The Diego Diaries: Guard (dd4 10)
-0-At the Prison
:Who were those creeps, Jazz?: Leonora asked as they buzzed along to the rest of the prison which spread out all around.
:They were the hereditary rulers of Cybertron, some of them. The worst of them. They are responsible for what happened. They're war criminals: he said as they moved along the invisible bars toward Cell Block B. :That big red mech was the Prime before Optimus … Sentinel Prime:
:Really? How did Optimus become Prime when you had one already?: she asked.
The mechs slowed, then stopped standing quietly as Jazz put in a call. It was still but for the conversation among 'Con mechs that drifted in over the thin atmosphere. He looked down at them, then glanced at the others. :I can tell you a bit about it but it won't clear the censors if you try to film it:
:Alright: Leonora said with a nod. The others nodded as well.
:Sentinel was Prime for a long time during risin' turmoil. I was livin' on the streets hustlin'. There was no work and I had no attachments: He paused a moment to think …
-0-A very long time ago
He stood on the street corner watching as a battery of troops came toward them. They were hanging on a corner ready to move, Jazz and some of the local thugs. They were being hustled along, the crackdown instituted and passed by the Council and regional governments giving the government the right to push 'vagrants and other troublemakers' out of the urban areas. Crime had begun to rise as did the hunger index but the government had no interest in ameliorating it. They didn't even seem to have the ability or interest in putting the two together.
Jazz had lived a long time on his own. He had family but poverty had prompted him to seek his own fortune early. He had no interest in being a laborer. He was very intelligent, gritty and filled with street smarts. He liked beauty, music, languages and finding new things. He was another of the millions of individuals locked into a path not of his own choosing, a path he was not willing to take just because someone decided he should.
He had lived on his own getting by in the usual manner and because he was fast, tough and smart he hadn't been caught by the authorities. He had visited the down and out parts of Iacon before drifting to Kaon. The action there was more interesting outside the reach of the law. Even the smart detective with optics in the back of his helm, Prowl of Praxus had not been able to lay servos on him. It wasn't because he didn't try but unlike nearly everyone else, Jazz was too good to be stupid and slip up.
Troops were marching in formation toward them as they stood watching. They were the lost boys of their particular generation and they didn't take slag from anyone. They fought back and recently the number of street brawls had grown. Some of the worst offenders had been taken under the new rules, the Clampdown it was called and they came back changed. They were changed but not for the better.
It was incredible incentive to be fast and slippery. He was both.
Jazz turned to walk away, the others lingering before following. They moved faster as the troops did until both sides were running. Swiftly through the streets they went, gathering speed as they reached the outskirts of the city. Soon they would enter the no man's land that marked the reach of the authorities in the desperate dangerous city of Kaon. Once they were there, they would stop to watch from a distance, taunting the soldiers with their bullshit. No troop of soldiers dared enter the domain of the road gangs and the rising star of the opposition, Megatron.
Jazz stood on a pile of rubble grinning at the troops as they paused at the edge of the invisible line that marked off their separate domains. Graffiti covered the walls and buildings that bordered the area. "Megaton for Prime" and "Death to Sentinel Prime" were sprayed on in several different dialects. All around them the grinding poverty and urban decay of this, the most neglected city on Cybertron could be seen. Only Slaughter City was a worse place than Kaon.
The troops paused to watch them, then turned with their leader to go back to the citadel that marked their home base. They would do so with the taunts of those they pushed back into the gutters once more. They would carry the taunts of Jazz with them too.
Later that night...
Jazz walked into his hangout bar, the one run by Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. Things were unsettled around the city and the news from Iacon was strange. Someone said that Sentinel Prime had been attacked. Someone said he was dead. No one had a clear idea and given the propensity to tell tales, no one took it as gospel. He pulled up a chair, then sat next to Sunstreaker who was sipping a beer as he watched the doorway.
