The Diego Diaries: Vacay (dd6 573)
=0=Cybertron
They rode slowly through a camp that numbered over 3,000,000 Cybertronians. It was situated on the equator and thus, because the weather was less severe and the light longer in duration, a lot of forced labor was located there during the Decepticon hegemony. Now it was the site of a lot of their redemption and the camps there had become amenity laden and comfortable. There were also the odd slagger who either couldn't get it for many and obvious reasons or was just a fragger.
The mounted patrols came every morning and left after a longer shift than those on Mars. These shifts were long with a shorter work week to take care of the joors demanded. The horses were incredibly welcomed by the masses and they had a calming affect on everyone, especially those with mental or emotional problems and children.
Roadbuster who was here on horseback when he wasn't on Mars at the jail and prison rode along the pathway between two camp districts followed by two others. He loved being busy and there might be a fight somewhere that needed his servos on. Maybe. Every day before shift, they would saddle up, ride to the Port and go through one of the big bridges there to which ever camp they were assigned that orn. After a bit of trial, the horses accepted the bridge and when they went through the other side, usually, kids would be waiting to pet them and give them the treats the Watch mechs carried in bulk in their subspace for them to do so. That they had candy and little toys in bulk as well for the kids they met there and everywhere else was their innovation.
The softies.
Today they were in Upper Valvolux. Most of the cities on the equator were good places with lots of sunshine. This one was no exception then, though they were as shrouded in darkness as anyone else. Now it was rising from the dust, glittering towers of construction for habitation and industrial plants of immaculate and safe design for once everywhere. The camp numbered close to three million with nearly one and a half million housed in the rising districts nearby. This was a good detail to ride through not just because it was so swiftly growing but because entrepreneurs from Mars had held seminars here for those who never had but wanted businesses and it had boomed.
All over the city were food trucks and small diners. They were busy as slag but there was always time to slip food to the horse back patrolmen. Everyone was glad to see them for the horses and for the novel idea that they were there to protect, not oppress them. Going around their beat alone, they passed fifteen diners and restaurants, 13 carryout places and a good three dozen food trucks.
For Roadie and the three newbie Watchmen assigned to him for training, it was the roadway to the Matrix all the way. And the job? It was a close second. They followed Roadie forward as he steered Mick toward the camps and children on Christmas Surprise break from school. They would be swamped by excited children, grateful adults and sentimental elders the entire day.
It would be glorious.
=0=Up in the clouds
Prowl stared at the baby lying on the bed. He was snow white with tiny bands of color on his arm for the family. He stared at Prowl from an Optimus face and smiled. Prowl felt his insides start to melt down at the cuteness and sweetness. "Well, aren't you the cutest thing ever?" He reached down to pick the baby up.
"ADA!"
"What, Spirit?" he asked as he walked to the doorway to stare down the hall.
A small white and red infant was hippity hopping toward him. He halted, then smiled up brilliantly. "Sunny wants us to go to the Water Park with him. His ammas and appas want to watch him slide."
"That sounds like fun. Who's going?" Prowl asked as he walked into the living room toward the call monitor. "Hi. Who do you want and how do they get there?" he asked Blackjack and Flint who were watching from the monitor with grins. Flint was holding Sunspot.
"UNCLE PROWL! CAN THEY COME!?" Sunspot asked with a brilliant smile of his own.
"They can," Prowl said as he glanced down at Spirit and now Rambler and T-Bar. They squealed in delight.
"Send them to the lobby, Prowl. We're going to be there in a minute," Blackjack said from the living room of his home.
He was holding Flipper and Scout himself.
"Done deal," Prowl said as he signed off then looked down at the three happy kids. "Your smiles are blinding me. I have to get sunglasses."
They laughed, hugged his legs, then ran for the door. Out they went and downward to Sunspot and his entourage that also included Robby the Bruce. They were gone in seconds.
Prowl stared at the door, then his son who stared back, then smiled brilliantly. Prowl laughed, then walked to the side of the house that overlooked the street below. He could see the group walk to the Metro, then down the steps. He grinned. "How do you like your new home? We have the whole top floor and can see any part of this place from one side or the other. No one escapes me in my own domain."
Possibility stared at his ada's aura, then chuckled.
