Civilians
Disclaimer: All Transformer characters and settings are property of Hasbro/Takara. This work is fan fiction and is not intended for profit.
Chapter 1: We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.--Oscar Wilde
The Autobots on Cybertron had moved their bases underground early in the course of the Great War. It was a smart strategic decision. The ruined surface cities were pitted husks that provided little shelter from keen eyed Decepticon Seekers and their missiles. Underground a network of transit tubes, tunnels and fortified bunkers gave the ground bound Autobot forces the shelter and secrecy they needed to combat their airborne foe.
The underground bases were largely unoccupied now. After the Ark was lost, Cybertronians of both factions recognized that their war-torn world was unable to support even their basic energy needs any longer. Most of the remaining Autobots fled the planet, commandeering the remaining vessels in the Autobot space fleet as colony ships. They traveled throughout the sector and established outposts on many planets and asteroids in hopes of surviving until they could return and reclaim their home planet. Many Decepticons followed the Autobot refugees, but some remained on Cybertron under the command of Megatron's steward Shockwave. So the few Autobot loyalist holdouts remaining on Cybertron went into hiding.--The Prime Interregnum: Cybertron in Stasis, Cybertronia Datafile 137-2663
Cyberton: 48192.77 vorns since the launch of the Ark
Deep beneath the surface of the metallic planet Cybertron the Autobot scientist Perceptor sat at a work table in his lab. He had been just about to refit and repair the holounit that sat on the surface when the door opened and two familiar figures entered.
"Greetings Blaster, Codex," he said to the tall red mech and the small grey femme, "What can I do for you?"
The little femme elbowed her companion. "Ask him," she hissed.
"Right," Blaster said, "Perceptor, we'd like your help with a project."
"I am rather busy at the moment," the scientist said, "but I'll be available to help you later if you would like. What kind of project?"
"It's something important," the younger Autobot said earnestly. "We want to go up to the surface, to the Polyhex comm. tower."
"Polyhex?" Perceptor asked. "That's a long way and neither of you have vehicle alternate modes, how do you propose to get there?"
"We can take the transit tunnel most of the way there, and then it's just a short run in the open to the base of the communications tower. If we time it right, the centurions will be way over on the other side of their patrol pattern while we're getting in place. It'll be easy." Blaster's enthusiasm for his plan was evident in the excited way he was gesturing with wide sweeping hands. Perceptor genuinely liked the younger Autobot, but he wasn't so sure about his plan.
"And what purpose would that serve?" Perceptor asked.
"We'll be able to tap into the Decepticon comm. We'll find out what's got Shockwave so active lately." Blaster frowned, displaying a flash of irritation.
"I understand that your strategy seems workable, Blaster. However, I am unwilling to accompany you on such a hazardous mission, especially considering the limited value of the data you may or may not gain." Perceptor turned away from the red and yellow mech to examine the device on his worktable. He had no interested in spying on the Decepticon steward.
"Perce, come on. The radio traffic has been humming for orns now. I know something's going on. Right, Codex?" Blaster turned to the smaller Autobot standing next to him for confirmation.
"Well, Shockwave has been sending out more frequent patrols and we do know he's had a team of maintenance drones working on something in the tower." The codebreaker nodded her assent. "It might just be preparation for a Decepticon ship coming back from the colonies, though," she concluded evenly.
"Exactly my point," the scientist replied primly, turning back around. "There is no need to make a potentially dangerous excursion to the surface at this time. I am certain that if it is something important we will hear about it from someone more experienced in reconnaissance than you two are."
"They go up and check, but they never bring back enough information," complained Blaster.
"That's true," seconded Codex. "None of Elita's Autobots have Blaster's recording capability. And you know the radio messages to the ships are always encrypted. If we went we might be able to intercept and record…"
"I am sorry. But no." Perceptor put up his hand to stop Codex. "I will expediate your report about the radio transmissions to Elita-One, Blaster. However, I am not going to grant you permission to infiltrate Decepticon headquarters."
"I wasn't asking you for permission…" Blaster muttered. Codex cut him off.
