The Diego Diaries: Step Back (dd8 564)

I had my furnace quit last night and the resultant chaos in the winter of Alaska. My guy is coming, perhaps tomorrow and I'm going to be okay now. Its actually warmer outside than it should be this time of year and my space heaters are champions. HERE WE GO!

=0=There

They gathered their gear from the barracks where they lived to come to their new posting, that is, a request that they'd made to see something new and totally surprising. It was a quiet group that did. Soon, they would be riding a ship to Tennyson and a bridge jump into a whole 'nother way of living.

=0=Morning

"ADA!"

"WHAT!?"

"I comed to lou? I goin' wif lou?"

"And miss a speech lesson with Mr. Toto? Not on your life," Ratchet said as he grinned at the imps standing around him as he finished up the dishes. Pressing the button on the washer, he turned to them. "GET YER MOVE ON, IMPS! WE WAIT FOR NO ONE!"

They shivering with excitement, then ran willy-nilly away to get their school things together. It was a loud bunch of imps that complied.

Sitting at the table nearby watching them run, Lumi grinned. He and Verilus stayed over to work on a project with Fireball and Genesis. Lumi glanced at Ratchet. "This is fun. I wish we could live here full time. We could help you with them."

Ratchet considered that. "Your Ammas and Appa might have a few words to say about that."

"They have friends coming. They're sort of relatives. Its going to be a tight squeeze when they do. Appa is like twins with two of them. It wouldn't be hard for them to live there if they could," Lumi said. "Appa even said we need to make the house bigger so they can once."

Ratchet considered that. "Let us think about it, infant. You have to think hard about your family. All of us love and want you around us." Ratchet stared at the two sweet kids. This was the first he'd heard any of the six express this sentiment.

Ironhide came out holding two kids in each servo by one of their peds. They were cackling madly as they swung. "TIME TO GO! I, IRONHIDE, CONQUEROR OF PEEWEES HAVE SPOKEN!"

Huge laughter greeted that as three dread kids came out of their end of the building with Sunspot in arms and Spot bounding behind him. After a moment of madness, they began to file out.

The door closed quietly behind them. As it did a tiny robot dog came running out of the kid's end of the apartment trying to find the one he was programmed to take care of. Sunspot was gone so he walked to the door and sat in front of it, staring at it with his little robot eyeballs to wait for him to come back.

Mr. Boo was on the job.

=0=Down there

They gathered on the curb to wait for the buses. Hero, Orion and Praxus took a cab to Metrotitan and the Central Office Tower where their classroom, Pioneer School Room 2 was waiting for them. They waved madly through the window as they went. The cab wouldn't stop until it reached the school and received the password from the aide waiting for them and several others. When they were all gathered they would grab the rope and walk in together.

Sunspot ran up the steps of his bus, then down the center aisle to where Bos, Co-D and Reflector sat. They would all wave out of the window until they were out of sight. A big dog would be staring with them as they disappeared into traffic. Five human kids from the Family Tower had joined them, all of them taking their ride to school in Centurion with their friends among the bot kids. Coming from the same district, all of them were neighbors to each other.

Gavin Pritchard's son and Niall Graham's would ride on the Sparkling Day bus with their aides to school in Terra.

A tiny bus from the Circle Prep, one that hit all the sites including the one in Ravel and Tie's professional building arrived. Sojourner, Solus, Prowler, Miracle, Scout and in a few orns, Possibility clambered aboard to ride away waving out the windows as they did.

As they chatted, a tiny bus bearing the sigil of Primus and the words, 'Temple of Primus Primary School' rolled up and stopped. Halo was placed on it and sat with her bestie, Tea. They waved out the window as it drove off.

The dread and titan boys took their bus with a wave and a hug, then everyone watched it drive away.

"This is beyond the beyond. I'd pay taxes happily if we had to if we paid them just for this," Ratchet said as the last bus disappeared. "What did we do before this?"

"We handed them over in person," Ironhide said as the majority of those still on the sidewalk began to walk toward the airfield to cut across to The Fortress.

It would be a chatty crossing for all.

=0=There

Perceptor sat with his cup and plateful. His datapad lay beside both as he waited for Wheeljack. He was behind him after putting Resolve on the Circle Prep bus when it came by their neighborhood. It went through their city when it left Iacon and thus, he was going to be a 'titch' late getting here for the debrief and staff meeting.

Venture who was already here after putting the baby on as the bus passed Vos Tower's stop nearby. The bus went from Prime's stop to his and the baby was well on his way. Miler who was part of the task force with his genitors and the physics team from Sciences would be told about things by Venture at noon when they'd go to the Sciences Center's cafe to eat lunch.

Jetta walked in with Elita, took his seat, then glanced at Venture. "Hi, Ven. What's up in your neck of the woods?"

"Just the same old thing," Venture replied with a grin. "We have a lot of money and we're going to spend it on a lot of good things for Earth."

"That makes me feel ridiculously happy," Jetta said as Elita set down a cup next to him. "Thanks, Eli," he said as he sat back to wait.

Prowl breezed in followed by Prime, Ratchet and Ironhide. Everyone took their chairs to wait for the rest.

