Chapter 15
Back on Earth, the meeting of the minds continued.
"What do you mean by "new life"?" asked Leland.
"Exactly what it sounds like," replied Isaac as he walked down the stars, accepting a cup of tea from one of the bulky androids, "humanity will not last forever, we're here to make sure something is left behind when we are gone."
He took a sip and sat down in the central chair, setting his teacup down as he did so.
"I gathered you here today because you have a unique combination I need to carry out this project."
"Which is?" asked May.
"You are the best in your field," he explained, "and you're all in some form of difficult financial situation."
"Blunt, aren't we?" quipped Cade with a deadpan stare.
"I don't believe in sugarcoating serious matters," he retorted, "the point is, you are here, and we need your help."
"We?" Noted Tessa, although she was ignored when Carly butted in.
"Professor Sumdac, my husband and I are flattered that you'd choose us for this project," she said while her husband nodded in agreement, "but this project is far too ambitious. Bioengirneering is one thing, but to make a new, viable species, is well beyond the reach of human technology."
"Which is why we won't be using human technology," said Josie, "will we Professor?"
"Right you are," affirmed the portly scientist, "this new species will be the best of both worlds. The easy maintenance and longevity of a cybertronian, with the self-regenerative capabilities and adaptability of an organic being."
"And how exactly do you expect us to do zis, vithout cybertronian aid?" asked Alexander.
"I'm not," he replied as he picked his tea back up, "I have arranged to have some scientists come from Cybertron to assist us with this project."
The shocking reply had the gathered scientists converse among themselves for a minute, before Amanda turned to him.
"Even if that's the case, this would be a very long-term project," she told him, "we'd be working from near-scratch to create a new lifeform that may or may not be viable."
"We have a working prototype," he affirmed her.
"I'm sorry Professor, but cells are only part of the equation," cut in Josie, "we have no way of knowing whether those cells you showed me have any chance of working together in a single organism."
"The cells were a sample," he replied, checking his flashing watch casually, "an organism has already been produced."
"Then why do you need us?" asked Barton.
"It was a freak accident," he explained, "one I have no way of reproducing without your help."
"Where is this prototype?" asked Cade.
"Are you in?" asked the professor gravely, "I cannot reveal her without an answer."
One of the robots passed around folders, each with their name written on the filing tab.
"If you agree to my terms, to the goal of this project, I need you to know that there is no turning back," he warned them, "I will expect you to finish what we begin."
The scientists looked at each other nervously one more time, before they nodded one by one.
"Good," he said as he tapped his watch, commanding the holographic projectors to reveal a yellow robot in the middle of the room, "meet our prototype, Sari."
Sari looked around at the gathered scientists, who gaped as her hologram appeared. She mentally thanked Bulkhead for setting up the holodeck in the meeting room.
"Good afternoon," she said, barely hiding the nervous twinge of her voice, "my name is Sari Sumdac."
The assembled scientists, however, looked confused.
"Um, Sari?" said her father, "I'm glad you're getting to know your roots, but would you mind speaking English?"
"Huh?"
"You switched to Cybertronian," explained Pentius from her right.
"I did? How?"
"You probably switched when you arrived on Cybertron," he explained, "Cybertronians have a partial hive mind called the language matrix, it's how the Autobots knew Earth's language when they arrived. They learned them through you. It also helps that no species learns new languages faster than a cybertronian."
"Oh, then how do I...?"
"Sari, who are you talking to?" asked her father.
"Oh, sorry, um, am I speaking English again?" he nodded, "Ok, that was weird. I found a Quintesson that might be able to help us. He's outside the projector right now."
She sent a metal command to the holodeck, allowing the humans to meet Pentius from the other side of the galaxy, much to the shock of the gathered scientists, who jumped at the sudden appearance of a massive head with tentacles.
"Greetings human scientists," he greeted through one of his more friendly-looking faces, "I am Pentius of the Quintesson High Council. I understand that you are trying to take control of your own evolution?"
"Er, yes Mr. Pentius," confirmed Isaac once he gathered his wits about him, "we are trying to recreate my daughter's success."
"Waitwaitwait," cut in Cade, "Sari? As in your daughter, Sari!? You experimented on your own daughter!?"
"Of course not!" scoffed Isaac, "I found a protoform, a cybertronian infant, and accidentally modified it with my own DNA."
"How did you even find a transformer infant?" asked Chi, everyone turned to him, "What?"
