eugenesis-text

and set-square, as was de rigueur back in ’86 – did their best to reflect this, but didn’t fare too well. It was
well outside their repertoire of expressions, for a start. Right now, Magnus was firing off some very odd
psychic signals, placing him firmly in some no-man’s land between emo-BF#0281 (shell-shocked
resignation) and emo-BF#1029 (pathological need for vengeance). They coped the best they could,
activating all the necessary pulleys and levers, nudging the physiognomic templates into weird new shapes –
it made the City Commander look as if he were chewing a Nebulan.
Bullets flew like woodchip as the Autobots ducked inside the command tower – or what was left of it
(‘what was left of it’ being a depressingly familiar qualifier in these post-Metro days, these days of rubble
culture and wasted land).
Cliffjumper and Snarl guarded the entrance while Magnus counted heads. Those that could stand
stood to attention, their bullet-bruised, hole-punched faces the texture of acrylic paintings.
Ratchet and Fixit traded tools and glances as they pulled wires and patched wounds. No one spoke,
but then no one had anything to say – just the occasional grunt or whimper, the universal mouth-sounds of
pain and sufferance. Some Autobots deliberately annexed their vocab units, preferring to remain strong and
silent while everyone else broke down; it did little to quieten the voices in their heads.
‘We don’t have much time,’ said Ultra Magnus redundantly. ‘I want everyone to head for the Ark.
The vacuum lifts will be totalled so we’ll use the walkways.’
They ran through a side-door and headed for the stairs. Hound was the first to descend, and the first
to find the water. Knee-deep and heavy with chemicals, it clung to his legs and smelt unclean.
‘The moat’s leaked into the city,’ he said. ‘Is the Ark equipped for deep sea take-off’
‘Of course,’ lied Magnus, rummaging underwater. ‘There’s an access hatch down here that leads to
level two.’
Ebony lowered herself through the floor. Beachcomber was next (letting out a scream as the water
attacked a gash in his leg; in response, a few more Autobots made the snip between sensornet and voxbox),
and then Freeway, Bluestreak, Cosmos…
The others fell into a loose line while Magnus climbed back into the tower to check
the barricade.
Nightbeat pressed himself against the mouth of the cavern and watched the quiet Iaconian landscape.
On good nights, when the sky was clear and the bombing stopped, Iacon looked as if it
was draped in silk: dark blue, smoothed around the edges, dead to the touch.
It was almost dawn: the sky was red and rested.
He looked North and saw the transcontinental freeway, nicknamed the Scud-Run by the travellers
who had been pelted with missiles during the early days of the war. Thousands of miles long, it had been
Prima’s greatest achievement, a looped steel thread that stitched together the planet’s expanding colonies.
From here it ran through Korten, Mismia, Londor, Kalis, Tyrest and Mytharc (nicknamed Slaughter City
after the Asphalt Wars; six thousand Decepticons had been liquefied when Triax went nova). It barrelled
into Tarn then Vos, traced the chapped lip of the Rust Sea, skirted the Terbium plains, brushed the
Mercury Bayou, cut across Tene and split Mismia down the middle… but how many craters along the way
How many war-wounds and skirmish scars
He sometimes thought that Cybertron was being chipped away, shrivelled by the micro-nukes and
thud-bombs. One day someone would trip a landmine in Iacon and see the Primal Chamber through the
hole.
He looked South to the Cadmium Mountains. Beyond them, the Golden Dome, once Circuit One’s
crowning achievement, now little more than a giant crushed eggshell. How long since anyone had been
near that place They said it had been rigged and trip-wired by Trannis after the council massacre in 9 th
Cycle 940; they said it was held together by a web of landmines so sensitive
they would fling you through orbit if you crossed them with your shadow.
He looked East, where the local Empties were huddled round a meagre flame, their starfish hands
painted pink. The wind changed, the stars shone a little brighter, and he saw what was happening: they
were pulling wires from another Empty, from the fire in his chest, searching for sugary lubricant or lighter
fuel. How many Empties were left, anyway Despite the claims made by the ever-growing number of
holocaust-deniers, millions had died in Straxus’ cleansing campaign. And yet here they were, the next