The Diego Diaries: "Here's what we're going to do." (dd6 130)
-0-The Prison conference room
"Here's what we're going to do," Ratchet said as he leaned in closer to the four mechs sitting across from him. "I'm going to have you work here for an indefinite time. How long that is, is up to you. You'll come here at 0600 like the Warden said, you'll don a coverlet, a sort of two-sided sleeveless jacket which you'll wear the entire shift, then work at whatever you're assigned." The door opened and a mech walked in with a box. He set it on the table, grinned at Ratchet, then walked out again. Ratchet stood, then reached into the box. He pulled out a yellow sleeveless shift that would pass over the head, had room for arms to move but would cover the chassis to the waistline. On both sides, there was writing.
Ratchet held it up for the others to read. In bright white glyphs, the following statement was written. "I am a high caste who had a lot to do with making The System of Exception happen. I made your misery possible and benefited from it. I was not sorry." Ratchet watched their faces as they read it, then their shocked expressions as they looked up at him. "You'll wear this shift the entire time you work and it'll be collected for the next orn by your supervisors when you leave. Any questions."
It was silent a moment, then Burris sat back to stare at Ratchet with rising fury. "You want us dead."
"No," Ratchet said. "I want you to understand what you did, why it was wrong and your debt to the entire population of our planet. You got rich and stayed rich. You never shared no matter what happened around you and you didn't care. Show and tell me how I'm wrong."
"So you want us to walk around with these on and bear the abuse without a word," Lucien said with an expression of tight faced anger.
"That's right. Given that my caste had to do that since the Age of the Quintessans, the least you can do is bear the burden we carried for eons for a few orns," Ratchet said. "I'm surprised you feel so threatened. I thought you were the masters. Are you telling me that the masters are a bunch of fake toughs?"
"You're enjoying this," Burris said with rage. "You find this funny."
"I find this ironic and karmic," Ratchet said. "That those who stood on the necks of others for eons should be so scared of having to face the same music themselves for considerably less time. Actually, you don't have to face the violence that sometimes came with the scorn. You missed that part. I learned to fight from the time I separated. You won't have to face gangs or the rest, just scorn, and you're whining about it? Where's the masterly superiority? Where's the tough guy machismo?"
They stared darkly at Ratchet as two mechs walked into the room. They pulled chairs, then sat. Ratchet grinned at them and they, him. "Here we are, Ratchet. What's up? Gee-Gee made us your bat men. At first, I thought that it would mean a cool costume but apparently, we just have to hold someone's servos."
Ratchet grinned at the kids, one a tough prison guard with a great sense of humor and the other, the crisis intervention therapist for the prison, someone schooled in watching for and intervening with those who might come unglued with the life inside. He was called Loo and the guard was a big mech called Cinder. "Well, these four, Lucien, Burris, Traachon, and Hobbes are your new best friends. I'm having them do details here until they either grow up and face reality or they snap in two. You need to take them on and show them the ropes. They're going to be working everywhere but the specialist lock ups. General population and the political prisoners facilities but not anywhere else. The top clearance lock up and the nut box are off limits."
They both nodded.
"We moved the first slate of prisoners as per your orders, Ratchet. Paradis is in stasis now. He's in a bad way. We had to feed him with sedatives in his food before it was safe enough to go inside his cell. We had to do all of the moves spaced out over a decaorn. Each time we moved someone, the others were upset for a few orns. When we get the order to move the others you saw today, we think that'll be the protocol as well. Its the most humane way to intervene if it isn't a crisis point. Luminous made it to the Hospital and he's out. We're going to go over him file by file until we find his glitch. If we can," Loo said.
Ratchet nodded. "I'm glad. That's the worst place ever. Mar-C needs either a remake or a shot to the helm. Either way, I'd rather be dead than them."
The two mechs nodded, then looked at the four who were looking very low. Loo grinned at them. "I'm going to be your supervisor and Cinder will be the guard on site. That is, he'll be the last line of defense if someone goes off the rails and will accompany you and me the entire time you work. You won't be in the lock ups themselves. You'll be doing details for the prison that take us all over the place. The population will see the jersey things and you may not try to block the inscriptions. What they might say to you is from the spark and their lives. There's a lot of pent up emotion here and you'll be like a match to fuel. It could set off some pretty awful commentary. Just suck it up."
Ratchet listened as the two explained the next several orns where they would be doing heavy lifting, delivering food, taking garbage out, and running this and that thing everywhere in the prison. Ratchet knew that Loo was expert at gauging the emotions of those under duress and that if anything too untoward happened with the four, he would take them out. He was one of two who were intervention and crisis doctors at present who made the rounds to ensure that everyone was okay everyday. In a decaorn there would be four more on the staff and they would have more down time themselves to have time off. Doing this work, you had to have another life. Loo was there every shift in the morning when they inspected some lock ups to make sure no one was being hurt by anyone else. He was the one along with another who monitored not just the prisoners but the families who visited, the staff and the guards. He was smart, astute and totally stoked to try out this form of 'treatment' with those who wouldn't budge. There was a paper in this process, Ratchet mused as he watched the two lay out the law.
"So that's that," Ratchet said. "You three have passes to be out and you, Lucien, already are. I'm going home now if there's no questions and you had better be here on time tomorrow and the rest of the period I think you need to serve. The Warden will make you do punitive details if you don't. Gentlemen?" Ratchet said nodding to Loo and Cinder as he rose. "Tomorrow?"
