The Diego Diaries: Roamin in the Gloamin (dd6 338)
-0-About
The Diner On the Corner was filling up with the lunch crowd as Ironhide, Halo and Ratchet sat in their booth waiting for their food. The baby was a solid sitter now, her optimal frame holding her where another type might not. She smiled at everyone around her, many of which stopped to compliment her and her very rare embellishment type. She smiled at them, then looked at her dollie. It was then that she held it up for them to see. Blinking with surprise, Ratchet explained the Tao of the Dollie where upon everyone stopping by leaned in to kiss it.
Ratchet grinned at Ironhide. "Are you as afraid as me?"
"Totally," Ironhide said as he stared at his daughter with glowing pride. "She's a bit like him. Loud. Does the dollie thing. She's growing faster than she should. All of it scares me just a little."
Ratchet chuckled. Glancing up, he noted that a bus went by outside filled with tourists. "Looks like things are back to normal around here. I almost forgot what that was."
"You and me both," Ironhide said. "How's the refugees?"
"Pretty good. Really good, in fact. Having expanded medical out in Dai's camps is the best thing we ever did. We get about 10,000 every eight or nine joors so we'd be swamped if it were the old system of 'come and we'll fix here'. Now they come and its groups we can handle rather than sending in the hurt and injured in a rush mode. As it is, the worst cases are sent to Gliese as they come to Atlas, then we fix them there, mostly. The strain on the system is relieved and everyone can hit the ground running."
"Good," Ironhide said. "Haven't heard a word from Razorclaw and Ominous. I'm not sure that's a good thing or not."
Ratchet nodded as he handed half an onion ring to Halo. She took it, gummed it a minute, then frowned. Looking at Ratchet with a disgusted expression, she held it back to her ada. Ratchet grinned, then leaned forward to eat it.
Ironhide watched him, then Halo, then Ratchet again. "You're a twisted mech to eat anything gummed by a baby."
"Big wimp," Ratchet said with a smile. "You don't know what's good for you does he, baby?" Ratchet asked Halo who smiled as her ada handed her a fry from Ironhide's plate. She chewed on it, then smiled. "Since he doesn't know what's good for you, you come with me this afternoon."
"Don't be too hasty," Ironhide said with a frown. "How will I learn if we don't stick together? Right, Halo?"
She smiled at him and he grinned back. "See?"
"Wimp," Ratchet replied as Prowl and Prime entered the restaurant, walked to the back and pushed a table over to their booth.
They sat as Prowl glommed Halo with a smirk directed toward Ironhide. "I see you have my loaner."
"I see you're still insane," Ironhide said with a frown.
They gave their orders, then sat back to relax as Prowl helped Halo eat her fry. He held it, she gnawed on it and smiled at him. Prowl was a goner.
"What's the word on the refugees?" Prime asked.
"Its all in hand," Ratchet said. "We have the system debugged and unless something else falls out of the sky, we're in good shape for the influx. We take in 10,000 every eight joors. If all things are equal, we can jump it up to 24,000 an orn."
Prime nodded. "We're going to be at it a while. We have to transport about 900,000 individuals to make room for more that are incoming. Can we increase the numbers any?"
"I can get with Jetta and Magnus. We have the secondary port of entry fifty miles from here. I'll see if we can use that or if there's a reason we're going at this pace," Prowl said as he internally proposed the memo to both and sent it. Before he could take his plate from the servo who materialized out of thin air beside him, the answer was back. He settled his food, then glanced at Prime. "Jetta and Magnus just sent me a message that they'll open that up and move more individuals. There's no real reason considering the number of refugees with each group and all being fit to go forward for us not to do that and expand the process."
"Good," Optimus said. "I received a message that the four humans are going to be here tomorrow. So are two of the partners of the Richardsons who will be moving permanent offices here. They want to be here and experience life at Earth2, apparently. I will need a number of you to address them when they arrive. I want to speak to them before they pass customs and immigration. The airport receiving area should be empty but for the customs officials who will see to their status to come forward. You and Ironhide, Blackjack, Raptor, Hard Drive, Hercy, Kup, Springer because he gets to speak to them as chief of security, Prowl, and Magnus will be their welcoming committee."
