Forsan et haec olim scripsisse iuvabit

Fanfiction: Excelsior (2/3) (Transformers Prime)

nebroadwe — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 21:33:25 GMT

Title: Excelsior: A Sequence (2/3)
Fandom: Transformers Prime
Character(s): Smokescreen, Optimus Prime,
Pairing(s): None
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1100 (this installment; 2300 total)
Warnings: None.
A/N: This sequence was written for the 30 Days of Writing: A Drabble a Day challenge on Tumblr, and tells the story of Smokescreen from his enlistment in the Autobot cause before the series begins through his career in the far future after it ends. It will include a great deal of pre- and post-series headcanon that is not altogether compliant with the larger Aligned continuity. My artistic license remains current. The illustration to chapter four was commissioned from my colleague Amber Dawn. Crossposted to transficsation. Concrit welcomed with an opportunity for great responsibility.

11. Prepared

Finally, Smokescreen gets it.

He sees at last what everything was for: the endless drills, the studying, even the stint in stasis. Destiny was preparing him for this post, to stand shoulder to shoulder with Optimus Prime — the Optimus Prime! — against the enemy. (Sort of. That is, if Optimus weren't hanging from a gantry overhead right now.) But never mind: time to play Kick the Con! Phase Shifter engaged, Smokescreen charges a startled Starscream, knocking him straight out of the Apex Armor and onto his skinny aft.

"Now that was a plan!" he exults.

Oh, yeah, Smokescreen's ready. Half-past ready.

12. Knowledge

Working with Smokescreen throws Jack off balance. He's used to thinking of the Autobots as, well, grown-ups — veterans of a war that began before the dinosaurs died out. But if Optimus Prime and even Bumblebee are old campaigners, Smokescreen's ROTC. He's full of war stories, but they're not his stories, so they don't weigh him down. Every smile Jack coaxes from Arcee is a victory; Smokescreen never stops joking. If only he had a little more discipline —

And now I sound like my mom. Great.

"Hey, Jack?"

"Yeah?"

"Why do you drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?"

13. Wind

Smokescreen activates the Spark Extractor and runs as if the Destroyer himself were chasing him. Nobody knows what the device's range is; even phased to immateriality beneath a body-length of Cybertron's crust, Smokescreen feels its lethal energies fretting at his core. That's gotta hurt, he reflects, and runs faster.

Spark intact, he reaches the rendezvous point only a few nanocycles after the rest of the team. "We're clear of pursuit!" he comms Optimus triumphantly.

The Prime's field surges past his, questing behind him, and the contact is like an arctic breeze across Smokescreen's mesh, damping his ardor. "Acknowledged," Optimus replies.

14. Denial

The order to disperse offlines Smokescreen's vocalizer as effectively as any virus. It's the Archives all over again, the 'Cons blasting everything he's supposed to protect, and him helpless. He almost balks when it's his turn to go, but with the Prime's field bracing his, all he can do is salute and obey.

Only when he emerges from the groundbridge, tires slipping on soft moss, does his impotence crystallize into denial. He can't leave Optimus — not like he left Alpha Trion, and Glazier.

She always said my first word was no, he thinks, turning back. Hope it's not my last.

15. Haze

Squinting against the splendor burning in Optimus's chassis, Smokescreen knows what he's supposed to do: accept the Matrix, lead the Autobots, restore Cybertron. Optimus, optics dimming, practically ordered it. But Smokescreen's always trusted his instincts, and right now they're screaming at him (in Arcee's voice and Cascade's and Glazier's) that he's no Prime. Sure, the part of him that yearns for glory aspires to be one, but the part that drank in Alpha Trion's stories of the Thirteen, thrilling to every unexpected turn, just doesn't believe this twist.

Sorry, sir, he thinks, reaching instead for the Forge of Solus Prime.

16. Thanks

Smokescreen doesn't tell anyone about turning down the Matrix. (Optimus never mentions it, either, but maybe he didn't notice, being almost offline and all.) He doesn't regret his decision, but that doesn't keep his everyday duties (grunt work, really) from feeling like a demotion. How does he go back to being just Smokescreen after nearly becoming Umbraculus Prime?

The best advice he gets isn't advice at all, but Bumblebee's steady-going example. Patience, that's the ticket — and someday everyone will see what the Matrix saw, and there'll be more than just another job to thank Smokescreen for a job well done.

—————
Author's Note: In the tradition of dubiously Latinate names for Primes, Umbraculus is derived from umbraculum, literally "little shadow," but in use anything that provides shade (e.g. a screen, a parasol, a bower) and also, metaphorically, a school (perhaps via the concept of "the groves of academe").

17. Look

Smokescreen pushes the gain on his sensors until he can count the dust motes on the hangar floor, but all he finds is the chip he knocked off Laserbeak. And cataloging particles can't keep his processor from generating anxious what-ifs and if-onlys. What if Ratchet's on Knockout's dissection table right now? The doc's so old; what if his pump fails or his cortex crashes during interrogation? If only Smokescreen had hit Laserbeak square; if only he'd tackled Soundwave; if only —

Ultra Magnus taps his shoulder-guard, startling him. "Take a break, soldier."

"But — "

"A break," Ultra Magnus repeats, disconcertingly gentle.

18. Doubt

His shoulder took the hit, not his helm, so Smokescreen doesn't understand why he can't make sense of what he's witnessing. His sensors record every detail of Bumblebee's fall, from the impacts of Megatron's shots to the last flicker of the scout's field before the pool of cybermatter engulfs his frame, but Smokescreen's processor generates nothing but an endless loop of no and my fault.

Not until Bumblebee returns — not dead and drowned, but healed — to slay Megatron does the cycle break, joy displacing horror. We did need the Star Saber. I was right, thank the Allspark. I was right.

19. Transformation

The restoration is more impressive from orbit than it is at planetfall. Smokescreen's awed delight in the renewed gleam of life illuminating Cybertron's geography quickly gives way to dejection at the ton of work the Omega Lock's successful deployment has left for Team Prime. Every structure the war didn't blow up seems to have fallen over.

Exploring in base mode, he follows a trickle of energon to a puddle ringed with crystals — not the carefully harmonized glasshouse cultivars he remembers, but wild growth. Smokescreen prods them curiously, doorwings twitching when they jangle, then rearranges them to play a proper tune.

20. Summer

Cybertron's axial tilt is less prominent than Earth's, and energon can be mined at any season, which means that no one invented the summer vacation, and that's just sad. Work hard, play hard, right? And who wouldn't want to kick back for a bit, now that they've won the war?

Everybody except Smokescreen, apparently. Undiscouraged, he continues to promote the idea of an aestival holiday until Arcee, his current supervisor, finally gives in. "Okay, hotshot," she says, "you can have your summer break."

"Really?"

"Sure." She uploads a list of chores to his scheduler. "And here's your summer job. Enjoy."

21. Tremble

It's not that Smokescreen isn't afraid. The Chaos-Bringer in Megatron's body, raising an undead army to annihilate Primus, extinguish all life on Cybertron, and drown the universe in entropy? That's the stuff of human horror films, the ones even Miko prefers not to watch. If Smokescreen stopped to think about what he's facing, he'd be shaking so hard he couldn't aim. So he doesn't stop, just makes the next shot, the next leap, the next quip, and leaves strategy to Ratchet and Arcee and Bumblebee.

He's never felt less worthy of the Matrix, or more relieved it passed him by.

To be continued ...

[Acknowledgments: Transformers Prime was created by Hasbro Studios. Copyright for this property is held by Hasbro.]

Fanfiction: Excelsior (1/3) (Transformers Prime)

nebroadwe — Mon, 01 Sep 2014 16:39:58 GMT

Title: Excelsior: A Sequence (1/3)
Fandom: Transformers Prime
Character(s): Smokescreen, Alpha Trion, Cybertronian OCs
Pairing(s): None
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1200
Warnings: Implied/referenced character death.
A/N: This sequence was written for the 30 Days of Writing: A Drabble a Day challenge on Tumblr, and tells the story of Smokescreen from his enlistment in the Autobot cause before the series begins through his career in the far future after it ends. It will include a great deal of pre- and post-series headcanon that is not altogether compliant with the larger Aligned continuity. My artistic license remains current. The illustration to chapter four was commissioned from my colleague Amber Dawn. Crossposted to transficsation. Concrit welcomed with sno-cones.

1. Beginning

He chooses his objective carefully: a busy recruiting station in Iacon's industrial district, where one more bot with new paint and a fake ID shouldn't stand out. By the time Glazier gets his farewell message, he'll be enlisted. He wishes he had her blessing, but she doesn't understand. Factionalists, she calls them, Autobots and Decepticons both, as if they conspired to destroy Praxus. He knows better — and he's not one of her spun crystal sculptures, to shatter under fire.

Art is infinite, but you are unique. Irreplaceable. I forbid you to go.

"Name?" asks the recruiter.

"Uh, Smokescreen," he replies.

2. Accusation

"Need any help?"

Cascade doesn't answer, glaring instead at his half-disassembled blaster. Basic training is hard, harder even than mining, but he wasn't staying in Kaon to slave away for the greater glory of Megatron. Too bad nobody outside Kaon will hire a mech who can't do anything but dig, if they're hiring at all. The Autobots are Cascade's last chance: succeed and survive, or wash out and starve.

Without help, either way.

But the other rookie leans in, poking at the blaster's works. "Takes three servos to strip these stupid things." Friendly, guileless optics meet his. "I'm Smokescreen. You?"

3. Restless

Smokescreen can hardly keep step with Cascade and the others as they board the transport. Assigned to the Elite Guard! His spark blazes with pride; his imagination leaps ahead to command a corps under Optimus Prime himself. Forward! Praxus shall be avenged!

The transport lifts off with a rumble and a rattle while he's still retaking Tarn. "Whatever's loose back there, stow it!" the pilot shouts.

Cascade elbows him; Smokescreen starts, the rattling stops and he realizes tardily that it came from his own heels, drumming on the deck. "Smooth, Iacon," his friend mutters.

Smokescreen ducks his helm, but grins.

4. Snowflake

Watching Smokescreen catch snowflakes, Cascade wonders whether he lied about his age at intake. Polar picket duty's dull, sure, but seriously? "Keeping count?" he jibes.

"They really are all different!" Smokescreen says; then a shutter closes behind his optics, the same way it does when he stumbles over his own name. Cascade doesn't pry. Whoever "Smokescreen" is, he acts more like a sparkling run away to join the circus — half elated, half scared he'll be dragged home — than anything else.

And he enjoys a good prank. "Ambush Arclight and Flywheel at shift change?" Cascade suggests.

Smokescreen's optics brighten again. "Sure!"

5. Haze

First the wind rises; then the wall of dust rolls in. The SWO predicted they'd clear the rust belt before the storm hit, but a prediction's not a promise. Smokescreen's hydraulics squeak as he trundles over obstacles he'd have avoided before the umber haze descended, blinding half his sensors. His altmode's not built for this terrain; rubble scrapes his undercarriage while flying grit scours his mesh, but he shuts his vents and keeps moving.

He exhales his relief when they finally escape the murk and his tires grip the stable surface of an old highway.

Yeah, he can do this.

6. Flame

"Special Operations?" Smokescreen says enviously. "Lucky!"

Cascade smirks. Turns out the Autobots do need mechs who can dig. The Elite Guard is being disbanded, its commander Ultra Magnus transferred to the Wreckers (good luck with that, sir!), Cascade to SpecOps as a sapper and Smokescreen to Iacon ... as a security guard. His field radiates gloom, like his spark's been doused with slurry. Cascade's ambitions, by contrast, are burning high. "Don't worry, Iacon," he says, equal parts consoling and condescending. "When I get my company, I'll send for you."

"Me, too!" Smokescreen replies, rising to the challenge.

They shake on it.

7. Formal

When the door opens, Smokescreen takes three steps into Alpha Trion's office and stands to attention. "Reporting as ordered, sir!" he says, optics on the desk rather than the bot behind it. Maybe he's here to be commended, but he doubts it. He hasn't been off his squad leader's scrap list since he arrived. Summoned by the Master Archivist himself? Out of the crucible and into the smelting pit.

A datapad is pushed across the desktop toward him. "This information may be of interest to you," Alpha Trion's dry voice explains.

His suspicions confirmed, Smokescreen reluctantly takes the pad. He really hates this assignment, all lubricant and polish and no action, and too many rules. Which one did I break now? But instead of a page of regulations, the screen displays a newswire, dateline Kalis, reporting a Seeker bombing raid on a residential neighborhood. Among those offlined, noted Praxian sculptor Glazier ...

One of his processors chokes; another shifts into overdrive. Why was she in Kalis? Why wasn't she in a shelter? What was Air Defense Command doing, defragging their drives? Guilt batters his spark like flying shrapnel. He hasn't commed since he left home; he wanted to prove himself — prove her wrong — return a conquering hero ...

"Smokescreen."

"Sir," he responds automatically, stupidly, too shocked to worry that his cover must be blown. (Or not: no one ever reprimands him for the deception or updates his records. He answers to Smokescreen cycle after cycle, until it's almost as if he's never been anyone else.

Almost.)

The Master Archivist extends a servo; Smokescreen hands back the pad. "Will that be all, sir?" he asks.

Alpha Trion nods.

Smokescreen salutes unnecessarily and retreats. He loses himself in the stacks for a while, missing his next shift, and accepts his punishment with grim indifference.

8. Companion

"Level five, stack thirteen, shelf-mark five-two-zero-slash-gee-one-three-ess," Smokescreen recites. "Got it."

"Do not open the container," Alpha Trion reminds him.

"No, sir," he answers, as earnestly as if he were retrieving the Emberstone rather than a fragile datatape. Alpha Trion hadn't planned to take another apprentice, but if Smokescreen's energies aren't harnessed in here, they'll surely generate chaos out there, and disciplinary reports waste valuable storage space.

Smokescreen returns promptly and listens, enthralled, to the static-laced voice of Azimuth preserved on the tape. "Is there more cool old stuff down there?"

"More archival material, yes," Alpha Trion replies, hiding a smile.

9. Move

"This is no drill! Move, move, move!"

But Smokescreen is already in position, the only mech between Alpha Trion and the enemy, his support cut off or offline. Nobody's getting past him, though; they'll have to snuff his spark first.

Then something strikes his helm, and his battle's over.

≈
The last Omega Key safely stowed, Alpha Trion strews debris around Smokescreen's chassis, then returns to his office to update the database. The Decepticons are taking prisoners, but he won't be one of them. He's played out his endgame on this board in the contest of universes — time to tally up.

10. Silver

The Decepticons' prisoner transport is as creepy as Smokescreen had expected, a labyrinth of underlit death-gray corridors. At least the dimness makes sneaking around easier, and all the emergency equipment is clearly marked. If he keeps to the shadows and follows the arrows, he's bound to find an escape pod before security finds him.

And there one is, prepped and ready. He slides in, dogs the hatch, and hits the big red button. Later, 'Cons!

On the low-def viewscreen the pod's ejection thrusters burn silver against the ship's dark hull, the last light Smokescreen sees before stasis shutters his optics.

To be continued ...

[Acknowledgments: Transformers Prime was created by Hasbro Studios. Copyright for this property is held by Hasbro.]

Fanfiction: The Secret (Transformers Prime)

nebroadwe — Sun, 03 Aug 2014 11:40:59 GMT

Title: The Secret
Fandom: Transformers Prime
Character(s): Megatron, Soundwave
Pairing(s): None
Rating: G
Word Count: ~3300
Warnings: Spoilers for the end of season 3 (no spoilers for the series finale); also, spoilers for Foxbear's Trickster.
A/N: This story acts as an epilogue to Trickster, a crucial installment in Foxbear's "Blood and Energon" AU. Trickster's climax reveals a game-changing development about which, as one character tells another, "Megatron cannot know." In storytelling terms, of course, that means "Megatron must find out," and I could not help but imagine how he might react when he does. Many thanks to Foxbear for the beta-read, though this story should be considered metafanfiction and not in any way binding on this AU's "canon." (Foxbear also tried to tone down my Miltonian rhetoric, but what overheated bombast remains is wholly my doing.) Crossposted to transficsation. Concrit welcomed with covert intelligence of the highest caliber.

As, when a spark
Lights on a heap of nitrous powder, laid
Fit for the tun, some magazine to store
Against a rumoured war, the smutty grain
With sudden blaze diffused, inflames the air;
So started up, in his own shape, the Fiend.

— John Milton, Paradise Lost IV, 814-819

Megatron stood on the bridge of the Nemesis, at the hub of all his devices and desires, and was pleased with what he saw.

Video and data streams coursed through the network around him, most of them dedicated to the reconstruction of the Omega Lock beneath the ship's ventral hull. For all the legends that enshrouded it, the ancient apparatus had posed no mysteries beyond the skill of his engineers to solve. Mechanics were welding the last of its components into place with all deliberate speed, while technicians calculated energy loads and calibrated relays. Others were upgrading the shielding on the Nemesis's most crucial systems, for Megatron had no intention of activating the Lock if the backwash of its power were liable to burn out the ship's engines or disable its helm. That would be an empty victory indeed: to crash, steerless, into the world he had remade. Only the Autobots would appreciate the irony.

But this time I, not they, shall have the last laugh, he thought as yet another progress report was logged and the project timetable updated. Your ultimate defeat is near, Optimus — and one of your own will ensure it.

Savoring his imminent triumph, Megatron reviewed the security feeds from Shockwave's lab, where his chief scientist was engaged in uneasy collaboration with the Autobots' medic. Without the cybermatter to fuel it, the Omega Lock was nothing more than an archaeological curiosity, but Shockwave was certain that the synthetic energon Ratchet had developed, combined with his own preparation of CNA, would provide a functional alternative. Unfortunately the synth-en formula was still unstable, requiring the Decepticons to commandeer their enemy's assistance to perfect it. The medic had refused at first, of course, but the vision of Cybertron restored had proved bait too glittering to resist. Nevertheless, Megatron placed no reliance on Ratchet's change of spark. Beneath his traitorous nostalgia for their ruined homeworld, his allegiances remained what they had always been; his stiff posture and stilted courtesies were laughably inadequate to conceal his pangs of conscience. An escape attempt was as inevitable as it was futile. But that was no matter: as soon as he finished his work, the Autobot would be expendable. The calculations he vainly sought to firewall off from outside access were already being decanted from his terminal by Soundwave, a steady stream of inside information.

As if summoned by his master's thought, the dark mech turned from his station and pinged Megatron's personal comm with a status update: ASSIGNED TASK (INTELLIGENCE GATHERING AND ANALYSIS) COMPLETED.

"What have you to report?" Megatron asked, without removing his gaze from the monitors before him.

Soundwave replied with a single glyph: ~Sensitive information.~

His interest piqued, Megatron tilted his helm to study his communications chief out of the corner of one optic, but Soundwave simply waited for orders, visor blank. "Very well," Megatron replied. Leaving the conn to the helm officer, he gestured for Soundwave to accompany him from the bridge. Together they strode to a secure briefing room across the corridor, Soundwave as ever at Megatron's left, pacing him like a shadow cast by his eminence.

The door hissed shut behind them and Megatron watched with increasing curiosity as Soundwave not only engaged the lock, but disabled all local sensors and cut the feed from the computer core to the room's terminals. Whatever intelligence he had to deliver was sensitive indeed, held solely in his own cortex and intended for perusal by none but his lord. The only frequencies he left unblocked were Megatron's own comm channels — and that is well for you, he thought, test-cycling his fusion cannon. Soundwave never presumed upon the confidence Megatron reposed in him, but his actions in this instance trod a thin line between sensible precaution and fatal insubordination. No doubt Soundwave realized it, too, as the rising charge of the cannon interfered with the fringes of his EM field. But he simply completed his preparations and faced his master, helm inclined in a proper show of deference, and Megatron powered down his weapon.

"Well?" he demanded.

Soundwave replied with a clip of Megatron's voice. "Review the recordings of Ratchet's interrogation. I want every scrap of data you can cull from them."

Ah. Megatron grinned. Shockwave had strip-mined the medic's memories in search of the formula for synth-en, but he was inclined to overlook stray nuggets of information peripheral to his aims. Soundwave, an omnivorous collector of unconsidered trifles, would not. "And?" Megatron asked, anticipation roughening his voice. "What else has the good doctor to tell us?"

Soundwave hesitated, and Megatron lowered the priority on several background processes to focus more of his regard on the silent mech. He could read Soundwave's enigmatic demeanor as readily as that of any bot online and what he now perceived in the other's stance and field unsettled him. Soundwave was disturbed, and that did not bode well. Suppressing his unease, Megatron allowed impatience to billow through his own field like the wavefront of an ion storm. "Report!" he ordered.

Soundwave's left-hand datacable slid from its housing to plug into the terminal beside him and the wall screen brightened into life, displaying a video of Optimus Prime in the ground-bound form that had preceded his most recent transformation. He was seated on a medical berth in what Megatron recognized as the Autobots' previous Earth base, and his expression, as he bent forward to address the minuscule human before him, was tense and solemn. "June," he said, "I have formed a Guardian bond with Jackson."

Megatron's optics widened, his entire awareness focused on the screen as if locked onto the Prime himself on the field of battle. Every other thread he was managing shut down, starved of attention, as his processor struggled to encompass this irrational datum. "Impossible!" he exclaimed. "No Prime can imprint a sparkling." There are no more sparklings, an analytical subroutine added: he and Optimus between them had seen to that. Aloud he snorted derisively. "He is delusional, is that it? Hardly news, Soundwave."

For answer, Soundwave opened another window through which scrolled two complex waveforms accompanied by what seemed an excess of medical information. Megatron could recognize a spark scan when he saw one, but the diagnostics were beyond his skill to interpret. His engine grumbled restively and Soundwave paused the readouts to highlight an element in each, a parallel frequency, the same theme lilting through two different symphonies. "A Guardian bond," he explained in Optimus Prime's voice.

Megatron's glance jumped briefly to his subordinate, then returned to the spark scans. "Impossible," he repeated, but with less conviction than before. There was the evidence, plucked from the mind of Optimus Prime's closest confidant, an expert medic and a realist (or what passed for such among the Autobots). But if this revelation were no flight of fantasy, what purpose did it serve? "A trick," Megatron suggested. "A plant, surely." Suspicion bloomed in his processor. "These engrams cannot be related to the development of synthetic energon; why would Shockwave have acquired them?"

Soundwave brought up the metadata for both files and tagged their encryption levels; then, for comparison, he opened a third window with a draft version of the synth-en formula. Megatron understood: all were secured at the highest level and heavily obfuscated. Shockwave had clearly harvested every scientific or medical memory Ratchet had sought to hide. Megatron's servos clenched into fists. "And why," he inquired dangerously, "did my chief science officer fail to mention this information to me?"

"Only confirmation that the synthetic energon formula is unstable, and that the Autobot medic's work on it remains incomplete," Soundwave replied, in Shockwave's words this time, but with their tone modulated upward, robbing the scientist's voice of its gravitas.

