Chapter 36
-0-At a computer station in the Teletraan nexus room
Prime sat in the chair staring at the screen, the words appearing but not sinking into his processor. It was too stupid, too funny, too improbable.
But it was true.
Here it was, right here.
The possibilities would take research. They might have let down a firewall and the opening could mean great things. But first, he had to just let it settle in. He turned to the group of mechs behind him looking from one face to another. "Mirage, tell me again."
Mirage grinned. "I was listening in, eavesdropping next to the patio where the mercs like to sit and talk. One of them had a laptop and was posting to a bulletin board. They were talking about some gossip they'd heard from a soldier that had been posted from here. They had access to a private bulletin board, an encrypted one that comes out of Intel-Martin in which they talked to their friends and their friend's friends. Not all of the members were that well vetted. Apparently, some of the posters were mercs for Intel-Martin. They were talking to the soldiers here and it got out."
It was silent a moment, then Prime shook his helm. "I cannot believe it. This is so ..."
"Stupid?" Jazz asked as he smiled brilliantly.
"Exactly," Prime said with a smile of his own. "I want every post downloaded and analyzed."
"Already done," Mirage said. "I had to have something to do while I watched them." He frowned. "They're vile people."
"And they like to gossip," Jazz said with a chuckle.
"They do. What did you find, Mirage? The short and sweet," Prime asked as he glanced at Prowl. Prowl was looking at the screen with a half glitched expression. Prime grinned. "Prowl?"
"It can't be this simple can it?" he asked as he shook his head in a near stupor.
"I think I can take it from here," Prime said. "You can go, Prowl. I'll fill you in later."
Prowl looked at Prime as he shook his head again. "This is so … so ..."
"So-so," Jazz said. "Go, Prowl. I'll be the gofer."
Prowl nodded, glancing at Optimus with an incredulous expression. "I'll go," he said then walk slowly out of the room.
They watched him go.
"Poor Prowler. A reasonable logical mech in a dumb aft world," Jazz said with a chuckle. "What do you want us to do, Optimus?"
"First, I want Smokescreen to stay with Sam. We cannot allow Bumblebee out of here until we figure out what to do about this." Prime shook his head. "I cannot process this, either. I am used to insurmountably difficult being the way things go but I will take this anyway." Then he laughed.
They all laughed for once.
-0-Negotiations that evening
"This isn't fair."
"Who said life was fair?"
"Ratchet, you're a trained diplomat with experience."
"And you're the wiliest old mech I ever faced. Now, what do you say?"
Ironhide considered the question and decided. "Mech."
"All right." Ratchet ticked off another item on his list of negotiable items under discussion, or as Ironhide put it, 'tell me the fraggin' stuff you want so we can be normal again, Ratchet' list. "We'll have a mech." Ratchet grinned. "What about names, Ironhide?"
Ironhide grinned, then shrugged. "I want a good stand up name. Our sparkling will be along the awesome end of the scale so it'll need an awesome name."
"True," Ratchet said with a grin on his face. "Paint scheme."
"I don't know. Black is kinda nice," Ironhide said with a smile.
"How about a combination of yellow and black?"
"That'll be nice. I guess. How about red?"
"Red?"
"As good as any color."
"I see I'll have to do a bunch of the designing," Ratchet said shaking his head with disgust and amusement "Now we have to decide when to merge. It may take more than one time probably."
"I'm not sure this will be a good time, Ratchet."
[Silence]
-0-Later that night
"I can't believe it."
Prime grinned. "I know. But you have to understand that not every Cybertronian gets the way things work here. I do not think that every Cybertronian understands that not all the vehicles on world here are sentient."
Prowl nodded. "Starscream is a dolt."
"He is," Prime said laughing with amusement once again. "I have to tell you, I find this intriguing. We could use it to our advantage."
"That's true," Prowl said as his battle computers kicked in to form a list of options for him to present. He grinned. Maybe this wasn't so stupid after all.
-0-Daily Senior Autobot Staff Meeting
They sat around the table stunned at the simplicity of the news. Being on developing and under developed worlds a lot, most of them understood stunted and low level tech and behavior among the locals. But it had been a long time and to catch a break this big was enough to wrench your head off with its greatness.
Ironhide looked at Ratchet as Ratchet looked at him, then Ratchet looked at Prime, then Prowl and then Prime again. "No," he said with a smirk as he waited for the punchline.
"Yes," Jazz said, chuckling at their incredulity.
"No." -everyone but Prime and Prowl who grinned.
-0-Autobot-N.E.S.T. Striker Team HQ
"Optimus wants us at the meeting room in a few minutes," Will Lennox said as he leaned into the lounge from the doorway.
Epps glanced at him and nodded as he juggled a phone and computer.
"I'm going now. I'll find Niall and go." Lennox left as Epps began to unload his arms.