Prowl glancing at him with surprise laughed himself. "Your atar does the same thing whenever I say that, too. Like father, like son," he said as he kissed the baby. "Come on. Let's check the daily dump again. Your atar is playing basketball, the slacker, so its you and me alone against the universe." He walked toward the door and the hallways beyond and as he did the baby laughed again.
It would be mellow in the Penthouse today.
=0=Unidad
They drove along the double lane paved road through the countryside. Bryce Billings and Tawney Mantree were the lead human actors in the interplanetary phenom, The Bridge, now being syndicated to Cybertron, authored and fretted over by Nitro of Vos. They were taking a bit of their downtime before filming began to come to their favorite place, the countryside of Unidad to get a fix of Earth.
The facility was in full swing in terms of their planted and otherwise farmed areas, all arable land with a great deal still lying fallow. Apparently the Hu-An had set the schedule for land usage and rotation so that most was still being worked for suitability, resting out of a planting schedule for a while. Vast plantings of vegetables, fruit and flowers lay on both sides of the road as they sped along. They grabbed a car pool convertible transport after signing autographs and chatting with the locals, its electrical engine not distracting in the silence of the area around them. The sun was bright, the air textured and warm with the silence refreshing.
Here and there, a bird flew, some landing on trees that were planted about for that very reason. There were islands of forests, a number of orchards and the vineyard but there were also trees planted in areas at intervals for the aesthetic as well as for the use of animals and birds. Some of the birds were beginning to nest. Whether it was normal for them to do that now or not was unknown to the two. They just liked the sight of it. It felt like home.
They sped along until they reached the lake. Passing the scientists who had finished checking data there, they knew they were probably going to be the only ones out here for a while. Kids weren't allowed out this far without permissions and adults. Most of the adults were working and the rest … hopefully, they wouldn't be coming out for a while.
They reached the junction that led onward along the edge of the dome back toward the facility, straight ahead into the wheat and alfalfa fields or left to the lake. Turning that way, they drove onward, then pulled into the paved parking lot there that was built to hold vehicles and preserve the edge of the lake from erosion and accidents.
Climbing out, they watched a duck come in for a landing, then its fifteen or so ducklings swim out of the shore side fronds to join it with their other parent. Grinning at the ducks, then each other, Bryce Billings, the most famous leading man on Earth along with Tawney Mantree, international sex symbol and leading actress stripped butt naked, walked to the water and began to swim in its clear and brilliant confines.
The ducks didn't care. The birds flying around, the bees buzzing and the ants building a home near the shore didn't either. The mechs in the Ops Center who happened to notice them park by the lake did.
"What are they doing, Siso?" a youngling Home Guardsman asked.
Siso walked over and leaned into the monitor in time to see both of them take off their underwear. He stared a moment, then straightened. "Uh ..."
Half an hour later …
Ratchet pulled up, then transformed. Lying on the bank nearby on towels to dry out in the sunlight, Tawney and Bryce glanced up, then sat up. Ratchet had walked into the water after waving to the two, then lay back to float with a giant smile on his face.
The two glanced at each other, then Ratchet. "What if we start an interplanetary incident?" Tawney asked with genuine concern.
"Then we do. I'm going back in," Bryce said as he glanced at his doubtful partner. He grinned again. "You don't want to say fifty years from now that you didn't get in the car do you?"
She smirked at Billings. "Smart ass," she said as she stood up, then ran for the water to leap in and swim toward the giant Autobot floating nearby.
Bryce was right behind her.
Meanwhile …
"Ratchet is there." -Home Guard kid with some relief in his sweet sheltered youth voice
Everyone in the room had a screen going, small and to one side of their work monitors. Standing beside the Home Guard kid on his console, the human rep of the shift, Sargent Tom Crouse of N.E.S.T. HQ watched as well. Everyone glanced at him. "Why did they do that, Rex?" the kid asked.
"Because it feels good swimming in the water naked," Tom replied with a grin. "It also helps if some of the naked people doing it are famous movie stars like Tawney."
It was silent a moment, then the kid who was watching the two swim to Ratchet glanced at him. "If you say so, Tommy."
Tommy did. He also laughed loudly.
There …
They reached him, then tread water. "Ratchet!" Tawney shouted.
Ratchet glanced at them, then smiled brilliantly. "Hi, tiny people. Fancy meeting you here."
"Do you come here to swim, too?" Tawney asked.
