eugenesis-text

They had arrived, and he had screamed. Blitzwing didn’t normally scream, but the Sharkticon’s whip
had dug deep, and now his back was weeping oil. He wouldn’t stumble a second time; he would
concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other; he would concentrate on the fat yellow band of
engex linking his ankles; he would concentrate on the step, the stoop, the shuffle. People were watching
him. People were spitting at him.
Blitzwing knew that he was in the Manganese Mountains but could not pinpoint his exact location.
He thought about asking Brawl or Sinnertwin, who had been chained to his back ever since Polyhex, but
no one was talking. There had been silence in the containment cells, silence in the transport pod, silence as
they floated over Darkmount watching Quintessons pick and prod at what was left. Such a long journey…
He jerked backwards. Someone had tripped up behind him. A quick scuffle, a few tired yells, and the
nearest guard waded in, waving his weapon. There was a sudden shot and he felt a web of cold oil splatter
his back. When the guard disengaged himself he was streaked with black, and when the gang started
moving again, Blitzwing could feel the drag of a dead body. Brawl or Sinnertwin
Up ahead, entrance doors gave access to the mountain. He’d expected the interior to be pitch black
but it was the opposite: an expanse of white so uniform that there seemed to be no doorways or edges or
colliding dimensions: the people inside (guards and sentries with databoards and bent heads) were
unencumbered by corner and crease.
The room boiled beneath panoplies of naked bulb. He felt his electro-bonds run cold and tried to
look defiant when the scientists (he thought they were scientists) consulted their manuals and the engineers
(he thought they were engineers) greased their knuckles. He felt their hands all over him – along with
hammerheads and razorblades. Their voices sounded identical and danced around his head:
‘Surrender all bio-mechanical shells, hybrid armament and–’
‘—concealed weaponry and non-essential hardware for incineration–’
‘Is this your primary anthropomorphic/meso-morphic configuration or do you–’
‘—back-strut Inhibitor Claw operational and–’
‘—have a secondary bipedal mode that–’
‘—empty all endoskeletal compartments or similar subskin cavities–’
‘—is your name, rank, allegiance–’
‘—confiscate and destroy all extraneous appendages, including ancillary limbs and–’
He muttered vague answers, only half-understanding the questions. The scientists smiled at each other
and jabbed their keypads. The engineers tore him apart. Off came the crumpled missile launchers, off came
the laser ports, off came the empty ammunition compartments, off came the spikes and sharp edges – and
after so much downscale, after so much cut-back and peel-away, he wondered what on Cybertron they’d
leave behind - a spindly, fine-wire skeleton, perhaps, or a vulgar twist of nibbled metal; his optic bulbs
would pendulum on stalks, his arms would taper to nothing.
Once the engineers had peeled away enough skin (‘He is pure-form: excellent,’ they would say, or
‘Good: he is uni-shell’) and the lights on the scientist’s pads had stopped flashing, he was bundled into one
of many side rooms. This one stank of varnish and synthanol. The walls, floor and ceiling were tiled. He
noticed that there was a nozzle or plughole at the centre of each tile, and it worried him. A sudden suction
glued him to the floor and then – in what can only be described as a spasm of colour and noise – the
floor/walls/ceiling disgorged a torrent of fine red spray. He was trapped dead centre, lost in the spume, in
the gush. The floor began firing electricity through his nerve circuitry, from boot-sole to scalp.
He thrashed about, of course, but eventually the shocks - and the shower - just stopped. He heard the
patter of paint drops and opened his eyes. The room was entirely red, and so was he.
A Quintesson walked in wearing metal gloves and holding a weapon Blitzwing did not recognise. It
had a standard butt and a standard loading cone, but the barrel was just a square of sizzling metal.
He hid his red face behind his red arms while another jolt from the floor froze him in place. The
Quintesson grabbed him by the throat and pushed the branding iron deep into his forehead. The paint
popped and rolled aside as the cranial casing puckered up. He did not struggle when the Quintesson led
him into a new corridor. The fight had left him.
The corridor opened onto wide rectangular shaft. He was thrown inside a cell and huddled gratefully
into the corner. The electro-bars crackled as they were resealed. He pushed his face close against the wall
but its smoked surface struggled to return the image. He ran his finger across the scar on his forehead.