Sideswipe was in the next room taking their cut from the numbers runners that did the local book and loan sharking. He was healing from a brutal beating that Sentinel had put on him in his crusade to gain and control his brother. Sunstreaker had managed the impossible to get his twin free winning a battle in court to get him released. Jazz could only wonder what he had to give to the judges to get Sideswipe back. "Did you hear about Sentinel?"
Sunstreaker didn't remark, then he looked at Jazz. "No one knows for sure."
"Should be a load off havin' him at the Matrix," Jazz said.
Sunstreaker nodded. "Fragger deserved it. If I ever find out who did it I will shake their servo."
Jazz nodded. "This is either goin' to be a good thing or the worst. I hear that Orion Pax is being hunted by the Council."
"Why?" Sunstreaker asked as he remembered the big longshoreman that was almost a defacto leader of the resistance to the status quo. He had a jones for justice and treating mechs right. That automatically put Pax on the side of his ledger that was labeled, 'possible, but not likely'. Most of the rest of the world were listed on the side that said, 'fragger, target'. It was a simple divide for the big mech. Do unto others before the fraggers shiv you in the chassis. That was all he had experienced in his life and he didn't expect to live to see it change any time soon.
"I don't know. Could be that they want to cut him down before he gets too powerful. Megatron is being hunted too. I don't like the way this feels. We could have outright civil war," Jazz said.
Sunstreaker nodded as Sideswipe limped out to sit. "Hey," he said.
"Hey," Jazz said with a grin. "Did you go to that doctor in the Jumble that I told you about?"
"I did," Sideswipe said. "What a nut case. He did fix me though. Mostly."
"Ratchet is a good doctor. He steals from the army and brings it to the Jumble to help the locals," Jazz replied. "Takes ball bearings to do that. You know what the army would do if they found out."
"Frag the army," Sunstreaker said bitterly. "Frag Sentinel. I hope he's dead. I'm sick of him coming around."
"I don't think you have to worry, Sunny," Jazz said with a chuckle. "You ready?"
Sunstreaker nodded, then stood up draining his glass as he did. He looked at Sideswipe who sat watching. "See you at the usual place at the usual time."
"Be sure you get there. Don't get caught," Sideswipe said with a grin.
"I won't," Sunstreaker said grimly. Then he turned with Jazz to go to the city and fight the government soldiers with the others who hated them. They would fight hit and run operations on the garrison who were mostly afraid to leave their HQ. It would go on until dawn when they would melt into the city once more.
In a mere three decaorns, Jazz, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe and Smokescreen would be Autobots and they would follow a low caste longshoreman made Prime who was as unlike Sentinel as it was possible to get.
At the prison …
"No one knew what happened. No one got a chance to look. They just closed the sarcophagus without letting anyone peek. Then the Matrix chose Optimus. It surprised them and it thrilled us. He was one of us and we followed him. Sentinel and those senators destroyed Cybertron. They deserve to be in a cage forever," Jazz said.
Leonora nodded. :I'm sorry, Jazz, for you, your people and your home world. I'm glad you all are here:
Jazz looked at her, then nodded. "So are we. Come on. Let's go see some 'Cons: With that, he turned and led the group forward.
-0-At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, N.Y., USA, Earth
The doors were closed as crowds began to settle in on the sidewalk for the wait to see the exhibit on the first day of the Cybertronian art exhibition. A tour at the moment of art critics and official types was currently underway. Some couldn't understand some of it, the abstractions of Sadee for instance. But the overall impression was one of awe over the precision and intricacy of the weavings, the paintings of the artists and the metalwork of Ravel and Tie Down.
They had paused before the knives and sword marveling on their elegant beauty, the carvings on their flat surfaces as well as the mirror finish of their long deadly blades.
"Look at the size of that thing," an art critic said as they leaned forward to read the note describing it. "This knife is four feet long and belongs to Optimus Prime. It says that it is big enough that no one but him can use it with any dexterity."
They stared at it silently, then nodded. "Whoa," was the consensus opinion among the group.