"Only when naked people get reported on the camera system at Ops Center," Ratchet said as he stood up, then lowered into the water to see them eyeball-to-eyeball.
Tawney gasped, then glanced around. "WHAT!?"
"Every square inch of this place is on the grid. We do that to save people when they have problems," Ratchet said. "A sweet youngling kid doing his Home Guard duty was monitoring the dome security cameras and saw you … what was it he said? Peel off your exo-covering."
"They don't know about clothing?" Bryce asked with a chuckle.
"Some of them were raised gently," Ratchet said. "Not so many are as jaded and borderline hoodlum as me." He smiled brilliantly. The glorious beauty of that was lost on their human aesthetic though they could admire his sweet goodness and amazingly relatable personality. It, however, wouldn't be on the mechs in Ops Center watching along.
"Frag, the commander is beautiful. He's so beautiful," the youngling mech said as the others in the room nodded or spoke agreement.
Tom Crouse grinned. "Bryce and Tawney are considered two of the most beautiful and sexy humans on Earth," he said well aware of the disconnect between humans and the bots on natural aesthetics.
It had been a common topic in the past and it came up from time to time among the humans going onward. All of the newbies were always surprised that Ratchet was considered so beautiful and alluring to other bots. Among the long time locals, Ratchet's beauty was evident in his good spark and kindness. They could see that others thought him ravishing even if they couldn't quite put their finger on what it was that made it so themselves.
Every bot in the room glanced at him, then the Home Guard kid stared at the screen again. "If you say so, Sargent," he said.
Tom laughed long and hard.
There over there ...
"You just might want to know that the Ops Center sees what's up just in case you decide that The Sexy might be a hoot here. I'd go somewhere in the vegetation if you do. The ants might protest but it'd be better than trying to explain the Human Sexy to some of the kids on duty," Ratchet said with a chuckle.
"Oh, god," Bryce said. "You might just be too late."
Tawney dunked him. "We know about the bushes, Ratchet. Thanks. Did you just come to slap our wrists?" she asked with a smile. "Can you stay a while and chat? I've always wanted to talk to you."
"Actually, Tawney," he said leaning closer to the pair. "I was sort of hoping you'd let me in on what's going to happen about the assassination from last season's cliffhanger."
They would laugh loudly, swear him to an oath and tell him. Ratchet would tell Ironhide anyway. Chat was had, new friendships made and the human community gossip here and that related to here on Earth was traded as the two sat on Ratchet as he floated. Both would be buck naked when they did. Ratchet wouldn't care. He was a doctor after all.
"THESE HEALING SERVOS!"
All was well at the lakeside.
In Ops Center, they would have a discussion about all the times the bots there fragged in the bushes, proverbial or not themselves while a youngling Home Guardsman raised in a 'nice home' and attending the Temple assiduously did the Cybertronian blush and listened raptly as they did. It would astound him how he needed to get out more.
Maybe.
It would also be amusing for the mechs on duty to tell him how they'd dump him into the lake if he decided to be as crazy as they were in their wayward youth.
All would be well in Ops Center, Unidad Terra 1.
TBC 1-19-19 H.B.C.O.G. edited 1-19-19
ESL
arable: (air-able) land able to grow things. Farmland is arable land.
Fallow: (fah-low) something that is fallow is not being used.
Hegemony: (hedj-eh-money) leadership, dominance, dominion, supremacy, ascendancy, predominance, primacy, authority, mastery, control, power, sway, rule, sovereignty
amenity (uh-men-ity) stuff that makes life worth living … running water, facilities, movie houses, free dining … like that. Until recently in my area, paved streets and HOLY OF HOLIES! side walks.
Some of the ongoing jokes or ideas of this story … writers call them conceits … include the idea that the bots think Ratchet is ravishingly beautiful according to Cybertronian beauty standards and the humans can't see it. They can see it with Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Dev and some of the others because they fit a more easily recognizable standard of beauty for humans to see. Who doesn't think concept cars are beautiful? The bots are polite but they can't quite short of doing the mathematics of beauty in humans get it with them either. Consider the naked human person and ask an alien to give a rendering of what they see.
I find such disconnects not only probable among aliens but likely. They're also hilarious and part of the reason some humans struggle to consider the bots relatable or even real. They scare some humans because of what they look like. If you don't think so, consider if our first aliens looked like spiders.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!