The Diego Diaries: At the Point of No Return (dd6 192)
-0-Metroplex Femme
They ran down the hallway, Prime followed by Ratchet and the others. There was a crowd in the hallway of the high security wing who stepped back to let them through. Inside, a number of big mechs were holding the sliding tray that was Black Shadow's resting place back. It was trying to force its way out and there was a racket inside. Ratchet pushed forward. "When I say go, let him out," Ratchet said as he got out a meter and scanned the scene. "Do the same with the others." Ratchet input a number of commands into the meter, then nodded. "Go."
The mechs stood back and the tray slid out with a slightly ozone smell from gears grinding. Flailing on the tray, Black Shadow tried to rise. It didn't seem like he was very self aware and almost instantly, he wasn't. He fell back, dropped back into stasis as Ratchet turned to the others. "Push him back. I'll reset in a moment." He went from vault to vault, sending everyone back into the deepest part of stasis. Then they were rolled back inside. Walking to a wall monitor, Ratchet reprogrammed the inmates, then turned to the others who looked wrung out from the moment. "They're in stasis but what happened is simple. They had to be fully wakened by me. However, the system here stimulates inmates enough to make them easier to move if something happens. None of them would be able to do anything more than walk where they were led. Their cognitive features … their processors are still under water. I disabled them to be a threat but they could get out and zombie around if it came to that. They aren't a problem unless I do a main reboot among other things and let it run its course."
It was almost sick in the room for a second, then Prime nodded. "What about the others in the big vault?"
Ratchet walked to the monitor, checked, then turned to Prime. "That section was built with a back up fail safe against failure, that's how much a threat they are. If they were ever down, it would only be for a nanosecond. Right now, they're in dream land just like these. It will be more nuisance than danger if this happens again."
"Frag," Ironhide said with a roughly vented sigh. "NOW you tell us."
"Why, Ironhide," Ratchet said with a dazzling smile. "Frag you, too."
Laughter was great and welcome as they walked out. Prime set the orders, then the group hurried back to the Ops Center to figure out what to do.
-0-Lucien
He found Laslo in the lounge of the University staff having a cup as he went through writing assignments from students. He looked up with surprise. "Lucien. What brings you here?"
"There's something wrong on the grid." He glanced around. The lights were still on and everything appeared to be functioning. "Did the lights and power go off here?"
"It flickered but we have an independent power source for the University and the other educational sites. What's happening?" Laslo asked as Lucien turned on a monitor nearby.
"I don't know. It feels like an attack," Lucien said as he sat down next to Laslo. They would watch the news together as others gathered to hear it as well.
-0-Ops Center
"We have a back up solution, Prime, for the colony and for Teletraan. We can power Teletraan through the main power plants. That way, when we turn it off it won't shut down the colony. It will energetically be independent. The colony will be fed through the Plasma Energy Chamber. We can install generators there, then hook them separately into the grid to come on the nanosecond that the power plants and Teletraan falter. We can even run them for an indefinite period of time in place of the power plants, hooking them into Teletraan alone. That way, Teletraan is powered fully and its termination online won't take down the colony. Given that the Triggers, both of them, and the little bridge are fueled up, it should be okay until we come to some understanding of this. If you have the colony on the alternate source until we figure this out, then there will be no disruptions for them if Teletraan is shut down."
Prime glanced at Perceptor who nodded. "How long will it be until you have this modification online?"
"A full orn. We're making huge generators at Park City all the time. They're heading for Cybertron right now but we can spec out a bunch, work out the linkages and get them going. If we link about five of them together to draw energy from the Plasma Chamber, we'll be up and running. If you shut down Teletraan again, the other system because its autonomous and stand alone won't be affected," Wheeljack said.
Prime glanced at a pensive Jetta. "You can do this? What are the affects to the colony thus far of this?"
"We can do it," Jetta said as Mack nodded. "The affects are surprisingly minimal. There were a few fires from surging, some damaged projects from the fluctuation of power on their operation, some inconvenience, and a lot of surprise and fear among the population … given that the essential areas had back up generation, it's minimal, I'm pleased to say."
"I'm pleased to hear it," Prime said with relief.
"We run practice drills, Optimus," Jetta said. "We do it periodically just for this thing. The system has been debugged but still, it would appear that Teletraan has a flaw."
"I want it hammered out. I do not want it so easily accessed. I was under the impression that because Teletraan is sentient that it could self defend," Prime said.
"It is and it can," Perceptor said. "This, however, is obviously new and very powerful. We can redesign the defense measures and get them implemented but it will take a few orns. Right now, we don't know what it is, Optimus, that we're looking at. Phase shifting is a possibility. We have to study this more."
