eugenesis-text

you’ll burn in the pit for such brazen sacrilege /// it purred, and fired a single shot which drilled the
Autobot into a wall.
Nightbeat vaulted over upturned pews and landed near the droid’s feet. A three-fingered hand
grabbed his throat and lifted him off the floor.
/// repent /// prima chapter two, verse nine: whosoever desecrates the sacred shall ///
Its quotation was cut short as Sunstreaker’s laser-guided missile exploded against its rib. The impact
did not move it, but the pain prompted a reaction: Nightbeat was sent crashing through the pews.
‘Why did Wheeljack have to make ’em so tough’ asked Grapple, pulling his team leader from the
crumpled metal.
‘Back of the neck, guys!’ called Hoist, tapping his own. ‘A concentrated blast will shut down its
CPU!’
‘Okay,’ said Nightbeat, ‘I’ll distract it while you get as close to the wormhole as you can. We’ll take it
from there.’
‘But what do I do when—’
Sunstreaker cut himself short as Nightbeat casually stepped out into the open, put his hands above his
head, and walked towards Guardian.
‘He’s lost it,’ hissed Grapple.
‘I need to ask you something,’ said Nightbeat, making eye contact. The Class 3 trained its wrist-lasers
on the Autobot’s head but held its fire.
/// you dare question me ///
‘I want to know why you killed the worshippers. They were following the way of Primus and living
their lives in accordance with the textural codes. Why did they deserve to die’
/// their faith was weak /// their spirit was lacking /// he wanted them dead ///
‘Right. So if God is so benign, why did He seal you underground for so long’
Guardian cocked his head; engines whirred, pistons pumped.
/// if I had not been punished i would never have discovered the way /// better to be trapped physically than
mentally ///
Nightbeat saw Sunstreaker slipping through the shadows and slowly lowered his arms. ‘You’re
unstable, Guardian. You’ve sat in a hole and let the dogma seep like mech-waste into your bargain-bin
brain module.’
/// i forgive you ///
‘That’s your response You forgive me Forgive me for what, telling you you’re wrong Rejecting
Primus on the grounds that he doesn’t exist Denouncing your entire religion as retrograde folklore that
would sound naïve coming from the mouth of a still-wet proto-form’
Nightbeat stopped talking as Guardian’s targeting laser settled on his brow.
/// you know not what you say ///
Sunstreaker fired, and Guardian’s back burst into flame. The droid arched its spine and saw its attacker
on the threshold of the portal. Nightbeat leapt onto the Class 3’s shoulders and unclipped his pistol.
/// get back /// get back /// get back /// g /// g /// g /// g ///
The droid’s head slumped to one side as a thread of smoke escaped a fresh entry wound in its neck.
‘I don’t know if I shot it in the right place,’ said Nightbeat, sliding to the floor and thumbing back
the droid’s optic covers. ‘But it seems out for the count. Let’s put it back in its box.’
They dumped the body in the hole and kicked loose debris to fill the gaps. Out of sight, out of mind.
‘And after that brief interlude,’ said Nightbeat, ‘we return to the task at hand.’
The wormhole was waiting. Even up close it retained its mystery. One moment it seemed
tantalisingly transparent, the next it was as impenetrable as concrete. Right now, as the Autobots stood in
line, their paintwork bleached by the glow, it looked like balled lightning.
Nightbeat felt ill. This was it, then. The Moment. The Rubicon. He was about to travel through
time and pollute the temporal stream. He was scared; scared of altering the past, scared of dying, scared of
not coming back, scared of failing.
‘Okay everyone,’ he said. ‘I want you to think of the Ark, the central control room, Earth date 1984.
The wormhole will do the rest.’