Time, Space, and Spare Parts
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What is this? This is a spark of weird, deep randomness that flitted through my mind during the end credits of Transformers 3. Enjoy. Major DOTM spoilers, in case you didn't get that. And yeah, I don't own anything Transformers-wise. Ah, well. Maybe in my next life.
The space bridge. A bridge through space… and time. In the months following the Chicago incident, the world was thrown into chaos. Everything had to be rebuilt. Countless lives were lost. The bodies of Wheelie and Brain were recovered a week later from the wreckage of the Decepticon ship. They, along with Ironhide and Que, joined Jazz, Arcee, and Elita One in the Matrix (all the femmes but Chromia having apparently died in Egypt) not to mention all of those who didn't make it through the final battle.
Skids and Mudflap were nowhere to be found – they had gone into delayed spark-shock after the Egypt incident. Skids had believed Mudflap to be dead, though only for a short time, and the trauma had put them both into shutdown. They had been lying inert in a top-secret facility for the entirety of the Chicago incident. And now they were missing, most likely scattered into a million parts and spread across the scrap heap that was once called a city.
Millions of people had died. The planet was in shock.
The war was over, but everyone had lost.
Some believed that it would have almost been better for the Decepticons to have taken over, if only because life then would have appeared to have a purpose. Now, in the wake of destruction, not a single human on the planet could face the future. Too much death had occurred.
Optimus Prime continued to profess his wisdom, telling humanity that it needed to move on, needed to leave the past in the past. But human minds don't work like that. Cybertronians live for millions of years – their most painful memories can be altered, hidden, locked away if need be, so that the pain will not influence their current actions. But humans live only a century, if that. Their memories are permanent, and are passed down – their pain will not fade within a generation, or two, or even a dozen. Time may heal all wounds, but scars will always be left behind.
Sam reunited with his parents, but even that joyful reunion was muted by the destruction that surrounded them. In a moment of strange, wistful time-travel, Sam stood again in his room at his parents' house. It hadn't been changed a bit, at his mother's insistence and to his father's dismay. One night, he stood in his room, staring out the window at the yard where Bumblebee stood, his car again. His best friend. Sam had his car back, but he had lost much more. Sam stared out the window as Optimus and Ratchet approached, called there by him for some reason that they didn't quite understand. They clustered around the window, and Mojo barked incessantly at them. The yard had been redone, but in a strange twist of fate, Optimus managed yet again to step on the birdbath/fountain. Ratchet, whom Optimus used as a support to regain his balance, promptly stumbled into the power lines. For a split second, all was as it should be. It was deja vu and nostalgia rolled into one.
Then the emptiness was felt.
That horrible, horrible space. Two spaces, actually. And the sidelines. Just… blankness, the hole created by death. And as the survivors relived the moments that led them to this point, they all felt the need to remember, to reenact what had begun it all. But as Optimus knelt down to Sam and asked him, in a firm, solemn voice, "Are you Samuel James Witwicky?", what could the boy say? What was his answer? Who really cared at this point?
He truthfully replied, "Does it even matter anymore?"
The Prime had no answer.
"You feelin' lucky, punk?" asked the memory. No, Ironhide. No one was lucky. No one could ever be lucky again.
"What's crackin', little bitches?" You, Jazz. You cracked, right in half. And now the world has cracked up. Chicago had been cracked into fragments of concrete and metal and skeletons lying on the sidewalks. Skulls cracked, every one.
The space bridge. A bridge through space… and time. But Que, who was perhaps, long ago, Wheeljack (does it matter anymore? Does anything matter?), the only one who could have made the connection, who could have done what the idea required to take flight, was gone.
Or was he?
Unlike Ironhide, he hadn't crumbled, fading into dust. With Ratchet's help, with the Matrix, with lots and lots of luck (and surely they were overdue for a dose of luck) perhaps, they could bring back one of their lost teammates.
