Chapter Thirty Five
Like many others, this place had its own memories. Its own quite whispers that would creep into your mind when you lay down to sleep. Its own presence and in some ways, disturbance. All this, despite its current state of disrepair. It was sacrificed as a base of operations almost over two decades a go. Allowed to dissolve into the fluid motions of time. Its creator, its builder, its occupant for so long, gone himself into the treasured, but fleeting, recollections of existence.
He, the builder the was, a man of few friends, a man of little patience, a man of unsettled and unstable mind, but of great intellect, he too was dead. His desire for power being the downfall, like so many who had gone before him with the same mindset.
His life story was really quite ordinary at first. Born in the historical and somewhat small town of Petaluma, California. His mother a cook at a local hotel, his father an average wage earner of a job worth giving no mention. Both parents unassuming in their appearance, both of their own physical selves and of the possessions they kept. Their eldest, the man we speak of today, was no different to any other child of his age and gender. He enjoyed the things all boys do, trucks, mud, dogs, sport. His grades were essentially average until reaching High School when he discovered a love of science far exceeding any desire he held for the physical pursuits. If the city had not have been caught up in a rather massive fire storm, a result of the blasts, then the images of this man in his teenaged years, adorned in the outfit of the quarterback surrounding the various awards, trophies and plaque would still sit there behind the glass, gaining the attention of the current youth who walked these same halls he would run bare foot down, laughing, smiling, his hi-jinks bringing amusement to most, nuisance to few, and an absolute intolerance to one.
It would be ironic, perhaps if not so sad, that those images so many youth who came after him would admire were images of the man who would be responsible for so much death – or at least played a significant part in it all.
From High School, his foot balling skill coupled with an impressive academic mind and strong work ethic carried him to the best universities and institutes America, and even the world, could provide.
He had two siblings. A brother who achieved average grades, average sporting accolades and an average job slipped into obscurity without mention. A sister, whose grades seemed unimportant for the time and place she existed in, ended up marrying a man equal in average-ness to her older average brother. She churned out three average children, lived in an average house, and she, nor her husband or three children, did, or would have done given the chance, anything worthy of any note outside the family limits and circle of average friends.
Of course, to enter in an aside, with this average family came events that were far from average. His father, born in 1889 found himself serving in the Great War. He went. He fought. He survived. He never spoke of it again.
His eldest son, the one we speak of, born 1914, found himself serving in the next war that encompassed the globe. His intelligence and understanding caught the attention of various men wearing uniforms and this young chap found himself working on something that truly sparked his interest. A weapon. A weapon so powerful that to even stare upon the chalked equations and formulas in their two dimensional selves would send chills down the spine of any who understood such esoteric language. Such work opened doors to a world that those from seemingly unobtrusive stock would never be even allowed a momentarily glance at the future they would never hold.
On a particular day in July, 1945, he watched in awe, in marvel, in delight, as all those chalked formulas and equations and esoteric languages showed its might. And it was at that moment, he wanted more, and he saw these weapons as a way to get it, of course, such thoughts were just flights of fancy, something to smile discreetly about as one's supervisor was critiquing one's work in a negative way.
His brother, average as he was, volunteered, served, survived, continued in peacetime. An average wife of average appearance, bearing him average children who achieved average things and an average job. Nothing at all noteworthy there.
His parents died as parents do. His father left this earthly existence in 1963. His mother departed in 1972, slipping away on an average night in an average rest home. After this his average siblings and he lost contact.
Having never had a family of his own he found no joy, or use, for interrupting the lives of his siblings, especially when being one lacking immediate familial bonds, invested all his time and energy into his job.
Of course, the story changes from average to just unbelievable at this point.