"Transformer?" pointed out Josie, "What are they, 80's toys?"
"Well, it fits," admitted Sari, "I mean, we do transform after all."
With that, she activated her t-cog, wincing as her systems caught and seized, struggling to make use of the damaged housing. Ten seconds later, Sari was back in her human form, rubbing at her aching chest, oblivious to the marveled faces of the gathered scientists.
"Ow," she whined, "frag it that still hurts. I'm gonna weld Perceptor to the wall, I swear."
"Perceptor?"
"Autobot scientist," she told her father, "long story."
"What happened?"
"I'll tell you later," she insisted, "I mean, yeah it sucked, but Ratchet put me back together and I did find another scientist that could help us."
"Wait, put back-?"
"Oh, please tell me you didn't get that idiot, Wheeljack," scoffed Pentius through a rather demonic looking face, "The buffoon will blow you to pieces, put you back together, and blow you again just for kicks!"
"I'd rather we avoid that," commented Isaac, "are you sure about this Wheeljack, Sari?"
"Relax, he's a cool guy," she assured him, "I mean, it's not like Pentius is a scientist, so we'll need his help anyways."
"He's not?" asked Cade, the first one to recover his voice.
"No, I'm a politician actually," he admitted, "However, I have contacts with most of our most celebrated scientists. I'm sure that Al-Badur or Inquirata will be interested in this project. They too have attempted to tackle a perfect technorganic, with varied results. Their insight should be valuable."
"What do you even need us for?" asked Barton, "I mean, they should have you covered."
"What makes you think we know anything about your anatomy?" asked Pentius as he pulled up a map of the galaxy and pointed at Earth, right next to a Quinteson planet, "I mean, I'm quite certain that we have been to your planet before, considering it's right at the edge of our territory, but our information is likely to be limited."
"Yeah, I was about to ask about your faces," cut in Tessa, "they resemble masks from various cultures around the world."
"Yes, I'm not quite certain when exactly we visited," he admitted, rubbing one of his more rotund chins thoughtfully with a tentacle, "I'd have to ask Al-Badur, he deals with all planetary experiments."
"It must have been two or three thousand years ago," she pointed out, "it might explain the multiple cultures refleced in your masks."
"Masks?" he asked with a different face, "these are faces. Our organic ancestors had no skeletons and were malleable enough to shapeshift their faces according to their emotions. Since our new bodies are less malleable, our first ancestors to upgrade into this new form opted to add five faces for our general emotional ranges, though only Judge-class quintesson still have all five," his head turned to allow them to see a red face that could best be described as a demonic samurai, "Rage," he swirtched to a white face with muttonchops and an orange star on its forehead, "Joy, or Laughter if you want to keep with tradition," he shifted to the yellow and blue face that reminded Sari of a Moscow tower, "this one is a bit confusing, since the Quintesson word for it can translate to either Wisdom or Bitterness."
"Oddly fitting," quipped Al.
Pentius turned again to reveal an oddly spiked white face with an even spikier blue and yellow ornament on its forehead, "Doubt or Judgement, I use this one a lot thanks to my job."
"What's that last one?" asked Tessa, "The one that looks like a Pharaoh's burial mask."
"I only use this face when passing the harshest of judgements," he explained as he turned, "the face of Death."
An uncomfortable silence settled over the assembled scientists.
"Um, guys?" Quipped Sari, "Not that I'm not loving this view into yet another alien culture, but we don't have much time before Perceptor gets past the firewalls I set up, and I'd rather not let him into this project."
"That's probably a good idea," admitted Wheeljack as he entered from the right, "sorry I'm late, my antimatter cannon exploded and it took me a while to put myself together."
His arm fell off.
"Slag it."
Deep within the darkness, Megatron slumbers.
The monster of a machine had been beaten and bound in the deepest cell they had, a far cry from the proud warrior that once made the gladiators of Kaon tremble.
Chains had been wrapped around his remaining arm and what was left of his missing limb, pulled taut against his prison's mockery of a throne. His injuries had been roughly welded shut, an unfortunate side effect of being treated a cowardly medic that couldn't keep is servos from trembling when he saw who he was treating.
Megatron was fairly certain he'd been assigned that medic on purpose, not that he'd give them the satisfaction of complaining.
"Oi! Tall, dark, and ugly!" called a guard, Mudflap if he remembered correctly, "Meal time!"
