Ties in with my other story, Endings of Old and Beginnings New after the 59th chapter. If you have not read that far, I suggest that you do. There are some spoilers in here for that story.
I do not own any of the recognizable characters in this story, nor do I own Dylan Thomas' masterpiece Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night. Warnings for violence, gore, and robots deciding to pick on helpless human females. You have been warned.
Dying of the Light
In a past life she was called Robin Ashton. The birth certificate said so, printed clearly in black ink.
Now she was called NAEC-170624. The tattoo on the inside of her left wrist said so, inscribed clearly in black ink.
When she had first heard of the attack, she was in her apartment studying for the upcoming midterm in her English class. She was nearly done with undergraduate studies, and so engrossed in her poetic analysis was she that she nearly didn't hear what was being said by the reporter.
It sounded fake, like the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast that had caused national hysteria. She was about to dismiss it as someone's idea of a bad prank and turn the TV off. She didn't know why she had left it on in the first place if she was studying.
Giant robots? Hardly original.
It was when her mother called her that she started to become unsettled. Madeline Ashton was a level-headed woman, straight as an arrow, and not one to call over trivial matters. Hearing the woman's hasty, frightened words and the horrified talk of the reporter sent her notions crashing down. The world around her had seemed to fade and spin, until it was only her, her worried mother, and the television.
Quickly telling her mother that she would see her soon, Robin grabbed a bag and threw some provisions into it. It would be enough to get her through several days but no more. She threw the duffel's strap over one shoulder and scooped up her keys, purse, and cat.
An old car, typical of an average college student, waited by the curb for her when she reached the street. In the distance there were enormous crashes, a multitude of car alarms, and the unmistakable sound of fighter jets and things exploding. People were already running down the street, a mass stampede away from what she had seen but had refused to believe. They were tugging their kids along, some screaming but others silent with fear.
The chaos was beginning to take over her steadfast heart, rapidly speeding its pounding and making it climb up her throat. She had to reach her parents, her family, and decide with them what to do from there. They would not be left behind. Then it reached her, as if propelled by the thump-thump-thump in her chest.
The cold, all-too-real thought. I could die here.
Panic seized her unlike any she had ever felt before; there was no way her car would get through this horde. Adrenaline joined the blood in her veins and made her one of the flood. She was running, running, running, her lungs and legs burning, burning, burning, taking her with the flow. Robin knew not where she was going, but simply that it was away. She didn't even feel Misty and her purse fall out of her arms, for she was too focused on fleeing the danger in the city behind her.
She didn't notice how her boyfriend had tried to call her, her cell phone in the back pocket of her jeans buzzing but drawing no response from her. All she knew was that her mother was out there, somewhere, and her father would be too. They were all that mattered now.
Do not go quietly into that good night.
Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.
She did not find her mother, nor did she run fast enough. In the end their huge, metal invaders ratted out the humans hiding in the remaining buildings and trucked them out of what remained of New York. Robin thought that she was going to die, that she would meet her fate in some fire pit or by a group of enormous robots pulling humans apart for the sheer joy of seeing tendons snap. All of the silent people, sitting in the dark of the trailer with her, thought they would meet their end. Their silence and sobs spoke for them.
In the end fate afforded her one simple kindness, but Robin did not know anymore if survival was a gift. She had been free from their clutches long enough to see the broadcast and know that their leader wanted her kind enslaved. Would this be a world she wanted to live in?
At their destination she was separated from the injured, put into a pen by rough steel hands with other ones like her. Numb yet horrified, she watched the group of the unfortunate ones meet their end with a shower of expertly-placed laser bolts. There was no blood and presumably no pain, for none of them screamed before their bodies slouched against the ground and against each other. They looked like flimsy rag dolls, and when they fell Robin, for the sake of her sanity, pretended that that was what they were. Pretended that it was a nightmare and she would wake up soon enough.
Perhaps it was actually merciful to kill them that way instead of leaving them to die, for most in that group had either serious, life-threatening injuries like crushed limbs and shattered bones or were old and unhealthy. Robin didn't know, and neither did she care to know.
