eugenesis-text

antimatter, while Councillor Tomaandi leaked memos describing Megatron’s passionate disavowal of the
Decepticon Manifesto, and so on and so forth.
Whatever the spin, whatever the froth, it had been hard for those back home to remain hopeful.
Even now, millions of years later, Nightbeat remembered hearing that contact had been lost with the
Autobots’ Greatest Warrior, that the Matrix Flame had been snuffed and that the cream of Autobot special
forces were officially Missing: Presumed Dead. At the time, amongst the near-compulsory feelings of grief
and loss, he had felt a sense of relief. If he had been selected for Mission: Rockfall he too would have been
dead, and it would have been his name sharing memorial space on Iacon’s Great Dome.
He remembered the weeks leading up to Arklaunch. The crew roster was the most heavily guarded
Autobot secret of its time, more classified than the location of the Council’s nuclear bunker, the Wreckers’
B-list or the mythical epilogue to the Primal Prophecies (the one that was said to foretell the rise of an
überlord named Shokaract). Having said that, everyone knew the Big Guns were going – the surviving
members of the Magnificent Six, the head of the International Medical Foundation, the playbot-turned-spy.
But who else Councillors Pladen and Troi had said that the remaining vacancies were open to any Autobot
who excelled in his field. Candidates sprang up from Mismia to Tene, Kalis to Terbium. Everyone thought
they were in for a chance, including him.
When Optimus had announced his selection to a packed auditorium he had been standing in the
front row, brash and overconfident. The feeling of emptiness and nausea that hit him as Prime named the
last name, and he realised he’d been passed over, had taken decades to fully fade. Centuries later he’d heard
that Bluestreak had taken his place at the eleventh hour, and somehow that had made the disappointment
even greater. Apparently he was ‘not yet ready’. Other snippets of information came to light: Tailglider and
Highwind were tipped to go instead of Sideswipe and Sunstreaker but were working undercover at the
time. The Wreckers were held back at Impactor’s insistence. Wrench was ready to assume his role as Head
of Security but was shot down and killed over Vos; Ironhide, his replacement, was chosen over Kup on
Prowl’s advice. Perceptor was offered a place but elected to remain in Eocra. And Nightbeat… Nightbeat
was ‘not yet ready’.
As he had grown older and lived through the Council Massacre, the Great Exodus and the Straxian
Holocaust, he had realised that Optimus had been right (surprise, surprise). He had been neither
experienced nor mature enough for a place aboard the Ark. The moment the Matrix Flame flickered and
died the Ark crew had became martyrs, each one a Great Hero to which the underground resistance
fighters could aspire. If nothing else, the Nightbeat of 2012 knew that he would have hated being an object
of worship.
He picked his way between Frenzy and Spectro, negotiated a knot of mini-Autobots, and marvelled
at the madness of it all. Four million years ago he had lost a place aboard this ship, and here he was now,
handpicked to retrieve Optimus Prime and save the planet.
It was an uncomfortable state of affairs.
He wondered what would have happened if he had been chosen to help repel the asteroids… would
his mangled remains be spread across the floor right now Would Bluestreak be poking around with a
flashlight
He’d always thought it pointless to consider what might have been. Possible pasts, possible futures –
you might as well try to plot an infinite graph of possibilities. Except now that he had literally stepped into
the past, nothing seemed certain.
Not even his own history.
‘Are you sure the battle spread this far I always thought it was confined to level one.’ Grapple tiptoed
down a connecting corridor, picking out the Tubes of Transference. He pressed his face against a bodypod.
‘You know, Hoist, when Prime suggested we install these I never imagined… Hoist’ He saw his
partner emerge from another doorway. ‘Thanks for wandering off.’
‘Sorry Grapple. I was checking something.’
‘There’s nothing in that room except for – ah yes. Of course.’
‘All five Mind Crystals – you, me, Smokescreen, Tracks and Skids.’
‘But why—’
‘I just had to make sure that they were intact, you know’