"You're going for straight up intimidation then?" Ratchet asked with a grin.
Prime nodded grimly. "I am. If they want to continue to play spy versus spy, then I want them to see the brick wall in front of them before they hit it."
"This could be fun," Ratchet said. "You know the slagger is among them who ordered the kid to shoot me. And run over Ironhide."
Prime nodded. "I know. He is on our turf now. He rolls by our rules or he goes to our prison. I talked with Paribolus this morning and he is aware of his responsibility to protect the other human residents against all their machinations. I do not want them to have any trouble because of these individuals. They are doing a good job assimilating as I've been told."
"They have," Ratchet said. "I visit their hospital once every four or five orns when I can for collegial affect and what not. They're always happy to see one of us and very polite and decent. I like most of them. So … have you made a decision on starting your own human colony?"
Prime smirked slightly. "I have, actually."
-0-Sparkling Day
He sat on the hand of Mr. Abel-1. He was the specialist who was monitoring studies on the human children and the affect of living on Mars within the limitations that they had via environmental suits and lighter, negligible gravity. Though the gravity in the human habitats was set to Earth normal, the gravity everywhere else wasn't. The schools and all other areas of life in the colony that were mostly or completely non-human oriented were maintained to Martian standards which was one third or less than Earth's gravity. The human kids were not only light of body but they could out jump and out perform most infants their age because of it.
Niall Junior smiled, then splashed the water with his hands. His little suit was covered in sunflowers head to toe, a feature available to the oldsters through the Requisitions team that specialized in their gear. Almost all of the Family humans had taken to embellishments as well as different designs and colors to spice up their off duty apparel while wearing on duty suits outside in the big world around them. The children were no different.
That is, the Family children weren't. Every other habitat but for the Family Tower group, the scientists of Science Habitat and colonists from Earth 1 had to maintain the color and design of their particular habitation. Everyone else had to keep to the color code to make it easier to know them as they jaunted around and to help interact for the locals.
The baby along with everyone else wore his environmental gear all the time, a concession to the environment in which they lived. But they added their individuality when they could. Mr. Abel-1 grinned back, then lowered the baby into the warm water up to his neck. He laughed loudly, then down he went again. He was underwater looking upward. Standing with a wobbly lean, he straightened, then looked around. No one was there but them in the water. He looked up at Abel, then smiled. :I like this:
"I do, too, baby," Abel said with a chuckle as he moved his hand around under the water to the delight of his charge.
-0-Virginia
He put his luggage by the door to his house as he waited for his grandson and son to return. They would arrive tonight and join him until the next morning when they would fly on the Richardson company jet to New York and be whisked through the Autobot terminal there to go to Mars. The jet would have already fetched Bill Nast and his two children from Texas. It would be a tense ride from Virginia to New York for all of them.
They had received the news with mixed blessings. It would be good to be away from the paparazzi and the hecklers, those who gathered outside his house to protest his freedom. He would be glad to be somewhere else, though stepping into the heart of darkness among the worst enemies of his life was a gamble. Disregarding a lot, William Daniels and his son, James were gamblers. They made their fortune together by ruthlessly buying, stripping and selling off businesses in the predatory venture capital manner, hang the workers and their woes. They were efficient, ruthless and breathtakingly rich.
None of that mattered now. The country wanted them hanged. It would be a long tense wait for William Daniels until his son, daughter-in-law and grandson arrived at last.
-0-Driving together
They drove together from their houses to the 'home ranch' as it was facetiously called by the family. In an hour, they would pull into the long winding drive that led to the home of William Daniels. They would leave their luggage in the car, a rental, then load his. When the dawn of light came, William, James, Cassie, and Jason Daniels would then drive to the airport where a private plane would carry them to New York City and destiny with the biggest enemy they ever faced.
Literally.
-0-Here
Elita and Arcee walked in and slouched onto the couch nearby. Grinning at Jazz who grinned at them, Elita asked the question. "Where are they now?"
"They're flyin' to New York on Richardson's plane. Too bad I couldn't convince Springer to take one for the team," Jazz said with a chuckle.
"Try Tracks. I heard he's done this before," Arcee said with a big smile.