Murder was murder; there were no shades of grey in that.
Before she knew it she was being dragged over to a larger alien and seemingly scanned. A flash of blue light from the device in its huge hand ran over her body and beeped, the being looking over the tablet in its other hand. Before she knew it her wrist was tattooed painfully yet quickly and precisely by a small wristwatch robot. Before she knew it she was no longer Robin Ashton, but NAEC-170624.
Before she knew it, she was no longer a free woman but a slave.
The horrible days after that were a blur and Robin tried very much to forget them, but never to forget her name. Though the rest of her life lay in shambles, with her identity and humanity stripped from her, her name could not be forcibly taken. In her heart she would be named Robin, for though they owned her body they could never own her spirit. In her mind the poem echoed, slowly but surely becoming her personal mantra.
Do not go quietly into that good night.
Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.
Robin knew that at least a year had passed since the Decepticons had conquered her home. Everything was running smoothly, if you were one of them. She imagined that it was just fine and dandy to lay around and whip disobedient slaves as they toiled for your benefit and at their cost.
Slaves were not told of the big picture of what they were doing; others around her hypothesized that it was to keep them obedient and less-likely to rebel. It was a little difficult to see at first the end product of their labour, but slowly the skeletons of enormous, silver, metal skyscrapers began to rise from the ground. It didn't take a genius for them to figure out that they were making a city, a home, a nest for their invaders.
Every day, after their morning rations of sludge that had the consistency and taste of mud, they were herded out into their work groups and assigned their tasks. Anyone caught lagging behind would be given lashes; Robin had tried to discern how many on multiple occasions, but it seemed to be at the discretion of their supervisor.
Usually she was given panel installation - carefully inserting glass sheets with several others into their place in the walls. She had seen more than a few beaten within an inch of their life for dropping the glass. Those she would never see again, and they were replaced by someone else the next day. Robin was especially cautious with the glass, and had only been given a lash here and there for other infractions.
Observing, she had found, saved one from much pain. By seeing Jessica, one of her former glass-team partners, blow a kiss to her "boyfriend" she had learned that signs of affection between the sexes was not approved of by their masters and was punished as many lashes as the slave master wished. Poor, pretty, sweet Jessica now bore a long, ugly scar on the right side of her face.
Neither was it okay to try to sneak into another barracks which were not one's own. The men and women were housed in separate buildings, and more than once she had awoken in her lumpy cot to the sound of painful cries and the dull slap of an electric whip beating against skin.
The pattern kept up, her team seemingly on constant rotation, until her mother joined her. They carefully pretended not to know one another until in the privacy of the cold barracks, where the embraced and cried ceaselessly. Their hushed conversation continued into the early morning, though both were exhausted. Evidently the rules Robin had observed were uniform; all of the camps had them.
President Sherman had come up, but neither wanted to speak of it. Robin knew in her heart, and her mother probably knew in hers to, that they were lucky compared to that woman. At least a slave was acknowledged as being sentient to a certain extent - such beliefs were not afforded to pets. This notion only became all the more strong after the infamous Coronation. With renewed strength her heart beat
Do not go quietly into that good night.
Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.
After the Queen's Coronation, something became astonishingly clear. It might have been one thing to defile the President of the United States and make her a sex slave, yet others started to question if that was the reason she was crowned. Was it that their conqueror wanted to insult them further? Did he want a slave to fulfill some sort of urge, whether it was to torture, maim, dominate?
Was it something sexual?
This particular talk had her shudder; the thought of the aliens having sex was disgusting. She certainly hoped it was not that; how could things become that bad? Weren't they bad enough already?
Robin had heard stories from her fellow slaves about women being used for entertainment for their invaders. Dancing, singing, and the like. Yet, as far as she was concerned, they were only rumours. Every slaver she had ever seen, with their simple, black, lethal ten-foot-tall bodies, had curled their metal lips in disgust at her broken, scarred body. They made it clear that she was an animal to them, that she did not matter, so why would they want to see her dance? Or any human female?
