The Diego Diaries: Funnel (dd7 97)
=0=Space
He flailed until he saw her floating nearby. She hung in the faint light with a grin on her face. He frowned, then settled until he was still. He was floating on nothing and it felt like the best kind of pillow. Glaring at her, he turned slightly to face her. "WHAT ARE YOU GRINNING AT!?"
"You. You're hilarious," she said with a chuckle.
"I can hear you. You can't hear anything in space," Barrett growled.
"True, that, but I'm allowing it. I have magic fingers," she said as she held up her hands to stare at them with delight. "How do you like space?"
He glanced around, then frowned. "This isn't space."
"Sure it is. This is what planets and other space bodies see," she said as she glanced around. "It's sort of the mother board of space, the dashboard. You don't see it because you aren't very evolved but the consciousnesses that make up things … this is what they see. Of course," she said as she leaned toward him slightly, "they can see what you see but this is the trueness of space, this, their template to make the buses run on time." She swept her arm in an arc.
He glanced around, then down where he saw the slowly turning figure of what he deduced was Earth herself. She was so vast he could only see a bit of her, the blue of oceans, the landmasses obscured by clouds. Yet, it was unmistakably Earth. It was then that he noticed the strangeness of everything else.
There were stars but they were posted at regular intervals unlike the night skies of Earth. There was a regular regimentation to their positions, like someone had taken a black piece of paper and dotted the surface with a white gel pen, placing the dots in rows. There was no spontaneity to them nor were they strewn to be the glory that they were when seen from Earth.
"Are those stars?" he asked.
She nodded. "They are. What do you think about that?" she asked as she pointed to a picture, an enormous black framed image of a reddish appearing galaxy which was situated onto a reddish-orange background.
Barrett shrugged. "I don't know. It's some kind of galaxy."
"It's the magnificent galaxy of Andromeda." She looked at Barrett. "The Milky Way is sort of sweet on Andromeda."
"Bullshit," Barrett said.
"You aren't listening. All is consciousness and the biggest and oldest ones embody more than a puny body like yours," she said. She grinned. "I, myself do as well."
"So … you're saying you're a galaxy? Really?" Barrett said with a sneer.
"No. Think bigger." She moved closer to him staring at him closely. "I thought better of you being young and all. How old are you anyway?"
"Old enough to know bullshit when I hear it," he replied stubbornly.
She considered that then grinned. "That's too hard but this isn't?" she asked as she swept her hand around to all that they had seen and a few things more.
He didn't answer, then he looked at the Earth. "What's that line? What's that sound?" he asked as he looked around.
"That's the line that Earth follows in its orbit around the sun," she said. "You can't see it but that's what everyone involved in creation can see when you're on this side of the line. It's Earth's template, the design that was made that she wanted and follows. That sound is the sound planets make when they move around fixed objects. It reminds me of the wooden parts of water wheels when they move slowly, creaking away."
The sound was rhythmic and 'oaken' sounding as it emanated from nowhere and everywhere. They watched Earth noting that it turned in rotation much faster than it moved on the white line that arced away into the dark distance, curving around its path around the sun.
"Then you created this," Barrett said as he struggled to understand what he was seeing.
"In a fashion. Everyone in The Great All That Is remains and is the work of many hands. The Creator, or The One as the Cybertronians call Source Energy is the ultimate creator. His body is our playground. His energy creates all that we are, were and ever will become. Some of us assist that."
"Is that so," Barrett said. He was buying into the crazy and asking for more information. He hated that. Bitterly.
She looked at him as if measuring his ability to understand, then she told him. "Not now. Not yet."
=0=Ops Center
The mayhem simmered down as fearful humans stared at Prime from the top of the conference table. He was silent, composed and unreadable. :Where's my son? You tell me that he isn't here or anywhere else?: Clark Walters said.
"We've searched everywhere and there's no trace of him." Prowl glanced at the Seer who was watching them with empathy. "We've asked Obsidian, a Seer from the Golden Sun Guild from Cybertron to come here and seek the boy's whereabouts. He'll now tell you what he knows. I understand that your people have different feelings and ideas about intuitive individuals but among our own the Seers and their families are held in very, very high esteem. Master Obsidian is the eldest among those who survived the war and is a master teacher. You can believe what he says."
:Are you telling us that you're having a psychic tell us about my son? REALLY!?: Clark said with disbelief.
:You can take them at their word: Morshower said. :I'm aware of them and what they do: He looked at Obsidian. :Master, what can you tell us about this?:
Clark looked from Morshower to the Elder to Prowl. :What-":
:CLARK!: Annie Walters said sharply. :Let him talk:
Clark Walters, Master of the Universe stared at his wife, then the strange figure standing against the wall who seemed to stare right through him. Then he shrugged. He was defeated.