"We understand, Perceptor. Sorry to have taken up your time," she said.
"Quite all right." The scientist turned back to his workbench as Codex and Blaster walked out of the lab into the corridor. He could still hear them talking as they walked away.
"I knew he wasn't going to go with us. We didn't need to bother asking him." Blaster sounded irritated with Codex. "Why did you tell me to ask him, anyway?"
"He's been down here for almost twenty-five thousand vorns. We've found and fixed practically everything there is to fix down here. Did you see what he had on his workbench?" She asked.
"No. What was it?"
"It's a holoprojector unit, one of the public area ones. We haven't had a public holotransmission for fifty thousand vorns, and he's fixing, and probably upgrading, a player. He's running out of work and I don't know what will happen when he finally realizes it." Her voice grew faint and vaguely sad.
"He doesn't think much of our plan. I don't think we should hassle him. Let's go get some energon," said Blaster, striding away.
"Wait for me." Codex hurried to catch up. The sound of their footsteps faded away down the echoing hallway.
Perceptor's friends were right in one respect. He was looking for work to occupy him. Thankfully there was a lot to do, despite what Codex seemed to think. He deftly unscrewed the bolts holding the scarred outer cover of the broken holoprojector together. It was a titanium-selenium alloy, sturdy enough to protect the delicate lenses and mirrors inside from most normal vibrations and buffeting, but obviously insufficient to resist the explosive impact that had blackened the metal and torn the player from its wall mounting who knew how long ago. The cover came apart in a shower of glittering, glassy fragments. The projection components were fractured beyond repair, but perhaps they could be replaced.
Perceptor meticulously picked the remaining silvered glass fragments out of the charred housing. He was confident that the design could be improved and made sturdier by using metallic mirrors and clear ceramic lenses. He had developed an interest in the technology while studying with its inventor, Wavefront, in the Nova Cronum labs.
Wavefront understood light and optics better than anyone Perceptor had ever encountered. He had helped to improve Perceptor's own lens array when the two first met. He was a brilliant scientist, a good friend, and an unfortunate casualty of war.
Wavefront had attempted to remain neutral in the early part of the war, a difficult position to maintain as three of his former colleagues were now Megatron's most ruthless new lieutenants, Starscream, Soundwave and Shockwave. The end came for Wavefront when Starscream brought him before Megatron for interrogation. The Decepticon leader didn't learn anything from the scientist as he refused to shift from his adamant neutrality or to donate his technology to the Decepticon cause. So Megatron slaughtered him for his stubbornness. His colleagues and friends at Nova Cronum discovered his inert body staked to the wall next to the lab entrance shortly afterward. Wavefront's death marked the end of the Nova Cronum labs and the end of detached scientific neutrality. Most of the remaining scientists and technicians joined the Autobots. The others fled Cybertron however they could.
On occasion Perceptor regretted his decision to stay and fight. He loathed the mandatory combat training and found the antics of the highly charged soldiers making up the majority of the Autobot force to be patently incomprehensible. However, he was impressed with the soldiers' bravery and dedication to one another.
Their jocular fraternity was a shocking change from the cultivated, scholarly, collegial relationships of Nova Cronum. The Autobot warriors were drawn from all parts of Cybertron's varied society and their manners and discourse often seemed to be dictated by the lowest common denominator. Thankfully, their wild barracks behavior evaporated instantaneously on the battlefield, where the eccentric collection of warriors coalesced into a fierce and tenacious fighting force.
He also found the Autobot Commander, Optimus Prime, to be an inspiring leader, if for nothing else than his ability to keep his obstreperous command in line. Prime was a savvy tactician. He sought out those in his command with unique skills and directed them to the work most suited to their abilities.
Prime soon put Perceptor to work refitting and improving the Autobots' weapons and gear. This threw the scientist into a collaborative relationship with Wheeljack, the Autobots' slightly dangerous inventor. Wheeljack, despite his reputation, was an easy mech to know. He was good natured and quite talented, if somewhat erratic. Perceptor enjoyed their working relationship and Wheeljack's acceptance of the scientist eased Perceptor's transition from neutral mech of science to Autobot warrior in the eyes of his Autobot comrades.
