The Diego Diaries: Chaos (dd3 64)
-0-On the road to the Temple, Autobot City, Mars
They walked through the crowds nodding to friends and acknowledging the gratitude of the newcomers. By the time they turned down the cobblestone path to the Temple, humans in the Habitat saw them rounding the structure. Jumping on their jalopies, several headed out to follow.
:Ratchet!:
The big medico looked down. Four segways with four individuals had caught up to them and stopped. Sheila Conway was among them. She smiled up at both. :Hi. How was the migration? We see thousands of new mechs here:
:It went well. We have more than 100,000 new refugees today: Ratchet replied with a grin.
:That's a quarter increase in the city: Michio Yamaha said with amazement. :We watched the return and all the organization. It was tremendous that so many could be moved along so well:
:Thank you, Michio. We're proud of our people and the organization they bring to this whole process: Ratchet said. :We try to bring a machine-like efficiency to bear:
Groans were universal.
:Are you going to the Temple?: Sheila asked.
:We are: Prowl said.
For a moment, it was silent. Then Sheila sighed. :I wish I could come. The feeling that I get when I go past the building is so peaceful:
Prowl glanced at Ratchet who stood staring at him with a slight grin. He shrugged slightly. Prowl looked down at the earnest face of a human he had come to be fond of and shrugged also. :You can come. This one time: With that, Prowl began to walk onward. Ratchet glanced down at the humans and grinned slightly. Then he began to follow. The humans, themselves stunned, followed swiftly on their tail.
-0-At the shipyard
Blackjack and Alor stood with Jetta as he began to order the yard bosses to be ready to fabricate a stone and steel fortress that would be designed like the big one nearby bristling with guns in the morning sunshine. It was be a large space with enough room and infrastructure to create and raise entire walls and floors in one piece. They would be dismantled and carried into space for reassembly elsewhere. They were good at this sort of thing. The shipyard filled with menacing sleek vessels at the airfield nearby were testimony to their skill and dexterity.
These structures would be mostly of stone with reinforced concrete strong enough to withstand direct hits from rockets. Steel would brace the long walls and funnel all of the electrical, electronic and internal supply lines to their destinations in a manner as safe as if they were buried deeply underground.
The design department of the City Administration was working on the exact schematics of the facility they were going to be making three stories tall as well as deep. On the roof would be turret guns with enormous firepower. It would be formidable and a fall back for the garrison that would be housed deeply underground. They would stay at the shipyard discussing things to come for the rest of the morning. The afternoon would be spent going over preliminary blueprints for the project.
-0-Hardtime
He stood in the doorway uneasy and uncertain. The place was busy with mechs and the odd femme going here and there finding, taking, shoving, undoing, putting together, moving, parking, and otherwise being busy with aircraft and parts thereof. He didn't see anyone he had met before. He just knew he was supposed to report here and find 'Roadie'. Looking around, he tried to figure out who that might be. A light tap on his shoulder nearly made him climb out of his peds. He turned warily. A tall youngish winger was standing behind him, a nice smile on his handsome face. "You're Hardtime."
He nodded slightly. "Yes."
"Good. I'm Roadie. I was expecting you. You're me two years ago. Come on in and I'll get you started," he said stepping past the tall uneasy mech. Hardtime followed taking the first halting steps into his new life.
-0-Coldspray
He sat in the union hall rec room cadging his energon as he waited for someone he hadn't seen in ages to come in to talk. That mech had just come from the migration conflict and had to check in with his family.
Family.
The idea that this individual had family was almost more than he could grasp. A lot of the hardcore mechs he recognized here had families or companionship. Some of them had infants in the schools.
School.
They talked about their kids in school was enormous pride. *Their* kids were in school. *Their* kids were having advantages. *Their* kids would go to University. It was said with pride and defiance. It was as if the listener were being challenged. Just say no. Just say my kid can't do it all.
He understood it.
He and Hardtime had genitors. They were good mechs. Both worked hard. Both did their best. Both provided. It wasn't much but they had a small apartment in a reasonably sound building. They were given apprenticeships in their caste's field and things were looking up.
Then their genitors went to work and never came home.
No one ever told them what happened. The smelters blew up and more mechs were killed than they could account for. That is, what paltry effort was expended to account for them was made to little avail. No one seemed to care much above the families involved. It didn't matter to the moneyed and powerful castes that two youngling mechs were thrown onto the street to make it on their own.
Or not.
The Decepticons were a godsend. Three hots and a cot. For them, it was enough. It also gave them the opportunity to hammer some of their own back. Kicking high caste aft was the greatest pastime of all.
He saw them coming, two behemoths walking side by side. One of them he knew to be the Autobot heavy, Bulkhead. The other was the formidable and bad aft Scar. They halted before him as he looked at them warily.
"Hey, Coldspray," Scar said holding out his servo.
Coldspray gripped it. "Hey, Scar."
The two sat. "This is my buddy, Bulkhead. We're here to talk to you about the way things are here for both sides, 'Cons and 'Bots."
He nodded, glancing from one to the other. "Okay."
"When I came here, I came with Turmoil and Blind Spot. Those dumb afts shot the place up and they boarded our ships. We surrendered and spent time in the prison. The old prison that is, not the new one past the airfield. I was among the last paroled. I was told to manage my manners, obey the laws and do what I wanted. I couldn't believe I could go to college, work at a trade I actually liked and have a family. I have a daughter," he said with great pride. "She's in the sparkling school. My bond is a college graduate." He leaned forward slightly. "I'm going to college in the night school."
