Chapter 3: Artifacts

The fiery cataclysm above faded away as Tracer dropped straight down the deep shaft. Fear was gripping his spark. His limbs flailed wildly to control his alignment. The sense of panic made his mind feel it was working in fast forward, and his body like it was moving through thick oil. Instincts seemed to taking over. On some level he weighed the risks of landing one way or another. Even if his legs are crippled from impact, it will protect his more vital components. So intuitive to him now, yet it had been missing in his underlying drone programming. It would be fascinating… were he not certain this fall could be the end of him.

There was a sound of shrapnel skidding; ricocheting.

Tracers arm dragged down a solid metal wall. It was too dark to see below, but the wall was definitely shifting over. His plating scraped against the wall, throwing a trail of sparks behind him. He then tried to get a running stride down, only to stumble and loose all control. A rolling trip sent him barrelling down, rolling him over more times than he could count. Losing total awareness of which was up and how he may try to stop. The constant impacts turned into a rhythmic numbing; then into unconsciousness.

[Running internal diagnostics…]

[Excessive trauma to superstructure… Detecting fractures and areas of foreign objects embedded beneath armour...]

[Com-link transmitter and receiver inoperative...]

[No damage to neural processors and memory tracks. Spark containment functioning within optimal conditions.]

[Motor capabilities still functioning… Alright. Alright… is that how I used to talk? Ugh. Where am I?]

Tracer turned on his optics. He began stirring with small movements, taking several moments before even trying to stand on two feet. His limbs felt loose and sluggish. He examined himself, finding plates that had nearly peeled away from him during his fall. Other plates had been shaved almost clean through, some of his wires were showing but thank goodness they had not been damaged.

It was dark. Tracer had never really noticed how much his body glowed. From his optics to various nodes on his limbs there were hundreds of tiny lights. These were faint, however, compared to the glow of his spark which poured through yet more cracks in his chest plates. It was enough to do a assess his injuries, but the rest of the cave ahead of him remained in total darkness. The disorientation was letting up. Tracer looked up to see if the light from the burning complex could be seen. Turing in all directions, he remembered he didn't fall from straight up. Maybe he had, but the last the he remembers was skidding down a slope.

Tracer shuffled his feet and held his arms out to find… anything. "The two protoforms would have fallen here too" he thought out loud "unless they got caught somewhere in that shaft. There may be a network of these tunnels... ugh, forget the protoforms! What about me? What if I can't make it back to the surface? I should look around, maybe try to find a way out."

Following a polished wall face, Tracer could hear the sound of his feet echoing off ahead of him… "with any luck this will lead somewhere." It wound left and right, rising and lowering. He lost all sense of time as he clung to the one wall. He knew he must've covered significant ground but had no visuals to gauge any distance. He could hear the echoes of falling scraps coming from different directions—as though there were dozens of shafts leading back up to the surface.

His feet were soon stirring through layers of shrapnel. He stopped to look at the first pieces, wondering if they might somehow help him down here. It all seemed like garbage, pieces of machines that were crushed, melted, blown-up, or too small to know if it was ever something to begin with. As he continued on he found more that were complete. His optics had adjusted to the low light, he kept on moving until… [Shuunk] Tracer kicked an odd, round object. He bent down to pick it up. It was the head of a robot. It had a large triangular faceplate and a strange a three-tiered visor. It was in rather good condition except for some damage to its left side… and lacking a body. Tracer knelt down to examine it closer.

"I didn't see you in the complex…" Tracer uttered "How did you get down here?" He tried to deduce what kind of robot this was, and how it got down here. The wires hanging from it's neck intrigued him. Looking around the cave Tracer noticed some scattered pieces close by. Many random parts. A few pistons, some loose joints, but nothing useful to him right now.

Tracer held on to the head as he continued onward. Until he came upon what he was looking for—a power core. He connected the wires to it and tried to bring the head online.

"H... hey." Tracer whispered. "Wake up." But the head remained dark and still. He figured the power core was probably discharged. Everything else down here was garbage. He carefully set the head down and continued through the cave. As he walked away he heard a faint hum behind him. As he turned back, he saw a faint glow in one of the robot's optics diminish into darkness. Tracer thought he must be seeing his own glow reflecting off it. But as he turned away again he heard a faint whimper.

"Shh-de-sss be-sss-and-sss b-sss..."

Tracer quickly turned around and sat in front of the head. "Hey," he said, "anybody home?"

