The Master and His Emissary
There was an understanding between the two of them, a connexion that blurred the lines, a thread that tied them together. When the ground shuddered beneath his wheels, he sensed the danger—and then came the flood of panic, the shock, the surprise, and the pain, sudden, momentarily paralysing pain. He hesitated, the shape of his form in the dry, dim, dark of the tunnels, the glistening of rubies up ahead, the sound of distant voices, enemies no doubt, and he listened not for what they said, but for the whisper of that connexion, a sign from the part of him that was not him.
They had always been together, the two of them, even in the earliest days, before the war, before the turbulent journey through the empty starfields, and the long slumber deep in the depths of this strange world of rock, and mineral, and endless oceans. He was aware that they were not the same, that for all the connexion they shared, there was a difference in them, they were of divergent species; he was also aware that for all of his instincts and drives, had it not been for that connexion forged that allowed him to commune with the other in a wordless state, he would have been ignored, dismissed as a tool, just as many of his class often were. Their bond made him special, it made others treat him differently, and he was uncertain of how to entertain that big feeling or dwell on such an issue; when he felt that connexion, his thoughts became so much more complicated, feelings that he couldn't quite express, that seemed like the echo of that which resided on the other end of the connexion—that which lay inside his friend, his companion.
Again, the hard rock beneath his wheels shuddered, and he felt dread and pain, and knew that outside of the narrow opening into which he had crept on orders from his companion, there was terrible grief and anxiety; he felt this, but he also felt no anxiety in regards to it, as he could not comprehend what it might be, not given to speculating on possibilities, reacting solely to stimuli before him.
There was a further shudder, not just beneath his wheels, and he felt his companion cry out, felt the other's body tense in anticipation of pain. The ground trembled violently, searing wind billowed out across the surface of his small shape, the roar of secondary explosions, and he began to understand that the pain felt by his companion, the pain that he felt also as the force of the blast drove him back through the shaft, were both tied together as surely as were their minds.
He let out a low mournful cry, uncertain if he was reacting to his own pain or that of his companion. His sensors flickered, picking up a rogue signal, interference generated by the sudden release of such energy, such heat and light, a great time rift washing in from the future and ruining places he could hardly imagine, in a time so far from him he could hardly imagine—and then he was outside of himself, outside of his connexion with his companion, his form translated, reformatted into the shape of the primary native inhabitants of the rock and mineral world, pale flesh and blonde hair, long legs and short garments, bound animal material about human feet resting atop wheels. His sensors flickered, and there was a sense of relief that at least he still had wheels even in this small, fleshy form from a present that was not his own.
He glimpsed then his companion, likewise reformatted, smaller, compact, still recognisable, certainly not human, but different, the metal of his shape as vibrant and red as ever, but his secondary form smaller, more defined. No room for a trailer, he thought; no room for him.
The flames washed over him, searing his paint, leaving black scorch marks across him as he reversed, chirruping in pain and protest, a light at his rear flashing with panic as he tried to reconcile the immediacy of his danger, the echo of his companion's pain, and this strange vision of the future, of the not-now, of his presence incarnate in another form with other rules.
Life could be rebuilt, he understood that, any automaton with a survival protocol understand that; but this radical reformatting? This shifting into a completely non-mechanical shape?
The force of the time rift washed over him again, as searing as the flames that rose up from the shaft where the natural resources of this strange planet were being harvested.
Around him, time lurched—
—and she almost choked on her gum, coughing and spluttering, spitting out the sticky pink wad where it landed with a wet splat on the hot surface of the sidewalk. Instantly, she felt an oddly human sort of guilt, looking quickly left and right to see if anyone had seen her, and then bending down, teetering slightly on her roller-skates, coming dangerously close to losing balance, and wrestling with the congealing wad of gum on the pavement, yanking most of it between thumb and forefinger and grimacing in disgust at the act.
Now what was she going to do, she asked herself, looking around for the nearest trash bin and seeing none, only the idle fronts of shuttered shops in the early morning hours.