Shaking his head to clear it of distracting memories, Perceptor focused again on the holoprojector. He was satisfied with the repairs, but he wanted to test it before he went to the trouble of reinstalling it. He rummaged around on his workbench and located a portable holoplayer. Hooking the player up, he retrieved a disk from an unmarked stack next to his data station. He inserted the disk in the player and activated it.
He smiled to himself. The distinct image that hovered in the light of the holoprojector was of Wheeljack. The inventor was obviously saying something as the blue indicator lights on each side of his helmet were flashing. Perceptor turned up the sound on the unit.
"…shouldn't be too long, but I figured I'd leave you a message and a reminder in case you forget." The inventor chuckled, blue speechlights flashing merrily. "Not that you'd forget the work, Perceptor, but you might forget us."
"As if I could," Perceptor muttered to himself.
"Anyway, I'm going to let you finish up the re-wiring on that matter reducer. I know you understand the principle better than I do…"
"And he tests everything twice" broke in another voice, somewhat gravelly, "better than you, too."
"Ha, ha! If you want to get in on this, you have to be on camera. Come over here." Wheeljack beckoned and a second figure, this one blocky and white with a distinctive red chevron on his forehead, stepped into the image. Rachet, the Autobots' Chief Medical Officer, grimaced at his unseen audience.
"All right Perceptor, here are MY instructions for while I'm gone. Help out Elita-One's medics when you can, don't get broken, and stay out of sight. With the bulk of the force gone, you are going to be in for a lot of hurt if the 'cons catch you out. Don't let them." Ratchet inclined his head toward Wheeljack. "I'll try to keep this one from blowing himself up while we're gone."
"I expect I won't have time. Optimus Prime wants to get there and get back. I can't imagine I'll have much time for inventing." Wheeljack sounded regretful.
"That's fine with me. I don't like splitting up like this. We'll see you soon." Ratchet waved as Wheeljack leaned forward, his hand briefly filling the image before the transmission abruptly terminated.
"See you soon." Perceptor echoed. "Whenever that might be." He put the holoprojector aside and looked for something else to fix.
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Codex and Blaster ambled into the communal leisure quarters shared by the team. The room was quite large, but the furnishings consisted of only two recharge berths, one data terminal, an energon dispenser and a small collection of chairs, couches and tables. The recharge berths were in use, taken up by off duty members of the reconstruction team. Codex identified them as Flange, a blue and yellow mech with a talent for architecture and Arcdriver, a green femme who specialized in power systems. The data terminal was being used by the team's heavy work supervisor, Steelblade.
Blaster poured them each a mug of energon while Codex cleared datapads and rolls of plans from a couch to give them a place to sit.
"I don't know why no one ever puts these things back when they're done with them," she complained as she neatly stacked the pads on a nearby table.
"I'm not sure, but I'd guess it's because you do it for them when they leave them around. And you complain when they get put back by anyone else." Blaster replied as he settled into his seat and propped his feet on the table taking care to avoid the stacked pads.
"Well, if they got put back in the right order, I wouldn't complain. We do have a system for a reason." She accepted the energon he offered and settled herself in the corner of the couch.
He didn't reply. He sipped his energon and made a face. "Why does this slag always taste so raw?"
"I think it's the siphoning process. The energon comes from so many sources that the taste gets muddled." She sipped from her own mug.
They sat in companionable silence for a while. Steelblade finished whatever he was doing at the terminal, logged off, and rose to leave. He nodded curtly at Blaster and Codex as he left the room.
Blaster watched the foremech walk away. When he was sure Steelblade was gone he spoke. "We're going up there. You know there's something going on."
"I know there is. I just hope we didn't tip Perceptor off. He couldn't really stop us, but Elita-One can." Codex spoke softly, wary of being overheard.
"Elita may be the Autobot commander, but we're not exactly soldiers, are we?" Blaster asked and grimaced. "It's not like we fight or anything."