Megatron frowned, but not at the sarcasm. Shockwave's exacting focus and absolute reliance on logic were as much weaknesses as strengths and Megatron knew it, as he knew all of his subordinates' weaknesses: Starscream's ambition, Knockout's vanity, even Soundwave's devotion to Laserbeak. No doubt Shockwave had dismissed these files as corrupt or simply erroneous, contrary to premises so long established as to be principles. "A Prime cannot form a Guardian bond," Megatron murmured thoughtfully. "This is well known. Unless ... " He turned once more to Soundwave, for surely the Autobots would not have let this mystery rest.

Soundwave did not disappoint him. He displayed another video, this one of the medic himself addressing the same human to whom Optimus Prime had spoken, a fact which Megatron filed for future reference. Ratchet's features were drawn and his plating trembled with exhaustion — no, Megatron realized as the medic began to speak: with rage. "It was explained to me by the Senate members that all of Cybertron was under the guardianship of the Prime. He could not be distracted from his care of Cybertron by the responsibilities of a sparkling bond." Ratchet expelled his next words like projectiles. "They outright stated that this was the will of Primus — that any who carried the Matrix was forever severed from the Well of Allsparks in this one way."

"A lie, of course," Megatron concluded. The subtext of the medic's speech was clear even without any accompanying field resonance.

"Coding ... pressed upon Optimus in stealth by the Senate ... designed to prevent imprinting," Soundwave confirmed in Ratchet's outraged accents.

Megatron smiled sardonically. It did not surprise him that the Senate had dabbled in desecration when it had waded neck-deep in every other form of corruption, but it must have been a lash to Optimus's spark to learn how those in whom he had naively placed his faith had violated him. Megatron's lip-plates tightened and his field all but etched the deck beneath him with caustic satisfaction. From the first Optimus Prime had embodied the cliché of the commander as a Guardian to his mechs — compensating, Megatron supposed, for what he had renounced. Crèche-raised himself, Megatron had never experienced such a bond. Cybertron's masters had required laborers the vorn he was sparked; thus along with dozens of others, he had passed from the care of the priests of the Well straight to a mining guild nursery. That had been a school for strength, every cycle a competition for the best upgrades, the biggest rations, the warmest berths, Destroyer take the hindmost. He presumed, though he had never investigated the matter, that Orion Pax had been nurtured by a Guardian, as were most bots of his caste. It certainly explained why he had never learned to make the necessary sacrifices — unless that sacrifice was himself.

The power of the Matrix shall light our darkest hour!

Megatron cleared his cache and considered the time-stamp on the first clip from the medic's memory. It predated the discovery of the Omega Lock, during that period when Earth's sun had been so unexpectedly active and the Nemesis's nav and comm systems had so unaccountably failed. Megatron sneered to quell the stirrings of ignition in his spark. A coincidence, doubtless, and the basest of clichés, that the imprinting of a Prime's sparkling should be announced by signs in the heavens. Of more practical note was the fact that Megatron had fought Optimus several times since then and had noticed none of the usual weaknesses attendant on a Guardian bond: the softening of the armor, the division of focus. You hid your secret well, Optimus, he thought, but now the truth will out, as you always said it must. "Who is this privileged sparkling?" he inquired mockingly, his processor already turning over the possibilities. Some stasis-locked experiment, perhaps, like those miserable lumps Starscream had stowed away on the Nemesis, or perhaps a legacy of earlier Cybertronian interventions in this system, a living fossil with no proper designation, only a nonsense string of organic phonemes. "Who is this 'Jackson'?"

To his mild bemusement, Soundwave stepped up to access the terminal manually, his digits drumming an intricate tattoo on its interface as his cable detached from its port. The various data feeds on the screen shrank and clustered in its lower left quadrant to make way for the text of an intelligence report beside the still image of a face.

A human face.

Megatron recognized it immediately: the startled visage of the one who had spared him in the collapsed energon mine, to whom Optimus Prime had entrusted the Key to Vector Sigma, and for whom he had traded two Omega Keys and control of the restoration of Cybertron. Jackson Darby, alias Jack, the legend beneath the portrait read, the names spelled out in both their native alphabet and phonetic Cybertronian. A personal designation in stately glyphs followed: Alias Daybreaker.

Megatron's processors stalled, but his spark blazed with passion and his field flared around him like an aurora, coruscating with excess charge. His vision sharpened until he could discern each pixel in that damnable image even as the screen itself was limned in a violet haze. A growl rumbled in his voice box, rising to a bellow of fury as Megatron slammed his fist down on the terminal. The polymer housing tore like lead foil beneath the blow; the circuits within shattered, splinters flying, and the screen went dark. Megatron roared again, so loudly that the room's sound-dampening panels vibrated in sympathy, and rounded on his spymaster. "You dare," he snarled, claws flexing, "you dare claim that he — that any mech would bind himself — would yoke his very spark! — to a mere organic, a wretched parasite spawned from the corpse of Unicron?"

Soundwave stood his ground. "I have formed a Guardian bond with Jackson," he repeated, explicitly and uncharacteristically tagging the statement with the glyphs for quotation this time. The message was clear — ~This is Optimus Prime's claim, not mine~ — but Megatron was not mollified. His servos were closing on the armor that protected Soundwave's vocalizer when the mech added in Ratchet's urgent tones, "Megatron cannot know."

Megatron's processors caught the implication and cycled up once more, drawing off the excess energy of his core to fuel their analysis. Of course the Autobots would want to keep this ... circumstance ... from him. An immature human, an order of magnitude more vulnerable than a Cybertronian sparkling, whom the Prime himself was now bound to protect and preserve at all costs? Such a lever on their chief adversary was a gift to the Decepticons, beyond doubt. And more than that ...

Shoving the other mech aside, Megatron folded his arms across his chestplates, still thrumming faintly in resonance with the agitation of his spark. It had pleased him to see the Autobots scattered to the winds of a hundred different stars, their commander stripped one by one of his closest comrades: the blustering chassis-guard, the spiritless tactician, the insolent saboteur, and now the choleric doctor. Without followers, a leader was nothing — an empty shell, a hollow drum. What use the title of Prime, the pomp and circumstance of office, even the power of the Matrix, to a mech alone and friendless? I will take everything from you, he thought, his passion mastered but undiminished, white-hot rage banked to a no less dangerous red heat. You, who once stood at my right hand ... and when you are starved of all that you craved — acclaim and obeisance and rule — then will I break you beneath my heel and make your frame my footstool. And he would begin by plucking this upstart human, this Jackson, from whatever bolt-hole in which his so-called Guardian had secreted him, and crushing him like the vermin he was ...

A tactical subroutine pounced on the glyph for Guardian and Megatron stayed his calculations as his linguistic protocols broke the complex pictogram into its constituent elements, ~ward~ and ~care~ and ~spark~. The word itself was practically cant; Cybertronian exceptionalists refused to apply it to the nurturers of other species, even those who formed analogous relationships with their young. A cross-species bond was unprecedented, inconceivable; a Guardian who claimed a human sparkling would have been tried by the old regime for sacrilege ...

A human ... sparkling ...

A sparkling ...

His field quieted, shimmering with the deceptive calm of a degenerate white dwarf before it reignites to detonate in a supernova, and his faceplates relaxed into the slightest of smiles. Beside him Soundwave stood impassive, but his weight shifted minutely on his pedes. Lesser mechs fled Megatron's anger; his officers trod softly lest they draw his acid humor; but all quailed before him in this mood, presage to his most intimate and abominable cruelties.

At length Megatron shook himself free of his thoughts and turned to his communications chief. "Excise all information pertaining to this matter from the original recordings and secure it separately," he commanded. "No one is to access it without my express permission. And tell Shockwave to see me at his earliest convenience. Starscream as well," he added.

Nodding once, Soundwave messaged the two mechs as he began filing and encrypting the data. Megatron swept from the room, slivers of broken circuitry crackling beneath his pedes as he went. For a few moments after the door had closed between them, Soundwave remained immobile, his processors wholly engaged with his assigned task; then he spared a fraction of his attention to run a diagnostic on Laserbeak. Only when the Minicon reported all systems nominal did he summon a maintenance drone to deal with the wrecked terminal.

Megatron's response to his intelligence had been everything Soundwave had anticipated, but not even he could predict what his master intended to do next. Strategically, this development should have been of no import: once the Omega Lock was operational, the cyberforming of Earth could begin, dooming Jackson Darby, alias Daybreaker, along with the rest of his species. Let the Autobot hypocrites mourn its passing; Soundwave would not. Enough energon had been spilled in this war that the internal fluids of seven billion primitive organics would scarcely dilute it. Strength prevailed, weakness perished, and Primus slept: that Soundwave had learned long before he had met Megatron in the Pits of Kaon and seen in him the only answer to the artificial inequities of caste. In an arena of unfettered competition, the gladiator had preached, strong and weak alike would earn their places through their deeds, not their affinities. To that ideal future, incarnate in his lord's career, Soundwave had remained ever constant, as well as ever vigilant for the inconstancies of others. Orion Pax he had doubted from the first, but Megatron had not heeded Soundwave's warnings and the archivist's betrayal had taken him at unawares. Even now Optimus Prime remained a distortion in Megatron's otherwise clear vision, a distraction from the victory that lay within his grasp. If he chose to challenge the Prime now, before his designs on Earth and Cybertron were accomplished ...

I have come for Megatron, and him alone. Stand down and be spared.

Something of Soundwave's disquiet must have communicated itself to Laserbeak, for the Minicon pinged him again with the results of the diagnostic. He acknowledged the data, then synched with the Nemesis's core to edit the records of the cortical psychic patch held there. By the time the repair drone requested entrance, the redaction was complete. Soundwave rebooted the briefing room's sensors, unblocked its comms, and opened the door to admit the drone. Leaving it to click and whir over the mess like an addled scraplet, he returned to the bridge.

There Megatron stood in his accustomed place, the axis around which the Decepticon cause revolved. His field brushed Soundwave's in bare acknowledgment of the other's presence, giving nothing away, his regard fixed on the monitors displaying the inexorable progress of his plans.

Taking up his station, Soundwave likewise immersed himself in the flow of data, ghosting toward victory in his master's wake.

[Acknowledgments: Transformers Prime was created by Hasbro Studios. Copyright for this property is held by Hasbro. Trickster was written by Foxbear; the original characters and situations described therein belong, according to the courtesy due living authors, to hi/r and no other.]

Needs More Love: Victorious Children (Tobu Ishi)

nebroadwe — Thu, 05 Jun 2014 00:52:28 GMT

I never got into the whole Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons crossover thing. I like all those canons individually, but mixed together ... eh.

And then I saw that Tobu Ishi, one of my all-time favorite FMA writers (and probably my first fandom writing crush; dear heaven, s/he can drabble), had a new story up: Victorious Children, which is a Rise of the Braved Tangled Dragons 'fic ...

... set in the Hunger Games universe.

And it works.

This has everything to do with Tobu Ishi's fantastic grasp of characterization and narrative voice and the kind of fanficcer's inventiveness that sees exactly how to take a set of characters out of their established plot and set them down in a new one that's just as entertaining. Did I say entertaining? How about gripping, amusing, startling and plangent by turns? Each chapter is a more or less self-contained vignette that together add up to one heck of a story.

And not enough people are reading it. So here's my recommendation: give it a shot. The odds are in your favor ...

Personal Note: Brrrrrr ...

nebroadwe — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 13:41:11 GMT

... it's cold.

The NOAA tells me it's 4F this morning. I wish I could run my heat normally, but I still have the downstairs smoking neighbor problem. So I'm warming the house up to Tropical Rainforest and then letting it cool to Arctic Tundra over the course of the day. Gah. I can't wait to get out of here.

I have managed over the past several months to get new floor and countertops laid down in my kitchen and am currently badgering Paint Contractor #3 for a written estimate so that I can get the room painted. Then I just have to clean the carpets and find a realtor. I've already boxed up all my paperbacks, but I fully expect to be asked to decrease the number of books/shelves for showing. I look forward to the expression I'll get when I explain that I've already taken down about half of them. :-)

Meanwhile, the job gave us a half-day yesterday during the snowstorm and told us all to stay home today, a bizarre mercy. I suspect alien involvement. Fortunately, I haven't packed the tinfoil hats yet ...

Fanfiction: At Odds With Morning (Transformers Prime)

nebroadwe — Sun, 22 Sep 2013 14:19:52 GMT

Title: At Odds With Morning
Fandom: Transformers Prime
Character(s): Ratchet, Optimus Prime, Raf, Miko, Jack, Agent Fowler
Pairing(s): None
Rating: G
Word Count: ~4200
Warnings: Spoilers for the end of season 3 (no spoilers for the series finale).
A/N: When I watched "Deadlock," it was immediately clear to me why Ratchet, of all the Autobots, would choose to stay behind; then I realized his motivations would unpack nicely into a short story. Despite the epigraphs from Paul Simon, this is not a songfic per se. Originally it was headed by a quotation from Epictetus, but then LadyM turned me on to the possibility of using pop lyrics by her adept employment of same in Life in Glass Houses. This is for Foxbear, who expressed an interest in it (and has written a much more cheerful why-Ratchet-stayed story, "Where I Am Needed"). Crossposted to transficsation. Concrit welcomed with bongos, brass and a bass guitar.

A man walks down the street.
He says, “Why am I soft in the middle now?
Why am I soft in the middle?
The rest of my life is so hard.
I need a photo opportunity.
I want a shot at redemption.
Don't want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard:

Bone-digger, bone-digger.
Dogs in the moonlight —
Far away, my well-lit door."

— Paul Simon, "You Can Call Me Al"

Optimus Prime's retreating form disappeared into the swirling green fire of the space bridge. The gate remained patent for a few moments afterward, marking his passage across the light years to Cybertron, then closed automatically. Decepticon engineering, Ratchet thought wryly. He would have to make do with less sophisticated devices for a while, but he was used to that. He also knew that it would be some time before the memory of his gilded cage on the Nemesis ceased to color his appreciation of Decepticon engineering. The Earth-based computers of hangar E, for all their faults, at least held no such unpleasant associations — and perhaps even a few fond memories.

Not that he intended to admit it.

He looked down at the five humans clustered at his pedes to see that they were looking up at him. The weight of melancholy in their combined gaze pressed too closely upon Ratchet's own sense of loss to be comfortable, so he turned away. "Well, back to work," he said. "Those new components won't integrate themselves into these systems on their own."

"I'll help!" said Raf. He dashed up the stairs to retrieve his laptop from the couch, stumbling a little as he did so. Nurse Darby pivoted to follow his progress and Ratchet saw her take the opportunity to wipe something from her eyes, her face hidden from all vantage points but his.

Then Miko drew everyone's attention with a stamp of her foot. "That's it?" she demanded. "'Back to work'? They all just left! For good!" Her voice wobbled as it rose and she whirled to confront Ratchet. "Don't you care? Aren't you gonna — "

"Miko!" thundered the adults, repressively but unhelpfully, as Miko simply waited for the storm to pass and used the time to draw breath to continue. At which point Jack, wiser than his elders, put in, "Well, I want to hear more about this consultant gig. Is there a salary involved, Agent Fowler, or is it an unpaid internship?"

The distaste with which he pronounced the word "unpaid" made his preference clear. "Well, now, uh — " Fowler temporized.

"Salary? Pfft!" exclaimed Miko, diverted. She grabbed Jack's elbow and yanked him right up into the agent's grille. "What about badges? Do we get our own badges? And training! Are we going to learn to fight like superninjas? When do we get to meet the rest of Unit E? How many — "

Ratchet tuned her out as he had long since learned to do and retreated to his workstation. Having fetched his laptop, Raf joined him on a nearby platform. They quickly fell into the rhythm they had developed over the past months, Ratchet handling the hardware interfaces while Raf debugged the software. The boy took to the spaghetti tangles of competing code like a Scraplet to living metal, but instead of destruction he left behind a trail of neatly commented fixes — occasionally tenuous, often overbuilt, but always workable. Ratchet sometimes found it difficult to believe Raf had yet to reach intellectual maturity and suspected that when he did, his would be a name for human computer scientists to conjure with, like that fellow Knuth he so admired.

But they would never know how valiantly he had defended his planet from those, human as well as alien, who had sought to conquer it.

That ignorance was a true pity, though neither Raf nor his friends seemed to mind. The achievement (or, in Miko's case, the adventure) was reward enough for them. Whether their species could continue in such blissful oblivion, however, Ratchet took leave to doubt. The days of robots-in-disguise must eventually come to an end; the only question was, when?

Not yet, he thought. And the secret would at least be easier to keep while he was Cybertron's sole representative on Earth.

Miko's voice rose again. "You can't just lock it up! I need to practice with it!"

"Miko, the Apex Armor is a Cybertronian cultural artifact," Agent Fowler replied severely. "It's not your personal bot-suit, you got that?"

"Besides," added Jack, "there's nobody on Earth big enough for you to spar with."

The conversation stalled, as did the steady rhythm of Raf's typing. "Ratchet's big enough," said Miko after an awkward pause, deliberately aiming the remark in his direction.

"I am a doctor, not a martial arts instructor," Ratchet shot back.

"Aww," grumbled Miko. Raf, catching Ratchet's optic, grinned crookedly. The Autobot shook his helm and sent the boy an updated file of specifications, turning a deaf audial to any further byplay.

Nurse Darby interrupted them some time later to insist that Raf have his dinner, but after ingesting several slices of pizza with the others the boy returned to work rather than join them in a video game. Ratchet approved his industry on principle, though Raf's tight posture and exacting focus did not escape him. But the task required his input and there was no better solace for a troubled mind than an absorbing project. For the same reason Ratchet ignored the exaggerated shouts of victory and groans of defeat from Miko and Jack, Agent Fowler's shuffling of electronic files from database to database, and Nurse Darby's patrol of the platforms, peering over each of her fellow humans' shoulders in turn to see what they were doing and inquire if they needed anything: a drink, a break, a helping hand. It was, however, something of a relief when Jack ceded her his controller to show her how to play a virtual sports tournament at which she proved remarkably adept. Even Agent Fowler was drawn in after a while to make good his boast of winning Unit E's rotisserie league three years running, whatever that meant.

But when Ratchet offered Raf a respite in which to join the insistently merry gathering, he refused. "I want to get this done," he said, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Besides, it's — " He broke off, shrugging, but when Ratchet arched a brow plate at him, he continued in a low tone, "It's not the same."

Of course, thought Ratchet, remembering how many times Raf and Bumblebee had monopolized the console with their racing games. He nodded, passing Raf the next set of executables, and the boy set his jaw and ducked his head over his flying fingers.

All too soon Nurse Darby began to make noises about bedtime, she and her son combining to drag Miko away from the couch ("Aw, c'mon! Just one more inning? I want to see Wilson take on Pujols!") and push her out the door. Agent Fowler came over to tap Raf on the shoulder. "Time to close up shop for the night," he said. "I'll drive you home."

Raf yawned. "Just a sec," he said, bringing his efforts to a suitable pause and saving the results. "Okay. Here's the metadata for that third group, Ratchet. I'll finish the rest tomorrow."

Ratchet flagged the files as they appeared in his downlink. "Thank you, Rafael. Good work."

The boy brightened at the praise. "You're welcome. 'Night, Ratchet. See you in the morning."

"Good night," Ratchet replied absently, already occupied with an analysis of Raf's work. Most of the third group looked as though it would integrate nicely, despite the distinctively Terran flavor of the boy's implementation of Cybertronian code. At this rate, however, he'd be programming like a native in a few cycles, at which point Ratchet fully intended to introduce him to medical applications. It had been too long since he'd had an apprentice in his own discipline; his spark yearned for the opportunity to pass on the knowledge he'd acquired, even to a human.

Not "even," his self-censor corrected.

No, of course not, he agreed, his primary processor accepting the edit once more. Not now.

Not after ... everything.

Raf stowed his laptop in his backpack and shrugged his arms into the straps. "Ratchet?" he said, and there was something in his voice, an infrasonic quaver, that made the Autobot pause and give the boy his full attention.

"Yes?"

Raf scuffed a foot against the platform, his sneaker tracing a circle on the floor. "Will you be all right here?" he asked, his gaze fleeting over the faction symbol on Ratchet's chestplate before meeting his optics. "Alone?"

Ratchet smiled reassuringly. "Of course," he replied, and when Raf did not answer, added with a sweeping gesture that took in the entire hangar, "Peace and quiet: just what the doctor ordered."

That brought a brief upward quirk to Raf's lips; he nodded. "Right. Okay."

But still he hesitated, until Fowler laid a gentle but firm hand on his shoulder. "Come on, son. You remember how the doc likes his alone time." His words held their usual jocular bite, but his eyes were knowing — too knowing, and again Ratchet turned away.

"Good night, Agent Fowler," he said dismissively.

"Don't let the bedbugs bite," rejoined the agent as he steered Raf toward the doors.

Ratchet spared a few moments after they left to investigate that gnomic utterance, but failed to determine its relevance. Parasitic insects of the cimicid family were no threat to him, feeding as they did on blood, not energon. He dismissed it as yet another of the agent's peculiar idioms and set about calibrating the manual interface on the interstellar communications system Raf had named the ansible — a term from one of Earth's storytelling traditions, since they had no such devices themselves. A secure link was of paramount importance, not only to maintain contact with Cybertron, but also to serve as a broadcast hub for this arm of the galaxy. The sooner the Autobots could begin getting word out that the war was over, the better. Starscream and Shockwave were still at large, of course, but Ratchet strongly doubted they could hold their faction together once Megatron's fall and Cybertron's restoration became widely known. Infighting would tear the Decepticons apart within decacycles, if he was any judge. That augured ill for those who encountered them in the short term, but for the first time in eons Ratchet could see an end to conflict and that hope brightened his spark as almost nothing else could.

A new dawn. At times he'd not thought to live to see it, but now ...

He worked steadily, well into Earth's night, until a lag in his processor's response time reminded him of the need for recharge. Having shut off all but the security lights, he logged out of his terminal, then transformed and parked himself out of the way. Not that there was anyone to get in the way of anymore, but old habits died hard. Ratchet briefly scanned his spacious, if spartan, accommodations from wall to wall. But for the low hum of the electronics and a higher-pitched rustling among the rafters that he suspected came from one of the minuscule avians that infested the base, the hangar was silent. Peace at last. No more interruptions to his recharge cycle from someone rolling in hot and in need of a clamp or a weld or major surgery. No more idling through Smokescreen's attempts to step lightly or Bumblebee's to keep his voice down or Wheeljack's to — well, Wheeljack had never tried to moderate his tone or his tread, had he? And having him and Ultra Magnus in the same unit had been like working with antimatter in non-trivial quantities: one containment failure away from an explosion. Not to mention that neither Bulkhead's conciliatory interventions nor Arcee's trenchant advice had done much more than add to the cacophony ...

A chirp from the avian, unexpectedly loud in the hush, mocked him.

By the Allspark, I will miss them.

But he was needed here, as they were on Cybertron. He'd said as much to Optimus when the Prime had drawn him aside to discuss his resolution while the others were packing up. A resource-rich solar system like this one couldn't be thrust onto the galactic stage without considering the consequences. The Decepticons had sought only Earth's energon, but there were other space-faring species who would not limit their predations to the planet's physical assets. The prospect of humans under Quintessan or Vrobian domination was unthinkable, but their disunity and lack of technological sophistication left them vulnerable to just such atrocities. Until they were able to defend themselves, they would require backup.

