"And through unification, Cybertron can once again be the strong, thriving civilization it once was!" The crowd roared, and the speaker on the stage soaked in the applause with a smug smile on his faceplates. He held up a gray hand to silence the crowd, and continued. "To bring our level of civilization to other species is the greatest gift we can give! How can we do so if we do not venture out? How can we call ourselves a great race if we do not share the gifts that we have received through our eons of evolution?" Again the crowd roared as the Transformer looked about himself slowly, like the second hand of a clock ticking when the battery in the watch is going dead. This time he allowed the crowd to quiet on its own. "My fellow Transformers—"he paused, his gravelly voice hung in the air, thick and cold. "Optimus Prime," again he paused, bringing one of his hand modules in front of him. It seemed to dangle from his silver arm, a fusion cannon hanging above it as if suspended by the speaker's very presence. His fiery red optics glared with disgust, framed in a gray visage. "—has no such ambitions. He desires neither reunification nor expansion! He would hoard the height we have attained. He would hoard the knowledge of our evolution. He would hoard our energy!" The crowd erupted in the cacophony of sound, strong as the crest of a wave pounding against the shore.
Energy! Illusionna hopped down from her perch, her rosy gray feet clinking ever so slightly on the ground. She left the amphitheater through one of the side entrances, the acoustics of the outdoor stadium sending the voice of the speaker to her audio receptors far down the causeway.
The lane was wide, made for several vehicles to come through abreast. The rationing station rose out of the road, breaching the horizon as she approached it. The speaker's voice no longer came to her, having been absorbed by the distance quick legs carried her. Her violet optics glanced upward, spying the 'Polyhex 1862' sign, the rationing station's designation.
She skipped up to the window and handed the small chip in her slender fingers to the rationing drone. He looked at her with no expression in its amber optics. "I don't remember you." Its voice was as monotonous as its faceplates.
Illusionna merely shrugged as she watched it insert the chip into the collection slot. A small screen beeped to the drone's left. It moved over to it, revealing a depleted stack of energon cubes at the back of the station. Her optics glued to them greedily, her hand gripped the wall with a force strong enough to set off pain emitters.
"This isn't your rationing station," the drone's voice wasn't expressionless anymore. It hinted at the slivers of pain that had just scored up her arm. Tearing her optics away from the energon cubes, she looked at the drone, gathering her thoughts.
"I came to listen to the speech," she said after a moment. Her voice was high pitched; the chattering of a Lilith bird put into words.
The drone made a derisive clicking sound. "Seven in your household?" it asked, looking up from the screen, amber optics glowing threateningly.
"My creator runs a school," Illusionna replied, not looking away from the drone.
"You haven't been to your rationing station in forty eight cycles." The drone came back to the counter, without the chip.
"My rationing station runs out," she answered in a voice as smooth as a mercury stream.
The drone reached behind it, taking her allotment of energon cubes. Illusionna opened her chest compartment and took out a small box. The box transformed into wagon mode, a bright blue, contrasting greatly to the mottled gray of her surroundings. She took the nine cubes from the counter, put them in her cyan wagon, and nodded her head. "Thank you," she remembered to say, before going back to the way she had come.
The speaker had finished his speech by the time Illusionna came back to the amphitheater once more. Pushing her wagon in front of her and got on and off the transitway with little trouble.
Exiting the transit carrier alone, she surveyed her surrounds. The Dead End transit stop had only one tube carrying into it, the other having been destroyed or rerouted a long time ago. As far as the optic could see, the transit tube that brought her here stretched into the distance, one end leading to Polyhex, the other to Iacon. Though the one to Iacon was blocked before the tube reached the border. With the eternal lack of sunlight, The Dead End was never fully lit. Only a few of the public lights still worked, and the starlight from the always dark sky did little to light the alleyways. The lack of lighting in the Dead End made it an even more dangerous place. It added the air of mystery and fear to the stories that made their way to both Polyhex and Iacon. It was not called the Dead End for no reason.
But this was Illusionna's home, so she got off the carrier and began pushing her little blue wagon in front of her again. She noticed, but paid little attention to, the Transformer leaning against a dead lamppost until he said, "Looks like you hit a jackpot." His synthesizer was made of sandpaper, emanating a low, menacing sound. Illusionna turned to see he had straightened, both of his feet planted firmly on the hard metal ground.
She turned her entire body to him. Her violet optics began to glow slightly in threat. "My jackpot," she told him, emphasizing each syllable.
His teal paint was scuffed off several plates on his body, his matching teal optic visor glowed with a bright intensity, trying to outdo the threatening gesture Illusionna had shot his way. His hand came to his optics, rubbing the side of his visor. "A big jackpot," he mused.