"You know why we don't fight Shockwave's forces openly. He controls all of the topside automatic defense systems. At least we have something constructive to do. Imagine how Elita's actual troops must feel. You think you're bored? Try being Moonracer." Codex chuckled at the thought of the impatient young warrior.
"Huh. 'Let's have a jamming field, Blaster.' 'Test that terminal, Blaster.' 'Blaster, would you sift through this enormous pile of slag? I know there's a working diode in here somewhere.' Really constructive Codex."
She laughed aloud at that. "Blaster, you're worse than Gears was."
"I wouldn't know." His voice was cold. He obviously didn't want to be jollied out of his mood right now. Sobered, she composed herself as he went on. "This is important. You think I don't take the 'cons seriously, but right now I am the only one willing to consider that they may be up to something big."
"I never said you don't take the Decepticons seriously," she protested.
"Not in so many words, but you're always on me about following the security protocols. It comes down to the same thing," he grumped.
"I don't want you to get hurt. And anyway, I already said I'd help you, despite the protocols. Try to remember who's on your side." She attempted to change the subject. "Are we going to approach Perceptor again?"
"No, he's not going to admit anything is going on until the evidence is right in front of his optics. We'll have to get something good before he'll believe us," he dismissed Perceptor with a wave.
"What time do you want to head out?" She asked, rising.
"Let's go in the middle of recharge time. If we both hit recharge early tonight, we'll be able to go while the others are offline. Can you manage that?" he asked.
"Sure. I'll meet you here in two cycles." She collected the empty energon mugs.
"Great. And Codex?" he said with a smile. "I do know who's on my side."
She smiled back at him as she dropped the energon mugs into the sterilizer and left the room.
Codex usually prepared to cycle down by completing her work logs and filing the datapads in the archive room. She felt vaguely uneasy about skipping this soothing activity as she walked past the archive to her quarters. Recharge was more important right now, especially as she would need to slice both the Autobot and Decepticon security systems on their way out and back. If Blaster was determined to pursue his mission then it was her job to keep him hidden and out of trouble while he did it.
She settled into her recharge berth and prepared to go offline. Her processor was still idly turning over the events of the day. She shuttled the thoughts into their appropriate files, briefly examining each one. Images rose; Perceptor at his workbench, Blaster's warm relieved smile, stacks of un-filed datapads. She distracted herself with a simple hexadecimal replacement cipher, mentally encrypting and decrypting her friends' names until she glided into shutdown.
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Blaster awoke from recharge in the dark of his quarters. He lay still for a few kliks and listened. Other than the ever present deep thrum of the Cybertronian underground all was silent.
He slid from his berth in the dark and made his way stealthily to the door. He eased it open and crept out into the dimly lighted hallway. Up and down the hall doors were closed. He made his way down the corridor to the leisure quarters. They were unoccupied and dark. He looked around the room, a sleek gray datapad on a table next to the entrance glowed into life.
+Ready to go?+ sent Codex over a private radio link.
+Yep. You sure you can get us past the cameras at the exit?+ It was the part of the plan that most worried him. She'd promised him that they'd have no trouble, though. "Time to see if she's right," he thought to himself.
+Good. Carry me down there and broadcast a jamming frequency when I give you the signal. Once you do that, stick me in a shadowy corner and plug this line into the wall port.+ A thin cable unwound from the side of the datapad. +Then back up and drop the jammer. I'll let you know when we're good to go.+
He picked up the datapad from the table and walked quietly toward the doors leading to the front of the Autobots' secure base. Codex sent him a nudge over the radio link and he activated his jamming signal. He darted forward, wedged the datapad into a dark corner and plugged the line into the wall. Then he backed up and deactivated the jammer.
His radio receptor picked up on the interruption in the dataflow from the cameras. This was quickly followed by the "whoosh" of the doors' opening and Codex's transformation into her primary form. She beckoned for him to go past her out of the door. As he did so, she disconnected her cable from the dataport and scurried out after him as the doors closed again.
+We have three cycles. That should give us enough time.+ She radioed as they jogged toward the transportation system access together.