"Lo-sss-eta-sss-tandi-sss-by..." Tracer saw a flicker of light in the one optic and carefully looked at the wires. He hadn't noticed before but one was corroded part of the way up. He broke the end off and reconnected it. This time the light from the one optics lit up much brighter, and turned wildly around until it found Tracer's own gaze. The face looked rather relieved. "Lodex beta, standing by." Tracer was relived himself, he wasn't alone anymore.

"You're a drone." Tracer said, "How did you get down here?"

"I'm a recorder, to be precise." began the enthused head. "Last thing I remember I was delivering a report to the creators when they inexplicably began dismantling me on the spot. I can only extrapolate that given our rather foreboding situation that we're both in the tunnels beneath the creators' encampment."

"That's right… So they just threw you down here? Why would they do that?"

"The creator are very excited about this planet." The head declared. "Normally precious elements are buried and must be mined. Here, the whole planet seems to be made of them, so rather than invest in recycling they just discard old and faulty machines and start again from raw materials. It was deemed most efficient."

"They just dump their garbage here." Tracer mused "Efficient, yeah I guess so. Do you know where these tunnels lead?"

"I can only imagine where they lead." The head bragged. "I know there are a couple deep caverns, but the creators are too interested in their latest projects to fully explore them. Why are you here?"

"Two protoforms are trying to escape through these tunnels. They've attacked part of the city and must be brought to justice. The… creators have charged me to find them." Tracer began to wonder 'this is twice now he's been able to talk with a mere drone.' He remembers Kaetor clearly telling him that drones have to ignore any robot with a spark. 'Why doesn't this one care?'

"Then I must follow my programming and assist you. I only have one question."

"Sure, go ahead."

"What is a... protoform?"

Tracer almost fumbled the head at such a bizarre question. "Uh." He realized this drone has either lost some memory or was built before the Quintessons created protoforms. 'But that means this guy's old... maybe months old!' Tracer didn't want to take too long so he turned the head toward him and slid the panel on his chest.

"Format me!" exclaimed Lodex "I know what that is. I knew the creators could preserve them. They believe they have extraordinary potential."

Tracer closed the panel. It did light up the cave more, but he felt vulnerable leaving it open. He didn't want to say any more. "I'd say so. Two more like me have defied the creators, and I must find them."

"I can help you," began the head "I can hear scrap parts on the ground, there may be a trail of debris you can follow."

"Where does it go?"

"I can't be certain at this time. Let me know if you see anything, my optics are damaged and you keep pointing me at the ceiling."

From where they were, Tracer slowly continued on into a vein of tunnels that converged with others. The debris seemed to have been cleared in some areas. A clean path scraped through. The tunnel widened, and Tracer could see the next bend just ahead… he could see it because there was a faint light source past it.

"That'll be the precious energon." Remarked the head. "In a mineral state it's merely a glowing rock, but it becomes very versatile when it occurs in liquid form." Tracer's footsteps picked up as he neared the bend. He could see tiny glowing teal pebbles embedded in the tunnel walls and ceiling.

"What can it do? Is it a power source, like a fuel?"

"As a mineral no." replied Lodex. "It produces light but also another form of radiation the creators don't fully understand. So far mineral deposits act as telltale sign for nearby natural reservoirs of liquid energon. The mysterious fluid is a perfect primary source of energy. It gets used up in the generators to produce any type of energy the creators use in their technology; drones, and I suppose protoforms as well. Curious how it can be converted into any other form of energy but only after an intensified refining process that requires great amounts to operate. It was clear from the start of the research they need some kind of catalyst to perfect the conversion."

"A catalyst?"

"A way to drastically speed up or simplify the desired chemical reaction."

The floor was littered with many more robot parts. There were no shafts in the ceiling. No evidence of any cave-ins or anything. "How did it all get down here?" inquired Tracer, looking at various heaps of scrap, components and other junk. "These piles look… sorted!"

"Ah, that's rubbish."

"It's not. Look! This bunch here is all servos, and that one is all armour plates…"

"Correct…" restated Lodex "I was not suggesting you were mistaken, rather I was clarifying who had sorted these parts. Rubbish."

"There's someone down here?"

"Affirmative. Many faulty enforcers were decommissioned, but he was by far the most likely to have survived. As I suspected."

"… As you suspected?" Tracer probed "What exactly is the primary function of a recorder anyway?"

