Chapter 15

Universe X, the year 2062

A single man, a human, was walking slowly through the streets of the city.

Yes he was `human´, a member of the dominant race of the planet Earth. That was what they still were, despite all what happened during the last century.

The strict meaning of this word however had changed drastically during the last century.

`Human´, what did that word even mean in the first place?

All around him, the preparations for the beginning of the coming festival were going on. It was the 50 year anniversary of the end of the so called Great War.

The `Great War´, this term had once been used on their planet for the 2. World War and before that for the First. Now however it meant another more recent conflict. One that far exeeded the borders of their world.

It was the Autobot-Decepticon War, also called the Cybertronian War, fought between two ancient alien races of mechanical lifeforms.

It was a conflict that had spread to Earth and ultimately formed the planet into what it was today.

Over time the Autobots had become the closest ally of the native humans. After some years, they were practically part of the planet´s society.

And also the Decepticons, while enemies, had also essentially become part of the daily life.

xxx

On the first look, nobody would have recognized this man for who he was.

The simple looking person wandering on the streets was in fact one of the most known and renowned figures in recent history.

His name was Spike Witwicky. Former Senator and long before that Ambassador Witwicky to be precise.

Once a long time ago he had been one of the first humans the mechanical aliens known as the Transformers had ever met.

For all of them, it had turned out to be the beginning of a new age.

For years and decades Spike had been on the forefront of a conflict that had been greater than anybody could have imagined, not only against the Decepticons but also against the Quintessons and Unicron.

In many of this fights he had been essential, even if he was in the beginning just one small weak human.

In others, especially in the first years, he should not have been there and was rather a liability than a help, even he admitted now.

He had been a naive young boy back then, he knew, one that jumped head first into an alien conflict.

Later he had become older and as he himself hoped wiser. He had only gotten himself involved anymore if there was actually a chance that he could do something.

In the end he had actually directly connected himself to a Cybertronian and became the so called `Headmaster partner´ of the Autobot Fortress Maximus in the process named binary bonding.

Through the connection point and the mechanical implants he was now essentially part machine himself. It was however not until later that anybody actually understood the long time consequences of the process.

Then, as the war was finally over, he had become an even more important figure in interstellar politics, something that had already begun with his position of Ambassador to Cybertron and various other planets.

Despite all the tragic and terrible events the war had turned out ultimately quite well for Earth. The long contact with the Autobots and technological exchange had turned them into a space-faring civilization in the course of only two decades. Something that otherwise would have taken centuries.

By now they were a known and respected member of the interstellar community.

Spike came just across a spot where a number of men were building up a podium where a number of politicians would hold a line of speeches tomorow. He was not one of them, not anymore.

xxx

Today only a few Autobots were living on Earth anymore. Most had settled on colonies located on other planets.

When one of the more prominent ones, like Optimus or Rodimus Prime or Ultra Magnus came, Spike´s was still usually the first address they visited this world.

Maybe with one exception, the one of the same woman he was going to meet right now.

His old friends from outer-space, they still came to visit him once every one or two years. In fact the last time he had met Optimus and Rodimus was just last autum.

The Decepticons had nearly completely left their galaxy.

xxx

50 years, that long ago was it that the Great War had ended. By all rights Spike should have been an old man at this point, over ninety.

But he was still looking like not more than in his mid forties, maybe early fifties, only a few years older then at the time his bond with Fortress had first been created.

That was the last, at first unknown, secret of the binary bonding.

It were the cybertronian parts integrated into their bodies and the mental and physical connection to the systems of the Transformer that effected their own metabolism.

This meant him and every other one who had been binary bonded to a Transformer. At first at least. Simply spoken the bonding extended someone´s lifespan, to a large degree.

For a human, it was bordering to quasi-immortality. Their lives were now lasting centuries, him and the other Head-, Target-, and Powermasters.

He wasn´t sure if he liked the fact.

But they were not longer the only ones. A few years later human scientists had found a way to copy the effect of the bonding, by implanting cybertronian circuitry into the human body and combining it with modern gen-engineering.

Nearly the entire human race was `modified´ by now. Live expentancy was by the latest state at over 300 years. His species had changed their own very nature.

But on the other hand, what did it mean to be human anyway?

There were of course also a few who preferred to stay how they were and live out their lives in the natural way. Consequently most of them had already died at this point.

There were however some who had never even gotten the chance to make the choice. Carly had died in an shuttle accident, nearly forty years ago, over ten years after the war ended.

Now he was here, still alive and that obviously for a very long time, barely aging, while his wife was long gone.

For what? He had sometimes been asking himself.

His son Daniel was right now out there on a mission in space. He had long grown up and `should´ even be old by now. Like himself however, he could still pass for a man in, in his case, his thirties. At least by the old standards.

He had still contact with his old friends, the ones who were still alive at least, human and alien alike. But he often felt as if none of them truly needed him.

The truth was he had never expected or wanted to outlive Carly, especially not like this. But he had just not known how all this had turned out.

Spike had by now arrived in the building he had been heading for. He was walking across the hallway towards the appartment and activated the door signal.

It was only a few seconds later that he was being opened. It was a woman who looked like in her early thirties. But he knew she was technically over eighty years old. Even if this age did not mean much anymore.

"I see you have arrived," she greeted him, "I have already been waiting for you."

"I had been held up in the town," he replied.

"I see. Because of the preparations the streets are overfilled," she stated. "Maybe you should have taken a taxi."

He shook his head.

"I wanted to walk," he said, "to see something of the town."

This woman was Marissa Fairborne, former leading officer of the EDC, daughter of two members of the team of elite-soldiers known as Gi Joe, like himself friend and ally of the Autobots and many other things. She was one of exactly this `old friends´ he had been thinking about. And yet she was different from the others.

He laid his arms around her and they draw each other into a kiss.

Their `more personal´ relationship had started about twelve years back. It never was nearly as close as it had been with him and his wife, not nearly and if he was honest it was never meant to.

What had drawn them together was in some sense simply the fact that they were both `survivors´ from a time that had already passed.