The Diego Diaries: Wind Down (dd8 172)
=0=At the scene
The shooter did.
He was a kid.
=0=Moments later on their way to the buses …
A ruckus was ongoing as Prime walked back to the buses. A mech was in a heated argument with Sunstreaker and Sideswipe. He halted his party, then walked to the altercation. "What is happening?"
"MY SON IS MISSING! I WANT HIM GIVEN TO ME RIGHT NOW!" the mech said at the top of his lungs. Several others were with him, all of them looking enough alike to seemingly be related.
"Your son was the sniper just now," Optimus said in a calm voice.
The mech froze as did the others. Gaping a moment, the mech stepped toward Prime. "I need him now. I want my son."
"You don't seem surprised that its him," Magnus said.
He glanced at Magnus, then Prime. "My son … he … he makes rash decisions sometimes. He's harmless."
"He took a shot at us in the midst of the refugees. That's not harmless," Magnus replied. "He's lucky to be alive. Anyone but Prime might have taken the shot."
The mech looked ready to pass out but he continued. "I would like my son back. I need to see him."
"We're bringing him out now. The rest of you, board the buses. You," Prime said to the distraught mech, "can stay and accompany your son to the hospital. You," he said to the others, "must leave now."
There was a short row but the mech told them to go, he would go with 'Lyn'. They reluctantly boarded the bus and when all of them that had showed up were so, the buses began to pull out to go with Watch escort. When they were gone, a sound above them was of a runabout coming in to land nearby. They watched it, then the mech turned to Prime. "What's this for?"
"Your son," Magnus said. "He needs to get there fast."
Moments before …
The kid stood up, a tall spindly kid who looked 'off'.
Prime couldn't put his digit on it but the kid looked slightly off and his energy was chaotic and frantic. He swung his gun at Prime who caught it easily and in doing so the kid tripped and fell hard on the floor. He cried out, then lay back looking disoriented and pain-filled at the same time.
"Ratchet!" Prime called as a shuffle behind him indicated that the medic was here.
Ratchet moved past Prime, then knelt. He scanned the moaning child who looked terrified and hurt. He plugged into the med jack on the child's throat, then the child slumped into restfulness. Glancing up, he stood. "A runabout's being called. This child is both physically and developmentally impaired. I don't know how he's moving the way he is now. I put him into medical stasis and tamped down his pain. He's in a lot of pain."
It was funereal in the corridor as they waited for the vessel to land. As they stood in silence watching Ratchet care for the child, a call to Prime from the guards below indicated a problem had arisen. Lyn's family couldn't find him in the march downstairs and were demanding to have him produced right away. He left Ratchet and Partition to prep the child for transport.
Down below, Prime waited as the runabout landed, medics with gear and a stretcher hopped out and ran for the door of the building he'd just left. They disappeared inside right away. Prime turned to the mech causing the stir. "Who are you?"
The mech who was riveted by fear and anguish glanced at him. "I'm Sterit of Capitol City."
"This 'son' … he is one of those affected by this disease. Correct? Why did you not come the first call?" Prime asked as his exasperation exceeded his tact for once.
The mech stared at Prime almost blankly, then the others as he tried to organize a coherent reply. "How are we supposed to trust you?"
"He's the slagging Prime of Cybertron. That's how," Sun said.
Sterit glanced at Sun. "Just like that? After all this, we're supposed to trust you?"
"What?" Sunstreaker asked with surprise. "You're worried about trusting us? WHY?"
Sterit turned to Sunny, taking in the warrior-class model before him. "Vengeance."
Sun chuckled as everyone turned toward him.
Sterit balled his fists. "I'M GLAD YOU FIND THAT FUNNY!"
"I do," Sun said with a chuckle. "It means you understand that the way you lived was … what do the humans call it? Bullshit? Bullocks? It means that you recognize the injustice and cruelty that you lived your life with at the expense of everyone else all this time. Why worry about vengeance if you're right? Being right means everyone was accepting and in agreement, so there's no reason for anger and vengeance. Why worry that those you hurt would pull off your arms and legs, then beat you to death with them if nothing you did was problematic?" he asked with a big grin.
It was silent as the distraught mech stared at Sun, a seriously decorated, seriously huge mechanism made specifically to be a weapon back in the vastly ancient realms of their collective past. For Sun and Jack, there was nothing subtle about what they were supposed to become. It fueled some of their fury, the idea of form dictating function. "I'm not talking about this with you two."
"No," Jack said with a smirk. "You don't have to. You and your high tone ideas. Why would you think anyone had anything to avenge if you're right?"
Sterit stared at him, his intense emotions clearly warring on his face.
Then the door opened nearby and a stretcher came out with Ratchet running ahead to jump onto the runabout. The child on the stretcher was seemingly asleep and had devices and cords attached to him. A medic was carrying a bag of energon in his hands as he hurried alongside the stretcher. The bag was infusing the child.
Sterit tried to slip past Sun but failed and the ensuing frantic fight was understandable but of short duration.