"But there is no real need for one of us to continue here at this time," Optimus had pointed out. "With a long-range communications link established and the space bridge at our disposal, we will always be within call should humanity be threatened by a foe beyond its strength."

Ratchet had snorted. "And who here has the expertise to maintain that link? Or the experience to distinguish between a true threat and a mere misunderstanding?" He had shaken his helm. "No, Optimus. Someone must stay while Earth's guardians grow into their own powers." He had looked to the children then, clustered around one of the terminals with Bumblebee and Bulkhead, downloading an eclectic array of cultural data for inclusion in the Nemesis's library. Their laughter and the sound of Bumblebee's exasperated questions — "'As you wish,' 'Inconceivable' — why can't any of these humans say what they mean?" — had brought a faint smile to his own face. "I owe them that much."

"You, old friend?" Optimus asked. "Not we?"

Ratchet raised his shoulder guards in what he hoped came across as a casual shrug rather than a defensive hunch. "Who better? You cannot deny I have the skills required."

"No," Optimus answered slowly. "But those skills would also find good use on our home planet."

"I have done enough for Cybertron," Ratchet said quickly — too quickly.

Optimus regarded him for several nanocycles with unfathomable optics. "Ratchet," he said, just before the pause became unbearable, "I have seen how our long exile has told upon you — how greatly you have yearned for the opportunity to return home." He quelled Ratchet's interruption with a gesture. "Now Megatron is defeated and Cybertron restored by your very servos. You cannot wonder if I find your determination to remain on Earth ... uncharacteristic."

Ratchet flinched, as if the Prime had pressed a digit on an unhealed wound. "I — " he said and stopped, all the pragmatic justifications for his choice popping off the stack like so many null pointers, leaving only the unpalatable truth behind.

I betrayed you.

"Ratchet?"

"I betrayed you," he repeated aloud, but softly, for Optimus's audials alone. "I betrayed them. I cooperated with Megatron of my own free will, though I knew he would test the Omega Lock on Earth." He let out a harsh and mirthless sound. "He never denied it."

"You were a prisoner," Optimus replied, a terrible compassion in his voice.

"I could have refused!" Ratchet snarled.

His lapse of control drew Arcee's attention from the odds and ends she was sorting in a nearby storage locker. She turned puzzled optics on the tableau of the imperturbable Prime and his agitated CMO, but then Jack called to her and she let herself be distracted, joining the cheerful group at the monitor. "I should have refused," Ratchet added, more quietly but with no less vehemence, once he was certain she was occupied with a critique of the duel unfolding on the screen.

"Whatever duress the Decepticons brought to bear on you," Optimus began, still with that unendurable weight of sympathy, and Ratchet could not allow him to continue.

"It wasn't like that!" he insisted. "They threatened me, of course, and the children, and all of you, but — " He remembered it clearly, the whole twisted chain of persuasions that had reeled him in, the appeals to his longings as a scientist, a healer, an exile, and it disgusted him. "Megatron showed me it was possible," he said dully, "and I agreed to try."

He added nothing more, though the silence lengthened. It was for the Prime to pass judgment on him now, though Ratchet knew in his spark that he deserved the ostracism he had chosen. The renewed realization triggered an engram: the voice of a human orator declaring that he would live through all of his world's history if he could only see the hope born of events in his own troubled times. When he'd first heard it, the passion in the voice had piqued Ratchet's interest and he had asked Jack, studying the speech for his history class, what the man had meant by saying that he'd been to the mountaintop — had the address been delivered near such a venue? But Jack had explained that it was a reference to a religious legend, the tale of a prophet who had led his people through exile to the very threshold of homecoming, only to be deemed unworthy to complete the journey. Before he died, though, God took him up a mountain and showed him that they'd made it. An equivocal mercy, Ratchet had thought at the time, and filed the information along with the rest of the Terran trivia he could not help but accumulate. Now he recalled it with sympathy and a certain black envy toward those humans, the prophet and the orator, each struck down within sight of his goal. Ratchet was old, but he would live a long age yet far from the planet of his creation.

Air cycled through Optimus's vents, a sound very like a human sigh, and he frowned thoughtfully. "The fortunes of war take many strange turns," he said. "Had you not done all that you did, we would not now stand on the brink of a new age for both Cybertron and Earth." His frown lifted, though his aspect remained solemn. "I will not condemn you to exile, but if you would continue to serve our cause and aid our friends here, then I will name you Cybertron's ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Earth, with all the rights and duties appertaining to that post. Do you accept?"

Ratchet reached out to steady himself on the console, so staggered by Optimus's proposal that he ran a diagnostic on his gyros before replying. "You would — trust me that far?" he asked, for the appointment was no sinecure. Ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary was as much to say that he would be the Prime's voice on Earth, speaking with all the authority of the Matrix-bearer, his word as binding as Optimus's own. It was both a rare honor and a heavy burden — heavier than banishment, in which he might consider nothing but the promptings of his own guilt. "Even now, Optimus?"

"Indeed, Ratchet," Optimus had replied with one of his rare smiles. "I can think of no one more worthy of such a trust."

Thus commended, what could he do but accept? Optimus had lodged a declaration of his new status with Agent Fowler that same day, to take effect upon the Autobots' departure. The others had congratulated him with enthusiasm ("Way to go, Ratch!") or reserve ("My felicitations, Doctor.") or relief ("Better you than me, Doc." "For the last time, Wheeljack, my name is not Doc!") according to their natures. Now, he supposed, he was in fact Ambassador Ratchet, though the odds of receiving the deference due his office from his current companions were minimal. Familiarity, not formality, was the hallmark of human culture. He gave it less than a solar cycle before Miko started badgering him for a grant of Cybertronian citizenship. And it would be tempting indeed to accede to her request and send her off to Bulkhead as Cybertron's first human immigrant.

But no, Optimus would not approve.

And in all seriousness, Ratchet would have to tread most carefully in future, a titan on this world not only in size and technological advancement, but also in authority. Still, first things first. Hangar E needed to be set in order before he could begin to consult with Earth's leaders about a coordinated defense of their planet, much less their solar system. The children, too, would require his input in their training cycles — Raf, especially. But like a challenge to his mind, the opportunity for service was a solace to his spark.

That, and his old friend's trust. I will not fail you again, Optimus. I will guard them with my life.

At some point his musings idled into recharge, though he was startled back online not even a millicycle later by the agitated fluttering of the avian — Troglodytes aedon, he guessed, from what little he could see of it — back and forth across the hangar. It hovered by the milky, dawn-lit windows, occasionally clinging to their frames, emitting twitters of distress. Ratchet grumbled and synched up with the controls for the doors. When next the avian came to rest on a beam near the entrance, he released the locks and slid the left-hand panel back half a meter or so. The avian promptly decamped for the other end of the hangar, giving Ratchet a demonstration of the origin of the human insult bird-witted. He groaned, pulled around beneath the beast, and flashed his headlights upward. "Go on, you silly creature," he said, opening the door a bit wider. "There's the exit."

With a flurry of wingbeats the bird launched itself at the windows again, but at the last moment a breeze slipping through the entrance seemed to attract its attention. It dove, circling, and finally darted outside.

Thoroughly online now, Ratchet considered attempting further recharge, then decided against it. The base was beginning to stir, as those with early shifts woke and powered up their various indispensable electronic devices. The steadily increasing traffic through the local datanet was still far less than its daytime usual, however, so Ratchet decided to take the opportunity for a drive. Putting his engine in gear, he rolled out through the doors, making sure to shut and lock them behind him. He called up a map of the base and plotted a course past the residential sector toward the broad fields the soldiers used to practice the arts of war.

The sky overhead was half-covered by a blanket of grey cloud pushing in from the west, its edges outlined in pale rose by the first rays of the solar system's not-yet-visible primary. The landscape through which Ratchet drove was as different from Nevada's basin and range topography as day from night: a grassy plain rather than a rocky desert, the ground rising and falling in the gentlest of slopes rather than carved in broad gullies between upthrust piers of red stone. Organic life hid everywhere in the vegetation, most of it canny enough to shy away at his approach. He turned off the main road onto a narrower lane that led to a small elevation crowned with a stand of cottonwoods. Beneath their gnarled branches were set several weathered wooden picnic tables interspersed with brazier grills on cement posts. Ratchet's olfactory sensors caught faint traces of carbonized biomass on the morning breeze as he parked on the blacktop, noting in addition the fresh tread marks in the close-cropped grass of the hillside. This must have been where Agent Fowler and Nurse Darby had taken the children and their guardians for a farewell barbecue last night — the night before last, now — while he and Optimus and Ultra Magnus had installed the last and largest components to be added to hangar E from the Nemesis — no task to be executed with squishable organics underpede.

He hoped they had all enjoyed themselves.

Ratchet watched the eastern horizon brighten, idly calculating its distance from his current position given the effects of atmospheric refraction. An avian perched in a nearby tree began to vocalize — another T. aedon, perhaps even the same one, chirruping away in repetitive bursts. A steady uptick in human comms chatter answered it, distorted slightly by diurnal phase shifting. The sun rose slowly, a disk of liquid fire setting the cloud cover alight until the morning was well advanced and the ordinary greens and blues and browns of Earth reasserted themselves against the gaudy oranges and pinks and golds of daybreak.

A new dawn ... over Ratchet's new home.

Not that he intended to admit it.

A man walks down the street.
It’s a street in a strange world.
Maybe it’s the third world,
Maybe it’s his first time around.
He doesn’t speak the language.
He holds no currency.
He is a foreign man.
He is surrounded by the sound, the sound:
Cattle in the marketplace,
Scatterlings and orphanages.

He looks around, around —
He sees angels in the architecture,
Spinning in infinity.
He says “Amen!” and “Hallelujah!”

— Paul Simon, "You Can Call Me Al"

[Acknowledgments: Transformers Prime was created by Hasbro Studios. Copyright for this property is held by Hasbro.]

Fandom: There's a secret cabal ...

nebroadwe — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 12:32:55 GMT

... that seems to be passing around an advance copy of the DVD/Blu-Ray of the Transformers Prime series finale. It's the only way I can explain the sudden appearance of a complete and highly spoilerrific recap page on TVTropes.org and a number of fanfics based not on speculations about the finale, but what appears to be actual knowledge thereof. And, silly me, I managed to spoil myself slightly before backbuttoning madly away. On the other hand, I now have time to accustom myself to the idea that several of my desiderata for this story (a six-year timeskip, the [life event] of [character] and [character], and a glimpse into the future careers of [characters]) just aren't going to happen. Boo, hiss. I'm just going to have to write that one myself, I guess. I could have sworn that they were setting up those desiderata in the final episodes of season 3, but I guess not. Sigh.

Personal Note: I'm not complaining, I'm not complaining, I'm not complaining ...

nebroadwe — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 00:51:58 GMT

... okay, maybe just a little bit.

It's been a lovely summer, really. We had that awful week and a half of torrid weather back in July and then the dewpoint dove down and stayed down all through August. Which was good, because due to the smoking downstairs neighbor, I can't run my central a/c without tobaccoing up my house. Argh. But it's September, now. We were down into the 50s a few days last week. I thought it was safe to take the fans out of the windows.

It wasn't. And I suspect that doing so attracted the attention of Mother Nature, so I now I feel responsible for all the other people suffering through 85+ degree weather with a 70+ degree dewpoint. I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! The fans are staying in until the World Series is completed and summer is officially over, I promise!

Fanfiction: The Roughest Day (Transformers Prime)

nebroadwe — Sat, 07 Sep 2013 20:45:30 GMT

Title: The Roughest Day (Part 2/5)
Fandom: Transformers Prime
Character(s): Sierra, Smokescreen (this part; eventual Knock Out, Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Jack Darby)
Pairing(s): None
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~5030 (this part; 9480 overall)
Warnings: Canon-typical violence.
A/N: I meant to cover the entirety of the action in this chapter, but realized in the writing of it that I had more action than I'd thought. So the three chapters, prologue and epilogue of my original plan have become four chapters, a prologue and an epilogue. The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley, as the poet says. This chapter is for Ron, who introduced me to Blind Guardian ("This won't make your head explode!") and his sister Karissa, who giggled at the vain attempt to make Sierra feel better. Crossposted to transficsation. Concrit welcomed with a jack and some Fix-A-Flat. (Part 1 can be found here.)

The bus jounced over a seam in the tarmac, dislodging Sierra's left earbud and waking her from an uncomfortable doze. She hastily replaced the bud; though she'd turned her phone off hours ago, it remained her first line of defense against creepers and busybodies. Only the most obnoxious persisted when she pretended not to hear them and even they gave up when she responded with shouts of What? and complete misunderstandings. Sierra yawned behind her hand. She wished she could cue up one of her playlists, but then she'd also have to take notice of all the unanswered texts and voicemails her parents must have left over the past several hours. It wasn't much of a sop to her conscience, but at least she'd be able to say I didn't have my phone on when she finally called home from Grammy and Grampy's.

That had been her first change of plan. She'd shaken Vince off easily at the mall food court: I just need to wash up, she'd said, handing him her tray before strolling into the ladies' room by the nearer of its two entrances and out again by the other. Mr. Don't-Be-Long-Babe hadn't even been watching for her return, she'd noticed sardonically, his attention caught instead by the advertisements in the window of the GameStop across the way. Counting on them to keep him anchored at the table with her cooling burger and fries until she was long gone, Sierra had extracted as much money as she could from an ATM, bought some power bars and bottled water at CVS, and hurried over to the Greyhound kiosk. But there the words One way to Carson City, please, so carefully rehearsed, had stuck in her throat. It felt too much like taking sides — and what if her mom followed her out to Aunt Caro's and stayed? But Grammy and Grampy were her dad's parents; they'd retired to Orem, Utah, a few years ago and were always glad to see her when she visited. So she'd bought a ticket to the nearest stop, in Provo, and hoped that this time her grandparents would be, if not pleased, at least sympathetic enough to let her stay a while.

I can't go back. Not right away.

Sierra reached into the backpack slumped beside her, wincing as the movement revealed a kink in her neck, and rummaged until she found a power bar. She hadn't been able to maintain a personal space buffer on the crowded bus from Gillette, but fortunately her seatmate had been a middle-aged Native American woman who'd snored through most of the trip. Sierra gnawed on the chocolate-chip-laced granola with a grimace. At the time she'd been unable to appreciate her luck, but half an hour in the dingy Las Vegas Greyhound terminal had taught her to recall the woman's borderline sleep apnea with something like nostalgia. Traveling to Provo rather than Carson City meant that instead of a twenty-minute break between connections, she'd had over ninety to kill. And no matter where she'd gone in the waiting area, within minutes someone had sidled up to offer her their "help" — directions, a snack or drink, a room for the night — or simply the dubious pleasure of their company. Sierra had never felt like such a skeeve magnet. Her game face had been worn down to a fuck-off-and-die snarl by the time her departure had been called and she'd claimed a seat for her backpack without a care for anyone's convenience but her own.

Thank God the red-eye to Salt Lake City wasn't a popular route. There'd been plenty of empty places even after several families toting groggy children, a pair of dark-suited Mormon missionaries, some cowboy types in boots and well-worn hats, and a slightly louder and flashier version of the working-class crowd Sierra had ridden with from Gillette had boarded the bus. Against their T-shirts, jeans and tattoos, however, her skirt and sweater set and carefully retouched make-up stood out like a Barbie doll in a toy chest full of action figures. She'd made sure to sit across the aisle from the missionaries, but they, along with the chattiest of the boots- and jeans-wearers and all but one of the families, had disembarked at St. George about halfway through the trip. Everyone who remained, as well as the few passengers who'd boarded since, had either immersed themselves in their cell phones or reclined their seats and slept, and Sierra's own hyperalertness had given way at last to uneasy exhaustion.

She'd drowsed and wakened in spurts, face turned to the window. The night had been fine and clear, though there was little to see along the interstate but a last-quarter moon and the dim shapes of mountains, sometimes near, sometimes well distant, some as blunt-topped as Nevada buttes, others rearing up in jagged peaks beneath a spangling of stars. In the empty country between exits the lights of truck stops and small towns occasionally flashed past; across the median southbound traffic was sparse, mostly tractor-trailers. Sierra had counted them like sheep to keep regret at bay, bolstering her resolve between naps by replaying Mel's good-bye and her parents' argument before her mind's eye.

She crumpled the power bar's wrapper and stretched, yawning again. Her ears popped. The last time she'd noticed where they were it had still been deep night and the bus was passing someplace called Paragonah. Now the moon hung almost directly above in a sky more blue than black as dawn struggled to overtop the eastern face of the mountains closing in on either side of the highway. Sierra pushed back her jacket sleeve to look at her watch: two hours more to Provo. She drummed her fingers on the buckle of her seat belt. Most of her fellow passengers were still sleeping; maybe this would be a good time to use the restroom, if it wasn't too awful —

The bus swerved left, then right, sharply enough to snap Sierra's knotted neck muscles. She gasped, grabbing her nape with one hand and clinging to the armrest with the other as the driver laid on the horn. No one had time to let out more than a startled curse before the bus swerved again, swaying top-heavily. "What the hell, lady?" someone behind Sierra demanded, but without answering the driver gunned the engine and swung left onto the median as if she intended to make a U-turn into the southbound lanes. Sierra's backpack tumbled to the floor and her shoulder slammed with bruising force against the window. Everyone seemed to be shouting as the bus tipped drunkenly back and forth. The horn blared incessantly, the air brakes barked and the bus abruptly heeled over past the point of no return. Shrieking, Sierra grabbed the headrest of the seat in front of her. With a concussive crump the bus rolled onto its side and skidded briefly across the grass in a strident tenor screech of chafing metal and breaking glass.

The subsequent stillness held neither quiet nor relief. Someone was groaning and someone else was swearing and a lot of people seemed to be crying and beneath all the noise rang a faint baying or cawing, like an echo of the bus's horn blasts in Sierra's numb ears. She realized then that she was the one groaning and tried to stop, but could only reduce the sound to a whimper.

Ow. Ow, ow, ow ...

Pain lanced down her neck as she turned her head, receding to a dull throb when she hastily checked the movement. Her arms and torso griped at the awkward posture into which she'd been forced, hanging sideways from her seat belt in mid-air, fingers still clamped around the headrest, hip grinding into an armrest. She tried to undo the belt's catch one-handed, but her trapezius muscles screamed at the strain and she fumbled her grip. Her second attempt was no more successful; a third left her gasping in agony.

What's wrong with me?

Fear whipsawed through her brain. Oh, God, what if I can't get out? What if I hurt myself worse trying? Her breath came faster and faster; darkness seethed at the edges of her field of vision. And then the window above her was thrown open and the cool air of a spring dawn broke over her face like water. Sierra carefully turned her head and drank it in. "Help," she croaked. Clearing her throat, she tried again. "Help!"

The weird cawing noise sounded louder now, more recognizably bird-like and most definitely coming from outside the bus. Before Sierra could make sense of it, however, a man with a narrow face and a receding hairline poked his head through the window. "You hurt?" he asked.

"Stuck," Sierra answered breathlessly. "My seat belt's stuck."

"Hang on, mija." Bending down, the man studied her predicament for a moment, then stretched an arm past her. His elbow bumped her chest; she stiffened, but his fingers latched onto the buckle and released it. "There," he grunted as he withdrew.

Sierra wriggled off the armrest and dropped, still clutching the seat in front of her, until her feet found purchase on the bench across the aisle. "Thank you," she said, looking up at her rescuer. "Gracias."

The man grinned and offered her a hand up. Sierra pried the lower armrest of the bench on which she'd been trapped down to make a ladder and stepped onto it, bringing her chin level with the window. She was about to take the helping hand when something impossibly large swept down out of the sky and snatched it away, then landed with a heavy rattle and crunch on the far end of the bus. Instinctively ducking, she caught a glimpse of wide, oddly glittering wings and a pair of glowing golden eyes on either side of a long, cruel, slightly curved beak that shook her rescuer as an egret might its prey, then tossed his limp body aside.

The next thing Sierra knew she was crawling with desperate haste across seat backs toward the rear of the bus, breathing in keening gasps that almost, almost drowned out the hideous squawks of the monster outside. Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod! She clambered past and over several unmoving bodies before a vestigial sense of responsibility brought her up short. They needed help — first aid. She could help. She ought to be helping, but she couldn't think what to do. Daddy, what am I supposed to do? Curling into a ball, she rocked in place. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" she whispered into her knees.

The bus shook with a new impact. Sierra spun in place and saw a huge clawed foot rip a window out, frame and all. Screaming, she scrambled away as another monster-bird's beak reached into the bus to pluck at a bench. On her left a dim patch of light gleamed among the shadows; she veered toward it and realized that the brightness came from an open emergency exit in what had been the ceiling. She dove through headfirst, nearly landing on a woman who crouched, sobbing, in the shadow of the bus, a wailing child clasped to her breast. "Move!" Sierra shouted at them, but the woman simply stared at her.

Something drew Sierra's attention skyward. A baker's dozen of the monster-birds circled the fading moon, cackling loudly at one another like a murder of crows with bullhorns. The one roosting at the head of the bus shrilled up at them; in answer two more broke from the flock to dive toward the highway. Sierra threw her hands over her head and bolted for the verge. As her feet pounded across the tarmac she heard the stentorian blast of an air horn — a green and white semi had barreled around the curve a quarter mile away and was headed straight for her. She kept going, too short of breath to wail; the tractor-trailer dodged into the passing lane and the wind of its wake struck her body like a blow.

Sierra stumbled off the tarmac and limped away down the verge, gradually gathering speed again despite the twists of cramp in her calves and hamstrings. Behind her the truck's horn sounded once more, met by a scream of challenge from the monsters. The semi's brakes groaned in agony. A rending crash, a fwoomp! of ignition — Sierra put her head down and forced her protesting body into a sprint, putting the curve and a man-high fold of worn rock between her and the mechanical carnage littering the interstate.

She didn't dare think of the people caught up in it.

Ahead the highway ran straight almost to the horizon before it bent out of sight behind a fir-dotted slope. On Sierra's left the verge dropped away into a deep but narrow ditch backed by a blue-green thicket of juniper bushes. Sierra hesitated momentarily as she wondered whether she should take to the brush and hide, but then what? She'd left her backpack behind on the bus; her jacket pockets were empty, both phone and wallet lost who knew where. All she had left was the fifty-dollar bill she'd tucked down her sock in Las Vegas and what good was that out here in the middle of nowhere? Oh God, oh God, help me. The clamor of the monster birds rose to a new crescendo, resounding off the dark heights, and panic drove Sierra's legs like pistons against the uneven ground, on and on and on until she tripped on a stone hidden in a tangle of weeds and sprawled prone against the chilly earth.

For a minute or two all she could do was lie there, winded and knocked half-silly by the impact. Then her ears caught the whirr of an oncoming engine and she pushed herself vertical, sniveling at the new sting of scrapes on her palms and knees. Snot clogged her nose; she swiped her sleeve across it and sniffled loudly as she wobbled to her feet. Come on, slacker! she told herself in Coach Jo's voice. Move it!

