Ultra Rodimus' notes: The Big Guy gets his first plasmid, and Tenenbaum starts working on ways to keep him from eventually succumbing to ADAM sickness (considering that Ultimus is a 60-foot sentient robot, having him mutate out of control would count as a Very Bad Thing). The plot is advancing again!
Into Rapture
"Outside," Tenenbaum said firmly, not surrendering the cooling bottle that had the liquid fire known as the Incinerate! plasmid. She looked from Medic Alert to Ultimus, keeping her voice down as mostly all the Little Sisters were sleeping now. "First reactions are bad enough to Plasmids, but this is new."
Both Cybertronians nodded, following her out of the safe house and into the open spaces of Arcadia. Ultimus chose a place far enough away from anything overly flammable to keep from setting off a firestorm, waiting patiently.
The woman was filling a syringe full of the new plasmid, "This will be two doses, as there is EVE mixed in with it." Tenenbaum produced an alcohol pad and waited for an arm to be offered.
Without hesitation, Ultimus offered his left arm, tensing it just slightly to make the veins stand out against scarred, sun-tanned skin. Yellow eyes watched calmly. She swiped over the spot, dropped the pad and pulled over Ultimus' other hand. Tenenbaum was more teaching the human formed mech how to do this injection for himself. Ultimus allowed her to take his other hand, watching with interest. This was the first plasmid; he'd probably be splicing the others on his own.
"These are larger syringes then on the surface, since there needs to be more injected," Tenenbaum explained, piercing the skin and vein with the needle and hitting the plunger quickly as Medic Alert had said, before Ultimus' nanites could eat the metal of the needle. The woman hopped back to the other Autobot for safety reasons.
The big human mech barely twitched as the needle broke skin, watching the red fluid being pushed into his bloodstream. It felt decidedly odd, a tingling sensation racing up his arm, following the course of the plasmid. It didn't hurt at all, as he could not feel pain in either form, but it felt odd. He twitched his shoulders slightly, feeling heat spreading through his arm and chest, the feeling of something strange racing along in time to the beat of his pulse. A hiss escaped him at the feeling, then again at the burning sensation.
It was twining into his muscles, following first the paths of the veins and then latching onto bone and supports. Racing along those until finding the spine where it linked with the nervous-system, becoming a sense of heat in the back of his mind, waiting to be called on as light pulsed under the skin, much like it had done for Jack and a few splicers.
Yellow eyes watched as pulsing red veins flowed down his arms, cutting across old scars, following the paths of others. Threads of fiery red crossed the backs of his hands. White flames erupted in his palms, fingertips flaring nearly blue. Orange and yellow flames ran halfway to his elbows, dancing across his skin.
"No eruptions..." Tenenbaum was saying, watching from a safe distance and behind Medic Alert, but not touching his rotor blades. "Ultimus?"
"Interesting," Ultimus flexed his fingers, watching the flames ripple with the movement. They faded to the tiniest of glows, then swelled to a blazing intensity, though not a single tongue of flame leapt free of the Cybertronian's skin. Finally, the fires died, pulsing red veins vanishing into tanned bronze. "Getting used to this will be an interesting experience."
"It will be, and hopefully not a craving. But that we will have to see in time," Tenenbaum said before handing Ultimus the second dose, "You will do the next on your own, you have a much larger body mass than most humans."
"Even in his true form he's bigger than most, except for gestalts and city-formers," Medic Alert replied with a chuckle, running a scan over the redhead. "The first dose is fully integrated."
"Good, do you need help with this one?" The older woman placed the second dose in Ultimus' hand, fingers near the warm glass.
"I should be able to do this one myself." Ultimus took the syringe, positioning it against his arm right over where the first dose had gone in. He depressed the plunger, feeling a rush of heat under his skin as the red liquid went in. Fire burned along his veins and nerves, but it didn't hurt at all.
Tenenbaum waited a moment to be sure there weren't any stray flames before taking the human-formed Autobot's hand. Feeling from fingers to the base of the palm, wrist and following up the arm. "All veins are still in place, good! You are extremely lucky Ultimus..." She looked around and pointed to a lone stick, "Now, try setting that on fire." The woman snapped her fingers.
Long fingers twitched, blue fire bursting into life on the fingertips, near-white flames gathering in the palm. Ultimus looked at the stick, eyes narrowing. Flicking his wrist, he cast the flames at it, engulfing the stick in flames.