This belief held up until Robin watched Lord Megatron - there was not a human alive that did not know the name, or the face, of their world's murderer - kiss their President, smother her with large, hungry lips. The men and women had not bothered with whispering to protect the innocence of the children when they said,
"They know the concept of sex. They know of man, and they know of woman."
To Robin, that spelled danger. She hadn't decided between the circling rumours of Ms. Sherman's loyalty and whether it still lay with the human race, but this did not matter. She would probably never see the woman in her lifetime; if the metal, titanic aliens had made one thing clear it was that humanity's position underneath their heel and in their shadow was permanent. It did not matter what "Eleaniris" thought, and therefore Robin couldn't care less.
All she knew was that there was another, quick addition to the "don't-do" list that every slave knew but some still went against. The actions written there could get you anywhere from losing rations to whipping to a simple laser hole in your head. Or, with the latest addition, they could make you disappear. The worst of all outcomes, she had believed.
The human women that dared to meet the red eyes of their enslavers were plucked out of the crowd, never to be seen again. The robot would take them away, with an odd gentleness, and out of sight. Robin had the sense to know that they were not being killed - they seemed to try their hardest to make examples out of rebels and fighters.
No, it was something worse. Something sinister.
It became common, when they were marched into the rising city in the morning and when they returned at night, for the men to surround the women in a tight group. It wouldn't do anything to protect them from a robot that decided it wanted one of them, but it did give them some futile sense of security.
At least they didn't have to worry about seeing kids whipped anymore. They had been taken away, moved somewhere, and none wanted to speak about them being gone.
Her mother told Robin, over and over again, how lucky they were to have found each other. That they would keep each other safe, not matter what. Robin would never admit it to her mother, but it was starting to look more and more bleak for them. She saw it everywhere: in the enslaved "Queen," in the city they were building, in the temporary barracks they currently occupied and the new, permanent ones they were building in the basements of the enormous structures. Slavery was not a temporary solution, a prelude to the extinction of humanity; it was here to stay. She would only by the first generation of the Enslaved.
Robin would reflect later upon that moment, reprimanding herself for not shaking her head and clearing her thoughts. She should have focused on her feet, focused on staying with the group and walking beside her mother and last remaining family.
If she had done those things, her gaze would not have wandered over the massive body of one of the titans overlooking the marching mass of slaves. She would not have noticed that he - they were all males, she had believed - was one of the construction "transformers," one of the group of vehicles that seemed to be in charge of all of the city's building (all of the slave masters appeared to report to him). She would never have seen red eyes, ones that she had been taught to fear and cower and bow to, turn and fixate on her. Robin never would have seen them flare, never would have seen the way that his face relaxed, the way the corners of his mouth turned up in a triumphant smirk.
Before she could even comprehend what was happening, he strode toward them from where he had been standing, absently speaking with one of the other construction vehicles while watching the slaves walk past. The men skittered away from her to avoid being crushed and her blood pounded in her ears, her instincts screaming for her to run with them.
Instead, in her rush, the young adult faltered and fell back, landing on her butt on the strange, not-quite metal street. Robin saw the massive hand coming towards her, the sharp claws on the end gleaming dangerously as it slowly filled her field of vision. She was about to become like one of the women before; snatched away by a robot and never to be seen again. Her frenzied brain suddenly recalled one very important detail, one that made her heart stop.
The robots had been making an odd, grating noise deep in their throats when they carried their vainly fighting women away in their closed fists. A sound akin to a purr.
Like the one ripping through the air right now, originating in the Decepticon before her.
She skittered backward on her hands in a futile attempt to get away from the hunched-over form. To her despair and surprise, her mother suddenly came in front of her, screaming in vain for the robot to spare her. The rest had run off, herded by the slave masters like startled sheep.
"Please, master," how Robin hated that term, "do not take her!" The once-proud woman was on her knees in front of her prone daughter, begging with her eyes turned respectively downwards. "Please…"
The monster merely reached over her, picking up Robin in a surprisingly gentle hand. Her body went rigid and her eyes screwed themselves shut with terror, her lungs panting madly in an attempt to fuel her rapidly-pumping blood with oxygen. He was just so huge, and she hadn't been touched by one his size since she was caught.