The whirr deepened into a high-performance thrum as the car drove into view. Squinting in the half-light, Sierra made out a low-slung profile framing the approaching headlights. Why couldn't you have been a pickup truck? she thought as she limped onto the shoulder and began waving. What she wanted — what she needed right now was somebody's mom or dad, practical and dependable, not the kind of person who careered up the I-15 in an electric blue ... Lotus coupe? Please, please, please have more sense than money. "Help!" she shouted. "Stop! Stop!"

The sports car slowed, then pulled to a halt beside her, cutting in so close that she rocked back on her heels and nearly fell again. "Hey, what's the trouble?" called the driver without bothering to roll down his window.

Sierra fought down a surge of anger at his behavior. "Please," she said, leaning with both hands on the glass, "please, you have to call 911!"

"Huh?" The driver seemed taken aback at her vehemence; the engine revved briefly, as if his foot had slipped on the gas pedal. "What happened? Were you in an accident?"

"Yes — no! The bus crashed, but — " Belatedly Sierra recognized the implausibility of her tale. Who would ever believe that gigantic birds were dive-bombing traffic in the mountains south of Provo? "I — I think it was attacked," she hedged.

"Attacked?" The driver's voice sharpened. "Who by?"

Sierra wished she could see him, but the windows were tinted and the windshield was dark with shadows behind the glare of the headlights. "I can't — you wouldn't — " She gulped back a sob, unshed tears burning at the corners of her eyes. "Please, please, just call 911! There's people hurt and, and in trouble — and a semi, too, and — "

"Okay, take it easy," replied the driver kindly — so kindly that Sierra was visited by the counterproductive urge to scream I am NOT hysterical! right into his unseen face. Her hands clenched into fists. "Stay here," her interlocutor continued, oblivious to the effect of his tone. "I'll check it out."

"No! You can't!" Sierra's gut torqued with renewed fear and her head pounded as she fought for control of the emotional Tilt-a-Whirl her brain was riding. "It's too dangerous!" The car began to draw away and she hammered on the window, frantic to keep yet another would-be rescuer ( ... a shake and a snap, arms and legs flopping like a rag doll's ... ) out of reach of the monsters ( ... bright eyes, gleaming wings, sharp beak stabbing down ... ) "Please, you have to listen to me!" she screamed, jogging alongside the car as it picked up speed, snatching at a door handle that slipped through her bloodied fingertips.

"Stay here!" repeated the driver, his voice carrying easily over the burr of his engine as he upshifted. "And get under cover!" His tires keened, finding their grip on the road, and the car was gone, without even the odor of exhaust left behind to mark its passage.

Sierra stumbled to a stop on the lane marker. "Go on!" she yelled after him. "Go! Die already! See if I c-care — " She choked on a sob and bent over, hands braced on her thighs, caught between tears and nausea. The heaves won; she dropped to her knees and brought up a gritty, acrid mess of half-digested granola to decorate the pavement. Go! Just go! She spat feebly to clear her mouth and her stomach lurched again, fouling her throat with acid. Coughing and wheezing, Sierra staggered upright, wiped her face on her jacket and took a few uneven steps southward. Someone else had to be coming — someone she could rely on —

Three booms pealed behind her in quick succession, too sharp for thunder, followed by a muffled burst of furious squawking. Sierra spun around, anxiously scanning the skies. Her heart raced as she realized how exposed she was. Why hadn't she taken the driver's advice and gotten out of sight? She scrambled down into the ditch as another series of booms rang out. Dead grass prickled against the exposed skin of her neck and knees as she pressed her body into the grade and peered cautiously over its lip.

The blue Lotus tore around the corner on the southbound side of the highway, weaving back and forth across the tarmac in a demented slalom explained by the pair of monster birds that arrowed after it. The long light of dawn tinted their glossy pinions blood-red, as if they were fledged with metal rather than feathers. Sierra's fingers dug convulsively through the dry grass stems into the hard-packed dirt beneath as she shrank away from the chase. In flight the creatures were even more terrifying than they had been perched within arm's reach, beaks cutting through the air like javelins, wings thrusting them forward with powerful strokes, their speed a promise that escape was hopeless.

What their presence didn't explain was the music.

She heard the machine-gun thud of the bass line first and thought that her ears were playing tricks on her. But then the unmistakable twang of a guitar joined the mix, strident and impulsive, followed by muffled voices belting out a rowdy melody: hard rock or metal, like the stuff that leaked from her brother's earphones while he was gaming. Sierra huffed out a disbelieving almost-laugh. He needs a soundtrack?

Then the birds stooped, spiraling around each other in a deadly dive. A shriek leaped into Sierra's throat and she bit down on one sleeve to contain it. The Lotus swerved into the median and the music rose to a fierce crescendo in which for the first time Sierra could discern words.

" — WHEN SORROW SANG SOFTLY AND SWEET — "

Incredibly, the birds sheered off, screeching their frustration, their momentum carrying them past the Lotus and over a fold in the mountainside. The driver pivoted his vehicle into a donut, dust flying up from his wheels, and accelerated back into the northbound lane. Screeching to a stop just past Sierra's hiding place, the driver popped the Lotus's passenger door open. "Get in!" he urged over the cacophony blaring from his speakers. "Quick!"

Sierra hesitated only long enough to catch sigh of the birds rising up over the ridge line again. She scrabbled out of the ditch and flung herself into the car, its door slamming behind her as a pair of straps belted her in automatically. Beneath the throbbing pulse of bass and drums the engine rumbled aggressively as the car sped off up the highway. Wriggling her rumpled skirt back into place around her thighs, she turned to face her rescuer —

— and saw no one.

The driver's seat was empty.

Sierra was hardly aware that she was screaming until the music cut off; she was too busy tearing at the seat belts, throwing her whole weight against their inflexible webbing. "Whoa, whoa! Take it easy!" said the voice she had thought was the driver's. "You'll hurt yourself!"

"Let me out!" Sierra shouted. She yanked on the door latch, but it refused to yield to her grip any more than the seat belts had. "Let me out!"

"No can do," replied the voice. "You've seen what's out there, right?" The car swerved again, tossing Sierra from side to side in her restraints. She wheezed helplessly. "Sorry about that!" said the voice, itself sounding a little breathless.

"What — where are you?" Sierra gasped, clinging to the door handle for stability now. "Are you driving this car by remote control?"

"Uh —" The voice hesitated. "Would it make you feel better if I said yes?"

"You — you jerk!" Sierra pounded left-handed on the dashboard, refusing to be impressed by its complex array of gauges and buttons or the high-def screen currently displaying a jagged, oscillating pattern like an EKG on fast-forward or a very busy seismogram. "This isn't funny!"

"Yow! I'll say!" retorted the voice. Sierra raised her fist again and he hastily added, "What's your name? Mine's Smokescreen."

"Sierra," Sierra answered automatically. Wait, what? "'Smokescreen'?" she repeated. "Is that some kind of dorky gamertag? Who are you, really?"

"Hey, that's not nice!" the voice exclaimed. The stylized lion's face in the center of the steering wheel blinked blue in time with his words, Sierra noticed. It wasn't a logo she knew, neither the triangular Lotus monogram nor anything else she had ever seen at a race or a car show. "I don't make fun of your designa — whoa!"

Something zipped past Sierra's window; she flinched away instinctively as the car jinked. The steering wheel spun and centripetal force squeezed Sierra against the restraints across her chest and hips as they careened through a tight U-turn. "Sorry!" shouted the voice over a squeal of tires. Then he gunned it, pitching Sierra back into her seat and giving her a perfect view of the monster bird flying straight toward the windshield.

Sierra screamed again, but the sound was immediately overwhelmed by another salvo of heavy metal. "THE AIR WAS FILLED WITH TEARS, FULL OF SADNESS AND GRIEF, WHEN SORROW SANG SOFTLY AND SWEET!" wailed the chorus, so vociferously that her ears actually vibrated with pain. She shoved her fingers into them, trying to duck away from the din, and closed her eyes. "Make it stop!" she yelled, but could scarcely hear herself through the racket that seemed to strike her ribcage like rabbit punches. "Make it stop!"

It stopped, and when she dared to open her eyes, the bird was gone. "Sorry," the voice said again, sounding rather strained, though Sierra's ears were ringing so badly it was difficult to tell. "I don't understand how Bulkhead can listen to that stuff. My audials may never recover."

"What's going on?" Sierra asked weakly. "What are those things?"

"Predacons," said the voice — Smokescreen — with the same inflection tough guys in action movies used to say, Trouble. "Raf — uh, someone told me your Greek mythology calls this subspecies Stymphalian birds."

The window containing the fractal seismogram minimized, retreating to the upper left corner of the screen, and was replaced by a photograph of an orange and black pottery bowl decorated with a hunting scene. A large, dark-skinned figure in a complicated outfit was aiming a slingshot at a flock of not particularly massive or threatening birds that occupied most of the design. "A human hero named Heracles was sent to deal with an infestation of them in a forest near Lake Stymphalis in Arcadia," Smokescreen went on, suddenly more museum docent than action hero. "He's supposed to have driven them out with a bronze rattle he received from the gods." He paused thoughtfully. "Makes you wonder ... but, anyway, I figured they might be vulnerable to sonics and it looks like I'm right." His passing smugness dissipated in a sigh. "What I wouldn't give for that resonance blaster right about now ..."

Sierra stared at the screen, letting the half of his words which made no sense wash past her. Giant mythological monster birds? Really? How was she supposed to believe that?

You did see them.

All right, but she'd also just been in an accident. A bad one. Maybe she'd been knocked unconscious and was having the mother of all nightmares. Maybe the accident was even part of the nightmare. Sierra surreptitiously pinched her forearm and winced. As if all the scrapes and bruises and muscle aches she could feel weren't witness enough to the fact that she was awake. She shook her head — carefully, so as not to disturb the migraine lurking behind her eyes. "Look," she said, "can't we just call the National Guard or someone for help and get out of here?" Reaching forward, she tapped the Bluetooth emblem at the head of an otherwise unfamiliar list of symbols hovering in the right margin of the display. Instead of a dial tone, however, all she got was the restoration of the seismogram's window to its former position on the screen.

"Unfortunately, no — my comms are jammed but good," replied Smokescreen glumly. "I can't punch through the interference. Believe me, I've been trying." The waveform's jagged peaks contracted into a series of fuzzy beads, then expanded back to their previous height. "Somebody really doesn't want news of what's going on here to get out."

Sierra frowned. So the pattern was showing that they had no bars? Something about that didn't quite make sense, but she couldn't figure out what. "Okay," she said. "Then let's — I don't know — drive back down into the valley until you've got a clear signal and call from there?"

"And leave all those other humans to the Predacons?"

Smokescreen sounded horrified and for the first time since the bus had crashed, Sierra felt something other than fear or anger: shame. But what else can I do? she thought defensively. I'm not an action hero — for God's sake, I was running away from home because I couldn't hack it there anymore! Home, where all she'd had to worry about was the cheer squad falling apart and her best friend moving away and her parents maybe splitting up — trivial troubles compared to the situation she'd landed herself in trying to escape them. Irony was a bitch. "Then what do you suggest?" Sierra asked waspishly as the car swung through yet another U-turn, this one at least somewhat less acute than the doughnuts Smokescreen seemed so fond of. "We can't keep running in circles!"

As if in answer Smokescreen stomped hard on the gas and a brassy double cry shrilled out behind them. Sierra's heart stuttered in her chest. She craned her neck in a vain attempt to catch a glimpse of their pursuers in the side mirror, not daring to swivel around for a look behind. "I was trying to draw them all off, but they only sent those two scouts after me," Smokescreen said as the car shot toward the bend in the highway, behind which a plume of dark smoke stained the brightening sky. "I guess I'll just have to annoy them some more."

There was a note in his voice that reminded Sierra of Danny in prankster mode, a sort of sly glee. It should have exasperated her, but instead her mouth quirked into a half-smile. "I'm sure it's what you're best at," she said.

"Hey!" objected Smokescreen, sounding exactly like Danny, and Sierra's lips relaxed into the smile a little further.

They raced around the curve, back onto the scene of the disaster. The tractor-trailer lay overturned, blocking both northbound lanes, and its cab was burning lustily. Amusement fled, Sierra swallowed hard to dislodge the lump calcifying in her throat. Several more birds had come to roost on the bus and were yanking its frame apart, like turkey vultures tearing at the flesh of a dead deer. Others were attempting to do the same to the toppled trailer, their talons puncturing its sides and ripping great gouges in its panels. The remainder circled lazily above, bodies washed in the same rosy glow as the mountain peaks and the wisps of cloud around the moon.

But their heads all turned toward the oncoming car at a warning shriek from its chasers, eyes luminous with more than reflected sunlight.

A chill knifed through Sierra's belly at the sight of those eyes and her teeth chattered until she clamped her jaws tight. She remembered everything that had happened since she first saw them too clearly for it to have been a dream: the friendly hand wrenched away from hers, the arms and legs tumbled slack and still among the seats in the dark — oh, God, that lady clinging to her baby beside the emergency exit. Were they still waiting for rescue? Were their cries loud enough to keep the monsters off? Or had they been snapped up and shaken until they broke, too? Unconsciously Sierra leaned forward, bracing herself against the dash.

"Here we go!" said Smokescreen. "Hang on!"

To be continued ...

[Acknowledgments: Transformers Prime was created by Hasbro Studios. Copyright for this property is held by Hasbro.]

Fanfiction: The Roughest Day (Transformers Prime)

nebroadwe — Fri, 23 Aug 2013 16:13:08 GMT

Title: The Roughest Day (Part 1/4)
Fandom: Transformers Prime
Character(s): Sierra (this part; eventual Smokescreen, Knock Out, Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Jack Darby)
Pairing(s): None
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~4450
Warnings: Canon-typical violence.
A/N: This story was inspired by two dangling plot participles from season two of Transformers Prime: Sierra's reintroduction in the opener and the evacuation of Jasper in the finale. It was first conceived after the season 3 episode "Project Predacon" but before the full scope of that arc became clear. Though now completely AU, it remains, I hope, a plausible and enjoyable might-have-been. Crossposted to transficsation. Concrit welcomed with a ticket to ride.

She bears down on the strut with all her weight and will, but it's not enough. The boulder under which it's jammed merely teeters back and forth, taunting her with its stability. She lets up, gasping, then throws herself against the lever once more. Her hands smart where the fluorescent blue liquid oozing from its torn end has soaked through the jacket she wrapped around it and her ears ring with the din of battle rising out of the gorge below: reports as loud as cannon fire and the crash of metal into metal like a fifteen — no, five hundred car pile-up on the highway.

She's running out of time to make this work.

Panic chews at her nerves. Damn it, she has a fulcrum and a place to stand and it's not the world she needs to move, just this one huge, heavy, dirty, stupid rock! She heaves at it again, teeth gritted together, breath whistling in her nose, and feels the strut bow slightly under the strain.

The boulder has to move. It has to.

Because if it doesn't, she's dead.

Come what, come may,
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
— William Shakespeare, Macbeth

"Road Runner! The coyote's after you! Road Runner! If he catches you, you're through!"

Sierra dropped into a straddle split and threw her hands above her head, lips curving in a bright smile even as dread crept up her spine. That was so off. To her right Melody was rock-solid in her own final pose, as always, but at her left Emma had finished half a beat behind the music, a guaranteed deduction. And that wasn't the only mistake — the whole routine had been riddled with small errors: balance checks, form breaks ... Coach is going to skin us alive.

Ms. Johannsen eyeballed the formation for a harrowing sliver of eternity, then blew her whistle. Sierra pulled her legs around to sit Indian-style as everyone else relaxed, stretching or bouncing in place or, in Manuela's case, dropping to the ground from Tyler's hold while he grumbled about her weight. Sierra reached back and poked his shin with a fingernail; Tyler yelped. "Shut it," she muttered out of the side of her mouth. "God, you're such a baby."

"Listen up, people," Ms. Johannsen said, her voice firmly suppressing any further byplay. "Good enthusiasm, good energy, but your synch needs serious improvement. Most of you are still thinking about what you're doing. I want everyone to have that choreography burned into their nerve endings by next week so you can stop thinking and start moving." She checked her watch. "Okay, that's a wrap. Cool-down stretches; then everybody hit the showers."

That's it? Sierra almost missed her cue, but Melody offered her a hand up and she took it, hiding her confusion. Thank you, Mel. "All right, everyone," she said. "Roadrunners on three!"

The cheer squad gathered about her, palm after palm slapping down on her extended fist. She grinned around the circle and if the expression was toothier than usual, they knew the reason why. Or should. "One, two, three — "

"Roadrunners!" they shouted with impressive volume — more impressive than their dance skills, certainly. Except for me and Mel and Manuela and Ashley. The circle broke up into chattering groups, Sierra settling in beside Melody slightly apart from the others. Her left hamstring twinged a petulant complaint and she grimaced. Took that last split down a bit fast, she thought as she carefully flexed the muscle. Gotta work on my control.

"Dodged a bullet there, huh?" Melody asked quietly.

"Nothing like last year," Sierra replied, finally putting her finger on what had bothered her. Last year Coach Jo would have been kicking ass and taking names over the squad's clumsiness, not commending its enthusiasm. You get no points for participation, people — only for excellence! Last year the Memorial High Roadrunners had missed the cut for nationals by a whisker and spent the rest of the winter ruthlessly re-drilling the basics. Up until three months ago Sierra had been coming home from every practice with her body wrung out like a washcloth but her mind brimming with the knowledge that this time, this year, they had a real shot at making it, maybe even placing in the top ten.

But that was before they'd lost Rita and Carlos and Reyna and Deanna.

Oh, and Memorial High, as well as the rest of Jasper, Nevada.

Before a meteor shower turned us all into refugees.

But it didn't pay to think about things you couldn't help, like space rocks raining down on your hometown and pounding everything into radioactive rubble. You had to focus on what you could do, not what you couldn't, like the Red Cross counselors said. I can't rebuild our house, but I can rebuild the cheer squad. So she would, even if it meant playing drill sergeant while Ms. Johannsen looked the other way.

"Coach doesn't want to scare off the newbies, I guess," said Melody.

Sierra shrugged and switched her attention to her quads. Her dad said that there were two kinds of people in every disaster: the ones who ran screaming for the nearest exit and the ones who kept their heads and tried to hold things together. Sierra had to admit that Coach Jo, like most of the teachers at Memorial High, fell into the second group. School had been one of the first things emergency management had gotten up and running after the evacuation: the National Guard had trucked in a set of converted shipping containers to use as classrooms and even laid down Astroturf and Tartan track under a big inflatable dome for phys ed. But not everyone who'd stayed was equally good at keeping their cool. "Some of them could use a good scare," Sierra said. "If Tyler doesn't let up on Manuela ... "

"He'll get over it," said Melody, adding with a giggle, "He just needs to put some muscle on those chick-chick-chicken wings of his."

"I am not losing anyone else decent off this team!" That came out harsher than she'd intended and Melody flinched. "Sorry," Sierra said immediately. God knew it was absolutely unfair to take her irritation out on her best friend since fifth grade, the one friend of all her friends who'd never, ever, ever let her down. "I hear Tyler's dad went to the NVMA job fair," she went on, "so maybe the problem will just ... go away."

Melody nodded and ducked her head between her extended arms as she rounded her back. Sierra bit her lip. I said sorry! Okay, so neither of them was a miner's kid, waiting to see whether Erdcom would get permission to reopen operations now that the dust had settled or whether they'd have to move somewhere else, like Carlos and Reyna's family had. Melody's dad was teaching third grade in one of the more colorful shipping containers and her mom was a software development consultant who worked from home — they were doing fine right here. And her own dad, a lawyer, had almost more business than he could handle helping people get their lives sorted out. We're lucky, so we have to take the lead in keeping things normal for everyone else. She glanced over at the pair of PortaKleen trailers on the far side of the field. "You want the long shower?" she offered.

Melody straightened. "No, thanks," she said, smiling, and Sierra let out a covert sigh of relief. "I need to talk to Coach Jo for a minute."

"Sure," answered Sierra. She exchanged high-fives with Melody, then grabbed her gym bag and jogged over to the girls' trailer.

Rank, Sierra's dad also liked to say, had its responsibilities as well as its privileges. These days Sierra cheerfully shouldered her every responsibility as squad captain in return for the privilege of a decent shower. The PortaKleen's stalls, though small, were queen-sized compared to the toothpaste tube in the trailer her family currently called home. The hot water taps actually ran hot and the boiler was large enough to ensure that no one, not even the poor nerds pushed to the end of the line after gym class, had to freeze. Best of all, she could take her time: nobody hounded a captain out of her stall to make room for the plebes rushing through their ablutions to catch the late bus. Sierra tilted her head back, eyes closed, and let the spray play over her face. Bliss. She shut the water off while she soaped up, but rinsed herself and her long auburn hair extra-thoroughly afterward. Thank you, God.

Melody was already drying her own blonde bob in front of the mirror when Sierra pushed the curtain of the stall's dressing area aside. They did their make-up together, checking each other's work as always. Sierra dimpled experimentally at her slightly underlit reflection, then added a touch more blush to her cheeks. "Like so?" she asked.

"Mm-hmm," approved Melody, adding with a wicked smirk, "The face that launched a thousand street races."

Sierra rolled her eyes. "Make that Memorial High's quest for the state championship."

"Uh-huh," said Melody, an uncharacteristically cynical lilt to her voice. "That's ... going to take more than a good game face." She avoided Sierra's gaze in the mirror as the other girl tried to catch her eye.

Sierra sighed. She couldn't really disagree. But you had to believe in the dream first or you'd never get anywhere. And it helped immensely to look the part you were playing. A game face involved more than powder and glitter; it had to project warmth to spectators and confidence to competitors, support for teammates and poise for judges, all while appearing natural, cheerful and, oh yes, cute. Sierra had spent the past six years perfecting hers — not just the full-on competition version, either, but a set of lower power variants for use on teachers, classmates, salesclerks, security guards ... pretty much everyone, actually, except her family and Mel. Unless, that is, she was wheedling permission for a late night out from her parents or making excuses for missing curfew, which was a lot harder than inspiring her squad or impressing a finicky judge or keeping desperate wannabes in their place.

Melody linked arms with her as they crossed the parking lot to the bus stop, gym bags swinging heavily from their shoulders. The graveled space was largely empty except for the line of late buses and a few cars, most belonging to teachers but several to students. Coach Jo waved at them from her convertible before peeling out in a scatter of pebbles and red dust that earned her the derisive laughter of the too-cool-for-school crowd lounging across the way. Sierra primmed her mouth. "Hardly the behavior we expect of a role model!" she exclaimed in a nasal, grandmotherly voice.

Melody snorted, then elbowed her in the ribs. "Heads up — incoming."

A flame-detailed black coupe purred up beside them and Mr. Too-Cool-For-School himself, Vince, leaned out the driver's side window, red hair artfully mussed, teeth gleaming in a broad smile. "Ladies," he said expansively, keeping pace with them as they walked. "Going my way?"

Obviously, Sierra thought as Melody giggled. What a lame pick-up line. "Sorry," she said without meaning it. "We're catching the bus today."

