The Diego Diaries: Post Partay (dd8 537)

=0=At the Prison

Mikron stared at him with real hatred.

It was silent for a moment. Then …

Ratchet watched as Mikron moved toward him leaning into his space with malice. "Personal space, slagger."

"You're the worst person I've ever known. You're the most common slagger, the lowest of the low. You were a mercy case then and you're a hopeless case now." Mikron was lit but controlled like he always was. His vocal tone was dripping with personal malice as he glared at Ratchet.

"Do you have the capacity to understand this? That everyone in your group likely carries up to three detonators in their helm?" Ratchet scanned him. "Well, well, well. You have three yourself."

"You lie," Mikron sniffed. "You're so low caste, how can it be different?"

Ratchet tossed him the meter. "Scan yourself then."

He stared at Ratchet, then scanned himself. He stared at it, then tossed it onto the ground. "You could have programmed this to say anything. What sort of fool do you expect us to be? Low brow clown."

"Well, I'm sick of this," Prowl said as he pulled a tazer and stuck Mikron on the arm.

Mikron twitched then fell down.

Glancing at Roadie who was grinning along with everyone of the Prison guards with him, Prowl said, "Drag him to the hospital." He glanced at Ratchet. "We have scanners there that can show him in real time, right?"

"Sure," Ratchet said.

"Then let's go," Prowl said as he stomped off toward the Hospital down the way.

Everyone glanced at each other, then grinned.

Roadie picked up Mikron after grounding him then the group walked out to the horror and loudly shouted rage of the former high castes who were watching from their pens.

=0=At the Prison Central Hospital

Mikron was aware and lit when they made him stand in front of a huge scanner. Putting the scene on the monitor nearby, Ratchet moved it closer for Mikron to see. Moving out to the corridor to watch through the windows, the techs began to work the scanner to deep scan his body,

Ratchet watched and delivered commentary. "He looks good all over but we'll see when he gets to the helm. Tolie will find it if its there."

There was a silence, then the helm appeared.

Mikron was silently watched the monitor as layer after layer of his helm was scanned and laid out. It didn't take long to see things that shouldn't be there.

"There you go. Three chips. Two of them are in a really degraded condition. We have to get them out or if he bumps his helm he could get more than he planned for," Ratchet concluded. He left the corridor that everyone was waiting in to go inside again. He walked to the monitor then turned to Mikron. "There are three detonators in your helm and two of them are corroded enough to be problematic. If you bump your helm it could go off."

Mikron stared at him with great rage, then the monitor. "I refuse to accept your slag."

"That's fine because I'm taking them out. You're going to tell your people to come in and get this stuff removed. If you don't I'm going to take you outside and put you into a pen with a road rage gang. It might be fun to watch them part you out." Ratchet stared at him evenly.

"You're a savage, dirt licker. How dare you threaten me," Mikron hissed.

Ratchet glanced at the window nearby then waved everyone watching in. All of those in the corridor entered to pause by Ratchet. "This mech is deluded. He's become a threat to his own well being. I'd like to have a Primal hold on him, Optimus. If he so much as bumps his helm he dies."

"I reject that," Mikron said as he stepped from the scanner. He glared at Ratchet then walked to the wall nearby. Putting his servos against the wall he glanced at Ratchet. "You're a liar."

Ratchet who caught on first startled, then ran toward Mikron. He didn't reach him before he bumped his helm against the wall. He did it twice then a muffled blast was heard. He staggered backward then fell to the ground in a heap.

Ratchet knelt, scanned him swiftly, then sat back. "What the unholy frag."

Prime stared at Mikron who had a crack in his helm where energon was slowly leaking. "What has happened to us? How can this happen?"

It was silent as a tomb in the room for a moment.

Then Prowl knelt to look at Mikron. "Its a curse. Its a poison. What the frag is this? What has become of us?"

"This is a lot of things," Ratchet said as he stood. "This is something that the Quintessans brought to us and we've never purged it. This group will either come willingly or I'm going to bring them in with a crowbar. This can't happen again." He glanced at Prime. "I think we better go back to the prison and show the others this. We always film these things because some of those who come here are violent and anything can happen. It might be a gauge of how hard this is going to be overall, their reaction."

Prime stared at Mikron then Ratchet. He nodded silently then walked out with Ratchet, Prowl and the crew. Orderlies were gathering up Mikron to go to the morgue as they left.

It was a silent walk to the prison pen. Those inside stared out at them defiantly as they approached. Then Ratchet walked to the pen. "I want you to see something. I told Mikron that he had three chips and two were dangerously eroded. They were so eroded that they could detonate even with a bumped helm. This is what happened."

