The techno-organics

Chapter 32

At first glance the field the Deceptions now stood on looked peaceful, calm, no different with any other place untouched by human hands. But they would soon learn how much blood the earth was soaked in. How many screams had echoed in the destroyed facility by the mountain. If the circumstances was different, Arachnid would have gladly let the all techno-organics go. But the threat of Megatron's anger hindered that. She kept adjusting the scanner but it still showed nothing. They somehow lost them, but the scanner was kind enough to lead them towards something else. Arachnid looked up towards the mountain the device pointed at, apparently both energon and dark energon could be found on that mountain.

"Send me Knock Out," Arachnid called and a few moments later the red con walked out of another groundbridge and questioning why she had dragged him out here.

"Take a look at this dear doctor. I believe it'll prove your time worth it," she purred and handed him the scanner. When he saw the combination of energon signals his eyes widened as he realized what they had stumbled upon. Of all the places they could have fled to, why would they have, even for a minute, returned to their place of torment. He thought about Anastasia and her broken, traumatized state. Finding their base would offer them a direct look into the sick minds that made both Autobots and Decepticons hated equally.

"This will make Magatron very pleased," Knock Out said and Arachnid and the other Vehicons transformed and flew towards the mountain while Knock Out drove there.

"Lord Megatron, the techno-organics fled. But we found something else that will that might make this worthwhile," Arachnid reported.

"Elaborate," Megatron said with a threatening edge in his voice.

"We found the birthplace of the techno-organics." There was silence on the other end before Megatron responded.

"Come back with good results."

This was Freedoms room, not the cold space on the nemesis that surrounded her like a cage. Like all the hybrids she tried her best to make it look like what she saw in the TV shows, magazines and in commercials; make it feel "homely". Some things were found, other things were stolen and some they had bought. A pine cone she had found after their escape decorated her window, the mattress she slept on was stolen and the scented candles that were spread around the room were bought. She especially liked the candles, they cleared the room of the city fumes and she used them to practice her aim. It was warm and soft, and she was safe, home. Rachel got rid of the wounds, getting rid of the pain and thus nothing disturbed her sleep. Until she felt something nudge her arms. Freedom was ripped out of her sleep, grabbed the knife under her pillow and pointed it at the little intruder.

"Wasp," she breathed and threw away the knife. Wasp hugged his stuffed ladybug and lowered his head in shame. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I didn't know it was you."

Wasp said nothing but raising his stuffed animal. Freedom understood what he wanted and placed him on the bed before wrapping him in a hug.

"I have missed you, big sister." Freedom hugged him closer to her chest like he was her own stuffed toy. "I have missed you too."

"How was your daddy?" Wasp asked out of the blue and Freedom opened her eyes as her heart painfully skipped a beat and her mouth ran dry.

"What?"

"That was where you were, right? You and Valkyrie and Anastasia visited your daddies. Why didn't you tell us before you all left? We were worried for you and we didn't know when you would come back."

An odd emotion formed in Freedom as she listened to the innocent words of her little brother. An emotion caught between joy and sadness. Joy because Wasp had been unaware of the situations true nature. And sadness because,well, where would she start.

"My father was not a very kind person," she began, disappointment and hurt in her voice; but also longing. "He beat me and threatened me. But he also taught me a lot. And...he was proud of me." In a sick narcissistic way, she finished in her head.

"He taught me some of our history. Before the war, a portion of the population was enslaved. Including my father, he started a rebellion called the Decepticons to end the slavery and that started the war."

Wasp looked amazed before wrinkling his eyebrows in confusion.

"But if the Decepticons fights for freedom, why don't the Autobots like them?"

Freedoms was silent and thought. Megatron said during their first fight that her name fit the Decepticon cause, then what is the Autobot cause?

"I don't know. But I want to find out." Freedom placed her hand against Wasp's head and snuggled him as she drew the blanket over them. Wasp closed his eyes as Freedom kept looking forward. Thoughts raked in her head that kept her too anxious to fall back asleep. Besides what Megatron told her, she knew nothing about the war. Why it started, what are both factions fighting for, their respective cause and ideals. The Decepticons were a group of human hating sadistic freaks and Megatron admitted to have destroyed entire worlds as consequences of the war. But what evidence was there that the Autobots hadn't done similar things?

