The Diego Diaries: Crader (dd6 490)
-0-In a ward
"Oh frag. Not again," Ratchet said as he got up painfully and began to hobble to the door. "The two of you … you get up and I pulverize you."
"What about you?" Jetta asked.
"I'm essential equipment," he said with a grin as he glanced back. "Stay or suffer the Wrath of Me." He left and began his slow descent to the seventh sub floor of Metro Femme.
While outside …
Any number of vehicles screamed up to the Metroplex Administrative Plaza and transformed on the fly. Fortunately, they were between swing and graveyard shifts so no one got hurt when it happened. Running inside, Prime, Ironhide with most of his family and a slower Prowl who was told to stay away made their way to the scene of the debacle. Also coming like missiles heading for an acquired target, the intervention teams from the Prison and Processor Health hustled as well.
-0-Down there
Perceptor and Wheeljack watched with horror as the carcass of Crader sat up and swung its legs over the side of the autopsy table where it had been lying during the cursory review and the minor snips of protoform taken for the microscopes nearby. It shouldn't be moving. The life of the body was in a heavy security vault down the hallway. There was nothing there that could be driving the body. It shouldn't be moving but it was.
The civilians who were with the two, that group that had ran like gazelles out the door when the first row happened turned as one and tried to climb into the space behind Wheeljack and Perceptor in their zeal to find cover. Glancing over their shoulders, the two scientists watched the lunacy, then drew their guns.
"I have to say, Wheeljack, you never know someone really until there's jeopardy, do you," Perceptor said as he set for combat.
Wheeljack laughed, then nodded as he set, too. "No, you never do, the slaggers."
They set to shoot and fight but the body walked toward and halted by the door as if listening to something only it could hear. Then it turned right and disappeared down the corridor. It was heading for the spark chamber vault. Perceptor and Wheeljack ran to the door, peered out, then followed in haste. The kids watching watched them go, then ran to the door, locked it and began to barricade it with everything they could move.
-0-Elevator
They poured out, a plethora of mechs with big big guns, slid to a stop as one to look around quickly, then ran to the lab door. It didn't open. "WHEELJACK! PERCEPTOR! OPEN UP!" Prime said.
"NO! THEY AREN'T HERE! THEY FOLLOWED THE ZOMBIE DOWN THE RIGHT CORRIDOR!" someone called out from inside.
Prime and the group glanced at each other. "Zombie?" -everyone.
Without another word, they ran down the hallway toward the spark chamber vault. As they did, the elevator opened and Ratchet limped out, his arm hanging like laundry on a still day. He hustled as fast as he could, then tried the door. "OPEN UP! IT'S RATCHET!"
"HOW DO WE KNOW!?" -everyone inside.
"What the frag?" Ratchet muttered, then he heard a commotion down the hallway. "Oh frag. The spark vault." He then hustled along, dragging half his body as he inched his way to the brouhaha.
-0-There
The figure walked calmly, as calmly as a sparkless automaton could be. It opened the door, then stepped inside, halting long enough for some unknown tech inside it to scan for his spark. Then it walked toward the vault where the spark of Crader was held, its light animating the room slightly. That was when the cavalry arrived.
-0-Ratchet
He slid along the wall halting a moment before moving forward again. He dialed everything way down, then continued. The door to the spark vault was open and he didn't know what the frag was happening, but he unsubbed his most lethal gun even as he scanned everything he could. It wasn't much. The room was designed against all manner of penetrations including sensor. He wouldn't know what he would face until he got there- …
A huge mech flew out of the door, hit the far wall, then slid to the ground. The door being flung widely when he did allowed the noise within to filter out.
It was a mad house in there. Ratchet soldiered onward anyway.
Semper fi.
-0-Inside
The figure was beating on the vault chamber trying to pry it open. He didn't seem to notice the group roaring in behind him and until Prime subbed his gun, then grabbed its shoulder, it was doubtful that he knew the big mech was there. When he was touched something inside clicked on and protection mode kicked in. He began to fight everyone in the room with great skill and power. It was only when all of them jumped on top of the slagger including the mech tossed into the corridor hall like an old shoe that they pinned him down.
Ratchet stood in the door scanning, then caught Prime's optic. "I got nothing."
Prime nodded, then began to beat on the mech's helm in his ever growing outrage. With enormous effort, they manacled the slagger, then rolled him over. The lights were off and no one was home but the protoform railed anyway.
Ratchet limped over to stare at him.
"OLD MECH!"
"In a moment, Ironhide," Ratchet said, then he looked at Prime. "We have ten of these. We can't control them." He looked at Wheeljack. "Do we have enough samples and such to study this or do we need to part out this fragger for more?"
"I have a bit but we could use more. We just don't have the stuff to make it work. We're out of ununtrium until the trade shipment from Caris V comes shortly," Wheeljack replied.
"Cart him outside and have a truck waiting to take him to the airfield," Ratchet said. "I'll meet you there." He began to limp out until Ironhide blocked his path.
"Do you have an idea, Ratchet?" Prime asked.
Ratchet nodded. "I do. We have to hurry. They adapt." He glanced at Perceptor and Wheeljack. "Bring the lab kit. Get a sample kit. Get everything. We're going to part this fragger out."
Ironhide grabbed a wheelchair in the hallway and pushed Ratchet to the elevator. Behind them, the mob carried the struggling slagger between them and after staggering all over the hallway, getting thrashed in the elevator, then staggering out and down the steps of the plaza, they slammed him on a flatbed and with some riding to sit on the protoform and the others jogging along, they headed toward the airfield as Ironhide and Prime pushed Ratchet in his wheelchair.
