The techno-organics
Chapter 23
"When I first studied Freedoms scans I didn't expect finding this out." Knock Out showed his master the data he collected on Freedom. "But I dare say, she is a scientific masterpiece."
"Elaborate." Megatron commanded, eager to know more.
"A product of two different species is usually born with some series of health defects or mutations, but she doesn't seem to have any. This shows that the ones creating her spent a lot of time perfecting her genetic formula. Let me show you my first example." He changed to an image of her skeleton.
"Every fiber in her body is either completely or partly made of cybermatter, her skin, hair and even nails are perfectly fused with it. Making her almost as resilient as an cybertronian. Her skeleton however is completely made of metal, but hollow, which makes her lighter and gives her more mobility. This would not happen naturally, it was designed." Megatron was very pleased with the doctors research. This gave him a clear view of his daughters capabilities, and a view into the twisted minds that created her. He may despise them with every fiber of his being, but he could admire the work they put in to create such an advanced creature; and almost thank them for giving him an heir. Knock Out changed the image to show a spiral of CDNA.
"I could not convince Freedom to give me a blood sample, but I found what I wanted in Nikolai's severed arm. The formula is balanced to near perfection. Whoever these humans were, this shows hours of brilliance and determination of breaking and putting the genetic strands together in order to avoid the defects I mentioned. We already know from earlier that he have minor quantities of energon in his blood, but we have yet to know if they consume energon like an ordinary cybertronian or what might happen if they run out of it."
"Results to this magnitude is not reached in just a few cycles or months. They must have known of us from the moment we first arrived five metacycles ago." Megatron added as he gazed upon the genetic strand on the screen. Nikolai admitted to have killed their creators, but the possibilities for any of them surviving and continuing their work was too big to ignore.
"Knock Out, you have done admirably today." It was rare for the warlord to compliment anyone except Soundwave. Knock Out took pride in this moment, but had to tell them to not let Freedom know about this.
"I live to serve, Lord Megatron. But I must ask you to keep this secret." Megatron raised a wondering eyebrow and asked the medic to explain why.
"Freedom threatened to terminate me if she ever found out why I wanted to scan her." Megatron smiled amused as he assured the medic. He felt almost proud that Freedom was so similar to him, but she couldn't have her threatening his staff as she wanted.
"Send the rest of your research to me." He then turned to Soundwave. "Have you finished upgrading the firewalls?" The silent Decepticon nodded as Megatron continued. "Excellent. That'll keep us safe from anymore attacks. For we must focus our attention to find out more about the group who created the hybrids. Although they claim to have killed the humans, it's still a possibility that some survived and are continuing their project." At the moment they had three sources at their disposal, but whether or not they choose to help was a whole other matter.
"Knock Out, I heard that you had another project at hand. Do you think you can you can get Anastasia to reveal anything about her creators." The doctor put his claw on his hip as he answered.
"I can try, but whatever these humans did to Anastasia traumatized her badly. It might take time before I can get her to talk about them." Megatron could empathize with that. He was born a miner before he became a gladiator and then a warlord. The reason why he started the war was to end the cruel class system and bring justice to himself and his fellow slaves. A part of him sometimes wondered how he would turn out if he had been born free.
"Take your time," Megatron said. "Until we know for certain that they're dead, we Decepticons must be on our guard. They managed to observe and collect CNA from both us and the Autobots for years without any of us noticing. We don't want to have more problems, not when we already have our hands full with the few hybrids we have already encountered."
Canary sat up on the berth and went trough a few tests with Ratchet. Checking her sight, movement, and her blood levels.
"Are you experiencing any dizziness or tiredness?" Canary shook her head. Ratchet held a flashlight over her eyes and asked her to follow it.
"You have recovered quicker then I anticipated." The medic turned of the light and placed it with his other instruments. "But I must advice you to take it easy for a few days and tell either me or Rachel if you start to feel worse." Canary rose up, putting her mask over her face again. She saw the doctor's satisfied smile vanish as he came face to face with his reflection. Canary rolled her eyes, remembering the drama she created last time she was here. Trying to put Ratchet at ease, she moved the mask half annoyed and let it hang beside her face.