Blaster was impressed by the scale of the underground transport system. Shining transport tubes twined and climbed through the dark transit station into Cybertron's sub-strata. Travelers entered the system at access ports in vast vaulted terminals like the one below Nova Cronum. The tube system used magnetic induction for frictionless travel and was powerful enough impel a traveler from one side of the planet to the other in mere cycles. The older portions of the transit system required the use of shuttle cars, but these were gradually abandoned as streamlined Autobot vehicle forms became more and more commonplace over the vorns. In their repairs, the Autobot teams had converted all of the system to the newer, free travel type. This made their current task easier as the shuttle cars were more obvious than two lone travelers. The Decepticon communications tower they were interested in was in the neighboring sector of Polyhex, a short trip.
Blaster stepped into the transit tube, enjoying the weightless feeling. He radioed the system's grid and programmed their destination into the impeller control. He waited for Codex to take her place in the tube behind him before he sent the activation command. Then they were off. He rejoiced in the speed, whooping aloud as he hurtled along. He had often wished he was able to go this fast on his own, but his alternate form was designed for boosting his broadcast and reception skills, not for travel. It was one of the few things he had in common with Perceptor. He wondered if the scientist also craved speed and sensation. What an idea. Perceptor was buried in his sedentary life. Blaster wondered if Perceptor even remembered about the war anymore. Probably not, unless someone reminded him.
All too soon the exhilarating trip was over. The Polyhex terminal had been repaired by another team and the exits to the surface were sealed by thick blast doors. The Autobots didn't give their enemies easy access to their hidden underground bases. Codex went to the closest door and examined the access pad.
"I don't think anyone's been here in a while to change the codes so the old encryption should work. That's sloppy work, but it helps us now. Even if you aren't right about Shockwave, I'm going to ask Elita-One to have the teams step up security. We won't be able to do this twice." She looked at him steadily.
"Hey, when you find out that I'm right, I'll help you reprogram everything myself. It'll be worth it." He grinned down at her.
She reached up for the access pad and pried the cover off. Then she pulled a thin cable from the base of her helmet by her audio receptor and slid the flat connector at the end into the programming port of the access control. Her blue optics flickered and flashed as she tapped out a code on the keypad.
The blast door ground slowly open with less noise than Blaster had expected. Codex unplugged her cable and replaced the cover. "We have one cycle. Then this will close and lock again. I put in an override code to re-open it, but we'll have to disassemble the wall to get at the panel from the other side. Let's try not to be late." She said and turned to walk up the tunnel to the surface.
He followed her. It was all unknown territory from here. What would they do if Shockwave spotted them? What if they walked into an unexpected patrol, or worse? And worst of all, what would he do if there was nothing to find?
It was time to find out.
Author's Note:
This story grows out of my affection for Perceptor and Blaster. They have a unique position in the TF world and I felt like they needed to have a story together. I hope my OC isn't too annoying. I was trying to come up with a cool Autobot character which would help me include some stuff about machine language and codes in a story. I'm interested in computers and communication and so is she. We'll see how she works out.
Some vocabulary
Vorn—83 Earth years (source Teletran-One Transformers wikia)
Orn—approximately one Cybertronian lunar day (ibid)
Klik—1.2 minutes (ibid)
Cycle—2 hours (ibid)
I know I'm borrowing time units from more than one source, but these are the ones that seem to work best together.
"Slicing" is a verb from the Cyberpunk genre used here as a synonym for "hacking". So someone "slicing" a system would be accessing it in an unauthorized fashion and attempting to hide their activities from the system itself and anyone using or monitoring it.
The text at the top is an imaginary datafile I'm using for exposition. An interregnum is the time when a king is not on the throne. England has had a few of these.
Comments, questions and constructive criticism gladly accepted.
Revision Note:
Some of my kind reviewers found the first paragraphs to be too dense and "writer-y" so I trimmed them out and got right into the dialogue. I'm leaving the opening exposition as it sets the scene and provides a device I want to use for the story. Again, comments and criticism are welcome.