What Passes For A Childhood

Any citizen of Cybertron will tell you -- Kaon is a bad place to start out in. A city like Iacon may not really have less corruption, but at least it's less obvious and more likely to just ruin your life as opposed to, say, kill you.

In Kaon, the criminals are the lawmakers, and they don't even bother to hide it. So much energon comes through its streets and flows to just the right people, that no one really cares about who's running the place as long as it keeps running. Everybody's in on it -- the cops, the councilmen, the gangs, the businesses, the factories, even the foundries. It may sometimes look civilized on the surface, but it's all built on greed and self-interest and the oldest laws of survival in the galaxy. The strong eat the weak, and then get stabbed in the back themselves. Every minute of life is either bought and paid for, or stolen. If you're not being used by someone, you're being chased by people trying to use you. When you're not useful anymore, they throw you on the scrapheap. As they say in the guidefiles, "Life is cheap in Kaon... and death is entertainment."

Home, sweet home...

- - - - -

"Alright, I'm here. Now what in Cybertron's moon is the problem?"

Medic Fixer looked down at the pair of newly Sparked protoforms standing blank-faced beside a nervous-looking foundry worker. They seemed perfectly healthy to him. Their optics were lit, their stances straight, the thin panels of bare metal (black in this case, one with red highlights and one with yellow) that served as armor for their newly created bodies fit correctly with not a seam out of place, and all their limbs appeared to be attached. No obvious reason he should have been summoned here in such haste, and Fixer started to say so.

As soon as he opened his mouth to speak, the pair tilted their heads. The movement was synchronized, eerily so. One uttered a querying chirp, the other replied a half-second later with a tone of identical frequency and duration. Fixer felt a chill creep through his fuel lines.

"Can't be," he muttered.

The worker -- a crane-bot whose name escaped Fixer at the moment -- began stammering. "They came online at the same time, exactly the same time. Their optics lit and they started making sounds back and forth, seeking each other. Wouldn't stop until they were brought to stand side-by-side as you see them." The crane paused. When the medic made no reply, he ventured, "I think it was a Spark-split."

Fixer looked at the pair, taking in their nearly identical features -- only the helms differed slightly in shape -- and the way they stood in line with their arms at their sides, almost touching. They stared back, blank and curious in the way of new protoforms, but he thought there was already a hint of intelligence in those optics. Well. Two minds linked together might develop faster than one. Still, it didn't make his predicament easier.

"I'll have to run some tests," he said out loud, more to himself than to the worker. "We best hope it's not a split Spark. These things don't happen often, and for a damn good reason, I think. Going to be difficult to place them, if they are. No one wants that kind of headache." He shook his head at the waste of such a fine pair. "They'll probably just get farmed out to the factories."

Unaware of this discussion on the bleakness of their future, the protoforms bleeped to each other again, one then another a half-second apart. Confirming position, affirming that they were still together.

"Perhaps we could separate them?" the worker offered, trying to make a helpful suggestion. Fixer just stared.

"At this stage? They'll die," he said flatly. "Anytime before the personality is fully formed, move the two halves too far apart and you lose them both. They've tried before. If it is a case of splitting, we'll just have to cope. The factories can always use more able bodies, and they look strong. They might make it."

With that -- apart from the standard tests to be conducted on the health of the newborns, and a few more to determine the extent of the lingering Spark-bond -- Fixer washed his hands of both of them. He would be the first of many to do so, because he, like everyone else, had his own problems, and no one was obligated to shoulder the burden of a pair of blithely ignorant protoforms who had the misfortune of sharing one Spark in two bodies.

Kaon is a bad place for the helpless.

- - - - -

I don't remember the foundry very well. That might seem odd since it was our first home, but then my brother and I weren't there very long. It was crowded as hell and they didn't have enough workers for half the Betas there. They tried to get rid of them as early as possible, soon as they found anyone with a use for young mechs.

I dare say they were especially eager to get rid of the two of us. We were terrors back then. So notorious, they even gave us names -- which is saying something in a place so full they couldn't keep all our serial numbers straight most of the time. Sideswipe and Spin-Out, they called us: a couple of nasty road hazards nobody wanted to deal with. We weren't that bad, now that I look back on it, especially compared to what we'd become later. But at the time we thought we were hot shit, and wore the names with pride.

