The Diego Diaries: Hunt (dd8 669)
=0=Metro
He sat on the Metro going toward Pax where he lived. He was a new immigrant, someone who had lived on a ship all his life. His family were sheet metal workers and their skills were appreciated and in demand everywhere they went. However, they themselves weren't at some point. They were part of 'that' species, the 'ones killing themselves in a civil war, themselves and everyone else' so they never stayed too long. This was the first on world living experience of his entire life.
It took a bit of adjustment to feel like he belonged. Having a single place to live took some mind game changes for him and his siblings. The elders of his big family, all of them, were used to living on a planet and having to be on ships was the hard thing for them. But all in all they were adapting and some of them magnificently. They opened their own business in Pax, working on all manner of things both commercial and for personal consumption. They were masters at etching onto hard steel and other metals anything that could be drawn on a design computer.
They'd been out on the town having a great time celebrating the uptick in business they were getting for their Golden Age line of homewares when the explosions had happened. They were dancing in Retriades when the news came over their transponders to go home and stay there, an arsonist or arsonists were lose in the colony.
Everyone in the dance club froze in place, glanced at each other, then began to head full stop to the exits. It was crowded on the streets as the clubs, restaurants, bars and theaters emptied at the same time. The wait for cabs and the Metro was alleviated by the number who transformed to fly or drive away. It was eerie to watch them melt away into the night as the news dispatch to everyone was repeated again and again.
He and his extended family lived in the same building so they could come and go amongst the others over the number of floors on which they lived and a lot of creative work was accomplished as they devoured news and checked social media for the latest on what was happening. It was shocking to all of them that so advanced and peaceful a place should be subject to the old terrors. This was supposed to be a haven and it was until now.
He reached his destination, then rose with the crowds to walk out. Above them the sun was shining, it wasn't terribly cold and the world was free and open. He pushed the fears and doubts out of his processor as he walked toward the comfort of light and the crowds of his people.
=0=Ratchet
He caught a full elevator, rode upward to his floor, then walked out to take on a patient that was crotchety and afraid. He rapped on the door and waited until a big mech opened it.
He grinned at Ratchet. "He's up but he's the usual slag."
Ratchet grinned. "They don't pay some bonds enough, Serio." Ratchet walked in, paused before a big mech sitting in a chair with a steel brace on both his legs, then grinned. "Care to dance?"
"HA-HA! YOU'RE SO FUNNY!"
Ratchet snickered as he scanned the big mech, a Helex longshoreman named Dell. He was a long time boss on the decks, supported Optimus from the very first strikes held by the longshoremen that shut down the planet and gave birth to the revolution and hated, nay, ***HATED!*** his current condition as a 'LAME-OID!'
He'd carried on his heroic but understated heroism in the diaspora whipping together migrations and settlements until he ruled (benevolently) a sizable kingdom. They made their way to this location suffering intense privation that enhanced their already widespread protoform wasting. It was to the glory of this migration that so many adults had it and so many more infants didn't.
That he did from giving his ration to others led to a severe case of it. He had operations and braces installed to help him recover. It also made movement and all the rest difficult in the extreme and but for the good natured bond he had along with three highly tolerant sub adult kids, he'd be in a care home.
"You're making progress, slagger. Tell me what's on your processor," Ratchet said as he sprawled on the couch next to Dell's chair.
"I WANT OUT OF THIS SLAG! WHAT THE FRAG! ITS BEEN 19 DECARONS!"
Dell's bond sat with a grin on his face. "Quite the child."
"I noticed that. Handsome and big though. I noticed that, too. Did I tell you I like my mechs big?" Ratchet asked with a dazzling smile. "This slagger is on the future bond list." He glanced at Dell. "You're on a journey. Right now you're halfway there. Have Home Healthcare arrange outings, slagger. Don't sit here and be a big mouth wearing out your family who have to take care of you no matter what. You're on track. Just give it time."
"I'M SICK OF THIS!" Dell said as Ratchet stood up to go.
Ratchet glanced at him, then chuckled. "I'm not," he said as he bumped fists with Dell's bond. A chat at the door with him and he was on his way again.
=0=At the Courthouse Plaza in Autobot City
Springer, Drift, Hercy and Kup walked out of the Courthouse pausing on the plaza that set up the scenery around the big marble entrance.
"Well, that was interesting," Drift said. "Everything is go. We have warrants to search The Club which sort of surprised me."
"Until they said who was 'owner' of the lease," Springer said. "Claxxon is going to be one unhappy mech when we get through tossing his building."
"Since when was he ever?" Hercy asked as they walked onward to go to The Pit Stop for lunch. Tell who was in Drift's hold would enjoy that enormously. So would the four mechs.
=0=The Club
He walked in and sat taking in the comfort of his club. A private 'astronomy' club which gained members by heavily and I mean heavily vetted screening, it was as closed to the greater public as the coolant section of a nuclear reactor. Inside, it was as if a gentleman's club had fallen from the sky complete with wet bar, library and reading lounge, comfortable chairs, couches and a kitchen where the more culinarily inclined among them created beautiful food to be served with delicious drinks. A dining room was the destination of all meals in the big building.
