The Diego Diaries: Stuff (dd6 505)
-0-On the streets of a city that never sleeps
"Tell me again how we can be here without our alt formats," Sideswipe asked as he walked down the sidewalk heading toward a beautiful brick building halfway down the block with Hot Rod and Ratchet.
"Well, you know what a slave driver Percy and Wheeljack are," Ratchet said with a grin.
"No," Hot Rod said.
"Me, neither," Ratchet replied. "He does let his smart young kids pursue slag that interests them and take on things we already have with the idea of expanding them. We have a pretender gear set that allows us to go places without our formats along. One orn a kid said, 'why put the format in danger when you can project them somewhere using the unified field device and slag'. See?" Ratchet said with a brilliant smile. Several women passing by noticed and smiled back.
"No." Both of them
"It's like this," Ratchet said as he stopped and turned to them. "We can send our consciousness here and there and its okay with our pretender gear as long as we use our alt modes, too. What about sending them without our modes? Think about a projector. The images are transmitted but the source stays put on the machine. What we are here are transmissions, projected images that can move about because we have a gigantic battery at the bridge room back home and a receptor here that came with us, that part of us that's here inhabiting this projection. It holds us together and intensifies our signal to nearly perfection. It's like a pretender shell without our actual bodies as the base for it appearing.
"We're safe in the bridge room while our shell with a small amplifier device is sent here to walk around and do things according to our consciousness dictates. We act and react in this reality without endangering our own selves by being here as well. We think we're to go to the brick building down the street and our projected shell goes there. We're as solid as can be but we're just a bunch of molecular sparkles put together and projected here. No one is going to know any different and even if we have to eat, we can. Its safer because our bodies aren't here to be stolen by carjackers but our minds are in the same way they are when we're projected in the normal way to do what we need to do."
They stared at Ratchet, then Sideswipe asked the only question that was relevant to him at the moment. "When we go back does our body get slagged if we eat and drink?"
Ratchet laughed. "No. When we derezz when we go back, so does anything we eat or drink. No problemo. I think someone must have threatened them with destruction given the last time we did this, we almost slagged the front seats going back."
"Frag. I want to eat anything and everything. I want to get loaded," Sideswipe said with a chuckle.
"Later. Right now, this is beta stuff. We have three joors before we derezz from our personal amplifiers running out of juice. They want to have data before they tinker and make things better." He looked down the street. "Hurry up." They headed onward and made their way to the building, a beautiful brick structure and went inside.
The lobby inside was old fashioned and industrial in design. They walked to a directory and notice board, found the area where the business was and walked to the door which had a frosted window and the name on it in gold letters, old school. Ratchet opened it and walked in, noting a nice reception area where a young woman and two young men worked at desks. She looked up and smiled. "Can I help you?"
"Yes," Ratchet said. "Could you please call your boss? Tell him that Ambassador Ratchet of Iacon along with Autobots Sideswipe and Hot Rod are here to speak to him on behalf of the Prime of Cybertron." He smiled brilliantly.
Hot Rod and Sideswipe glanced at Ratchet with surprise.
The young woman stared at him, then the two boys nearby who paused their work as well. A door nearby led into a huge room where young men and women sat at desks working on state-of-the-(human)-art computers and everywhere it was with a sense of determination and steely purpose. She slowly stood. "Um … please wait here." She hesitated, then walked to the door to disappear inside. The other two youngsters rose and stared at them with disquiet.
"Hi. I'm Ratchet. This is Hot Rod and this is my son, Sideswipe. How are you?" he asked with a dazzling smile.
They didn't answer but the door opened and four familiar faces appeared, Tran, Thom, Brian and Bobby. They stared at the three. Bobby stepped forward. "Uh, who are you and what do you really want? We want you to know that our security here is very good."
Ratchet grinned. "I'm sure it is. Optimus Prime invested a million dollars in this business and he wants to know something that you might already have found out. We need to talk somewhere privately."
"Identity. I want to see your papers," Tran said. "We should just call the cops."