Prime gripped his arm. "We will follow. You will come with us in travel format. Stay inside the formation and we will get there faster. There is no room for you to go with him."
The runabout loaded up, then lifted off almost before the hatch closed to disappear into the night sky.
Prime walked to the street, transformed, then waited for the others to follow. Sterit was placed in the middle and with police following, lights and sirens blaring, the group took off to drive through cities, on highways and across open spaces to the Metro Highway 2 and the Autobot City Medical Center in The City.
=0=The Hourly News: LATEST BREAKING NEWS: STAND OFF IN CITY 4, DISTRICT 7!
Kornel who was news reading at the moment watched the group of vehicles heading for The City as his producer and crew gathered new information about the situation. There were IntraCom drones following along behind both the runabout, the buses taking more refugees and Prime's group. When he got the data, he scanned it, then began again. "We have just received an update from the Office of Strategic Communications. They've stated that several hundred more refugees who were barricaded into their apartments for some time now have come forward to go to the Autobot City Medical Center in Autobot City, the one in Crystal City and the other big one in Pax. The Children's Treatment Center in Pax is geared to receiving the children for treatment of a severe strain of protoform wasting that is unknown yet but was discovered during initial medical scanning on Meadow Lands before they left as common colonial procedure.
"The Office of the Chief Medical Officer for the Empire and Armed Forces, Commander Ratchet of Iacon released a short statement regarding the new strain of this disease for the public. It reads, "Today it was discovered that the immigrants from Meadow Lands have contracted through environmental causes at their home colony a new strain of protoform wasting disease unknown until now.
"With every migration we recover, the diseases sometimes are specific to their groups or to their isolation. This group has been isolated since The Great Exodus and thus they've been dealing with the ravages of this disease all that time. It's also a factor of their isolation that its completely new to us. We're currently working on devising a treatment protocol for it and will continue to treat the symptoms as they present on our current path forward.
"I would like to stress that this is not a communicable disease. You can't 'catch' it. Its a disease that's caused by deprivation and poor nutrition. All of us have been there. All of us have been this group. This is greatly affecting the elders, children and babies of this group but everyone else is also affected to some degree.
"There was another separate party with them that was only in the colony for about 200 Earth-style years. We're currently running tests on them to determine if they were also affected by this disease. Though they were only there a fraction of the time, we're very careful with our people to ensure that all of their ailments are known and treated.
"I would urge everyone to refrain from gossip about this and to find somehow the compassion necessary for this moment. Genitors are afraid for their children and elders even as they themselves come to grips with this disease that they also carry. We're going to get this handled and our people treated. Until then, good thoughts are appreciated for everyone involved. Until all are one. Ratchet out."
Kornel look at the camera again. "That message was from Commander Ratchet, CMO of the Empire and this colony. He advises that this is not a disease you can catch, but rather a disease that is created through the right conditions. This is a refugee disease which many if not all of us are acquainted with in some way or another. Compassion was asked for and I believe will be received as we face this together as a people.
"All of the facts and relevant information can be found on the IntraCom web page in the relevant folder. It was suggest that gossip be held and we agree completely. Facts are given to us the moment they're released and we will get them to you as fast as they come in.
"At that moment there are now at this count 841 refugees stepping out to go to the hospitals leaving 91 in the buildings. Negotiations are ongoing with more information coming in as we speak." He glanced at the screen. "The images of the surrender, the shooting and the gathering up of the refugees after the shooter was taken into custody are the films playing on screen. In the smaller inset box, Lord Optimus, a number of his senior staff and a refugee are driving swiftly to a hospital."
He paused a moment to take a message, then continued. "I was just updated that the civilian refugee with Prime and the others is the father of the shooter, the sniper who shot from the upper story of the building."
Moments ago in the building …
"How is he?" Prime asked.
"Slagging awful," Ratchet said as he added things to the youngster's supplemental drip. It was a cube with energon that could be slotted into a feed port and slowly add to a bot who was either bleeding or poorly and needed something added. "I think he's going to be lucky if he's determined to be sub adult. Right now, he fell and broke his hip strut on the right side and collapsed his central strut from the jarring impact. I have him in medical stasis so he doesn't move and make it worse."
Ratchet turned to Prime and spoke in a lower voice. "I found mental impairment from the disease, Optimus. He's not in control of his faculties. He didn't know what he was doing, he's so ill."
Prime nodded. "I thought so, too. Is he going to be … to make it?"
Ratchet glanced at the data coming into a meter on his arm. "He's very bad. I think we can help him but until Wheeljack and Percy come up with a treatment those who are most affected have to go into deep medical stasis to arrest the progression. It won't stop it but it'll slow it enormously because using stasis won't feed their functions and spur this slagger along. I think that's the simplest explanation I can give you."
Prime nodded even as he despaired.
Children. This mech was a child.
=0=At the Med Center
They arrived as a group, transformed and ran inside just as the runabout was unloading the stretcher on the roof.
=0=TBC 05-24-2021