can use the same technique to catch them ten times over
before they get it into their pea brains to use another route or to leave
a place alone."
"So you chase vermin." Whisper looked at her with complete
lack of judgment.
Sparks squirmed under his gaze. "Well, yes. But you aren't
vermin and I wouldn't know why to chase you."
"Fair enough."
"I'd like to meet your community," Sparks added. "I'd
be very interested in your life down here."
"You won't hurt any of them, will you?" Whisper asked
anxiously.
"Hurt? No!" Sparks shook her head. "Why would I? What
do I gain?"
"I don't know, but somehow whenever I look at you, it
makes me feel like you should hunt and then kill me."
Sparks managed to look affronted. "I have never killed
anyone or anything in my life before and I won't start now. I have no clue
what you are or why my instincts yell at me to chase you, but believe me
when I tell you, you have nothing to fear from me."
Whisper looked at her long and hard, then nodded. "Okay,
I believe you."
He went off down the corridor again.
"Oh, by the way, you never told me what you are," Sparks
called. "Besides a possible vermin."
Whisper laughed. "Don't call us vermin. We don't like
it. Generally we call ourselves mice. I'm a mouse."
* * *
The community was larger than Sparks had expected it.
There weren't just two or three dozen mice, there were over ten!
"That's not the community," Whisper chided as she remarked
on it. "That's just the family."
Sparks gaped. "Family?"
"Yes, you know.... relatives, aunts, uncles, nieces,
nephews, kids...." He gave her a critical look. "You don't have families
Up?"
"Oh, we do, but not this... much." Sparks cleared her
throat. "I have kids. Four of them to be correct, but not.... dozens...."
Whisper smiled and it was a proud smile. "Oh, we have
large families. Helps to keep the family tree alive. Our life is dangerous
and we don't live the average millennia the robots Up do."
"More than millennia," Sparks muttered. She knew Megatron
was close to nine million years old and that was *old*. Then there were
the Sentinels, who were even older. But time was relative, wasn't it? And
adopting Standard Time, which was close to Earth time, had 'aged' all Cybertronians
considerably.
"How large is your personal family?" she wanted to know,
gaze fastened on the mice running all over the place, colored in all shades,
each slightly different from the other.
"Oh, I have ten sisters of the same Creation Day, but
more if you count every single one directly related to the creation pair."
"Mother and father?"
Whisper gave her a look of someone who didn't understand.
"I'm the mother of my kids and the one who...errr.. was
part of the process is the father," she explained.
"Ah. Yes, the creation pair."
"Do all of you.... create?" Sparks hoped it wasn't a
delicate question.
"Oh, no. Takes up too much time and energy and those
creating die early. The community has creating pairs and their duty is
to see to the growths of the families."
"Breeding machines," Sparks muttered. Whisper apparently
hadn't heard her. "Say, isn't it dangerous to reproduce?"
The mouse shot her a surprised look. "Dangerous?"
"Yes. When I had the four kids it was considered highly
dangerous and the creation process of the individual core consciousness
was sometimes unstable. I won't go into what a fuss it was to place them
into their new bodies."
Whisper's eyes were wide with disbelief. "It's the most
natural process in the world!" He sat back on his haunches, nose twitching.
"The creation pair creates what you call cores from their own, varying
it in what they see fit, and then choose one of the many bodies they have
at their disposal. Very easy and nothing unstable about it." The nose twitched
again.
"Where do you get the bodies from?"
He looked a bit unhappy. "Can't tell. It is a secret
place. We depend upon it to survive."
"I understand." Sparks suspected it was one of the same
machines that had given birth to her, though Ralyk had had its tentacles
in that process as well.
"So you have no procreation like this?" the mouse wanted
to know.
"Errr, no. Cybertronians don't procreate. The core consciousness
are stored inside two large containment fields and when they have a body,
the core consciousness is added."
"Who created the consciousness?"
"Very good question," the cat muttered. "Apparently the
original containment unit, a computer called Vector Sigma, was stocked
with them and then inserted into the planet." She shrugged.
Whisper looked puzzled but didn't pursue the topic.
"So, how large is the community?" Sparks wanted to know.
"Oh, we consist of several families. Not counting the
ones we are currently fighting against, I think we are around fifteen families,
varying in size."
"Fight?" Fifteen families?! her inner voice squealed.
Fifteen! And look at how large just one family can be! This whole planet's
core is inhabited with mice!
Whisper nodded. "Territorial fights. It's almost traditional,
especially when a family decides to found a new community. They get into
fights with the neighboring families, others get involved, you know....
It happens from time to time. Ours isn't the only community, you know."
"Ah."
Sparks noted that most of the mice ignored her as they
went about their daily routines, but some looked at her and she saw the
same fear in their eyes as she had seen in Whisper's. And she saw how confused
and puzzled these mice were. They just didn't understand what it was they
should be afraid of.
