eugenesis-text

thousand photon bombs, and a haggard Empty – some wide-eyed little cripple with pipe-cleaner limbs -
would climb from a manhole, realise he is the last one, and gratefully switch himself off.
They had been walking for hours. At some point – Centurion couldn’t pinpoint exactly when –
Wheeljack had transformed an armful of scrap metal into a slim-line communications device. Mainframe
was programming it now. Bored with his own thoughts, Centurion tuned back into their conversation,
which had somehow swung round to the undead.
‘…coming out of the ground,’ Wheeljack muttered, smoothing out the horizon with a gesture. ‘As
far as the eye could see. Thousands of them.’
‘Have I missed something’ asked Centurion.
‘Drifted off again, did we’ Mainframe did not look up from the box of circuitry in his hand.
‘Wheeljack and I were remarking on the lack of activity around here.’
‘We’ve yet to see one Decepticon air squad, a Harvester Unit, a demo-crew. It reminded me of
something Ultra Magnus once told me, about the dead rising in Kalis.’
Mainframe snapped the comms box shut. ‘There is always the possibility that the Quintessons have
already attacked Cybertron. The central belt of city-states could have gone up in flames for all we know.
The three of us might represent half the Autobots on this planet.’ He handed the box to Wheeljack. ‘I’ve
done all I can but it’s still short range – about a hundred miles.’
‘The Canyons are over twice that distance away. We need to find an energy source, something we
can tap into. A cyclic transmitter would do it. Even an ETS port.’
Centurion shielded his optics and pointed towards a spec on the horizon. ‘What about that’
‘Good eyes,’ muttered Wheeljack, flicking down his visor. He saw a crippled building, half sawmill,
half bunker. Paper-thin and thumbed at the edges, it was built around a flaccid pylon, its spine wedged
firmly under a cliff-face. He transformed and revved his engine. ‘Follow me.’
Up close, with the sun exaggerating every defect, the spec looked less promising. Centuries of fallout
had tanned the metal, giving it the tone and texture of a two pence piece. The words ‘Crossways Outdoor
Construction’ were bent around the rim. Hunks of discarded machinery sat fat and happy in the sun,
balding with age.
‘Not much to look at,’ concluded Wheeljack, dragging his hand along a pyramid of steel tubing. ‘But
you never know. Maybe inside there’s something we can hook up to.’
The interior was bright with yesterday’s sunlight. Conveyor belts, traction engines and process
moulds were curtained off by grubby chains and piping. Legless servo-droids balanced on poles, their torsos
layered with thinning continents of grime.
‘The last tenant used this place to manufacture weapons,’ said Wheeljack. ‘Made a mint, too.’
Centurion prodded a servo-droid, who bobbed and tottered. ‘This used to be a Decepticon outpost’
‘Who said anything about the Decepticons Could’ve been run by an Autobot. Could’ve been
Prime’s main supplier.’
‘At least all this indicates a power source,’ said Mainframe, refusing to be sidetracked. He motioned
towards a twisted stairwell. ‘Let’s find it.’
Halfway up and they saw it: a flickering light, loose and fractured against the wall, like TV pictures
escaping from an upstairs room. Someone was here. Fuel pumps drummed to a faster beat as they edged
onto the landing. Wheeljack reached the last doorframe, ducked down and glanced inside. A Transformer
with his back turned was hunched over a console.
Wheeljack scoured the room for a weapon, or something he could make into a weapon, and then saw
the symbol: thumb-sized, cherry red, standing out like a lipstick mark on the stranger’s collar.
‘It’s okay, he’s one of us.’ Wheeljack ushered the others through the doorway and offered his hand.
‘Excuse me I don’t believe we’ve met.’
Wafer-thin floor plating sprung into the air, jettisoned by a dozen spring-loaded weapons. The
teetering barrels wheeled on the intruders, scribbling them with laser-lines and target tracks. Only then did
the mysterious robot swing mechanically on his chair: a servo-droid with a gun barrel for a face.
‘It’s all been rigged,’ said Wheeljack, turning on his heels. ‘Who’s doing this Show yourself!’
The voice that boomed back was godlike in its omnipresence, its rumbling vacancy. ‘By the Celestial
Spires! Wheeljack! It is you!’
‘So you are an Autobot! Shut down the weapons. We don’t have time for this.’