A/N: This was written for the Oct/Nov challenge on the LJ comm gestalt_love - the prompt was 'graphics'. I hope you enjoy it.
Lightspeed sighed as the human's movie ended, picking up his special mixture of energon. What a fantastic idea, and he had the resources to implement the idea. His dreams of flying among the stars could be real enough to satisfy him. He set aside the container of energon and bent over his workstation, determined to reach for his dreams.
A joor later, Lightspeed sat back, satisfied with his first attempt. He set the program to run through something their human allies called a debugger, which always drew a smile to his faceplates whenever he ran the program. He moved from his workstation and settled on the small berth tucked in the corner, setting himself up for a recharge with a defrag. If this worked, he wanted to make sure there were no stray bits of code in his processor.
When he came out of recharge, he stretched his cables and servos, working out the kinks before switching on his optics. He yelped, pulling back. His team mate, Nosecone, was sitting right next to the berth, gazing intently at Lightspeed.
"'Cone! You startled me!" Lightspeed tried to calm his frantically working pump, the energy surging through his body.
"Sorry, 'Speed. I was looking over your program and I think there are a few tweaks that you should make." Nosecone consulted a pad in his hand. Lightspeed reached for the pad, and Nosecone handed it over.
Lightspeed scrolled through the pad. Meticulous as always, Nosecone had made careful notes for Lightspeed, noting the portions of the program that needed fixing, the portions that needed more detail, and best of all, the sources available to help with those aspects of the program. Lightspeed couldn't help himself; he leaned forward and enveloped Nosecone in a hug before bounding off the berth and moving to his workstation.
He began to make the changes Nosecone had recommended when a comm line beeped for his attention. He made a quick note and turned his focus to his job.
At the end of his shift, he returned to the program, making the changes Nosecone had suggested, then started the debugger again. Quietly, he left the work room and went down the hallway, looking for Scattershot. The Technobot leader was sitting quietly, going over datapads as he drank his evening energon.
Lightspeed drew his own ration of energon and pulled out a tube of his additive, pouring it into the cube and swirling it around. He looked again at Scattershot, judging his mood by how he was moving the datapads around. Finally, he came over to the table Scattershot was using and drew out a chair.
Scattershot looked up and gave him a curt nod. Lightspeed eased into the chair, worrying over the best way to broach the topic he wanted to discuss with Scattershot.
"Here." Scattershot slid a datapad over the table toward Lightspeed. "Nosecone passed along your request. I'm not sure why you need to make a simulation of space flight, but here's everything I know about it."
"Oh, uh, thanks, Scattershot. That was quick. I appreciate it." Lightspeed picked up the datapad, surprised and delighted. Thank Primus for Nosecone, always helping him and easing his way. He tucked the precious datapad into his subspace and asked Scattershot, "Is there anything I can do to help?"
Scattershot looked at him, then nodded and passed over a couple of pads. "Sure. Would you give me your analysis on these two?"
Lightspeed agreed and took up the first of the pads, scrolling through it and annotating his thoughts with the attached stylus. He finished in goodly time and did the second one before handing them both to Scattershot, who took them and thanked Lightspeed before returning to his work.
Lightspeed finished his energon and left, skipping a bit once he'd reached the hallway. He had information!
Over the next week, Lightspeed continued to refine his program. Nosecone checked in every day, helping where he could. The data upload from Scattershot was a huge part of the program, and Lightspeed continued to refine the program where and when he could. Strafe helped refine the space shuttle portion, giving Lightspeed relevant data about the physics of flying in space and having objects (such as space debris) impact you, or the impact of firing your weapons in null gravity. Lightspeed was delighted with Strafe's input and they spent a long afternoon having fun with the code lines pertaining to gravity and the lack thereof in space.
Finally, the program was mostly ready, and Lightspeed was ready to create the final graphics for his program. He chose to follow some of the designs from the movie, but Nosecone pointed out that they were capable of much clearer graphics than the humans and thus a more realistic feel to the visual world Lightspeed was creating, and Lightspeed acknowledged his point and programmed in very realistic graphics.
On the off-duty cycle Lightspeed got once an orn, he asked Nosecone to monitor him as he accessed the program for the first time. As he plugged the wires into his cranium, he shared a grin with his fellow Technobot.
The program started, and Lightspeed found himself standing in a black void in his root form. A gleaming rod lowered itself before him and he grasped it, yelping as it transformed around him, enclosing him in a space-capable flying form, before it took off, soaring into the blackness.
It was as if he were truly in space, the rod in his hands responsive to his slightest movement. He laughed with sheer pleasure at the weightlessness and the power of this form. He played, spinning around planetoids and weaving a path through asteroid fields, enjoying the freedom of what he'd always wanted, the ability to fly in space.
It was a let-down when Nosecone pinged him, telling him to come back home. He landed on the first planet he came across and released the rod, which pulled him from the virtual world he'd inhabited for the past seventeen hours and put him back in his workroom on Earth.
Afterburner was yelling at Nosecone about misuse of resources and stupid ideas, and filled with the pleasure of having his dream come true, Lightspeed laughed and said,
"Chill out, 'Burner. It's not doing you a bit of harm and it does me a lot of good."
Afterburner turned to him and snarled, "A stupid human movie gave you this idea? I knew these aliens were no good."
Feeling mellow, Lightspeed laughed and turned back to his monitor, saying, "Well, how would you know? You haven't watched it. Want to?"
Afterburner opened his mouth, then closed it again. "Sure. What's it called?"
"It's called TRON." Nosecone said. "I'll get the energon and invite Strafe and Scattershot."
Afterwards, Strafe wanted to know how Lightspeed's program felt.
"It's a dream come true, Strafe." Lightspeed told him. "A dream come true."
The End.