Ratchet then played the film to them over their transponders. He watched their shock, anger, then something now, a flash of fear. "Either you understand and cooperate to allow us to remove them or we'll take the chance of dragging you out to have it done. Understand. We can't guarantee that if we did you won't blow up anyway. What's it going to be? Do you hate me more than you want to live or what?"

The group glanced down the way to where Fila stood in silent shock. She finally glanced their way, then gave a slight nod. When she did a big mech inside walked toward the gate.

Ratchet glanced at Roadie and Gee-Gee who walked to the gate to allow him out.

He exited, complied, then walked back in. One by one, the remaining ten followed, then were locked back up again.

Prime who was watching glanced at Fila. "I want you to record a message telling everyone of your group to comply. We are not sure that children bear these chips. Do you want to be responsible for killing your own children?"

Fila stared at him a moment then nodded faintly. It would take a moment to make the message, then Prime and his party left them.

=0=At an Outpatient Care Clinic, Kalis

Ratchet and his teams prepared several rooms for the effort when they began to show up.

Silent, strained, angry, they came to the door, gathered a bit, then entered. The receptionist informed them of the procedure, then they waited in line for Ratchet and his team. They looked shocked and slightly fearful as most of them hid their emotions.

Prime who was sitting on a chair nearby watched them as the teams checked them off against a master list and they did their best not to notice him. It was tense, emotional and silent.

Mechs, femmes, sub adults and children came into the building, went through the process and almost all of them including two of the children had between one and three of the detonators removed. They submitted to the procedure then walked out without a word. By the time the line had ended nearly half of them were cleared.

"What is the number left?" Prime asked Prowl who was going over the data.

"We have about five hundred to go. I'm going to tell them that they have until 1600 to get here or we'd have to declare them a hazard and send the Watch to arrest them," Prowl said as he internally organized a message to send. He walked to Prime to sit as a Marine sapper walked out with a box filled with detonators. Two Army sappers followed as the dangerous munitions were taken away for disposal.

Ratchet walked out to sit. "Well, this is slag."

"I don't know what's going to happen but I doubt that Mikron's death is going to go unavenged," Prowl said.

"I agree with you," Prime said wearily. "I am still overcome by what he did. It is clear to me that there are missing elements to their behavior and capacity to think."

Ratchet nodded. "When you limit yourself you have problems. They didn't do themselves any favors with their lifestyle. Its going to take a while to get the image of Mikron doing that out of my processor."

They nodded, then more came, more with deeply rage filled expressions but silent behavior. By the time they were finished checking off every name they wouldn't find a single individual who didn't have all or at least one of them.

=0=Cybertron

Delphi sat with Turbine and Hard Drive after getting the message. They were going over expanding plans for amenities in the cities when the word arrived about Mikron. It was shocking even for them.

"If someone told me that I had a bomb in my head I wouldn't do that for any reason. There's something fundamentally wrong with them," Turbine said.

Hardie nodded. "I heard of Mikron. He was a decent doctor but an egomaniac. He thought he was king of the world. Its an awful thing when this kind of event happens. I grow weary of it every time I hear something like this."

Delphi nodded. "I don't imagine that this is the end of it. Do you suppose they'd be uninformed enough to try a Caste Court over it?"

Hardie shrugged. "I don't know but I do know that we have almost 50 Elites on Mars now and a few here. We can do this if they call for it. I cannot imagine what law they can introduce that can undo what's already done. Primus Himself is tired of this."

Turbine nodded. "I agree," he said as they worked onward until the time to come home again at last arrived.

=0=The Hourly News

"The Temple will be open orn and night for the next decaorn to attend to the visitors who have come in large numbers to pay their respects to the AllSpark and the Pantheon for the Convocation. The Monastery will be open as well along with the Halls of Order and the shrines. Someone will be there to assist pilgrims with their needs.

"In other news, the prison reports the death of an inmate this afternoon during an attempt to remove courier-traps and Functionalist chips from their processor. The name is being withheld until next of kin are informed. Its been determined that the former high castes of the recent migration, about 3,500 all told bear them and have, some of them, for eons.

"They were called to the Outpatient Clinic of Kalis where they were relieved of their burdens by technicians and demolitions experts from the Marines and Army. We hope that they recover and find their way forward," Aleph said. "When we come back we will speak to City Manager Ultra Magnus of Iacon about the latest news on the war world space station that will be taken to open space near Fort Borderlands to assist in locating any outlaws heading down the Bootes Chute toward Mars."

The scene changed to the Community Bulletin Board.

"Well, that was weird," Stiletto said as he sipped his near beer. He was playing cards at Club Cybertron with the usual suspects.

"Not really. Some of those slaggers were the worst criminals ever. Why do you think they have courier-traps in their helms? By being good?" Barricade asked with a malicious smirk. "Deal the cards, Sideways."

He did.

=0=TBC 10-04-2022