"Hoist!" said the voice, clearer this time. "Command wants you to rehabilitate a unit that has acted improperly with the laws of Cybertron."
"Command? I'm just a physician, sir. I'm not trained in psychiatry," Hoist told the voice in the radio communicator at his desk.
"You are medical class Trail-related subclass, are you not?" said the voice harshly.
"Yes, sir. But I'm a technician by practice. Shouldn't you be talking to Rung?" asked Hoist, quizzically.
"Autobot, you are a member of the medical caste and thus qualified for any directive that Sentinel Prime wishes to dispose of a medical nature. If Sentinel Prime were to tell you to find a cure for gamma radiation, you would do it. Can you cure gamma radiation?" said the voice.
"No," puzzled Hoist.
"But you would if Sentinel Prime told you to, wouldn't you?" asked the voice.
"Yes," sighed Hoist, giving up.
"Good, now we need you to rehabilitate this Autobot for us," said the voice.
"I will," agreed Hoist.
The voice changed, becoming somewhat gentler. It said, "Good. Between you and me, this was a personal request of Council Member Halogen, so it would seem that he has some faith in your abilities. Even if you do not. Your patient will arrive today. Prowl out."
Hoist leaned back from his desk. How was he going to do this? He shoved that thought aside. He would be himself. He could not help but wonder why someone had not been chosen, like Rung? The caste system was somewhat restrictive. For instance he knew a labor Autobot named Ratchet who had an affinity for Autobot biology that he would never use as an Iron-class laborer. Then there was his friend and fellow medical technician Trailbreaker, who was more into force fields than physiology. Yet society had decreed Trailbreaker a medic and Ratchet a laborer.
That society had also decreed that Hoist now perform therapy on this mysterious Autobot. Hoist left his office, knowing that the Autobot in question would be waiting in the psychiatric ward of the prison complex, not the medical complex. What else had that guardian caste member Prowl said? That's right, Halogen had requested him specifically.
At the top of the food chain was Sentinel Prime. A Prime had led the Autobots as long as anyone could remember, and with him was the mystic Matrix of Leadership. The Primes even predated the caste system itself, the term coming from the original Thirteen Transformers who all bore that title. Sentinel Prime was the great hero of the Second Cybertronian War. He had led the Autobots to victory over the Decepticons, although those names meant nothing then. The Decepticons were merely war units and the Autobots worker units.
Sentinel Prime had maintained the peace by producing the convoluted caste system. His intention was keep the newly christened Decepticons stuck and weak within society. They occupied the lowest castes. The Autobots faired somewhat better, but Sentinel Prime was paranoid that ambition might strike some lowly robot and send them back to war so the castes were kept exclusive. A protoform was assigned a caste at sparking, and they kept that caste until they went offline.
There was no social mobility. The only way to secure a good caste was to be born after a high-ranking member had died. Without war, that happened little. Sentinel Prime had gone so far as to encourage a belief in 'resparkification' or the belief that if one fulfilled his caste duty the best he could, his spark might be rewarded by Primus with a better life 'next time.'
There were those in the higher classes, the guardian and scientist classes, that argued for reforms or even dissolution of the caste system. The told Sentinel Prime time and time again that there were no Decepticons until he had himself created them. They pointed out that the Decepticons had been designed for war and were now being marginalized and given the toughest and dirtiest duties. This was a recipe for disaster they said. Halogen was one of these. Like any other Autobot councilor, he had no meaning to give these villains rights. He did believe that they needed opportunities.
Hoist was now outside where he see construction going up in the distance. Sentinel Prime had ordered the renovation of the Crystal City. He thought the crystal design would improve energon efficiency. Actually, Sentinel Prime had a far different purpose for putting the Crystal City there that Hoist did not know about. Its design would dissipate energy all right, but that energy would be coming internally. Sentinel Prime had discovered the location of the Dark Spark there during the Second Cybertronian War. The city's crystal nature would prevent the ambitious from finding it, and Sentinel had ordered his greatest soldier, Omega Supreme, to guard the thing. Omega also held the Omega key to the core, so Sentinel had plenty of faith in the hulking giant.
Speaking of Omega, Hoist could see him quite clearly from where he stood. The Guardian robots, different from the Guardian caste, had been the last line of defense for the Quintessons. When Alpha Trion had defeated the Quintessons, there had been some talk of deactivating all of them. Alpha Trion would not hear of it, but now Sentinel Prime was using them as his personal guard and guarantors. Hoist walked into the detention facility. The building recognized his caste and let him in.
From there, Hoist turned through a couple of bleak corridors, and then came into a room where his assignment was waiting for him. He was seated in one corner of the room. Hoist nodded at the prison guard, and then entered. He took a seat on the other end of the room and stared at his new charge, his first as a counselor.
His charge stared back. Finally he nervously spoke, "Counselor, I am…" he started.
"No names," said Hoist as he shook his head. He remembered that much from what training he had had.
"As you wish," responded the subject.
Hoist activated the recorder on the chair. "Now if you would state your caste and primary occupation, please."
"Scholar class. I was an archivist," answered the subject.
"An archivist?" asked Hoist. His tone remained friendly, but he wondered what an archivist could have done to offend the laws of Cybertron.
"Yes, sir. I was primarily an archivist, but in the incident in question I was serving as a mentor," said the subject.
"Do you normally serve as a mentor?" asked Hoist. Mentors were more personalized teachers. Given the subject's background as an archivist, it was likely he was mentoring one of a higher caste.
"No, but it is my caste's duty to perform that function," answered the subject.
"I see," said Hoist, wondering where he had heard that one before. "So you were a mentor, what brought you here to a Cybertronian prison and to an Autobot counselor?"
