The Diego Diaries: Prison (dd8 342)
=0=Prison
Ratchet hugged the little mech who leaned into him. He was staring at his servos and when he did Ratchet remembered the mechs of the Dead End and the Wilderness who were abandoned to die helpless and alone. That his Amma Corr had been condemned and tossed there, the Dead End no less and would have been on his own but for Amma Docker and Appa Chan faking disability to go with him still made his energon run cold with fear.
This little mech was covered with burns from some kind of electrical whip device. They crisscrossed his body, most of it on his helm and stained his features with the effect. One optical socket had sagged a bit from the heat of it causing an alarmingly sad look to his otherwise cute mini-con face. It was evident also where the damage to his processor was made. There was a rent spot on the plates on the back of his helm where someone had pried open his skull and taken things out with force.
"What's the story on his pick up?" Ratchet asked as he glanced at the crew, all of them staring at him gravely.
"Dai Atlas and the team heard about this and went there. They were lucky enough to get to him before they removed enough to kill him," Winnie said. "They sort of left their mark on the town before they left if you know what I mean. His ship had crashed and he was disoriented. They took it as a sign to pillage him."
"Slag," Ratchet said softly. He leaned slightly setting the little mech straighter. "I want you to hear me as best you can, infant." Ratchet considered the vacant stare, the effort to speak that didn't come out and the unsteady confusion that hung over the mech like a cloud. "I don't know what you did before they found you. You could be the worst little slagger of all time. I don't care. You're Cybertronian and you're ours. I want you to hear me as best you can."
The little mech was staring up at him as if trying to parse where the sound was coming from.
"I want you to know that no matter what I love you," Ratchet said as emotion began to swell inside of his chassis. It was sharp and filled with rage and frustration. "I love you, Wire. We have to love each other somehow or its never going to stop. You were someone's son. I'm going to see that you get the best we got and maybe you can have a life." He glanced at the others. "I hate this. I don't have words to tell you how much."
Winnie and the mechs nodded.
Ratchet gently pulled him to his peds. He swayed. "We need a stretcher. This poor little slagger won't be able to walk to where he's going. I have Goldwing and Gullwing there to look at the others. I'm putting him priority over them."
A couple of mechs from the receiving center walked through the bridge carrying a stretcher. With effort, they put the little mech on it, then watched as it went through the bridge carrying him toward a possibility of rescue. It was silent a moment.
Ratchet glanced down the way, then gestured Blackstone and the ad litems to come forward. When they reached him he had a meter out. "Come with me. We have 47 of these slaggers and that only only accounts for about six of them. We have to make a baseline for their illnesses and speed up the process of condemnation for those with severe illness. The longer we wait, the more danger there is to them.
"That being said, I don't want them to be 'handled'. We're not Cybertron in the past but we have to be ready to protect our most endangered. I don't think they get more endangered than here," Ratchet said.
"We can discuss it with Barron," Blackstone said. "If their rights are protected and it isn't based on anything but their greatest good backed by facts that support their decline, we can work out a more efficacious plan to make things swifter for those who meet the criteria."
"I would agree," Winnie said. "This helps no one."
They would follow Ratchet and find out of the remaining 41 high risk prisoners, three more would have to go.
=0=Earth2
Cindy Tomas walked past the cafe where Thomas Barnard and Micheal Pare sat together eating lunch. The concourse was as busy as ever as the Habitat began to get back to normal. There were no indications that anything had happened there between titans in pretender gear and invading Decepticons but for a large banner in English, French and NeoCybex saluting their defenders, their security team both bot and human as well as those who came to make the repairs.
It was a new vibe with a new facility director.
The two watched her go by, then resumed their meal.
"What have you heard, if anything about the problem on Earth?" Michael Pare asked. The Canadian was among those named as indicted and being sought for financial improprieties from the dumping of the Panama Papers a while back. It had taken a long time to go through the mountains of data, then track the money through a labyrinthine maze of holding companies, bank exchanges and other high rolling subterfuge used by the rich to hide money.
"Nothing definitive so far. The attack took the focus off us, thankfully," Thomas 'Tommy' Barnard said. He was the brains behind his wife's inherited fortune of mining and business interests in Australia and other parts of the world. He was also the only one who could tell her to shut up and sit down and she would.
"I don't know how long its going to last," Michael said. "I'm unclear what Prime is going to do about things. My solicitor is investigating the laws both here and in treaty. He's also investigating the extradition laws and procedures. Its going to be Prime against Earth. If he doesn't want to send us he can prevent it. But Lawrence told me to expect that if we aren't sent back to face jail time here."
