Disclaimer: Not mine!
A/N: Fun fact: my spellcheck had "persnickety" in it. ^.^ Enjoy the extra update to make up for being silly, and do remember to review!
- Chapter 7 -
I did my best to keep a straight face as they bowed, while frantically pinging Warpchaser, wanting to know what the hell was going on. He didn't reply, so I summoned up every bit of acting ability that I'd cultivated since I met Magnus and decided to wing it.
"Your apologies are accepted. As you said, my species is supposed to be extinct," I said with a nod. "However, my journey here has been long and tiring, the argument with you even more so. I would like some sustenance and rest, if you don't mind." I did my best to not be over the top, not knowing how far the 'holy one' thing stretched. Apparently I didn't blow it, either, as Captain T'ral was quickly falling all over himself to get me accommodations. I was led through the ship, the security guards now my escort, to extremely large quarters. After some more blustering my way through things, Captain T'ral finally left, and I asked Warpchaser to lock the door so only I could open it. He did so quickly, and I turned to the food that had been left. It was all organic, unfortunately. And it didn't look the least bit appetizing, fortunately.
"Warp, is there any way you can get me some energon?" I asked tiredly, aware that my reserves were starting to run out.
"There's a line behind the wall panel beside the door - if you give me a moment, I can route some pure energon there and you can tap the line," Warpchaser replied over the intercom.
"Er - you're going to have to explain how," I said.
"I know...Terry," The way he said my name made me frown.
"What did you find in your databanks about me?" I asked.
"Very little. The details of Cybertronian/Human history has mostly been lost, but there is a reference to you, and your relationship with Ultra Magnus." He said Magnus' name almost reverently, and I frowned.
"I'm going to take a wild guess and assume that all the Cybertronians I knew are long gone," I said.
"Mostly," Warpchaser admitted readily. "It's - hm. Interesting."
"What?" I asked curiously.
"Apparently I have a message for you. From you," Warpchaser seemed confused. "It was buried deep in my operational code, it just popped up now."
"Well, I do seem to have a thing for leaving myself messages, so I'm not surprised," I said with a sigh. "Why don't you play it for me while you sort out the energon?"
"Of course," Warpchaser said courteously. A console across the room blinked on, and then the lights dimmed.
"Privacy mode activated," an emotionless voice, entirely unlike Warpchaser's, intoned, and then...I, in Cybertronian form...appeared on the screen.
"Apologize to Warp for me once this is done for that, willya? I wanted to figure out a way to ask him to activate privacy mode before playing this, but couldn't figure out how," I said on the screen as I, in the room, walked over to the console. "Alrighty, question answering time! Told as concisely as possible: a few Cybertronians besides Magnus fell in love with humans, and eventually, thanks to your advanced body, Ratchet and Wheeljack figured out how to give those Cybertronians human alt forms. Thing is, humanity as a whole still didn't know about Cybertronians, and when they finally did find out, they were none too impressed about the human alt forms. Oh, the majority of the planet understood, of course, but you know our species - we always have extremists. Unfortunately, the anti-Cybertronian extremists had nukes. Yeah, that's right, we humans nuked our own planet over the presence of Cybertronians that look like humans.
"The Cybertronians did what they could, evacuating most of the planet, but unfortunately they were having some interstellar troubles of their own - the Quintessons. Actually, they were why the Earth at large was told. The governments of Earth wanted to get out into space and help the Cybertronians, who had been such good allies up till that point - and, conveniently, had offered them a jump-start on technology to help. Needless to say, the humans didn't end up helping much. We ended up in a complete role reversal, in fact, with the Cybertronians giving humanity sanctuary and a new home. With that additional strain on their resources, the Cybertronians started losing the war with the Quintessons.
"Enter the Pandalaths. Call them Pandas if you want - they won't get the joke, and it'll give you some minor amusement. They're the guys you met earlier. They've pretty much got the mentality of the Dominion in Star Trek, only without the whole shapechanger thing. And their prejudice isn't against 'solids'...it's against mechanoid life forms. They took on the Quintessans and pushed them out of this arm of the galaxy, leaving only the Cybertronians and the few human survivors. Now, here's a reason to smack Optimus when you see him again - he'd done his research and knew what the Pandalaths were like, so when they showed up on the main Cybertronian/Human settlement, he ordered the Cybertronians to pretend to be subservient to the humans. Nobody was pleased about it, but it kept us from being wiped out from orbit.