"I hope you know what you're doing," Prowl said as he walked with them.
Prime frowned at him, then shook his helm. "I am going to pull rank a lot more this time, Prowl."
"I know," Prowl said with a grin.
They passed Club Cybertron and other places, then headed across Cultural Center Road to cut across the airfield. In the distance, they could see Omega and Xantium Supreme walking along with Kappa and Silverbolt. When they reached the area near the hangars, Ratchet called the truck to stop. They dragged the carcass onto the ground as Wheeljack and Perceptor drove up with a Sciences van filled with a mobile lab. Halting, then jumping out, everyone turned to Ratchet. He scanned the squirming figure on the ground, then grinned at everyone. "You better stand back. This has an internal power source and it might go bang."
They stared at him, then stepped back as Zee and Omega along with Kappa and Silverbolt reached them. Xantium grinned. "What are you doing in a wheelchair, Ratchet?" he asked.
"I was gunned down by zombies," Ratchet said with a dazzling smile. "There's one there. I want you to step on it, Zee. It might blow up. I promise to fix your foot free of charge if it does."
The three giants and one Aerialbot stared at him, then each other, then Ratchet. Then Xantium grinned. "Okay," he said.
"Zee, what if it blows off your ped?" Kappa said with a worried expression.
"Then you can give me flowers and candy," Zee said as he gently pushed Omega, Silverbolt and Kappa back. "Everyone step back."
Everyone did.
Zee stared at the protoform. Then he raised his ped and brought it down hard. The mech disappeared under a couple of million tons of supreme mechanism so the explosion of his power source was muffled. Again and again, Zee stomped him, then stepped back. He grinned. "Ow."
"Zee … you never disappoint," Ratchet said with a dazzling smile.
He laughed. "I forgot to ask if that thing was alive."
"Not in the conventional sense," Ratchet said as Wheeljack and Perceptor grabbed gear and began to walk to the broken and flattened heap that was once a mech's protoform.
Prime stared at it, then Ratchet. "How did you know this would work?"
"I didn't," Ratchet said. "I have a suggestion about the other nine … what to do about this and what to do about their sparks." Then he told them.
-0-Ward
"I wonder what's going on?" Jetta asked as the two of them watched a rugby game with the sound turned down.
"I don't know. Ada will have it in servo. That mech is as deviously brilliant as anyone I ever met," Drift said.
At that moment, a number of individuals walked in with boxes in servo and began to fuss rather loudly.
-0-On the airfield
They gathered all the parts that would be useful, a lot of things they had never seen before and when the need for evidence had been exhausted, Perceptor pulled out a long hose and began to vacuum up the slag left over. It took a moment but it was accomplished, then a denaturing solution was spread over the spot. In an orn, nothing would show for what had happened. Watching were the group and a few civilians who passed by. The Supremes had gone off happily to wherever they were going and the night began to descend.
"Well, I'd suggest that you separate that stuff and lock it in the evidence vault until you need to see it. Who knows what can happen if it isn't boxed apart? It might put itself back together or grow new parts," Ratchet said. "I'm not joking."
"I know," Prime said as he nodded to Perceptor.
The two bots gave a rundown of the research plan, then walked to the van to drive away. The rest of them waited for Prime to give the word on the solution devised. He did, reluctantly, then walked to the hospital with the group to watch the process himself.
-0-Ward
They sat in their beds surrounded by elders and small children. Ravel was fussing as he handed out boxed food and drinks. "We asked and got your favorite foods. Springer and Elita are coming back shortly, though they have to go to work."
"I think they should take the shift off," Tie Down said as he sat in a chair holding Orion, Prowler and Hero. The three babies nodded in agreement.
Drift and Jetta grinned as they ate their food and ate up the attention.
-0-Vault rooms in Metro Femme
They pulled the nine remaining formats out of the shelves where they lay, trussing them tightly before putting them on gurneys. They were heading for the roof where a drone shuttle was waiting to carry the cargo into the sun of their home system, Sol. Given that their sparks were safely locked up and these bodies posed a terrible threat without a notable means of confinement, Ratchet had convinced Prime to destroy them. He had reservations as all Cybertronians did about sparks and bodily autonomy but since the part of them that counted was safe, this part which wasn't had to go.
Up the elevator they went, then out to the roof where the ship waited. They carried the carcasses off the gurneys and put them gently in the hold of the vessel which usually carried live munitions, poisonous substances or toxic waste, then sealed it shut. Prime glanced at Ratchet. "When will the other part commence?"
"Tomorrow. We can do it right away with one of Crader's crew to test my theory," Ratchet said. "By then, I think I'll be up to this."
"Go to your berth, slagger," Ironhide said as the shuttle lifted off to head for the Trigger through the efforts of the remote pilots at the drone control center at Fort Max. From there, it would be shot into the corona of the sun and vaporize immediately.
They watched it go, then walked back inside, pausing at the autopsy lab to check in with Perceptor and Wheeljack. Nothing had mutated yet but for the pride of the techs who couldn't meet anyone's optics, so the crews went back to work and everyone else went upstairs to tuck Ratchet in.
When they arrived, they would sit together and eat a late dinner, listen to elders tut-tut about 'things' and enjoy a moment's respite. Tomorrow was another orn. Part two of the plan would happen then.
-0-TBC 10-7-18
Notes answered tomorrow. HUGS!