As they got closer to the source of the signal, the forest got thinner and the ground got evener; which made it easier for Knock Out to drive. When he arrived the Vehicons and Arachnid who met him with a smug grin, was already there.

"Did you have a nice drive?" Knock Out transformed and walked up to the eightlegger. "If your going to mock my choice of vehicle, you'll have to be more creative than the ones before you."

"Such sass over a simple question," Arachnid teased and Knock Out resisted the urge to growl. He shifted his focus on the destroyed base ahead of them. Huge buildings of concrete and metal laid in pieces, turned to rubles and covered in harsh burns. Explosions and fires had taken place. All of this was what the techno-organics left behind. They did a good job in their effort to wipe out all traces of what once happened here. But it might not have been good enough.

"Spread out and report your findings," Arachnid ordered. Knock Out kept following the signal until he entered a building that must have worked as storage. There used to be energon here, but judging by the state of the building and the radioactive traces that remained, it had been a part of the base's destruction. But yet there was no traces of dark energon having been destroyed. So chances were that there were still some that had survived the destruction. Knock Out shifted focus on some of the few scorched metal boxes and containers in the room. He hooked his metallic fingers in the box and twisted, easily breaking it open. The content made Knock Out raise an eyebrow, it was filled with pieces of cybertronian tech. It was hard to see if they were of Autobot or Decepticon origin, but the doctor suspected it was mixed. So not only were they collecting CNA from them, they were also stealing their technology. Knock Out picked up another box, and he slightly startled as the content showed to be eyes and other smaller biomechanisms. No doubt collected from fallen soldiers. Knock Out picked up an eye and examined it. It was gray and rusty with age, and when he rolled it between his fingers small traces of sand fell out. This must have been collected from a dessert, and whoever used to own it died many thousands of years ago. The contents of the third box brought the biggest surprise. Most of the content had shattered and their contents had been destroyed, but the few that remained intact was small glass containers with dull blue liquid. The scanner confirmed it was energon based. Whatever it was, they had huge quantities of it, so it must have been a important part of their research.

"Sir," one of the Vehicons called. "We have found something."

The box was placed back on the ground before Knock Out rose up and headed in their direction. When he looked at the mountain wall he realized that someone had gone trough great lengths to hide something inside the mountain with a huge boulder. With a high pitched screech the Vehicons pushed the rock out of the way, revealing an entrance that had been blown open from the inside. And pitch black shadows determined to keep their bloody secrets.

"This is going to take a while," Knock out commented. "Contact base and ask them to send more workers. And tell them to bring containers for our findings."

He then turned to Arachnid. "You'll come with me. If there are spaces I don't fit trough, your size and drilling will come in handy."

"When did you get the impression that you can order your second in command around?" Arachnid said, a mixture of friendly banter and real offense taken.

Knock Out looked down at her with a cheeky smile before responding, "Getting an ally that almost took you out has a part in it."

As they entered the cave the red Decepticon activated the headlights on his chest and saw another set of blown up doors. When they looked down and around them, they realized that this space must have been for vehicles. Tires, headlights and cars that were still semi whole littered the floor and the walls, and the rats that crawled among the scrap.

"Did you find out what happened to the humans?" Arachnid asked.

"Anastasia claimed she and the others killed them all." As he answered, Knock Out realized the potential for stepping on the carcasses of the killed humans, and got a disgusted look.

"Just watch were you step," Arachnid said when she saw the expression Knock Out got. He shuddered and made a disgusted noise before opening the doors that shrieked in protest. Knock Out had to hunch to get trough the opening. The next room they entered was huge, with high ceiling and what looked like broken training equipment rusting away. They spotted the three other doors that were too small for any of them to even crawl trough.

"In my professional opinion," Arachnid began. "Drilling trough is not a good idea."

"Why not, you do it all the time?"

"Digging trough infrastructures built in mountains bears more risk then simply drilling trough the ground. If I don't have a good idea of the base's structure, I could cause a cave in. Or hit an energy source and blow myself up. It would be wiser to get a mining crew here instead."

