The Diego Diaries: Forward (dd6 62) not edited yet
-0-At the Sparkling School 'Cribbery'
He stood at the end of his crib staring out into the darkness. The nap room supervisor, an amma named Dido was chatting in a very soft tone with another amma, a little tiny femme named Ko-Ko-2, or Kiki for short. They were unaware that most of the row with the 'high octane sparklings' were watching them. Olo, Mimi, Orion, Bleu, Lu-2, Sparkle, a new infant from the last migration who literally did from the shine her genitors ensured she had at this, her first school, Han, El, Siri, another new infant mech who LOVED to smile all the time, and a little bruiser with a Bulkhead-like format, Lugnut. He also liked to smile.
The entire row stared at the two femmes, then each other. They smiled, then walked to the edges of their cribs to 'chat'. That would be their downfall. Two ammas with their own gigantic smiles and an assortment of soft dollies that played softly tiny tunes to lure infants to sleep descended upon them.
"AMMA! YOU COMED TO THE SHES!?"
"AMMA! AMMA!AMMA!AMMA!" *SMILE!*
"Babies! Let me help you. Here you go. Look at the nice baby? I brought you a baby to help you recharge. Lie down. There's a nice baby. Aren't they nice babies, Dee?" -Kiki
"They're the best little babies, Kiki. I love them all," Dido said as she helped nestle them again with a dollie and a soft little quilt with their name on it newly presented by the Home School Guild of Autobot City. (Some of them had children in special classes and others had older children in the system. It would appear that home schools tended to end with sparklinghood in the colony, such was the quality and public satisfaction with the public system.)
Orion lay back down with a softly tinkling panda bear and a quilt with his image and name stitched onto it by someone else's amma and appa. He smiled. "YOU COMED TO SLEEPIN' HERE!?"
Dido chuckled. "No, infant. Just you. Sleep fast, then we can play again."
"I, ORION, DOING THE THING! I, ORION, *LOVE* YOU!" he said with a giant smile. Huge laughter greeted that as they walked to other cribs. Orion continued his soliloquy. "I, ORION, LOVE EEMEE! (Mimi) I, ORION, LOVE OO-OO! (Lu-Lu-2) I, ORION, LOVE EL! (El) I, ORION, LOVE BOO-BOO! (Bleu) I, ORION, LOVE TINKLE! (Sparkle) I, ORION, LOVE OLO! (Olo) I, ORION, LOVE NUT-NUT! (Lugnut) I, ORION, LOVE SLURPY! (Siri) I, Orion, not love Han. (You know who) Han bad."
He, Orion, got a free lift to Roto for that little bit of news.
-0-In a snit at Medical
They stood nose assemblies nearly touching as the heavy duty rides from N.E.S.T. filled with humans drove into the room. They had looked for Ratchet in his gigantic spectacular office and hearing a commotion drove to a room nearby to see an altercation happening. Pulling up, the humans stood on their vehicles watching as Ratchet and a mech most of them didn't know have it out toe-to-toe.
:YOU WILL!: -Ratchet in NeoCybex which sounded like someone playing a hand saw with a violin bow to the humans until their channels switched to translation mode.
:THE FRAG I WILL! I HAVE SKILLS! I HAVE NO TIME FOR THIS!: -Partition sounding like a louder version of Ratchet.
:You have skills, huh?: Ratchet asked with a slow forming grin. :I do too. Wanna see?: he asked with an amused voice. Before Partition could speak Ratchet hit him with a left undercut to the jaw, then a right hand that would have made Ironhide smile. Partition was lifted off his big old peds and slammed into a wall nearby. Everything jostled, then settled including him into a sagging groggy heap on the floor.
Ratchet stared at him a moment, then turned to the humans with a gigantic smile and an air about him that nothing they just saw was abnormal. "WELL, LITTLE PEOPLE! IMAGINE SEEING YOU HERE!? AT THIS VERY MOMENT! WATCHING THIS VERY THING!"
