Slipstream: Resurrection

Chapter Nine

The Edge of Fear

Gearframe was tired, but he couldn't stop. If he stopped running, he was dead. His servos whined from the effort of keeping him moving, his air intakes were virtually screaming with the strain of trying to keep his internal systems cool enough to function. He had nearly run himself clean into stasis-lock, pain tore through his systems with each wild step, but still he couldn't stop. For the first time in his life, he actually regretted not having a faster alternate form... anything to help get away from them would have been a blessing from Primus himself.

Around him and behind him, the shadows moved. The creatures had been chasing Gearframe for nearly an hour, toying with him, herding him with animal snarls and occasional lightning-fast strikes that had left the architect battered and dented, but still able to run. Slowly, enjoying the chase, the creatures herded their prey toward the deepest parts of Iacon's underbelly. Whenever he looked like he was slowing, his steps beginning to falter, one or two of them would get closer, planting lightning fast blows or loosing peals of high pitched, jeering laughter. They pushed him ever onward, enjoying the hunt, the end now so close that they could taste it...

Gearframe rounded a corner into a dark alleyway, his footplates skidding on the damp floor, sending him careening into a stack of abandoned crates. He regained his footing as quickly as possible, but it wasn't fast enough. A heavy impact threw him forwards, sending the mech careening forward into a patch of light from a nearby glow-lamp, before he fell, sprawling across the floor in an undignified heap. With a groan, Gearframe forced himself to look up, to get moving again. In the shadows around him, dozens of red optics shone back at his own, making his energon flow run cold.

Where Gearframe's fear had been driving him forward, now it paralysed him. He could only watch in mute horror as one of the pairs of optics began to step forward. As the creature stepped into the light, Gearframe gasped. Its bright orange armour looked as though it had been melted in places, and sections had fallen away completely, displaying the servos and endo-skeleton beneath. A red symbol identified the beast as an Autobot; the vile, animal instinct that wore the mech's face was anything but. The monster glared at its prey, regarding Gearframe with its head cocked to one side.

Gearframe opened his mouth, about to start begging for his release, for his life, but never got the chance. The creature, which appeared to be leading the others, moved forward suddenly with a massive burst of speed, and kicked out savagely at Gearframe's prostrate form. The blow caught him beneath his right arm, and lifted him bodily from the ground, throwing him against the nearest alley wall. Before Gearframe had finished sliding to the floor, he felt a vice-like grip closing around his throat, lifting him up and bringing him faceplate to faceplate with his attacker. He could do nothing but stare into those depthless, crimson optics, and listen in horror as the creature hissed the last words he would ever hear...

You were already dead...

O o O o O

Slipstream walked alone, his footsteps echoing through the cavernous expanse of the main factory floor. Dust-shrouded machinery and observation walkways spread in every direction, forming labyrinthine corridors that threw the sound back at the vampire in odd ways; the effect, he found, was rather pleasing. This place would be the birthplace for his new empire. Even now, his drones were working to re-activate the great machines, which in aeons past had created Cybertronians in their thousands. He would bring them back to life, and give them a new, glorious purpose... the thought of it sent shivers of expectation through Slipstream's frame, and brought a thin smile of delight to his features. The plan was beautiful, flawless even. Nothing would stand in his way.

A dull thunk reached his audio receptors, echoing through the confines of the factory from its deepest recesses. Looking about himself, Slipstream could see the source of the sound before he heard its effects; the generator was finally on-line. As the echoes of the louder sound of the plasma drive coming on-line began to fade, and as the low whine of power relays began to fill the vast room, Slipstream watched the steady flow of energon as it coursed through the factory systems. His enhanced vision superimposed a fine, silvery spider web over everything, letting him see the flow of power as clear as day, and below it all, in the depths of the complex, the bright, sunlight glow of the generators themselves.

Yes, he thought to himself, the smile widening to a grin, it will be beautiful indeed...

O o O o O

The attacks had been going on for over a week. Every night, a handful more victims were killed or taken, every night the Autobots failed to stem the virulent tide that was taking over Iacon City. And every night, the Cybertronian people lost just a little more faith in the Autobots and their protection. As fear tightened its hold on the sparks of everyone around him, and everyone in turn began to look to him for aid and guidance, Rodimus Prime found himself beginning to feel overwhelmed. He hadn't said as much out loud, but in all truth he wasn't sure he had any answers to give.

