Chapter Two: The Procedure
And they lived in a world where even the quiet were silenced –unknown
Sideswipe and Sunstreaker grew into rambunctious sparklings at rapid rates.
Starlander found she was more grateful for Cable than ever before, because were she to do this alone she didn't think she'd be able to keep up.
The twins didn't go anywhere without one another, and despite being one spark, always managed to cause double the amount of mischief.
Starlander wasn't exactly ready to take on rare split spark twins, but she was learning quickly.
For example, she noticed early on that though they came from the same spark, they had very different personalities.
It was more so that they completed each other, rather than them being the same person. Where Sideswipe struggled, Sunstreaker excelled and vice versa.
Sideswipe was a very talkative and energetic sparkling. He seemed to get along with almost every other sparkling they had met.
He was also a bit of a practical joker, hiding things around the complex and causing trouble early on.
Sunstreaker could not have been more opposite. He talked very little, and didn't take very quickly to other sparklings. He took a much longer time to make friends.
The only thing the pair of them truly had in common was their joy for causing mischief.
The thing that required the most adjustment was their twin bond. Starlander found that often times they preferred to communicate through their bond rather than out loud.
Needless to say, it created a lot of situations where she found herself trying to pick up on context clues.
"I'm off," Cable called from the front entrance of the complex. Starlander walked over to her Sparkmate.
"Already?" She asked sadly, and clipped in a piece of armor he'd missed. He smiled softly.
"These extra shifts are really gonna help us out," He promised, brushing her shoulder with a servo.
"But did you have to take so many extra?" She complained. It seemed that Cable was either here recharging, or down in those Primus forsaken mines.
Cable had been born into a lower class family, and never received past his standard education.
Because of this, he was basically sentenced to either a miner, gladiator or other type of service bot from the astrosecond he left his schooling.
Starlander had never cared where Cable was from, or that his life wasn't exactly wealthy like the elite guard or a politician.
Besides, she thought most politicians were arrogant fraggers anyways, not that she could say that to anyone but Cable.
Starlander herself was an educator at the local standard school. She believed education was the way out of the lower class, and taught at a rather rough standard education center.
Both she and Cable had a dream to put their sparklings all the way through to an Academy, and for that they needed more credits.
"Hey, these extra slots won't last forever. I promise," Cable assured her.
"Come home safe," She told him.
"Always do," He agreed, and gave her servo one last squeeze before leaving the complex.
"Sire is leaving again?" A small voice piped up from beside her. She turned to see Sideswipe clinging to her strut. Sunstreaker lingered quietly behind him.
"Sire is going to work hard so you two can go to a good education center when you're older," Starlander explained.
"But we don't like the education center," Sideswipe complained.
"We don't like the other sparklings," Sunstreaker agreed quietly. Starlander frowned and picked him up. She scooped Sideswipe up in her other arm.
"Why don't you like the other sparklings?" She asked, walking towards her room.
"They're mean," Sideswipe deadpanned.
"Mean?" She asked as she sat down on her berth and place them on either side of her.
Both the twins were silent for a minute and they made faces at each other. She recognized this as talking through their twin bond.
"They're mean to Sunny," Sideswipe said at last.
"How are they mean to him?" She asked. She could feel anger flare up within her, but she quenched it so they wouldn't feel it through their own bond with her.
Bonds were very common between Cybertronians. She shared a Sparkmate bond with Cable, and could feel him now in fact. He was frustrated that he was stuck in traffic.
She also shared a carrier and sparkling bond with her twins, and she could feel their hesitance to tell her about their classmates.
"They call Sunny ugly," Sideswipe said. He then flinched.
Another thing that was rare about their twin bond was that along with emotional feelings, they seemed to also be able to feel physical feelings.
"Sunstreaker, don't hit your brother," Starlander reprimanded. Sunstreaker looked down, but his little faceplate was screwed up in anger.
"They said my frame is old and dumb and ugly," he muttered quietly. He was silent for a long minute.
"I am ugly aren't I," he muttered quietly.
"Don't ever say that," Starlander told him. He looked up at her with faith in those indigo optics.
"Do you want to know something special about your frame?" She asked. He nodded and he and Sideswipe scooted in closer to her.
"Without that frame, you wouldn't have survived your spark transfer," she began, and both sparklings' optics widened.
"When you two split, we only had one frame at the moment. But, the medic that was helping me luckily had an extra frame that he was able to use to transfer your half of the spark." Starlander explained.
Sunstreaker put a small servo on the framework of his arm.
"Good thing," he said quietly.
"Good thing indeed. You're frame is very special, so don't let anyone tell you anything bad about it," she instructed. He nodded subtly.
"Now come on you two, you're going to be late and so am I," Starlander said, rising from the berth.
Sideswipe whined loudly, and was dragged out of the room by Sunstreaker. Starlander laughed lightly to herself. She could no longer imagine life without the pair of them.
Cable whined to no one as he moved another inch. Traffic was especially bad in Kaon this morning.
With his luck, he'd be majorly late for his first shift, and his boss Chainpull would be less than happy.
"I just knew you'd slag this up you pit spawned miner!" He could practically hear Chainpull's voice. He let out another audible groan as the traffic slid forward another few inches.
It was another joor before he pulled into the mining lot.
: Get your aft over here fragger!: A voice shouted over his comm. Chainpull wasted no time.
: Yes sir: he replied, transforming and walking over towards the check in station.
"Where the pit have you been glitch?" Chainpull's irritated voice barked suddenly. Cable turned around.
"Traffic chief, not much I can do about it," Cable retorted.