"Unfortunately, the nuclear winter on Earth had happened so quickly that most of Earth's survivors had been exposed to radiation fallout. That, combined with a few other factors, had rendered them all sterile. So we were all living on borrowed time, trying to figure out how to get the Cybertronians away from the Pandalaths before the last of the humans died, and the Pandalaths took over 'mastery' of the Cybertronians." The me on the screen paused here. "Needless to say, we didn't succeed. The last ditch effort was when I remembered the Allspark I'd left on the moon. We decided to make a run with it, head for another galaxy and start New Cybertron. Magnus, me, Beachcomber, and Mirage were chosen to go, mostly due to lack of other options - we wanted Optimus to go, but we knew the Pandalaths wouldn't let him escape with the Matrix of Leadership. They were aware he had it, and that it was powerful, and part of their reverence for Humans comes from our supposed ability to 'control' him, even with the Matrix.
"The plasma fire in the command center at Ganymede is what's left of Optimus - he made a mighty fine distraction, drawing the Pandalaths main fleet there, where he promptly blew himself up. Apparently exploded Prime equals plasma fire that burns for thousands of years. Who knew? And the Matrix, last I knew, was still whole inside the fire. Good luck getting it out, though." The me on the screen laughed bitterly, then shook her head. "Now onto the fun part - the reason the Pandalaths consider Humans 'Holy Ones'.
"The shuttle carrying the new Allspark didn't make it out of the galaxy. Optimus's distraction didn't work. The Pandalaths caught us. In desperation, Magnus had me transform into my human form and claim that we were bringing the Allspark to the Pandalaths as a gift. They saw through the lie, of course, since we'd been heading in the opposite direction. They didn't accuse me, however, blaming Magnus, Beachcomber, and Mirage for trying to kidnap me." The me on the screen fell silent. "They executed them in front of me. As a gift. After that, I didn't care. I gave them the Allspark, told them to use it to advance their technology. To be honest, I was hoping they'd create an army of monsters that would destroy them from the inside. Instead, they managed to enslave an entire generation of Cybertronians.
"So now, here I am, having reached the absolute end of a human lifecycle, and I can't stay with the Pandalaths any longer without them becoming suspicious. Warpchaser won't remember it - they wipe the memory cores of their self-aware technology every five or ten years - but I'm actually onboard him right now. In the same room as you are, in fact. And I'm recording this with the intent that you change things. And find out what the hell happened to Vector Prime, because nobody's seen him, and he really should have poked his nose into things long before it got to this point.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go shoot myself into a sun." The me on the screen sighed, and I suddenly realized just how worn she was. Then she transformed, and instead of a Cybertronian face far too close to the screen, I saw an old woman, who looked even more drained and sad than her Cybertronian counterpart, and she reached up and flicked the screen off.
"Privacy mode deactivating," the voice intoned, and then the lights in my quarters resumed to full strength.
"That's odd, the file doesn't seem to want to play," Warpchaser said, and it took me a moment to realize that privacy mode probably stopped Warpchaser from even noticing that it was on, distracting him elsewhere until it was deactivated.
"It played, Warp. It activated privacy mode. The other me apologizes for that," I said softly. "Is that energon re-routed yet?"
"Uh - yes," Warpchaser said after a moment.
"Good, walk me through getting it," I told him, wanting something to distract me from what I'd just heard. Warpchaser fortunately didn't asked questions - had probably been programmed not to, I realized with a grimace - and I was left to think about it myself as I drank the energon Warpchaser guided me to get. The food on the table he helped me incinerate, and then I settled down for a sleepless night, after Warpchaser informed me that there were orders not to disturb me for another nine hours.
The next morning, Captain T'Ral was all over himself apologizing to me, and I suspected he'd been raked over the coals by his superiors. He informed me that another ship would be coming to escort me to the homeworld, and as much as I wanted to insist that I stay on Warpchaser, there was no reason I could use to object, so I agreed. I apologized to Warpchaser later, but he seemed to understand.
The new ship arrived later the next day, with official looking Pandalaths on it. It was another sparked ship, and Warpchaser assured me that it had agreed to continue to help cover for me - to a casual scan, I appeared human, but the type of scans they'd had him running on me, apparently, would have picked me out as Cybertronian in a moment. I thanked him, and asked him to thank the new ship as well, then went and put my recent practice meeting government types on Earth to good use. Now having the appropriate background information, I was able to hold my own well enough. I was transferred to the other ship, leaving the Starcaller for Captain T'Ral to put back on Ganymede, and then we were on our way. The three day journey to the so-called Homeworld was full of official dinners and discussions about how much my presence meant to the Pandalath people. It was tedious and boring.