He stood alone in his office, staring out of the window, lost in thought. The most recent reports from his own forces and those of the Enforcers were terrifying, to say the least; whatever resources were thrown at the problem of Slipstream's growing army, nothing they did seemed to be enough. It wasn't just the civilians that were being affected, either. Whenever the Autobot patrols managed to find one or more of the creatures, they almost always came off worse. A few of the monsters had been captured, and were now being held in the brig below the ACC. But for every one that was captured or wounded, two more seemed to be taking their place.

A dark scowl crossed Prime's features at that thought... one of those damned by Slipstream's vampirism was his best friend. There had been no sign of Kup at all, and the thought disturbed the Autobot commander deeply. Had Slipstream killed him out of spite? Had he been amongst the few creatures that the Autobots had been forced to kill? Worse, how many had he been forced to kill himself? Magnus and Ratchet had tried to tell Prime that Kup was already a casualty, that until they figured out a way to undo the effects of Slipstream's nano-virus, there was nothing more that could be done. That did nothing to stop Prime feeling angry about the fact. A sound caught Prime's attention, and he turned just in time to see Ultra Magnus entering the room.

"More reports," the soldier said simply, sliding a data-pad onto Prime's desk before looking up at his commander. "It's not good. We've lost eight civilians, and three more Autobots."

"Who?" Prime asked quietly, his features a mask of pain.

"Highbrow, Air Raid and Groove," came the grim reply. "By luck or design, that son of a glitch has managed to take two whole gestalts out of commission in one move. Hot Spot and Silverbolt are beside themselves, not to mention the rest of their teams. We've still got Computron if it comes to it, but there's still the question of what'll happen if Slipstream manages to infect him in his combined state... will they all turn vampire, or just the one that's bitten?"

Prime turned back to the window, fighting down the urge to scream in frustration. After a few moments, he locked optics with Magnus' reflection, and asked, "Please tell me there's some good news." The reflection actually managed a small smile.

"I think I might be able to help you there," Magnus said, as Prime turned to face him once more. "Intel spotted something in the Enforcer's incident reports this morning, a pattern of sorts. After almost every attack, eyewitness reports say that the vampires leave the attacks in the same general direction."

"You think they're heading to the same place?" Prime asked, moving to his desk and picking up the pad. "Or do you think it's just a coincidence?"

"It might just be a coincidence," Magnus conceded, shrugging slowly. "Or even even just a collection of misinformation. But if this is at all accurate..."

"Then they might just be heading home to their father," Prime finished the thought. "Where do they seem to be heading?"

"May I?" Ultra Magnus motioned toward the controls on Rodimus' desk, and with a nod of consent he punched in a few commands. Instants later a holographic image of Iacon sprang into life. A few more keystrokes, and the image began to grow, moving in to show the factory districts on the outskirts of the city.

"Here," Magnus said simply, waving toward the centre of the map. "This is the only place they can be going; we've looked everywhere else along this course. These factories have been out of action since just after the first Great War... the only reason they're still there is that the Council deemed them to be of historical significance, and left them standing."

"What did the factories produce?" Prime asked hesitantly, already knowing that he wouldn't like the answer.

"That's where we get back to bad news," Magnus said, closing down the map. "Most of the factories produced weapons and equipment for the war. But one of them, one of the largest, used to produce mechs and drones."

"Primus, no," Prime whispered, falling into his chair. "He would be there... he has to be. If he can get that place back on-line, and somehow infect the production line, he'll be able to..." Prime let the thought hang in the air, unwilling to voice the horror that he knew would follow such an eventuality. He could feel a new anger beginning to build inside him, as the full import of Slipstream's plan hit him. Slowly, he stood once more, and looked up at Magnus. Recognising the fire in Prime's optics, Ultra Magnus unconsciously stepped back, standing to attention.

"Rally the troops," Prime said, a steely edge of conviction in his voice. "All of them. We've got to hit that place, hard, with everything we can bring to bear. Meet in the staging bay in two hours."

With a smart salute and a crisp "Yes, Sir," Ultra Magnus left the room with hurried steps. Prime took one last look out of the window, at the gleaming spires and bright lights beyond. He wouldn't allow the nightmare continue. He would stop Slipstream, or die trying. Turning away from the vista before him, Prime left to find Ratchet and Wheeljack.