"You think I want you're slagging excuses?" Chainpull growled.
"No sir," Cable said quietly, and grabbed the keys to his drill off his hook.
"You get down in those mines, and you don't come back up until you got a two day's quota!" Chainpull screamed after him. Cable grimaced.
It wasn't uncommon for mine supervisors to assign extra quota work. Luckily, Cable had always set aside a little extra raw material in case he had extra quota to fill.
Personally, he thought the idea was genius. Whoever said bots needed to attend the Academy, clearly didn't know what they were talking about.
Deep down, he knew that wasn't true, but he liked to make himself feel a bit better.
His spark panged painfully for Starlander as he once again entered the dusty dark mines. He felt small waves of comfort wash over him, and knew his Sparkmate could sense his distress.
Part of the reason Cable had fallen in love with Starlander was because her spark was just so pure. Somehow, she saw past all the stupid social classes, and even had the courage to try and change it.
Starlander came from a middle class family, meaning she had the chance to bond to a richer mech. However, because she was the way she was, she had picked him without even blinking at his status.
He at times felt like he'd ruined her opportunity at a comfortable life, but she was always quick to let him know that all she needed to be happy was him.
Cable may not have gone to school, but he knew for a fact that he was the luckiest mech on Cybertron.
He clung to Starlander's faint presence, which seemed to be humming a tune, as he began drilling away at energon.
He didn't get very far into his work when he heard large pedsteps approach him from behind.
He powered off the drill and turned around.
Standing in front of him was Chainpull accompanied by a very large mech.
"Let's go 102," Chainpull said blankly. Cable gritted his denta. Most of the miners had proper designations, save for a few of the drones, but Chainpull hadn't bothered with learning them.
The mine supervisor had simply numbered his workers and called it good enough. It boiled Cable's energon.
"Go where?" He asked, not moving from his spot.
"To my laboratory," the large mech spoke. His voice was deep and sounded almost sinister. Cable had to admit it fit his unsettling appearance.
He knew there were all sorts of odd circumstances when it came to frame building. Heck even his own sparkling had a very outdated model.
However, he couldn't help but find this mech's frame unsettling. He was a deep purple, with a large chassis, and his head was all one bright yellow optic.
"Your laboratory?" Cable deadpanned, looking incredulous.
"Not to worry, your stay will be short lived," The mech told him.
"Yeah, get your aft moving," Chainpull demanded. Cable had a stubborn look on his face and still didn't move. It was common for miners to often be taken to do odd jobs, but he never liked being told what to do.
"Do not make me repeat myself glitch," Chainsaw hissed. Cable vented and resignedly followed them out of the room. It wasn't worth the physical punishment that Chainpull might've inflicted.
Starlander always hated it when he came home with dents, and he didn't like to make her worry.
Cable followed the two superiors out of the mines. His optics dimmed themselves automatically as they adjusted to the lighting of the day.
Chainpull and the large purple mech transformed and began to drive back towards the main road, so Cable followed suit.
The drive itself wasn't very far, only a few blocks over, but it was along roads that Cable was unfamiliar with.
When they did arrive at their destination, Cable was completely lost. Kaon was a pretty big city though, and Cable barely even explored the district he was allowed in.
The large mech transformed and Chainpull began to drive back towards the main road.
Cable felt worry flood him. Chainpull may have been an aft, but he could deal with Chainpull. He didn't know this large mech ahead of him at all.
"Please, this way," the mech said in that serious tone. Cable transformed and hesitantly followed him. His spark thrummed with worry, and he felt Starlander send more soothing feelings over the bond.
For once, his Sparkmates presence did little to calm his nerves.
"My designation is Shockwave," the mech said as Cable approached him, but he did not hold out a servo for greeting.
"Cable," Cable replied quietly. He began to follow Shockwave deeper into the building, and noticed that the building was considerably colder than regular complexes.
This was strange to Cable, seeing as most Cybertronians preferred it warm and despised the cold. Cold temperature tended to make their systems run slower.
However, once they got into Shockwaves lab, the temperature returned to standard.
"Please, have a seat," Shockwave told him, pointing to a berth. The berth was slanted at a vertical angle and was connected to the floor with hundreds of wires.
At this point, Cable had no clue what was happening, but the sinking feeling in his tanks definitely didn't give him any good thoughts.
One hundred percent of him did not want to get on that berth, but he also didn't feel like incurring the wrath of the mech standing before him.
It was obvious from his military issued alt mode and the fact that he owned his own lab that he outranked Cable by a lot.
Cable climbed onto the berth.
"The procedure is short, and I will induce stasis. When you wake you are free to go," Shockwave told him. Bewilderment raced through Cable's processor.
"If I might ask, but what exactly is this procedure?" Cable asked hesitantly. Shockwave may have outranked him, but unlike Chainpull he didn't seem unreasonable. Just creepy as pit.
"It is a beta test of a classified project," Shockwave answered shortly, and Cable watched with scared optics as he induced stasis.
His answer had given him exactly zero information other than the fact that we was basically a test subject.
As he felt himself slip into stasis, his only thoughts were of getting home safe to Starlander and his twins. Cybertron sure liked to make that goal challenging for him. But what's a mech to do?
Refuse the social standings of his entire race? Plant his peds and tell the ones above him no? Attempt to change what had already set in like rust?
Darkness claimed him at last.
Hi y'all, so i'm posting double to get the story rolling, but I'm going to try to have these out every couple of days. Fair warning, this story may get a tad bit dark for any younger readers out there, but it is gonna stay within the T for teens. Okay, R&R, love you guys.
Keep Writing Keep Reading Nova out ;)