The Diego Diaries: Moving On 10
-0-On the road to the Medical Center, Terra (dd3 154)
He ambled along after coming out of the subway station that was located in the center of the new satellite city. It opened into a park-like communal sitting-gathering area that was the anchor for the design of the newest growing urban center. It was filled with places to sit, play board games and hang out. The sculptures that dotted the landscape and reminded one of home were commissions by the Art Guild after a long contest for the honors.
The tower that held the Terra Medical Center was just ahead, one of ten that ranged around the open space, all of them facing inward, their glossy windows reflecting the sunlight of the new orn. Behind them, the carefully planned high rise continuation of the city could be seen, some finished, some still works in progress.
Construction was farther out now, into the towers of buildings that would house the next five hundred thousand citizens of their city. There were storefronts on every building at street level to provide services as well as separate business plazas already in place. The Martian Sports Center which housed an actual Cybertronian sized swimming pool was nearby, its domed roof gleaming its burnished copper top in the gathering light of the orn.
It felt good, Ratchet thought, a place for life and living. When he reached the intersection, one of four main traffic hubs around the enormous central plaza, he crossed the street and entered the tower that would house businesses, gathering places and public offices along with the Medical Center. In another tower next to this one, theaters for movies, plays and live performances would occupy the first three floors.
They were a long way from the little movie center in the Fortress, Ratchet thought as he took an elevator to the eighth floor and stepped of into a brand spanking new facility. Sassing with the skeleton staff that was working to make the opening date of three orns from now, he walked into the office of the Officer of the Orn. It was in full swing with the techs, data clerks and nursing staff working out the logistics and routines of the big care center.
This hospital would be specializing in geriatric care and illnesses, rehabilitation for everyone everywhere and would have a facility for the treatment both of in and out patients for mental and emotional processor health. The old facility in the Medical Tower in the city would be turned over to counseling led by Jarro and his newly emerging teams of processor doctors and related staff.
It was being spread out, all of it getting a special area for the expertise of the staff that had grown from him alone all those orns ago. Having been the only real doctor available when one thousand refugees finally made it to safety, he had worked overtime to ensure that the kind of near tragedy that could have happened then would never be possible again.
Sitting at the computer, he ran the diagnostics on the Substation-Terra system that would be linked to Substation-Metroplex which would be part of Main Frame-Med Tower/A-City, itself a substation to Teletraan III-Medical Nexus housed in the substrata of Ops Center. There were redundancies built into the redundancies in this system and he felt confident short of a direct nuclear hit, the data would always be safe including their burgeoning Medical Database-Autobot City mainframe.
All was good.
A rap on the door caught his optic. He grinned. "Hey."
"Hey," Sunstreaker said with a big grin. He walked in and sat. "What the frag happened?"
"We got oiled and decided to pay a visit to Sentinel," Ratchet said sitting back.
"Slagger. Come get me next time. I hear he got into it with Prowl. I heard that Prowl got some good shots in and if he hadn't been drunk he would have bested him."
"Keep repeating that. Prowl could use a boost," Ratchet said with a chuckle. "I was too soused to even move let alone help him."
"I heard you were blotto," Sunstreaker said with a grin. "What's the deal with Prowl and Sentinel? What does Prime think about it?"
"He hates it. I think he could actually let go and trounce Sentinel. In fact, they did trade blows and Sentinel got the worst of it. Prime's kept up and Sentinel has been having his beauty sleep since forever."
Sunstreaker nodded. "That's what I heard happened. I would have loved to see that. Sentinel is a slagger."
"Do I detect personal stories hidden under a layer of incredible male sex appeal?" Ratchet asked.
Sunstreaker snorted. "You got that right. The sex appeal part," he said with a smirk. "Sentinel and I don't care for each other."
"Since when does Sentinel and anyone get along? Do I need to ask Splice or do you spill?" Ratchet asked.
"You're not psychoanalyzing me, Ada."
"No but I'm in gossip collection mode," Ratchet replied.
"Suffice it to say, he liked to slum."
Ratchet considered this a moment. "Prowl mentioned that. He hated to be dragged along."
Sunstreaker considered Ratchet a moment, then nodded slightly. "He didn't take Prowl sometimes. Most of the time."
"Really," Ratchet said considering the enigma sitting before him. He decided to jump right in. "Don't sit on the good stuff. Spill. This is your old Ada here, not your drill instructor."
"Atar?" Sunstreaker asked with a smirk.
"He's babysitting and getting the war on. Tell me things. Impress me even more than you have already," Ratchet said with a smirk of his own.
Sunstreaker grinned genuinely a moment, then considered the request. "I wasn't a good boy sometimes. Neither was Sideswipe."
"You were deprived younglings with no supervision. Check."
Sunstreaker snorted. "We sort of ran wild. We were in some of the gladiator contests and there were street gangs. We were in an opposition gang to Barricade's Race Track Patrol. We have a number of run ins. Jail was the ultimate goal."
"For who? You or the Security Force?" Ratchet asked.
"Staying out. That was the goal. They knew us. They had us tagged but they never arrested us. We were always too slippery, too fast … too smart." He grinned. "We did alright. We didn't get too many dents, we got to learn a lot of stuff and we got even with the high castes every time we could."
"How?" Ratchet asked.
Sunstreaker considered that. "We robbed their apartments sometimes. The most obnoxious ones, that's what we did. Splice was part of our team. We fought, drank, robbed, and fragged around. Megatron was watching and we knew he wanted to have us under his management. We never agreed."
"He came to you and attempted to recruit you?" Ratchet asked.
