The Diego Diaries: Clubbin Part Deux (dd7 340)
=0=Cybertron
They walked from The Citadel into the street with Prowl, Prime and their daughters. Possibility was in Prime's hold. Miracle and the little mechs were in school having things t to do …
"We're making cookies, Ada."
"Well, Miracle, that sounds like fun. Maybe next time?"
Miracle stared at his ada as the war for choices began in his little processor. Apparently frosting won because he climbed onto his school bus happily ...
They walked along a street that seemed brighter and lighter in atmosphere somehow. Festival had been a raging success and it'd translated to a lifting of some of the pall that had always been here even from liberation. The tasks before them were so huge that it took some of the hope all had for a better life down a peg as they had to build everything from scratch.
As Prime walked along, it felt like some of it had lifted.
No one noticed them as they reached the restaurant, a huge building with two floors of seating and possibility. The first floor was a buffet arrangement and the top floor was service from menus. Given that they were entering into a 'mech's paradise', buffet it was.
They found tables, gave their drink orders, then walked to the buffet to load up. It was breakfast before them in all its vast and tantalizing possibilities so it was received with gusto. Towering plates made it back to the tables in time for their drinks. Everyone sat down, then began. It was silent a moment as they organized, then began to eat.
"We need a buffet on Mars. What's the deal?" Raptor asked. "This is good food."
"It is," Ratchet said. "Maybe its too hard to keep enough laid in given what hogs all of us are."
"Speak for yourself," Alor said with a snicker.
"And everyone else," Ratchet said as he glanced at Prime's two plates. Count them. Two.
"What's the agenda for the clubbing part of your down time?"
Raptor grinned as he glanced at his brothers. "We're heading out at 1700 joors, right?" he asked.
Everyone nodded and murmured, though their focus was entirely on their plates.
"We're heading out to drink, eat, bowl, swim, ride the ponies, maybe go to the track, dance, fight-" Raptor said.
"Better get that mini-con firm on retainer. Shorty, Shorty, Shorty, Shorty and Sons," Blackjack said. "Something like that."
Huge laughter was had, then more food was eaten.
"What about your camping trip?" Sun asked as he glanced around Lissie to see Ratchet.
Ratchet smiled at him. "We're going to the Valles to eat, drink, roll mini-cons down hill, eat some more, dance, play horseshoes, tell campfire tales like the AUTOBOT SCOUTS!"
A moment was had as audials reset around the room from Ratchet's sonic sound boosting vocal processor.
Ironhide gave him devil optics.
Ratchet smiled and batted his optical ridges.
Stand off.
"I'm not sure I'm taking my little ada and amma anywhere near you, Loon," Prowl said darkly.
"You know you will because you wanna. You need me. You crave me. I make your drab existence colorful," Ratchet said with a smirk.
Prowl stared at him with his cold emotionless psychopathic lack of amusement expression a moment, then shook his helm. "I hate you."
HUGE LAUGHTER including Prime.
"I meant to ask, Ratchet. What do we bring?" Lissie asked.
"Besides your sparkling wit and deeply amusing intellect?" Ratchet asked, batting his optical ridges again. He glanced at Prowl who frowned. "You can come, too."
HUGE laughter especially from Prime.
"I think it would be nice to bring your sleeping bag. The rest I have planned," Ratchet said.
"Oh, no you don't. Tell us everything. Leave nothing out," Prowl said.
Everyone who was watching Prowl turned their gaze on Ratchet. Ratchet gave them a dazzler.
HUGE laughter was had from all. Even Prime. Ironhide, however, could tell the signs so he held his fire.
"Well, I have shelter already taken care of. No recharging out under the stars no matter how romantic that might be," Ratchet said as he batted his optical ridges at Ironhide romantically.
Ironhide staying his fork from stuffing a huge sausage into his mouth frowned at Ironhide. "WHAT, OLD MECH!? I'M IRONHIDE! I'M EATING!"
HUGE laughter and catcalls from everyone for IRONHIDE!
Ratchet laughed, then explained a bit more. "You bring sleeping bags, I bring shelter, food and all. You can bring booze. The more, the better. I have all the rest of the stuff already loaded in a runabout. Just be there at 0900 joors at Campground 17 Second Friday. That is all." He smiled a dazzler.
Almost all the bachelors wanted to be there given Ratchet's smile and the idea of him springing slag on the others was like nectar to bees. Most of them made a mental note to be there at 0900 joors on the TMC on Second Friday.
'Bruncheon' continued onward happily.
=0=A short time later
They stood on the street watching Prowl and Prime walk to The Citadel to take stock of what had happened all over the planet since yesterday. It had been a hilarious parting…
"So, you're going to lay servos on?" Ratchet asked as he held Possibility for a moment. That little baby smiled at him and Ratchet smiled back.
"Someone has to," Prowl said with a slight smirk at Ratchet. "And you? Which bar do I forward your messages?"
"Why, Prowler," Ratchet said with a brittle smile of extreme battle lust, "all of them."
Bets were laid off line about the camping extravaganza.
Prowl stared at him with a calm cool expression of Prowlness, then glanced at Prime. "Yes. Alright then, are you ready to go?"
Prime snickered, then took Possibility. "I am. Autobots, roll out?" he asked to great and abiding snark. They headed out to do battle with slag.
"What now?"
Ratchet glanced at Alor who was holding Scout. "Why, now we play."