"What's the word, Ada?" Jetta asked. He grinned at Ratchet who he loved.

"Well, I'm doing just great," Ratchet said with a giant smile.

Huge laughter greeted that as the last stragglers entered the room.

The door closed, Prime looked at the agenda and winced, then Prowl rapped his knuckles. "Shall we begin? Ratchet?"

Ratchet sat forward, leaning on his elbows. "We have a team working on all the aspects of the problem in league with Sciences. We're finding that the moment the spark chamber is inserted into a new protoform the process begins. Big or small form, it doesn't matter. The mutation rate is the same.

"The 24 others are at various stages of mutation and when they get to their peak moment we're switching them out to micro mini-con protoforms. It allows us to handle them better. When and if they go loony, we can grab and subdue that format more easily.

"Turquoise is working on the code and the more he tells us the more we can understand this. We're searching all the weirdo databases we have including Crader's for any kind of clue. All of it is in hand so far."

"What about the colony, Cybertron and the Empire?" Prime asked.

"We've wiped out courier traps. We haven't seen one in three quarters even with all the migrations which statistically means they're over. We'll still always check for them but the worry is over for me. All the other things, the public health issues like drug resistant Caches Disease is well in hand. We've gotten really good about synthesizing drug protocols for it. All in hand, Prime, so far."

"Thank you," Prime said.

"Springer?" Prowl said.

"We're in pretty good shape. Tell is walking like a champion," Springer said to chuckles all around. "OH! You mean the police thing."

Prowl smirked at him.

Springer smirked back.

"We're having a number of tips about the outstanding murders in the colony and hopefully we can close at least one of the cases shortly. The usual crimes of violence, domestic or otherwise, drunkenness and the like makes up most of our business. We've been chasing the gangs and making a few arrests. Its been interesting that the amount of crime doesn't match the size of this place.

"We're also checking out bars. Some of them are being reported as serving kids. We're going to lower the boom on the rules again," Drift said. "A lot of kids make a lot of trouble after games and so do a number of the adults. Then there's the Mini-Con Code Squad."

"They're our role models," Ratchet said. He grinned. "I do love them so."

Blackstone grinned. "They make my orn."

Coln-2 nodded. "The best part of court."

Bumblebee grinned. "The best part of 'fill in the blank'."

Huge laughter and a surprising amount of agreement met that.

Prowl sat back. "I would like an update on the murder cases sent to me privately. I want to see what's possible thus far."

Springer nodded. "On it."

Prowl glanced at Caro. "Caro?"

Everyone set their optics to 'attentive, focused', then hopped onto other things off line. It'd be impossible to see any deviation to the group from complete attention to the report in progress.

On the surface.

Caro, Venture, Sam Witwicky, Prowl and Payload listened to every word, even taking notes. Everyone else didn't.

After an interminable length of time, Caro sat with a grin.

Ratchet who'd been snoozing with his optics open grinned at Prowl. "How about another round of 'Report on the Report'."

HUGE outrage broke out as Ratchet and Prowl smirked at each other.

"Who is the victim or victims this time?" Prowl asked.

"Well, Prowl, I think that its time for Springer and Sam Witwicky to face off for the glory of their respective civilizations," Ratchet said with his best and most glorious smile.

Springer's helm nearly swiveled off his shoulders. "The frag."

Sam who'd paid attention grinned. :Sure:

Riotous agreement flowed from those who were off the hook.

=0=Ten minutes later

Springer frowned at Ratchet deeply. "See if you get Tell again, traitor."

Ratchet grinned. "I was pulling for ya."

"Sure," Springer said.

Prime who was enjoying himself MIGHTILY grinned at Ratchet. "That was very funny. Do it again."

HUGE PANDEMONIUM!

=0=After a break later

They sat again, those who ran the habitats, the soldiers and the bots who ran the colony and Cybertron. Everyone glanced at Ratchet who smiled beautifully. After a barrel of snickers, everyone got down to the task at hand.

Department after department continued as the colony reported their news. All was basically well in the realm of the Prime.

"We need to hear from the habitats. Brandon?" Prowl asked.

Brandon stood. :Thank you, Prowl. Right now, we'd like to report two more babies born in the habitat. We have four kids who are officially Martians:

"I heard that one of them was named Ironhide after a stellar warrior in the colony," Ironhide joked with a grin.

Brandon glanced at him, then turned toward him. :How did you find that out, Ironhide?: he asked.

Ironhide leaned forward in surprise. "Really? I was joking."

Brandon grinned at Ironhide. :So was I: he said with a chuckle.

=0=TBC 11-9-2022 11-25-2022

NOTE:

KyrstenRook chapter 562. Nov 7

Hi there. Excellent as usual! I have a quick question though. Wasn't it that Shadow and Zenith were one set of Prowl's grandparents and Stealth and Styre (sorry about spelling) the other set? Thanks again for all you do. Stay warm and take care.

Me: Oh lordy. I have to fix that. I need a tree graph of everyone's family. LOL! I once counted characters a few years ago and quit after 1,000. :D Thanks for this. I'll hammer it out. HUGS, darling!