The Diego Diaries: Sun Shine (dd7 254)

=0=Cybertron, in the northern climes

They walked through actual snow, stuff that had fallen eons before and had never melted. It was as ancient as some of the older civilizations on Earth. Some of it was as hard as concrete and some was newer, less gray and fallen in what would have been winter long ago. Right now, they crunched through it heading for infrastructure that needed a decision. Sun led the way as Ironhide and Rockwell followed his aides and a few locals along with a construction boss for the Autobot version of the Sea-Bees.

Pausing at the lip of a crater, they stared down into a construction site that was dug down into the iron hard surface of the planet. It had a lot of organic land forms here, both mountainous peaks and flat plains that were dirt, held boulders and other organic forms and was part of the organic planet that Primus had taken up to save all of them.

It was strange to many who had forgotten that part of the Great Sacrifice as it was known by the religious among them. For a population that was overwhelmingly urban, who seldom if ever got to go to the 'country' as organic areas were called, it was strange to know that they were standing on primeval, even sacred soil. It had taken a lot to move it out of the way, to go down into the structures below and find out what was happening. What they had found was a very old, very lost and now very much thrillingly found shrine to Primus. It was from the time of the Quintessan Oppression and so rare as to be worthy of a national holiday because of its finding.

Sun listened even as he put in a call for the Museum and University of Mars Preservation Department to send someone STAT to get on this. He called also for Prime, Turbine and Lady Sela who was an expert on such things. The mechs around them peered into the hole staring hard for what could be seen but these things were hard to spot. If one had made one, the makers would be put to death on the spot and the shrine destroyed so they were designed to not be found. There were even rumors that entire locales were decimated as well to make sure that such ideas would not be delivered to the greater world beyond. The 'mechanisms' couldn't believe that they were loved nor lovable because once you had a sense of yourself as worthy, you transferred that to others, then revolution began.

"I'd like to see it. I'm an Immortal myself and I might be able to help you. I helped to create one a long time ago in terrible times," Sun said.

The boss nodded his helm in respect. "Go ahead, Abba," he said as Sun stepped forward to slide down the side. A trail was nearby but he went to it directly, slapping the mechs at the opening of the cave on the shoulder. "Good work," he said with a grin. "This is the stuff we all dream of." He glanced upward to Ironhide and then Rockwell. "Wait there a moment." Then he bent down and went into it.

It was dark as doom inside but for the flickering light of a small lantern sitting on the floor placed there by the workman. The flickering light and the age of the place, its significance to those like Sun who knew what it was made it holy. When something like this was found, the protocol was that everything for several miles around be stopped to prevent degradation of the site in any manner including vibration in the ground from machines. Everyone pulled back and it was left for experts to come to evaluate. Nothing that was here had a higher priority than this, a construction that predated human life on Earth by many tens of millions of years. It was built in the time that coincided roughly with the early Cretaceous there.

Sun turned on his lights and saw what he expected to see. He stared at it with a rush of emotion, wondering what those who built it must have thought as they furtively made this devotion and plea to Primus. It was simple with a small altar-like stone standing in the middle. Carved into it were symbols of The One and Primus Himself. On the walls all around, Primal Vernacular as well as a simple computer like writing told the story of the Beginning of All Things. It told of the love of the Pantheon for The People and how some day someone would come, 'The One Who Comes', to liberate them from their suffering.

Nearby, a number of servo prints could be seen on one wall, the 'signatures' of those who made this place. They probably didn't have names and were probably illiterate but for those programs that were either force downloaded at their creation or they were taught to be 'functional' and serve a purpose. These prints were shouts to the future that they had lived.

He stared at them, the poignant reminders of a life he had led himself. They were smaller than his own, thus they weren't warrior class tech. They were servant class. Some of them were missing digits, the result of lives lived hard and without mercy. He walked to them and placed his one next to theirs. He dwarfed them. Someone had put them there, a testimony of their faith and a legacy to the world that yes, we had existed. We were here. We lived and we mattered to someone. It tore at his spark, the wondering he had for those who had done this. It was deeply poignant to him.

He spun, then walked to the doorway. Glancing upward, he called to Ironhide and Rockwell. "Come down here. Come and see something beautiful."

The two stared at him, then each other. Rockwell set down the backpack and followed Ironhide down the trail nearby. They reached the doorway, then followed Sun back inside. It was dark until he turned on his lights. They stared at the simple room, the artifacts on the wall and some piled up nearby. He turned to them with a deeply serious expression on his face. "Tell me what you see."

Ironhide glanced around, suddenly aware of the importance of this place from the tales his Amma Tub Tub had told him over his lifetime. "This is a … a hidden shrine."

