The Diego Diaries: Shadow Box 8
-0-On Cybertron
They followed their guards through the drainage system of Kaon to the open destroyed landscape beyond. It would take three orns of hiding and dodging the minimal security that Soundwave kept in these, the no man's lands of their desiccated world. No one lived there but criminals, the despairing, the mad and the opposition. Keeping them penned up was the only strategy Soundwave had for now. He would come to clean the area out when time and resources allowed. Until now, the inmates roamed and the guards watched, picking off the odd stray who was foolish enough to show their helm.
Kestrel limped along the underground tunnel, an equally limping Tag following. Tag's ped was still recovering but his own sore knee was resurrecting itself. Dai had told them that there were medics at the next stop who could help them. He hoped so. They felt the urge to earn their keep heavily on their sparks but their condition made that difficult. So many had taken such good care of them for so long that the need to repay was ever constant.
Their status was unequaled. They were the genitors of the Prime. They would be defended with the last ounce of energon by the resistance that had protected them since The Fall. Now they were moving out of Kaon and traveling west. No one told them where. They never did. They just told both of them that it was time to go. And ever onward they went, going from safe house to safe house in the endless cat and mouse game between the defiant free mechs and femmes and Soundwave.
A light metallic rain continued to fall, their peds splashing in the run off that made its way through the underground system. The lights of their guards were the only illumination as the genitors of Optimus Prime moved ever onward toward the illusion of safety.
-0-Autobot City, Mars
Prowl stacked games on a table from boxes that had been brought over from the old school. The new one was beautiful. It followed the design of the old one but the views outside were different and intriguing. Some of them were vistas of Mars that stretched out seemingly forever before merging with the horizon and the sky overhead. Others were views of 'The City' as Autobot City was becoming known as and 'The Suburbs' for Terra.
The subway had been simple and straightforward. The school was reached easily he had found out as he took it to gauge what his children would have to do to go here everyday. The 'Orange' train, one with a special route throughout the orn was the one all the infants would take to get to their new building. They would wait for the orange decal train to arrive and get aboard. It was designed to go from The City to the school in one stop. It would make the first stop on its circuitous route directly under the school tower.
The platform for the tower was huge, well lit with transparent walls that blocked the platform from the tracks but for the exits on the train. Little fairy tale images of famous Cybertronian children's stories were laid into the wall tiles and gave the place a real charm. The huge elevators went straight up to the main lobby where banks of elevators would take everyone where they needed to go. He was deeply impressed with the security and simplicity of what could have been the Pit.
Optimus had come with him. Herling in his joy at the new facility had taken him on a guided tour. Prowl had gone for a short portion before being dragooned into the media center and all its beautiful new and older familiar things. New companies in the city had begun to make things for children including supplying general and specific items to the schools. The depth of opportunity for all the children of Mars to be as educated as he was impressed and gratified him deeply.
The mistakes of the past would not be revisited here. He personally would take care of that. The Convocation on the Matter of the Caste System had been deferred barring new incidents. Prowl was convinced they would come and then the Convocation would become necessary. For now, all seemed calm but for the warring younglings from other places, half of whom appeared to be high caste.
A sporting rivalry had landed on their doorstep and the baiting of the low caste younglings who had been on one side by the high castes who were on the other had resurrected itself here. He wanted to slag them all to the Pit. Their hearing at the Magistrate's Court was in the afternoon and he planned to be there to lay down the smack. Until then, he would take the beautiful games and computers, laptops and sketch pads out of their boxes and arrange them on the shelves so that all the babies including his own could use them to become better than what was before them.
To Prowl of Praxus, nothing in his life mattered more.
-0-Copperton
He worked to haul out the stone that had been a problem to the foundation of the new tower that was going up in phase four. It was a giant thing, perhaps needing strategic demolition. Climbing out to wait with the others for the sapper chief to come and decide, he stood in good stead with his comrades. They were mostly low caste mechs, hard working and decent. They didn't have his education and they didn't have his paint scheme but they had his respect and they gave him their friendship.
He had labored since his son's crime trying to redeem himself from a lifetime of indifference and ignorance. He had actually thought that these mechs needed his guidance and that their capacity to be who they were was limited to their circumstances and caste.
It had been a terrifyingly painful revelation to learn otherwise. They were decent. They worked hard and asked for little. They had good families, most of them and they loved them. They were loyal to the Prime, to Cybertron and to their people. They wanted a good life and they didn't ask for handouts and generally laughed off sympathy. When something went wrong, they were good natured and fixed it. They didn't bitch or moan. They just made it right.
He had never been around mechs like this. He had lived in the bureaucracy, in the middle of the machine that denied these same mechs a decent home, decent food and opportunity. He was ashamed in a way that was hard to express even in his own deepest thoughts. He knew that the debt he owed them was incredibly vast. He had been part of the iron fist of suppression. But the strangest thing was, they didn't hate him for it.
They knew he was high caste. They knew he had never had their life. But they respected that he was trying to redeem himself and his family by joining them and doing so with consideration and decency. They included him in their jokes and conversations. They told him of their lives and their dreams for the future. They spoke with pride over the achievement of their infants, the first nearly all of them had ever been able to provide for to the degree that they did here. Their babies were in school. Some of them themselves were taking night classes, the greatest number he found sadly just to learn to read and write. They were living in the first decent housing they ever had and their elder genitors were living well too.