"I don't think that's necessary," Ratchet said. "You've heard of pretender tech, right?"
The kids nodded, then two of them tensed. "Is that what this is?" Brian asked cautiously.
"I have to say it doesn't do me justice. I'm a much better looking slagger than this but we make due with what we have," Ratchet said with a grin. "How about we go and chat?" He pulled a card from his fake shirt covering his rather muscular fake chest and held it up. "Here are my bonafides."
Tran took it and noted a special notation on the bottom of the normal looking driver's license, one that was decided upon by Prime and the group as identifiers for the bearers. He showed it to the others, then handed it back. It was silent a moment, then Bobby nodded. "Come on in." He walked toward the door, then entered. The others followed and so did the three bots.
The door closed behind them, then one of the boys turned to the girl. "Marcy, be ready to call 911 if I say so," he said before he walked inside to follow them and stand outside the closed conference room door to listen.
-0-Inside
They walked through the great room where intense individuals were working on intense things in an array of tech and digital white boards covered with information. They walked down a hallway with offices and other rooms for whatnot, then entered a large conference space. They walked to chairs around a big long table, then all of them sat. Bobby leaned forward on his elbows. "Who are you really?"
"I'm Ratchet of Iacon, this is Hot Rod of somewhere and this is whats his face," Ratchet said with a grin. He got smirks and frowns for his troubles. "We're here in pretender gear to talk to you about what you might've figured out about Owen Harris and the others who are part of the resistance. You're working together with Smoke. Right?"
"You know about Smoke?" Tran asked with surprise.
"We do. They don't know about us. We sort of have a lot of special ops personnel with nothing better to do sometimes than figure out what a low band signal is and who it's going to," Ratchet said. "We've been tracking a couple of operations here on world that spell bad news if they come to fruition. Right now, we need to know if you're aware of any aliens that live here besides us."
They glanced at each other, then Ratchet. "Maybe," Bobby said.
"How about we decide if we're on the same side or not? This is for the good of both of us, human and bot. If the bad news comes, it comes for all of us," Ratchet replied.
"We're aware of two with one of them seemingly two different kinds of the same alien," Tran said. "Tall Whites, Small Grays and Tall Grays. The Grays may be the same species or not. One seems to be kindly and the other dangerous. They have the same thing in common, the Whites and Tall Grays. They like to clip stuff off of us in exchange for tech and information about the galaxy. We've had them coming here for a good 80 years," Bobby concluded.
"Probably lured here in all likelihood by the detonation of the atomic bombs during the 1940's onward. No one seemed to pay any attention to you or this system until that signaled to the greater galaxy that the children living here were driving Dad's neutron bomb. You attracted them with your foolish experimenting with big bombs," Ratchet replied.
"How do you know?" Tran asked.
"We have contact with other aliens, all of them peaceful and all of them originating in this, the local group. They told us about the Whites and both Grays. They don't like any of them. The Reptilians told us that they like the Small Grays but no one else," Ratchet replied.
"Reptilians?" Brian asked with surprise. "You're kidding. They really exist?"
"Keep up, infant. We have two sets. One that lives in this dimension and one that doesn't," Ratchet said as he mused over newer intel, all of which was declassified for him if it served a purpose. "We have a problem with the Tall Whites at the moment. The Grays, both of them, have steered clear for now. The Whites are being protected and maintained by the former Intel-Martin which is now called Hadley Industries. We want to know what you might've divined as related to this, especially among the governments that protect them and the corporations that support them in exchange for tech. By the way, your touch pad tech is theirs."
The humans stared at him, then each other. "Um, we haven't gotten that far. We're tracing Harris around the world and note that there are now billionaires in fifteen countries that have joined his personal circle. All of them have deep ties into nefarious industries and they appear to be working out a sort of agreement to create a cartel if you like to manage their businesses to the benefit of themselves. They also see Mars as a great opportunity. They want to have a human presence there that will be rather like building their own kingdom. Harris is seen as the tech brains along with Xiang of China and Mueller of Germany. There are others in France, the UK, the USA, Russia, Korea, Japan, Denmark and Switzerland who are part of this. They've begun to build a big network of banks, holding companies and other deep state sorts of things to cover their tracks as they grow."