And they did. Perhaps the Council of Primes was finally smiling on them – perhaps it was just a fluke. Had Jazz's body not been buried at sea, they would perhaps have tried it again on him. But Que was alive. His body wasn't quite intact, his mind was even less so (Had it ever been? Did it matter?), but he was alive. And yet so many more had died – millions. Countless millions. But he had an idea.
A bridge through space… and time. Yes, yes, it had been destroyed, yes, it was Sentinel Prime's creation and therefore could only be used by him… but if he could maybe… if he could just put this there and attach this to that and use those pieces of metal and put a nail here and a bit of scrap here…
Five pillars. The five pillars the government had confiscated. The five that had not been used, that were still intact… By linking them, making them all, in a way, the control pillar, maybe he could somehow…
All he needed was a few spare parts. Cybertronian metal, wires, an energon link to serve as a fuel source… and he knew where to find it all. Though cannibalizing (for lack of a better word) the many Decepticon bodies in Chicago wasn't high on Que's agenda, he couldn't just leave this project alone. (And it didn't really matter, did it? They were just heaps of scrap now. The planet had been turned into a junkyard.) He told no one what he was doing, and no one seemed to care. The world was still reeling from the aftershock.
A screw here, a bolt there, welding this to that, a little energon here… a piece of the AllSpark. Primus knows how Que managed to do it, to sneak up on Optimus during his recharge period. Primus knows how he managed to snatch the AllSpark fragment from its container, just next to his spark chamber. Primus knows it was the most risky and nerve-wracking experience of his life, save for that moment before he was… no, he wouldn't think about that.
But finally, it was complete. A space bridge. A space and time bridge. His idea was one that was probably insane, which would cause a paradox and almost certainly end the universe… but he was a scientist, for crying out loud. He could never resist. And look what he had done – look what he had achieved. He had given them all a second chance. He could go back, could change things. He could bring everyone back, he could stop any of this from every happening, and to the Pit with paradoxes - the laws of physics could stand down this once. Just this once. He had time and space at his fingertips. He was fate now. A God. He could rewrite time, and Primus damn it all if he couldn't make it better. No one would die, not in his version of history.
How far back would he go?
He could save his comrades, for one.
No, more than that, he could kill Sentinel before his plan was ever put into action.
No, no, no - he had to go back further! The time of the AllSpark - that was it. Just after the other Autobots had come to Earth. He had to go back and...
No. No, because the Decepticons had been there for years, waiting beneath the surface on the dark side of the moon. No, he had to go back even further.
Back to the war.
It was at this point that Que's plan began to spiral out of control. No, not out of control... he had so much control. He could change everything. The war... he could go back to Cybertron, warn the entire planet of what was to come, find a solution... but no, no that wouldn't work, would it?
No. It wouldn't last. It couldn't last.
Cybertronians are a sentient species - they will always fight among themselves. And what about what Optimus had always said about sentient species? They need protection, every one of them. Protection from threats. Protection from... themselves. Because they will fight and they will destroy and they will spread to cause more and more sorrow until the whole universe is as broken as the Earth.
And then Que understood what he had to do. It was the only way, really. Every sentient species' worst enemy, greatest danger, was itself. And so... and so, the only way to protect them... was to remove that danger. It made sense. It was logical. Prowl, had he been there (been alive) surely would have been proud. Que had to go straight to the source, had to eliminate the problem before it became a problem.
He had to destroy all sentient life... before it destroyed itself. It was for their own good. It would set them free, and freedom was the right of all sentient beings. That was what Optimus always said, and Optimus was always right. He had done his absolute best, had led them to at least a semblance of victory, and Que respected that. But it was his turn now. And he would do it right. He would lead them to victory. True victory - at last. And yes, it would require a little sacrifice, but wasn't that another thing that they had told him, ever since he'd arrived on this Primus-forsaken planet? No sacrifice, no victory.
Oh, yes, Primus had indeed forsaken them all long ago. Que didn't care.
He would do better.
He would set them all free.
'Till all are none.