4. Changes
Optimus was right; my new body suited me. Not only did I look different, I felt different. Being taller and stronger felt wonderful. All the disbelieving looks, even the disgusted ones, delighted me. Let them look.
Though sometimes the stares held unexpected emotions. Some of the older Autobots did double-takes when they first saw me, and watched me strangely later. The same thing happened to the Decepticons. Perhaps it was the shock of seeing a Seeker wearing the red Autobot insignia. They would stare at me, halting in their work, until I gave them my best haughty glare and they turned away. Even Starscream, though he spent so much time with me that he should be used to it, sometimes looked at me as though he hadn't expected to see me. It was utterly infuriating.
When I became fed up with one Autobot too many goggling at me, I stormed down to the slave quarters to demand answers from Starscream. I pounded on the door. "Starscream!"
A moment later. "Nova?"
"Yes. Let me in."
There was a suspicious scuffling sound. "Wait a klik."
"Now," I commanded. There was a pause before Starscream opened the door. My initial fear that I had accidentally interrupted an intimate rendezvous was—mercifully—unfounded, but there was some activity at what passed for a desk. I walked over, Starscream just behind me. Various parts and tools were arrayed across the surface surrounding a partly-finished cylindrical object. My Spark skipped a pulse. Surely Starscream couldn't be… "What is this?"
He hesitated, looking from me to the workspace and back. "It's a null ray," he answered finally.
"And what is that?"
"A weapon."
My vents stopped their circulation. A weapon. Starscream—a Decepticon, a slave—was building a weapon. It was unthinkable. It was certainly illegal, violating the first and foremost article of the slave code. I picked it up, noticing that some parts had been cannibalized from Starscream's nonvital systems, while others must have been stolen. These parts… Primus, these tools shouldn't even have been in Starscream's possession. If Starscream could get his hands on these, then what could other Decepticons be stockpiling?
"Slaves aren't allowed weapons."
"I know."
Didn't he realize what it meant? If anyone found out about this, there would be uproar! Slaves with weapons… slaves stealing parts, maybe energon, maybe worse…! Didn't he know the penalty?
"If I were anyone else… slag, if you were anyone else, I'd have you terminated," I told him. He met my optics fearlessly.
"I know."
"Then why?" I demanded. "Why are you doing this?"
"In anticipation."
That brought me up short. "Of what?!"
"Well," he said, a bit too innocently, "if anything were to happen, I imagine it would begin in Iacon. Best to be prepared for that sort of thing."
"Don't say that!" I snapped, dropping the null ray back where I'd found it and taking two steps back, as if it might bite. Why me? Why, of all mechs, did I own the most impudent, arrogant, fragging fearless slave on all of Cybertron? Why was he telling me this?
"Welcome to reality, Nova," Starscream said. "We won't be slaves forever."
"But that's the way things are! Decepticons are slaves, Autobots are masters… that's how it has to be! It's always been that way!"
He shook his head. "That's what the Autobots say to make themselves feel righteous. We weren't meant to be slaves. We were so much more than that, Nova, we will be again!"
"What 'we?!' I'm an Autobot."
"I can tell you everything," he said softly. "Everything they never told you. Everything they lied about or covered up or ignored. Or are you afraid of the truth?"
"I'm not afraid of anything," I said. I wanted to believe everything the Academy had taught – I had to believe it. What else could I cling to, if everything I had ever accepted about Autobots and Decepticons was a lie?
"The truth may turn everything you think you know upside-down."
"I'm not afraid of anything," I repeated. Starscream smiled and gestured towards the berth, the only surface besides the desk that I could sit on.
"Then I suggest you make yourself comfortable. This is a long story."