The Diego Diaries: (dd8 685)
=0=On the sidewalk moments later
"Well, that went well," Sun said with smirk.
Drift jolted. "How did he know we have a boy?"
The group glanced at him and Springer, then Springer turned toward the business again.
Ratchet caught his arm. "You were on television a couple of times with him. I remember thinking who is that cute little kid with those two maniacs?"
Drift and Springer both relaxed. "Oh, right. The new season of 'Platoon'."
Everyone deflated a moment, then turned toward Ratchet.
"You're a menace to society," Blackjack said.
Ratchet smiled brilliantly. "And all of you are on the future husband's list."
"Even me?" Elita asked as she snickered.
"First name," Ratchet said as they began to disperse to go back to the life.
"Delphi will put the notices out. We'll let you know," Hardie said as the Praxians began to leave.
Chat and slag was traded as the crowd left leaving the family and Prowl behind.
Ratchet glanced at Prowl. "That was genius for Prime to ask for the legal review on the court. Putting it in the Arbitration and Negotiation sector of the legal code, making it a legal option for those who need it was genius."
"Well," Prowl said as he glanced smugly at Ratchet, "It is Optimus 'Slagging' Prime after all." He glanced at Hardie and his brothers. "How is it having Not Rod and Smoochy living with you?"
"Not bad. Both of them need a good spanking but overall, they're cute kids," Delphi said as they walked back to the Metro.
"I'll make sure to tell Dev," Ratchet said as they disappeared into the morning crowds at the Mall.
=0=The Hourly News at 1100 joors
"Good morning. My name is Lim-Lee and this is the news from Mars and Cybertron. This morning, the last of the buildings damaged in the first spate of fires in the arson campaign were released to their owners whose businesses were destroyed in the fires. Chem Dreaming is now open once again. The remaining sites, Youngling Day School in Centurion and Polyhex Business Plaza in the Temple District of Autobot City are the last reconstructions to complete. Jacx visited with City Planner, Chief Engineer and Planning Commission Director Jetta of Iacon this morning to get a fix on how things are going with both buildings."
The camera cut to the Polyhex Business Plaza where Jetta and Mack were being interviewed by Jacx.
"Jetta, what's the status on the building here?" Jacx asked.
Behind them, the tall girders of a ten story building were going up with the entire interior a mass of cables, welders and heavy construction with cranes and scaffolding everywhere.
"This building was a total loss. It was a three story tower when it burned but we've redesigned the building to be ten now. Fort Max who's the Colonial and Empire Chief Architect designed the new features, put in a lot of safety measures and is supervising the plan stage of this construction and that of the school in Centurion. We hope that the building will be enclosed in a decaorn, then the interior will go swiftly. Our very tentative date for businesses to re-occupy the building is about two to three decaorns."
"Its my understanding that half of the building has been requisitioned by the Circle of Light," Jacx said.
Jetta nodded. "The Circle held the entire third floor of the old building to house their school, Circle of Light Preparatory Academy #1 and the offices of their teachers and staff. Now they asked for that floor and four above it. Their plan states that they want their school to remain on the third floor but the four extra floors would be occupied by their manufacturing processes for their weavers and other artisans, their printing business and storage. They manufacture all of their printed materials themselves and they want to build a studio to make films and to have a broadcast presence on television and radio. They want to also put their classes online for those who can't attend them in person. Its a consolidation process."
"I see. Master Heatout has stated that he's very appreciative of the approval and plans to make the building's sites highly useful to their students and artisans including their ever growing human population. What about Youngling Day?"
Jetta grinned at Jacx. "That building is a orn and night ongoing operation. We're way ahead of schedule. All of the burned classrooms are enclosed with the outside walls replaced and reinforced. The building was found to be sound given the tensile strength of our steel. That it burned as much as it did was testimony to the power of the nearly plasmic intensity of fuel grade energon.
"We tore out the interiors affected after salvaging what we could, then worked to enclose the outside to make the interior rebuild easier. The electrical and electronic replacements were the slowest and hardest part but all in all, we plan to go through an inspection toward final sign off in nine orns. If all is as well as it seems to our inspecting engineers, we hope and I state its a hope, that we can have kids back in school in a decaorn."
"That's amazing, Jetta. My son will be happy to hear that," Jacx said with a smile. He glanced at the camera. "This is Jacx reporting from the site of the Polyhex Business Tower rebuild with Chief Engineer and Colonial Planner Jetta of Iacon and Colonial and Empire Planning Manager Mack of Iacon. Back to the studio."
=0=Prowl and Prime going over things in the office
"That sounds wonderful. The kids deserve a full orn in school," Prowl said as the monitor nearby played the news with low volume sound.
Prime grinned. "Did you?"
Prowl glanced up at him, then frowned slightly. "I hated it. I was the youngest always and it wasn't fun at all."
"Spirit told me that it was 'funner' at school but the daycare is 'really fun, though not as funner'," Prime said as he sat back. He grinned. "That infant makes me smile."
"He's a little cream puff. So is Prowler. Those two … maybe they can bond some orn and have little marshmallows between them. I say so because they're so sweet," Prowl said with a slight smirk.
"And they say you have no sense of humor," Prime said with a chuckle.
Prowl grinned. "Well, you know. Deep water and all …" He began to sort through the data they were scrutinizing again.
/ … deep water then? … never change … / Prime said with a smirk.
The morning progressed onward.
