eugenesis-text

Ryknia entered the room and threw Sevax a small black box. ‘Your liquid sample, courtesy of
Xenon. He says not to lose this one.’
‘How is the Imperial Majestrix’ asked Sevax. ‘Any news’
‘He’s preparing to tap into the geode. Haxian’s fully recovered. What else Oh, Rodern’s dead.’
‘Really How’
‘Hyperspatial inversion. Xenon’s techies detected the Enslaver’s energy signature for half a second
before total disintegration. They’re assuming the worst.’
Suddenly, and with a screech of whirring motors, the three dead Decepticons transformed into their
vehicular modes (two tanks and a deep-sea vehicle), splitting the conference table in two and nearly
flattening Ryknia.
A terrified Sevax stared into the tank’s gun-barrel for several moments and then started smiling. ‘It’s
okay,’ he said. ‘When I destroyed the Inhibitor Chips in their necks I must have freed up their morphcores.
This must be some sort of sensory delay – a reflex action.’
Jolup tapped the tank and weighed up the vials in his other hand. ‘Impressive stuff. I think I’ll just
pop Downstairs.’
Ryknia wandered off into the comms room, leaving Sevax to pick himself off the floor and squeeze
past a heavily armoured deepwater pod. ‘Who’s going to clean up this mess’
‘You brought them in here,’ called Ryknia, ‘You can pack them away.’
‘I like it already,’ said Prowl before he had even left the stairs. Perceptor was standing beside an ugly
portal built into the corner of one of the Institute’s two basement hangars.
‘I have yet to describe its function,’ said Perceptor.
‘We used to have one in Mechaforensics. It’s a teleporter.’
‘Yes and no. It’s a matter transporter I converted using components scavenged from several
downloading theatres. The Institute used a short-range MT to bulk-buy new hardware, so it was simply a
question of modification: upgrading it to transport living beings and not merely inanimate objects.’
‘Good work. Excellent work.’
‘I appreciate the compliments, Prowl, but I must stress that the machine is not yet operational. I need
to run tests before permitting the transport of sentients.’
‘I understand.’ Prowl stood back as Perceptor plunged his arms into an open panel and continued rewiring.
‘I am hoping that recalibrating the restrictive v-wave/f-wave framework in favour of trans-sonics will
relinquish some much-needed data storage. If all goes well, we should have a programmable tele-portal
with a range of approximately two thousand miles. Increasing the a/d points is dangerous, though: with a
machine this primitive, molecular integrity cannot be guaranteed. I have considered re-routing all—’
‘I did the right thing, didn’t I Reviving Soundwave, I mean.’
Perceptor continued: ‘I have considered re-routing all the sub-drive modules, but that risks alienating
the core co-ordinates themselves. Wiping generic field data serves no purpose, but another possible
improvement lies in altering…’
‘Perceptor Should I have left him for dead’
‘…the composition of the portal’s frame itself, which seems to cast its warp-net rather wide, wasting a
lot of energy.’
Prowl tried to re-trace his conversational steps and waited for a break in Perceptor’s techno-babble.
‘Will the teleportal reach Delphi’
‘If Siren has the right equipment, yes.’
‘Good.’ A long pause. ‘Right. Well, I’ll, er, I’ll speak to you later.’
Prowl left the basement hangar feeling more isolated than ever. So much for a right hand man; so
much for a trusted advisor. He’d always been there for Optimus Prime. Who was there for him He
wandered through empty corridors. Everyone else was on compulsory downtime, but he was loath to shut
himself down, even for an hour. He valued thinking time more than energy conservation, and besides, a
part of him was afraid to sever neural connections in case he never woke up – not through carelessness or
outside interference, but a subconscious desire to remain asleep.