eugenesis-text

Galvatron jabbed his gun at the dead teletrooper. ‘He abducted me and brought me here. Are you the
one that sent him’
‘He isn’t – wasn’t – your abductor. What do you want, Galvatron’
‘Freedom. Help me escape.’ Galvatron pressed his gun barrel against Haxian’s forehead. ‘Help me
escape or I’ll kill you.’
Moments later, with Q-12 dumped in the corner, Haxian attached the final piece of telearmour onto
Galvatron’s body. Throughout the operation, Galvatron had retained his laser rifle – even now, as Haxian
reached around his neck to fuse the final set of clamps, he could feel the barrel against his stomach.
‘And this is programmed to take me home’
‘Right back to New Quin— back to Cybertron.’
‘I don’t believe you, of course. You could program it to materialise anywhere – next to a sun as it
goes nova, or inside a black hole. That’s why I’m taking you with me.’
Haxian backed away, hands automatically in the air. ‘I haven’t set it for additional mass.’
‘Convenient.’ Galvatron raised his weapon and felt the bodysuit bend and flex in time with his limbs.
‘Come over here.’
‘No.’ Haxian dropped instantly, expecting the shot - it exploded against an alarm pad on the other
side of the lab. Galvatron shrugged, shot Haxian in the chest, and walked into the corridor. Sharkticons
were already pouring out of nearby doorways.
A different Galvatron would have stood his ground and tackled his pursuers; a different Galvatron
would have rubbed his knuckles and got to work. But this Galvatron was low on energy and roped into a
constrictive suit of subspace armour; this Galvatron was suffering the slow, insidious effects of a warped
Inhibitor Chip. This Galvatron ran.
He turned another corner: more Sharkticons. He realised, too late, that the corridors were like wheel
spokes, and that he was trapped near the hub. He ducked into a side-passage. The suit weighed heavily on
him, like wet clothes. He fumbled with the belt controls and tumbled blindly on, voices and laserfire close
behind. What would happen if they recaptured him Another Inhibitor Chip Could he override the
mechrobe a second time
He ran towards a dead end and felt pinpricks of heat all over his body: the telearmour was powering
up. He drummed the control pad, hoping that one precious key would activate the subspace jump and
whisk him away. He was enveloped in a buttery glow. The walls liquefied and collapsed, white light dashed
his eyes and he fell to his knees, defeated, blind and mad with pain.
Sunrunner and Blastmaster could not believe what they had just seen: a hulking robot had phased into
the prison foyer in a storm of bruised light and sound. The robot’s red-hot knees cratered the floor and
smoke escaped his throbbing shoulders.
‘That’s not a warp-gate,’ said Sunrunner eventually, still talking to the other Micromasters via inter-
Autobot radio. ‘Maybe some kind of… some kind of – I don’t know what’s just happened.’
They moved closer to the grille as two Quintesson wardens descended the stairs. Between them,
shuffling like children, were five red Decepticons, their eyes fixed only on the next stair. When their
captors broke off to inspect the new arrival, the prisoners simply stopped moving.
Galvatron’s sight returned slowly, as if every optic fibre was being reconstituted. He blinked at the
floor, at his gloved hands, at the thousands of cells stretching upward into oblivion. The two Quintessons
sloped into view and started talking to him, celebrating his arrival, mumbling into their wrists about liquid
samples and deadlines. Galvatron stood up, killed them with swift punches to the head, and tore off his
helmet.
‘What the hell is he doing here’ said Sunrunner. ‘What’s happened to his body’
Galvatron started to undress, peeling off the layers of warm telearmour and inspecting his own
blistered skin. He studied the headless Quintessons and for a moment questioned the success of his escape:
had he simply teleported to another part of the Aquarian base
Sunrunner shifted his weight and glanced at the others. Quintessons he could handle; Quintessons he
had expected. Captive Autobots, captive Decepticons – all part of the plan. But Galvatron He’d never
even seen Galvatron before, not in the flesh.
‘What do we do’
‘How about nothing’ Phaser buzzed back. ‘We sit still, shut up and observe, just like Siren told us to do.’
‘Nothing sounds good to me,’ said Treadbolt.