"That's hard to say. Even I do not know all the details," answered the Autobot, looking to the side.
"Well, we aren't going to get very far this way. Would you prefer that I look up your service report on the matter?" asked Hoist.
"No…well, maybe. I never did get a good reason for my suspension and incarceration. Just some official sounding nonsense," said the Autobot, his curiosity aroused.
"Well, I will have to consult your information later. There are no terminals in here. Except for my recorder, these meetings are supposed to be private," said Hoist. What next, he wondered. He couldn't end the session like this. "Well, let's get some background. When were you sparked?" asked Hoist.
"I was sparked in the spark boom after the Second Cybertronian War, when Primus tried to make up for the many who died in that conflict. I was decreed a scholar when I came online, and worked in the archives of Iacon. I studied many things there, including the wars that had been fought and the rise of the caste system. I also studied the period of colonialism, when our people went out and founded civilization on new worlds. I did all this, and from time to time the council would request my help on some historical question or another," said the Autobot. There was no energy in his voice as he spoke.
"Ah, a spark boomer! I too was a spark boomer. Sometimes it is hard to find those who weren't," said Hoist. "So what sparked the jump to mentoring?"
"I wasn't given much choice. Sigil had just passed from the council to join the Matrix, and so the next spark was made into a member of the Guardian class to one day replace him. It turned out the spark was female, and she would need to be briefed as quickly as possible on her new life. There was no one on the Council who could do, so they thought of me. As mentoring was a duty of my caste, I could not refuse. So I came to be mentor to Flareup," said the Autobot, somewhat regretfully toward the end.
"So is that how you know Halogen?" asked Hoist.
"No, I have never had dealings with councilor Halogen, sir," answered the Autobot, seemingly put off by the question. He stared at the reflective part of his chest, thinking.
"No bother. Where were we? Something about Flareup, the female Autobot. Right, now what was the problem with Flareup?" asked Hoist.
"There was nothing wrong with Flareup," snorted the Autobot. "Granted, she took Sigil's death personally and it seemed to hurt her. She was much like any other inexperienced Autobot, innocent and pure, without an ill thought for anyone in the world."
"Did you have problems with her being a female?" asked Hoist.
"What is that supposed to mean?" countered the Autobot, confused.
"Female Autobots are fairly uncommon and somewhat sheltered. Did you resent that she was going to be a councilor someday, while you the all-knowing male archivist were stuck in the position of preparing her for something you could better do?" asked Hoist.
"No, no, nothing like that," the Autobot's tone revealed a fair amount of terror.
"Well, okay. If not chauvinism and not classism, I am running out of isms. What could be so bad that you did with a female…" started Hoist. "No, no, not THAT. It is forbidden between the castes, you as archivist and mentor should know better than anyone."
"I am not following," answered the Autobot.
Hoist wasn't sure he believed that. "I am talking about love. That strange force that we Cybertronians barely understand and rarely illuminates our lives because male-female relationships are so few. The thing that is so rare that it is supposed to inspire Primus to create new sparks…" he said.
"And those sparks must be pure members of a single caste and so romance is forbidden among the various castes. I get it. I know," said the Autobot. "The archives are full of literature on the subject."
"Was that it, then? An affair? An illicit liaison? Is there a Primus half-breed spark out there lacking true meaning in life?" asked Hoist.
"No, no, no. There was no affair. There was not even a relationship, strictly speaking," responded an exasperated Autobot.
"Then what is the problem? You weren't thrown in these warrens for nothing. Something must have happened," said Hoist. "Did you make a pass at her? Signal your interest? You were near her quite a lot. She depended on you, and you delighted in her, one thing leads to another…"
"No, it was not like that at all. I didn't do anything. She said such strange things to me and behaved so oddly when I was around. She took the opportunity to embrace me when circumstances allowed. If there was a love affair, it was all one-sided and I had little to do with it," answered the Autobot.
"Which brings to my question, why are we here? If you did everything right and she didn't do anything wrong, how are we here?" asked Hoist.
"I thought she was getting around to it. Our mentorship program ended and I returned to the archives, but I was afraid that wasn't the end of it. Since she was no longer my mentee and nothing had happened, I wrote a letter warning her not to misinterpret our relationship as anything more than it was. I also suggested that her acting on it would destroy my career as an archivist," said the Autobot, listlessly.
"So now we are at the event at last. This letter then is what brought you here?" asked Hoist.
"Yes. I was summarily imprisoned under an inappropriate interaction between the castes charge. To this day, no has satisfactorily explained that one to me," said the Autobot.
"Well, the caste system rules all as you should have known, and appears did know. No communication between a Guardian and a scholar of different genders is safe. Still she must have been pretty explicit to warrant that response from you," noted Hoist.
The Autobot remained silent, staring away for the moment.
"She ever do anything that you believed crossed the line?" asked Hoist, wondering whether or not he could believe this archivist. "A kiss? A truly inappropriate touch? A question about whether you meet at an oil house later?"
"No," answered the Autobot, as if knowing his answer was unsatisfactory.
"So what was it then?" asked Hoist.
"It was subtle. The way she talked, and the way she looked at me. There was something behind those things," said the Autobot.
"Are you sure there was something behind those things?" asked Hoist. The intercom system buzzed. The prison would be closing soon. It could not be helped. "I guess we'll have to call it a day, then. We will continue this tomorrow," he said.
"Thank you. Primus go with you," said the Autobot, his voice still in a downcast manner. He left the room.
Hoist watched him go. A strange one, that one. Got involved with a female Autobot in way that he can't explain or refused to get involved with a female Autobot who was not perhaps as transparent to her affections as the archivist perceived. There were some missing pieces to this issue.