The Diego Diaries: Clan 2 (dd6 455)
-0-Morning in the jail
They stood at the bars waiting for the jailers to take them upstairs to the holding cells where all the defendants would wait to walk into the courtroom for magistrate's court. They weren't going there themselves. They would have a closed hearing at The Fortress in the big conference room but they were going with the others anyway. They stepped out and fell into line, two big sullen kids waiting for the order to move. When it was given, they went.
Upward to the secure floor they traveled, waiting as everyone else was dropped into their holding cells. As they waited, Springer walked in with a grin trailed by Drift. "Well, are you ladies ready to go?"
Both of them glared silently at Springer and Drift who was grinning at both. Springer glanced at the bailiff. "I have these two, M2."
"Good," M2 said. "Sullen infants," he said, this grandfather of three. "Go and sin no more."
They walked to the door and out with Springer and Drift. Waiting outside was most of their group, Lon and Bezel, Hercy and Kup, the twins, and half a dozen others. They turned to the pair, then gave them a standing ovation. None of them were Praxian but all of them were smart asses. Giving intense glares of suppressed rage, they walked onward followed by the others.
"What kind of penalty do you have to get for breaking an invocation?" Splice asked as he walked with the twins who were having a field day over this.
"I think your amma punts you," Sunstreaker said as everyone laughed.
Smokey bit back his anger even as his wings drooped low. Hot Rod who was that much older and a bit more burnt around the edges didn't say anything. He stoically walked onward trying to keep ahead of Smokey. Sideswipe noticed.
"Rod, you trying to win the foot race, too?" he asked. "How about I time you both. I never saw anyone in such a hurry for their own execution."
Hilarious laughter greeted that as the two marched onward, shrinking a bit before everyone's optics. Smokey's wings were nearly flat on his back by the time they reached the junction, crossed, then entered the courtyard. Hoots from the elders who apparently knew as well followed them inside to a mercifully relatively empty rec room. Entering the Ops Center, they both slowed to a walk. Smokescreen and Devcon were standing together outside the door with Moda and Tress. They were talking together, his genitors looking livid even still. Smokey felt his peds curdle.
Moda gestured for Smokey to come to him and he did, moping to his family like a whipped dog. Hot Rod watched him, then noticed that Raptor gestured him to come forward. He did. Springer grinned. "I guess no one wants us."
"Ah," Hercy said. "I'll see how much seating is available." He walked into the room and chatted with Prowl. Walking back out, he grinned. "I'm invited. So is Kup. The rest of you slaggers have to wait out here. I'll send you smoke signals."
"We have to be there. We're security," Springer said. Drift nodded.
"What about us? We're family," Sideswipe said.
"Of who?" Drift asked. He smirked at Springer, too, who frowned slightly.
"You're supposed to support me. Back me up," Springer said to Drift.
"Oh," he said, then glanced at Hercy. "We have to guard stuff."
"Okay."
The others stared at Hercy, then Springer and Drift. "What about us? We can guard slag, too."
Hercy looked at them, then nodded. "Okay."
Sideswipe laughed. "They can always throw us out," he said as he walked into the room and took a seat against the wall.
Prowl who was lounging in his chair as he waited for the show to begin glanced at him. "Why are you here?" he asked.
"I'm security," Sideswipe said as the others began to file in.
Prowl looked at them as they looked back. "What are you slaggers doing in here?"
"Security." -all the slaggers
Prowl stared at them, then Sideswipe, then them again. "Okay."
Everyone stared at Prowl, then each other, then dived for a chair against the wall. By then, Moda and Tress came in followed by Smokey, Smokescreen and Devcon. Dev smirked at the punters, then took a chair at the table. Sitting between them, a chastened Smokey the Younger wished he was dead or stationed on Io. Either would be preferable to this.
Prime who was watching from the front of the table with Baron and Prowl was fascinated with the foibles and oddities of different cultural groups of his own people. Iacon was more straight forward. A punch in the face was about as formal as it got during his growing up. No one asked for two of them from him, such was the force he and Deion applied to their fists when pressed to the wall at last. He remembered seeing Ratchet down the district from his block, a big tough slagger with a reputation for making brilliant tools and weapons as well as kicking the slag out of anyone who needed it.
