To Have a Spark
Reasons Why: Sapientiae Quaesitor
"If a mountain could talk it would tell us a story
To reign in love means just how to say sorry
If an ocean could cry we would drown in its tears
Dusk breaks to dawn,
Which we cannot survive without love."
-Helloween; If a Mountain Could Talk
"I need that over there, Nurse Darby," Ratchet's voice was low, yet had a peculiar husk to it.
June glanced up from her patient. From one medical professional to another, she could remain detached. It was a professionalism instilled in every student that on numerous occasions, had saved her sanity. And likely his, too. She passed the 'Bot an unusually large cable with a human-sized needle at its tip.
"Doctor, I've never seen Optimus...lose his cool. None of you, really," she ventured.
"You also haven't known us for very long. We are millions of your years old, Nurse Darby."
"Please. Call me June," the dark-haired woman offered a smile.
"June. As much as we have all seen, as Optimus has seen, he hasn't seen anything close to this. None of them have."
"You have," it was a statement. Not a question.
Ratchet finished working with the drip, gave one final check to the monitors and moved to almost-sit beside June. For a moment, the reddish-orange and white 'Bot looked as old as he said he was.
"I have seen the closest thing to what you call a suicide. Once, during the peak of the war. On Cybertron."
"Who was it?"
"It was a set of twins, a split-spark resulting in a pair of twin 'Bots. Their names were Voidrunner and Sunblaze. Sunblaze was the louder, more boisterous of the two. Voidrunner ran stealth. They were in the city of Praxus when a Decepticon raiding party captured Sunblaze and tortured him. They hung his body on the capital buildin'g wall after removing his spark chamber. Voidrunner was...not the same," Ratchet spared her the more vivid details.
"Did she get the Decepticons that killed her brother?"
"No. She never found them."
"What...happened to her?" June shuddered, blinking away tears. She had to remain professional.
"She..." Ratcher audibly 'gulped', placing a hand over his own chest. "She goaded a Decepticon troop to shoot her down. They dropped her where she stood. I... I need to find Optimus."
Ratchet stood without another word and shakily walked to the Prime's room. June sat on the couch and buried her face in her hands. For the first time in her career, June Darby wondered why the hell she became a nurse.
s=
Ratchet didn't bother knocking. The medic strode into Optimus' room and without a word, sat down beside him. He allowed them to sit in silence, turning several thoughts around in his own head. The Prime broke that silence first.
"Why?" The question was too simple. Too straightforward and yet, too big.
"I came to ask you the same thing, Optimus. Why? Why are you reacting this way? This is a stranger. We should leave him in human hands," the medic's words were, on the surface, harsh. But true. They had connections to exactly five humans: Agent Fowler, June and Jack Darby, Rafael Esquivel and Miko Nakadai.
"It...confuses me. Yet here I sit, with questions from the others. Questions I do not know the answers to."
"You care, Optimus. Do you recall the race Jack had with that other human? The bully, what's his name, Vince?"
"Yes. He was held captive by Knock-Out," the Prime said matter-of-factly.
"You still didn't allow any harm to come to him. He came out of that unscathed and without a single recollection of encountering us."
"And we let him go, never to know of us. He was not...sick," the Prime sounded like he choked on the word.
"True, he wasn't. This human is sick. You could back out now. We all could. Turn him over to Fowler, let them take him out of here. Let him go. So. Why, Optimus? Why not let him go?" Ratchet's voice took on a slightly husked undertone.
"I..." For once, the Prime hesitated. Why did he care? For that matter, why did he let any of the children remain here at all? He was brought out of his thoughts by a seemingly unrelated new question.
"Optimus, were you in Praxus any time in the war?"
"Praxus? No. I was still in Iacon, why?" the Prime's head turned up, confusion showing in a raised brow-ridge.
"Did you know Voidrunner? Or her twin?"
Optimus silently shook his head in the negative. He waited patiently, though he wondered how that battle was relevant. Ratchet continued, yet kept his words few and to-the-point.
"A set of twins fought there. One was captured. Tortured. Killed. His twin sister, Voidrunner...acted foolishly."
The meaning was clear to the Prime. In another moment of silence, the Prime let himself imagine the scenario at Praxus. Voidrunner's lost twin, perhaps seeing the body. The loss of control. The act of walking right into a Decepticon raiding party, just to let them gun her down.
Voidrunner immediately joined her twin.
Renalt was trying to join his "twin".
The Cybertronians have Primus.
The humans have uncertainty.
These Cybertronians have Miko, Jack and Raf.
Renalt had a brother who wasn't there any more.
So, why did the Prime give a damn at all?
The two Autobots shared a silent embrace as Ratchet moved to return to his patient. As it was, the patch modification device needed to be fitted and Primus knew, Ratchet couldn't fit anything to a human's head with his Cybertronian hands.
Alone now, the Prime clasped his hands. He took a deep, contemplative pose that he'd not taken since his days as a data clerk. There was data to consider, there were questions to answer.
From within, the Matrix gently quivered and released a low, almost inaudible droning hum. It beckoned the Prime inward.
So, inward, he went.
s=
The Matrix thrummed with life, with aeons of experience. Outwardly, to anyone looking in on the Prime, he simply sat on his berth with his hands clasped, fingers twined together and his head bowed. His voice gave off a low, soft drone.
Here, inside, he saw another world.
"I am seeking," Optimus called to the world within.
He stood in a glittering hall of golden walls, crystalline windows and upon a floor decorated with carvings. Above him, Cybertronians stood bathed in light in such a way that it shadowed their faces. Twelve of them stood staring down at him, six on his left and six on the right. Behind him, a massive door thundered shut.
"You are seeking. We do not have what you are seeking," One of the twelve thundered down at him. Not unkindly, but it brooked little protest.
"I do not understand. Why can I not simply step back?"
"You are a Prime," a second voice reminded him.
"I understand that. Why then, can I not step back? I face a concept I...do not know how to deal with," Optimus took a knee then. The Prime was wise. They were wiser than he.
"Can you choose not to care? Not to have a spark?"
Optimus Prime came out of his ruminations with a strange, new sense of clarity that danced with unanswered questions.