Once we reached the planet, I discovered to my chagrin that there was a parade in the main city in my honor. I didn't find out until after it was over that the ending point was at the Allspark complex, however. Which was probably good, because as soon as the Allspark came into view, I felt something begin humming inside me. I realized then that the reason the future me hadn't told me about how I got back was because the way home was going to be literally dumped in my lap.
There was a crowd of thousands all around me, watching with excitement as I left the official delegation behind and walked over to the Allspark, looking up at it. It was suspended in the air a good twenty feet, the only access being through the sides and the tops. They'd turned it into a monument of sorts, with simple access hatchways to gain its life-giving properties hidden from view. Behind me, I heard one of the officials begin to give a grand speech.
I smiled to myself, then turned back to the Allspark and activated my transformation sequence. I heard the panic starting, but as soon as my upstretched hand touched the Allspark, energy crackled around me and the world disappeared.
When I reappeared, I was in the middle of the Ganymede base's landing strip for spacecraft, and there was panic of a different sort, revolving around Vector and Magnus. Ratchet, Ironhide, and Optimus were there, as well, apparently having bridged up from Earth in the time I'd been gone. Magnus was still unconscious, but with Ratchet there, he wasn't my primary concern at the moment.
"You!" I snapped, and pounced on Vector, much to the surprise of everyone.
"Er - hi," Vector said, looking surprised once again to see me. I frowned.
"Why are you surprised to see me? For that matter, why were you surprised to see me and Magnus in the future? You're the freaking Guardian of Space and Time, you shouldn't be surprised by anything," I accused. "Also, why the hell aren't you off doing something about the nukes and the Pandalaths!"
"Um..." Vector looked uncomfortable, and I narrowed my optics at him.
"Ironhide, you have stasis cuffs, right?" I asked, noticing the weapons specialist in the background.
"Uh..." he seemed as coherent as Vector.
"Gimme!" I ordered, holding out a hand imperatively. Ironhide supplied them, more out of habit at following orders than anything else I think, and he seemed surprised when I cuffed Vector to me. "You're sticking with me until you answer my questions. But that'll have to wait, because I want to know how Magnus is." The last was said pointedly in Ratchet's direction.
"He's fine, but he's radioactive and his systems have gotten a jolt. What the frag happened? I thought you were bridging to San Francisco, not here!" Ratchet snapped.
"We were, but something interfered and we got sent to the future. Vector came and picked Magnus up, because he wouldn't have lived very long in the environment we landed in, but I took a bit of a detour before...finding a way back," I explained briefly, stopping myself just before saying I'd used the Allspark. "Also, picked up some interesting information along the way. Shall we move this to a more appropriate venue now?"
"You're in a mood," Ratchet observed, seeming amused.
"As I said, I got some interesting information," I said grouchily. I thought I'd had time to process the message I'd left myself, but seeing everyone again...suddenly made it hit home. The Autobots had made me feel at home and relatively normal - it was unsettling to know they were all destined to die rather horribly if things didn't change.
"Have the last of the humans left?" Ratchet asked.
"Yeah, saw them off m'self," Ironhide said with a 'hmph', eyeing me as if he wasn't sure what to make of me right now.
"Good, we can move Magnus into the med bay then. I need to replace some of his parts, and give him a good dousing in anti-radiation foam," Ratchet said.
"You have anti-radiation foam?" I asked, bizarrely amused by that.
"Radiation isn't nearly as dangerous to us as it is to humans, but it still tends to frag with our more delicate systems if we're exposed to enough of it, as Magnus has been," Ratchet said as he co-ordinated with Optimus and Ironhide to start moving Magnus. "I'd be interested in where you went in the future that had enough radiation to do this, in fact."
"Earth," I said softly, then ignoring the surprised looks of the conscious mechs, I turned and dragged Vector into the base with me.
It was several long hours before Ratchet had fixed up Magnus, and by then I was going out of my shiny new CPU, trying to think things through, to figure out what the heck was going on. Vector just silently watched me, seeming more than a little freaked out, but I wasn't ready to answer, or ask, any questions yet. I wanted to wait until Magnus woke up.