In comparison, though, the hand did not curl around her torso tightly, squeezing like a child might a defenceless bird. It didn't shake her or claw at her. The beast held her in an open palm, lightly puffing hot breaths over her as it held her before its face - she assumed, anyway, since her eyes were closed. Please, put me down. Somewhere below came the sounds of her now-frantic mother.
"Open your optics, fleshling. I wish to inspect their coloring." His voice was deep and made her chest vibrate and her body shudder. However, she obeyed, too scared now to do otherwise.
"A good color," the robot expressed of her green eyes, raising its other hand to stroke her brown knotted hair. She cowered under it, eyeing the lethal, bone-shattering point trying to pet her head. He had been gentle so far, but she had far from a reason to trust him. Didn't I see him on the television that day? Her lip quivered with fear of her realization as her personal mantra came back,
Do not go quietly into that good night.
Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.
Her mother, far below, raged against the dying of the light. Just like she should be doing, but was too paralysed to even attempt. Instead she settled for a meek, polite, quiet request. "Please let me go, master."
His response was immediate, verbal as he answered flatly and firmly, "No." and nonverbal as he cupped her body against his chest. "You're mine now, little one. I must give you a designation." Robin didn't even process his words, for his actions alone took up too much of her brain's capacity right now; he was taking her away - she was about to disappear, forever, never to see her mother again. Who knew what he had in mind for her.
"Please," her tears came rolling out of her panicked eyes, reaching out to her mother as the robot started to turn away. By now another slave master had come to collect her and force her back with the others. "Mom!" Robin cried frantically, desperately through her tears, and the robot suddenly stopped moving.
Robin's muscles seized up even more, her breath hitching as she realised her mistake. Showing that you were related to or cared for someone in particular allowed the invaders to take advantage (more so) of you. It gave them leverage over your spirit.
His mind quickly made the association as the red eyes flicked between her and the woman on the ground, about to be beaten with the raised electrical whip. Throwing all caution to the wind and raging against the dying of the light she begged, "Please, spare my mother. She is all I have left."
"You have me now, little one." What the hell does that mean? It was silent and the smaller, black robot kept its powerful arm raised, ready to deliver a blow as soon as its superior signaled it to. Robin sobbed, watching how the other large robots looked on at the scene with mild interest. One stepped forward and hesitantly spoke to the being holding her in their odd language of clicks and beeps and mangled smooth sounds.
When the other had silenced, the robot clutching her to its chest asked with a deep rumble, "Will you agree to my request if I bring your creator?" Red eyes watched her inquisitively, and slowly she nodded though Robin did not know the meaning of the words.
"Y-yes." She paused and swallowed the lump in her dry throat, fighting to make her voice more resolute "I will do anything to keep my mother."
Scrapper liked the sound of that. A willing, happy mate would produce the best sparklings; every Decepticon knew that. Megatron did not allow for rape, and the honorable among the Decepticons agreed. Besides, none wanted a Carrier that would fear his touch. Screaming was preferable during interface, but never afterwards. Stress kills Sparks, as the old medics' saying went.
The robot did not give her a chance to change her mind - as if she would - and barked at the smaller one in his tongue. The other submissively dipped its head and lowered its arm, walking away down the street and probably looking for another slave to torment. Her now-safe mother ran towards the beast holding Robin, who began to laugh amusedly at the human slave.
"Do you have a designation, little one?" He purred at her, raising his hand so that she was level with his enormous face as he walked down a side-street to an unknown destination.
"D-designation?" Robin quirked a brow, puzzled. She smoothed her brown uniform in an effort to rid her palms of some of their endless sweat. "M-my number is NAEC-170624."
He rumbled, chuckling. "A designation you will have no longer. It seems as though I must name you myself." Robin shook her head wildly, quickly correcting him.
"My name is Robin." She shrunk away from his overpowering gaze, lowering her eyes submissively. Unconditional submission always made Decepticons go away. "W-what is yours, master?" It didn't matter either way what he was called, for to her they were all the same. But he saved your mother.