Vince cast a contemptuous eye at the buses. "You? The shining stars of the cheer squad? Please." He hit the brakes and Melody stopped, too, leaving Sierra no choice but to listen to the rest of his invitation. "Only losers take the bus. You two are winners."

Melody preened, flipping her hair back, but looked to Sierra for her cue. Thank God. She pinned Vince with a competition-grade smile and answered, "Oh, thanks, Vince, but I don't think there's room for both of us and all our stuff in the back seat." She patted her gym bag ingenuously.

Vince's smugness decreased by at least half as he spotted the trap. It was one thing for two girls to sort themselves into front seat and back seat, but another thing entirely for them to make him pick one to take the place beside him. Gotcha! Sierra thought and pulled Melody toward the buses. "C'mon, Mel, we don't want to be late."

Vince, thankfully, didn't follow, but called after them, "Any time you want to ride like a champ, Sierra, you know who to buzz." He smirked. "You have my number."

Do I ever, thought Sierra, skin crawling. And your cell, too. She'd scored it back when she'd thought street racing was the coolest thing in the history of ever, before the crowd had gotten too rough and her parents had tightened her curfew — and, sadly, before she'd recognized Vince, the self-styled king of the pavement, for the swaggering ass he was. She offered him a Queen Elizabeth wave and strode off, her exit only slightly hampered by Melody's foot-dragging. "See you later!" her friend shouted over her shoulder.

"Mel!" Sierra exclaimed once they were safely out of earshot. "Really?"

"What?" Melody took in Sierra's disgusted expression and huffed. "Oh, come on, Sierra. Vince isn't that bad." She grinned mischievously. "And you always said he had a sweet set of wheels."

"There's more to life than wheels," Sierra replied loftily. "He's a goon."

Melody shrugged. "All boys are goons. Oh, excuse me — all except for Jack Da — "

"Mel," Sierra said again, this time putting a warning into her tone.

"Oops, my bad," Melody mock-apologized, her own voice gone merrily malicious. "Obviously a sensitive topic."

Sierra stuck her nose in the air, refusing to be drawn further. So she'd ridden with Jack Darby once and let him copy her chemistry homework a few times. He'd seemed nice. And interested. But he'd never followed up, never come to parties or asked her out, and after seeing his motorcyclist "friend" she could guess why. That had been that, even before the meteor strike. And afterwards he was just gone, like so many others — Sierra had heard that his mom, the nurse, was helping the military with disaster relief or something. Nice work if you can get it, I guess.

She and Melody mounted the steps into the bus and took a seat two-thirds of the way back, dumping their bags and backpacks onto the bench across the aisle. The diesel ground into motion with a lurch; Melody pushed the window shut to keep the dust out of their faces. "Sierra," she said. "I need to tell you something."

"What?"

"I — " Melody's knees bumped Sierra's as she wriggled sideways to face her. "We're leaving. Moving. My mom — one of her clients offered her a job."

Sierra's breath caught. "Wow, that's — " She couldn't think of an adjective. "Which client?"

"ThoughtWorks. In Chicago."

Plenty of people had wasted time panicking when the Humvees rolled through Jasper broadcasting the evacuation order. But Sierra's dad had simply tossed everyone's go-bags into the trunk while her mom tricked the cat into his carrier and Sierra and her brother Danny grabbed the stuffed animals and video games and snacks they absolutely couldn't live without. Their car had practically led the exodus to the tent city the National Guard had conjured out of nowhere behind the mall in Gillette. It had been an adventure, like pioneering but with electricity, right up until the moment they'd learned that Jasper was gone. Gone. Sierra remembered how the word had seemed to echo inside her head. Going, going ... "Chicago?" she heard herself say. "When?"

"Next month." Melody took her hands, squeezing hard; Sierra managed not to wince. "My dad will stay here to finish out the school year, but my mom's taking the rest of us with her. We're going to live someplace called Tinley Park; she says it's real cute and friendly."

Sierra freed her right arm from Melody's grip and wrapped it around her friend's waist. "Well, at least that gives us time to plan you a proper good-bye party," she said.

"Sierra — " Melody's voice wobbled.

"I mean it!" Sierra insisted. "We had one for Rita and she only moved to Gillette." She hugged Melody gently as the other girl sniffled. "We can't just let you ... disappear off to Chicago."

Leaning into the hug, Melody blinked back tears. "We'll Skype," she promised. "And you can come and visit. I've seen pictures of our new condo — it's got a pool and everything."

"Sure," Sierra answered. The word lacked conviction; she sat up straight, pulling Melody with her, and placed both hands on her friend's shoulders. "Just one thing, Melody Harper," she went on, staring her straight in the eye. "If you join another cheer squad, don't think I won't be out to kick your sorry butt at Nationals."

Melody hiccuped out a chuckle. "Bitch," she said, resting her forehead against Sierra's.

"That's Captain Bitch," Sierra corrected. "And don't you forget it."

"Never," Melody whispered.

They sat close together, saying nothing, until the bus pulled up to a tall, black-bordered white sign marked "A." Sierra hugged Melody once more before disembarking and stood beside the signpost until the bus, and with it her best friend's wildly waving hand, turned a corner out of sight.

Going, going, gone.

Sierra settled her backpack on her shoulders, picked up her gym bag, and turned for home. After a week or so in the tents, everyone who couldn't or wouldn't leave had been moved into trailers on government land about twenty minutes' drive west of Gillette. By now small personal touches distinguished most of them: a string of white or colored lights framing the front door, a wind chime made from orange juice can lids hanging from a window, a tiny garden in which four o'clocks and scarlet columbine bloomed. Some doubled as quasi-legal storefronts, like the Ramirezes' agua fresca stand or the Kowalski brothers' home repair service. But more than a few simply sat empty, gathering dust and, lately, graffiti. Someone had spray-painted AREA 51 and THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE in bright red letters on the one at the end of Sierra's block. Her mom had complained to the mayor's office about it, but so far nothing had been done.

Wow, what a surprise.

Sierra trudged cross-lots to shorten the walk, ignoring the tinny belling of the Smiths' chihuahua as she trespassed by his window. She'd ask Manuela to help her and her mom plan the party — that is, if her mom could get past the fact that it was yet another farewell bash. Everyone's going to leave eventually, she'd said last time, her voice tired and sharp. Won't you get partied out? But she'd come around after Sierra had pleaded a captain's responsibility to her squad and with her help the team had thrown as classy a send-off for Deanna as they had for Carlos and Reyna and Rita. Besides, this is Mel, Sierra thought. We've known each other forever. Mom likes her. She's practically family.

She made for the trailer's back door, keeping to the path her dad had laid out between the carefully-tended beds of grass seed he was trying to cultivate into a lawn. From the kitchen window, open to the warm spring air, seeped the garlic- and basil-tinted fragrance of pasta sauce and the less appetizing sound of raised voices. Sierra paused. Things had been a little tense at home lately and she wasn't quite sure why. Her mom and dad almost never argued in front of her or Danny, but they'd been shorter with each other than usual. Creeping under the window to listen, Sierra heard her dad say, "We'd be giving up everything we built here."

"News flash, honey," her mom replied with a breathy chuckle. "Most of it's already gone — the house, your job — "

"I still have work," her dad interrupted.

Her mom chuckled again; this time the sound had no humor in it at all. "Eighty percent pro bono."

In the momentary silence that followed her dad didn't dispute it. Sierra frowned. She'd heard at school that he was taking people's cases for free and she'd been proud of him, but she hadn't thought he'd lost so many paying clients. "People need help," her dad said. "And I'm developing some influential contacts at the state level — "

"Contacts don't buy food," her mom said, "or pay for health insurance or put gas in the car. We're burning through our savings. We need to salvage what we can and get out, before we really have lost everything."

A breeze, too light to raise any dust, disturbed Sierra's hair. Lose everything? What does that mean? She dashed the straying strands from her face and pressed her shoulder against the trailer's siding. "Not yet," her dad replied calmly. "It's only been three months. We agreed we were good for at least six."

"And then what?" asked her mom.

"We'll see where things stand," said her dad, even more calmly. Sierra knew that tone well: it was the I am rational; your argument is invalid voice he used to shut down debates over everything from bedtimes to politics. "Erdcom has an enormous financial stake in seeing the mines reopened if they can do so at all safely. They've been lobbying the BMRR to get inspectors on site as soon as possible. There's an excellent chance operations will resume by the end of the year — "

" — and Erdcom will surprise us all with a company town for Christmas?" her mom broke in with withering sarcasm. There was another uncomfortable hitch in the conversation before she sighed and went on, "Caro called this morning."

"Did she."

"She wanted me to know that she and Lou would still be happy to have us."

"Too kind."

"Damn you, Pat!" her mom exploded and Sierra jerked away from the trailer wall. "She's my sister! She cares and she's worried about us, as well she should be!" Her shoes creaked across the kitchen floor, toward the window, and when she spoke again, it was in the cold, level timbre with which she counted to three before handing out a punishment. "You don't have to come if you're too busy. Sierra, Danny and I can make the trip just fine on our own."

"Helen, you're not —" Her dad's voice cut off and his shocked pause slowly lengthened into an oppressive hush.

Sierra's own breath caught hard, as if she'd taken a trust fall and someone had missed their hold. Her thoughts tumbled over each other: were they really leaving? would her dad stay behind? would anybody ask her or Danny what they wanted? what would she say if they did? what about the team? would things just keep falling apart until there really was nothing left? Her knees folded and she collapsed into a crouch, one hand clamped over her mouth to prevent the sick feeling in her stomach from escaping. What's going to happen? Are my parents splitting up?

"No, we won't go," said her mother, each word as heavy and slow as a semi climbing a steep grade. "Not yet. —Don't touch me."

Her father's footsteps retreated. Sierra heard the clank of a spoon against the side of the sauce pot and a small sound, a harsh exhalation that might have been a laugh or a sob. She hugged her shins, then deliberately focused on her own breathing in one of Coach Jo's relaxation exercises. In through the nose — one, two, three, four — and hold for four — and out through the mouth for eight. Again. After the three cycles the tension dropped away, as it always did, but she kept going until her head felt light and she tottered a little in place. Okay. Okay.

Rising carefully to her feet, she picked up her gym bag. Her mom was setting the table now; Sierra could hear the rattle of cutlery being removed from its drawer. The front door slammed distantly as Danny stomped in with his usual greeting of Hey, what's for dinner? — perfect cover for her own entrance. Sierra cracked her neck and straightened her back, pulling her mouth into a smile as she reached for the doorknob —

— and froze as she realized what she was doing.

She was putting on her game face.

She'd been putting on her game face to go home.

Gym bag banging against her thighs, Sierra whirled and ran back down the path and through the neighbors' yards until she reached the AREA 51 trailer. Beyond lay nothing but rocks and sagebrush all the way to the eastern horizon, where low hills thrust up brown and green to meet the cloud-streaked sky. Sierra sank down in the trailer's shadow, her gut churning not with nausea now, but with anger — at Mel for leaving, at her dad for staying, at her mom for threatening him, at everyone for making her go to school and practice and parties as if nothing were wrong. I hate this! I hate it, I hate it, I hate it! She was tired of holding everything together with a smile and a can-do attitude. She was sick of pretending to be fine. Her hands were shaking; she clasped them together and pressed her thumbs against the bridge of her nose. I can't fake it anymore. I can't ...

The breeze, growing stronger as the sun sank, hissed in the sagebrush; as if in answer, Sierra's phone buzzed. She fumbled it out of her jacket pocket to see a text message from Danny: Dinnertime mom says where r u?

She hesitated, then replied, Gone to mall. Back late. She'd catch hell from her mom for skipping supper without warning and from her dad for lying about where she was, if he ever found out. But she couldn't go home right now. Maybe she could spend the evening at Ashley's ... or maybe ...

Maybe she could just leave, too.

Sierra's skin flushed hot, then chilled into gooseflesh as the idea seized possession of her brain. What if she took Aunt Caro up on her offer? She had toiletries and a change of clothes in her gym bag and Greyhound had a stop and a ticket office at the mall. Could she still catch a bus out of Gillette tonight? She pulled up the Greyhound website on her phone. Aha! 7:05 p.m. to Las Vegas, yes! And she could make the last departure from there to Carson City, where Aunt Caro and Uncle Lou lived, easily. The trick would be getting to Gillette. Sierra checked her watch. If she left now, she'd have just enough time to buy her ticket and snatch a bite to eat, but she'd need a ride to the mall from someone she could trust ... or someone she could ditch.

Heart beating faster, Sierra grinned and pulled up her contacts list, scrolling down until she found Vince's number. Hey champ, she texted him. Engine still warm?

To be continued ...

[Acknowledgments: Transformers Prime was created by Hasbro Studios. Copyright for this property is held by Hasbro.]

Personal Note: I will have my vengeance!

nebroadwe — Fri, 16 Aug 2013 22:30:45 GMT

I emerged from another writing fit this evening to notice that:

a) the ants are back; and

b) they brought a friend, probably named Mickey.

Whence follows the ritual scrubbing of the countertops, the liberal application of Ant-B-Gone, and the baiting of the mousetrap with peanut butter.

Ye gods, I hope those were just really large, really odd looking ant corpses and not mouse turds, but I have very little hope.

Fanfiction: The Test (Transformers Prime)

nebroadwe — Sat, 10 Aug 2013 16:54:25 GMT

Title: The Test (Part 2/2)
Fandom: Transformers Prime
Character(s): Bumblebee, Optimus Prime; mentions of Ratchet and Megatron
Pairing(s): None
Rating: PG-13 (this part; R overall)
Word Count: ~2700 (this part; ~8150 overall)
Warnings: Aftermath of torture (no sexual content), psychological distress.
A/N: I have freely interpreted various (and occasionally conflicting) moments of backstory revealed in the Transformers Prime cartoon to create this piece; I have also borrowed details from other continuities (Aligned and G1) to flesh it out. The result is, perhaps, an unholy hybrid, consonant with no canon, but it is the story I wished to tell. In addition, everything I know about writing Optimus Prime I learned from Foxbear and Alathea2, but any failure of characterization should be ascribed solely to my inability to emulate their example. Crossposted to transficsation. Concrit welcomed with a coupon for one free therapy session. Part one may be found here.

It is the generous Spirit ...
Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,
And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!
Turns his necessity to glorious gain.
— William Wordsworth, "Character of the Happy Warrior"
Optimus Prime strode quietly through the hospital's corridors. Those who did not know him well were always surprised to discover that a mech of his size could move so unobtrusively. Most assumed it was the product of a warrior's training in stealth; few recognized in his light step and contained presence a habit of courtesy ingrained by long service in the Iacon Hall of Records, where the concentration of a scholar or a fellow archivist was not lightly interrupted.

He had come in response to a summons from one of those few. Bumblebee has begun asking when he can return to active duty; for Primus's sake, get out here and talk some sense into him! Ratchet was always masterful on his own ground, but Optimus, listening to what his old friend had not said, had heard a plea rather than a directive. The medic no longer cursed the inadequacy of the field treatment that had saved the young scout's life at the expense of his voice box — at least, not within range of Optimus's audio receptors. Nevertheless, he had ceded his interest in the matter of Bumblebee's reassignment all too readily. I trust that you will take my staff's medical recommendations under advisement, he had snapped, and that had been the extent of his resistance. In this case, Optimus knew, Ratchet would accept his Prime's judgment not because the chain of command required it, but because he did not wholly trust his own.

Even had Ratchet not sought his intervention, however, Optimus still would have interested himself in this mech. Bumblebee had suffered grievously in service to their common cause and the Prime permitted that cause no faceless sacrifices. Not that he had gone unhonored — far from it. So many good bots had been lost at Tyger Pax that it barely felt like a victory; Bumblebee, in his steadfast endurance and miraculous survival, had become for many the image of that victory. His superior officers had vied for the prerogative of signing his formal commendation until Optimus had put his own name to it. Though the scout had been designated missing before the assault began, his capture and interrogation occupied almost as many kilobytes in his unit's after-action report as their own maneuvers. His initial debriefing by Autobot intelligence had been submitted to Optimus with a personal annotation from Jazz: He didn't cave. Not even to Megatron himself. When he's fit for duty again, I want this one.

For a few steps Optimus's pedes seemed to strike the floor more heavily. His subordinates, like all of Cybertron, were eager for heroes — or, rather, for the hope that heroism unfurled in its wake like the shimmering tail of a comet. But the burden of upholding that hope was heavy, too heavy to lay upon the shoulders of one who might no longer have the strength to bear it. Physically, Bumblebee was recovering, but Ratchet had been reluctant to pronounce on the state of his patient's mind. That ... sparkless monster ... left him with no somatic means of regulating his nociceptors while he was being tortured. I have no idea how his processor handled all the exceptions without crashing harder than it did. The medic's engine had snarled with the rage he had kept from his voice. He claims to have access to few clear engrams of the experience, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. The growl had abated then, as Ratchet spread his servos in an unconscious gesture of helplessness. It's too soon for a processor specialist to go poking around in his drives, not while he's still integrating his new linguistic protocols. He had met Optimus's optics with a kind of desperate defiance. He needs more time.

He has not asked for time, Optimus had observed.

At that Ratchet had thumped his console with a closed fist. He doesn't know what he needs!

As long as he does not endanger himself or others by them, we must respect his choices, Optimus had replied.

Ratchet had lowered his helm, accepting the rebuke. It will be a mercy if he remembers no more than he says he does, Optimus, he had said softly, a greater mercy than we are allowed.

With that assessment Optimus could only agree. Megatron had taken care to deny his enemies the facile comfort of ignorance. In the wake of their defeat at Tyger Pax the Decepticons had circulated a number of propaganda holos designed to rally their loyalists and cow the faint of spark. A recording of Bumblebee's ordeal had been among the most widely distributed; its footage was practically unedited, Optimus's COMINT staff had informed him, leaving nothing of the scout's mutilation nor the viciousness of his tormentor to the imagination. The holo concluded with a harangue delivered by the Decepticons' leader over the ravaged frame of his victim: There will be no mercy for the weak, no rescue for the doomed! Though they come against us with tenfold might, we will shatter their hollow shells and quench their feeble sparks! Only the strong are fit to rule and we — are — strong!

Tumultuous applause answered this peroration, rivaling the acclaim showered upon the gladiator Megatronus at the height of his renown. The spectators' approval had appalled Optimus nearly as much as the torture itself and put him uncomfortably in mind of another speech he had once thought himself privileged to hear. Rise, brother, the charismatic mech had said, offering a servo to the prone and worsted Soundwave rather than the killing stroke the arena had demanded. Is life not sweeter than death even here? Has not our contest proved our strength? Have they not seen that we are mechs? And then, standing shoulder to shoulder with his erstwhile opponent, he had turned to the fickle crowd, their catcalls transformed into cheers, and aimed his blade at the world beyond the walls of the pit. Let them hear it in the streets of Kaon, in the gardens of Praxus — let them hear it in the high halls of Iacon and tremble: we are not drones, but mechs! And we live, and we are strong!

Optimus closed the file with a shake of his helm. Like the Prime, the Lord of the Decepticons too had left his origins far behind, but was marked by them still.

Arriving at Bumblebee's quarters, Optimus paused outside their open door. The yellow and black mech was seated on the edge of his berth, his attention wholly absorbed by the datapad he held. He hummed and whistled quietly in what Optimus recognized as a signal-processing exercise using the nonverbal code best suited to his new voice box. His posture was hunched, but otherwise he seemed relaxed, secure enough in his surroundings to ignore them as he practiced: a dedicated student. Visited with nostalgia at this familiar image, Optimus extended his EM field to brush against Bumblebee's, a gentler method of announcing his presence than speech or a ping. Nonetheless, the other started violently, his own field flaring, and fumbled the pad, though he did not drop it. :Sir!: he exclaimed, leaping to attention and attempting to hide the strain it put on the welds, still perceptibly raw and gray, that crisscrossed his frame.

"Be at ease, Bumblebee," Optimus said. The young mech immediately adopted an only marginally less formal stance, shoulders rigid and servos clasped behind his back. Allowing his own bearing to relax as he entered the room, the Prime gestured for Bumblebee to resume his seat, which he did with ill-concealed discomfort, backstrut tense. Optimus smiled kindly at him and was pleased to see his physical stiffness ebb. "You are recuperating; we need not stand on ceremony."

:Thank you, sir,: Bumblebee replied, a platitude contradicted by the agitation of his field, roiling with embarrassment. :It's — it's an honor to meet you.:

Optimus acknowledged the compliment but refrained from returning it, which would merely have disconcerted Bumblebee further. "Ratchet tells me that you are diligent in your recovery," he said, somewhat mendaciously. What Ratchet had actually said was, He'd overwork himself right back into stasis if he weren't stopped occasionally. I've threatened to magnetize him to his berth twice. Next time, I swear, I'll actually do it and see if that makes him take my orders seriously — but the Prime felt no need to share the medic's vow with Bumblebee. Doubtless he had already heard it, perhaps in so many words.

:Yes, sir!: This time field and utterance were in synch, suffused with the same eagerness. :I hope — I hope to return to duty soon.:

"As a scout?" Optimus asked.

:Yes, sir!: Bumblebee's plating vibrated in his enthusiasm; then he caught hold of himself and added, with a diffidence that did nothing to camouflage his determination, :When — when I'm well enough for it.:

Optimus regarded him gravely. "Why?" he asked.

Bumblebee flinched at the question. Static erupted from his vocalizer as he attempted to speak, the slight stutter which had characterized his communications degenerating into empty noise. His doorwings flicked back and forth in a conspicuous sign of chagrin and his digits closed around the datapad with sufficient force to elicit a blat from it, too. :I. Must,: he said at last, enunciating each concept distinctly, his field all but radiating into the visible spectrum with the intensity of his resolve.

But if will were all, no bot would ever fail.

Optimus considered Bumblebee's insistence in light of Ratchet's plea for delay. Having by now seen much of war, he knew that often the best medicine against its horrors was to rejoin one's comrades in the field — often, but not always. Some bots faced fire again and again, emerging ever stronger for the tempering. Others, their sparks no less worthy, broke when put too many times to the proof. Bumblebee's mettle had been tested almost to destruction on the anvil of his duty; Optimus would not return him to the forge to see him shatter under the strain. "Your aptitudes fit you for many functions," he noted, calling the mech's training and service record from the hospital datanet to confirm his recollection. "Spotter, courier, SAR — "

:I am a scout.: The words rang clear, their pride unmistakable, if corroded with bravado around the edges. Though his helm was high, Bumblebee did not quite meet the Prime's gaze — whether from respect or evasiveness, Optimus could not have said.

"You have been a scout," he corrected him gently. "Why do you wish to continue in that role?"

:I must!: But these words pronounced, Bumblebee's voice box emitted another flurry of white noise. As if in mimicry his field buzzed with electrostatic charge, earthing itself in diminutive pops against the berth and the Prime's own. Bumblebee turned his face aside, but not before Optimus saw his features distorted with shame.