"Fuck that," Tommy said. "I'm not going to jail."
"I think that's not for you to decide. It feels like jail whether we stay or go. How fucked is it that we get this far from Earth and there's no place further to go," Michael said. "I wonder what constitutes a bribe among them? Surely there must be something we can do."
"Not with Prime," Tommy said. "He's a boy scout."
"Well, I'm not going back to Earth to go to jail," Michael said as he sipped his iced tea.
"You might not have a say in it," Tommy replied dryly.
Walking across the concourse toward where they sat, Chris and Damon Pallas approached. The Greeks were laying low as they consulted their legal team via Zoom conferencing. They reached the table on the sidewalk outside the cute cafe, then sat. "What's the word?" Damon asked.
"The word appears to be jail here or there. Your choice," Tommy Barnard said grimly.
"Wow. Aren't you two just sunshine twins," Chris Pallas said.
"Pray tell me, what is there to look forward to?" Tommy Barnard asked with an acid tone.
"I don't know but I know whining about it isn't helpful. Take your days one at a time. Anything can happen," Chris Pallas replied as he gave his order to the waitress, someone's sweet mama.
She walked off to get both started.
"What do you mean anything can happen?" Michael Pare asked.
Chris shrugged. "Just what I said."
Barnard and Pare stared at him a moment, then Tommy glanced at his brother. "Count me out of anything you have in mind. I don't intend to do time on two planets."
It would be a strained luncheon for all of them.
=0=New York City at the office of Autobot Nation
"So when do we have to be there?" Warren Roberts asked.
Sam Witwicky glanced up at Warren. "The night before. We're having a dinner at the Family Tower, an informal one. Dress is casual. Everyone is going to be there."
"Sounds like fun," Warren said. "I saw the arrangements were being made."
"I didn't want it to be a big deal but it sort of got out of hand. What Carly wants, I guess, Carly can have." Sam considered that he would be a 'free man' for only eight more days before the Earth style and Praxian style wedding would commence on January 19th. "I'll just be glad when its over."
"No bachelor party?" Warren asked.
"No," Sam said with a chuckle. "I get into enough trouble without that, too."
It would be pleasant in the office of Warren Roberts, Agent for Autobot Nation and close personal friend of the Prime of Cybertron.
=0=Unidad Terra 1
Carly Brooks-Spencer stared upward at the soaring graceful beauty of the Chapel in the Trees. It had been repaired at last with all the panels replaced, mars made whole and the surrounding shrubs and trees examined for their health and vitality. They had it in full.
In eight days she would step out with her family to go to the airfield to have a Praxian bonding ceremony followed by a traditional wedding here complete with piper, her Uncle Hector in this chapel. It was planned to the last degree and all of her family and friends would come to it. They would stay in an apartment or two at Unidad and stay for about a week afterward.
Sunlight streamed into the beautiful building marbling the floor with dappled illumination through the trees that towered around it. The interior would be filled with beautiful white flowers that were going to be brought in through a bridge to the chapel itself. A dinner and dancing would follow the wedding here and be held in the biggest special event room off the main concourse. It would be delicious food, the room would be like a winter wonderland and all would be amazed at the cake which was five feet tall and covered in white flowers with sugar jewels set into handmade filigree.
She considered her life and the trajectory that it had taken. A chance meeting in the British Consulate in New York had been the gateway to her present life, living on another planet among aliens that she loved. It was strange and wonderful. Oddly enough, Jesse Landon would be her maid of honor. It had taken a lot of persuasion to have her agree and when she did both of them had laughed loudly at the idea of Sam's discomfort.
He wouldn't know until the ceremony itself.
James, her brother and her parents who lived here would be integral to her happiness. A few friends from London and her grandparents from both sides would round out the party. Her giant family would watch it on closed circuit television given they were too numerous to come.
She stared around, then walked back out to the little car she was driving. Hopping in, she headed out to the upper quadrant where experimental plants were being placed today. If they worked they would be naturally bug resistant and nutritionally boosted to assist Earth with its crusade against hunger. It would be a wonderful afternoon for her.
=0=Jessie
She sat in her office at N.E.S.T. HQ working on reports to send via courier to the Pentagon outlining a number of anomalies that were being tracked across the galaxy by the bots. Her security clearances were almost higher than Epps, Lennox and Graham. She was hustling her work load to be free to help Carly and Sam with their wedding plans. She had resisted the maid of honor request given all things being equal. She was going to marry James Brooks-Spencer on Valentine's day. That was weird enough.
Then Carly said she wasn't telling Sam that she would be the maid of honor.
Jessie signed up immediately.
=0=TBC 01-10-2021
