The Diego Diaries: Synergism (dd9 218)
(My pains are mostly gone and there were no real impairments at all. There's just a hurt finger on my left hand that when it touches a key it screams. Its getting better but slowly.) :D:D:D
=0=At the Temple
Then he asked his question. "What must I do next?"
It was silent.
=0=At the coordinates
They slowed to a halt, a flotilla that had to be seen to be believed. It was massive enough that the shuttles that followed looked like miniatures. A simple mathematical coordinate in space was the place where the trail stopped.
Raptor was staring at the data filling the forward view screen. "There's really nothing here to signal anything happened. The particle trail just ends."
Turbine nodded. "This is the end of the line for the shuttle."
"Well, now we span out. Interlock the sensors and let's see what's out there," Raptor said as the big ships began to do combine their optical and sensor range together. It would go a long, long way.
=0=Prowl
He got the message as he stood silently with the family outside the Temple. They would go, he and Prime to Simfur for the ceremony there. Then they would come back and after a moment with the family unfettered by work, then retire to The Fortress to watch the show. This would be a dampened Festival with as much cheer as they could manage.
He read it, understanding that they were searching now for meaning and their comrades. How long that would take was anyone's guess but it was a sinking thing to know that their ship had disappeared without any sort of sign other than that the trail of its engine particles stopped at a point.
The evening was coming as they waited. It seemed to take a longer time but he knew it didn't. Evening came to Mars earlier this time of year when the dust storms of the very far north cast their shadows over the land. Sciences was dealing with new atmospheric changes and were working out the plans to end them. It couldn't come too soon, though there were benefits to them even so …
At the Temple with Frick (Smokey aka SMUDGY!) and Frack (Hot Rod aka NOT ROD!)
They shoveled sand into their buckets, then drudged them to the giant containers that were set there for their collection. Dumping them, they trudged back and continued. It was slow going but the dents they were making were adding up. Maybe they'd have it all cleared away in time for Christmas.
In two years...
Standing patiently in front of the Temple savoring the images of the two working like drones, Prowl smirked slightly at their plight as he waited. He wouldn't have to wait much longer.
=0=Elsewhere
The statue stared at him, then glanced around. He seemed to be fastened to his plinth, unable to leave it as he cast around for someone only he seemed to know was around. He pointed in the distance. "Go there."
Prime stared at him, then the distance. He began to walk across the water shimmered plane as the stars of endless space and galaxies dazzled the ground with each tread.
=0=Shuttles shuttling
They flew out in all directions following the signals sent to them by the titans. It was just normal endless space but not that far away lay the very beginnings of deeply disturbed space. Given the cataclysmic explosions of entire nurseries of stars in the wake of novas and supernovas of incalculable size and age, all of it happening at the same time, it would appear that space had ruptured and built its own set of rules for what passed for life in this blighted and supernally dangerous place.
Kup sat on the navigator's seat as his shuttle flew behind Hercy's and Lissie's. As he did a bolt of energy flashed out and through them heading into space to disappear forever. Humans wouldn't see it. Most species wouldn't feel it but the mechs on board did. A wailing sound so loud that it overloaded them screeched through their audials.
As the sound flashed past, the mechs fell over to the floor or slid down into a state of unconsciousness. The shuttle flew onward, then slowed as another energy beam followed. As it hit the shuttle, it disappeared.
Lissie who was flying nearby saw Kup go off the sensor screen. The energy bolt had missed her so none of them saw nor heard it. They just saw Kup and his vessel disappear. She was flying as it all transpired. Turning sharply, she flew forward slowing to a stop almost on top of where the shuttle had been. Scanning deeply while her platoon of mechs sat tensely watching, she opened a channel to Camber.
"Lissie to Raptor."
:Raptor here:
:Raptor, Kup and his shuttle just went off the sensor screen and when we came around it was gone," she said grimly.
Sitting behind her with the other mechs, Lon felt a sense of such terror flash through him he could almost feel his body disintegrate into dust.
=0=Prowl
He took the message, then felt the same sensation that Lon had felt but to a lower degree. He was a veteran and could contain his emotions almost better than anyone else. This, however, hit hard. Tapping into the conversation, he listened, offered a few suggestions and said that he and Prime would be there as soon as the ceremonies were over. Sooner if necessary but hopefully not given all things being equal.
It would be an agonizing wait for him through a ceremony that he revered more than any other in their culture.
=0=Prime
He walked and walked until he saw someone sitting on a bench in the middle of the shimmering shallow sea. He slowed, then continued again as he struggled to remember where he'd seen the figure before. It wasn't Cybertronian but a very large human. When he reached the figure, he studied him for a moment. "I was told to come see you," he said.
The figure looked up, then nodded. "Sit down. Here."
Prime sat on the empty portion of the bench, then stared at the paper pad upon which the human was drawing figures of infinite beauty. He knew as he stared at them that the man sitting next to him, old with a long beard was the human artist Leonardo Da Vinci. Surprised a moment, he considered the silence. "I asked the figure, the Greek statue a question."