Fortunately it seemed that, as Ratchet said, getting an overdose of radiation isn't nearly as serious for Cybertronians as it is for humans. Two hours, a few replaced parts, some anti-radiation foam and a thorough cleaning later, and Magnus was up and at it again, none the worse for the wear. Well, until I catapulted into him when Ratchet finally let him out of the med bay. With Vector still attached to me.
"Terry -" Magnus was half exasperated and half amused.
"Have I mentioned that you're not allowed to get killed? Cuz you're not," I told him sternly as I stepped away. "And you're definitely not allowed to get executed. So don't even think about it."
"What?" Magnus asked, looking confused.
"I'll explain, come on," I said, grabbing Magnus and hauling him along behind me. Vector came too, of course. Ratchet followed behind us and seemed quite amused, judging from his snickers - but I suppose we must have made quite the sight, with my petite femme form towing two large mechs through the hallways. Fortunately, it wasn't far to the conference room, where Optimus said he and the other senior officers - aka, Ironhide and Prowl - would be waiting. They had other business to discuss, but were willing to have it interrupted to hear my explanation. The three mechs in the conference room fell silent as I entered with my little entourage, and there was a brief scramble as we all got settled. Ironhide ended up having to stand - the room was meant for small conferences, and the bigger one wasn't finished yet.
"I'm glad to see you up and about, Magnus," Optimus said with a nod.
"Up and being dragged about, you mean," Magnus said dryly, then gave me a curious look. "What happened?"
"We'd all like to know that," Optimus said, giving me an expectant look. I straightened in my chair, then, and began explaining, starting with the strange readings I got and the funky space bridge. They were quite curious at first, asking lots of questions, and then I got to the part where I realized Magnus and I had shown up on a nuked Earth. They fell silent as I described the future, including the message from my future self. I got very quiet myself, when I related the part about Magnus being executed in front of my future self, and Magnus reached over and rested a hand on my shoulder.
Through the whole explanation, Vector was listening with fascination, clearly hearing it all for the first time, and very interested. He frowned when I mentioned him, and my future self telling me to find out what happened to him, but provided no answers as I spoke. Once I finished, though, I turned to him.
"So? What do you have to say for yourself?" I asked him, frowning. Vector shrugged.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. I just found out I could open time bridges today," he said, then grinned widely. "It's pretty awesome, though." I stared at him.
"How old are you?" Optimus suddenly asked, seeming weary, and Vector made a 'who, me?' motion. Optimus nodded.
"I've been online three vorns," Vector replied. I knew enough about Cybertronian time measurements to know that meant that he was, relatively speaking, very young. Still much older than me, but for a Cybertronian, he was young.
"Wonderful," I said after a pause, turning to the others. "So if we got a young Vector, does that mean that the older versions weren't available? And if so, what happened to them?"
"I don't know," Optimus said with a shake of his head.
"I do," Ironhide rumbled, and all attention turned to him. The weapons specialist was focused on me, though. "All of this started going funny after you showed up. We hadn't even heard about the supposed weapon on the moon until after you arrived in our reality, and you've admitted that your future self used time travel. Now our Guardian of Space and Time is out of commission, and am I the only one who thinks it's a coincidence that this happens shortly after he meets you? You messed with the timeline somehow, and it's screwing up our future!" The accusation was harsh, and Magnus immediately began to protest. I let him, my optics locked with Ironhide's as I thought about his words. He was right, I knew.
"Why?" I finally spoke, interrupting Magnus, and attention turned to me. "I mean, I get what you're saying, and I actually think you're onto something there. But why would I mess with the timeline? The reason I hate time travel in the first place is because I know, at least in theory, how persnickety it is. Change the tiniest thing, and it could have far-reaching effects. So why would I get messed up in it?"
"Beats me," Ironhide muttered, seemingly startled out of his accusational mood by me agreeing with him.
"Something big had to have been at stake. Either that or someone did some fancy convincing," I turned to frown at Vector.
"I never saw you before today," he said with a shrug.
"It could easily have been something - someone - else that changed the timeline, Terry," Magnus said with irritation.
"No, Ironhide is right. All signs point back to me. I seem to be at the center of this all, fouling it all up," I said, then turned to Prowl. "By the way, what was going on in San Francisco?"
"San Francisco?" Prowl looked surprised. "When?"
"When Magnus and I bridged. I'd picked up something in San Francisco - what was it?" I asked curiously.
"I'm not certain, one moment," Prowl frowned, picking up a few datapads and tapping at them. After a moment, he set them down. "Nothing was reported."
