eugenesis-text

awaiting Confession; Rev-Tone and Quark sat opposite him, weapons on the floor. Rapido was crouched
against the stern, bruised by the warmth of the capped thrusters.
Three miles to the ex-Polyhexian border, the Darklands, and still no one had spoken. No one dared.
It was as if comforting words, however innocent, smuggled doubt and fear into the open. Conversation was
contaminated; one-on-one contact was forbidden in case the contagion spread.
Rev-Tone was first to break the quarantine. Quark was his accomplice, and the infection passed
painlessly between them. They spoke via their own private frequency, without sound, without lip-sync,
without looking up, and so their sin went unnoticed.
‘Hands up who wants to go back’
‘What are we doing out here, Rev-Tone This is stupid. This is suicide.’
‘Didn’t that occur to you before we left’
‘It occurred to me the moment Kup approached us. I was about to say no when you butted in, pledging your
support.’
‘Come on, Quark, you could have said no if you wanted to.’
‘I wasn’t about to let you go alone, was I’
The MARB dropped lower, tipping on its axis to brave the gusts of wind. In the distance, a
Quintesson demolition squad detonated another smart-bomb; the crater it left was so large it seemed to suck
in air, leaving a corresponding kink in orbit. Rev-Tone shielded his eyes.
‘Quark, if… if I’d known you were against this, I’d have backed down. If you don’t want to go I’ll stop the
MARB right now.’
Quark ignored the offer, tempting though it was. ‘How many people did Kup ask on this mission’
‘I don’t know. Ten 20 He targeted the anti-Prowl league, the naysayers from the Crisis vote. That’s the only
reason he invoked the Act: to see who was suitable. It split the force in two, leaving him with a list of potential recruits.
The Soundwave debacle honed the selection process further.’
‘So why aren’t we sitting amongst 86 Autobots’
‘Because there aren’t 86 Autobots foolish enough to accept a guaranteed suicide mission. Kup found so few willing
to join him that he settled for the handful of madmen he’d already found… Are we mad, Quark’
‘Right now, I’m inclined to say yes.’
‘I should never have let you come. I wish you were still in the Institute, off-line like every other sane Autobot.’
‘I’d have come along even if you’d forbidden it.’
‘You put too much faith in me.’
The MARB stopped and Kup swivelled in his chair. ‘We’re here,’ he said, as if he was talking to
disobedient children in the back seat.
They were hovering half a mile above freshly levelled ground. Polyhex flickered in the distance, a
blend of glasseen golds and reds. Kup pointed to a patch of stippled darkness, an aberration on the horizon’s
whim and wane. The Quintesson fortress embossed the skyline like a stamp of velveteen blue.
Kup strapped on a crumbling backpack, twisting buckles over his shoulders. The others did the same.
Soon they were all standing upright in the midsection, battered by the crump and stutter of high-altitude
nuke-winds.
‘We’ll glide in from here, nice and low, tight formation,’ said Kup. ‘No pullbacks, no wide-flyers.
Zero communication. Clear your heads while I take the lead. I’ll be scanning for a balcony. You pull up
after me by igniting the fuel reserves. One burst is all you get. The moment we climb we’ll be detected, but
we should be inside before they can react. Any questions’
No movement. No words. The plague had run its course; all communication was dead. Even Rev-
Tone was struck dumb by the crippling intimacy of hopelessness.
Kup dived off the MARB and sprouted rigid, black-veined wings. The others leapt after him before
they could hesitate, fleeing Purgatory to glide, noiselessly, through the open gates of Hell.
Everyone was panicking; everyone except for Prowl, who hogged the eye of the storm. The other
high-rankers whirled and spun, waving their arms and screaming for calm.
‘Everyone’s accounted for,’ said Perceptor eventually. ‘Everyone except Kup, Rapido, Rev-Tone,
Quark and Rad.’