Huge laughter among the soldiers and a goggled sense of 'this ain't Kansas anymore' permeated among the others as they follow the big hulk back to his office. Ratchet sat down, put his peds up, then pulled a can of something out of his desk. Opening it, tossing back a few things that looked like chocolate covered caramel 'turtle' candies, he grinned. "What's up?" he asked.
:I was about to ask you: Lennox said with a grin.
:Yeah: Epps said glancing toward the door. :What's up, Doc?:
Ratchet snickered. "A difference of opinion about what constitutes honorable work. You?"
:We have to ferry these guys around: Lennox said nodding to ten goggle-eyed humans standing in four different trucks. Lennox rolled his eyes.
Ratchet grinned at him, then considered the humans. "I suppose you want to know about that," he said as everyone nodded silently. "Well … I was given a court order to get him into shape."
:That's a standard practice of your courts here?: someone in the back asked with surprise.
"No," Ratchet replied as he tossed back more candy. "That's what happens when the normal courts are circumvented. We had a caste court where a bunch of high tones wanted special treatment. Since they were judged by their peers, they were given something a lot less. I had to vouch for him and take him on or he would have been shunned forever. I also was told by the court that if I had to punch him around that it was legal." Ratchet grinned. "If I had known that high castes actually had a sense of humor, I might not have hated them all my life."
:I don't understand a word you said: one of them said.
"Ask Lennox." Ratchet grinned. "What's the agenda?"
:We thought if you weren't busy you might show us around: Niall Graham said. :You know … the ten dollar tour:
"Ah … Autobot City Unplugged," he said with a grin. He tipped the can, got a mouthful, then slammed it down on the desktop. "Let's go."
With that, he stood, then walked to the door and down the hall to pause by the room where Partition sat on the floor. That mech glowered at him, then stood tipsily. "You should get the list done before I get back or I'm going to have to show you a few more of my sleight-of-hand moves that I've learned over the vorns of fragging Ironhide."
Partition looked aghast, but he picked up the datapad, limping to the counter once more. He was grumpy and furious but he began to do the work. Ratchet turned to the humans, then smiled. "SEE! Rehabilitation at its finest." With that, he strode down the hallway to the elevators with four little vehicles filled with humans following at top speed.
-0-Outside
Ratchet had transformed into his rescue mode and drove ahead with the humans in their trucks behind them. He was heading for the airfield, then the Hangar District. Burning up the ground, he drove into the hangar of the biggest frames of all, then transformed. Turning toward the giant open doors, he watched as the little trucks drove in, then stopped. "Slow pokes. Get the lead out, Lennox."
The humans climbed out and walked toward Ratchet. :You're feeling your oats: Lennox said with a grin.
"Tomorrow, we have school conferences. If it isn't one thing, its another. In the meantime, how about having a look around at the greatness that is us," Ratchet said as he swept his hand around the room. "Here, there be dragons." It was then that Slag stepped out of his apartment nearby which he shared with the others. Ratchet grinned. "I didn't plan that."
Lennox snickered as the group watched Slag walk past them in root mode. :Hey, Slag!:
Even Ratchet glanced down at Lennox as everyone turned toward him in surprise. Lennox shrugged. :They wanted to meet a Dinobot:
Slag stared at them with his ferocious face, then walked toward them. He stopped before the group glaring at everyone. "What?"
:I was wondering where Grimlock was?: Lennox asked. Though it didn't show on his face or manner, he was sort of regretting getting Slag's attention too.
"He's on Cybertron. They need him to help with some heavy lifting," Slag said. "They found another shrine tomb. He's helping."
Lennox nodded. :Thanks. I was hoping he could meet some of these new humans. They wanted to meet a dinobot and I didn't know if any of you were around:
Slag looked at the humans. "Why you want to meet us?"
One of the humans, a famous journalist who went into danger every assignment felt himself pale. :We admire you as a unit and wanted to meet you. I understand that your unit is one of the fiercest and closest ones in the army:
Slag considered him. "You got that right, Squishy. No one is as bad aft as the Dinobots. We are the greatest unit in the universe and Grimlock deserves to be Prime." He looked at Ratchet as if challenging him, then the humans. "Remember that." Then he continued on his way, a massive, enormously malevolent cloud of barely contained mayhem.