Sunstreaker nodded. "He did. We said no. He said he could get us banned from the games, there would be no one to hire us or let us have a shot at the big pot pile ups." He sat a moment pondering the past, then looked at Ratchet. "He never got us. We fragged with him. We fragged with everyone. No one was too scary. No one was too tough or connected. He sent Barricade and some of his goons eventually and we flattened them, Sideswipe, Splice and me. There were others but I don't know what happened to them."
"Did you rob anyone I knew?" Ratchet asked with a smirk.
"Decimus. We hit his house at Capital City. We lived a good time on his bribe money. He had a safe stuffed with shanix. Nothing like earning your keep," Sunstreaker said with a cold humorless grin.
"Him or you?" Ratchet asked.
"Both of us."
Ratchet considered him. "You two do know that nothing you can say will ever change a thing between us and if you want to talk about slag, you know Ironhide and I are here."
Sunstreaker nodded. "We know."
Ratchet grinned, then he sat back regarding the big handsome format before him. "I hear my little baby said 'atar' last night."
"Both of them are talking. They're slagging awesome, those girls," Sunstreaker said proudly. "Kaon has words and they talk to each other. Most of it's nonsense but they're starting to have conversations that we can understand."
"They are that far along that end of the awesome scale," Ratchet said with a grin. "Ironhide is at the armory. He's bringing lunch to my office in town. Bring your brother and we'll have a picnic."
Sunstreaker nodded. "What are you doing here?"
"Running a diagnostic on the new system," Ratchet said. "Are you going out as a field medic on the new migration?"
"I am," Sunstreaker said stretching. His physique was intimidating if not luscious but Ratchet quashed that thought. He was the big mech's ada. /... you aren't dead yet, Ratchet … you can admire beauty …/ "Where are you going now?"
"Going to the firing range," he said walking to the door to pause. "Blue's there."
"Hug him for me."
"Easy duty," Sunstreaker said as he walked onward, a tiny segway hurrying to buzz off with him.
Ratchet watched him go, considering what he had learned. They had a terrible growing up, both of the mechs. He would have to see that their adulthood was awesome. Glancing at the screen, he pressed the next key for the next interminable round of numbers to flash. He sat back to watch the screen, make the adjustments, enter the codes and set the wheels in motion for the influx now only an orn and a half away.
-0-On the way
They flashed through the night, the air wings that specialized in data collection/flyovers. They had lifted off at Fort Apache and buzzed in tight formation toward the amorphous mass that was coming. It had broken into four big groups, like oil bubbles floating on the top of water. Their job was to fly in fast, cover the entire spread with their interlocked sensors and fly out faster.
One didn't know what they would find.
They sped off into the darkness, Cloud Burst leading the group as they headed toward a point in space that was going to exist when they got there, then disappear when they left. Such was the vastness of space.
-0-Office of the Master of the Armed Forces, Fortress Armory
He had tried to sneak in with his daughter in her little sack secreted in his big arms. Tiptoeing with the grace of a cyber gazelle, he had still been caught. Holi, his 'work wife' had him and the infant on automatic sensor alert. She had clicked over into her 'GIMME! GIMME!' mode and snagged the sparkling. Walking to her desk, a big miffed Autobot boss behind her, she lay Hero down and considered the infant in all her majestic cuteness.
"What is this, Ironhide?" she asked touching the soft bunny ears sticking out of the neckline of her little soft bag.
"That's her dollie. It's a little plushie bunny. I saw it in a catalog on the Requisition home page. Someone in Sydney, Australia makes them. And kangaroos, too. Her kangaroo is coming."
Holi glanced up at him and grinned. "You're a four star atar, Ironhide. You could write a book."
Ironhide considered that then filed it in his 'to-do and surprise the bolts out of the old mech' file. "Good idea. Might be useful to the newbie atars coming up."
"I think so," Holi said peeking into the little bag. "Awww. What cute little booties. They look like little animals from a cartoon I saw once."
"They're Little Blue Dog booties. The cap is the same. Look at the little floppy ears," Ironhide said proudly. "I picked them out myself."
Holi grinned. "I can see that. Very cute. She's probably the best dressed little femme in the city."
"I try," Ironhide said. "A doctor on 'Good Morning, Autobot City?' said if you keep their processor warm it helps them learn and grow easier and better. I thought I'd try it. She seems more alert and trying things when she wears her little hats."
After much kissing and cooing, Holi surrendered Hero to her atar who walked into the office to sit at his desk. Putting the baby on the desk before him, he looked at her with a grin. "You're one beautiful little baby, Hero. Mechs and femmes really like you. They see you're one pretty little sparkling." He checked her bag, tucked her bunny in and checked the hook on the back of her carry sling. Rising, he walked to the peg with her name over it, the one on a tiny plaque above the hook and below her brother's individual ones, and hung her ultra carefully on it. After fussing a moment, he peered inside and saw that she had slipped to the bottom curling into a ball with her dollie clutched in her arms. He grinned and walked back to sit.
Assessing how long it would take to finish as he looked at his mess of work, he grinned. Opening a file, he put a title on the page: 'How To Be An Atar' by Ironhide.
He considered that, then added more. "'How To Be An Atar' by Ironhide of Praxus. Considering the addition, he grinned. /... I'll write this slagging book and be one up on you, old mech … we'll see who the real slagger is in this family …/
With that, he turned to his work and continued diligently until lunch with his twin sons, his onliest wily mech and his daughter brought him back to the world that he loved the best.
-0-TBC 2013 (1) edited 4-21-18