=0=At a legal firm in Bern
They walked out, Raimier, Salute and Pyrite. They'd engaged a number of attorneys and legal code readers to go over the changes in the law and to get a defense together against what a shallow swift overview of the Caste Court history on Mars showed a decided lack of win for those who pursued it. They paused on the sidewalk to wait for their cab.
"This is going to be a big blot on our plans. Our application to the Art Guild is still in process," Salute fretted. "I truly wish you had waited on your shenanigans until we were accepted. Really, Raimier, I thought you were more strategic than this."
Raimier stared at his bond, a nervous but elegant femme who loved art and wanted to be important in the art circles wherever they were. "There's a loophole, Salute. Just relax," he said as the cab came to the curb, then stopped.
Salute glanced upward at him, then frowned. "You better find it fast then," she said as she climbed into the cab. Her son and bond followed, then they drove off to go to the main branch of their empire in the Mall of Tyger Pax. They disappeared into the growing noon time traffic.
=0=Smoochy and Not Rod
They sat on a bench with plenty of space between them waiting for Hard Drive and Blackjack to come back to get them and go to Cybertron. They were formally posted to Diego Garcia (Smoochy) and to the Standby Army Deployment Division of First Responders (Not Rod) while spending the other half of their twin assignment riding with the Watch around the colony. Now they had to obey Hard Drive and his family for as long as Hardie wanted or go to jail for a definite period of time to be served in the Brig under The Fortress.
Given that neither of them liked even the shadow of spending time in 'Stir' (Crazy) they were on the hook to obey the two big Praxians who were actually a barrel of fun to be around. It was infinitely better to do this than that but to live in their house, use their wash rack, eat dinner at dinner time at their table, recite the assigned pages of the Autobot Code of Military Conduct for that day that had to be memorized while standing in front of the television monitor like a child as the two sat on couches listening like genitors, then going to bed felt like Teenage Prison.
Smokescreen the Younger was considered teenaged in his culture and species. He was that indefinable age where he was young enough to be a kid but not old enough to be smart enough to read the room and act accordingly. He was impulsive, bravely foolhardy and bold. He was also smart, good sparked, decent and sweet.
Hot Rod was older but still considered a young mech. He was in the worst age group to be in their society, old enough to be expected to be an adult but not young enough anymore to get much of a pass when he acted an ass. He liked to goof around, blow off assignments when it seemed a 'good idea', not follow orders to the degree most expected and egotistical in the way all young mechs were his age when they grew up too fast and had too much danger which they worked to be good at.
Then told you.
Smokey wanted to be good, almost understood that he was young and had a lot to learn and was almost marginally okay with learning and waiting.
Hot Rod believed he was good, didn't understand that some of the veterans considered him a big mouthed kid and didn't believe he needed to learn much more.
They were both two sides of the same coin.
One, however, had a demanding set of genitors and a savvy and adoring set of grandparents who knew when to bust his chops and when to bring out the pie.
Now both of them had a new set of 'grandparents' who busted chops, ate pie in front of them and found them not only promising in the extreme but hilarious.
Hard Drive walked in with Blackjack and the others heading for Cybertron. He glanced at the kids. "Come along," he said hiding his smirk as the two stood up with a hint of sulk. They followed him and the others to disappear into bridges heading for their home world. They would learn half a dozen new things during the orn before coming back to Mars and have a begrudging and growing regard for the big mechs who were beating their afts and explaining things. It would grow larger and deeper when at some unforeseen orn they were let off their sentences.
But not today.
=0=Earlier at Base Camp 1 at the foothills of Olympus Mons in the Mons National Reserve
You had to have a permit to be here in this area, a set aside for exploration, camping and climbing that was monitored and maintained by the Department of the Interior, Parks and Recreation Division of the Autobot National government. The danger level of climbing here was so high that it exceeded the scale of magnitude of those listed on Earth. Kindle who was a climbing expert was the usual guide and safety monitor who came when the humans trained here because he could fly, he trained soldiers, Marines and Air men and femmes to climb and was the highest rated and most veteran mountaineer in the Army so far recovered.
They slogged their way through the crags and ice floes toward Base Camp 2 where Kindle was waiting, sitting on a rock cracking jokes and shouting encouragement downward as the men labored to reach him. When they did they went inside to gear up, go over the route, pair up in the buddy system that kept them safe, then get the word from Kindle about the area. He regularly climbed the sheer rock face to the top six miles up to make trails, check the condition of the face and look at the view.
He loved, loved, loved to climb.
"So everyone has their partner?" Lennox asked.
The mercs, Scot Parnell of Texas in the USA, Salmon Mohamed of South Africa and Maurice Falco of Morocco listened, then geared up. They were quiet, listened hard and tried to fit in. They were new mercs just blown in and hadn't the reputation of the others, though they inherited that reputation being mercenaries themselves whether they wanted it or not.
Lennox turned to them. "I know you were military in your countries. I expect military precision, attention to details and obedience. I've been up the face in the area we're going and its a 5.13 climb. It may only be a couple of hundred feet to the perch outpost that's hammered into the rock face where we can gather again to practice rappelling down, but understand that its a hellish climb with no margin for error. Anyone who wants out can do so without shame."
It was silent as the group stared back at him.
Lennox glanced at Kindle. "They're all yours, Kindy."
Kindle grinned. "Lucky me."
=0=TBC 4-10-2023