Will Lennox and Niall Graham drove their jeep into the Autobot HQ waving to friends along the way, then drove to the door of the conference room where the meetings were held. Parking in the usual place, they walked into the open door, pushed the rolling ladder over, climbed up and walked to the chairs left on the table for them.
Jazz was there lounging in his chair with a big smile on his face.
"Hey, Jazz," Niall said.
"Hey, Niall. I'm here to brief you. Is Epps coming?" Jazz asked as he leaned forward to rest his arms on the table top.
"He's right behind us," Will said. "What's up?"
At that moment, Epps entered then climbed the ladder to walk across the table to take a seat.
Will glanced at Jazz. "Hit us with it, Jazz."
Jazz smiled. "Okay, slaggers."
-0-Five minutes later
"No."
"Yes."
"No. No, really... really!?"
"Yes."
-0-Ten minutes later in the Teletraan nexus room
They stood on a counter kneeling down to look at the screen that Jazz used to pull emails and other posts from the off limits encrypted bulletin board, 'First Strike Warriors'. They read them, the gossip that was posted by the mercs that had worked with soldiers, a couple of the soldiers who were now mercs and a few malcontents on both sides who loved to shoot the shit and bitch.
Email after email told the story. Details of life on Diego Garcia were listed. Much of the detail was wrong or just a bit off given a lot of it was speculation but some of it was correct. Some of it was bitching. Some of it was score settling. Some of it was puffery among men-at-arms, penis waving. Then it got down to the newest posts spanning the entire time the Autobots had been associated with the army.
They told of behaviors and attitudes. Sunstreaker had a number of threads and there were a few blurry cellphone pictures of him. The consensus opinion was that he was a dangerous psycho but an awesome ride. There were also threads that specialized in discussion of his alt Lambo form. His paint job was considered state of the art and much discussion was had about how to get one like it on their personal vehicles.
Other threads discussed Prowl and Prime, speculating on them and their personal habits. In fact, more than three quarters of the threads were speculation on their personal habits and lives. Sex in particular was a much discussed topic. How they did it, did they do it, why would they do it, how did they get little Transformers. It was endless, raw, crude and on the most brief occasion, funny.
Then there were the most recent posts. The ones that were most pertinent were the breathless posts someone going by Thunderbird2 made about the personal life of Optimus Prime:
From: Thunderbird2 intel-martin undisclosed listserv
To: First-Strike-Warriors undisclosed listserv
Date: October 14, 2010
Hey! Glad you could reply. I have the pictures. The lambo is my dream car. But that isn't the big news. Our deep down mole sent me a hot tip about the leader, that Prime guy.
He's a fag!
That's the trueth!I was told that he finally introduced his family when the Witwicky kid came over to Diego. He had them meet the kid's ride, that sweet Camaro. That's one sweet concept car.
Anyway, our source told us that he's actually married in some kind of weird way to a robot named Springer. And get this. Springer is a guy! And there's a couple of other robots in the family. There's some really old crazy robot named Cup. He's the grandfather or something and there are two others. A brother or sister or kids or something. The Camaro is their kid, Prime and Springer!
How in the HELL do you have a kid when you're a robot? Anyway, they were all introduced and everyone was nuts and I'm just crawling on the floor here. There all fags. All of them!We're being defended by fag robots!
Gotta go. Will send more later.
Thunderbird2
-0-A momentary pause to plotz
There was silence in the room for a moment.
Will blinked with surprise and shock, then looked at Niall who was blushing with embarrassment. "Well, first of all they can't spell."
Jazz chuckled. "It gets better. Check out the next email."
-0-Next email
From: High-Flyer undisclosed listserv
(this address is censored for security purposes)
To: First-Strike-Warriors undisclosed listserv
Date: October 16, 2010
I'm new to this list. I'm interested in the information posted about Optimus Prime and his 'family'. If you could post what you have including pictures I would appreciate it. I'm a robotics engineer doing research for a project with a NASA linked electronics firm that requires me to post anonymously.
I regret that I must. I'm delighted to spend time with warriors with so much skill and dedication to their country and their professions. I'll be posting non-classified images of my own project as soon as I can. Thank you very much.
High-Flyer
-0-Same place, same surprise, new part of the puzzle
"Who's that do you suppose?" Epps asked glancing at Jazz.
"We took a lot of time to answer that question. It took a lot of signal trackin' and a lot of hackin' but it's this guy." Jazz pressed a button and the poster's face filled the screen.
They stared in awe, turning together as one to look at Jazz with astonishment.
"Are you sure?" Will asked sputtering with surprise.
"We tracked it right back to the source. It's him, all right," Jazz said looking at the figure on the screen.
That figure was Starscream.
-0-Ironhide and Ratchet, in the dark
"So Starscream beat Bumblebee's aft because he thinks he's Prime's sparkling."
"I don't want to talk about sparklings."
[Silence]
"Ratchet?"
[Silence]
"Ratchet, how long do I have to recharge on the couch?"
[Silence]
"Slag."