Knock Out nodded and looked around the space they were in. The more he observed, the more a nagging feeling of confusion grew. The whole scene didn't feel right, it was if it was missing something. He turned around looking for clues that would make him get sense of the scene.

"Is something the matter?" Arachnid asked.

"It doesn't make sense," he answered. "The doors show that they blew themselves out, causing damage to this room and the next. And the humans were supposedly all killed. Do you see what the equation is missing?"

Arachnid looked around for a moment before she figured it out. "There is no bodies."

"Exactly!" Knock Out said and pointed at her. "Not even a speck of blood. But an organization such as this one should have had trained guards and soldiers in case they were attacked by outside forces, or if the test subjects rebelled."

Arachnid thought thought of the look of pain and rage on Anastasia's face and the venom in her voice when she described what the humans had done to her. There was no way she would let any of them get away alive.

"Maybe they were killed somewhere else."

"Then what could have happened here?" Knock Out thought about everything Anastasia told him, looking for a clue.

"Their teaching is so in bedded in me that when I saw you, it was like all those hours of killing came back and controlled my body."

That was what Anastasia had said. Hours of killing. And was it possible that it wasn't each other that they killed? And the researchers would have also required to make experiments, but maybe vermin wasn't enough.

"What if the techno-organics weren't the only prisoners?" He suggested. "What if one group helped the imprisoned humans escape by leading them here, while the others engaged the guards. Killing them somewhere else."

"If the hybrids battled and then exited trough those doors, then they would have lost traces. Organic creature bleed plenty after brutal battles."

"But what if this wasn't the only exit," Knock Out finished and Arachnid brought a finger to the side of her head. "Scouts," she called out trough the com-link. "Search the area after a second entrance and send miners here."

Knock Out turned to Arachnid when she was done. "I'm sure you can make a few minutes without me. Another chat with Anastasia might give us more information about this place."

Arachnids eyes widened slightly for a moment before adorning her sadistic smirk. "Poor little thing, she just keeps being abandoned," Arachnid purred venomously.

Anastasia was at the edge. She was losing her ability to differ psychosis from reality. The bony monster that kept threatening her, the voices that all talked over each other to the point it all became a buzzing. There was no one to ground her. No one to ensure her that it was all fake, no one to talk to her or support her. She buried her hands into her hair and grabbed it by the roots, almost pulling it off. The bony monster left its place in the corner and with just a couple steps it was right in front of her. Anastasia screamed as she crawled backwards until she hit the wall. She crawled into a ball and hid her face against her chest. She thought about all the times her family helped grounding her. They always insisted that what she saw wasn't real.

"It is not real," she began weakly before sobbing. "It is not real, it is not real, it is not real," she repeated but the bony monster came closer and she closed her arms around herself tighter, like making herself smaller would make it harder for the monster to see her. The monster wasn't fooled, it stopped in front of her and bent down, bringing its face and its foul smell closer until it whispered like a man with water in his lungs. "Why didn't you protect them?"

Anastasia stopped chanting her mantra and lowered her arms so they hung beside her. "I didn't know. I didn't know what happened to them."

This time it was a child's voice that answered. "You killed us."

"No!" she protested and raised her head towards where she thought the monster stood. But it wasn't there. She looked around the room and saw the tens of children's shadows surrounding her.

"No," she repeated so weakly it was barely a breath. She blinked and burned bones was laid where the children once stood. "I'm sorry. I promise I didn't know. Not until I found your bodies." She lowered her head and freed her legs from their crawled up position. "We escaped. We all escaped. We're fr..." Anastasia stopped herself as a heavy weight appeared in her body, and realization finally sparked. She wasn't free, she was trapped again. And for what? So she could be with her father who had done nothing for her. Anastasia gripped the necklace that no longer could absorb her lightning.

'The first gift my fucking father ever gave me,' she thought. She had hoped so badly that he would somehow come to like her. That she would get to know him, but he had barely told her anything about anything. She had hoped so badly they could be friends, that he would love her. 'Not all fathers are good it seems.'

Anastasia.

How many days had it been since they came here? A week, a month? There was no clock, they didn't have the audacity to inform her or give her something that could help her keep track. In the old base, even if they never went outside and had no windows, they still knew the date of every day. And in movies prisoners made marks on the walls to count the days, but she had no way to know when a day ended and a new started. It was just continuously the same.