Coldspray looked at the biggest, baddest, most gnarly bot he ever met. This was astounding.
"Every few, I have a talk with the Prime. He's helping me see the error of my ways. I have a lot of guilt. He helps me figure out how to forgive myself. My buddy, Bulkhead is my friend no matter what. All the slag? It's over. We have now and the future. I've never in the entirety of my life been happy let alone like this. I'm contented. I have a great bond who loves me, a daughter I'll do anything for, friends that care about me, a city to protect and help grow, and a leader that I respect with my life. Prime, I respect."
Coldspray nodded. "I can see that."
Scar nodded. "You can have the same thing. This city is ours to lose. We defend it with all we got. Prime, he won't waste us. I know about Overlord. He's a king fragger. If you work here, do your part, you'll love it. We even have football."
For a moment, Coldspray stared at him. Then for the first time since coming to the planet, he smiled.
-0-At the Temple
They walked up the steps toward the Temple proper. The four segways followed up the ramp. Pausing at the door, the two bots looked down. :You're entering the Holy of Holies for us. We hope you understand:
They nodded solemnly.
:No one is to know what you see. You must give your word to us here: Ratchet said. :We need to trust you like we trust the soldiers:
:You have mine: Sheila said nodding in agreement. The others gave theirs as well.
With that, Prowl and Ratchet entered the glyph and image covered building and the massive interior room inside. The humans followed looking up, down and all around themselves as they sped along with Ratchet and Prowl. The light inside was golden and soft. It also felt sentient and the indication that they were also being noticed even as they themselves noticed was not lost on any of the four humans.
Inside, a large cube covered with glyphs revolved slowly over a well that shed blue light and a white mist. They were self illuminating and appeared even to the four scientists to be incredibly old and venerable. It was silent like a cathedral as here and there bots sat or stood alone or in groups. What was clearly Temple priests moved among them as another stood by the blue well to address a spark request to The One.
:Someone's getting a spark. Do we kick them out?: Ratchet asked glancing at Prowl.
:No. I want them to see: Prowl said pausing nearby the small excited group of mechs and two femmes. :This is instructive:
Ratchet nodded then peered downward to the segways whose riders were watching with interest. :Swear on your own mothers that what happens here stays here: he said. They all looked up and nodded, swearing all at once over the link.
Then it happened.
-0-Later that evening
They sat together in Sheila's room, the four who had witnessed something extraordinary. A new life, an alien life had been granted access to their reality. Where it had come from, they had no idea. For a moment, they were standing in a very quiet sanctuary surrounded by elements of symbolism and language that they knew even with access were beyond their capability to fully understand. The Temple they had been told was a replica of the one on Cybertron in the city of Simfur. It was a holy place, the home of their greatest relics and said to be a portal to the gods they knew, all of who it appeared to be real figures.
"That was astounding. I'm not sure what it really actually was," Michio said.
Antonio Lopez nodded. "A spark was granted from their god to the protoform through the Well of AllSparks and the AllSpark itself. I think."
"I think they might be different entities," Sheila said. "I asked Ratchet and he didn't answer. He seemed uncomfortable to talk about it."
"They all do and we'd do well to remember that," Gordon Fowler, theoretical physicist and American citizen from Medford, Oregon said. "This can never be told to anyone."
"We four gave our word. We can't let them down," Sheila said.
They all nodded. They would keep it.
-0-Earlier
Prowl and Ratchet watched as did the humans with them. Before anyone could turn, the event began. Light began to rise up out of the Well filling the room and illuminating the AllSpark. Electrical energy crackled across it as the brightness swelled blotting out optics and eyes alike. The warmth of something enveloped them, wrapping its tendrils around everyone in the vicinity. It felt old and wise. If felt comforting and loving. For a moment, all of them were caught in a swell of love and protection profoundly deep and overwhelming. Then it all began to recede. It seemed like forever and it seemed momentary.
They all stood in the white light of love, then it faded. They were back in the Temple. Nothing seemed different but everyone was changed. The small group of family and friends looked at the protoform lying on the wall of the Well. The Priest walked to it and leaned down, whispering the words of thanks to The One who had granted new life to their endangered species. Cleerie standing nearby moved closer and scanned the infant. Nodding happily to the Priest, he picked it up. Turning to the priest, Chevron gave it to the ecstatic genitors. They gathered to look at it, then applause erupted. Everyone in the room began to applaud including, Ratchet noticed, the humans on their segways.
Moving closer, congratulating the genitors, Ratchet and Prowl saw that another wonderful mech was added to the rosters of their surging city population. Congratulations were given, hugs and pats. Turning at last to the AllSpark and Well, they recited the lines of poetry that they had chosen to commemorate the event. Then the little group followed Cleerie to the Sparkling, Youngling and Femme Hospital nearby to check their infant on this, his first day in the real world. Ratchet and Prowl watched them go with grins and contentment. The humans looked up and watched them, the two most unlikely of allies, the two most unlikely aliens they could have ever imagined.
They were both utterly delighted.
Turning without a word, both walked to the door and beyond.
-0-TBC 2012 (10) edited 8-16-18