"I'd like a personalized tour of The Jumble," Sun said. "I haven't been there in eons."
"Lucky you," Ratchet said with a chuckle. "I can give you the executive edition, all shortcuts."
"Done deal," Jack replied. "Lead on then."
Ironhide, Jack, Sun and Raptor transformed into pick up trucks so most of the rest of them could ride in the back in their beds. It was with a chug and a toot that they drove off toward one of the biggest, most densely populated and dangerous slums in The City.
=0=At the gate
They stared at the sign, then followed Ratchet inside. The streets were what they never were before, clean and cleared of garbage and scrap. The buildings were tall, not as tall as most but big enough to crowd thousands of individuals into their rundown broken down skeletons. No one was here. This was a cordoned off area set aside for the National Register of Historic Places, put there by Prowl who wanted no one to misunderstand what led to the endless cycle of revolutions and counter revolutions that had nearly ended life on this world and their species.
When they reached D District, a several square block designation of slums, bars, heavily barricaded shops and the odd small business, they gathered on a street corner. Ratchet glanced around, then looked at them, none of which were residents here at any point in time. There were slum 'kids' in the group but not for this one. "This is the heart of The Jumble. That's what we called it because it was like a bag filled with stuff that someone shook hard, making everything in it crap."
He glanced down the street. "That's where we lived, two blocks down from here. I remember seeing Optimus, Jetta and Arcee around. I remember Elita, too. Magnus. I saw as well but I never met them. They didn't live on my block and it wasn't their territory. It was ours. We'd have to fight them if they decided to hang out on our turf. That's what you do when you ain't got nothing. You fight to hold onto what you have."
Ratchet looked up at a tower that had seen better orns. "This is the building where Jetta, Arcee, Elita, Magnus and Optimus lived. Let's go up. I heard that the structural engineers have been here and have shored up everything so it won't fall down. Even the stairs." He led the way, entering a careworn building of great age. The lobby was shabby and basic, the elevators long since gone to the Matrix for Mechanical Things so the stairs beckoned.
Ratchet started up and the others followed. The stairs didn't creak now due to improvements to support them but they were many, the detailing that once made them attractive long since worn away by countless generations of footfalls as they wound ever upward. Floor after floor they went until they reached the seventh.
Gathering on the platform, they gazed down the hallway. Lights were there, doors were tightened up and some re-hinged and at the end of it all was a window, a small window whose panes were replaced at last. The grimey ones that once were there broken and forlorn were at last clean and clear.
He paused by a door, then turned to the others who were solemn-faced and even grim. "I think a couple at a time inside, the place is so small. This door," he said pointing to one next to this, "is where Jetta and Mack grew up. That one at the very end of the hallway was that of Deion Magnus. Arcee and Elita lived on other floors but everyone knew each other. Most did in the buildings we lived in. We were tended by whoever had genitors at home."
Sun and Jack stepped past Ratchet to enter an apartment that almost defied the idea that three mechs the size of Optimus and his genitors could live here. The furniture and fixtures were gone, taken to the Museum of Cybertron on Mars for restoration. The room of his genitors was tiny as was the rest of the place. Jack glanced at Sun who nodded grimly. They walked back out.
"I'm glad they're saving this place. No one should have lived like that. Consider that so many did and became inspirational to all of us in spite of this," Sun said as the others nodded.
They entered the apartment, all of them one and two at a time, then walked out silently. They stared at Ratchet who was waiting.
Alor vented a sigh. "How did you manage to live this way? How do you find it to forgive us, any of us for this?" he asked.
The moment was heavy as Ratchet considered the complexity of the answer he could give. "It was home. There was love here. We had good families. We loved Cybertron. I could get very upset if I remember the bad so I choose to remember the good. We have another chance, Alie. I know that all of you did a lot, the best you could to help. This belongs to others. What we do now is what counts, though I'm glad this is being preserved. No one should delude themselves about what poverty is and how it tears you to pieces. No one should believe anyone chooses this life. No one has such low aspirations for their children. Now we have a chance to be kings, all of us."
Alor shook his helm. "Sometimes the guilt was so terrible that it felt like I was carrying the world on my back."
The others nodded as well.
"That's because you're good," Ratchet said with a serious expression. "Pity those who can't feel anything, or blame the people here for this happening to them and not the systems that create this for profit. Those are the ones who are the saddest. I didn't know there was any other life, really, until I went to the University. I knew things weren't good and that others had more but I had all the love and hopefulness that my family could give me. I also believed that no matter what, at some point it would all change for everyone. It did, didn't it."
"Not fast enough for everyone," Hard Drive said.
A knocking sound could be heard, then Ratchet looked down. He opened his carry hold. A pair of little imps stared out, then up, then burst into smiles. "ADA! LOU DOIN'? I GOOD YOU!?"
Ratchet snickered as he pulled Praxus out and handed him to Sun. He handed Prowler to Jack, then set Orion on his arm. "You always good me. Come here. Let me show you where Uncle Optimus grew up." He walked into the apartment, then halted in the middle.
Orion looked around as the others watched from the hallway. He looked at Ratchet. "Ada. Lou doin'? Otis doin' here?"
Ratchet snickered. "Otis did. This was his house?"
Orion looked around, then at Ratchet. "This ugly."
HUGE laughter was had.
=0=TBC 7-29-2020