The Diego Diaries: Moving Onward and Stuff (dd8 79)
NOTE: PART 27 of What Makes No Difference Is No Difference is up as well. :D Next posting to that story will be February 1, 2021, Monday. (One every other day so far)
Sorry about yesterday. I got sick from something I ate. :D:D:D
=0=A bit later at the Secretariat of State
"Hey."
Ratchet who was on the way out stopped, walked back and peeked inside. "Hey."
"How did it go?" Lucien asked as he leaned back in his chair.
"Pretty well. Most of them were embarrassed that things had come to this and most of them, 99.9%, live here happily and with gratitude. Its that 0.1% of wankers that make things difficult."
"Wankers?"
Ratchet grinned. "Slang for … uh … idiots."
"What's the upshot then?" he asked.
Ratchet walked in, then sat on the couch in front of Lucien's rather nice desk. "Nice digs. You got upgraded."
"I did. Much bigger, quieter, nice view. Thanks."
Ratchet chuckled. "You earned it. The upshot is that before I left I gave all of them, all 22,502 of them homework. The directors of the facilities have to go through all the documents of the habitats with the ruling class including expectations, laws, what happens when things go wrong, how everyone is allowed to have hearings that are fair in disputes, then ping me receipt. Then that bunch have to do that with all the residents from children to elders. Receipts pinged as well are required."
"Sounds like work," Lucien said with a slight grin.
"It is. There should be consequences to actions. Or so my old Gaffer said once upon a time," Ratchet said with a beautiful smile.
Lucien noted the beautiful smile. "Gaffer?"
"Human slang. I do declare that the little slaggers are rubbing off on me after hanging around them for the past two or three joors," Ratchet replied. "How are you doing?"
"Moving along." Lucien put his stylus on the desk top which was covered with work. "I like the table over there," he said nodding to a nice table with work and computers laying on top. "I can spread out." He considered Ratchet. "Why my son?"
Ratchet considered him back. "Why not? When I look at someone messing up I see them as children. Partition looked like a little mech, one with promise, hopes and happiness. It no end amazes me how we beat that out of each other. We lose the best part of us early on and most of us never get it back. I liked him. I thought his slag was hilarious and I liked the challenge. He was worth it to me."
Lucien stared at him, then nodded. "Fair enough."
"Glad you agree," Ratchet replied. "How is your life going outside of this? You need a life beyond the office or you turn into Prowl."
Lucien guffawed. "There is that."
"You're evading the question," Ratchet replied.
"We have a circle of friends, some of them of … dubious caste persuasion." Lucien grinned. "We play cards, attend the Performing Arts Center, go to movies, dance and dine out. All of it is amusing. Laslo enjoys your little escapades."
"We have one on Second Friday. Brunch with the boys," Ratchet said. "Are you attending football? We have playoff games tomorrow."
"We are. We're staying here. I'm assuming that the Comets will go to Cybertron," Lucien said.
"We are. I don't know that we'll win but there's glory in the trying," Ratchet replied as he stood. He stared at Lucien, sizing him up a moment. "Laslo and Partition are great. Morius and Inweld are, too. I have to say, Lucien …" Ratchet frowned for a moment. "So are you." With that, he walked out of the new office that he had ordered for Lucien.
Lucien stared at the door for a moment, then Ratchet stuck his helm back inside. "By the way. You're the new aide-de-camp for Cybertron. Just so you know." Then Ratchet was gone.
Lucien would stare at the door for a while.
=0=Prison
Ratchet walked with an extraction team through one of the 'spokes' of the gigantic wheel that was the Autobot City Military Prison of Mars, Cybertron and the Empire. It was humming with new prisoners and old. It was here that Larken was taken every day with his bonds and sons to do drudge work amongst the savages.
They reached the pen they were aiming for, then gathered around Ratchet as he considered the extraction ahead.
Roadie glanced at Ratchet. "What do you wanna do, Ratch?"
"Well," Ratchet said with a slowly growing grin, "what would you suggest, Roadbuster?"
Roadie stared at him with his usual blank expression, then the mob inside that was gathering for the fun. "I'd open the gate, go in there and beat the slag out of everyone."
"That's a plan." Ratchet glanced around at the others who were grinning. "I see a plan. Don't you?"
Winnie who loved Roadbuster like a son grinned back. "I think so."
"Let me try this first. You never know," Ratchet said. He walked to the fences, then spotted the slagger he needed. "Microbe."
The biggest mech in the pen, a hulking mech with almost as many tattoos as he had scars and tally marks for kills glared at Ratchet. "FRAG YOU, AUTOBOT!"
Ratchet smiled, noting it had an affect on the slaggers but not in the way he wanted so he stopped smiling … like that. "Microbe. And may I complement your genitors on your name?"
Microbe hulked forward stopping on the other side of the fence to stare down, way down at Ratchet. "You look good but you're full of slag, Autobot. Frag you."
"Why not come outside and let me examine you for your problem," Ratchet said. "I read your records and its an easy fix. You're not letting anyone help you and we don't allow our prisoners to walk about busted assed."
The Wreckers who ADORED human cursing laughed loudly.
The rest of the prisoners looked amused but ready to rumble.
Microbe looked like the homicidal maniacal ship boarding fragger that he was.
"Come on out. You know ya wanna," Ratchet said with his best smile.
"I'll come out to frag and for nothing else," Microbe said with a smirk that was halfway between amusing and vomit inducing.
Ratchet snorted. He glanced at the others. "Good thing Ironhide isn't here."