"Anastasia!" Knock Out yelled and shook her shoulder. Anastasia gasped and grabbed his wrist. As a desperate and venomous look occupied her eyes that started to turn red and black like her original's.

"What are you doing on the floor? You look like something frightened you," Knock Out successfully said without letting fear enter his voice. This was different from all their previous interactions. She had never seemed to want to hurt him, even during the time she did hurt him, it was because she felt she had to. Now there was so much rage, desperation and hurt in her eyes it gave him chills.

"You," she hissed and was about to scratch Knock Out's hand before he pulled it out of her grip. Knock Out looked at Anastasia with wide eyes as he prepared himself to call for back up. When she did nothing but glaring, Knock Out raised his arms and tried to make a friendly face. "What's the matter? I haven't done anything."

"I want to go home," she said. "I'm sick of this place, I'm sick of you and I'm fucking done being manipulated."

Knock Out turned on the silent alarm and reached for the prod on his hip. But he realized how useless it would be against her.

"Come now, you..."

"Why did you come here?"

"Do I need an excuse to see my daughter?" The last word was desperately spit out and left a sickening feeling in his body. She noticed the discomfort that word brought him and her scowl deepened.

"You god damned fucking LIAR!"

The doors to the room opened with a group of Vehicons on the other side pointing their guns at her.

"Stand down," one of them ordered. She sent a lightning bolt that made them fly away. The troopers tried to stand back up but she sent another attack that knocked them all unconscious. Their bodies twitched like fishes before they finally stopped moving. Knock Out looked in shock before he looked at the necklace that was supposed to hinder her from using her powers.

"Now," she said, her voice low and dangerous.

"More will be coming," Knock Out warned.

"Yes, but until then." She stepped forward and grabbed his neck with both her hands. "I had a question you were supposed to answer." Her hands stung with electricity, telling him clearly that this time it would be lethal.

"You come to me with odd questions. I guess they have some importance for you, so, entertain me, father dear. What did you come to talk about this time?" Her face was cold but her eyes were burning with venom. Knock Out stuttered as he tried to come up with a lie that wouldn't further anger her. Telling her about Freedom's escape or the discovery of the base would no doubt just further anger her.

"Ana..." A small shock silenced him. He opened his mouth to try again before a voice spoke trough Knock Out's com-link.

"Sir, what's happening."

Anastasia's look softened somewhat before she whispered, "Can you hear that too?"

A cold chill shot trough his spine before he gave a short nod.

"Can you hear or see anything else?"

Another short nod. Knock Out now realized just how badly this isolation had affected her.

"Sir, can you hear me," it called again. Now when Anastasia was more grounded, she got an idea. It spoke again and Anastasia figured out it came from the side of his head. Anastasia growled annoyed before standing on her tip toes to be able talk trough the comm-link.

"Stop the soldiers that are coming in my direction," she demanded. "I have already defeated a handful of them with just a wave of my hand. Either tell them to stop, or you'll lose your only medic." Knock Out protested before getting a painful shock in the neck. There was a moment of silence before the Decepticon confirmed he had obeyed. Anastasia waited thirty seconds before she determined that the troops would not come.

"Thank you, darling. Now, for my next trick, I would appreciate it if you made it possible for me to send a message to the whole warship." Another moment of silence before she got conformation it was done.

"Thank you. Now, can everybody hear me?" She listened to her voice that came from the speakers. "Yes, it's me. The techno-organic weather witch. I don't advice any of you to try playing the hero, but I have been incredibly bored lately and would find that very much entertaining. I have your one and only medic as hostage and if any one of you attacks me, I will shoot so much electricity in his head his eyes will shoot trough his skull like fireworks and his brain will burn, melt and pour trough the eye holes." Knock Out panicked and threw his arms in Anastasia's direction, but before he could use enough strength to push her off, she gave him a stronger shock that almost made his vision go black. "Let me let you all in on a little secret, he's not the only hostage. You are all stuck in a giant metallic vessel, flying thousands of kilometers up in the atmosphere. With me, who got her fucking powers back," she said in mix of a purr and a hiss. "All I need is to will it and I'll give this can such a massive surge it'll drop from the sky. Which I think we can all agree would be legandary. The mighty era of the Decepticons ending when their flying fortress fell from the sky. Even if any of you survive the crash, recovering will be hard if your doctor died before it. In conclusion my friends, if you piss me off bad enough, I'll bring this flying fucker down," she whispered chillingly straight into the com-link and ended the call.