It was good, all of it. They were good to him and he was transformed. The ideas of his bringing up had melted under the grace of their acceptance. He had been charred by the actions of his son and it was his fault. He and Turquoise were working as hard as they could for the good of all while helping their son through his own personal hell. The Temple was their godsend. The priests their lifeline. They were climbing back to happiness and peace one small step at a time.
That their son had graduated his engineering program was a phenomenal moment for them. The son who was slated to be a lawyer, to work in the repression machine, who would never know want had finished a difficult course of study while alone and was working on advanced courses even as Copperton stood here in the warm sun of Mars. His son had done the right thing. His son was going to be alright. He could tell when they talked to him. The Prime had approved a joor a day for them to speak together. It was the greatest most anticipated moment of his orn.
Turquoise had recovered his poise and was working long and hard on the problem of the carrier-soldiers. It would be solved he thought. His Turquoise would not be denied. He turned and looked to the road where a number of mechs had transformed after coming their way. They were the sappers who would decide if the rock needed demolition. He watched as they approached and shook servos with them just like the other mechs. Then they discussed the problem together. He would never feel in any other job the intensity of satisfaction that he felt right now, here in this place.
-0-Elsewhere
"We'll be going to Earth with Ratchet in a few orns. I want you and Nitro to come with us. He can rep the Seekers. There's a possibility that Optimus will be coming either this time or for the United Nations meeting. He's still considering the possibilities. I'm also going to have Elita and perhaps Gypsy come. It's time they saw a femme. Ratchet has discretion about any of us transforming," Springer said as he sat at his desk in the Security Central Station in City Hall.
Drift nodded. "This is about the militia hassles and their requests for a permanent human settlement here, right?" Drift asked.
Springer nodded. "Among other things. This is our new group of slaggers who have to learn the hard way. Apparently, this bunch didn't learn a thing from Daniels and his crew. We're going to have to read them the riot act again."
"At least they don't live that close to us," Drift said putting his peds up on the desk. "No chance of anyone harming a youngling like before."
"That's a blessing," Springer said with a grin. "Makes you wonder who would be allowed to come. If the humans in the Foreign Relations Committee had their way any who did would be armed to the teeth with full permission to shoot."
Drift nodded. "What have you heard about the missions to Cybertron? I know the femmes are probably going to go. Elita and her team."
"I haven't heard much yet. But the orn is young," Springer said with a grin. "I'm more interested in Paragon and the flyover of Soundwave's fort."
Drift nodded. "The Seekers are supposed to check out Soundwave. I wonder if he knows that Paragon is forting up out here, too?"
"I don't know. I wish they'd cancel each others ticket," Springer said leaning back in his chair. "I was thinking you know about something funny."
Drift looked at Springer and grinned. "Oh, do tell."
So Springer did.
-0-A few moments later
"Hey."
Ratchet looked up at the two tall good looking bots standing in the doorway of his office. "Do come in, good looking. Don't tell Ironhide I said that."
"I won't." -Drift and Springer, both of whom filed it away to tell Ironhide later.
They came in and sat down relaxing on the couch as outside the business of the airfield could be clearly seen. "This is a nice office. Great view. Who do I have to frag to get one, too?" Springer asked with a smirk.
"Well, frag me and I'll put in a good word for you," Ratchet said with a chuckle.
"Don't tempt me," Springer said with a grin. "Where is Ironhide?"
"Who knows? I think he's helping at the school with the move," Ratchet said tossing his stylus on the desktop. "Why? Are you thinking of experimenting with trines? I would require Drift if you do intend to experience the awesomeness that's me."
They both chuckled. "Count me in," Drift said with a glance at Springer.
"Of course, if you want to do the Sexy with me, it requires intense wrestling and body slamming before the fun stuff," Ratchet said leaning forward to rest his elbows on the desktop. "That's Ironhide's idea of foreplay."
They looked at Ratchet for a moment, then burst into laughter. Springer shook his helm. "Will you adopt me, too?" he asked with a chuckle.
"That would be incest, youngling," Ratchet said sitting back with a grin.
"I'm good to go," Drift said with a smile. "Truly, I am."
Ratchet snorted and grinned. "I'll put the paperwork in today."
They grinned at each other. "You really think we're kidding," Springer said.
"Hard to tell with you two I'm so blinded by the handsome," Ratchet said. "What brings you here besides an intense need to be mothered?"
Springer grinned. "I was wondering since you're such a bad aft what it would be like to psyops Paragon."
"In what way?" Ratchet asked, a glimmer of a clue starting to form in his processor.
"We were thinking about leaking personal information into the ether," Springer replied. "You know … personal information..."
"Ah," Ratchet said, his suspicion confirmed. "You want to send the family letter."
They looked at him a moment, then googled it. Grins flashed across handsome faces at the same time. They both nodded.
"I think this calls for professionals. Elita and Jazz. But first, I think we need to ask Optimus," Ratchet said. They nodded so he turned and commed the big bot on the monitor nearby. Prowl's face appeared.
"Prowler, where's the Messiah? I need him to lay down some wisdom."
Prowl stared at Ratchet, then rolled his optics. "You are insane. What madness are you going to put into motion, loser?"
Ratchet snorted and grinned. "I was thinking about releasing the family album."
Prowl stared at Ratchet. Then he blinked. "You wouldn't dare," he said.
Ratchet grinned.
-0-TBC 2013 (1) 5-5-19
Tip of the hat to a number of folks who give me notions. :D