eugenesis-text

Red Alert and Kup brought Soundwave to the ground before his finger had surrendered the trigger.
Perceptor kicked his concussion blaster aside and pressed a gun under the Decepticon’s chin, itching to fire.
‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t pull this trigger!’
The medi-bay shook and a thin shower of grit fell from the ceiling.
Chromedome’s voice sounded distant and tinny on the Tannoy: ‘We have a Quintesson air fleet heading
this way. Those were the first of the long-range missiles.’
‘As I thought,’ said Soundwave. ‘Look at the scratches on Rev-Tone’s leg. What do they say’
Throwback kept Fulcrum at gunpoint as he studied the physical graffiti. ‘What do they say Nothing.
They’re meaningless. Rev-Tone was deranged.’
‘The Quintessons used Rev-Tone as a plant, you idiot. They put a lifetracer inside his brain module.
It’s a bug that transmits location. Normally used by infiltrators. The host is aware of its presence.’
Perceptor climbed off Soundwave. ‘They let him live. They wanted us to detect the transmission…’
He stared at Rev-Tone’s remains and the letters he had scratched onto his thigh: ‘ifetrac’.
‘Would you stop doing that Please It’s rather off-putting.’
‘I wasn’t looking at you,’ said Swerve, staring through the keyhole in his hand. ‘I’m assessing
damage.’
Pincher poured another sample into a shallow glass basin. They had made slow progress. Running
tests on aqua fortis was difficult, not least because all non-glass instruments dissolved on contact. Pincher’s
studies now focused on the composition of the Quintesson test tube, which he was convinced held the key
to synthesising a resistant alloy.
He worked, as always, in his Pretender suit, welcoming the extra insulation. He thought of his old
partners, Doubleheader and Longtooth, both of them now dead. They’d urged him to join them in Iacon
but he had declined, bewitched by the prospect of running his own lab in Delphi. Now, surrounded by
glassware and bubbling liquids, he wondered if he’d made the right choice. What had he achieved
Swerve handed him the latest tox report, a codex of dispiriting blanks and dashes. ‘I’ve crossreferenced
the bio-signature with everything on file and there’s no match. Any luck with the tube’
‘Well, it’s not made of glass. There’s definitely traces of metallic sediment - a hybridised element that
renders it immune from corrosion. But it’s like working in the dark, you know I need a frame of
reference.’
Then, without warning, Galvatron appeared in the doorway. Swerve saw the Decepticon’s reflection
in the monitor screen and swung around to confront him. He shouted a warning to Pincher and reached
for his cryo-gun, dropping the test tube. Pincher screamed as the aqua fortis sample smashed against his chest
plate and discharged its corrosive venom.
Optimus Prime barged past a bemused Galvatron and knelt alongside Pincher, who was cradling his
chest on the floor. ‘Are you hurt’ he demanded, annoyed that he did not know the scientist’s name.
Pincher relaxed, suddenly aware that he wasn’t in any pain. ‘Yes,’ he said, surprised that he could still
talk. He dabbed his wet chest, rubbed his fingers and watched the liquid trickle harmlessly down his
Pretender shell.
The first batch of Tridents was already peeling the Institute off the planet’s crust. Windows dissolved
or burst their banks, helpless against the surge of superheat. Ceilings collapsed and walls dominoed into one
another. Troop carriers touched down nearby, split open and released Sharkticon squads. The foot soldiers
marched through richly cratered fields, oblivious to the gunfire above their heads.
Chromedome shot out of the comms room, buoyed by flame, and collided with the far wall. Red
Alert pulled him from the dent. ‘Did you get a message to Siren’ he asked.
‘Yeah. They’re ready to receive.’
‘Go downstairs and help Perceptor with the teleporter.’
‘Where are you going’
‘Soundwave and I are spreading the word.’
There were no divisions now, no borderlines or exclusion zones: both sides mixed without thinking.
They tensed and relaxed communally, attuned to the rhythms of war, waiting for the cluster bomb that