Chapter 5

Science and Faith

"Out of all of the things that she's ever said, she goes and says something that just knocks me dead, you won't find faith or hope down a telescope, you won't find heart and soul in the stars"

Faith and religion, for Cybertronians, is very different from that of humanity. For humans, it's all speculation, all guessing and feeling and simply believing. It's no wonder Cybertronians are so fascinated by them. For these giants of metal, it's all science. They had proof of creator, proof of a Higher Power with a Plan, proof of god as solid as the ground they walked on. Their proof was the ground they walked on.

The key word in all of this being 'had'.

But now was not the time to think of that. There were things that needed to be done and none of them could get done by wallowing in dark thoughts. Strikezone turned her attention to Gabriel, who was in the driver's seat for once. His hands tightened on the steering wheel as he stared ahead and a muscle steadily ticked in his jaw. "Are you well? You are tense and your heart rate is elevated, both abnormal happenings."

He jumped, as if he had forgotten that he was not alone, that he couldn't be alone in this car that wasn't a car. His brown eyes shifted to the radio where her voice had come from and said, "You're just as shaken up as I am. You're talkin' like a dictionary, again. Somethin' ain't right."

"And you are dropping your g's. I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours." So maybe she did sound prim and proper, but she would much rather focus on Gabriel's problems than her own.

Gabe closed his eyes and leaned back, sighing heavily before he said, "Fine. I could have died today, alright? I know you told me that you guys were at war, but it didn't actually occur to me until now that I could actually die because of it. I guess I kind of forgot that 'mortal' is synonymous with 'death'. Now you tell me yours. Does it have to do with that thing you and Bumblebee were talking about earlier?"

Now it was her turn to sigh. She knew Gabriel was smart, but slag, did he have to figure it out so quickly? Death was a prospect she and all her comrades had accepted vorns ago but she honestly didn't want that for this little human that reminded her so much of Bumblebee. She didn't want him to accept his mortality now, when so many other humans his age thought they were invincible. And he was right about what had her shaken up and 'talkin' like a dictionary' too. It was the wave of All Spark energy she felt before the attack of the kitchenbots but she didn't want to admit that or explain the significance of it. Striker couldn't really think about it without feeling depressed. "It's a complicated and long story. I doubt you'd find it interesting."

"Aw, now I really want to know. Come on, we've got two days of nothing but road before we get to Princeton. It's either you explain to me, or I spend the time figuring out how best to annoy you."

"Fine. Fine, I'll explain to you the nuances of my race's nearly dead religion and how we reproduced. Sound like a fun road trip to you?" So what if she was grumbling and petulant, he was pushing her.

"No, but it does sound interestin' and interestin' is all I ask for." Gabe grinned at the almost pained groan she made. He lived to annoy her some days. This was going to be one of those days until he found out what he wanted. He was an extortionist and felt no remorse about that fact.

"Alright, you'll get your explanation. Under two conditions; no interruptions and you move yourself into the passenger seat. Your grip on my steering wheel is painful."

His cheeks turned red; he hadn't realized he still had such a death grip on it. "Oh, whoops. I'll just scoot…."

"No need," she said briskly. She pulled into a gas station and opened the door. "Get out, go to the bathroom. When you come back, get in on the other side. We should be at the university by tomorrow afternoon, as long as you don't slow me down. That will be sufficient time to give you a quick history."

"But it takes, like, two days to get to Princeton."

"I speed." The door jiggled a little, waving farther open; a clear invitation. "Out. Now."

He got out of the car and Striker settled down on her shocks, trying to pull herself together. This was going to be a very long twenty-four hours.

0o0

"So…."

Blue eyes glanced across at him and slid back to the road ahead- as if she needed to watch it. By now, he had figured out that watching the road while not actually looking is the least of the many overly awesome things this robot alien could do. "What?" she snapped. She was obviously still a little strung out from earlier, standoffish and rigid. It was a little disconcerting to Gabriel. Even in her anger she tended to be still coldly sarcastic and funny beyond all reason. He had never met this quiet, humorless creature before and didn't know how to handle her. Gabe got the sense that she didn't want to be handled so he had wisely kept his mouth shut. He had only spoken now because he couldn't take the silent tenseness of his companion.

"So, you're tense, I'm bored and curious and you still owe me an explanation. So make with the explanation. Please?" he added when he saw the look she shot him. Best to remain polite when inside the possibly homicidal robot.

She pursed her lips and closed her eyes, blowing out a huge breath. "I suppose you're right. You do need to find out eventually if you are to continue to hang around me. So, if you are prepared to listen without interruptions," here she stopped and glared at him until he nodded, "I shall explain to you what happened back there to the best of my ability."