"Really?" I frowned, then turned to Ratchet. "Is there a way I can, like, send my sensor logs to someone?" Ratchet chuckled, then sent me a set of instructions, and I packaged up my sensor logs from before Magnus' and my bridge and sent them to Prowl. He frowned, then looked over at Vector in surprise.
"Those are the same readings we got when Vector bridged onto the moon," he said.
"But Vector was bridging in from the...future..." I frowned. "Does radiation mess with space bridges?"
"It can, but normally it will just destabilize the bridge, preventing it from forming," Ratchet said.
"What about a time bridge?" I asked.
"I haven't the slightest idea," Ratchet replied, arching an optics ridge and turning to look at Vector.
"Ditto," the young prime said, shrugging.
"Ripples. When you showed up on the future Earth, you said something about ripples?" I said, looking at Vector curiously.
"Oh, yeah, I was getting ready for my first jump when I saw these ripples in the timeline. I was looking closer at them, and then next thing I knew, I was in the future, with you two," Vector said. "I don't know how, but I knew you weren't supposed to be there, which was why I asked you why you were there."
"Erg. This is all tied together somehow, but I can't figure out how," I said with a groan.
"I suggest we focus on one part of it at a time," Prowl said logically. "The most obvious part is Vector. What will happen to him to prevent him from protecting our future?" Silence.
"Well, he could die. Or have his time-jumping thingy damaged," I said finally.
"It did give me an error when I jumped back," Vector said.
"Run this diagnostic, then give me the results," Ratchet said, and there was a moment silence. "It's broken." Ratchet declared.
"Where did you get that diagnostic?" Vector asked, looking confused.
"You, in a roundabout way. The future you gave it to the first medics, and we've handed it down," Ratchet said.
"If it still exists, then Vector doesn't stop time jumping completely," Prowl pointed out.
"True," Ratchet mused. "Which means he just isn't doing anything to prevent the future. Which could be the result of the break. I don't understand the physics of it myself, but the diagnostic program is flagging the problem as urgent and must fix immediately."
"Can you fix it?" Optimus asked.
"No. Not with our current resources," Ratchet said with a shake of his head. "Our technology right now might not even be advanced enough even if I had a full manufacturing lab. The problem is with the actual time-bridge mechanism - it seems to have physically broken, and apparently did so mid-jump. I'm not even sure how to fix it, to be honest."
"He doesn't happen to use anything weird like chronotron particles or something that could be, I dunno, leaking out and polluting the timeline, preventing his future self from jumping to this point?" I asked, vaguely remembering some Star Trek episode about that. Ratchet just shrugged.
"I don't know," he said. "Wheeljack might be able to figure it out, but we still haven't heard from him. For the time being, Vector is stuck here, though."
"And possibly causing irreparable damage to the timeline," Prowl said with a frown.
"Possibly," Ratchet conceded.
"Great," Vector grumbled. "My first time jump and I break my time bridge and mess up the timeline."
"I thought we'd concluded that the timeline is my fault?" I said with a snort.
"Which brings us to the second problem," Prowl said. "What would cause you to change the timeline?"
"Universe or world ending problems," I said with a frown. "Nothing less."
"And of what use would it be in preventing that to give you a mechanoid body?" Prowl asked. I glanced over at Magnus.
"I'm not sure me gaining a mechanoid body have anything to do with it," I said slowly.
"Oh?" Prowl asked, and I looked up at Optimus.
"There was an Allspark in the tube with this body. A small one, but still an Allspark." Utter silence around the table.
"And you're just telling us this now why?" Ratchet growled, leaning forward to glare at me.
"I didn't think it was time to tell you. I still don't think it is, but something has gotten horribly fucked up, and we need all the facts if we're going to sort this out," I said calmly.
"Still don't think - when were you going to tell us? When we fought ourselves to extinction?" Ratchet demanded.
"I was hoping the war would end before then, and then I'd tell you," I replied, scowling.
"And what if you died between now and then?" Ratchet replied.
"I knew about it," Magnus rumbled, glaring at Ratchet. "Don't take your anger out on her, Ratchet. We all know that this war will continue as long as Megatron knows there's an Allspark to fight over. She made the choice any of us would have." Ratchet muttered something, which caused Optimus to look at him sharply, and Vector to look uncomfortable.
"Do I want to know what he just called me?" I asked dryly.
"No," Magnus replied, glaring at Ratchet.
"So you send an Allspark back in time to prevent some cataclysmic event," Prowl said, clearly trying to get the discussion back on track. "The destruction of our race, perhaps?"