The Prime frowned inwardly. He would not have sought this interview had he supposed the injured mech incapable of expressing himself. Ratchet had assured him that although Bumblebee had yet to fully master his new speech protocols, he was equal to the task of articulating his thoughts. He relies on nonvocal cues to fill in the gaps more than I'd like, but he gets his point across. This sudden aphasia was manifestly as unpleasant a surprise for him as it was for his auditor. It distressed Optimus to observe Bumblebee's frustration, but his spark warned him to silence. He had come to listen as well as to counsel and to judge — indeed, he could do neither properly without listening. So he forbore to comfort or to press for clarification, suffering patiently the erratic discharges upon his person as Bumblebee struggled to recover his equilibrium.

Encountering only conductance, Bumblebee's field gradually stabilized. His servos fidgeted with the datapad; then he clicked and beeped a brief series of test patterns, clearing his voice box's overtaxed buffers, assaying his control. Without looking at the Prime, he began to speak again, his delivery quick and clipped. :I fought as a scout,: he said. :I want — I want to keep fighting. That way.: His optics racked focus, fixing on a point in the middle distance. :Against Megatron. He — he must be stopped.: He broke off and Optimus's sensors caught the susurrus of fan blades accelerating to cool a stressed system. :What he did to me was — was — was —: Bumblebee lost the tenuous thread of his discourse, but cut his vocalizer before it could transmit any more random signals, holding up a minutely trembling servo to indicate that he had not finished.

Optimus waited, outwardly composed, though the intimation of a personal challenge in Bumblebee's words troubled him. He discouraged those under his command from construing any foe as a nemesis. Hatred enslaved the spark and vendettas were a distraction his frequently outnumbered forces could ill afford. But who could deny that many Autobots drove into battle consumed with the desire for revenge on those who had injured them or their loved ones — or that for some acutely wounded few, that desire alone kept them from succumbing to the terrors that haunted them?

Not he. Though Optimus would do all in his power to prevent Bumblebee from taking that dark path, in the end the mech was free to choose his own way — as he must be, or else the autonomy in whose name they fought was mere posturing and the war but a struggle for dominance.

A contest to prove their strength.

Past pain as evident in his face as in the scars from his ordeal, Bumblebee lowered his arm. :It was a show,: he said, his voice low but steady. :He gave them a show. They cheered and — and he wanted them to cheer.: His digits flexed, clasping and unclasping the datapad as he chose his next words. :He makes them believe that's what power is for, but it isn't.: He raised his optics to the Prime's and they held both certainty and appeal. :You know.:

The statement worked on Optimus's processor like an override, calling a protected memory from deep storage. These are the duties of a Prime, Alpha Trion had said long ago, when the knowledge was of purely academic interest to the apprentice at his pedes. To preserve, to protect, to defend, to serve. No more and nothing less.

He had never forgotten that lesson — one which Megatron had never grasped.

:Sir?: Bumblebee asked hesitantly.

Optimus inclined his helm to the scout as he would have to the Master Archivist, extending his field to encompass the other's as he did so. "Yes," he said, spark and mind resonating together so that the very aether hummed with the depth of his assent.

The datapad clattered unheeded to the floor from Bumblebee's slackened grip. He made no audible reply, but his gaze, locked on the Prime's, was filled with awe, his entire frame broadcasting his relief at being so readily understood. And like the strut within the mesh, beneath his ardor to re-enter the fray Optimus now perceived a conviction as incorruptible as titanium, a faith to withstand the forge. Indeed, Jazz, the Prime thought as he withdrew, you shall have this one, for we need his like most desperately. "Then," he said aloud, "when you are fit to take up a scout's post again, one will await you."

Bumblebee rapidly shuttered his optics. :I — it will?: he blurted, then clamped his servos onto the berth as if to brace himself to meet this turn of fortune. :I mean — thank you! Thank you, sir!: He beamed at Optimus and the Prime hid an answering smile.

"No need," he replied. "The duty is earned."

Bumblebee nodded, taking his remark as both caution and encouragement, as intended. :Then I won't fail,: he said. He rose to his pedes, coming to attention once more, but with a confidence to his posture that suited him better than punctilio. :What I swore to do, I will do — till all are one.:

"Till all are one," Optimus Prime echoed.

And never did that distant cycle seem closer than when he stood with those who discerned both its promise and its price.

[Acknowledgments: Transformers Prime was created by Hasbro Studios. Copyright for this property is held by Hasbro.]

Random: Today is a good day

nebroadwe — Wed, 07 Aug 2013 18:52:51 GMT

Today turns out to be filled with all kinds of fannish good things, including the new Thor trailer (which I saw tagged on Tumblr with "HIT HIM AGAIN JANE"), John Scalzi laying the smackdown on self-appointed geek gatekeepers, this meme, and pictures of Tom Hiddleston sitting down with the Cookie Monster. It just doesn't get any better than this, people. It just doesn't.

(Also, free-range capybaras, to which I sadly cannot link. kanja177, are you responsible?)

Fanfiction: The Test (Transformers Prime)

nebroadwe — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 12:28:08 GMT

Title: The Test (Part 1/2)
Fandom: Transformers Prime
Character(s): Bumblebee, Megatron
Pairing(s): None
Rating: R (for violence)
Word Count: ~5450
Warnings: Graphic depiction of violence: hostile interrogation, physical torture (no sexual content), psychological distress.
A/N: I have freely interpreted various (and occasionally conflicting) moments of backstory revealed in the Transformers Prime cartoon to create this piece; I have also borrowed details from other continuities (Aligned and G1) to flesh it out. The result is, perhaps, an unholy hybrid, consonant with no canon, but it is the story I wished to tell. Crossposted to transficsation. Concrit welcomed with an escape tunnel.

Tis, finally, the Man ...
Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth
For ever, and to noble deeds give birth,
Or he must fall, to sleep without his fame,
And leave a dead unprofitable name —
Finds comfort in himself and in his cause.
— William Wordsworth, "Character of the Happy Warrior"
The whine of a blaster charging up beside his left proximal audio receptor and the words Don't move, slagger! weren't the subtlest of signs that Bumblebee's mission had gone to Pit, but they did clarify that it was taking the express chute.

In hindsight, he probably should have retreated the third time he'd had to deviate from his planned route short of his goal because of unexpected Decepticon activity, but the possibility of such activity was exactly why his CO had assigned a scout to this sector rather than a surveillance drone. A drone could only do what it was told; a scout was capable of using his own judgment. Bumblebee was accustomed by now to treating his missions' parameters, if not their objectives, with a certain latitude. A scout's core function was simple: go over there and find out what's going on. Mid-assignment changes in the definition of over there and what's going on or even from find out to shut down didn't bother Bumblebee the way they did some of his tidier-minded colleagues. That said, the rapid shifts from go and find out to avoid and evade to prepare to resist interrogation were enough to give even him a twitch in the processor.

Seeing the extent to which the Decepticons had dug in around Tyger Pax as he passed through their lines didn't fill him with hope for the success of the offensive to which he was supposed to be contributing vital intelligence, either. Not that Bumblebee knew anything about an offensive, officially, but between the trend of his most recent assignments and the gradual massing of mechs and materiel in this quadrant, it was a safe bet that a big push was coming. Add to that a private stash of high-grade, a tactician he'd known in OCS coming off a grueling double shift, and his own facility for putting 1 and 1 together to make 10, and Bumblebee had a pretty good idea of what was in the wind — a multi-pronged assault on Tyger Pax — and when it was coming down — soon.

Which, given his current predicament, posed a serious problem. If he weren't careful, it wouldn't be just his own aft greased up for a slide down that Pit-bound chute, but a whole lot of other bots', too.

"Any chance of a wash and wax before you ship me off to wherever you're warehousing Autobot prisoners now?" Bumblebee inquired of his captors, a pair of grim troopers with, he had already determined, no desire to converse with him. But since they were the only entertainment a dingy, gray storeroom in an abandoned building given over to the Decepticon security forces had to offer, he kept plugging away. "You have to have something set up; you wouldn't be able to keep all this cruft — " he stirred the dust on the floor with one pede — "off those shiny faceplates otherwise."

"Clamp it, Autobot," growled one guard, while the other hefted his weapon in the universal sign for shut up or I'll shoot.

Bumblebee grinned, hiding his growing unease. The shock cuffs around his wrists were making them itch; plus, he'd been idling his engines here long enough to wonder what in Primus's name the hold-up was. Had he accidentally dropped something during intake to put the 'Cons on alert? He racked his cache yet again and came up empty. All he'd offered his questioners were the usual transparent lies (I got separated from my unit; the slaggers ditched me on purpose — how did I know they were still carrying a grudge for that prank with the grenade and the waste-disposal unit?), useless half-truths (all right, so they sent me here to find out what you guys are up to, but in that case it's not like I can tell you anything you don't already know, huh? I mean, unless your higher-ups are even more narrow-band than ours ...) and insults. He'd collected a few dents in his plating in return, but nothing his auto-repair systems couldn't handle. They'd barely made a stab at hacking him, just knocked on his firewalls a few times and given up. Maybe that's what it was. It was hard not to look like you had something to hide while running high assurance security protocols. Or maybe they've just forgotten about me.

The blocky, red-brown officer who'd previously grilled him ducked back through the door, followed by a tall, slender, gray and blue mech whose armor bore the insignia of Decepticon intelligence. "He's all yours, Wringer," said the security bot, with a wave in Bumblebee's direction.

Nope. Doesn't look like they forgot.

The guards' engines ticked over a little faster, evidently anticipating a good show. Expressionless, Wringer stared down at Bumblebee in a manner intended to intimidate him. Bumblebee obliged by shrinking in on himself, his optics flickering to the other mech's face and then away, the very picture of a cocky young bot who'd just realized he was out of his depth. For once the apparent immaturity of his frame might be an advantage; he'd forgive his seniors back at base every single mocking pat on the helm if he made it through this session with his processor intact. Bring it on, 'Con.

"Now, then, Autobot," said Wringer, and Bumblebee stifled a flicker of amusement at the mech's hyper-cultured accent, like a pontificating holo-villain's. "We can do this the hard way — " his left armguard slid back and an interrogator's cable uncoiled, its business end hovering in the air between them — "or the terminal way." His right arm produced a well-honed blade. "Your choice."

Exactly like a holo, Bumblebee decided. Were there no depths of cliché to which the 'Cons wouldn't sink? "Can we not do it at all?" he asked plaintively. "At least, not until I've had a chance to recharge? My shift started way too early."

The cable reared up and struck, clamping onto the side of his helm and attempting to synch with his comms. Well, at least Wringer hadn't started by opening him up with the blade in search of a data port. Which means I still have that to look forward to, oh joy. Bumblebee resisted the connection briefly, then allowed it. Wouldn't want him to think he'd misjudged me. He fought another holding action until Wringer penetrated his neural net through an "unguarded" access. They played tag around Bumblebee's firewalls for a while and then the scout felt his opponent's attention shift into a higher gear. His attacks came more swiftly, with greater force, aimed at multiple nodes. Bumblebee "stumbled," drawing back, then turned and fled with the enemy at his mental heel struts, his eagerness obscenely palpable. Come on, you slagging sadist — come and catch the poor little mech. Turning at bay in an orphaned process, Bumblebee hunkered down as Wringer stalked closer, slashing through the scout's weakening defenses one after another.

That's right ... come on ...

Something warned the 'Con off just as the trap was about to close. Scrap! Bumblebee thought as the interrogator's executables shut down picocycles ahead of being co-opted with extreme prejudice. Had Wringer been a little less alert, his processor would have been so thoroughly fragmented that he'd have been lucky to return online as a traffic meter. As it was, he staggered back from Bumblebee's frame spitting static, his cable sparking and smoking where the feedback from a close encounter with an Autobot intrusion-detection system had fried it. The guards slammed Bumblebee to the floor, a gun-muzzle pressed against his helm for the second time that solar cycle. He felt rather than saw Wringer's glare — the mech's EM field was pulsing like an unstable wormhole — and didn't even try to keep the glee out of his grin.

"Oops," he said.

What followed was a lot less pleasant, if no more successful, and excruciating enough that Bumblebee had to dampen the sensitivity of his pain receptors. Unfortunately he couldn't disengage them altogether — that, his instructors had emphasized, was a good way to blind yourself to a physical hack. But he could dial them back to the point where his discomfort didn't unduly interfere with his concentration. Wringer, having thrown everything at him but the engeron dispenser, achieved nothing but another shorted cable and, Bumblebee devoutly hoped, a stabbing pain in his own processor. Three cheers for our plucky hero! The scout was pleased (and not a little relieved) to discover that his defenses held up as well in reality as they did in training sims and resolved to thank the programmer responsible for the advanced coding in his firewalls if — when — he made it back home. Rumor had it that Jazz himself had laid down those algorithms, in which case he was every byte the genius his reputation made him out to be.

At Wringer's snarled command, the guards tossed Bumblebee into a corner of the room and loomed over him with unabated menace. He was content for now to sit quietly, helm hanging low, and pretend to be completely exhausted, though he doubted he was fooling anyone at this point. No question he was feeling the effects of beating a hostile interrogation — but scrap, you should see the other guy. The security officer had actually called a medic to attend to Wringer, who accepted a bolus of energon with a sour expression before submitting to having his damaged cables removed. The red-brown mech made some suggestion that Wringer emphatically negated and then the two of them began an undervoiced argument so furious that the medic, after one injudicious intervention on behalf of his patient, backed away.

Bumblebee rested his helm on his knees and very cautiously turned up the gain on a couple of directional audio receptors. Any form of active eavesdropping would immediately alert his captors to his interest, but nobody was likely to notice if he simply listened harder — at least as long as they didn't scream at him or detonate anything close by, in which case his receptors would probably put on as conspicuous a display as Wringer's fragged cables. A grating array of environmental sounds amplified to white noise filled the sensor channels as he brought them online. Concealing a wince, Bumblebee tweaked the frequency modulator to drop the thrum of the guards' engines and the click of their joints lower in the mix and managed to catch a few words through the cacophony.

" — know something — time — open him up — "

"— risk — too valuable — Soundwave — "

One of the guard's pedes boomed against the floor as he shifted position, startling Bumblebee badly enough that he jumped. The other guard clouted him on the shoulder; he hastily muted his sensors as both of them shouted at him to keep still, slag it! and tried to work through the implications of what he'd heard without panicking.

Two things had held him steady through his capture: first, that as a commissioned officer, he had a definite value on the prisoner exchange market, so the 'Cons had an incentive to keep him functional even if they concluded he didn't harbor any useful intelligence; and second, that the most critical data he carried were time-sensitive. He called up his internal chronometer and noted that he'd now been missing long enough that all his passwords had expired unrenewed, which was one less worry. Anything that he knew or suspected about an attack on Tyger Pax would be similarly useless once that attack had taken place; he had only to hold out until the waste products hit the fan for whatever he could spill to be of nothing but historical interest.

If he could hold out.

Too valuable — Soundwave ...

Bumblebee kept his doorwings from trembling with an effort. Megatron's faceless surveillance chief was legendary for both his loyalty to the Decepticon cause and his cunning as an intelligencer. It was rumored that he could read not just files but thoughts, infiltrate neural nets without a hardline, turn loyal Autobots into sleeper agents with coding so insidious that — Bumblebee yanked his processor out of a spiraling loop of dread. Whatever skills Soundwave possessed, he was certainly a far more dangerous adversary than Wringer. The scout's instructors had warned him that any bot could be broken, given time and the right tech. But against that eventuality he carried the suicide code: a program to crash and wipe his drives if his processor were compromised. Bumblebee grimaced against his patellar plates. A soft crash wouldn't by itself take him permanently offline, but the 'Cons would no doubt see to that quickly enough. Their medics were a lot more eager to offer the mercy-stroke to a stasis-locked mech than their Autobot counterparts. Primus help me. Bumblebee had known when he went for a soldier, and later for a scout, that he was shortening the odds on a long life, but he'd always imagined he'd go offline in battle, not on the floor of a Decepticon interrogation cell.

But if he had to go, he'd do it without betraying his comrades. I swear it.

Heavy pedefalls approached. Hastily unmuting and rebalancing his audio receptors, Bumblebee looked up into the drawn, angry face of Wringer. "Don't think this is over, Autobot."

"Not a chance," Bumblebee said, trying to project an assurance he didn't feel anymore. "I can tell the party's just getting started."

Wringer's optics blazed. "Joke while you can," he growled. "I doubt you'll find your next interrogation so amusing."

"Oh? Why?"

It was the wrong question. Wringer's faceplates twisted into a mirthless smile as he leaned in close and whispered, "Wait and see, Autobot. Wait and see."

Well, that's not creepy or anything, Bumblebee thought, suppressing a shudder. Unable to formulate a quip, he settled for winking, but the 'Con had already turned away from him. Without a backward glance Wringer marched to the door, where the medic and the boxy security officer waited, and all three of them exited together.

After that things became miserably boring for a while. The guards were no more inclined to talk with him now than before, so after one too many sallies at their expense earned him a gun barrel to the side of the helm, Bumblebee shut down every system he could without leaving himself vulnerable. No point in wasting energy; if Wringer was to be believed, he'd need his reserves for the next round of bad-bot-worse-bot. And if not, well, better to spend the time quietly defragging his drives than worrying whether Soundwave would scramble his processor or send him back to his comrades carrying a logic bomb.

He also left the feed from his chronometer running in one corner of his HUD after he'd called it up for the fourth time. Come on, mechs. Get on with it.

Enough microcycles had passed that Bumblebee had begun to wonder if he'd misunderstood his tactician friend's drunken hints when a stir in the corridor outside drew his interest: bots hurrying past on foot and wheel, some with voices raised in tones of command, others grumbling in the universal undertone of the overburdened. The guards, too, caught the change in the atmosphere. Though their weapons remained trained on their prisoner, their attention was divided between the scout and the door and the cant of their helms toward one another betrayed an exchange of speculations over a private comm. Bumblebee surreptitiously brought his idled systems back online, his spark catching fire with sudden hope. Let this be it! Please, let this be it ...

It wasn't.

The security bots sprang to attention as an entire squad of sharply buffed mechs entered the room, led by an officer Bumblebee recognized from Autobot intelligence reports: Bombard, a mid-rank 'Con grounder who'd lately been spotted running security for various members of Megatron's inner circle. Changed his paint, though; wasn't he teal and yellow in those images, not blue and gold? Promotion, maybe. Or maybe the head of Decepticon intelligence rated a particularly well-turned-out bodyguard. Bumblebee's spark seemed to flicker like a flame in a draught, but he contained his trepidation and remarked, "All this for me? You shouldn't have."

Bombard ignored him. "Is this the Autobot scout Wringer interrogated?" he asked the guards.

"Yes, sir!" they replied in unison.

"I don't know if I'd call it an interrogation," Bumblebee put in. "More like a badly scripted episode of — "

Bombard didn't telegraph the kick, but Bumblebee had been expecting something like it and was able to deflect enough of the impact to avoid serious damage. "You will speak only when spoken to, Autobot."

"Good luck with that," muttered one of the guards, quickly cutting his vocalizer when Bombard side-eyed him.

"Up, you," the Decepticon officer ordered.

Bumblebee took his time complying, partly to delay the inevitable, partly to see what would happen. The freer his captors were with their abuse, the more likely they were to have classified him as just another POW rather than an intelligence asset. "Yow! Watch the joints!" he protested as he was yanked to his pedes by one arm. The squad formed up around him, energon prods leveled at his torso, and they all strode out the door behind Bombard.

Bolts. Somebody thinks I'm important. Or dangerous.

The thought didn't cheer him as it would have before he'd been captured. A fearsome reputation could be an asset on the battlefield, but here he'd get more mileage out of looking harmless. The contrast between his battered and dirtied plating and the parade-ground shine of his escort offered a useful contrast. He let his doorwings droop and his shoulders slump and shuffled along as if he could scarcely match the pace being set, though he took care not to fall behind. An energon prod could leave a nasty flux in your field and he wasn't keen on taking that kind of damage, not with another hostile interrogation on the horizon.

He'd expected to be led to a new cell or perhaps to a transport, but Bombard's squad marched him outside and through a maze of narrow, rubble-strewn byways onto what must have once been the suburb's main avenue. Bumblebee's optics darted covertly from side to side, searching for clues in the surrounding bots' demeanor, in the damaged and half-toppled buildings they passed, but found none. This sector seemed truly deserted, no part of the Decepticons' camp. They turned left onto another broad street, after which the remains of commercial frontages gave way to the wrecked outlines of upper-caste residences, villas with pillared arcades and broken comm spires still reaching skyward. Bumblebee had run reconnaissance in the debris of many such neighborhoods, but only once had he seen one in all its glory, when a lull in hostilities had permitted his cadet class to travel to Iacon and receive their commissions from Optimus Prime himself. He and his comrades had paced down boulevards lined with structures even grander than these, their porches and colonnades crowded with cheering bots, all the way to the majestic amphitheater where the Prime and his officers had waited on a reviewing stand to receive their oaths.

A weird sense of déjà vu overtook him and Bumblebee tripped on a fissure in the road, turning his false step into an awkward skip forward to avoid being struck by the mech at his heel-struts. None of his escort reacted. An elliptical arch loomed ahead, improbably whole amid the ruins, likely the entrance to the town square. Straining his sensors, Bumblebee caught the unmistakable rumbling of many engines in a confined space ahead, just as he had all those cycles ago when he'd stepped onto the ramp leading into the stadium. But he'd known why he was there, attended by all the pomp and circumstance Iacon could muster: to show the often beleaguered Autobots that their cause still lived in the sparks of the latest generation. Then he'd been a symbol; now he was just another scout. What could the Decepticons possibly prove by trotting him out in front of a crowd?

His processor supplied the answer: that the cause which lives in the spark, dies with the spark.

Oh, Primus. I'm going to be executed.

He fought down the panicked impulse to break ranks and run. Outnumbered seven to one, his arms pinioned and his weapons offline, he'd never escape. They could beat him senseless and still prop his stasis-locked body up in front of the firing squad — if it was a firing squad that awaited him. Decepticon propaganda holos documented some peculiar interpretations of the rules of war when it came to dealing with Autobot prisoners. Thrusting those data away into locked files, Bumblebee raised his helm. There was no point in playing the wounded youngling now; if his end was being recorded, he'd make damned sure the 'Cons wouldn't be able to use him as an example of Autobot weakness.

Decepticons lined the square five deep on three sides, sober-colored troopers interspersed with brightly-painted officers, with a gap left beneath the arch for Bombard's squad to pass through. On the fourth side, opposite the entrance, stood a raised concrete plinth, its decorative facing fallen away to lie in cracked sheets on the pavement, and on it sat a massive weatherworn cube of a chair — the magistrate's throne, perhaps, in the long-ago cycles when this town was still inhabited. And seated in that chair, dwarfing even its imposing dimensions with his bulk, was a silver-grey mech, blunt-helmed, a fusion cannon mounted on his right arm, every line of his colossal frame a testament to his power and arrogance.

It was not Soundwave.

... oh scrap oh Primus oh scrap ...