She blew out another long breath through her pursed lips like he had seen some of his wannabe-professional singer friends do. When her eyes opened this time they were not their normal bright blue or the slightly too far past the norm blue he saw yesterday in his room but this honest-to-God glowing blue without a pupil to speak of. If he looked close enough, he thought he could see numbers scrolling across them. It was disconcerting to say the least. She looked over at him and when her voice came, it was from the radio and the holo's lips didn't move, "First off, you see these eyes? Humans say they're the window to the soul. On my planet, they are nothing but optics to see with. The numbers you see are an imprecise way of conveying emotion. My kind generates an electromagnetic field and we use those to interact with others and show emotion that we do not wish to say. Our faces and voices are not conducive to expressing emotion like yours are. All this is important, I promise. I just have to explain the reaction before what happened.

This is where it gets complicated. You know we are made of metal, I've told you that. What you don't know is what powers us. Energon runs through our cables like blood runs through your veins but where you have a heart that pumps it and a soul that spurs you on, we have a spark that does both. It's corporeal and electric and unique to each and every one of us. Where all humanity can do is believe and have faith and pray, Cybertronians had proof of our souls shining in our chassis' and proof of an all-powerful Creator under our pedes. Primus was our god and Creator and his body was our planet. We are intensely religious in that respect, though religion for us required no faith, only fact. But, where there is a Creator, there is a Generator, a mother to you. Again, Cybertronians have a collective shared Generator. We called it the All Spark because it gave each and every Cybertronian since the First Primes their spark. It's a cube of metal, sometimes big, sometimes not, with minimal intelligence that we know of. It's so old that no one knows where it came from, whether it was from another race entirely or if Primus himself made it, we don't know. The All Spark is sacred property of the people but it is also why this war has been prolonged so. It was jettisoned off world a long time ago and we've been searching the stars for it since. It was found on this world a year ago and the battle for it begun immediately. If any mech or femme did not know it had been found when the message was sent out, we all knew when it was destroyed. I wasn't here when the battle happened so I don't know the particulars, but I do know that the All Spark was destroyed. We all felt it in our sparks."

The holoform closed her unblinking and disconcerting eyes and turned her head back to the road. When she opened them again, they were their normal pretty light blue. "Those things at Sam's house earlier, those vicious little creatures with the machine guns and hand grenades were sparklings, just little sparklings, babies to us. The thing is, Cybertronians don't reproduce like you humans do. Every mech and femme has the ability to carry but it's incredibly dangerous and taxing to our systems. Only the stupid and the brave ever tried and those who were carried were always looked at differently because they were different. Sometimes it was size, like our behemoth of a Prime, or they were crazy smart, like the Decepticon Starscream, or just plain asylum crazy, again like Starscream. That mech just got the short end of the stick in life. Those sparklings were new, brand new and what made their appearance twice as shocking and three times as painful was the energy signal we caught coming from the house before they showed up. It was the All Spark, but that was impossible. It has to be impossible, we felt it die, Bee watched, he wouldn't be wrong. Prime-" she cut herself off with a sob and the car shuddered a little, fishtailing on the mostly deserted highway. Gabriel hesitantly reached out and laid his hand on her dashboard, rubbing lightly. A sound like grinding gears came that reminded him of someone clearing their throat and she said, "I'm rambling. Do you have questions?"

"So… Those things, those robots, they were babies? Actual, legit babies? Kinda vicious, don't cha think?"

"Yes, they were babies. We call them sparklings on Cybertron. They were vicious, but the All Spark was said to be tainted near the end. I heard whispers that it never gave anything that was whole and healthy. That all the sparklings it gave were dangerous and killers from the start. I think Prime sent it off world to keep it from Decepticon servos as much as to make sure no more tainted sparks were forced from it."

"That sounds terrible. This war has really screwed you guys seven ways from Sunday, ain't it?" He was still watching the car and the holo it had created closely. His dad had fought in two wars and come home with so many problems it wasn't even funny. The only upside was that it had given Gabe a little insight on the mind of soldiers. He could see how badly this hurt his friend and he felt a little bad for making her relive something so important and painful.

Another sigh issued from the radio and her metallic voice was almost a whisper when she said, "You have no idea."

"So, who's this Prime guy? You make him sound important." He hoped that this would perk her up a bit. There was respect and something else in her voice when she spoke of him that he had never heard from anyone other than his brother talking about his daughter.

"He is. Optimus Prime is the leader of the Autobots, rightful leader of Cybertron and one of my very first friends. I haven't seen him since… well; it's been a very long time. Far too much has happened." And he had to have been wrong about what he heard in her voice because suddenly it was hard and cold and she obviously didn't want to keep talking about it. So Gabe did what he did best. He distracted.

"You know, you never did finish telling me about your best pranks. Just that one wasn't enough," because he knew every trickster loves reliving their greatest pranks.

Strikezone silently praised Gabriel for not being as oblivious as she had originally thought and thanked Primus for his not so subtle subject change. They spent the next day and a half like that, trading stories and jokes and rubbing each other the wrong way.

This would be the last time they would laugh for a while.