"Lucky?" Medic Alert echoed. "How so?"
"There are several cases of unexpected alterations and accelerated mutations." Tenenbaum admitted, "The Little Ones have an advantage, the slug keeps them from the mutations. One of the most common and first is the veins shifting."
"Ahh." The medic made note of that. "His body is amazingly resistant to change. Except for what we want it to change to or with."
Ultimus looked at his arms, at the flames burning on his hands. Tensing his arm, he could see the veins under his skin. They were in the same places they'd always been.
"You must tell us of any changes," Tenenbaum said, and then sighed, "I wish there was some way..." She muttered, looking at Medic Alert intently in that way of one working through a new idea. It was something Perceptor got a lot.
Medic Alert tilted his head, raising an optic rim. "Yes?"
"I will," Ultimus rumbled, letting the flames die out for the moment.
"Medic Alert, would there be a chance..." Tenenbaum looked back at Ultimus, "I am very concerned, ADAM does cause the cosmetic and mental damage on a normal human, but with Ultimus not being normal, we have no way really of knowing if it will affect him or not. As I said to you before."
Medic Alert hummed. "I've been around him long enough to know what's normal for him. I'll keep an optic on him."
"There is one thing that has proven to cancel out the mutations and mental degeneration." The woman continued, "Though I am not sure how it could work in this case."
The triple changer and the big redhead both looked at her. "What is it?"
"An ADAM slug," The woman said, tilting her head at the nearest Little Sister vent, "Have you seen any of the Big Sisters without their diving helmet?"
"The Big Sisters like me," Ultimus replied. "I've talked to several, without their diving helmets. And I've seen wild ADAM slugs crawling about."
"The Big Sisters have, at least, over ten years of constant ADAM ingestion, and there is no damage." Tenenbaum looked back at the vent again, "The mental conditioning is different... But there is something about the slug itself that stabilizes the effects of ADAM... I never was able given proper time to discover just what."
Ultimus made a thoughtful sound. "I'm not really sure how my body would react to one of those things in any form. I know my commander has a skrill, but that's entirely different."
"It is but a thought and concern," Tenenbaum said, she glanced around, "While we have some free space now, let us go to the Gatherer's Garden and get a few tonics to work with."
The redhead nodded, tilting his head toward the machine. "Do all of them carry different wares, or are they basically the same?"
"There are some basics," Tenenbaum said, "But there are also Plasmids that can only be found in set sections of the city. Ryan thought that would help stimulate the 'great chain.'"
Ultimus made a face. "The more I hear about this Ryan, the less I like him."
"He was a less than a good human, though now and then he had moments." Tenenbaum walked to a window, looking at what there was of the city, "Once, this place was so beautiful, a dream I did believe in... sorry, old woman's musings of memories." She looked back at the Autobots.
"Some of my comrades get like that, when remembering Cybertron before the war," Ultimus replied, waiting patiently to head to the Gatherer's Garden. "So can Roddy's aide, Sandstorm, when remembering his lost homeworld, Paradron."
"It makes you understand all the more what matters," Tenenbaum brushed her skirt before walking to where, if she remembered correctly, the Gatherer's Garden was. She placed a hand on her shoulder bag and scanned for Splicers that might scent out the raw ADAM she carried.
Ultimus let out a deep, carrying growl, reverberating through the area and warning any lurkers that getting too close would be a very bad idea. Yellow eyes flashed at the shadows.
The woman jumped at the sound, reflexively moving as if to duck out of sight. "What is it?"
"General warning," Ultimus replied. "I've already scared off most of those Saturnine splicers and the Houdini."
"Saturnine," Tenenbaum snorted despite herself as she walked again.
"I didn't even have to shoot any of them, really." Ultimus shrugged. "They took one look at me and ran."
"Such scary Big Daddy you have become then." Tenenbaum teased lightly, looking up at the human-formed mech.
Ultimus grinned, showing fangs. "I do my best."
A hiss came from the side and down, one of the ADAM infected felines was puffing up at Medic Alert, hissing as it stood in front of a low opening. There were small mews behind it that made Tenenbaum pause and step back to Medic Alert, looking around him to see the source of the sounds.
"Kittens," Medic Alert told her, bending down to have a look. He ignored the hissing feline; its claws would not be able to pierce his armor.
"Interesting diet... grab one of those." Tenenbaum ordered, pointed at one of the slimy looking lumps.