He didn't mind growing up rough. It was preferable to him to a death of a thousand cuts that Prowl had lived his whole life. That kind of cage wasn't for him. He may have been poor and hard scrabble, but he wasn't imprisoned as tightly as Prowl. That mech had broken free all by himself. It was one of thousands of things that made Prime proud of him, the hard headed, tough minded, hard core Machiavellian that he was.
Raptor walked in with Hot Rod and Turbine. They sat on the other side of the table from Smokey and his family. It was tense and uncomfortable.
For both sides.
The punters, however, were having a blast.
It was then that Delphi and Hard Drive walked in and closed the door behind them. He looked around, then grinned. "I think everyone is here," he said as the two sat down at the end of the table. It was quiet a moment, then Hardie began. "I'm Hard Drive, the elder of my caste as far as can be determined and the Master of The Code with my bond, Delphi. We're here to discuss and rectify a very bad decision on the part of the accused, Smokescreen of Praxus and Hot Rod of Nyon. The charge is very serious, both for the Praxian Code and for the laws of our people. Our code in some areas is part of the legal settled law of Cybertron. Its considered that important and because it is, it carries the full force of law.
"We've been given a charge by Smokescreen the Elder that Hot Rod and Smokescreen the Younger allegedly violated an invocation. Because it was lodged by you, Smokescreen the Elder, you will speak first. Everyone will listen silently to all that he has to say."
Smokescreen bowed his helm to Hardie, then stood. "First of all, I have no anger toward anyone. What I would like to make crystal clear here is that this isn't about my grandson's free will to choose or Hot Rod's right to congregate with anyone. This is about my duty and responsibility as head of our family to seek out the best for all of us. I don't believe that the relationship my grandson has here is good for him. That being said, we didn't interfere with it for a very long time. It was when they broke up, when it was clear that Smokey had no idea what he clearly wanted and that this could become a boomerang situation that I invoked. The point was to have a cooling off period for both to decide what they wanted and felt.
"It would be easy especially for outsiders to assume that we're meddling in our grandson's life. He's a grown mech, mostly, and he gets to make his own decisions. That he chose to be a soldier isn't a popular thing among us but we honored it. We haven't and are not now meddling. We have familial expectations that we're not going to bend that have to do with what we as a family and as Praxians believe and put value upon. Our own genitors did the best they could within these policies and gave us the gumption to be as free and independent as we always were, Dev and Me. We honored them until the end, both of us, though neither son and grandson ever knew them. We did it because that was who they were and who we were raised to become.
"We want him to have a great education and a college degree. We went through a living hell for Moda to have such things and for Smokey as well. Dev and I could have ended up in prison over that but we didn't. I won't give the details but suffice it to say that it could have turned out that way. That gives us some latitude to insist that Smokey build on it to its natural conclusion just like his atar did. Our grandson was going to have a skill to take care of himself beyond his ability to fight if I had to sit on him in class. A soldier can get hurt and then what? What could he do to support himself and a family if he had one? That's not negotiable. It was never allowed for our genitors and it wasn't allowed for us but we damned sure made it possible for our son and now, our grandson.
"We as a people have lost nearly everything. I loved Dev's genitors and I know he loved mine," Smokescreen said as Dev nodded. "They never had a pot or a window but they had their honor and their values. They taught them to us and even though I was a gambler and still am and Dev is a bounty hunter, we never forgot or left behind what and who we are. We're here to impress upon these two that when a family takes a position and acts on it, they do not have the right to be disrespectful of us nor to disregard whatever they want because they don't like it. I invoked to assist them to figure this out. Moda and Tress invoked on you, Smokescreen, because you weren't honorable with your obligation to get the education that no one else in the family could get until Dev and I decided you and your atar would have one. That will not be allowed to stand. You, Hot Rod, disrespected my family and me personally. That won't be allowed to pass by unaddressed. You have a debt to us that you have to pay. Both of you. I have spoken."