The energy field that made the far wall of his prison came down, revealing a mech with pitch black and pearl white armor that held a tray with a energon cube on it. The mech had an air of nervousness to him, emphasized by the way the cube rattled on the tray.
"Go on, rookie," said the other guard, Skids, "he ain't gonna hurt ya."
"R-right," stuttered the taller mech, "yo-your meal, sir."
"Wazis "sir", thing?" scoffed Mudflap, "He ain't gonna hurt cha!"
The orange mechling slapped the giant warlord across his faceplates.
"See? Tied up good!"
"Ya could spit in his fuel, and he couldn't do jack about it!"
"Ohhh, great idea Skids! Spit in his fuel!"
The two began a chant of "Spit! Spit!" that had Megatron rolling his optics. He considered saying something when the monochromatic mech began clearing out his intake valve. He produced a disgusting wad of oil that landed squarely in his energon.
"Oooohhhh, yeah!" cheered the twins as they placed Megatrons cube on his table.
The trio then backed out of the cell and reactivated the forcefield before his restraints withdrew into the chair he'd been bound to. He stood, amused at the way such a simple action caused the trio to flinch back.
He picked up his fuel and stared with distaste at the glob of black oil in his drink. He turned to glace at his "guards", when he saw it. A flash of red on the rookie's optics.
The mech nodded.
He drank the energon, catching the glob of burnt oil on his denta, before running his glossa over the disgusting pollutant. He quickly found what the mech needed him to find, a small ball the size of a marble.
He raised an optic ridge at the mech, who gritted his denta in response.
Megatron cracked open the pearl, only to suppress a wince as the microbot that was released drilled into the back of his mouth, seeking his vocal processor. It was painful, there was no denying that. If one were to use human terms, the closest thing would be to have a molar with twisted roots ripped out, followed by having molten steel poured into the gaping hole left behind.
And even that barely began to describe the pain Megatron duffered through.
Yet he soldiered through the pain, ignoring the guffaws of the twins, until it stopped.
He finished his energon and left the cube on the tray.
"Master," he heard Shockwave's voice in his head, "did the device work?"
"The silent commlink works perfectly, Shockwave," he replied before looking at the mech standing between the still-laughing guards, "who is this?"
"My name is Barricade, milord," replied the monochromatic mech, "Master Shockwave recruited me during his time as a spy. He assigned me to continue his duties and arrange for your release, should it become necessary."
"Excellent work, Shockwave," he praised, "I should have made you my second in command eons ago."
"We are prepared to trigger your escape whenever you wish it," said Barricade, "in the meantime, may I remove these… mechlings? I have long desired to extinguish their sparks."
Neither of the guards noticed the mech behind them silently deploy a double-bladed chopsaw.
"Skids! Mudflap! What have I told you about bothering the prisoners!?" their lives were spared by a blue and white mech that strode in.
"Mistah Mirage, sir!" squeaked Skids.
"We weren't doing nothing, sir!" affirmed Mudflap, "We was jus' showing 'Cade here the job!"
"How long do you morons think I was standing there?" snorted the taller mech, "Get back to your post before I put you both in the brig!"
The two nodded rapidly before scrambling over eachother to get away.
"And you!" Barricade almost jumped, "That is not acceptable behavior towards prisoners! Understood?"
"Y-yes sir!" squeaked Baricade, expertly sliding back into his front.
"You better," he ground out, "this may be Megatron, but Trypticon Prison has standards! No prisoner will be mistreated on my watch!"
"A rare ideal, for an Autobot," pointed out Megatron.
"For a Decepticon too," pointed out Mirage, "we're all Cybertronians in the end, aren't we?"
With that, Mirage turned to leave, making sure Barricade was following.
"Did you say this is Trypticon?"
Mirage was surprised by the question, but answered nonetheless, "Indeed, maximum security with none of the abuse from the Stockades. Shame what happened to Wasp."
With that, they turned the corner.
"At your order, sir," commed in Barricade.
"Don't," cut in Megatron, "there has been a change of plans."
Megatron leaned on his throne of chains.
"Trypticon, eh?"
He chuckled to himself, a rare treat to those who were unfortunate enough to witness it.
"Perfect."
Author's Notes: So yeah, a long overdue chapter I thought I'd already uploaded. I actually ended up making some corrections after I found a map of the Galaxy in the Allspark Almanac (I finally read it). I'm not big on info dumping, so fortunately this is one of the last infodump chapters.