"Go to the rationing depot like the rest of us," she waved her hand dismissively, being sure to keep the threat of her optics glowing. He was too close to her, she had nowhere to run for cover, not with the cubes. The streets were not empty, they never were, but she was well aware that no one would come to her aid in an altercation.
Her optics grazed his chassis, he did not appear to have any weapons on his person. Though projectiles were only military issue, more of the civilian population boasted having them than the Autobots or Decepticons liked.
He proved her knowledge correct by causing his hand to retract, replacing it with a long blade, double edged and shining in the dim light. She made a loud clicking noise, it echoed slightly against the rubble, but was drowned out by the echo of metal sliding against metal. Four blades, one from each elbow cuff and from each knee, extracted with a slow, threatening precision from Illusionna's body. She bent her legs in a fighting stance. Please, let him be alone she prayed, I can't handle more than one.
He made a lunge at her, she sidestepped to the left and dodged the attack easily. Turning on his heel, he struck forward with another lunge, his sword swinging upwards toward her body. She raised her arm to deflect the blow. A brief pop of sparks and the burning of her pain receptors told her that edge had run along the length of her arm. She continued through with the maneuver, ignoring the urge to grab at the damage, pivoting through the attack and catching the back of her attacker's head with the palm of her hand. The screech and grind of metal on metal as the mech slid forward onto his knees reverberated off the buildings. He paused. Illusionna did not have to wait long for the next attack, as the mech took a desperate thrust. Illusionna ducked under the high and wild blow. Reaching up, she caught her attacker's arm and pulled it out to the side. Jumping up, she countered with a knee kick to the back of the mech's elbow joint. The crack of breaking metal echoed and was soon followed by the flow of fuel leaking out onto to the dirty ground from the now useless arm.
Illusionna left him, running to her wagon, to find two cubes gone. She swore, a flash of anger, white hot and quick, flowed through her. But she could see no perpetrator anywhere, only the street, the same people watching her, optics hungry for the wagon's bounty. But none of them appeared to have moved to take any of it. She swore again, her voice slicing through the hum of the voices that carried on the air, and pushed her wagon through the Dead End to her front door.
The blast of voices hit her as she opened the front door. "No, no, it's not like that all!" Spanner's synthesizer, deep and enthusiastic, carried to the entryway of the three-leveled building. The ground level held the entry, Spanner's workshop, and the great room, where guests were received. It was to the latter that Illusionna made her way.
"It's impossible," she entered the receiving room to see Spanner, his amber and gold color scheme gleaming like a small star in the pale light, sitting across from another Transformer. It was he who was speaking, "They would be crushed by the compression of gravity. They would come out the other side a mangled ball." The Transformer turned when he heard her enter the room. His blue optics flashed slightly upon catching sight of her; she stepped back and looked at him hard. He wore a face shield which showed only his nose, and he had two emitters on the side of his head that flashed as he spoke. He seemed dull and lifeless, white and gray with accents of red and green, next to the shining Spanner.
"Ah, Luna," Spanner stood up and greeted Illusionna by her pet name, "you're home." He turned to his guest on the reclining couch. "Wheeljack, you have met Illusionna, no?" he asked, putting his arm about her and pushing her forward slightly.
"No, I do not believe I have had the pleasure." He stood up and extended his hand to her. Illusionna took his forearm gingerly in greeting, only to have her own grasped in a hold that bordered on painful. She was thankful it wasn't her hurt arm. "Is she yours?" Wheeljack asked Spanner, his optics leaving the youth before him, his hand dropping her arm abruptly.
"Yes," Spanner beamed, running a hand over Illusionna's headplate. "She's my newest." He smiled at her again, and urged her toward the hall, "Put the energon away, Illusionna," his voice was gentle as he addressed her, "and we'll talk later."
She looked at her creator for a long moment, before nodding her head to him, her violet optics turning briefly to Wheeljack to give him a polite nod in leaving. After turning away, she heard their voices once more, arguing some sort of scientific principle. "I don't see how it can be done Spanner," she heard Wheeljack's voice carry down the hall "I think you're dreaming."
She took the cubes to the lower section of the house, the one that lay underground. Here were the numerous storerooms, the personal chambers, and the lab. She opened the door to the storeroom designated for the energon, the door hissing open as she touched the button on the opening pad. I wonder if that was one of Spanner's benefactors, she wondered. She wasn't too sure how benefaction worked. She knew it was different than hiring out your services, as her creator got 'paid' for times when he did not produce anything. But there were enough times that he did produce a product or information of some kind that it seemed like a service job to her. Upon mentioning this to her creator, he had sternly informed her that they did not live in a service household, that he had benefactors who supplied him with needed energon and equipment. But she was never able to figure out why and had never gained the courage to ask. She placed the cubes in the room, which had been full at one time, but now looked sparse with only seven energon cubes in it. Dumb rationing. At least we have energon, she reminded herself, shivering slightly as she remembered her encounter at the transit station. Her arm has begun to ache, and she put her hand to it. There was no fluid leaking, only a nasty crack up the outer side of the plating. Her internal diagnostic, which she had not consulted until now, told her it was a minor wound and was being repaired by her internal systems.
