Spitfire
Chapter X
Unconsciousness rolled in and rolled out, ebbed and throbbed in waves of varying shades of gray, ones that reminded her of some shadow ocean's tide during a strong storm.
Her pain had diminished, the mechanical leeches full and satisfied with their stolen life, but unconsciousness was worse than pain. Pain had let her know that she was still alive; hurting and aching, but alive. The unconsciousness, the darkness; it could be a coma. It could be Purgatory. It could be, for all she knew, Hell. It could be something even worse, some nothingness beyond all comprehension of thought, but she was still there enough to force herself to believe that it wasn't.
Besides, she was hearing voices.
Just as she was still there enough to force herself to believe that she wasn't trapped in an alternate universe where nothing but her mental self existed, she was also still there enough to believe that the voices she was hearing, clashes from the past, present, and perhaps some unknown future as well, were not a result of insanity brought on by unconsciousness. The voices were real; she was hearing actual voices and not garbled babblings of a softened mind, though the voices themselves were nothing more than memories and thoughts. She heard them well enough to know this even though many sounded as though they were coming through the static of a failing radio connection.
Because she had nothing else to do but drift in the ocean of infinite darkness, waiting for some sort of physical life raft, some grasping hand from reality, she listened. Some of the voices she could place, others she could not. But, as she listened, she came to the realization that they all meant something. Maybe not at that moment, maybe they had, or they would, eventually. They did, however, all mean something to her at some point.
What that something was, she did not know.
A voice she heard continuously, too deep to be that of a human being's, was authoritative, but not frightening. Whenever she heard it, a shiver of relief passed through her for reasons she couldn't quite place. It sounded like a voice belonging to someone who could be trusted, and it ran through her thoughts with a consistency that gave the impression that whoever the voice belonged to was important.
He was important.
Freedom is the right to all sentient beings.
Sam, I owe you my life. We are in your debt.
They deserve to CHOOSE for THEMSELVES!
One shall stand, one shall fall...
More voices zipped through her mind, ones that she connected to the repeated, deep voice because, although they had alternating degrees of pitch, they resembled each other. The voices had an accent to them, a certain buzz in the background, that reminded her of technological things.
Sam, we will protect you!
Keep moving Sam, don't stop!
It's Megatron, move, retreat, take cover!
I would like to stay with the boy…
(Megatron…Sam? I've heard of them, but...no, it can't be...)
Before she could continue this thought, the strange voices died away. They were replaced by a jumble of purely human noises, those of a man's, a boy's, a girl's, hoarse voices stricken with panic, loud and loose, uncontrolled and afraid.
No no no no no NO NO!
RETREAT, FALL BACK!
Listen to me, you're a soldier now!
All right, I need you to take this Cube, get it into military hands while we hold them off, or a lot of people are gonna die!
I'M NOT GOING TO LEAVE YOU!
- No, you need to get out, need to -
I'm not leaving without -
No sacrifice, no victory.
I'm never giving you this All Spark!
No matter what happens, I'm really glad I got in that car with you-u-u-u...
Suddenly, an explosive, angry roar overrode it all, and as it resounded through the confines of her mind, she let out a shriek, her own hysteria mixing with the snarling tones that threatened to send her reeling completely.
I smell you, boy -
GIVE ME THE CUBE, MAGGOT!
HUMANS DON'T DESERVE TO LIVE!
YOU WILL DIE WITH THEM, JOIN THEM IN EXTINCTION!
You may live to be my pet…
Is it fear or courage that compels you, fleshling?
Sobbing, screaming, swinging her aching head and blind eyes back and forth as the tears trickled down her cheeks, Antonia pushed herself away, away from the voices, those horrible threats, the memories of events she hadn't been a part of. She pushed herself away, tumbling into the obsidian stone of her shadowed ocean, drowning herself in whatever silent solace she could find. Anything was better than hearing that voice. That voice, so unlike the ones she had heard before, so filled with hate, with anger and mockery. With revenge.
Before she plunged into darkness deeper than unconsciousness, bordering the lines of a coma's sleep, she heard one other voice.
It was not human.
Antonia screamed as it rang in her ears like a bell, obnoxious and sickening in its dishonesty, a dishonesty she could not comprehend, but could feel.
I live to serve you, Lord Megatron.
I live...
With one last grateful tumble, she plunged through her unconscious ocean, down, down, down, drowning in it, feeling the silence seep into her bones, feeling the soft beat of her heart, her tiny mechanical (friends?) infections throbbing along to its rhythm. For the first time since she had fallen into the ocean, she realized that they lit up the surrounding darkness like summer's fireflies.
Even as she hit the ocean's bottom, she continued down.
A scene played out in her head, its sequence as grainy and as faded as one recorded on an old, unfurling film reel. Despite its quality, the memory comforted her, allowed her muscles to relax and her fists to loosen. This was something that was her's, a carefully recorded piece of her life.
It was what she remembered.
Her father, Eliazar, a muscular, handsome man with big hands, rough palms. He was swinging her around and around; her, a tiny girl with a gap-toothed smile and uneven pigtails. Tornado, he called their game.
All she screamed, with delight and just the slightest fraction of fear, was "MORE! FASTER!" Her father laughed aloud, corkscrews of his black hair flying in his face, the setting sun illuminating his strong features. He smiled at her, revealing twin lines of white teeth set against olive skin.
"Andale, chickita?"
"SI, PAPA! ANDALE!"
You were a liar, she heard herself say, think; a small, destructive piranha-thought with its teeth bared at the image of her father. You are a liar.
The sudden observation surprised her, made her uncomfortable. She quickly forced herself to forget it, and to, instead, remember something else.
So she remembered what she'd left as a baby: a small, adobe house by the coast, running barefoot through their tiny town, watching the sun rise and set against the silhouettes of long-leafed palm trees. She'd left it with her mother, her father, and her grandmother to become Americanos. She remembered having papers stating that it was so.
She remembered arriving at their new home and immediately noticing how many lights America had, set protectively against the shadows and against the darkness.
"Are these people afraid of the dark?" she had asked her father, and he had laughed. But he hadn't answered.
The memory of her mother's face replaced the memory of her father.
Her long hair tied in a loose ponytail and thrown over one shoulder, Pilar's head was bent over her's, their foreheads nearly touching. She could hear herself whimpering, a little girl's noise. She had awakened from a bad dream, had called for her Mama, and her Mama had come to send her back, to help her sleep.
Pilar's big eyes, ovals of purple exhaustion ringing them like bruises (were they bruises was it because of Daddy?), were heavily lashed, and the lashes nearly brushed her cheeks as she blinked sleepily, and yawned.
After a moment, her mother began to sing, her voice smooth and sweet. Tentatively, Antonia listened.
"...My sunshine, my only sunshine.
You make me happy, when skies are gray.
You'll never know, dear, how much I love you.
So, please don't take my sunshine away..."
Antonia saw the image waver, as though someone had thrown a pebble into a puddle. Her mother's voice dispersed into the infinity of the ocean beneath her ocean, and the shadows ate it, relished in it, that beautiful fragment of reality.
She blinked as the memory gradually disappeared, the descent of her lids so slow and careful that it seemed to take an eternity just to open her eyes. When she finally did, she let out a soft sob. Mama...
Her father was gone. Her mother was gone. The voices were gone. The darkness was gone.
The sun was rising.