Rage burned and fought for release as Megatron listened to the taunts of that powerful, but oh so annoying, wench. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. It was like the air itself was feeling his murderous intent and feared uttering a sound or making a move. Until it was clear that he wasn't going to shoot the first person dumb enough to talk to him, someone finally spoke.

"What are your orders, lord Megatron?" a Vehicon asked and saluted for good measure. Megatron didn't answer and instead turned directly to Soundwave.

"Groundbridge that pest off my ship. She is not worth putting the vessel in danger." Once he saw Soundwave turn around and walk away he thought of the last techno-organic they had. Valkyrie was way to wild and aggressive without means to control her. Torture wouldn't help, and they would soon have lose the only thing they could use to manipulate her. Megatron got a cunning look as he figured out a way to make final use of her. He turned to a Vehicon technician and gave his order.

"Lock the doors to Valkyrie's quarters and remove the oxygen." Megatron thought back to the times he and Freedom had been up on the deck. Despite her best effort, he had seen how she struggled to breath the thin air. They already had Nikolai's severed arm preserved for research, and done a scan on Freedom. Taking a few more samples from Valkyrie and doing some tests would prove most useful.

Anastasia left Knock Out and ran out of the room. The movements felt odd and foreign as she suddenly moved faster after days of isolation in a cramped environment. She wished she hadn't left home wearing high heals. She started by jogging, letting her body wake up. Feeling her body awakening. Feeling her blood flow faster because of exercise born adrenaline and not fear. Feeling her body pick up the pace and turn into a sprint. She didn't know what she was running towards and the previous plan to find Valkyrie and Freedom was forgotten for a moment as she laughed down the hallways. Anyone seeing her would think she had gone mad instead of being overjoyed. The sprint turned into a skip, then a spin, and then another spin before she returned to running again. But she stopped in her tracks when she saw a slender dark form stand at the end of the hallway. Just like last time, she mistook Soundwave for Canary at first glance. She laughed at herself for doing the same mistake again.

"You really do remind me of my little sister. Well, she's smaller of course, but the main similarities are still there," she said like she told a funny secret. Soundwave didn't react and remained where he stood. Her smile disappeared when she finally remembered she had to find her sisters.

"You're a wonderful conversationalist, but if you will be so kind and show me where my sisters are then we will be on our way." Still no reaction, just Anastasia's reflection looking back at her. The smile on the girl in the reflection had disappeared and turned into a glare. Red lighting danced again in the blacks of her eyes as the faceless robot kept standing before her.

"Where the fuck are my sisters, bitch?" she hissed and raised a fist with red lightning dancing around it. "Tell me or you'll be the first cybertronian I've ever killed." Anastasia's rage turned into confusion as she saw Soundwave's visor come to life. Showing maps, calculating and triangulating before pointing at some place on earth. Anastasia had no way of knowing what he was doing. Canary never showed her calculations when she opened portals. Even with her visor it never happened.

"What are you do..." She was cut short as something hit her in the back. It exploded, sending blood to stain the walls and sent her flying forwards into the groundbridge. Suddenly all she could see was white, all she could feel was the cold and all she could hear was the powerful winds. Her back cracked as her bones got back together and her muscles and skin grew back. She rose onto her knees and held what was left of her blouse onto her chest. She looked around is disbelief, viewing the white frozen landscape and the icy mountains before facing the sky and let out a heartbreaking scream. The kind of scream that comes from a human whose mind and soul have been repeatedly torn apart. First the little siblings she lost, the guilt and chemicals that ate her mind, and now she failed again to save her sisters in the most humiliating way possible. The sky darkened unnaturally fast as the scream went on, and soon lightning strikes were hitting the ice; and thunder rumbled trough the glaciers.