The Diego Diaries: Cloudy (dd7 352)
=0=Morning time
Ratchet walked to the monitor to catch messages. Everyone checked in on the message board sector about the kids and were taking them to school. Ratchet watched on the monitor's reflective surface the familiar and much younger face of his bond appear behind him. "Rise and shine, Sunshine."
Ironhide snorted. "I am. What now?"
"We go and check on the kids. I've decided that you have to be the father whether you like it or not. This thing for the kids isn't good. I think we could have the kids spread out everywhere until this is solved but … nope. I think they get enough slag from our soldiering schedules so we're going to see them at their schools, then get them tonight. You and me, Ironhide, are going to be genitors again." He turned to Ironhide, then dazzled a zillion watt smile. "Any questions?"
Ironhide frowned slightly. "I don't know how to do all that slag. What if I mess up?"
"You?" Ratchet asked as he batted his optical ridges.
Ironhide snorted. "Slagger. This is a trap. You bring them around and I mess up. Its a test I'm going to fail."
"No," Ratchet said as he began to walk to the door, "you're going to pass it or I'm going to put my big old ped up your aft." He opened the door and left.
Ironhide stared at the door, then smirked slightly. "How do you know I won't like it?" he asked before he, too, left to follow.
The door closed quietly behind them.
=0=Up there
Prowl ran the night's data into his processor remotely, then turned to the big silent kid who was lounging against the counter watching him. "I'll make breakfast," he said.
"I can assist you. Maybe," Orion said noting Prowl's nervous tension. He was doing a good job hiding most of it but Orion noticed. He was a very good judge of character.
Prowl relaxed slightly, then grinned. "Alright."
They began to make food as Prowl showed Orion a thing or two. It was much less tense and even slightly companionable as they made a meal for two. When it was ready and dished up, Prowl led the way to the dining room table where they sat and began to eat.
"This is very good," Orion said. "I have never had food like this before."
"Nor have I, mostly," Prowl said. "The food in the colony is designed by artistic cooks and available for everyone."
"What kind of system do you have here that would permit that?" Orion asked.
Prowl who was watching him out of the corner of his optics, memorizing every feature and gesture that the younger version of Prime was making sipped his drink. "We banned The System of Exception. You made it clear from orn one that it would never return. Given that everyone is equal here and from the beginning the barter system was the economic model that we needed, its stayed by popular demand. Thus, whatever you want and need you get.
"If you work then nothing is withheld from you. If you're ill, elderly, disabled, want to take the time to recover or get on your peds, train for another job or career, go to school or apprentice, raise children or take care of you family, then nothing is withheld from you. If you came here to cause trouble, feel you're too high toned to work or make things hard or dangerous, then you end up in jail or shut out of the system.
"No one is left to their own devices even so. The wars have caused so much damage in mechs and femmes that some struggle but no one freeloads just because they feel they're that special. This place is such a miracle that the stragglers usually just turn out to have unresolved emotional problems. We help them all they need." He considered things a moment. "I don't believe there's anyone in the colony that goofs around now. Everyone's just glad to be here and have the path they want to take themselves. When you can choose and do what you want then it doesn't seem like work."
"Jetta must be very happy now," Orion said. "That was his dream, his, mine, RC's and Deion's. Our genitors had dreams but life was harder for them longer. It was mine to find a way to free our people from caste slavery, then choose a career for myself that was fulfilling."
"What career would do that for you?" Prowl asked as he soaked up every syllable this mech was making. He was filling the blank pages of Prime's youth at last.
Orion thought a moment. "I thought being an archivist would be fulfilling. Taking care of beautiful things, reading, learning and researching things … that was always a thought."
Prowl sat back to regard him. "You would excel at whatever you did. You would've made a fine archivist. You read voraciously now."
Orion glanced around at the many bookshelves lined with tomes and the many datapads that afforded information including daily news of several worlds. "I like to read."
Prowl nodded. "I always get you several books on holidays. I think you always worked too hard because you don't get to read as much as you'd like."
Orion considered that. "There was so much pressure on those of us that could do something to change things that there was never enough time. It became a habit apparently."
"You take everything to spark. I did, too," Prowl said. "Until you and the family, I had no real life. I had work and the joors where I didn't work. There was nothing else."
"It sounds lonely," Orion said.
Prowl nodded. "It was. This was the first place I've ever lived where it wasn't."
"Your genitors are here?" Orion asked in the slight lull in conversation.
Prowl nodded. "They are. My ada is a mathematician and my atar is an economic planner and thinker. Both of them were changed in the Diaspora. I never thought I'd see them again because I thought they died in the annihilation. They came here on a migration and we worked it out. I'm glad I did. I'm not a kid anymore and they did the best they could."
"I am glad for you," Orion said.
"Your genitors are two of the most wonderful mechs I ever knew," Prowl said. "You won the genitor lottery with them."
Orion grinned slightly. "I will not argue with you."
Prowl grinned back as slightly. "You can't." He paused to take a message off line. "The twins will be here in a joor to do the repaint and detailing. I hope you understand that we don't ask this out of trivial reasons. We need you protected."