-0-In a parking garage
"They opened the exhibit to critics. Lu is monitoring their comments. Tune in on his frequency," Sunstreaker said as he and Sideswipe sat waiting for Morshower. He paused a moment to listen. "They love it. They like the metal work of course. Who wouldn't? No one makes it better than Ama and Appa."
"I hear that Optimus donated his knife for the show, the one he got for Christmas Surprise," Sideswipe said as he turned in too.
"He did," Sunstreaker said as he listened to the critics discuss the works.
At the museum …
"This is impressive," a critic for the Times said as he stood before the eerie painting of the view off Sunstreaker's apartment balcony at night in Kaon. The oddly three dimensional effect was quite unknown on Earth. They discussed how he might have achieved it. "He had to have layered paint in some manner to create that effect."
"You don't think its too gimmicky do you?" the critic for New York Magazine asked.
"No. Not for me. I've never seen that before. Its fascinating," the Times critic said. "That is a really good use of color. Its really all the same but it isn't. The tones do the work of telling the story."
"Do you suppose that was intended?" -New York Magazine Critic (NYMC)
"What do you mean?" -Times Critic (TC)
"Consider that we're talking about mechanized art … art created by machines. Of course they would be able to achieve novel effects in their works. What I'm interested in is seeing if there is emotional content in the work … if its not a matter of just precision and skill delivered by someone with the ability to synthesize and craft something with machine-like precision, yet somehow miss the emotional content that an organic being can impart. Do you know what I mean?" -NYMC
-Cut to parking lot in Manhattan
"WHAT THE FRAG IS HE TALKING ABOUT?!" -Sunstreaker winding up for a gasket blow out
"Sunstreaker-" -Sideswipe placating
"FRAG HIS AFT! I'M NOT A FRAGGING MACHINE! WHAT THE FRAG DOES HE MEAN IT LACKS EMOTIONS AND SLAG?!" -Sunstreaker feeling the emotions
-At the museum
"What do you think, Daryl?" New York Magazine critic turns to New York Times critic
"What do I think, Sam?" Daryl asked. He glanced from the work of art to the young hipster art critic standing next to him. "I think that you're full of shit, Sam."
-In a parking garage uptown
Pause.
"I think I like the Times critic, Sunstreaker." -Sideswipe grinning
"I think I do too. Fragger has good taste." -Sunstreaker miles away from being mollified but on his way
-At a museum viewing art
"You do realize a couple of things, Sam. One, they aren't machines. They're mechanical. They aren't computers programmed to crank crap out. Look at this painting. What the hell are you talking about? Emotion? This is the loneliest picture I've seen in ages, lonely, dangerous and beautiful. That is an alien moon on an alien world. The painter has amazing ability in picking a limited pallet of colors and using them to evoke enormous emotions. I don't get what your point is."
-In a garage
"I don't either but I'd love to pound on his head for a while if it will help," Sunstreaker said with a trace of bitterness.
Sideswipe chuckled. "Save it for Megatron. Heads up. The wheels are coming." He started his engine, then revved it.
"I think they're happy to see us," John Fulton said with a grin. "I think we better ride with Sunstreaker and let the others go with Sideswipe. Sunny might be less patient than usual."
"I agree," Morshower said nodding the others to the beautiful red Lamborghini.
They entered, settling on the seats. "Hey, Sideswipe. We're sorry about Sunny."
"Don't worry about it, Terry. Sunny can't be placated. Some hipster dip shit is critiquing his art right now and he's furious."
"What did they say?" Colonel Terry Backus, adjutant and chief of staff to Glenn Morshower asked, his stern army visage forming once again on his handsome middle aged face.
"The idiot said something about machine-made art," Sideswipe said as he pulled out to follow Sunstreaker.
"Oh great. What a stupid thing to say. You aren't machines," Terry said with disgust as the others nodded.
"From your lips to Primus's audials," Sideswipe said with a chuckle. "This is going to be a long two orns."
They pulled out and merged with traffic heading toward a safe house across the state lines into New Jersey.
-0-TBC April 28, 2014 edited 7-13-14
Katea-Nui: BLESS YOU! I will fix the gestalt mess up.