He sat down next to his miserable grandson and across from a kid he had known since he was a big mouthed hot head youngling looking to kick aft against those who had caused everyone so much misery. Hot Rod looked pensive as he stared at the table top.
Hard Drive glanced at everyone, then turned to his son. "Raptor, you and Turbine are advocates for Hot Rod. Speak now for him." Delphi nodded.
Raptor stood. "Hot Rod isn't from Praxus and doesn't know the lay of the land. However, that's no excuse," he said as Hot Rod glanced up with surprised alarm. "Given that he's from Nyon and not our town, he has different ways. Not everyone understands the nuances of everyone elses way of doing things. That being said, he should have known better when it was explained to him that Smokescreen had invoked on his grandson. I would suggest that youth and emotions are a dangerous combination. They make you do stupid things. These two are in a relationship that needed this interlude. That they didn't hold to it shows how tenuous it probably is in the long run.
"I would ask for mercy. Jail will serve no one here. We have to make it right between them and get their oaths. If that happens, then this will either fizzle out or become clear. I would suggest that everyone here remember what it was like as a youth to be in love or whatever it is you two have going on. I can't really argue more than this for them since they both knew and did it anyway. I argue that their youth and relative selfishness because of said youth be considered in your decision, Atar. They're both good kids and have a lot of individuals who love them." He sat.
Hot Rod stared at him with complete amazement, an expression that sent a chuckle around the room. Hard Drive schooled his expression. No one was going to hear him snicker. At least, not aloud. He glanced at Turbine. "Turbine?"
Turbine stood. "I'm here to lend my impressions that these two kids are young and need to learn. But making it punitive won't help much beyond embarrassing them and causing hard feelings, perhaps even in Dev and Smokey's family. I don't believe they meant harm. I think they're just young and clueless."
Hot Rod stared up at Turbine with astonishment. "And you two are supposed to advocate for me?"
"What would you suggest? You did the thing you're accused of. I think mitigation with the threat of a hammer on your helm if there's a next time is reasonable. Of course, if you can persuade the Masters of a different outline of what happened, hop to it, infant."
Hot Rod stared at Turbine, then Hardie, then Smokey and his family. He glanced at Prime, Prowl and Ratchet, then Baron. "Uh, frag it all."
Prime snickered, then quashed the rest of it as everyone in the room grinned at Hot Rod. For once, he was cornered and it amused them, all of whom knew what a player he was. Unfortunately for him, he had set his sights on the grandson of a gambler and a bounty hunter. Poor form, Hot Rod, most of them thought as they watched with fascination.
"Turbine?" Delphi asked with amusement.
"I just believe that this is a warning and not jail, Delphi. These two are good kids and they need to be apart." Turbine leaned down into Hot Rod's space. "Apart," he said pointedly as Roddy leaned away in surprise. Turbine then leaned across the table at Smokey. "As in not together." He then sat. "I have spoken."
Hardie considered that, then looked at Dev. "Are you going to speak, Dev?"
"No. This is Smokey's play. I support him for all the reasons spoken. We've been lost so long, you forget who you are. Now we remember and I don't want it to die out with me and Smoke. So, no. I'm good," Dev said.
"Moda? Tress?" Hardie said.
Moda and Tress glanced at each other, then Tress nodded. Moda stood up, uncomfortable but determined. "I'm Moda and Smokescreen is my son. When I was a kid, I got to go to school and university. No one ever bothered me. I was 'Smokey and Dev's kid' and that was my pass into a world I should never have been allowed to go because of The System. I never asked you, either of you how you did it. When Smokey was born and we wanted the world for him, you stepped up again. You did it for him and I can't thank you enough, ever. Tress and me … we had a good life with our boy because you and Ada were brave. I remember you, Ada, standing in the shadows of the school watching Smokey when he was playing on the playground with the other kids, high caste all of them, looking to see that he was being treated right when they didn't think you or Atar were around. You did it all for us.