"Then do, Perceptor. The sooner, the better. I also want Teletraan 1 on Cybertron and the others to be protected. Make sure that everyone is covered. We do not know what we are fighting, friend or foe. This has to be highest priority. They already have too much information about us as it is, whoever or whatever they are."
Nearby, on a monitor, the news was broadcast.
"... and that is the latest word on the power outages around the colony. Let's recap," Lim-Lee said as everyone in Ops Center paused to listen. "At 1340 on the TMC, there was a power outage that involved nearly the entire colony. Apparently, preliminary indications suggest that a power surge happened that took out a router in the main power plant at Site 41 on the Industrial Park Highway. Teams are working to make repairs and things are expected to be spotty with scattered outages for the next two orns until repairs are complete. If you have questions or concerns, if you need support for special reasons, contact the Office of the City Manager and ask to speak to Public Utilities.
"There were fires at the Science Center in the Science District out Fortress Road. They were minor and impacted only a few projects. Back up generation was supplied to schools, the hospitals and medical centers. Those who require medical home treatments of a critical nature are also on automatic back up generation. The prison had disruptions as well. Jacx is there getting the latest information."
(Cut to Autobot City Military and Civilian Prison, Prison Road, at the Control Center)
"Tell us, Warden, what happened here when the power went down?" Jacx asked Gee-Gee who stood in front of the main doors of the big command building.
"We had a power outage through secondary lines supplied by the colony that lasted about a nanosecond before the big generators we carry here for such purposes rerouted those functions to our own system. We have a huge power grid underground that is autonomous and runs off its own generation capacity to supply all the energy needs we have here. We had that installed when the prison was built just for things like this, to ensure that nothing would cause a prison break during a catastrophe or incident. We cannot afford to lose structural integrity and have the prisoners get out.
"When the signal failed, there was a nanosecond before the secondary systems kicked in. We run on our own power but there are new additions being built here and some at Sciences down the road so we were partly on the colonial grid and partly on our own. There was a split second when if anyone had understood what was going on, they might have been able to free themselves. But it was so short and so fleeting, it passed." She grinned. "I don't expect anyone here to be happy about it but we have every possible contingency covered. We've been doing this a very long time."
"That's very relieving. I understand that the emergency intervention teams arrived along with the standby troops at the flight line at the Military Airfield," Jacx said.
She nodded. "We have crack teams who are prepared to protect and defend any situation here. They're trained to highly specialized standards and run simulations regularly. The standby military teams at the airport flight line are go to come here when something happens. We cover it all six ways to Sunday as the humans say. I would suggest that our people can be very confident about the construction and maintenance of this place given the kind of individuals we have working here."
"Thank you, Warden Gee-Gee of Autobot City Military and Civilian Prison. Back to you, Lim-Lee," he said.
(Cut to Lim-Lee in the studio)
"Thank you, Jacx. That is very relieving. Right now, we will be taking a report from Gen-O who is at the Main Power Station on Industrial Park Road with Sam-2 of Helex, the main power engineer of the plant and the colony itself for an update on the situation there. Gen-O?"
The scene changed to a big mech standing with Gen-O outside the Main Power Station that was built back from the highway that led from Terra in a straight line to the Industrial Park Cities. It was big, all of its lines were underground and there were a lot of individuals working both inside and out to check out things and make repairs. "Tell us, Sam-2, if you can … what's the latest word here?"
"The word is good, Gen-O. We've replaced a lot of burnt out equipment thanks to the warehouse in Pax that holds emergency backups of everything that we use here to generate and transmit power throughout the colony. We had it trucked in so we could install it. We have a way to go but its getting there. We have back up generation that maintains most of the colony. We're also going to be modifying the power plants to ensure that there's immediate generation in another power failure to keep things running. I just was buzzed that a generation node will be set up at the Plasma Generator to ensure that there's always power. Right now, we have about two orns of work ahead of us, then a shakedown to find bugs before a full restoration happens."
"What will that mean for our people in the various cities?" Gen-O asked.
"It will mean that there'll be some who'll not have power for a bit. Essential services and businesses, government buildings, social and protective services have backups and they have priority including medical and schools. The others will find their power coming on and going off for a while. As we work this out, it will require booting, rebooting, adjustments, and the like. We're sorry for the inconvenience but there's no shortcuts here. This is majorly complex. Some places will be dark for a while and some traffic lights will be off or showing only cautions. It would do everyone well to be careful and patient. Some businesses will be off and on with their power supply but all of us are working on this hard. Linemen have to go through the system both at the sources and in the field to bring this back up. It's going to be strange to see darkness in some places and not others. The power grids are laid out that way for maximum benefit and to make repairs more feasible."