Bumblebee's escort paraded him across the field to the hoots and jeers of the assembled Decepticons. Bumblebee hardly noticed the noise, though he flinched involuntarily at the roar that went up when the great mech rose and spread his arms wide in acknowledgment of his audience. It was as much as the scout could do to keep putting one pede in front of the other, his processor coldly calculating that with each step toward the plinth his chance of seeing a firing squad, much less an interrogation cell or prison camp, asymptotically approached zero. He stumbled again and this time couldn't evade a jolt of energon to the backstrut. The pain and the feral howls of the crowd at his misstep shocked him out of his stupefied funk. Frag this! he thought. I've seen better mechs than these scrubbing out waste disposal units in camp — Pit, I've seen the very best of them with my own optics! He called up the memory file of Optimus Prime standing with quiet confidence among his officers, his visage solemn and attentive as he accepted the cadets' vows, the hint of a smile breaking through during the applause afterward as one of the bots beside him passed some cheerful remark.

By the Allspark, I will keep my oath!

He angrily shrugged off the servo of the guard on his left when the mech made to drag him onto the steps of the plinth. Instead he leapt up them lightly, striding out ahead of his escort, who fell back at a gesture from their lord that also quieted the crowd. Bumblebee halted just beyond arm's reach of the gigantic figure. No need to walk straight into the smelter, he reflected with grim humor. Our hero may be foolhardy, but he's not insane.

"Do you know who I am, scout?" asked the Decepticon, his deep voice carrying easily in the anticipatory hush.

"Why?" Bumblebee asked, pitching his own vocalizer to match the other's volume. "Don't you?"

Faster than he would've thought possible for such a huge mech, the Decepticon closed the distance between them, his left servo whipping out to seize Bumblebee by the neck and lift him into the air. The scout's legs jerked in startled reflex; then he forced them to hang limp, feigning an impassivity belied by the rapid pulse of his spark. The other mech's arm bent, drawing him in, and Bumblebee's doorwings twitched in spite of everything he could do to keep them still. "Do you know," the Decepticon asked in precisely the same tone as before, "who I am?"

Bumblebee put as much dentition into his grin as he could manage. "Who's asking?"

The Decepticon's optics narrowed and his digits tightened, digging into Bumblebee's plating. The scout's HUD immediately filled with red alerts about the pressure on the housing of his dorsal neural cluster, though he hardly needed them given the stab of distress from the pain receptors along that portion of his backstrut. A numbing tingle began to work its way down his extremities and a new set of alerts warned that a primary motor control junction had been targeted. Subroutines already set on edge by the shock cuffs now threatened to overwhelm his processor with desperate inferences: if you can't move can't run can't transform can't escape you're dead dead dead dead. He shoved them down the stack, though he could not prevent his servos from rising to clutch at the stranglehold. Slagging glitch! he swore silently, as much to defy his own fears as the other's power.

"Do you know who I am?" the mech asked yet again, but this time it was underlaid with a growl from his engines. Something popped in Bumblebee's neck and a firestorm of warnings clogged his HUD, blocking his vision ...

"Megatron," he gasped. "You're ... Megatron."

The pressure immediately decreased and Bumblebee's optics cleared enough to make out the satisfied smirk on the Decepticon's faceplates. "Yes, scout," he said, almost gently. "I am Megatron. And I will have answers to my questions." One clawed digit scraped down Bumblebee's plating, drawing an unhappy screech from the metal that the mech barely prevented his vocalizer from echoing. "Now, tell me, what is the current disposition of Autobot forces in this sector?"

Bumblebee wondered if he shouldn't crash his drives right then and there, but who knew what the Decepticons might be able to recover from his hardware? Their engineers were second to none, even leaving aside Soundwave's legendary data mining capabilities. No, he had to hold out until he was certain the assault on Tyger Pax had been launched, no matter what. Surely Megatron would be notified of such a breach of his lines, and then ... Ignoring the disquiet the Decepticon's red optics sent through his neural net, he met Megatron's gaze with his own and replied, "Go frag yourself."

A scout never planned for failure, never mentioned the possibility no matter how pre-glitched the assignment seemed. His trade offered fate temptations enough without adding to their number. But Bumblebee had been taught what to expect if he were taken, how to respond to imprisonment and interrogation, even to abuse and death. He'd braced himself for torment and public humiliation the moment he'd stepped onto the same stage as the Lord of the Decepticons.

But what Megatron did to him was beyond all expectation.

Using nothing but his servos, the Decepticon mangled Bumblebee's frame. He cut the cables behind the scout's knees first, so that his legs could no longer support his weight, forcing him to grovel at the other's pedes while Megatron's claws raked his mesh. Only his sensors were spared, to register every moment of his anguish, and his voice box, to answer the questions put to him. Who is your commanding officer? How many serve under him? What is the disposition of Autobot forces in this sector? What was your mission? Writhing in his tormentor's grip, Bumblebee tried to disengage his pain receptors and found to his horror that the control nexus had been disabled, crushed with unimaginable precision, leaving the sensor conduit itself intact. There was no relief from the agony of hyperextended joints and pierced plates, no defense against the brutality that harrowed them. The torrent of input devoured every cycle of his processor, rendering him all but incapable of thought. A wail spilled unbidden from his vocalizer; hearing it, the crowd replied with howls of amusement and approval.

Perhaps Megatron realized that he would get nothing from his victim in that state, for he flung Bumblebee away from him into the chair. The scout's helm cracked against the hard polymer with enough force to dent it — but what's one more? he thought giddily as his processor popped excess sensory data off the stack. His HUD was awash in garbage, pixelated warnings blinking and overwriting one another. Only the counter in the upper right quadrant shone clear, ticking away the moments until all was safe. Primus, please, let it be soon ...

Then Megatron's shadow fell over him and in the sudden darkness ghost-images danced before his optics: DANGER ... FAILURE ... HOLD ... "I am still waiting for my answers," the Decepticon growled, raising an energon-stained servo, and Bumblebee shrank back, drawing more laughter from the crowd. "Well?"

Bumblebee shook his helm, wincing as the movement seemed to destabilize his gyros, and braced himself for what he hoped against hope would be his deathblow.

But Megatron did not strike. "Do you set yourself to endure, scout?" he asked, and there was an edge of incredulity to his voice. "What do you expect? Mercy?" The incredulity was swallowed up in mockery and the onlookers, privy to the joke, screamed their derision. "Rescue?" The mech's cruel optics narrowed again, his red gaze scanning Bumblebee as if attempting a targeting lock. "Or something else?"

The counter abruptly loomed so large in Bumblebee's vision that he was sure Megatron would see it, too. Wresting control of as many sensor channels as he could, he directed their input to his chronometer and crashed it. The image in his HUD winked out; his gyros spun crazily and one of his tanks purged, spattering him with his own waste. The Decepticons gleefully hailed his loss of control, but Megatron merely watched him with a dangerously shrewd expression. Tell him something ... anything ... no, something he'll believe ... He couldn't afford to let his adversary go digging for the truth with subtler instruments than his servos.

"Autobots ... leave no mech ... behind," he rasped out. Something was wrong with his voice box now, too; the words emerged slurred and laced with static. "Optimus Prime's ... orders — "

Megatron's optics burned with such fury that Bumblebee's muddled sensors registered it as heat. Seizing the scout by one pede, he dragged him from the chair. "Then let us see how much of you will be left for your comrades to collect!" Megatron exclaimed and, as the crowd bellowed its scorn, added in a snarl for Bumblebee's audio receptors alone, "If they ever find you."

Without his chronometer to measure it, time stretched and contracted dizzyingly. Bumblebee's torment became a closed circle with neither origin nor terminus. Had he been able, he might have cursed the efficiency of the operating system that prevented his stack from overflowing despite the excruciating strain on every buffer, every register, in demonic counterpoint to the torture that rent his frame yet left him still online. Megatron asked no more questions, or none that Bumblebee could comprehend — his enemy's voice and the voices of the crowd and the shrieks that warbled from his own vocalizer blended together into one long scream in his audio receptors, clamorous and meaningless.

But there came at last a moment when no new agonies joined the ones he was already experiencing. His processor, responding to some core imperative, spun a single coherent thread of awareness from the cycles thus freed and Bumblebee realized that Megatron's attention had strayed from him. The Decepticons were calling in one voice for his end, but it was not they to whom their leader seemed to be listening, but to his own thoughts or a private comm. Then he grasped Bumblebee by the neck once more and held his twisted and battered body aloft. "Any last words, scout?" he asked.

Cliché, a subroutine suggested, tagging the analysis as critical, but he could not grasp its significance. As if from far away Bumblebee heard his own voice say, "Till ... all ... are — "

Megatron's digits clenched convulsively, cutting off the words, crushing Bumblebee's voice box. Overwhelmed, the scout's awareness fragmented —

— dead weight falling through space, impact in, in, in —

"— no mercy for the weak —"

— something left undone, something important —

— internal error: deadlock condition —

— darkness and light and darkness and light and darkness —

— tremors in the earth, in the air —

— and light.

To be continued ...

[Acknowledgments: Transformers Prime was created by Hasbro Studios. Copyright for this property is held by Hasbro.]

Random: Fannish fun

nebroadwe — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 14:22:54 GMT

Transformers: Prime's third season finale airs this evening, after which all that will be left is a made-for-TV movie coda later this fall. I am equal parts eager to see how the Final Battle plays out (though I must admit I'm not too worried about the Fate of the Earth; the good guys usually win, though I don't discount the possibility of a Heroic Sacrifice) and sad that This Is The End. It's been a fun ride since my goddaughter Amber_Dawn informed me that I really needed to watch this one. In honor of the occasion, we're getting together at her house for a viewing party: she's supplying the cable; I'm bringing the cake. I attempted to decorate it with a representation of the classic Autobot symbol, but since art is not my forte, I console myself that Amber_Dawn and her family all have good imaginations. Also that chocolate cake is ultimately for eating, not admiring.

Sigh. Thanks for the memories, Hasbro. Will look forward to your next venture into this canon.

ETA: OMG OMG OMG SQUEE! [clears throat] Well, that was enjoyable.

Random: Cave cuniculum historiae

nebroadwe — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 16:52:16 GMT

Diane Duane shows us all how not to behave in the presence of a Plot Bunny here. Heed the warning! Take heed!

Personal Note: Anatomy of a Descent into Fanwriter Hell

nebroadwe — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 17:58:28 GMT

Wow, this show is the co-coolest thing in the history of ever. It's got some good 'fic, too.

Not enough, though ...

Wouldn't it be interesting if ... no, no, not going there. I can't write for this one; it's been around since my childhood and there's too much canon.

All right, maybe if I just wrote from the POV of this viewer-surrogate character who's exclusive to the current incarnation of the story and doesn't know all the backstory. Just a between-episodes one-scener.

Hey, why did they bring back that side character from season one in the season two opener and then drop her? She's such a dangling plot participle now. I wonder what would happen if she ended up back in the main plot after the apocalyptic season two finale ...

No, no, no.

Maybe.

Okay, at least she knows even less about what's going on than the character I already used for a tight-third POV. Ooh, and I can write the snark-off between those other two characters that really should have already happened in canon. Surely that will reconcile me to the need to block not one, not two, but three separate action sequences.

This one's getting long.

OMG OMG OMG what they just did with that character in the latest episode was SQUEE! Must write about what happens between this episode and the next! Okay, sure, he's got tons of canon backstory, but I can fudge it. There's a Wiki and everything.

Someone drew me a picture. COLLABORATOR LOVE.

And she wants to know what happens next in the big story. Back to the action sequences: one down, two to go. Snark-off needs work. Boy, this feels like the beginning of an AU season three ...

No. No. NO. What are you, insane? Besides, the POV character from that story wouldn't be in the A-plot of the next episode; her troubles adjusting to the new normal would be the B-plot. And you'd have to write some of it from the POV of Incredibly Wise Character With Millennia of Canon Backstory. Even C.S. Lewis balked at writing a guardian angel.

Besides, it would be much more fun to write the third episode and bring back those defeated season-two bad guys under new management ...

Did I just think that? Yes, I did. Oh, look, there's half-a-plot already. And another action sequence, oh joy.

Not to mention that there is a way to write that second episode B-plot as a standalone, if you can just get over the whole Font of Wisdom problem. Something like this, maybe ...

Oh, look. You just got over it. You idiot.

Sigh. Make the notes. You can always file them with all the other unfinished projects in the drawer. Right now you should get back to work on the current piece. That action scene won't write itself.

No, really, it won't.

Why are you even thinking about that other character? Granted, he's got a traumatic history -- and you know he wouldn't have just rolled over when the villain got his hooks into him ... there's at least one scene's worth of dramatic tension there ...

Look, whatever you do, don't tell the Art Collaborator about this one. She's still waiting for the next installment of the big unfinished story. Though I suppose a snippet of hero-versus-villain badinage from this one might serve as an excuse for the delay.

Make that two snippets.

Oh, NYARGH, no. What are you even doing in this part of the timeline? It's all backstory! The canon for that comes from the video games, for Pete's sake!

Which are covered by the Wiki. Drat.

Ha! That's not how it happened! Your idea comes pre-Jossed! You'd be totally AU!

Shame to waste all that badinage, though. Ooh, look, a notebook. And I love this pen.

Why are these notes turning into a first draft?

I suppose there's no point in mentioning that you are now hip-deep in a canon of which you have only an imperfect grasp and are attempting to write a story about not one, not two, but three of its most iconic characters? Two of them in tight third?

Wait a minute. Is that ... is that a theme? Are those symbols? Good grief. Where did this meditation on the use and abuse of power come from? Some of it even sounds ... profound.

Oh, dear.

You're going to have to redraft the badinage, you know, if you let things get serious.

Let? Since when have I been in control of any of this? I give up. Lay it on me, o Muse; I know when I'm beaten.

(I wonder if anyone else will be interested? Maybe if the Art Collaborator draws another picture ...)

Fanfiction: Falsely True (Transformers Prime)

nebroadwe — Wed, 17 Jul 2013 22:49:11 GMT

Title: Sketch: Falsely True
Fandom: Transformers Prime
Character(s): Ratchet
Pairing(s): None
Rating: G
Word Count: ~1300
Warnings: Major spoilers for season 3, episode 11, "Persuasion"
A/N: This sketch came into being five minutes after I finished watching "Persuasion" and I have hastened to edit and post it because I am certain the scenario it depicts — an unsupervised Ratchet — will be jossed by "Synthesis." One character alone in a room with his thoughts is a difficult recipe for drama; plus, no writer worth his or her salt would pass up the opportunity for a snark-off between Jeffrey Coombs and Steve Blum or Daran Norris. Crossposted to transficsation. Concrit welcomed with free upgrades.
Dedication: For Eric and Mark and Kevin and Charlie, from whom I learned just enough to fake my way through a conversation (or a story) about computing.

For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?
— Mark 8:36 (NASB)
Ratchet has to admit that the wages of collaboration are excellent. He hasn't worked in a lab this well-equipped since he left the Ark and never in such ... splendid isolation. His every act is monitored, of course, and the guards stationed in the corridor have orders to offline him if he so much as pokes a digit outside, but otherwise the Decepticons do not trespass upon his solitude. Megatron is nothing if not shrewd: Starscream would be hovering at Ratchet's elbow to gloat over his defection, but the Lord of the Decepticons withdrew rather than rub corrosive into the wound. No doubt he will return if positive results are too long delayed, but for now Ratchet has no one to defy and nothing external to resist. The only way to keep his processor from implementing an endless loop of self-recrimination is to lose himself in the project before him.

Such concentration comes easily to a mech who has performed surgery in the field with energon blasts thundering in his audial receptors — or groundbridge maintenance to the alleged music of Slash Monkey. Here there is nothing to disturb his focus but the occasional rumble of the Nemesis's thrusters as the ship makes minute corrections to its orbit. His rations are provided regularly, enough energon to top off tanks half-empty for so long they've almost forgotten what it's like to be full. Ratchet stares unseeing for a moment at the data he has been assessing, one servo absently tracing the familiar yet foreign lines of his console, several generations younger than the one cannibalized from the Harbinger and an order of magnitude more powerful. Decepticon engineering never does fail to impress. And he has only to comm for a tool — any tool — to have it delivered, no questions asked, though someone is surely keeping track of his wish list. He vents a wry snort. The troopers who make these deliveries are hurried and cautious in his presence, but to that, at least, he's accustomed. Gruffness has predominated in Ratchet's personality matrix ever since he earned the seniority to maintain such a front, a buffer between the compassion proper to a medic and the suffering with which his profession brings him into regular contact. He has never been unsociable, merely self-sufficient. Some of the best cycles of his life have been spent sequestered in a lab like this one, his processor wholly engaged with a multifractal problem, refueling and recharge both subordinate to the exhilaration of conducting cutting-edge research.

Ratchet wonders if this is what the Pit will be like: a nightmare mockingly clothed in the trappings of a daydream.

He tries to tell himself that he is buying time — time for Optimus and the others to track him down, mount a rescue, save the day — but his self-censor rejects this analysis unless he continually bolsters it. He shutters his optics in search of equilibrium, but when he opens them they are drawn yet again to the split-screen monitor in the far corner of the lab. One window shows a live feed of the reconstruction of the Omega Lock; the other, a series of images of Cybertron as he last saw it, a lifeless, ruined husk.

But still, and always, home.

Ratchet has hundreds of terabytes of engrams of Cybertron not just from before the war, but from before the schism. Among his current comrades, only Optimus can say as much. Primus knows the place wasn't perfect — all the privileges of Ratchet's position couldn't shield him from that insight — but it was alive with achievement and camaraderie and joy even at the lowest ebb of its ideals. He has purged many files from his drives over the millennia, but he has always kept his private proofs of that, from the conviviality of his student days in Iacon through the grueling, challenging shifts of his medical apprenticeship to the battles he waged and won with sparkless administrators to better the lot of his patients. His association with Orion Pax widened and deepened a commitment he would have been embarrassed to articulate at the time, but Ratchet would never have fought so fiercely for Cybertron had he not loved it so well.

And now, perhaps, he has the means to heal the wounds his defense inflicted.

Armed with that inducement, Megatron hardly need threaten him and they both know it. Oh, Ratchet's spark pulses unevenly at the the thought of danger to his fellow Autobots and their human allies, especially the children, especially Rafael. Their safekeeping would be sufficient reason to feign compliance, if for one picocycle he were foolish enough to trust Megatron's word to spare them in exchange for Ratchet's services. The ex-gladiator's ambition is the sole constant of his career; the supreme power he failed to win by acclamation he has sought ever since to take by force. All else is subsidiary to that end, even the restoration of Cybertron. And yet as long as its restoration serves Megatron's purpose, he and Ratchet do share a common goal, loath as the medic was to acknowledge it. Nor is this the first such convergence of objectives between Autobots and Decepticons: Optimus himself partnered with Megatron to save the Earth from Unicron, after all.

And withstood him to destroy the Omega Lock rather than see it misused.

You know as well as I that Megatron will use a reconstructed Lock to cyberform both Cybertron and Earth, and that is one abuse of power we cannot allow.

Ratchet would never claim to be wiser than his Prime, but even with Optimus's stern negative still cached, he could not and cannot deny that, whatever else Megatron's scheme entails, it does offer the warring factions of Cybertron the chance — perhaps their last chance — once again to possess a planet worth a war.

Without the blessing of the Allspark? his self-censor protested. Madness! — only to be silenced by the sight of the great engine hanging outboard the Nemesis. He knew then that his capitulation was inevitable, waiting in the queue ever since Megatron proposed combining Synth-En and CNA to create an alternative cybermatter. Or perhaps — Ratchet shifts uneasily from pede to pede — perhaps some subroutine buried deep in his programming was preparing the ground even earlier, before Soundwave shocked him into stasis back at base. Did he fail to defend himself because he was taken off guard or because, having deduced Megatron's intent, he was unconsciously ripe for surrender? He has run diagnostics, but the results are inconclusive. All Ratchet knows is that the defiance with which he confronted his captors proved itself mere show — and that Megatron saw straight through it, as if the medic's unwilling sympathy with his plan were patent.

How can we not try, when the means finally lie within our reach?

Ratchet harbors no illusions about his fate once he has finished his work. The wages of treachery are generous, but its retirement package, as the humans might say, sucks. He does not expect to outlive his success — but he also knows that, should the opportunity to stand beside the Omega Lock when it activates not be freely offered, he will grovel at Megatron's pedes if he must in order to remain online long enough to see the results of their experiment. He can, he thinks, endure even the Pit if the last memory he carries with him into the fire is of dawn breaking over the newly risen silver domes and crystal spires of home.

He glances once more at the monitor, then turns all his processing power to the task he has been set, refusing to extrapolate how he might face the Pit if he should fail.

[Acknowledgments: Transformers Primewas created by Hasbro Studios. Copyright for this property is held by Hasbro.]

Random: In honor of Cornerofmadness's recent milestone

nebroadwe — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 16:35:21 GMT

The good folk of Making Light are having fun with a meme:

He only uses prepositions when it is entirely necessary. He doesn’t misplace commas: he helps commas go into the Punctuation Protection Program. The characters in his novels send him fan letters. ... He once wrote a story that consisted of a single sentence which was serialized in three issues of The Paris Review. ... When he was in a coma after an automobile accident he made his deadline anyway. A copy-editor once queried one of his sentences -- and he allowed her to live. ... People read his prologues. His grocery lists have gone for six-figure advances at auction. Grammarians adjust their rules to match his realities. He is the most interesting writer in the world.

The rest to be found here -- share and enjoy!

Personal Note: The gallery reopens!

nebroadwe — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 01:49:34 GMT

So I finished painting my hallway today, a project I'd been putting off for eight years. I'd gotten the trim half-done before I had a contractor in to rip up the (disintegrating, ew) carpet and replace it with Pergo and then just let the space sit, baseboards in one color to match the living room and door molding in (mostly) another. This time I bought a couple of cans of decorator's white and did the whole thing in bland. I'm too busy writing to play interior designer.

But this project meant that, in addition to unscrewing doors and covering the edges of the floor and ceiling in painter's tape, I had to take down all the pictures and such. And then I realized that, hey, I didn't have to use the holes the previous owner had made to hang my stuff -- I could make new holes. And hang more stuff. So I did. The hallway is now my art gallery: I have a print by Janice J. Hanson, a landscape photograph by Melinda Hall, and a watercolor by Ginny Masters, all local artists. I'm still trying to figure out where to hang the reproduction of an illuminated "Obsecro te" from a Book of Hours that a friend gave me for Christmas a few years ago, but the Norman Rockwell and Days of Christmas plates are back above the guest room and bathroom doors, where they belong.

Then it occurred to me that, apart from my grandfather's seascapes, almost every piece of real art I own was created by a woman. I have a seascape by Carol Haese in acrylics that I inherited from an aunt and another in watercolors by Bettie J. Fahs that I bought myself. I have another of Melinda Hall's photographs, a sunflower garden. I have Ultra Magnus in a kilt by my goddaughter and an elaborately cross-stitched "Peace" sign by her mother, as well as pottery from every woman in the family (and the dad, too). I also have a few cross-stitch projects of my own hanging up, as well as two artsy landscape photographs I took and thought were good enough to frame. There are a few anonymous pieces as well: a still life on a board signed "Tomar," a foggy watercolor landscape from my hometown signed "Fultz," and an unsigned picture of two roosters in a bush from Mexico. Beside all this, the number of works by indisputably male artists -- that one pot, a Michael Podesta print and a marquetry seascape by Robert Johnson -- is paltry. I didn't do it on purpose, so I guess women's art must speak to me in a way that men's doesn't.