They all laughed together at the memories of that hapless bot. Elita picked up a datapad and perused their case and project open files. "Looks like things are up and going well."
"They are. We're just going to add four more slaggers, that's all." Jazz glanced up. "Let me correct myself. Several more. Some of Richardson's partners are coming along with their kids. Some of the kids have accounts on Instagram." Jazz grinned as he watched them open and locate the accounts.
"Oh, frag," Elita said with a smile. "This is going to be fun."
"I thought you'd think so," Jazz said with a chuckle.
-0-Prowl and Ratchet
Ratchet walked in buoyed by the conversation he had earlier with Arcee. Apparently, some of the kids coming were major primadonnas on Instagram. He walked to the table and sat. "Hello, slagger."
"Hello back," Prowl said as he sat back to ponder the imponderable … how two such different personality types should be like brothers. "What brings you here this time of orn in the middle of a migration besides the ineffable call of donuts and gossip?"
"My, Prowler … you read me like a book," Ratchet said with a dazzling smile.
"A small book, a Golden book … one showcasing three words," Prowl said with a grin as Ratchet picked up a datapad and sought something.
"Fragger," Ratchet said with a grin. "I thought you might like to see what kind of kids are coming with their parents to live at Earth2." He handed the device to Prowl who perused it, then frowned deeply.
"Frag," Prowl said. "What the frag is 'Rich Kids of Instagram'?"
"Puh-lease … do open the earmarked accounts," Ratchet said.
"Tinsley Walters … Tinsley?" Prowl asked with a grin. "Sounds like my kind of name … Tin–sley."
"It only gets better," Ratchet said with an encouraging nod.
"Very well. Pray for me," Prowl said as he tapped the screen and a video began.
A girl of indiscriminate age … perhaps 14 or 15 tops was standing in a palatial sun-soaked bedroom wearing a tube top and expensive bedazzled jeans. Her hair was blonde and her make up was rather professional in its look.
"Note the Instagram eyebrows," Ratchet said as Prowl looked up with a blank expression. "I hear that there's such a thing."
"Indeed," Prowl said dryly. He tapped it again. The girl was holding a phone as she sang to herself.
"Money, money, money-money-money," she sang as behind her on the bed, the spread was covered in cash, lots and lots of bills of large denominations. She grinned. "This is my week's allowance, bitches. This is just my fun money," she said. Then she leaped backward and fell on it. It flew up like confetti, then landed like snowflakes. "I'd love to stay here and show you more. My closet, my cars. But I'm due for a manicure. For those of you who are poor people, that's fingers, not toes." She sat up and collected some of the money. Fanning it to the camera, she smirked. "See ya. Wouldn't want to be ya." Then the film ended.
"There's others if you want to see more of that star power," Ratchet said.
"No thanks. I grew up with this kind of thinking and I hated it then," Prowl said with disgust. "How many of them in this group have this illness?"
"Four of them have accounts, they hang together and according to them, they have their parents on their knees begging them to give them what they want every time they want it," Ratchet said. "I hope they don't hang out with my kids. Orion's bad enough as it is."
"Nor mine," Prowl said. "Of course, you can always send Orion to me for deprogramming." He stared at the screen, then Ratchet. "I can't tell you how much I had to endure this kind of thinking and behavior growing up. I felt like an outsider from orn one. This is so destructive. I can't wait for them to get here." He glanced at Ratchet with a pointed smirk.
"You and me both, sister," Ratchet said with a dazzling smile.
-0-On a jet heading for New York City from Los Angeles
Several kids, mostly girls sat in their seats chatting together. Their parents were with them and they were texting and sending images to Instagram as the night gave way outside to morning. The families on board were fixing to move to Mars. It was a HUGE thing on their accounts and they made a lot of it on social media, hoping to become on Mars a bigger version of what they were here.
It was going to be interesting.
-0-TBC 4-25-18
There is a real series of kids of Instagram both on Youtube and Instagram. It's as bad as it sounds. Also, rich kids of Beverly Hills.
PS: There's a new series of animated cartoons on go90 dot com starting May 1 called the ? of the Primes. I missed the first name. Its part of the Prime trilogy and they have the first two on the site. May 1st and Optimus Primal shows up. :D:D:D You're welcome.