O o O o O

He found the pair of them having a heated discussion in Wheeljack's lab. Ever since Kup's transformation, Ratchet had been working on a way to undo the change wrought on Slipstream's victims. He had found the source of the change; Slipstream had somehow converted the nano-mech technology he had stolen into a kind of virus, one which altered his victims on almost every level, leaving them as a twisted parody of his own condition. Ratchet also believed that the damage could be undone, either with a kind of 'nano-vaccine', or else by reprogramming the existing nanites and making them undo the damage they had already caused.

The trouble was facilitating those effects, which is where Wheeljack had come into the equation. He had immediately gone to work, and had quickly pulled in the rest of the sciences and medical staff to help. Before long, both sections had been whipped into a frenzy of activity, inter-departmental channels buzzing with activity. Now, Prime just needed to know if they had reached a point where they had something he could use; if his fears were realised, they would need every piece of help they could get.

"...And to do that, we'd need to disable them with a low-level ionic pulse," Wheeljack was saying, gesturing excitedly to get his point across. "If we just cross-wire the sub-particulate matter converter in my new beam cannon, and add a neo-dynamic positron relay, it'll be easier than disarming a sparkling!"

"Yes," Ratchet countered acerbically, "and the ensuing blast would disarm our own troops at best, or level the surrounding area at worst! We need to find a way of accessing the nanites' control matrix without performing the equivalent of using a tactical nuke to wipe out a sump-rat. Now, if you'd just listen for a change, instead of sounding off like a sonic screwdriver on the glitch... Prime! We didn't see you there."

"I take it things are not going well?" Prime said, holding back half a smile as his two shame-faced colleagues turned to face him. Ratchet simply shook his head in response.

"I'm sorry, Rodimus," he said, the tension seeming to drain from his body in a subconscious sign of defeat. "Everything we've tried has only had marginal success. The main problem is, Slipstream has altered his virus beyond anything we've seen before. It adapts far faster than anything we've been able to throw at it. We'll get there, of that there's no doubt, but not for some time yet."

"Keep trying," Rodimus said, only a hint of his frustration showing. "Until then, it just looks like we're going to have to do this the hard way..."

O o O o O

The factory systems were finally approaching full power. Slipstream could almost feel the bass thrum of energon pulsing through the building's power feeds and machinery, just beyond hearing, like a hint of some vast heartbeat. There was a faint tang of ozone about the air, and Slipstream found himself occasionally stopping to savour the aroma, closing his optics and drawing deep intakes. It was like a heady perfume to him; to him, it smelt like power, tasted like destiny. Soon, Cybertron would be reborn in his image, and he would become a dark god to rival Unicron himself...

His children, his first-born of many, had gathered in the central production area of the factory, standing around him in small groups. None strayed too close, out of either fear or respect, and the mixed stares of equal parts awe and adoration they periodically shot in his direction gave him new delight. Whenever he returned their gaze, they would lower their optics ground-ward, subservient to a fault. They had been remade in his image, but still they new him to be their superior... their master.

Slipstream had called them all together to witness this moment. The future began here, at his hand, and he wanted witnesses to this most portentous of moments. He stood on a slightly raised platform in the centre of the massive chamber, one of the factory's central control monitors at its centre. The device's panelling had been removed, layed out carefully around him, and the inner workings and cables of the monitor had been partially removed from their casings. Slipstream gave his drones one last look, turning slowly to face them all in turn, before turning his attention on the console.

Slowly dropping to his knees, Slipstream took one of the cable bundles in his hands and raised it slowly to his lips. With an air of careful grace, he opened his jaw, his fangs extending with a faint click, then with equal care he bit down on the tubing. Closing his optics down, relishing the moment, he could feel the nano-viral caches in his fangs emptying, the deadly payload seeping into the mechanical systems of the building. It would take a few hours for the virus to fully infiltrate the system, and a few more to complete the changes he had planned... but to his mind, Slipstream fancied he could already hear something in the sounds of this place, something subtly different. Finished, he let go, and sat back on his haunches, allowing himself a quiet, sinister smile.

"Now, it begins..."

Author's notes: Yes, this has been a very long time coming. And yes, it's not particularly action packed. Rest assured, faithful reader, that I fully plan on making up for that next chapter... it is going to be the finale, after all!

Thanks for reading. Any and all comments are very much welcome.