I was pretty much the same 'bot back then as you know now, but Spin was another story. He was moody and kind of quiet and rude when he did speak and stubborn as hell and too proud for his own good (and that's all still true), but he didn't have the killer's Spark that he has today. In fact, he was almost shy when he wasn't defending his pride over some stupid point. He was interested in art, and read more than me, usually while I was out getting into some kind of trouble. The only times he even started something rough were when somebody messed with me, and then he didn't care who you were...

- - - - -

Inspections were a chore, but a necessity. Even in Kaon the foundries needed to assure some kind of quality control. Hence, on regularly scheduled occasions a group of officials would come in and do a quick look over the facilities, the records, the staff, and the Betas and Gammas themselves. Lining up the latter and convincing them to stand quietly and not make a fuss was perhaps the most difficult part of preparing for such inspections.

Sideswipe fidgeted yet again, watching intently to see if the nearest caretakers noticed. They didn't, or pretended not to, and he pouted in irritation. His Spark-twin beside him was as still as a statue, also patiently ignoring him; his crystal-blue optics were following the inspector as he moved up and down the line. Spin-Out didn't like the look of this mech. He seemed loud, domineering, pushy. The brothers did not take well to pushing.

"Is he ever gonna get to us?" Sideswipe finally sent over their private channel. The two could communicate without resorting even to that, but when Sideswipe was this bored, talking in his head was better than doing nothing.

"He spotted us already, a minute ago. He doesn't like us." Sullenness in Spin-Out's voice, in his expression. Sideswipe's mouth quirked.

"Think we can get him to like us even less?"

His brother did not reply. Finally the inspector made his way to their end of the row of Gammas. He looked them over critically, as with the others, but with a distinct scowl on his face. It wasn't their appearance -- they were both about as handsome as any young mech in the foundry, come to that. And they certainly looked strong and capable enough. But those insolent stances. The hint of a smirk on the red one. The yellow one's unflinching stare. He had seen many young 'bots, and he knew trouble when he saw it.

"You two!" he snapped, making nearby Gammas jump. "Your serial numbers?"

Sideswipe just grinned dumbly, as if not understanding what he'd been asked. Spin-Out stamped down an urge to shove him. He rattled off his own in a toneless voice, then sent a message to his brother. "Quit screwing around, dummy."

Sideswipe recited his serial number in a sing-song voice that made his brother visibly wince. The inspector's browplates rose and he drew back in irritation. The red twin wagged his head cheerfully to his own tune, like a 'bot gone out of his mind. He then launched from that into a childlike rhyme that had made the ranks of the foundry's Gammas a few stellar cycles ago. His voice rose and fell horribly, as if he had no sense of pitch. Finally the inspector bellowed.

"Enough!" He glared at the nearest worker, who was watching in horror. "Does this one have processor damage?" he demanded.

"Good question," Spin-Out communicated sourly to his twin.

"He's perfectly functional," asserted the caretaker quickly. Then, with a rather dark look at Sideswipe, "But he is known for... difficult behavior."

The inspector turned back to the pair. "Oh, is that the game?" he sneered. Then he reached out, grabbed the red twin by the front of his armor and jerked him out of the ranks. "Look here, brat, I am not a mech to be--"

He was in mid-bellow when Spin-Out decked him. The move itself, and the sheer force of it, caught the inspector completely by surprise. Letting go of Sideswipe, he took a step back and turned to confront the yellow twin, who was standing ready to throw another punch. The look on his face was such that the older mech briefly hesitated. Then he lunged -- just as Sideswipe came at him from the flank. The impact tumbled him off his feet, Sideswipe springing free before he could go down too and leaping back beside his brother.

Dozens of scuffles and brawls among the other younglings in the crowded foundry had favored the pair, quickening their reflexes and sharpening their wits, but they had never taken on a full-grown mech before. Now the caretakers were hastening forward, some to help the inspector up and offer profuse apologies, while others forcibly restrained the twins and dragged them off to lock-up as punishment.

As they lost sight of him, the twins heard the inspector bellowing clearly. "Those two had better be shipped out to the factory before I come back! I never want to see their faces in here again!"

"Well," remarked Sideswipe drily to his brother, "Knew that would happen sooner or later."

"Who'd miss this dump anyway?" was the reply.

- - - - -

A/N: Betas are "infant" Cybertronians, still in the process of learning basic physical and communication abilities. Gammas are older children, who are capable of social interaction and are usually apprenticed to grown mechs to start learning a trade. Alphas are bodies without Sparks in them yet. And the foundry, of course, is where the bodies are built and the Sparks put into them. Cybertronians in my continuity are mass-produced. Just in case any of that was too badly written to figure out.

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