"You came here to explore?" Whisper asked and jolted
her out of her thoughts.
Sparks nodded. "I was bored. I decided to take a look
at what is inside Cybertron and that's how I ran into you. You have no
idea what is going on around you, do you?"
Whisper shrugged. "I know what I need to know. I know
how far the territory stretches, who my friends are, where to find food
and shelter. What else do I need to know?"
It was a valid question. The mice lived in the forgotten
niches of underground Cybertron, they occupied a tiny amount of space and
had other worries than planetary and interplanetary relationships. They
had their family fights, they explored what space they needed, and they
bothered no one.
"What happens Up?" Whisper wanted to know. "Do you have
communities?"
"In a way. We call them factions, though the real faction
differences were settled some time ago. They call themselves Cybertronians,
after the planet, but the sense of belonging to a faction is still strong.
The leaders of each faction form the Council, a leadership cooperation."
"Ah. Communities are just communities. We live, we fight,
we die."
"Very easy philosophy."
"Do we need another?"
Sparks had to confess they didn't. "You lucky guys,"
she muttered.
Several smaller models of mice scurried past them, disappearing
up a conduct and into a hole.
"I'd like to explore further," the cat said after a while.
"Do you think it would get me into trouble with other communities?"
"I don't see why it should. You are not of our families
or community; the others would be curious, but they wouldn't attack." Whisper
grinned all of a sudden. "Just don't be surprised if they react with the
same puzzled fear I had. You evoke it."
Sparks shrugged. "It's not easy to ignore the chase factor
either," she told the mouse. "I think I have to look this up. I chased
vermin before. Sorry," she apologized when Whisper winced. "I'm talking
about the small droids. I don't think you have ever seen them. They are
left-overs from before the Civil War that raged for millions of years Up.
They infest smaller pipes. No one knows where they came from and no one
has an idea how to get rid of them, but they are not intelligent like you."
"Ah."
Sparks spent the next hours getting as much information
out of Whisper as the little guy had for her and she got a pretty good
idea of the layout of the community's territory. Whisper showed her around,
introduced her to several other mice, and even invited her for what Sparks
thought had to be dinner. It tasted all right, though a bit stale, and
she wondered where they got the energon from. Probably nicked somewhere.
The mice had access to countless pipes and ducts. One was leading to energon
supplies for all she knew.
As they prowled through the tunnels, Sparks looked around.
They were far deeper than any other Cybertronian had probably ever been.
The tunnels were incredibly old but well-maintained and the letters on
the walls were in Old Cybertronian, before the language had been split
into two dialects that had differed very much for millennia, Autobot and
Decepticon, and then had coalesced into one language again. Historians
would fall over their feet trying to get down here to study these relics.
Sparks shrugged. Well, it wasn't her main field of interest. What she found
when they descended another level was. Sparks caught herself short of gaping
and simply stared.
"What is this?" she breathed.
"Oh, that is just an old rock," Whisper said dismissively.
A very large old rock! Sparks was a tiny pebble compared
to the gigantic rock face looming up in front of her. This had to be ....
she had no comparison. The rock was as ancient as the tunnels and blackened
by exposure to space before it had been encased in millions of tons of
steel, glass and wire. Tunnels bore down into the rock, leading into total
blackness, and steel struts had been drilled deep into the stone to secure
the metal planet to it. For what a large piece of space junk had been taken
to be a part of Cybertron was about anyone's guess.
"Does anyone live in there?" she asked.
Whisper shook his head. "No. Nothing in there."
"You were in the rock before?"
"No, not me. I heard stories. Everything's empty in there."
"Empty of things you mice could use," Sparks translated.
The mouse grinned. "Yeah, well, true. Anyway, you'd just
get lost in there. Nothing but hundreds of tunnels and nothing interesting."
"For mice."
He rolled his eyes. "Yes."
Sparks grinned. "And cats don't get lost."
Whisper eyed her fur. "But they can get dirty."
"Point taken."
Sparks gave the gigantic rock another close inspection.
Geologists would be in heaven and she wondered if Beachcomber could squeeze
down the tunnels. Well, maybe there were easier access ways as well.
"I wonder what this was supposed to be," she muttered.
Whisper twitched his whiskers. "Does it need a function?"
"Well, yes. At least for those who put it here. The Quintessons
never did anything on this planet without reason."
"Quintessons?"
"Long story."
"Okay."
The two unlikely companions left, Sparks wondering what
this rock was and why it was here. Had the Quints used it as some kind
of base to build their factory on? Had they then expanded it and formed
a planet? She had to dig into the Archives, though she believed she wouldn't
find much. Too many files had been destroyed throughout the many wars on
this planet.
