To Have a Spark
Another Maldon
"Nothing is a matter of life and death except life and death."
-Angela Carter
It was time.
Time to face the demons, the questions. They had debated, asked one another, asked themselves. It wasn't the best answer they had come up with. It was the practical answer. The efficient answer. Brutally efficient. Effective? That was the thing to find out.
Ratchet stood between Renalt's gurney and a Cybertronian-sized berth. June and Fowler stood on the catwalk, the children lined up beside them. Arcee, Bulkhead and Bumblebee flanked the catwalk's left side.
"I'm going to have to ask you three to take the children home," the medic decided. This wasn't something he wanted any humans to see, if he had his way. He didn't have his way.
"Ratchet, we're staying," Arcee countered.
Suicide was frightening, more than taboo in too many ways to speak of. Yet, to not speak of it, to ignore it or ostracise one that felt it was the only answer was tantamount to killing that person. It was abandonment to them. It was, plainly, murder in itself, to socially "mark" one with such feelings, to deny them the chance to find the better things in life. In her few words, Arcee had recognised something in the humans and her fellow Cybertronians. All had a spark, literal or otherwise. And these sparks were worth protecting.
"Yeah. The kids don't need to be here. Then again, you 'Bots don't need to be messing with this kid's head either," Fowler grumbled.
"Are you certain?" June came back sceptically. Who knew what things might be discovered? Who knew if this would work in the first place? Could they face that failure?
"Uh, full offence, Fowler, but the 'Bots did find him on what is essentially their roof," Miko countered sharply.
"Agent Fowler, we're not leaving," Jack added. He didn't miss the faint smile on his mother's face.
"I am afraid I must agree with Agent Fowler. Arcee, Bulkhead, Bumblebee. Take them home," Optimus' voice rolled through the base. His entrance into the main chamber had been oddly quiet for one his size. Piercing blue optics stared the group down – there were things he was going to protect on both sides. On one, his team's innocence. On the other, a single human's autonomy, dignity, and if he did this properly, his spark.
"We want to help," Raf spoke up then in a small, hesitant tone.
"And you will. All of you will, if you so choose. Right now, we must...watch where we step," the Prime replied. He never missed Ratchet's half-smile at words said to the medic himself, somehow a lifetime ago and not.
They didn't like it. But they didn't protest any further. As the sound of transformation and roll-out faded from the base, Optimus stood alone with Ratchet and the other two adults. Before he spoke again, Agent Fowler beat him to it.
"I'll be staying, Prime. I won't watch if you don't want me to, but I can't just let you do this willy-nilly."
"Agent Fowler, this decision is hardly 'willy-nilly', as you put it. If this works in the immediate, we can determine what comes next. We don't have months or years to work with at the moment," Ratchet shot back. The medic was beginning to get sick of Fowler's self-righteousness.
June had silently moved down to Renalt's bedside, checking the human-sized monitors and adjusting a thin tube that snaked down his throat. His head was encased in what looked like a helmet that had reproduced with a fish bowl.
She frowned.
"Ratchet, we barely have an hour or so. We need to do this now."
Prime said nothing as he took his place upon the berth. One more time, Ratchet tried.
"Are you sure you want to do this, Optimus?"
"I am sure, old friend. As sure as any of us can be," Optimus twitched mildly as the patch cord clicked into place behind his head.
"Be gentle, Optimus," Agent Fowler spoke up. Ratchet closed his optics just before he flipped the switch.
"Bring us back two lives."
s=
A new world rushed into focus. Optics flickered, blinking in adjustment. Optimus stared in mute horror at the landscape before him. He stood in a barren wasteland decorated with the remains of something that used to be magnificent. Around him, the ground was blasted, dry and cracked, as if water on this landscape had not come in far too long. Shattered remnants of what he surmised were towers, citadels and fortresses stood defiled and stained in the blood of words. The mark of wounds no one could see, scars inflicted by word rather than a physical blow.
His pedfalls were slow, careful, as if he walked upon a glass floor. Hung in the air around him, suspended by nothing at all, were broken shards of mirrors. Some were clear and almost bright. Others were shadowed with a sort of grime, their 'glass' darker and foggy. Memories assaulted the Prime from all angles, so he stood still for a moment, to observe them one at a time.
The first memory came at him from a suspended glass shard stained in the colour of blood that has long since dried. Children screamed in terror. Around them, the walls of their pre-school facility came down. A bookshelf came down upon the head of a small boy. His screams were instantly silenced. The ground beneath the children moved like a roiling ocean, pitching this way and that. A light-haired child curled up beneath a heavy desk that had been nailed to the floor.
"How old were you?" he called.
"Four," the response echoed back from nowhere. Prime ran, shaking his head.
He stopped at another cluster of were blasted shards of sound, words and spells of black nothingness. Names that almost meant nothing echoed by, with one name slowly standing out. 'Lakehaven'. Visible moments had the Prime momentarily transfixed as in one, he watched a badly-shaven middle-aged man violently slap several children's faces, chasing them as they fled from his anger. His rage displayed all too clearly that beatings were a routine event.
"Defective little brats! Why don't they just euthanise you like the sick animals you are?!"
"How... How old?" Optimus choked the words out, voice fading from a question into a low moan.
"Six," the voiceless expanse echoed.
"How long?" came the Prime's growl.
"Two years."
The low moan grew, escalating into a dull roar. Massive as he was, he could be quite agile when he wanted to be. In a furious twist-spin of his feet, the Prime sprinted away from the clustered shards. By the time he slowed to a walk, Optimus' eyes scanned a smallish, one-story building. It looked like it had been abandoned for years.
Bending down, he peered into its broken windows.
While he only saw the darkness of a long-deserted building, what he heard told him enough. Laughter, music. The sound of paper shuffling about. Scales, then songs. Harmonies and words he couldn't understand.
"Where was this?" he whispered.
"Where I met him," the oblivion responded.
"How old?"
"Twelve."
"What did you learn here?"
"Music. And then martial arts. From him."
"What did he teach you?"
The Prime got no answer. He stood and moved on. The hanging mirror-shards began to grow more sparse as he moved along. The Prime glanced at the torn, ravaged ground and noted a subtle change – green was creeping in. He followed it, letting the tinkling chime of those shards guide him.
And then he saw it.
Surrounded by a cluster of green trees and blossoms, there stood a breathtaking statue. It depicted a young man, roughly in that age of "Able to vote, not yet able to drink" with longish hair and an earring in his right ear. The effigy was carved in such a way that the Prime easily picked out the military trappings of a newly enlisted soldier. It was something to see, but it didn't last long.
He saw the faint discolouration first, turning the pristine, almost blinding white stone to a dingy, dull grey.
The decay had begun to set in.
s=
Optimus Prime woke with a start. Fowler, to his word, had his back turned. Ratchet frowned down at his companion.
"What do you think?" Ratchet asked. His voice was barely above a 'Bot-sized whisper.
"I... I need to go back in."