"Maybe," I said with a shrug. "I mean, sending the Allspark back in time would certainly help with that."
"In which case, maybe we should reveal its existence," Prowl pondered.
"No," Optimus countered sharply. "That Allspark remains hidden until Megatron is dead."
"And future me would know that's your opinion, so why send it back?" I asked.
"Perhaps giving yourself a mechanoid body did have some purpose, after all?" Prowl suggested.
"Like what?" I asked, letting my confusion show. "There's really only one reason I can think of, and - well, that's not exactly universe-ending important." Magnus and I pointedly didn't look at each other, while the others looked amused - well, except for Vector, who just looked confused.
"Ratchet has said that your body is technologically advanced. Perhaps that is the key?" Prowl said after a moment.
"If I wanted to send technology back in time - and that's a big 'if' - I wouldn't think I'd need to be occupying the body to do it," I said dubiously.
"No, but perhaps you decided to do yourself a favour while you were already time travelling?" Ratchet suggested, eyeing me consideringly.
"Yeah, but - no offence - I hate labs and doctors. I wouldn't be doing myself a favour," I said with a frown.
"Well, short of finding your future self and asking her..." Ratchet grumbled, glaring at me again.
"Perhaps we should take a step back for a moment," Prowl suggested. "We have two possible apocalypses in the future. One causes Vector and Terry to send an Allspark and a mechanoid body back in time, and the other that was caused by them doing just that. We know why the second apocalypse hasn't been fixed - Vector's unable to time bridge, and the current future Terry is dead." There was a pause, and then I frowned.
"Why hasn't the universe imploded at that paradox?" I asked.
"Paradox?" Magnus asked curiously.
"The Allspark and mechanoid body shouldn't exist anymore if the future's changed so that she never goes back in time to make them," Vector unexpectedly piped up.
"Bingo," I said. "Humans call it a grandfather paradox. If you go back in time and kill your grandfather, you'll never be born, so you can't go back in time and kill your grandfather, but then you'll be born to go back in time and kill your grandfather, etc etc. In my case, I went back in time to drop off the Allspark and body, but in doing so, changed it so that future never happened, and thus the body and Allspark were never sent back in time, which means that future did happen...etc etc." There was silence around the room, either as the Autobots tried to absorb what I'd said, or come up with a reason for why the universe hadn't imploded.
"What if the body and the Allspark weren't placed in the future?" Prowl mused.
"The body is technologically advanced, and I don't remember being on the moon before that day," I pointed out.
"Yes, but you said Vector had a hand in it," Prowl said. "So what if we get his time bridge fixed, he gets the body from the future - no. According to your information from the future, we essentially die out." Prowl frowned.
"No, you just stop advancing on your own," I said slowly. "And you're not extinct, you're just enslaved - which you can, and have, broken free of before."
"So Vector gets the body in the future, uses what he learns of you now, and makes the facility on the moon, and the second Allspark," Prowl said, continuing his interrupted thought with the new information.
"The FAQ on the terminal said I built the facility," I said thoughtfully. "But I wouldn't put it passed myself to say that just for dramatic effect. So would this mean that the apocalypse that the Allspark and this body were built for is the Pandalaths? I mean, maybe in the original timeline, Cybertronians and Humans end up almost wiped out by them, and so Vector gets this advanced body and the Allspark so that you can survive. I doubt my future self would have managed to stay hidden long enough to protect and eventually reveal the Allspark without having a far more advanced body."
"So instead of being wiped out, we're just enslaved for who knows how long. And the human race is killed off," Ratchet said, sounding none too impressed.
"Well, it's a better solution, if not the best," I said with a frown.
"I don't think that's right," Vector said, sounding uncertain, and everyone turned to look at him. "It just...seems wrong."
"Well, it's the best theory we've got," I said. "I think our goal right now, then, should be trying to get Vector's time-bridge fixed."
"That could take decades," Ratchet commented.
"Obviously not, because the humans will blow themselves up by then, and I was looking for Vector in the future, implying he wasn't still there," I pointed out.
"Very well, we'll make fixing Vector's space bridge a priority. Ratchet, I'll leave it in your capable hands to find Wheeljack. Everyone else, see if you can find anything else that could help," Optimus said, standing from the table.
"You want me to find him?" Ratchet said with mock incredulity, then grinned, clearly looking forward to tracking down the mech. He left in a far better mood than most of the participants of the meeting.