She could still hear Spanner's and Wheeljack's muffled voices waft down the tunnel to the bottom level of the house. Wonder what they're talking about. Most of the time she didn't know what 'they' were discussing. She simply didn't have the same handle on physics that Spanner did. She helped him to build several things, kept his workshop organized, even helped when he had talks and symposiums.
They didn't happen so much anymore. The fighting between the Autobots and Decepticons was growing worse with each cycle. She heard many people speaking of full scale war breaking out. As it was, more civilians were getting their hands on weapons. No projectiles, however, had found their way into Spanner's household. And neither did the energon. It seemed that most of Spanner's 'benefactors' were now financing the war effort, and not scientific endeavors.
She opened the door to the downstairs common room that connected to the laboratory. Wind Rider, her sleek, gray body splayed out on a reclining couch, polished her arm with a polishing cloth. She didn't even look up when she said, "How many did you get?"
Illusionna let built up air escape from her ducts in the Cybertronian equivalent of a sigh, "Nine," she answered, "but two were stolen."
"Stolen?" she asked.
Illusionna nodded her head, "When I got off the transitway."
"Who?" she asked, finally turning her violet optics toward Illusionna.
Illusionna sat down and shrugged her thin shoulders, "I don't know," she replied in a whine, "some mech."
Wind Rider made a derisive click, though she hadn't moved from the reclining couch she lay on. Her wings rested on the back while her body didn't quite make it to the back of the couch. "I can't believe how bad it's getting," her voice was low and carried easily across the room. "Can't people stand in line like the rest of us?" She continued to polish herself while she spoke.
"When was the last time you stood in line?" Illusionna snapped back, optics flaring. "We got seven cubes, we were only supposed to get five."
Wind Rider looked at her for a moment, and then turned back to polishing her body armor.
"Who's that mech upstairs?" Illusionna asked suddenly, coming full into the room, her own gray paint seeming rosy next to Wind Rider's.
"One of Spanner's people," she replied. "I think he's trying to organize some sort of symposium or something." A wave of her hand showed how she felt about it. She turned to Illusionna again. "Come here," she commanded. One of her long gray fingers motioned Illusionna toward her, "You look like you live in the Dead End."
"We do live in the Dead End," was the inevitable reply.
"We don't have to look like it," Wind Rider told her. She began with one of Illusionna's feet, dipping the cloth in compound and rubbing the paint to a hard, shiny, glow. "Who stole your cubes?" she asked again.
"I don't know," Illusionna said, shrugging her shoulders. "I didn't recognize him. He didn't come from Abscess Bay."
"I bet he came from Latency Transit," Wind Rider replied. "A bomb leveled it yesterday."
"There aren't any buildings left?" Illusionna's voice rose as she spoke.
Wind Rider nodded her head. "It has no upright buildings left. It's all underground. Now it fits all the mechanoids who live in it." Her hand unit worked its way up Illusionna's dirty legs.
"They can't help they're bombed," Illusionna interjected, "It's not their fault."
"They're all vagabonds. They're like the bums that hang around the transitway stations. Except they roam in gangs. At least this way their activity is forced under the surface."
"You don't think they'll make it here, do you?" Illusionna asked, her high pitched voice lilting.
"No," Wind Rider answered. "They might make it to Transitway 5, but they won't make it all the way here."
Both their heads turned as the door hissed open, to reveal the citrine glow of Spanner, as always his entrance lit the room up like a bulb. His optics locked on Illusionna. "How many did you get?"
"Nine," she replied quietly, twisting her mouth, "but two were stolen." She turned her head sideways to look at him from the side of her optics.
Spanner sighed, a long, low gust of air escaping his cooling ducts. "Seven, eh?" There was a moment of awkward silence before he continued, "How did two get stolen?"
She stared at him for a moment, her optics dim. "A mech attacked me," she put her hands up in front of her, "I couldn't help it."
For a moment there was a vacuum in the room, not even the sound of Wind Rider rubbing Illusionna's leg could be heard. "Two cubes is a lot of energon," Spanner muttered, resting a hand on his cranial unit. "Come up then," he turned on one golden foot, "and recharge."