Whisper volunteered to accompany her through the territory
of his community to the neighboring one when she asked. He assured her
they were at peace with this particular community and that he would be
in no trouble. Sparks hoped the same went for her.
She spent a long time exploring.
* * *
Megatron returned home after a month of relative peace
and quiet aboard the Apocalypse, warp-gating to several planets and picking
up supplies. As he entered his office he became aware of two facts almost
immediately: the 'messages waiting' light was blinking insistently on his
terminal, and Sparks was missing. There was no sign of the furry nuisance
that he could see, and a quick check of his office told him she wasn't
in. Checking the messages and discarding all of them as 'can be dealt with
later', he went to his private quarters. He came up empty on the Sparks
factor as well.
"Where the heck is the Pest?" he muttered as he stalked
back, ignoring a few startled looking Cybertronians who jumped out of his
way.
It was totally unlike Sparks not be in either of the
two rooms and greet him with her annoying presence. She never bounced in
joy at his return, nor did she deign his entry worth a flicker of her tail,
but she was least *present*. Megatron cursed himself as the automatic doors
closed behind him. He was actually *missing* the pesky cat?!
Yes, he did.
The Decepticon leader frowned darkly at the message light
– no longer blinking but still switched on – as if it was the reason for
all his suffering. Sparks was a welcome presence in his office and quarters,
though he'd never ever admit it, of course! She managed to take the tension
out of his system and give him a vent to release his anger. That this vent
consisted of decorating his office with assorted holes and blast marks
was secondary. In former time these marks had been worn by those who had
been unlucky enough to meet their leader in a particularly foul mood on
a particularly bad day. Now he had a small, highly intelligent and sharp-tongued
robot cat, an intelligence trapped inside a pet's body, to point out his
bad sides and laud his good ones – and she got away with it!
Megatron shook his head and played with a pen. He had
never understood it and probably never would.
Suddenly the door opened and the missing cat came in,
looking non-chalant and self-satisfied. She jumped up onto the desk and
sat down, tail curling around her paws.
"You are back," she stated the obvious.
"Where were you?" Megatron demanded.
"Out."
"Out where?"
"None of your concern."
"Doing what?"
"Cat things."
Megatron pondered whether or not he wanted to know what
those 'cat things' were. Probably not. They either involved Ravage and
the other four pests, or sticking her nose into things that didn't concern
her. As long as he didn't get memos from various places all over West Central
to keep his cat out of whatever she had been into, he was okay with the
explanation.
Sparks, having decided that the conversation was over,
rolled up into a bundle of fur. Megatron tapped his finger on the desk,
glaring at her. It was to no avail. Sparks neither budged nor showed any
sign of even acknowledging him. Finally the Decepticon grabbed the warm
bundle and unceremoniously dumped her onto the floor.
"Oi!" Sparks muttered and shook herself, automatically
grooming some fur back into place. "Gone for a few days and comes home
in an even crankier mood than usual!"
"I am not cranky!"
Her emerald optics critically looked him up and down.
"Cranky," she then decided. "You need a vacation."
"I need you off my back!"
"Well, you got me off your desk already, so consider
it a treat." She smiled.
Remembering one of the ground rules of living with a
cat – never argument with it – Megatron swallowed a reply. But he ignored
the second ground rule – you cannot win against a cat either -- and made
a grab for her, violating the third rule – catching a cat is close to impossible
without using a tranquilizer, a net and possibly an arsenal of miniature
traps placed in strategic cat places. Sparks was way too fast and stopped
outside his immediate reach, optics gleaming with amusement. Megatron considered
shooting her, but that would require too much energy for a result he knew
well already: he'd miss. It was a rule he had found out the hard way and
that only applied to this one cat: never try to shoot at Sparks. If you
missed you had to make yet another embarrassing call to Maintenance and
Supplies; if you acually hit – and he had managed that miracle only once
and by pure dumb luck – work out a good excuse and be prepared for a sulky
and pouting cat for the rest of the week.
"Leave," he only snarled.
"Gladly. I have an appointment anyway."
Narrowed red optics fixed on the cat. "Appointment?"
The image of Ravage immediately popped up in his mind and he groaned silently.
He had to talk to Soundwave again.
"Yes."
"With who?"
"None of your concern!"
He glared. Sparks looked back calmly.
"Ravage," Megatron then stated.
"Nope, wrong answer. No win."
His glare intensified. Sparks finally sighed and shrugged.
"His name is Whisper, if you have to know. He's new to
the city and I'm showing him around." Sparks walked toward the door.
"Whisper?" Megatron racked his brain unit to attach a
face or faction to the name.
"You don't know him. He's a mouse."
With that Sparks left, leaving a slightly confused Megatron
behind.
"What in the name of Cybertron is a mouse?!"