Again, she looked left and right, and then guiltily wiped the melting gum back on the hot pavement, trying not to let out an audible protest, incapable of doing anything with the residue that remained on her fingertips but wipe it on the black-fading-grey of her t-shirt with its dulled red, encircled star, and blue and purple letters declaring Rush 2112.
She hastily straightened up and with even more haste made her departure, leaving behind the hot pink reminder of her presence and skating away at speed.
She still felt a decided discomfort with her new status as a human being, still keenly aware of her former existence as a simple Industrial Automaton product, manufactured on the distant planet of Cybertron in the dim past before life on Earth had really developed any coherent sort of culture. To now be incarnate as one of them, to have been reformatted by the wash of transmutative Galvatron-cells that had fallen over the planet following the defeat of the Destron leader and a planet eating god in space, literally transforming life upon it anew—that was something else, she thought.
There were lots of stories where this sort of thing happened, she reflected, one foot in front of the other, skating effortlessly along the sidewalk, the wind stirring her long hair about her face, the morning sun washing over her pale legs. There were lots of stories of birds who removed their feathers at the side of the lake to reveal beautiful maidenly bodies, stories in which men unwittingly married foxes, surely that was no different from her own situation? Surely she was also an animal bride of a sort, a girl made from the imaginings of a different life, the essence of another creature perfected by the shifting balance of life?
She felt an ache in her legs, sensed a tremble beneath the wheels of her skates, and she knew she had sensed this somewhere before, she knew she had lived through this sometime before. Reaching out with a hand, she grasped a lamppost, using the momentum to pivot about a corner, to turn at an angle down a familiar street where, ahead, her old companion would be waiting, his own form now transmuted, the trailer lost, the need for her presence lost, a surfboard stacked in the open back of his vehicular form as a human woman on the sidewalk argued with him.
Marissa, she thought, not without a little jealousy.
She knew instinctively that the anti-electron field that now encircled the Earth changed the dynamic of Cybertronian life on the planet, that in order to function properly, in order to fight the Galvatron-cells that contaminated native machinery—turning them into perverse mimicries of the former Destron leader, Megatron—that her old companion needed Marissa in order to transform, but she still did not like the older woman's familiarity, nor was she especially keen on the way in which she was so dismissive of her.
She frowned. What did it matter? Her old companion was alive and well again, the future was not set in stone.
The ground beneath her trembled, and she felt a force sweep her off her feet, gathering her up even as she skated towards her friend, and, through the connexion they still shared, she felt panic, shock, surprise, and pain.
Time folded into one single instance, an eternal present, an eternal now, a rift opening up in a future, ruining places she could hardly imagine, in a time so far from her she could hardly imagine.
She felt her body tumble, fall, caught up in the storm, and she panicked, kicking out with all her might, fighting the tide, pushing against it, swimming upstream, until—
—with great effort, he reversed out of the shaft, burnt and covered in dust, beeping and bleating as he turned in alarm, as he saw his companion surrounded now by anxious friends. He felt he should be worried, felt he should be concerned, after all he was aware of his companion's pain, yet such seemed a very human concern, and Roller, constructed as a simple Industrial Automaton product, manufactured on the distant planet of Cybertron, knew nothing of being human.
He bleeped in announcement of his arrival, waiting for his companion to open up the door of the trailer, silently communicating his findings without words through their connexion.
"Down but not out," remarked one of his companion's colleagues as the ramp extended and he slipped inside. "Roller's one tough little Autobot."
He ignored them, bleeping only for his companion, indifferent to others, functioning solely within his parameters and oblivious to all else. Yet despite this, despite his pragmatism, there was something else, the echo of something, a hint of something, and whilst he found the future a difficult concept to consider beyond it being not-now, it felt to him, that all of this was just the first step on a greater journey, that sooner or later, he would become something so much more than just a simple tool.
The ramp lifted behind him, the door swung shut. Inside the silence of the trailer, he thought, it was somewhat like the dark of an animal womb.