The triple changer nodded, reaching for one of the lumps. Claws swiped at his hand, but only skimmed over white armor as he retrieved the lump, holding it up for Tenenbaum to see. The ADAM infected mother cat hissed and swiped again with sparking fur before diving forward to grab two squeaking slugs in her fangs before darting back into the cubby with her kits.
Medic Alert ignored the swipe, his armor barely registering it. Sitting back on his heels, he offered a handful of slime to Tenenbaum. "What is this?"
The woman extracted a jar from her bag, one of the containers that had Ultimus' plasmids inside them, holding it out under the squeaking slug for it to be dropped into, "It's an ADAM slug, what the little ones have in their bellies."
Ultimus blinked at the slug. "They're eating ADAM slugs? That's... nasty. And that is one of the more disgusting sea creatures I've ever come across."
"Many ate the slugs before my research was complete," Tenenbaum said holding the jar up, smiling almost fondly at the creature that slid around in what was left of the plasmid fluid. She shook herself out of it, "A bite heals general physical injuries."
The redhead made a face. "I'll pass on the eating, thanks..."
"I wouldn't suggest it," The woman chuckled, "They are far from sushi grade after all."
"That much is clear just from the look of the things." Ultimus straightened, stretching and audibly popping a joint. "The Gatherer's Garden should be nearby..."
"Yes," Tenenbaum carefully slid the jarred slug into her bag and stepped closer to walk near the protection of Medic Alert.
Medic Alert fanned his rotor blades, the sharp edges glinting, before he lowered them again. Ultimus let flames dance along his forearm as he headed for where he remembered the machine being. If there were any splicers left in the vicinity, they were keeping their distance.
The woman sighed and started off, pausing as she heard a distorted chuckle from somewhere above. Tenenbaum tensed and reflexively ducked as she looked for a glow of eyes behind a porthole. Ultimus' head snapped around as he searched for the source. Reflexively he changed back to his mech form. The pulsing red lines of the Incinerate plasmid ran over his armor plating, the fire on his hands barely flickering through the change.
Medic Alert's scanners flickered over the other mech. "Looks like the plasmid transferred over quite easily..."
"So it seems, but I must admit a moment of selfishness here," The human said as she stayed even closer to the medic, "If that is what I think it is, and if she does not recognize me then Lamb may soon know I am here."
Two pairs of optics, one glowing blue, the other blazing yellow, fixed on her. "And that is bad, I am assuming," Medic Alert said after a moment.
"I created the Little Sisters and assisted in the Big Daddies when needed," Tenenbaum explained and reached down to touch her bag, "I know all my work on the slugs, and more importantly of ADAM. Lamb is planning something with the substance. Of what I do not know yet, but I would be a valuable tool would I not?"
"True," Medic Alert replied after a moment. "But then, this Lamb has never faced Cybertronians, either."
"Big Sisters do not give up easily, just as their younger selves never did," The woman looked around again, "That is how we made their minds."
"I'll keep that in mind." Medic Alert nodded.
Ultimus' optics brightened as he picked up the distinctive recorded message of the Gatherer's Garden machine. "There it is."
"And there is the Sister... one of my little ones who is not so little anymore." Tenenbaum muttered spotted the form lurking near the Gatherer's Garden. "Big enough to be one of the first batches."
Ultimus straightened, watching the Sister with unblinking yellow optics. He settled into a wary stance, keeping himself between the Sister and Tenenbaum.
She stared back, tilting her head before the orange colored porthole vanished behind the plasmid machine and popping up as she jumped up to the top. Looking down at the three from this vantage point but not making any sound but the clicking of her metal right hand claws the frame of the Gatherer's Garden. The Big Sister grumbled at least with a questing inflection.
Yellow optics narrowed. "Yes, we're going to the machine. Shoo."
A sound came from the Big Sister as she rocked back and leaning forward again, not fully believing she had just been told to 'shoo.'
Ultimus lifted a scarlet eyebrow. "Shoo." He waved a hand at her in a shooing gesture.
A razzing sound came out of the diving helmet as the elder Gather moved, balanced on top and to one side of the machine. She launched off and twisted in the air to land on a nearby pillar, hooking a foot in the cracks and tilting her head this way and that to get a different look at the group, though seeming to focus more on Medic Alert.
The red and white medic fanned out his rotor blades, rattling them against each other like a metal rattlesnake. The sharp edges gleamed. Medic Alert kept his optics on the Big Sister, understandably cautious.