"A recorder observes, logs data relevant to time, space, materials and energy efficiency. We ensure that the vision of the creators is followed precisely in their absence. We can also extrapolate data to calculate possible consequences of actions taken or not taken. Since I'm clearly indebted to you for giving me power, I've withheld the details of calculations I've been making on our journey until you request them. Just know there has been a lot."

"Uh, thank you…" replied Tracer. "So there's a broken enforcer collecting scrap parts…" Tracer pondered, thinking to himself "though, I can't see him being any nicer than the enforcers still in loyal service of—" He paused when a loud sound echoed from a nearby tunnel, something big. Shuffling and pushing through more debris. Tracer clutched the head tight and dashed into a shaded alcove.

Tracer could feel fear gripping him. 'Run!' his mind screamed. 'Hide, call for help, find a weapon—' he felt panic when he was falling, but this was the feeling of falling times one hundred. Every metal-on-metal sound only fed the sensation of panic. The sound of his own limbs against the cave wall, his actuators humming, even his pulsing spark suddenly felt too loud. He shut his optics, picturing the workshop of the assembler. He imagined the quirky drone juggling tools looking for something to fix. Carefree. He thought of a sky so bright starlight alone could cast a crisp shadow: his first memory after receiving the spark. It was working, he opened his optics calmly.

The sound was getting nearer. Tracer could hear many feet in asynchronous marching. He held the head close to his face and at the lowest volume whispered "Don't make a sound!" He tried to contain his composure. A voice could be heard muttering, but Tracer couldn't pick out what it was saying. There was certainty in its tone, a confidence that had been practiced over and over to the point of insanity. The sound entered the chamber. Tracer froze.

"Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish. Ah'll never be complete in 'ol 'iss complete mess! Ah found me missing parts ah did. Put 'em in a nice li'l pile. Some'in came through and washes 'em 'ol away. 'Ol ah found was me legs. 'Adn't realize ah'd so many. But complete ah must be, so use them all ah did."

The terrible bot was apparently distracted. Tracer could hear him sorting new parts into the existing piles. He sighed—relaxing slightly.

"Hear something ah thought ah did. Some'ins been picking through me piles. Messing things 'ol about. Put the optics in the servos, put the servos in the cables, put the cables in the vocalizers. Faulty. Ha! They called me faulty. 'Preserve order' they told me, so put things in order ah did! Ah'll find me missing parts. And show them ah will. Not faulty in the least."

Tracer peeked around the corner. He only looked for a few short seconds, what an awful sight. What remained of an enforcer were only two heavy spiked arms, a mangled torso and a small head—small perhaps because the top third had been cut clean off. Electric sparks jumped periodically as he spoke. But below the mangled torso sprouted a long body of a dozen mismatched legs. Thin, thick, quick, slow, graceful and clumsy. Clicking and tapping as Rubbish swayed his pendulum arms and cocked his head as he eyed each and every piece of his collection. Awful and despicable.

Returning behind his cover, Tracer thought again about what to do. 'That thing is huge. My best chance is to run as fast as I can. No… It's too dark. I'll run into a dead end for sure.' Tracer's mind argued with itself inside him. 'I can wait here and hope he leaves. But I should come up with a plan in case he doesn't. He may find me, what can I do then? I may be able to outsmart him…' He paused for a few moments to pick the exact words to say. He cautiously shifted his weight to find a position to hold more easily. He lifted his foot slowly and looked down to make sure he didn't place it anywhere that might compromise his position. His hands pressed against the cave wall, he was too focused on being quiet he did not notice his toeplate clip the corner of a scrap piece of plate. When he moved his foot the plate clattered and rocked on the metallic cave floor. Rubbish was in the middle of a pause in his ramblings. Tracer may as well have shouted at max volume.

Rubbish stopped his sorting and slowly staggered over to the peculiar sound. Tracer new he didn't have time to come up with a better plan. He stepped out from behind the alcove and with hesitant confidence objected "Oh hi! M-my good… monster-bot, I do believe I-uh seen you're missing parts!" Rubbish halted and looked down, confused at his intruder. "Uh yes! Two robots came through here with them. They've been playing mean tricks on you for…" Rubbish leaned forward, nose-to-nose with the puny object before him "… A reeeally long, uh… time?"

Rubbish shouted in surprise "It's more o' me legs again!" and lunged forward onto Tracer.