It was comfortable, impeccably appointed and familiar to everyone there to a degree that lessened homesickness for most. A private office was the place where business was carried out, mail was picked up, messages were sent and received and High Times, their deeply underground newsletter was created.
It rivaled any private club on Cybertron even in the Golden Age.
Claxxon sat a moment taking in the news that leaked here and there that the authorities were closing in on the culprits of the arsons and that arrests would come shortly. That had been the story since the first one so he wasn't completely clear that anything was really underway. But the grapevine was alive with speculation and no one with high caste tats could say they weren't affected. Mostly it was hard stares but now and again there were catcalls, insults and the odd shoulder bump from someone passing them in the hall or street.
It was here in the middle of his kingdom that he felt safe and himself. Out there was strange world, a mixture of things that he couldn't process. Here, everything was as it was supposed to be. He wasn't the one who was supposed to live in the end times. He was supposed to live out his life the way his genitors and theirs had. If someone had to face a time when things were this way it wasn't supposed to be him. He wasn't sure he could. But that was beside the point. He knew he didn't want to. It was too hard to change.
The door opened and friends arrived, genitors of some of the arsonists and other family. They came over to sit with him and chat about this and that thing, then join him for lunch in the elegant dining room. They'd have a few hands of cards, discuss the fortunes of the world, their world, then retire to their homes for the evening. They would be tailed, two of them including him by invisible mechs watching everything they did as they followed them everywhere they went.
=0=In a lounge in a lot of places
Kids worked out their assignments, took notes of lectures, watched their teachers and instructors do this and that, then tried it themselves. This wasn't new, zoom school. They'd done it before. What was new was the damage to their school. Their teachers had assured them, some of them, that their classrooms were safe. Others weren't so lucky but they'd spent time talking about how the new one would be and writing their thoughts and feelings about it in their daily journals which would be scrutinized for anything that might signal a downturn among this, a terribly traumatized population.
In Earth 1 and Earth2, the kids who attended Youngling Day worked as well, chatting with their teachers and friends over the line in the individual lounge rooms that would be their 'classrooms' for the duration. They would stay there for the academics, then be assigned a couple of things to do for the arts and physical education part of school: draw something that expresses whatever the assignment was that they were doing in art class. Right now, their groups were doing chalk drawings. Secondly, listen to your favorite music, then critique it, tell why it was loved and how it made you feel. Music was supposed to feed the soul, they were told. Lastly, they were told to do something that made them happy for gym class, swim, run, take a walk, ride a bike. The objective of all the arts and physical education on world among the bots was simple: Have fun.
They would.
=0=On the bus home to Autobot City
Nine big kids sat among their friends chatting about this and that. Coros and the others got off at their stops and the group thinned down. Soon it was the nine and Rambler.
"What do you think is going to happen with the arsons?" Genesis asked.
Rambler shrugged. "My atar and ada will catch them. Springer and the Watch are good at this. It isn't the first time we had to find someone doing something awful."
"We could help," Lumi said. "We know how to hunt. We could hunt them as a pack."
Rambler glanced at him. "You're supposed to just be a kid, Lumi. No one wants any of us kids in harms way. My atar would be really upset if you or any of us did anything. They might hurt you really badly. The gangs are bad all around."
Lumi nodded. "We hunted pirates. We hunted those who would kill us. We could do this."
Fireball glanced at him. "Ada would be really mad if we did."
Everyone glanced at Fireball, then grinned.
"I forgot about that," Lumi said with a chuckle.
The bus rambled onward in the long line of traffic that always filled the highways and streets of the cities this time of orn.
=0=Temple Primary School
Ravel and Tie waited in the great room of the Temple for Halo to get out of school. It was busy inside with a number of individuals from different clubs in the city visiting. Senior Centers did a lot of cultural visitation for their clientele and now was no exception. Happy groups walked about the building listening to their docents tell about how it was here.
The sound of children's voices caught their attention as the Primary School let out. Kids ran to their keepers, genitors, daycare and the like. Halo ran out with her sparkling 'hair' flying. She saw both of them then turned up the speed. Launching herself at them, they grabbed her and hugged her between them.
"AMMA! APPA! I LOVE LOU!"
Ravel grinned. "Amma loves you. How about a cookie at home?"
Halo smiled brilliantly, then pointed to a huge statue of Solus Prime standing nearby in the niches along the wall for the Pantheon. "Bringed she one?"
They would. The very next orn a tiny baby cookie would be laying at the peds of the statue of Solus Prime put there by a smiling baby who loved Her. She would do so in the company of two grandparents
who loved Her, too.
Solus would see them do it and love them back.
=0=TBC 3-23-2023
ESL
docent: (doh-sent) a person who acts as a guide, typically on a voluntary basis, in a museum, art gallery, or zoo.