Tenenbaum stayed as out of sight as possible, mostly behind one of the mechs as the Big Sister gave a short scream at the new sound and teleported away. "She may be back with an older Sister." The woman said.
"How can you tell?" Medic Alert asked, lowering his blades slowly back into their normal position.
Ultimus walked up to the Gatherer's Garden, keeping a wary optic on their surroundings in case anything else tried to creep up on them.
"I created the Little Sisters," Tenenbaum said, standing up tall and willingly shouldering the burden of her actions decades ago. "I know their minds. They are, even like that," She waved at where the Big Sister had been, "Still children in mind and heart, wanting the peace of their dream world again in some."
Medic Alert nodded slowly. "I see."
"So we should pick what Ultimus wants and return to the sanctuary quickly." Tenenbaum nodded at the Gatherer's Garden, "Or hurry to the next one if there are none here you want. Look at the tonics as well."
Ultimus nodded, looking at the selection available. "There's the Freezing Drill tonic. This machine has the basic Electrobolt but not the advanced version."
"Perhaps one of the little ones can find it," Tenenbaum offered stepping closer to look at what was there. "Or locate one in one of their 'angels.'"
"Jack might have it... She was upgrading her plasmids not that long ago, and I know she has Electrobolt. I'm just not sure which level Electrobolt she has," Ultimus noted after a moment.
"If she is willing to give a blood sample that I can see." The woman nodded, freezing at instinct as she heard and off sound, listening intently to see if she could tell what it was. But if it was a splicer it was too far away for her to be positive.
Ultimus shifted slightly, his sensors sweeping out. Yellow optics flared, flames dancing on armored fingers and forearms. "Nothing close to us."
"Good," The woman nodded, "Anything else?"
The redhead looked at the vending machine again. "This machine has one of the tonics I want. but the plasmids are all the most basic kinds."
"There should be other machines here in Arcadia and the connecting sections." The woman pointed out.
"There is one in the apiary, where the bees are," the Cybertronian agreed. "Probably another lurking somewhere in the areas I hadn't gone through yet."
Tenenbaum shifted the strap of her bag, nodding, "Perhaps you can look while Medic Alert here and I work on the tonics."
Ultimus nodded. "I still have some ADAM in my subspace in case the other machines have one of the plasmids I'm looking for."
"I'll keep an optic open for splicers," Medic Alert promised.
"Once we are in the safe house it should be safe enough." The woman pointed out.
The redhead nodded. "And you've got that sample of Gravity Well I brought back from the Den, though it is only the basic plasmid."
"It can be made stronger of that I am sure." Tenenbaum added thoughtfully.
"I can go back to the Den if I have to, walking across the seabed instead of through the city," Ultimus added. "Medic Alert has my comm frequency, so you'll be able to keep in contact with me." He looked back at the vending machine's selection, fingertip lingering over the basic Cyclone Trap for a moment.
"Go ahead," The woman said, "if you find samples of other stronger ones, send for a little one to bring it to us."
Ultimus nodded. "I will do so. MA here can reach me any time you need to talk to me; this city can't block our comm signals."
"Do not underestimate the sea floor," Tenenbaum said as she nodded to the nearest vent, hesitated and looked back at Ultimus, "It may help you, Ultimus, if you find some of the pheromones used with the Big Daddies. That is if you can stand it, but the Big Sisters and the little ones will trust you easier."
"I'll remember that, and I'll see what I can find," the redhead replied. "And then I'll see if my sense of smell can tolerate the pheromones should I find any of them."
"There were two bio-labs for making the brutes," The woman said, "Or their might be samples in the areas the Little Ones are held or altered."
The big mech paused to consult the city schematics he had in his processor, marking the areas. "I'll make sure to have a look."
"Then we shall go," Tenenbaum paused to look up at Medic Alert to be sure he was ready.
The red and white medic nodded, fanning his rotor blades briefly. "We'll work on the other plasmids and the tonic we have. And see what can be done with that slug."
"And some salt water on the way back..." The woman muttered as she started off, following her memory of where a 'tide pool' was, not made from a leak but part of the gardens.
Medic Alert trotted after her, Ultimus trailing toward where the schematics said there would be an airlock. "Jack will probably wonder where I am... Tell her I will be back."
Tbc...
Read and review, please!
As a warning, my supply of stored chapters is starting to run low, so updates will eventually become considerably slower.