"We're Praxian. We have a code. We're a family. We were apart so long, I never thought we would see each other again. My son was apart from me. It broke my spark, me and Tress, wondering where you were. When Ada found us and told us, I cried for what seemed like forever from the relief. Your ada did as well. We didn't have all this come to pass to have you make a rash decision. Appa invoked to give both of you time to think and figure this out. You didn't follow the rules. Now here we are. Both of you are good. I do believe that. But I'm disappointed in both of you. If you want to have a relationship with my son that is more than just simple and fun, you have to respect us and who we are. We do that for you. I don't want to make this a federal case but I want this ironed out." He looked at Hardie and Delphi, then bowed slightly. "We will abide by your ruling. For me and my House, I thank you for helping us sort this out to a good conclusion. I have spoken."
Hardie nodded. "Smokey? Do you have anything to say?"
Smokey glanced at him, then his family. "I'm sorry, Atar and Ada. I'm sorry Appa and Amma. You know how much I love you, right?" he asked fretfully.
They nodded to him. "And that's how much we love you back," Tress said as he rung his hands in anxiety.
"Then I promise to remember better and do better. I'm sorry," he said.
It was silent a moment, then Hardie looked at Hot Rod. "Roddy?"
Hot Rod looked at him, then the others. "I don't like to hang my business out in the world but I … I really like Smokey and I would never maliciously get him in trouble. My family is somewhere … I'm not different from half the mechs in this room, but we never had this many rules. I remember how amazed I was when I had friends from Stanix, Vos, Ketamine, and the Villages. Rules, family stuff … it isn't part of what I am or how I was raised. I'm sorry if I offended you, Dev and Smokescreen. You, too, Moda and Tress. You were good to me and I know you worried that I'd be wrong for Smokey. Maybe I am. I don't know. A cooling off period was smart. But I do know that I like Smokey, maybe better than anyone I ever met. I'll take my punishment but don't be mad at him. I'm older and should have known better."
Smokey stared at him. "I'm not a kid. I knew better, too, but I did it anyway. If there's punishment, I will take mine, too."
Hardie waited but neither spoke up again. He glanced at Delphi, then went off line to discuss the situation. It was tense in the room as both young mechs stared at the tabletop. Everyone else chatted off line and waited. Few of them knew how this went because none of them were from Praxus. Baron looked like he was taking notes. Finally, they came back to the group and and turned to give the findings to everyone waiting.
"Hardie and I have discussed this carefully. We went over the rules. Smokescreen, you were the reporting individual. Will you stand by our decision?"
"I will," Smokescreen said.
"Very well," Delphi said as he glanced at Hardie.
Hardie sat forward. "Both of you knew what you were doing and did it anyway. That is disrespect. An invocation is law and its so seldom imposed that its hard to find other cases to balance this one. Given that we're returning to ourselves, that means things that mattered in your family should matter to you. How much of who we are do we really want to lose? Smokescreen the Younger, you will apologize to your family and you will attend to your classes without fail. Their expectations for you to have a university degree are reasonable. Given that it was a forbidden pathway for most of your family but for the ingenuity and courage of your appa and amma, your father and you as well would have been deprived of learning and opportunity. That cannot be transgressed. You are confined to your apartment for a period of a decaorn. You cannot leave but to go to school or work, then you will return and stay there.
"Hot Rod, you are confined in the same manner with the same conditions. If there is any transgression against this decision, you will go, the two of you, to jail for four decaorns. You have broken the law at the least and sorrowed your family and yourself at the best. We could have done much more. We could have made you a project of my family or others chosen by us to get you on the right path again. We didn't because we both consider you two kids good mechs. If you break this ruling, I will not only be disappointed in you, I will take you to jail myself. I am also forbidding you to speak to each other or to be with each other for six decaorns. If you break that ruling, it will be jail for the same period of time. You were invoked so that you could think this through. I strongly suggest you do. If you still both have feelings at the end of that period of time, then sit down and figure it out. This is the ruling of this hearing. I, Hard Drive of Praxus have spoken."
Delphi nodded. "I, Delphi of Praxus have spoken. Go and sin no more, infants."
The spell was broken.
-0-TBC 8-28-18