"IRONHIDE!" -Microbe
"Uh, yeah." -Ratchet
"WHERE IS HE! WHERE'S RAPTOR AND SUN?! WHERE'S BLACKJACK, JACK AND THE REST OF THAT UGLY PILE OF SLAGGERS!?" -Microbe asking
"I think they know about your family, Ratchet. Want me to go in there and slag him for ya?" -Roadie being Roadie
"I think you're on the future bond's list, Roadie. Let's get Ironhide, Raptor, Sun and anyone else who's an easy get to come here for the LULZ. All in favor raise your servos." -Ratchet.
All of them did including the prisoners and Microbe himself.
=0=About half a joor later from a number of locations, most not on Mars
They thundered down the long paved highway on the broad sidewalks that lined them in this, a pristine state-of-the-art penal facility. A crowd had gathered with Ratchet and the extraction team that included Gee-Gee and Coleus, the day shift warden of this prison.
"What's the urgency, Ratchet?" Sun asked as they reached the edge of the crowd.
Ratchet slipped out, then smiled at the mechs gathered at the edge of the now growing crowd. "Someone inside wanted to say hello, boys."
Sun glanced at Ironhide, Raptor, Jack, Blackjack and Fireball of all mechs, then walked toward the fence as the crowd parted like the Red Sea. He grinned when he got there. "Microbe. You old slagger. Where ya been?"
Microbe moved as close as he dared to the bars. "I ain't been born for most of it, you old bag of wind."
Huge laughter from everyone greeted that including and especially Sun. Sun stepped around Raptor. "Move aside, infant. Let your elders show you how to make them mind." He grinned at Microbe. "Hiya, Microbe. What part of the Pit you been hiding in? I wouldn't have minded to see you sooner on an even playing field."
"Frag you, Sun. Or should I say Ironhide the Older and Senile. Ironhide the Feeble. Ironhide the Antique."
Sun stared at him, then the others. "You know … I think this slagger has actually hurt my feelings."
HUGE uproarious laughter erupted from everyone including all the cell blocks around them.
Down the way holding trash bins against their chassis like they were care bears, Larken, his two bonds and two sons were watching the show with almost impossible loathing.
"What do we do, Atar?" his son, the former big shot Senator, all around bribe taker, surprising adulterer, slagging ripoff artist and all around pain in the aft asked in a voice made twee with terror.
Imagine Mini Mouse.
"I don't know," Larken asked as he glanced at the guard who accompanied them on their rounds. "What now, Garbo?"
"We enjoy the show," the big gnarly guard said as he watched with amusement the possible train wreck forming down the way.
Larken stared at him a moment, then down the way. "Oh," he said in a tiny voice.
Imagine Mickey Mouse.
Back at the possible train wreck …
"I think you hurt my feelings, Microbe. I guess I have to go inside and we can hug it out," Sun said with a grin. He slammed his giant fists together, then glanced around. "ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!?"
Huge laughter and agreement met that.
"If you're going in there, Abba, I'm coming, too," Raptor said to his uncle.
"Me, too," Ironhide said as he glanced from one to the other and the rest.
"I'm going," Roadie said. He glanced at the rest of the extraction team who grinned, then shrugged noncommittally.
He frowned.
They laughed.
He glanced at Sun who he admired as life goals, then Raptor who was probably one of the few living organisms in the universe who could make him laugh.
Or rather chuckle. Roadbuster didn't know how to laugh.
Gee-Gee considered the show inside the cell, the howling monkeys in the cells around her, then glanced at the big mechs. "You do know that if you get wiped up the prison won't recover. If you don't slag them to the Pit, then it makes my life harder."
"Not to put pressure on you or anything," Ratchet said. He unsubbed a tube and a box. "I got this if it helps."
"What the frag is that?" Ironhide asked as he watched Ratchet wipe dust off the lid of the box.
"This slagger is old Blow Hard. Its a dart gun. Here's how it works." He pulled the box open, then handed it to Winnie to hold. Taking a big dart out that had red 'feathers' on one end and a needle of doom on the other, he loaded it, homed in on a slagger, then put it to his mouth and exhaled.
Before the slagger could move, it hit him in the neck. He pulled it out, then crushed it with his servo. "YOU SLAGGER! WHAT DID I DO TO DESERV-!" He seemed to melt into a pile of arms and legs as he slid down his own body to land in a heap.
"WHAT THE FRAG!?" -all of the inmates but Microbe
"SCORE! Ratchet 1, Dumb Fraggers, 0." He gave them his biggest smile.
It would take a while for Sun and Raptor to stop laughing before a plan could be drawn up.
=0=Ops Center
Prowl took the message, then vented a sigh. He glanced at Optimus sitting next to him. "There's an odd confrontation at the new prison. Do you want to go?"
"Odd?" Prime asked as he looked up from the reports on the new forward base and the fight just past.
"Loon is there with something called," Prowl said as he picked up the datapad again, "a blow gun."
For some reason that amused Optimus who laughed. "Do you have to ask?"
Both of them rose, called a bridge and were at the prison just as Raptor and Sun finished laughing. It would be a journey worth taking.
=0=At a dojo in town
"Costik at the prison just told me there's going to be a slagging. Wanna come?" Hercy said as he rose, then stretched.
Everyone rose, young and old along with a tiny baby to head at speed toward the new prison fifty miles away. Because Springer and Drift were 'essential equipment' and had clearance, they would all arrive by bridge about the same time as Prowl and Prime.
TALLEY HO!
=0=TBC 01-30-2021