"You did. He told you to come to me," the man said. "I am said to be wise."
"You are considered to be one of the wisest humans of all time," Prime said.
The man glanced at him. "Maybe. There were many who were wise before me and many who came after. You have heard of Socrates?"
"No," Prime said. "I do not know him."
"He was a philosopher who taught by asking questions. You ask for knowledge, he would answer with questions and in the end you figured it out yourself. Smart man, our Socrates."
"I asked, 'What must I do?'," Prime said.
Da Vinci nodded. "I know. What do you THINK you must do?"
"I am unclear. I have many responsibilities and my people are emerging from war and terror. I must do all I can for them and my family. I ask because I can," Prime said. "I can come here for them."
Da Vinci nodded as he began to sketch Prime. "Why must you do anything?"
Prime considered that. "Because much is expected when one takes on the Matrix."
"You work and things are accomplished. When are they accomplished enough?" he asked.
Prime considered that. "When everyone is accounted for and brought home to safety. That is when its enough."
"I see," Da Vinci said as he studied Prime, then accomplished a few more strokes of his charcoal pencil. "You see that as your moment of accomplishment."
"I do," Prime said.
"Then you will," Da Vinci said. He looked at Prime. His eyes were dark and his expression serious. "You are enough now. You don't have to 'do' anything more."
"But my people are scattered. It disturbs my recharge to know that they might need my protection and they do not have it," Prime replied.
Da Vinci nodded. "I used to make war machines for my benefactors. I had a lot of dreams and many of my pictures were never finished. I never felt I had, was or felt enough. Because I didn't, my future was written." He sat back to study Prime. "You are a remarkable individual. I know you aren't human but you have the most human face I've ever seen. I see such wisdom and compassion in you, such goodness. What do you see in yourself?"
Prime considered that. "I see a dogged determination to succeed and make my people safe and free."
"Then you will accomplish that but the rest … I detect that you have doubts, that there must be parts of you that don't feel up to the challenge. You feel that there's more you have to 'do'."
"That has to be true, correct? I have lived so long and learned so much, yet sometimes I find that it does not feel that way. I think there must be more for me to do." Prime considered a moment then looked at the face of the greatest artistic and overall profoundly talented human who ever lived. "I cannot explain it well but I know how I feel."
"You feel that you must do more, be more, accomplish more than you already do then," Da Vinci said.
Prime nodded. "I must not fail."
"Then don't."
"Just like that," Prime posed.
"When I was born I was the bastard son. I came to live with his family and my father secured for me apprenticeships that led to my life and experiences. I never felt like I did enough. There was never a real time when I felt that I could just 'be'. Just be me right now, here. Have you considered that there is nothing for you to do. Perhaps what you seek is permission to just 'be'."
"What does that really mean?" Prime asked.
Da Vinci grinned slightly. "You will have to ask someone else. Go that way," he said nodding to the distance. "You will find someone who can help you. I have done all I can do." He then focused on his drawing, making different expressions of Prime's face tilted this way and that as Prime stood.
"Thank you, Master Da Vinci," Prime said.
The great man glanced up, then nodded. "You are very welcome."
Prime then strode forward across the shiny star dappled plane.
=0=Somewhere
They came to their senses just about together. Kup was already up testing the walls and the vast door that closed on the square room where they were sitting.
Roadie stood. "What the frag is this, Kup?"
Kup glanced at him. "We're in a box. There's no movement that I can feel so this must be a container. I don't know where the shuttle is and I don't know how we got here but here we are."
"Where are the others? Are there others?" Bezel asked with a slightly sick sensation.
"I don't know. What I do know is we keep it together, sit down and wait for Prime. He's at the Matrix. He'll come for us," Kup said as he made a space to sit.
The others stared at him, a few used special features to scan the place but in the end they all joined him on the floor. There was no way they were getting out of this box without help.
=0=Nearing a clearing of some kind in a miniature forest that was sitting on a small island in the middle of the watery plane
He paused at the edge, then walked onto the grassy ground that constituted a tiny meadow. Nearby sitting on a rock with his face composed in tranquil inner reflection, a figure in a simple robe was apparently meditating.
Walking to the edge of the clearing where the figure sat, Prime squatted down to wait. Something about the beauty on the face of the human figure, oddly enough as big as him again, made disturbance seem like an intrusion.
As he settled, the figure opened his eyes. He grinned slightly. "My friend, Leonardo, he sent you?"
Prime nodded. "He did. He says that you might be able to help me."
The figure smiled, then Prime got a small hint of who he was. "I am here to do so. What is your question?"
Prime considered the radiant energy of the figure. "I am here to find out what I am supposed to do."
"Ah," the Buddha said. "That is a good question."
=0=TBC 07-26-2021
Barring another car hitting me, I think I'm back on my everyday schedule at last. HUGS!