Yes, but at what cost?
Her question was answered when he purred and nuzzled her body, making her squeak in surprise as he passed his nose tenderly over her belly. "My 'name' is Scrapper, little bird." Yes, but why so gentle?
"But to you, I am 'mate.'" Scrapper smirked down at her, gently stroking her head. She was too flabbergasted to move and simply gaped at him, not processing what he was saying.
So all of those women, all of the women she had just joined in disappearance, had become twisted wives to these grotesque brutes? The rumours were true, that the robots had now developed a newer, even dirtier interest in humanity and what it could offer them? None had dared to think that they would cross this line and commit a crime against nature.
How they were wrong.
"Why?" Robin whimpered, trying to shy away from his touch. There was nowhere for her to go, however, and the digit continued its gentle strokes down the top of her head and back. He was being careful not to scratch her, and now she knew why. The worst part was that she had agreed to this to save her mother.
"You were brave, little Robin. You looked me in the optic, showing you had no fear of me." He lipped her slightly curled legs, feeling them with surprisingly smooth metal, as his fiery "optic" watched her. It was so close she could see her fearful reflection in the glass, her eyes wide with terror. All because I didn't keep my gaze down.
She felt air being pulled into his mouth and nose, probably taking some of her scent with it. Luck was not with her, as the red intensified and grew brighter while the beast revved his engine in approval.
"Your scent," she shivered and wondered if her mother was hearing this, "how perfect." Scrapper now openly licked the side of her face affectionately. "And delicious too, my beautiful femme."
"S-stop." She curled in on herself, pulling her knees to her chest and burying her face in them. "You're s-scaring me." And humiliating me.
What happened to 'rage against the dying of the light?' What happened to fighting them until your last breath?
What happened to not allowing them to own your spirit?
His demeanor changed and he huffed over her. "Do not be unreasonable. You have nothing to fear from your mate."
"I-" She began, tears soaking the fabric of her knees. She had plenty to be afraid of from him.
Scrapper interrupted, his gait faltering as he bent to pick something up. "Look, I even protected your Creator." She peeked up just in time to see her mother deposited in the palm next to her. His tone went from gentle to firm and threatening when he said, "And you would be wise to remember that I have control here." Reading between the lines told Robin that what he meant was So be grateful and submissive.
Indeed, she was correct in her inference as he told her, "Now show me the Submissive Embrace, little Robin." He tilted his chin up slightly, hovering in the air over her. Filling her vision was the sight of his throat tubing, easily the thickness of two of her wrists.
"W-what?" Robin glanced at her mother. The older woman was still frozen, looking on with wide eyes.
He chuckled, the sound shaking the air around her. "Kiss the underside of my chin plating, femme." She sighed, looking at her mother for affirmation.
"Any time now, precious." Scrapper had stopped walking and a look at his optics told her that they were off. Hesitantly she stepped forward, watching where she placed her feet in the uneven surface of his palm. With great timidity, she placed her small, delicate, fragile lips against the cold metal of the underside of his jaw. The deed done, she did not linger and staggered backward, sitting back down beside her silent parent.
He purred deeply, starting to walk again with a self-satisfied pep in his step that had not been there before. "A little short, but we can work on that." Scrapper grinned at her, revealing sharp metal teeth, as he turned into one of the few complete buildings.
No words were said as he trekked up some elegant, fancy stairs. The two women simply gazed on in dumbstruck awe at the size and seemingly-costly interior. All of the walls had been delicately engraved and the windows fit together so seamlessly that they looked to be one piece of glass.
Finally, several floors up, Scrapper went off the stairway and down a high-ceilinged, column-lined corridor. "Perhaps you might like to meet the others, hmm?" His voice caressed her from behind and above, its baritone smooth, robotic, and overwhelmingly smug.
Others? Oh no.
He went right and, after inputting in a code on an alien console, pushed open one of a pair of gold-etched doors, revealing to them what looked to be a well-furnished and tastefully designed apartment. The others were there that she had seen before - they must have gotten here faster. Maybe changed forms or something - chatting in a group. Never before had she seen anything like it.