Sun nodded. He turned slowly illuminating the writing. "Primal Vernacular. None of the mechs who wrote this could probably read it. Few could read then. This is a primal scream against slavery. If they'd been caught all of them would've been terminated on the spot. Probably everyone in fifty miles, too. The writing I've learned. Its a prayer to Primus and The One. Eternal fidelity no matter what. They would never be beaten, they would never give up, they would remember, defy and in the end be free even if it meant only in death. They were good and brave, all of them." Sun turned to them. "The Quintessans were fools. They figured they could kill an idea. You can't."

"You're trying," Rockwell said.

Sun considered that, Sun of the Infinite Patience, Sun the deceptively brilliant and tactical, Sun who had learned to love unconditionally every spark he ever laid optics on no matter how misguided because of the chains of slavery. "It would seem like that to you. However, I would say that ideas can evolve or not. Consider this. This was normal once, our entire population in slavery. They sold us like machinery. To them we were and ever would be. That wasn't an idea. That was a different thing altogether and so are its descendants including The System. Would you advance that idea now?"

Rockwell considered it. "If I say yes, then you're going to twist my words."

"Explain," Sun asked.

^..^

They arrived above ground and walked to the edge of the pit. Corrugate, Sun's staffer turned to them. "He's in the hole. I think he's making a point with the slagger."

"Rockwell," Prowl said as he stood beside Prime. Lady Sela, Chrome who had joined her along with Templar, a couple of scientists from the recovery department and Turbine were with them.

"Yes," Corrugate said with a grin.

"Then we wait," Prime said as he glanced around the area. "Snow. It still snows here."

"The snow we're standing on is about 100,000,000 Earth years old, Lord Optimus," a scientist said. "We core sampled the entire region. It hasn't melted in all that time."

"Another reason to move Cybertron," Turbine said with a grin.

^..^

"Everyone and everything has a place and purpose. You would call The System slavery but we never sold anyone and we never neglected anyone," Rockwell said.

"You didn't get out much did ya," Ironhide replied. "Think about it. Every time someone stood on our necks there was a revolution. The Quintessan Oppression, The Functionalist Tyranny and The System of Exception that led to this. Did it ever occur to you how little support your fragging ideas have? Did it ever occur to you if its so slagging great that 99% of The People hated it and fought to the death to defeat these so-called ideas?"

Rockwell stared at him, then glanced around. He saw the hand prints on the walls. "What's that?"

Sun stared at them as emotion welled up inside his spark. "That's the past reaching out to us. That's the sparks of long lost comrades leaving a trace of themselves behind before they were obliterated. None of those who built this could write. They weren't allowed to. If you could know the truth, if you were educated and taught to think for yourself, the most important thing an education can do for you, you'll never accept slavery. They couldn't read or write but they did this. They were free."

"Who wrote the Vernacular?" Ironhide asked.

"They did. It meant that they had to research it without getting caught, memorize some of it, then come here when no one was around and paint it on the walls. See how beautiful the writing is? They did that out of love and the dream of hope. I remember that dream," Sun said quietly. He stared at the passage, then glanced at them. "I was a slave, too."

=0=Courthouse of Autobot City, Jail

They were gathered up by the transfer team to be taken to the Prison and the Special Detentions Center where they would be held in isolation until they could be arraigned before the Committee On War Crimes. They had outstanding warrants from Cybertron when they were affirmatively identified and thus they were arrested and charged with indictments pending.

Or not.

The two slaggers from the hospital would be transferred themselves to the same holding area. They wouldn't be alone. This was the place where Karyll Wheelus and his family, some of his goons, Crader and the Imperialis brothers were held for their own safety. They would join the family that ran Galaxy Industries and the goons who led Sun Base here. The threat level when the rest of the prison found out who they were was stratospheric.

They walked out in cuffs, three silent mechs with sullen expressions, were loaded up and driven off. Behind them a number of mechs who'd slept it off followed. They waved to the jailers, then headed back to town and their lives. It was a rotating rogue's gallery who frequented this place and it was ever entertaining for many.

For the three slaggers, not so much.

=0=Cybertron

It was silent, even murky in the little shrine as Sun walked to the things on the floor, considering silently what Rockwell had said. He looked them over, then pointed to a number of containers that were copper designed, had simple symbols, ancient ones from the past on their surface and were stacked carefully in the back corner of the hand hewn stone structure. He pointed to a couple. "See those? Those are funerary receptacles. Inside, you'll find copper sheets, really finely made that have the marks of the dead. They were those who were killed by the enemy, remembered here so that they would find their way to the Matrix." He glanced at the two. "In the beginning, nothing was really figured out. We thought that if you weren't remembered you wouldn't find the Matrix. We collected their numbers, their nicknames, we figured out as best we could how to spell them and wrote them down. Putting them in a shrine like this meant they would have help. They wouldn't be lost and wandering afraid." He glanced at the two. "I suppose you find that amusing somehow."

Ironhide looked pole-axed. "No, Appa. I don't."

Rockwell stared at the vessels.

=0=TBC 4-12-2020 4-21-2020