When he was gone, the humans turned to Ratchet. Ratchet who was watching him walk away glanced at the humans. Flashing a giant smile, he shrugged. "They have an excess of personal charisma."
The soldiers would laugh a long time. The other humans were too scared at the moment to join them. They would later.
-0-School at Youngling Day, Centurion
They stood at the door, two of the three new students for Terradive's classroom. The other one was being tested having arrived late. Her name was Rain Harris. The other two were the son and daughter of the dietitian and chef who ran the main kitchen of Earth2. Around the school, other kids were being brought to their rooms. In all, nearly 4 dozen would be placed into the bot schools for their education. It would have been filmed but for the rule that the first three orns were a news blackout for any human kid entering to allow them to adjust without that stress.
For the first time, Sunspot stayed in his seat as the two kids were brought in. They were placed at the human table with the other kids who were glad to see them. The bot school tech who brought them would stay for three orns to watch and do more visual screening about the kids and how they were doing.
"Welcome to the class," Terradive said as the kids sat down. "We have two new students. They are brother and sister, Lyndsey and Elliott May. They come from San Francisco, California and when they have time to settle in, we will ask them to tell us more. We have one more student coming shortly and when she comes, that will be the limit for us. I would like you to help them make the transition, infants, because not only is this class new for them, this planet is too."
The kids murmured and nodded. Turbo and Comet were delegated to get the kids their texts and materials which they showed them, then helped them with Annie Lennox to put their extras into their lockers in the back of the room. It would take a moment or two before everyone was settled, then the routine would begin.
"Who isn't here?" Terradive asked.
"NO ONE! WE'RE ALL HERE!" -everyone
"Who needs to turn in their homework and make up assignments?"
Two infants jumped up, slotted their datapads into Terradive's computer desk slot, then ran back to sit. The new kids watched with wonder, their brand new datapads in front of them. A geography book in English, fat, heavy with images and oddly light though it was a flexible metal in design lay on the desk beside their datapads, left there by their helpers. Now they would find out why.
Terradive who sent his data WiFi to the Central Office grinned. "Get out your geography books, infants, and turn to chapter two, page 62. If you could help our new classmates, human infants," he said using the punchline of a joke that Bobby Epps tried to tell in class once. He turned to the massive screen behind him and lit it up. The image was the colony over which the Emblem of the Primes and the flags of Mars and Cybertron appeared. Under it in both English and NeoCybex, the words, "Autobot City Unified School District, Autobot City, Primal Colony of Mars, Cybertron and the Empire' appeared.
Lyndsey and Elliot May glanced at each other, then pulled their books forward finding the spot they were to study today. They were shown how to turn the text and audio to English. It would take a technical wunderkind to change it back. The books the new kids would use were made tamper proof.
The make up of Io with all its blistering volcanic chaos would be the topic for a while with the promise of a visit there at the end of the school week the bonus. A ship would take them directly, they would step down in a safe place and get a picture alone and one with the group, then after samples were gathered, they would go to Trypticon to examine them with the microscopes there including several seriously powerful new electron models from Fabrication-Sciences.
No one would know that yet but they would all go on 'Martian Friday'. The two new kids would go too after their mom and dad signed a permission slip with the unlikely heading, "Field Trip to Io, a moon of Jupiter' that they brought home to them in two days. It would be photographed, posted on the website for the solar system to see and excite every other kid in Earth2 habitat. They would apply, thirty more of them but would have to wait until the intake period came around again to be tested.
Just another orn in the life.
-0-TBC 7-11-17 Edited 7-19-17
SNICKER! When I spellchecked this during editing, Trypticon was matched up with contraption. :D
ELS: circumvent(ed) sir-come-vent to go around something to prevent something from being done normally. Caste court is a way to get around high castes going to jail for their slag.