Orion nodded. "I understand."
Prowl stared at him a moment, then rose to gather his dishes. "I can't remember a time you didn't," he said, then glanced at Orion. "It's one of your many glories." He then walked to the kitchen with his things.
Orion watched him go, then rose with his own. They would work on the clean up together.
=0=There and beyond
"What is this place?" Ironhide asked as he glanced upward at the tall building.
"Youngling Day School #1. The flagship of this level in the colony. Follow me," Ratchet said as he walked through the fence toward the huge doors nearby.
Ironhide followed as they walked inside, then down a long crowded corridor to the exit point called 'Playground 3-access' and paused just outside again.
The area was huge, filled with children's playground toys and diversions and literally hundreds and hundreds of colorfully clad little children of just about any size, shape and complexity imaginable in their species. Many were huddled together chatting, even more were climbing around on things with friends and others were playing chase games.
Teachers and aides stood all around the area watching them, chatting together or with kids as the school began to fill up and they began to come outside to play until the siren signaled school's beginning.
"There he is," Ratchet said pointing to a mixed group with a number of Seeker kids and a number of pets. "There's Sunspot and Spot, his comfort and service dog."
They watched as he laughed and chatted, then he caught sight of them. His expression was a burst of happiness as he ran toward them from across the playground. He skid to a halt, then held up his arms to Ironhide.
:Pick up your son, slagger: Ratchet said off line around his smile.
Ironhide reached down and picked Sunny up. Sunspot clasp his arms around Ironhide's neck. :What now, slagger?: he asked Ratchet with a slight smirk.
:Frag you, Ironhide: Ratchet said as he dazzled both of them with his smile.
"ATAR! YOU CAME! DO WE GET TO COME HOME NOW?" Sunspot asked.
"Tonight. Take the bus home. We'll tell the office," Ratchet said as he took Sunspot from Ironhide. He hugged him tightly, then the siren blew. Everyone looked toward the doors where the kids were running to line up. Ratchet kissed Sunspot, held him so Ironhide could do the same, then put him on the ground.
Sunspot smiled up at them. "I'LL SEE YOU TONIGHT! WE GET TO BE A FAMILY AGAIN!"
"We do. Always," Ratchet said as he watched Sunspot and Spot run for their line.
When he reached it, Sunny waved, then followed his line in as the classes began to head for their rooms and teachers.
Ratchet grinned. "We have a great school system here, Ironhide."
"No doubt," he said as he watched the kid he never knew was his disappear inside.
"You're the secretary of the School Board by the way," Ratchet said though his smile.
Ironhide glanced at him. "The frag I am."
Ratchet snickered. "Keep talking, slagger. Come on. There's more." With that, he began to hoof it to the underground metro station all schools had in their second sub level, then board another train with Ironhide galloping along behind him. The train pulled out and they were gone.
=0=Up there
They stood uneasily before a huge young version of Optimus Prime.
Sideswipe glanced at Sunstreaker. "Do you feel as weird as I do?"
Sunstreaker nodded. "Weirder."
"So," Prowl said with a tinge of offense, "how long will this take and how well will it make him appear to be Optimus?"
"Not as long as someone who never did it before. We've done this," Sideswipe said as he glanced at Orion. "You have the basic design here in his civilian frame. It would take a close up and someone who really knew you well to tell once we get done. It'll pass inspection with most. Give us a few joors."
They began to unpack their gear and set up for a detailing the like that Orion Pax had never experienced. That it was a normal routine thing here under Prowl's timetabled supervision was one thing. That this tall gangling kid had never had more than a rudimentary care of his frame and armor in the ghetto was another.
He stepped onto a platform and began to endure not only the intense scrutiny of the twins but the disappearance of himself into the exo-skeletal skin of a total stranger with his face. It would be a nerve racking three joors for Orion Pax. The only one more nervous was Prowl. It would only subside a little when Tagg and Kestrel arrived to sit and watch as well.
=0=There and abouts
They walked into the Autobot City Unified School District Central Office Tower in Metrotitan like they knew what they were doing. Passing through the desk security, they took an elevator upward to the eighteenth floor where a number of modified classrooms were located. Pausing at the doorway of Pioneer Classroom #1, Ratchet glanced at Ironhide. "Let's go inside." He opened the door, then stepped in followed by Ironhide.
The class was getting things organized to do science. Glancing up toward the door, Hero burst into smiles. She got up and ran to them holding up her arms.
Ironhide bent down and picked her up whereupon she hugged his neck. "Atar! You're home!"
"I am," Ironhide said gruffly. "This is your classroom?"
She laughed, a tiny musical sound. "You silly! You know that. You came to help me make cookies once." She smiled at him like the sun.
Ironhide glanced at Ratchet who was smirking at him, then his daughter, a concept that reverberated around his processor. "I remember. I think."
He didn't.
For him, though he hadn't traveled one moment in time, that event hadn't 'happened' yet.
=0=TBC 8-24-2020 edited