"So, what's the plan now?" Jack said, leaning over the railing. "Are you going to stay or go back to London until further contact." Alabaster jumped from Optimus's shoulder and grew to her full height.
"We are going to rescue our friends." She called out, intertwining her fingers. Optimus quickly reacted and put a disapproving hand on Alabaster's shoulder. The other techno-organics had already gathered and waited for further instructions.
"You can't attack the warship again." Optimus said sternly. "Now that they know about your existence they'll be expecting you. Attacking now would result in bigger casualties than before." Alabaster shook off her fathers hand and looked at him pleadingly.
"But we have to save them, they're family. We can't just leave them for the Decepticons to do whatever they want with them." Canary rose from the berth despite Ratchet's protests. She walked over to their main computer and faltered slightly before grabbing the keyboard for support.
"Optimus's right." Bulkhead got into the conversation. "You are all soldiers too, right? You should know better then attacking so early after a failed attack."
"Don't call us that!" Alabaster hissed at the green Autobot. She was just about to say something else but stopped when she felt Optimus's heavy hand on her shoulder.
"Don't take your frustration out on Bulkhead." Alabaster turned around and whipped his hand away. "I know what you're going trough. I have been trough the same thing during all my years fighting this war. But rushing into a battle, without a plan or resources, will make it impossible for you to win and it'll leave you in an even worse state." Alabaster didn't say anything. She knew he was right, but she couldn't just sit around and wait. She's the reason this whole thing happened and it was her responsibility to make it right. The heavy silence was abruptly broken as Canary suddenly screamed in pain. Blood dropped from between her lips and her screams died out as she started to gurgle blood and fell to the floor. Ratchet rushed forward and caught Canary before her head hit the floor. Rachel came shortly after and threw herself on the floor, trying to find out what happened to her friend. Canary woke up quickly though and started to spit out the remaining blood. She tried to wrap her hands around her hurting throat but Ratchet advised her not to and gently removed them.
"Today is not my day." She signed strained and coughed. Rachel checked Canary's throat and discovered that what was left of her vocal cords had damaged by the sudden strain. But what was it that made her scream like that?
"She'll be fine." Rachel said and engulfed her hand in turquoise glow. "Canary just strained her vocal cords again." She gently put the hand against the lavender haired girls neck and healed her internal wounds.
"What happened, Canary?" Rock asked worried without noticing how the railing bend under his force. He translated for the Autobots as Canary spoke.
"The Decepticon have upgraded their firewalls. I could barely start breaking down the first one before my system was completely overwhelmed." She cringed and pressed the palms of her hands against her temples. "What do the Decepticons have against me?" Canary said to herself.
"Wait," Alabaster stepped towards Canary, running her fingers anxiously trough her hair. "Do you mean we can't find them anymore?"
"I'm afraid not." Canary said with an apologetic look. No it couldn't be. They had to save Freedom, and Anastasia and Valkyrie. What were they supposed to do?
"This is all my fault." Alabaster said which surprised the others. How could any of this be her fault?
"I'm the one who made you search after us, I was found by the humans, I made the twins think I was kidnapped." She fell to her knees, rubbing her eyes with her knuckles and wailing like the child she really was under the of that grown body. "I wish I never tried to find my daddy. If I had stayed home then none of this would have happened. We would still be safe, we wouldn't have the Cybertronians searching after us, and Canary wouldn't get hurt so much. And our friends wouldn't have been taken by the Decepticons. I did this, everybody is getting hurt because of me." It hurt Optimus's spark to hear her cry like this. None of this was her fault, and despite everything that happened, he was grateful to have met all of them. To meet Alabaster. He walked over to the hurting albino, but was stopped by Toni who had grown to her full height. She gently put her hand against his chest before turning to Alabaster and the humans that tried to comfort her.
"Thank you for everything," Toni murmured, visibly upset as well. "But I think it's best we all go home for now. We'll keep contact with you." She turned and helped Alabaster get up on her feet as Ratchet activated the groundbridge. Rachel, Canary, Toni and Alabaster all shrunk back to human size. The Autobots were silent as the hybrids left the base.