"Mr. Walters, Mrs. Walters … I am a Master Seer of the Golden Sun Guild of Cybertron. We are able to do many things and since the entire universe and all in it are energy, it really isn't too hard to read if you know how and work at it.
"Lord Optimus called me to come and I've studied this problem seeking energetic signals to me of the whereabouts of your son. He isn't on the planet nor in the solar system and I will tell you … he isn't even in this galaxy.
"That said, your son is safe. That part reaches me along with a very old energy, energy so old it feels like it pre-dates this universe."
It was silent as a tomb as everyone digested that bit of news. Annie Clark stepped forward. :Is my son being hurt?: she asked fearfully.
Obsidian considered that a moment, then shook his helm. "No."
:How will we get him back, Lord Obsidian?: Will Lennox asked using the correct salutation.
Obsidian considered that. "When they say so."
=0=There
"Look."
Barrett turned to look, then startled. In front of him seemingly as close as his nose were a series of gigantic framed images, all of them hanging in the air in such a way that they overlapped but didn't obscure the pictures behind them in a row. Barrett looked at them as he scrambled backward. They were huge, framed in black like the Andromeda picture and contained in each a separate image of every planet and their moons in this system.
"Beautiful aren't they," she said. She moved beside the kid. "Each of them are the planet companions of Earth in this solar system. They contain all the relevant parts of each planet including their moons."
"Why? Why do this? What are they?" Barrett asked as he reached out to touch one of the images. He didn't reach it. Though they looked almost intimately close, they were actually farther away than they seemed. Nothing rational and logical seemed to work wherever this place was.
"These are conversational portals, where they speak to each other. They think which one they want to speak, then they do. If they want to go to them, each of the images is a portal to those portrayed." She glanced at Barrett. "They don't really have to use them. Their consciousness can go wherever they want to do. Yours does, too."
"What do you mean?" Barrett asked with a wary glance.
"You travel at night when you sleep and sometimes during the day your soul will step out a moment, then return. Its because you're a multi-dimensional being at heart. You don't remember doing it you're so low vibrational but you do."
"What for?" he asked.
"To learn things, to do things … you aren't as simple as you seem. Perhaps you'll remember that and wake up," she said. "Come. There's more to see." She waved her hand and everything went dark.
=0=Ops Center, Autobot City
It was silent in the room as Prime stood. "I am going to the Temple. Elder, if you would accompany me there."
Obsidian bowed his helm. "I would be honored."
:What are they doing? What's happening?: Annie asked.
"They're going for help," Prowl said.
The humans and bots watched as Prime and the tall enigmatic figure of Obsidian walked out the door and when at the street transformed to race to the Temple of Simfur nearby.
=0=Space
They appeared in space hanging perfectly finely as before but the view was different. There was a war going on below on a very strange planet. It was lit from within, this giant enormous planet. There were deep canyons into the interior of the planet and tall mountains and habitations towering over the surface. It was in the throes of burning as fighting clearly appeared to be happening.
Bombs burst, some of them nuclear appearing as they moved along the surface of the planet from their great height. Massive fires raged, ships battled in the sky as even more fled away carrying as many of the more lucky inhabitants from below to an uncertain future. They saw rockets streak in the sky, fall down and explode in some of the most massive bursts that Barrett had ever seen even in a lifetime of video games. More ships came, some left and still some fought each other. Some burst into flames, then died out, some jettisoned their crews of which many were killed in their helpless condition in space.
It was raw, horrible on a scale Barrett had never seen before and he felt himself trembling in spite of himself. This was something that could kill him, too. He looked at Shan. "What is this? Who is this?"
"This is the failure of reason. This is what happens when a few decide what's going to happen to the many and don't have enough sense to read the situation properly. This is the great and unique Cybertron during the last days of The Fall."
Fire roared out of a crevasse as the fighting went onward. More ships began to leave, some escorted and most not. Everyone was fleeing to who knew where with what little they could grab and he felt as he watched enormous relief that it wasn't him. Where were they going? Was it safe there? What would happen next?
"Come on. We're going down," Shan said with a grin as she touched his arm.
Before he could scream he was surrounded by darkness again. Then he wasn't. Before and all around him was the riot of a terrible battle and light was raging as cities burned, bombs exploded, tracer bullets strafed the ground around the two of them and in the middle of it all was The Apocalypse.
He would have screamed if he could have thought straight.
=0=Temple
Optimus Prime and Obsidian hurried across the Great Room and found the stairs. Taking them three at a time, both mechs arrived at the floor level where the relics were located. Walking to the Well of AllSparks, they both glanced upward at the enigma floating overhead. They stared at it, willing it to speak.
It didn't. But it did begin to glow.
=0=TBC 9-28-19