They nodded and rose too. "Tomorrow, Ratchet." Loo looked at the four who stood up stiffly, their aggravation too large to contain. "We'll be here. Hopefully, you'll be too. On time."
The four walked out stiffly, then headed back to town by walking down the road to the Metro Station that now reached the turnoff at Fortress and Prison Roads. They were followed by Ratchet who walked down the steps to the platform. It was late and no one was around but the automated trains ran anyway. They stood together, four mechs with a cold anger and one who was tired and wanted to go home. Lucien turned to him. "You happy?"
"No," Ratchet said. "I wish you'd grow up but if you had to have someone to mother you to manhood, better me than anyone else. I have a lot of experience. I have 27 children."
"Funny," Burris said bitterly. "If this were Cybertron in the orn, I'd ask for you to undergo empurata."
"You would. You like hurting others. You have no spark, Burris. I think you're the most likely not to change in this sorry bunch," Ratchet said glancing at the big mech with the impeccable paint scheme. "How many mechs' lives did you ruin doing that by the way? I'll make sure to tell Barron."
It was silent as a cool rush of breeze signaled the approach of a train coming toward them on its roundabout journey from the Industrial Park Cities, through the other urban metropolises, past the still unopened stations at the Consulate and Earth habitats, through the Sciences station beyond the prison before sliding to a halt here at the prison stop. They entered empty cars, then sat wearily as the train doors slid shut. The brightly lighted immaculate car swept forward taking them to the next stop, Metroplex Station #1 before heading onward to make the circuit again.
They sat watching the lights go by before the train slid into the station. Ratchet would get off but the others would go onward heading toward their home cities and families. Ratchet stepped off, then walked onward through the sparse evening crowd. He didn't look back as the doors slid shut and the train moved silently onward.
The night was dark and deep with stars as well as the moving lights of ships and satellites overhead. He walked along the sidewalk heading for 'the barn' as his old appa used to say. He still did. Appa Ratchet had a lot of sayings and Ratchet never tired of hearing him use them. Reaching his tower, he walked inside, took the elevator up, then walked to his door(s). Entering the dark and silent apartment, it was clear that everyone was recharging. Peering into the rooms of the three dread kids, he grinned, then walked out to the middle section of the big apartment to inspect Sunspot.
Spot glanced up, wagged his tail, then lay back down. A gentle pat greeted him as Ratchet tucked Sunspot in. Checking out Partition, he pulled his blankets up too. Turning to go, Ratchet paused to note that on a desk by the window, Partition had put a few things from home. One was a picture cube of his family, the other a stack of books about being a field medic and the other was a notebook datapad that was his 'soldiering bible' as it translated from Cybertronian. He kept his notes, wrote his thoughts and made sure that the knowledge he was getting was not forgotten. Ratchet grinned, then walked out.
It was dark as he checked each infant at their end of the apartment. All of them required a tuck in again, then he walked into his own room. Walking to the berth, he lay down gently, relaxing his body with great pleasure.
"How'd it go?" Ironhide asked.
Ratchet rolled over and snuggled. "They're on the hook to work there. They know they have to wear the jacket-thing that tells everyone that they were part of the problem and that they benefited but didn't care."
"Good. That part was a nice club to spur them on," Ironhide said with a grin. "Maybe it might budge something. You didn't put their name on it so it isn't as bad as it could be. I almost feel sorry for them, dumb slaggers." (Pause. Grin) "I don't, really."
Ratchet chuckled. "That's part of my problem. I remember that everyone was once a child, a perfect child. Look at them now."
"Well, if they have a chance to make it, they have it now." Ironhide patted Ratchet. "You're a good old mech but I have one request."
Ratchet grinned. "What?"
"Don't adopt these fraggers," Ironhide said.
"Done deal. Good night, Ironhide," Ratchet said.
"Good night, Ratchet," Ironhide said.
-0-Later that night
"Ada is a hoot. I'd hate to have him on my case," Springer said as they rode along the main street of Gambian. It was dark beyond the cityscape and cold, traffic sparse and the lights of the evening making everything beautiful.
"We're adopted, after all," Drift offered.
"There's that," Springer said with a smirk. "What do you think of Partition?"
"I like him. He wants it all. He wants to belong so much its painful. He wants to be real," Drift said.
Springer nodded. "He does. This kid I can handle. The other? Not so much."
Drift nodded. "He handled himself really well. He's living at the house. I wonder how long that's going to last."
"As long as he needs it, I'm sure," Springer said as they halted in an intersection to watch a loud argument in front of a bar down the side street. "What do you think?"
Drift watched the mechs yell, then one walked away heading out. The others watched him, then walked back in. "I think we missed an arrest."
"Let's make sure that one gets home," Springer said kneeing his horse toward the brightly lit side street. They would follow the mech, watch as he got home, then ride onward heading for Tetriades. There, they would actually make an arrest. Drunk and disorderly would be a busy complaint in magistrate's court in the morning. When the first drunks would go on trial, four forlorn and tense mechs would be walking into the Prison Control Center for the first and worst orn of the rest of their lives.
Ratchet, on the other hand, would be showing a number of medical kits to a young mech who would watch and listen, take notes and learn what it took to be a good field medic.
He would.
-0-TBC 9-17-17 edited 9-18-17