Ratchet nodded. "That's good to know. We want you to focus some of your resources on the new network. We're tracking the alien connection. We want to know how far the rot extends. Smoke is going to be roped in and will work directly with you. Don't say a word now. We're going to be meeting up with them shortly. Right now, we have refugees, Razorclaw and a few other things dragging on our time. We want you kids to work together. Do you need more resources or funds?"
They glanced at each other, then him. "That's always a good thing. We have a lot of good researchers that we like to hire freelance. If they could come on board full time then we can make more headway."
"Done deal. I'll talk to Warren. Anything else you can disclose?" Ratchet said. He handed them a card. "Report every three days what you know. This is a direct line to Prowl."
They glanced at him with surprise, then nodded. "Cool," Brian said with a grin.
Ratchet snickered. "That's our Prowler. We have to motor. Our batteries are running down." He rose and with Hot Rod and Sideswipe turned to go to the door.
"Mr. Ratchet."
Ratchet turned to the kids who were standing around the table. "Yes?" he asked with a big smile.
"Where are these aliens living? If I might ask?" Tran asked.
"Well, I really can't tell you because its secret but it rhymes with megas," Ratchet said. He grinned. "Remember, what happens in Megas stays in Megas." With a chuckle, he nodded and walked out the door followed by the two bemused mechs.
The kids stared at the door, then each other, then the card. "This leads directly to Prowl. Damn. This is so cool. We better get it framed," Tran said with a chuckle.
"Damn. I want to see their tech," Brian whispered as they all nodded.
-0-Outside on the street
"Where now?" Hot Rod asked.
"There's a hot dog stand around the corner. I want the works," Ratchet said as he walked that way.
The others followed and they got the works on a nice bun. Walking to a bench nearby with drinks and dogs, they sat and ate. "I love the way human food tastes," Sideswipe said. "It tastes just like ours."
Hot Rod nodded. "You say that nothing will happen because we're eating, right?"
Ratchet nodded. "So they said."
"We have to go back now. Right?" Sideswipe said as he glanced around.
"Unfortunately," Ratchet said. "We need to do a pub crawl here sometime with everyone."
"I was at the last one with everyone. Prime fell off his horse," Sideswipe said with a chuckle. "I'd hate to see what he'd do here. Does this tech amplify booze, too?"
"I don't know. Why don't you find out?" Ratchet said.
"I would if we had time. My meter is dropping now," Sideswipe said as he mentally checked the assigned setting.
"Eat up and let's go. We're going to wink out in the alley and turn up in our bodies in the bridge room. Let's go," Ratchet said as he stuffed his face. They walked along, then stepped into an alley. A buzz to Mars and they winked out.
-0-At the other end
They were standing around a tall machine that had jacks when they came back. It was a 'temp situation' they were told. It would be eliminated in later models. Right now, jack in and let the tech do its stuff. It synced with their pretender devices, then blitzed them through a micro bridge the size of a pin hole to Earth. It now blitzed them back. When it shut down, the three returned to themselves. Pulling out their jacks, they turned to Percy, Wheeljack and three intense kids.
"Well? How did it work?" Wheeljack asked with anticipation.
Ratchet grinned, then he didn't. Glancing down, he glanced up again. "You told me that the food we ate would derezz with our pretender shells."
"It should," a tall thin kid said.
"Should?" Sideswipe asked with surprise. He glanced down and internally scanned himself. "Oh, frag ..."
Hot Rod looked aghast, then did the same. He turned to Wheeljack, Percy and the kids. "What the hell?"
"Uh, maybe we have a little glitch in the system," 'Jack said with a sickly smile.
"*I*-*AM*-*GOING*-*TO*-*KILL*-*YOU*!" -Sideswipe two seconds before he lost his shit altogether
-0-TBC 10-25-18 edited 11-3-18