"What about the human habitations? The Hu-An?" Gen-O asked.
"Both of those groups have extensive back up generation sources independently designed and on site. Because the food supply of the Hu-An requires special conditions and is a critical need, it was given priority. The humans lives depend on their power supplies, though as long as their suits and helmets are on, they're safe. We have super fail safes on all these places. There will be no ugly surprises there," Sam-2 said.
"That's a good thing to know, Sam-2. Good luck," Gen-O said as the big mech nodded. "Back to the studio, Lim-Lee."
The scene changed to Lim-Lee. "We will be talking to Chief of Emergency Services, Inferno next and when he's available, Chief of Security Springer. Right now, let's go to the Autobot City Unified School District Headquarters in Metrotitan and speak to Director for Education Herling of Capital City."
Prime turned to the others. "We have to move on this. Priority is given to the power grid and to protecting Teletraan. I want to know if there is anyway to detect who this is. I want to know if any detection devices exist that can give us a bead on who and where they are."
"We can work on it, Prime, but the scan led back to nothingness," Wheeljack said. "Give us a bit of time." With that, Wheeljack and Perceptor walked out to go back to Sciences.
"Keep us at a level 2 alert, Prowl. I want everyone to figure out the current condition of your particular department, then meet back here in a joor to discuss what the situation is," Prime said.
Everyone nodded, then almost as one left to comply. Partition, Lancer, Inweld, and Morius followed Ratchet, hoofing it onward to the Medical Center once again. Upward they rode, then exited at the 49th floor. Entering Ratchet's office, the youngsters sat down on the couches as Ratchet ran through data on a bank of computers that covered one wall of the giant office. "What do you want us to do, Ratchet?" Partition asked.
"Right now, there isn't much to do until we figure out what's going on," Ratchet said. He glanced at the three mechs and his smirking daughter. He smirked back. "By the way, your atar had a job change."
The three mechs glanced at each other, then Morius leaned slightly forward. "What did he do?"
"He's taken an opening as political liaison for the Ambassador of State. He has an office on the 33rd floor and a mountain of work sitting on it. He went to the University to find your ada. It was tense for a bit there when the lights went out." Ratchet grinned. "He really is an interesting guy, your atar."
"He got another job then," Morius said.
Ratchet nodded. "You can do that, infant, if you find what you do less than what you want. This isn't a functionalist society anymore."
Morius nodded, then glanced at Inweld. They both looked hopeful a moment, then Morius stood up. "Uh, Ratchet ..."
Ratchet glanced at him, then paused shuffling data. "What, infant?"
"If its possible for us … Inweld and me … to change jobs … and you being our … uh, mentor … Inweld and I were thinking about doing that. Working in the firm is fine and all but it isn't very exciting. We were thinking of something else." Morius glanced at his brother, then nodded to him with a slightly frowning expression. "Inweld can say more. Right?"
Inweld nodded. "We know that you have discretion over our family, Ratchet. We would have to run it past you. I know you would have to agree. The court gave you mentorship over all of us."
Ratchet grinned at both of them. "What do you kids want to do, then?"
Inweld glanced at Morius who turned to Ratchet. "We want to join the Watch." It was silent a moment, then Morius glanced at Inweld. "I know this is a change of plans for us being lawyers and all but we like the freedom. We like going on patrols with Lon and Bezel. We're learning a lot in the Home Guard and we're going to graduate basic training in a few orns. We would hope that you agree."
Ratchet grinned. "Why would you think I wouldn't? You're both adults and you've been exceeding expectations for some time now. Your atar will be the stumbling block. I think Laslo is good with you being happy and fulfilled. He's a good sort, your ada."
"He's the best," Partition said as his brothers nodded. "Our ada is just the best. Atar, however, is a hard helm but he's just going to have to get over it," he said with a familiar set to his jaw. "My brothers are going to be great Watchmen. We have the skills and we're getting more."
"I know," Ratchet said. "All three of you have been projects among the generals and my old mech for some time now."
They stared at Ratchet, then Morius smiled. "We are?"
"Oh frag, yes. We take in strays all the time. It's the Cybertronian way. So … you want to be cops," Ratchet said with a smile. "I think this calls for candy." He reached into his desk and pulled out several cans. Tossing them to the kids, they sat together to await the data to print out a situation report for Prime. Ratchet grinned. "This is good," he said as the kids agreed. "So … tell me … what's the deal with you and my daughter?"
Partition actually told him.
-0-TBC 11-16-17 edited 1-7-18