Valkyrie had long given up on trying to break free. After the fifth or sixth shock and two panic attacks, she had accepted that she couldn't break free from her shackles. Her arms had gone numb, bordering on painfully. Even doing something as simple as moving her fingers was proving more difficult. Valkyrie was so deep in her own thoughts that she almost didn't hear the metallic door open. She saw a big shadow entering her line of sight before raising her head with an annoyed expression. After that fight she was so high on adrenaline all she wanted was to tear that one eyed ogre to pieces. Now, she was so tired that she no longer had any energy left to care.
As for Breakdown, after hearing about his partners attempts at "interrogating" Anastasia, he wanted to see if he could have any luck with Valkyrie. He knew that she wanted to kill him. Not that Breakdown blamed her, he shot Valkyrie in the head with a missile. And she somehow survived without any noticeable injuries. Thinking about it made him relived that she had decided to fight without her hammer. Breakdown stood unsure what to say with his hands hiding something behind his back.
"I know you don't have high thoughts of me at the moment," He began, "But I have respect for strong capable warriors. You almost beat me by only using your own fists. I even shot you, but you don't have any wounds." Valkyrie blinked confused as he scanned her original. This was not what she was expecting, she expected her original to be a muscle headed beast who spoke with his fists.
"Wh-why are you here?" Breakdown finally showed the energon cube he was hiding.
"I know we had a rocky start, but I hope we can have a decent conversation." Breakdown was not a great talker or charmer, but he hoped that what he had would be enough. Aside from having similar looks they also seemed to have the same love for battle, maybe if he talked to her as a fellow warrior then he would succeed.
"Great, but what is the cube for?"
"I figured that since you're all half cybertronian then you must consume energon." He answered but became insecure when she questioned it. Techno-organics did need energon, but not as much as he he thought. Valkyrie smiled somewhat flattered and rolled her eye slightly. The word 'cute' came to mind in that moment.
"That's very nice, but energon is not as important to us as you think. We normally just consume it after great blood loss. And also, we can survive on small amounts of energon several months between each feeding. Energon in big amounts has the same effect on us as medical drugs, you are basically offering me a fun way to spend my time while I'm alone." Although somewhat embarrassed, Breakdown remembered that peace of info and planned to share it with Knock Out. He put the cube down and as he let it go, he heard Valkyrie speak.
"How did you lose your eye?" Breakdown growled frustrated without answering the question.
"I could ask you the same."
"Oh, I'm not actually one eyed." She chuckled. Since she couldn't use her hands to remove it, she rubbed her face against her shoulder and made the eyepatch slide. What she revealed was a far more cybertronian then her left eye. Completely yellow and slightly bigger with a sharper shape. "I cover it to draw less attention to myself, or else I'll have a bunch of humans staring at me." Breakdown was disgusted for a moment before a few questions appeared. How is it possible for them both to have an eye so deformed or damaged that they need eye patches? And on the same side on their faces. The coincident was too big to overlook.
"How old are you?" Breakdown asked.
"Why did that come up?" She said confused and averted her gaze as she tried to put back her eye patch.
"Just, please answer." Breakdown helped Valkyrie and put her patch back to its place. Valkyrie thought for a moment, still confused but decided that there was no harm to answer.
"I'm two years old." The answer made Breakdown raise his eyebrows for a moment.
"And were you born with that eye?"
"Yes! What's up with all these questions?" He didn't answer and kept thinking about his theory. She has been having that eye since birth, and he only lost his eye when he was caught by Mech a few months ago.
'Oh, that's a really interesting theory.' He thought as the idea kept intriguing him. He might not be the smartest 'con but he was not an idiot.
"Hey!" A kick to the chest reminded Breakdown that he wasn't alone. "What are you thinking about you cyclope? Don't you dare ignore me." Breakdown didn't have time to waste on bickering with Valkyrie, he had to share his theory with someone. He doubted that Mech might be responsible for their creation, but they might have been investing in the project or been allied with the actual group. Mech didn't have advanced enough resources according to what he had seen up close. And Arachnid once told him that they were in constant need to move and avoid staying in the same place for too long. If the Decepticons were to find the creators of the techno-organics, then finding Mech might be a huge step in the right direction. Breakdown quickly picked up the energon cube and said goodbye to Valkyrie.
"Thank you for your help." He said before leaving her alone again.
"What? What the hell was that about!" She shouted in frustrated confusion.