All but one was standing, and he was on the floor looking underneath one of the couches. As they neared, Robin could hear him calling and cooing, "I told you I wouldn't hurt you, pipsqueak."
"You killed him!" came the muffled, accusatory reply. It was feminine and small, and Robin's gut sank at the impending revelation.
"Yes," the robot admitted, "but only because he challenged me for you." That doesn't sound good at all. Another of the ones that were standing came over to greet Scrapper, smiling in a friendly way to her "mate."
"You have two I see." He shared a chuckle with the being holding her, "Isn't that cheating?"
"Perhaps, Hook. But this one," Scrapper picked up her mother by her ankle, drawing an agitated yet fearful screech from her, "is my mate's Carrier."
"Ahhh." Hook nodded understandingly, "What are you going to do with it?" Despite herself Robin felt her upper lip curl in derision at her PhD-holding mother being called an "it."
"I don't know yet, but taking it did encourage my mate's cooperation." Robin shared a hate-filled glance with the doctor hanging upside-down from Scrapper's other hand.
"That's better than Mixmaster can say right now." Hook gestured over to the kneeling robot, chuckling amusedly. "He just got her today as well, but hopes Megatron will allow for a Cyberformation soon enough."
Cyberformation? What in the hell was that?
There was a pause, and Scrapper asked "Where are the others? Robin here would like to meet them." Shit.
Hook pointed to another pair of doors. "In there. Join us soon, will you? Megatron has ordered for us to get back to the city's construction since we are done with her majesty's apartment." Her majesty? The Queen? Apartment?
What has he been doing to her? Robin forgot all about the enslaved President and jolted when Scrapper started striding quickly to the indicated pair of doors. "Behave," he told her forcefully, raising her again to lick at her cheek gently and making her grimace. He opened one of them and placed her and her mother on the ground inside, closing it behind them.
"Hello."
Robin wheeled around, seeing a cohort of comfortably dressed young women watching them curiously. The tallest of them, a blonde-haired blue-eyed chick sporting a low-waisted skirt and delicately embroidered brassiere, stepped forward and sized them up with disgusted eyes.
"Come on. We'll get you cleaned up."
All of them had not been caught more than a week ago, which was why Robin was surprised at their broken, submissive, sullenly passive demeanor. It did not hold good things for her, that was for sure. If they had snapped the metaphorical spines of these women so quickly, what did that say about her and her mother?
They all praised their "mates" for saving them from slavery, for clothing them and giving them a home. Robin, needless to say, was shocked at how compliant they were and how they could praise the very ones that had ruined their lives. They had given up on raging against the dying of the light.
It became too much in the warm bath, with Hook's blonde washing her hair. Her future was spelled out clearly in two words: Sex Slave.
She wailed for the loss of her world, her home, her family, and now her dignity. She wept for Scrapper's correctness, for his infallible logic. He had said he was the one in control, and now she knew he would always be the one in control. By saving her mother he had insured ownership of her spirit, the one thing she would not allow anyone to own.
While she listened to the women robotically praise the Earth's masters for their "generosity," she realized with a sinking heart that she could no longer rage against the dying of the light. How could one fight and protest, object to and remonstrate, something that had already occurred?
She knew, with that thought, that she was going to submit and turn in the towel. Her will was snapped by seeing these women's unconditional obedience, which spoke volumes for what must have been done to them. Why fight if there was nothing to gain? Why run if there was nowhere to run to? Both of those situations got her nowhere. She gave up crying and wiped her eyes with the back of a hand. She resolved that she would cry no longer, nor would she fight any longer.
Robin could only mourn the dying of the light, for the time for raging had passed.
I highly doubt that this will be continued. Sorry, but it was simply meant to give my lovely readers a glimpse at how the Decepticons (who have or have not been given permission to cyberform a human) are going about picking mates. Mind you, not everyone gets their mother with them, but this is just an example. Others are bribed with gifts, luxury, and most of all freedom from being whipped.
I hope this was chilling enough. And sad and helpless enough.
Please review!