I also appear to have a thing for seascapes, but I knew that. I've told my parents that they need to earmark the rest of my grandfather's paintings -- especially the Chinese junk and the rocky shore -- for me in their will. My brother can have the Waterford crystal and the cranberry glass instead.

Fanfiction: The Faultless Monster (Pumpkin Scissors)

nebroadwe — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 12:35:00 GMT

Title: Sketch: The Faultless Monster
Fandom: Pumpkin Scissors (animeverse)
Character(s): Muzé Caplan
Pairing(s): None
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~1400
Warnings: Mentions of suicide and medical/psychological experiments
A/N: This character sketch of Muzé Caplan has been sitting on my desk in draft for years. I had intended it to be longer and include a version of her canonical meeting with Oland, but that got stalled in development. Looking it over, however, I decided that what I had managed to write could stand on its own. Crossposted from nebroadwe to pumpkinscissors. Concrit welcomed with psychological evaluations.

There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand. I am practically industrious — painstaking, a workman to execute with perseverance and labour — but besides this there is a love for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous, intertwined in all my projects, which hurries me out of the common pathways of men, even to the wild sea and unvisited regions I am about to explore.

— Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Muzé Caplan slit open the embossed envelope with the same swift efficiency (if but a fraction of the interest) she brought to a dissection. The three flimsies hardly seemed worthy of the rag paper and red wax seal that enclosed them, but she was Caplan now and such courtesies were deemed her due. She often thought that the ancients should not have dismissed the philosopher who defined man as a featherless biped by showing him a plucked chicken. The Institute, the military, the imperial court: how little different they were from a fowl run in the energy their inhabitants devoted to creating and maintaining a pecking order.

She tossed aside the envelope and the covering letter from Colonel Someone-or-Other in Human Resources to examine the meat of the matter. Very little effort had been required to persuade the general staff that all transactions regarding the Invisible Nine be flagged for her attention and approval: they had been as eager for deniability as she for information. The mass demobilizations following the cease-fire had caused substantial disruptions in her experiments, disruptions exacerbated by an undignified scramble to conceal or destroy valuable data. She sighed and briefly massaged her temples. The best part of the last three years had been wasted on damage control, but now, at last, the Institute was ready to continue its most consequential project. So, what have we here?

She scrawled her initials in the margin of a death certificate for First Lieutenant Kurt Wolmarf, 903-CTT, with a note forwarding it to the head of chemistry. No doubt he would spend the next six months wrangling with the army for possession of the blood, pulmonary and nerve agents with which the lieutenant had absconded, while his assistants were left with the thankless task of determining what, if any, effects those weapons had produced in their handler. She shook her head in mild exasperation. Engineers. So devoted to their machines, they were blind to their subsidiarity. Until someone invented a tank that could drive itself, the battlefield would remain an arena that pitted man against man — one intelligence, one will, one body against another.

It is they whom we must improve.

She laid the death certificate in her OUT tray and turned to more pleasing business: a request from Army Intelligence, State Section III, for reassignment to their ranks of Corporal Randel Oland, 901-ATT. Ah, splendid! The 901st had been her particular pets; she was always delighted to discover another had survived the peace. So many had perished in that freak wave of suicides after the armistice — a few, more disturbingly, had experienced homicidal episodes ungoverned by their conditioning and had had to be put down. She'd conducted their postmortems herself, but the data had been disappointingly inconclusive. Caplan had always said that the controls human beings placed upon their own behavior were like the chains that muzzled Grossmagen, the mythical beast whose open jaw gaped from earth to heaven — they would hold as long as fate decreed, and then chaos would devour the world. Sometimes she wondered whether her predecessor would have seen Grossmagen's shadow in the unrest currently plaguing the empire and sought, as he ever had, to strengthen those chains.

She rose and strode down the hallway to the records room, where the clerk on duty took her request and disappeared into the shadowy ranges of shelves and cabinets behind the wooden counter. Oland, Oland. She tried to call him before her mind's eye, but could not. The 901st had been a heavily recruited unit; so many boys had passed through her hands that only those with unique or egregious personal quirks remained clear in her memory (Schulz, the lad who wept after she repaired his harelip; Becker, the butcher's apprentice who could read the patent statement on her eyechart ...). Randel Oland, she guessed, was one of the many who had neither required her intervention nor piqued her interest.

The indifferent thickness of the file the clerk retrieved for her confirmed that notion. Having returned to her desk, she flipped it open on the blotter to the photograph stapled to a copy of Oland's vital statistics. Dark hair, blunt features, serious (or perhaps vacant) expression ... No? Well, then, subject Oland, it's time we became reacquainted.

His height and build would have caught any military recruiter's eye; no doubt he drew the Institute's notice when he also proved literate, reasonably intelligent, and not unduly self-reflective. He'd scored high in basic training and, once assigned to the 901st, had taken well to its physical and mental conditioning regimens. A few sketchy reports of field exercises followed, during which the subject demonstrated his mastery of the requisite operational techniques. She rolled her eyes. Caplan, too, had despised such jargon, but when passing sensitive information through unsecured channels, it was unwise to call a spade a spade. A still sketchier psychological evaluation (for even Caplan had been unable to devise an instrument adequate to gauge the mental health of men being driven deliberately mad) provided only a single individualizing detail. Under the heading Prosocial Behaviors, the examiner had noted: Feeds stray cats.

More satisfying were Oland's medical records which, even when reporting negative results, were accompanied by a wealth of illustrative radiograms. He had been multiply wounded, of course, in training and at the front, but his time on the sick list had been short. Pathological analysis indicated that his tailored "hardeners" were performing as designed, minimizing systemic insult and speeding healing. Another examiner had noted, with evident approval, Disinclined to malinger. Had the subject perhaps become habituated to combat? He had certainly done his part to maintain the 901st's fearsome reputation. The unit's after-action reports chronicled Private Oland's contribution to several successful missions, culminating in a field promotion to corporal.

And that was all. The last entry in his file was dated three years ago, some few months prior to the cease-fire. What have you been up to since then, subject Oland? It was easy for a soldier to go AWOL from a unit which didn't technically exist, but a man who chose that route was unlikely to reappear in the military seeking a transfer under his own name. She made a note for her assistant to investigate whether Oland had continued to draw pay or supplies from the army or any of its known back channels during those three years. She thought for a moment, then made a further note to cross-check the results with civilian police and social services for any localities Oland could be determined to have visited in that same period. An interview with the subject himself is contraindicated until we are in possession of those reports.

Meanwhile, what should be done about his requested transfer to Section III? Though technically an intelligence unit, they were little more than a vehicle for the government's reconstructionist propaganda. One of my troopers serving in a soup kitchen? Absurd — as absurd as the tank those pacifists in Schwarzburg had turned into a public fountain. Or was someone in intelligence playing a deeper game? She frowned, tapping her pen against the bridge of her spectacles. The military had never been all of one mind about the Invisible Nine, but most of the factions opposing their deployment had gone quiet since the armistice. Could this be the opening move in a new campaign against the Institute? Her mouth quirked scornfully. I assure you, we are quite capable of protecting our own.

She riffled once more through Oland's file, pausing over his photograph. She was loath to deny the request (and the opportunity to discover what it signified) outright. Perhaps she should delay her decision until she knew more about the man and about those who sought him as a comrade. Caplan, of course, would simply have drawn the subject back into the Institute's fold, claiming that any other course would be a waste of resources ("... their purpose is terror and destruction; they have no other use ..."), a blow to unit cohesion ("... there can be no accord, no exchange of aid and comfort, between men whose experience of battle is incomparable ..."), and possibly a threat to Oland himself ("We are birthing monsters, Muzé — surely you see that?").

She dipped her pen in the inkwell, drew the flimsy onto the blotter, and signed her approval. This, she thought, smiling broadly, will bear watching.

[Acknowledgments: Pumpkin Scissors is created by Iwanaga Ryotaro and serialized in Monthly Shounen Magazine. The anime of the same title was directed by Akiyama Katsushito and produced by Studio Gonzo x AIC in association with COSPA. Copyright for this property is held by Iwanaga Ryotaro and Kodansha/Izumi Project, inter alia.]

Fanfiction: Mere Mechanic Art (Transformers Prime)

nebroadwe — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 18:54:29 GMT

Title: Mere Mechanic Art
Fandom: Transformers Prime
Character(s): Jack, Miko, Ultra Magnus; mentions of Raf, Bulkhead and Optimus Prime
Pairing(s): None
Rating: G
Word Count: 2195
Warnings: Spoilers for season 3 through episode 6, "Chain of Command"
A/N: Off the joke about Agent Fowler's communications style in "Project Predacon," I commissioned this picture from the artist, Amber_Dawn. That picture then inspired this story, though the sketch described herein in no way resembles the original. Amber_Dawn draws much more skilfully than Miko, trust me. Crossposted to transficsation. Concrit welcomed with a groundbridge day pass.
Dedication: For Amber_Dawn, of course, with many thanks!

Who shall say that Fortune grieves him,
While the star of hope she leaves him?
-- Robert Burns, "Ae Fond Kiss"

I hate being the homefront.
-- Foxbear, Dying Embers

It was quiet. Too quiet.

Jack poked his head out of the shower, fingers tightening on the water-pump pliers in his right hand. Now that he'd stopped the toilet running and fixed the leaking showerhead, there was nothing to hear but the muffled noise of base operations seeping through the bathroom door: the hum of the monitors, the heavy footfalls of an Autobot crossing the hangar floor, the occasional burst of comm chatter or the electric whine of the groundbridge. Welcome to the new normal.

Jack sighed, rolling his shoulders, and sighed again as the crack of the joints seemed to echo off the institution-green tiling. An upsurge in Decepticon activity had everyone but Ratchet and Ultra Magnus spread across the globe on near-constant patrols. Downtime was scarce; a conversation that didn't also constitute a report ("I'm fine, Jack: it's just a mesh wound. Starscream was trolling for fossils at Qiān Fó Shān ..."), as rare as a B on Raf's report card. No more XMR tournaments, of course, or Creature Double Feature nights or heavy metal jam sessions. Jack had never thought he'd miss Miko's raucous electric guitar, not the way he missed recon with Arcee or refereeing lobbing matches between Bulkhead and Bumblebee or sneaking out for pizza with Smokescreen. But when there was nothing to do but play handyman on the hangar's human-scale infrastructure and worry about his partner and friends, even an ear-shattering chorus of "My Fist, Your Face!" would have been a welcome distraction.

And speaking of distractions ...

Jack dropped the pliers into the toolbox and left the bathroom, stepping softly on the epoxy-coated concrete of the hangar floor. He'd been working uninterrupted for far too long since Miko had grown bored with plumbing and wandered off. He'd made only a half-hearted attempt to stop her; she'd made it clear that basic home repair was not her thing. Haven't you heard? I'm a Wrecker! We're better at breaking stuff.

Jack hoped she wasn't out trying to live up to that reputation again. Or down to it.

To his relief, he found her on the platform that was beginning to resemble somebody's basement family room, where battered and makeshift furniture sat cheek-by-jowl with a widescreen TV and a near state-of-the-art gaming system. All we need now is some stained carpet and a wall to hang that dogs-playing-poker picture on. Miko was curled up at one end of a yellow Army-surplus couch with her sketchbook propped against her knees, thoughtfully chewing on the barrel of a red marker. As Jack approached, she pulled it from her mouth to scribble on the page, then tucked it behind her ear and looked up. "Hey, Mister Fix-it," she said. "Finished already?"

"Taking a break," Jack answered, dropping onto the other end of the couch. "What are you doing?"

"What I do best!" she proclaimed with a grin.

Hoo, boy. "And that would be?"

"Cross-cultural relations!" Miko turned the sketchbook to face him, displaying it at arms' length. "Check it out!"

Jack blinked. Miko's drawings always reminded him of that embarrassing folder of elementary-school refrigerator art that his mom kept in her underwear drawer to prevent him from throwing it away. Miko, however, was immune to embarrassment and obviously as proud of this ... half-melted blue popsicle wrapped in a red- and green-checked napkin? ... as Leonardo da Vinci of the Mona Lisa. "Oooh-kay," he said, trying to match her enthusiasm. "Um, what's it for?"

Miko leaned toward him. "Well," she said, lowering her voice conspiratorially, "remember when Fowler sent the Wreckers to Scotland and Commander Shoulderpads had to ask Optimus what a kilt was?"

Jack nodded, his glance twitching aside to the main board where Ultra Magnus was coordinating mission objectives or collating field reports or whatever it was he did that kept everyone working at breakneck pace without running into each other. Somehow he doubted Miko's artwork was going to help with that. "Um ... "

"And when we got back, I realized we hadn't seen anything except rocks and 'Cons. So I made this!" Miko waved the picture at him again. "For reference!"

Raf had once spent half an hour showing Jack optical illusions on his computer: endless waterfalls, reversing staircases, rabbits that morphed into ducks or vice versa, depending on how you looked at them. He'd had to pretend interest after the first ten minutes; swapping between perspectives had been more effort than fun. Now Jack felt his eyes skew fit to cross as the popsicle suddenly took on unhappily familiar contours. Oh, no. "A picture of Ultra Magnus ... in a kilt?"

"Worth a thousand words, right?" Miko grabbed another marker from a gray metal holder Jack had last seen on Agent Fowler's desk and drew a horizontal line behind the kilted robotsicle, after which she began filling the space above it with fluffy clouds and m-shaped birds. "Now they won't have to ask!"

Jack tried and failed to imagine Ultra Magnus's reaction to having Portrait of a Senior Autobot Officer As a Scotsman posted on the Cybertronian equivalent of the refrigerator. Wheeljack's response, on the other hand, he could envision all too clearly. "That seems like an awful lot of work," he said, wondering how in the world he could head Miko off this time. Raf couldn't scrub a physical picture out of existence the way he did a JPEG. "Why didn't you just find something on the Internet?"

Miko tossed her marker back into the can and rolled her eyes. "Oh, please," she said. "Who's going to have a shot of a Cybertronian wearing a kilt?"

Try the conspiracy websites, Jack thought reflexively -- except that alien bagpipers were too out there even for the tinfoil hat brigade. Probably. "No -- what I meant was -- "

But Miko, reminded of a more serious grievance, barreled on without listening. "And I can't snap one myself to Photoshop because someone got his tailpipe in a twist over my cell phone!"

She scowled so ferociously across the hangar at Ultra Magnus that Jack half-expected the Autobot's field sensors to sound an alarm. Optimus Prime's straight-arrow second-in-command had reacted with predictable horror upon discovering images of his comrades, their base, and a number of their missions stored in an unsecured ("But it's password-locked!" "Not to Soundwave and his ilk."), portable ("Like I'd take it anywhere near Soundwave!" "Uh, Miko, you already have. Twice." "Not. Helping. Jack."), human device ("Well, your 'devices' aren't safe, either -- Raf hacked straight through Soundwave to download the Iacon database!" "Which is why security protocols must be observed with the utmost stringency."). He'd loomed above her, conscientiousness personified, and ordered her to hand over her phone; she'd refused, head thrown back, teeth bared, and dared him to take it. It's like watching the irresistible force meet the immovable object, Raf had whispered to Jack after prudently stashing his own phone and laptop out of sight under the couch.

Fortunately (for the onlookers, if not for philosophy) Optimus had intervened before the combatants could resolve the paradox. Miko had been permitted to keep her phone and its photo app as long as all current and future shots were downloaded to the base's mainframe. In return, she'd sworn to curtail her paparazza impulses around the Autobots and focus on reconnaissance and espionage. The sight of her solemnly linking pinkies with the titanic Autobot leader had made Jack wish for his own camera -- if only for proof that Miko hadn't been crossing the fingers of her other hand behind her back. Until now she'd seemed content to keep her promise; he hoped this wasn't the first crack in her resolve. "Look, Miko," he said, "I just don't think Ultra Magnus will appreciate -- "

"I know!" she snapped, hugging the sketchbook to her chest as if she expected someone to try to take it from her, too. "Ever since he got here — ever since we got here — " She pressed her cheek against the book's spiral-bound spine, turning away from him, and her voice dwindled to a mutter he had to strain to catch. "Everything's different now."

Jack followed her gaze to a section of hangar floor scuffed with huge, dark foot- and tread-marks that identified it as the emergence point for the groundbridge. He opened his mouth to say something sensible and comforting, then shut it when he realized he had nothing to offer. Day by day, hour by hour, the war was heating up again. The Decepticons had the edge in personnel and resources; unless the Autobots could prevent their foes from resurrecting the Predacon army that had defeated their outpost on Earth eons ago, Team Prime would suffer the same fate. His own hands clenched, nails digging into his palms. And there was little or nothing he, Miko or any human could do to help.

Little, perhaps, something inside him murmured. It sounded not unlike Optimus. But not nothing.

You didn't roll your eyes at Optimus Prime -- at least, Jack didn't -- not even when he left you behind to plug leaks in the plumbing, because you'd seen him carry the small loads himself, as well as the weight of two worlds. He'd fought Megatron sword to sword in epic battle between routine patrols and energon scouting runs. When he spelled Ultra Magnus at mission control, his concentration never slackened until everyone was home safe, whether they were dodging Decepticons or rush-hour traffic. He'd sacrificed the chance to restore his own planet to save the Earth, but he'd also brought Raf snowballs from the Yukon, taken Agent Fowler's rants in stride, and rescued Miko's How I Hung Out With Aliens On My Exchange Year slideshow from deletion.

Cross-cultural relations, huh?

"Is that it?" Jack asked. "That one picture?"

Miko lifted her head and aimed a creditable glower at him despite the dampness of her lashes and the tracks of the sketchbook's binding across her face. "What?"

"Well, Scotland isn't the only country on Earth with its own, uh, national dress," said Jack. Miko's glare deepened and her lips parted, but he hurried on before she could interrupt. "I mean, what if the next mission sends the 'Bots to Japan or India or -- or Bavaria or someplace? If we had a whole stock of visual references for them to consult, they'd never have to ask what a kimono or a pair of lederhosen was."

Now it was her turn to blink. "Lederhosen?"

Jack mimed raising a mug. "Those short pants Germans wear to drink beer."

Miko considered that, absently retrieving the marker from behind her ear. "The 'Bots don't drink," she pointed out.

They don't play the bagpipes, either, Jack thought. He waved the objection off with studied nonchalance. "It was just an example," he said and prayed he wouldn't have to come up with any others.

"Hmm," said Miko, tapping the marker's red cap against her teeth.

Jack leaned back against the creaky, faux-leather cushion. The back of his neck itched, but he resisted the urge to fidget. For all her childishness, Miko wasn't a child: you couldn't pat her on the head and hand her a box of crayons to keep her out of trouble. But you could let her do the job she'd assigned herself -- and if it prevented her from running headfirst after her friends into danger, so much the better.

Because you're not helpless as long as you're helping, right?

The comm's audio feed sounded an alert and Jack's attention immediately shifted to the monitors. "Base, this is team two," said Bulkhead's voice, hurried but calm. "We have the package."

If Ultra Magnus had contemplated any other outcome, he gave no sign of it. "Acknowledged, team two," he responded. "Rendezvous with team one at the arranged coordinates."

"On our way. Team two, out."

Jack released a breath he hadn't noticed himself holding and checked on Miko. She was frowning, but pensively and not at him or the commander. After a moment she stuck her marker in the can, slim fingers rummaging through its contents until they found a pencil. "Wheeljack," she said as she flipped the sketchbook open to a blank page, "could totally rock a hakama."

Jack didn't bother to ask what that meant -- he was pretty sure he'd find out, one way or another. Besides, Miko was already absorbed in her new drawing, lips pursed as she pondered her subject, pencil scratching and swooping across the paper. He rose quietly. One of the bathroom sinks drained in fits and starts, he recalled; if he snaked it now, he could stave off a complete clog later ...

"Thanks, Jack."

He glanced back over his shoulder, but Miko had slumped down behind her sketchbook again. All he could see were her knees and the top of her head and her right elbow, momentarily still. "Sure," he answered.

He waited until the bathroom door had closed behind him to smile wryly, then set about his own work whistling "Scotland the Brave" against the uncanny hush.

[Acknowledgments: Transformers Primewas created by Hasbro Studios. Copyright for this property is held by Hasbro.]

Fandom: I liked it, so of course they canceled it!

nebroadwe — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 00:44:50 GMT

Here I am again, making irritated noises on discovering that yet another animated series I like, Transformers: Prime, is going POOF! off The Hub after a shortened third season. This after Cartoon Network canceled Greg Weisman's Young Justice after its second season (which was act two of a three-act arc -- and now I'll never know how the story would have ended, argh, argh, argh), along with Bruce Timm's Green Lantern, which I'd been iffy about overall but enjoyed enough to watch when I got the chance. The Thundercats reboot also failed to survive, which is more of a grief to my friend ravensnow than to me (I wanted to like it ...), but I must admit that I find this trend of cancellations ... disturbing. All of these shows were SF action dramas with long-term plots; most of them seem to have been replaced by episodic action comedies. To which my response is a deep groan and a turn back to watching anime, where SF action dramas with long-term plots aren't box office poison. And, yes, fortysomething women aren't the target market for CN, The Hub, Nick, et al., but I'd like to point out two things:

a) My taste for SF action dramas with long-term plots developed when I was in elementary school; and
b) I was hooked on several of these shows by fen who are part of the target market.

I wish that more people (or at least studio executives) shared my tastes in storytelling, because it's getting really irritating to settle in to a good plot with nice characterization that's pitched at a YA audience and have the whole thing shut down short of its proper conclusion. The only reason I'm not giving Dragons: Riders of Berk the side-eye at this point is because it's aimed at a younger audience and can ride the coat-tails of the theatrical films. By contrast I'm ever more pessimistic about the chances of Legend of Korra managing to air all four of the miniseries its creators say they have planned. Are those of us, young and old, who like animated arc storytelling really such a minority that we can't support a show or two while everyone else is watching the episodic stuff? Do we need to rise up and revolt? Who's with me?

Booklog: Upcoming good stuff

nebroadwe — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:32:57 GMT

Having enjoyed Polly Shulman's Grimm Legacy (a light, library-themed YA fantasy), I'm pleased to see that she's got another book set in the same universe, The Wells Bequest, which from its publicity snippet looks like another good read. Yay!

Also, John Joseph Adams is bringing out an anthology of weird Western tales, Dead Man's Hand, which may interest some on my flist ...

Curiosa: When acronyms collide

nebroadwe — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 17:13:06 GMT

Today's work task: transcribe the text on the parchment ms. leaves used as pastedowns in an old binding. One's from a popular medieval text for medical students, Gilles de Corbeil's De pulsibus -- everything you wanted to know about the human pulse, in verse. The other is from a breviary with some pretty red-and-blue initials, but at this point in my career, if I've seen one ms. leaf from a late medieval breviary with pretty red-and-blue initials, I've seen them all. That is, until I get to the notation for the psalm for the second nocturne of (I think) the feast of the Epiphany:

Iubilate d'o o.t'.p.
Which means "Jubilate Deo omnis terra psalmum" (the first words of Psalm 65), but had me briefly agreeing that yes, we should all praise God for our OTPs ...

My various fandoms have eaten my brain ...