eugenesis-text

‘Hello’
Hosehead, standing on guard, jumped at the sound and nearly dropped his weapon as the patient
opened his eyes. ‘Optimus! Thank Primus! I – I – My god! Optimus Prime!’
‘It seems that you have the upper hand, my friend. I’m afraid I don’t know your name.’
‘It’s Hosehead! Don’t worry, I’m not offended. Nightbeat explained everything. I admit it took some
swallowing, and I wasn’t sure whether I believed it at first – I mean, the whole wormhole business – but
now it makes perfect sense. Wow. Optimus Prime.’
Optimus sat up and swung his legs off the operating table, then winced at the pain. ‘I’m glad it makes
sense to someone.’
‘Careful sir, you’re not quite tip-top yet. I’ll call Cloudraker for a check-up.’ He brought his wrist
communicator to his lips and paused, as if reluctant to share Prime with anyone else. ‘You know, I should
apologise for what happened earlier. You know, when we came charging out the base. There have been
impostors, you see, and we haven’t seen you for, like, years.’
‘So Nightbeat was saying.’ Optimus began disconnecting cables and putting them neatly to one side.
‘How is he’
‘Who, Nightbeat Worried sick, not that he’d show it. I knew you’d pull through, but it was touch
and go for a while. Imagine dying on us a second time! Can you—’
Optimus raised his hand. ‘What did you just say’
Galvatron looked as if he had been poured into the holding chair and left to set. Smothered in pincer
clamps and good old-fashioned Inhibitor Claws, a loose muzzle hanging pendulously from his jaw, he
looked at the viewing gallery set into a top corner. Two figures, Nightbeat and Siren, were woven into the
grain of the tinctured glass, their frowning faces stretching in and out of sight.
‘Darkmount has better cells than this,’ Galvatron slurred.
‘Had,’ corrected Siren, noting the slight delay between speaking and hearing the echo of his voice
down below. ‘Right now Darkmount has better craters than us, and that’s about it. Bombsite chic: it’s all
the rage these days.’
‘Come down here and chat, Autobot.’
‘Do you even know where you are, Galvatron’ said Nightbeat. ‘Do you know what’s happened to
you since you were abducted from your fortress’ His voice was measured and direct, but he felt uneasy
talking to the Decepticon leader. The closest he’d come to ’Con Command was a couple of run-ins with
Thunderwing in 1989 and a ringside seat when Scorponok and Shockwave had duked it out in New Jersey
a year later. Faced with the tactile flesh-and-bone fury of the lord and founder himself, the other three
seemed insignificant. ‘You teleported into a Quintesson concentration camp. You were rescued by a team
of Micromasters. Autobot Micromasters.’
‘In case you didn’t know,’ Siren continued, ‘The Quintessons have taken over the planet. Your
Decepticons are dead or dying. Where have you been’
Galvatron considered his options and eventually said, ‘Aquaria – the planet which serves as the
Quintessons’ base of operations. They had better cells too.’
‘Did you see any Autobots on Aquaria’
‘Yes,’ Galvatron grinned. ‘Thunderclash and a Pretender. They’re dead. They were cut open and
spread over the floor. The Quintessons walk on their entrails and laugh when they slip. I passed the time by
counting footprints on their faces and—’
‘—all your troops are dead and dying,’ rejoined Siren, ‘and every scrap of Cybertronian land you ever
stole has been retaken, and your legacy is spat upon and ridiculed by Quintesson officials who have
achieved in five days what you spent four million years failing to do.’
Galvatron stared at the gallery glass, trying to pinpoint Siren’s face. He laughed and the holding chair
rattled, coughing rust into the spotlight.
Nightbeat detuned his optics so that the Decepticon was replaced by his own reflection. ‘We found
something inside you,’ he said, playing Good Cop to Siren’s Bad. ‘Something nasty. A microchip that seems
to prevent transformation.’
‘It’s called an Inhibitor Chip. I was Xenon’s test subject.’ He paused. ‘Xenon is their leader. Let me
out and I’ll tell you more.’