Walter, to use his first name, and a rather common name at that, but not so common as to warrant confusion between Mr. John Smith and Mr. John Smith, was simply going about his business on an unassuming day in 1974. He had plans of course, he would go to work, oversee the construction of a new type of weapon that he and his team had been working on, then he would head home, work on his own projects, then head to bed. The day didn't demand anything of him at first, it showed no signs or gave no "feeling" of dread. Of course, that does not stop such things happening, and at half passed one in the afternoon, when he was in a small café ordering a slice of apple pie with yogurt and not cream a desperate man entered. At first no one gave him so much as a sideways glance as Clinton, that was his name, Clinton, marched in. He sat at a booth in the corner, away from the door way. He picked up the menu, fidgeted for a few moments. Walter gave contemplation to ordering a sandwich to take back to the base with him for an afternoon snack. The waitress, Luanne, approached, smiled, said something that Walter didn't catch, but would have been something standard such as "how are you doing, hun?, what can I get ya? Special today is the bacon and eggs with a side of sausages and fries if that be your fancy, or perhaps hash browns?"
Instead of any kind of response that was normal, that was average, for a diner of this size, there was a gun shot.
A scream, of course, it wasn't Luanne's scream, she was dead, the blood from that fatal head wound oozing over her face and onto her white collar that was slightly dirty from sweat and hard work.
Clinton stood up, wiped the grease from his forehead, his eyes wide with perhaps shock that he could actually shoot an innocent woman dead, but there was no going back now. Not in a death penalty state.
He waved the gun, and Walter heard words like "wallet", "money", "jewels" and "sack". A sack was produced and thrown at a man who Walter had only noticed now. He was just an average business man, perhaps like his brother. Average business man picked up the sack and quickly dropped in his wallet, watch and rings, passing it to Walter, who did the same.
Clinton was starting to look calmer as he realised the death of Luanne obviously woke them up to the fact he meant business.
Of course, at this point, not everyone was too happy about things. The owner of the diner, and good friend of Luanne's mother Miriam, Frank, stood up from behind the counter and fired the shotgun at Clinton. Clinton of course wasn't too happy about this, and opened fired madly at all in sundry.
Poor average businessman was the first to drop, and the look in his eyes as he faced Walter in his final moments was something that caused a flutter in Walter's chest. His heart racing, not with fear, but from excitement, to see the life flicker away from another's eyes, to disperse into the surrounds, either to an afterlife, or to no life.
Walter was shot next, and his last thought before unconsciousness was that this was his death and how sad it was that he'd never experience the power that Clinton was experiencing now. Of course, Clinton would die, but not today, not in the diner, he'd die later, in the chair. The grand total of lives he took in that diner was eight, he injured 5 others. It could be argued that Frank was to blame, but Frank was labelled a hero.
Walter woke in a hospital bed and discovered too things, it was hard to think, and his arm was missing. Over the next few weeks he was visited by friends and average family and finally, on the day of his discharge, his boss. Who told him, as tactfully as the old bastard, Thomas, "thanks but no thanks" essentially. That due to Walter's "terrible injuries" that continued employment just wouldn't be in the country's best interest, that with such a specialised field any mistaken calculations could be disastrous, and the doctors who had worked on Walter, had said given his brain injury, such mistakes would be common now.
Walter, of course, wasn't happy. He vowed revenge. He vowed to get back. He vowed he would function again! Of course, Thomas simply dismissed such comments as the ramblings of a brain damaged man.
Walter went home, and replaced his arm. He improved the function of his brain. That unsightly wound where no hair would grow, where a rather hap-hazard metal plate had been inserted where the top of his skull had been, Walter fashioned something superior.
Walter stopped calling himself Walter then. He wasn't actually sure where he got his name from, or why he thought it was suitable. It didn't' matter anyway, he thought, Walter, who's average surname he couldn't recall, was dead.
From there, Walter's life got even more exciting. He met some "people", people who had the same goal as he did. Power. Didn't matter if they weren't really "people" in how he defined the word. They were the means to his desired end.
The man with the metal improvements, offered the metal people a chance at dominating the species known as humanity. His fate was simply a series of events that were beyond his control. And his life ended on their home world, first his human life, and then later, he went into the same place as his parents, as Luanne, as average businessman, as Clinton, and so many others.
It was his legacy that sat in ruins amongst the mountains of an average part of America, where a not so average Autobot sat and appreciated what had happened here, and appreciated that he now had the answers he needed, even if he didn't know if he truly wanted them.