eugenesis-text

‘You’ll regenerate. You always do.’
‘Not this time. I’ve had enough. I just want this to end – permanently.’
Chromedome saw the sadness in his eyes and knew that there was no persuading him. ‘Matrix guide
you,’ he said, and jumped through the portal.
‘If there is nothing I can do to change your mind…’ said Perceptor (ever-awkward with goodbyes,
especially final ones).
‘Give Hot Rod a proper send off, and if you ever see Prowl just tell him… tell him that I…’
‘I know. Matrix guide you, Kup.’
Perceptor disappeared into the warp gate and Kup erased the co-ordinates. The energy dissolved,
revealing a dirty hangar wall. Alone in a deserted room, he picked up a weapon for the last time, checked
his ammunition clip and walked to the door. Grubby red laserbeams rippled down the corridor like
taillights at high speed.
He’d often wondered what this moment would be like. He always knew it wouldn’t be circuitburn
that got him; not for him the dubious comfort of lying on a recharge slab on some retirement barge until
his cobwebbed brain flamed itself out. He thought about the things he had and hadn’t done, and the
amount of both surprised him.
Where to start Fighting Shrikebats, tunnelling into the bowels of Nilliad 3, ferrying refugees from
Pequod’s penal colony – three of a thousand off-world missions, each one revolving around him. Closer to
home, he remembered spending pre-war days as a vaculift repairman, watching old friends grow frail as the
energon rationing reached Mismia; he remembered shooting a Decepticon for the first time and gagging at
the shock; meeting up with Blurr and Hot Rod; fighting off the mode-lock and the body-seizures and the
fever-dreams and all the other things that came with old age; trying to just keep up, you know, with the
pace of things; letting Fort Max persuade him to become a Targetmaster because it involved the most
superficial binary bonding; going on interstellar diplomatic missions to undo the Empire’s damage;
counselling Hot Rod as he started to display the Signs of Affinity; breaking down in synth-shock only a few
weeks ago when Ratchet told him that after years of patient reconstitution, his servos were now simply
beyond repair.
He didn’t want to die. Not really. Not when it came to the crunch. Not if he had a choice. The
trouble was, it was only now – with the portal in flames and the gun was in his hand and the Quintessons
tumbling toward him – it was only now that he realised this. He didn’t want to die; but it was better to die,
he told himself, than to live another 60 million years.
‘Thank you, and goodnight,’ he said, and stepped outside.
Perceptor opened his eyes as the warpgate collapsed. He blinked away the neon echo, absorbed the
relocation lag, and adjusted to a crisp white room filled with dozens of Autobots and Decepticons.
‘Hello,’ he said, accepting Nightbeat’s hand. ‘We just thought we’d drop by.’
On the other side of Cybertron, inside a Lonium temple, the wormhole was growing. Agitated and
shiftless and gorging on space-time, it unfurled with fitful urgency. Everything was fodder; everything
surrendered to its tendrils. It was nearing the end of its lifespan, and couldn’t decide whether to collapse or
explode. At its heart, however, it was still. Amid the flux and dry-weave fractals was 1984, waxed with a
Polaroid gloss.
Outside, beyond the roughshod plateau, beyond the greying plains and ash-kissed ruins, a Quintesson
squad ploughed through Lonium. Had they looked up, they’d have seen that the sky was smudged with a
strange light, vibrant and soiled and 30 years old.
In the corner of Delphi’s entrance foyer, Nightbeat took his friend aside. ‘Are you okay, Siren You
look ill.’
‘Who, me I’m fine.’ He stepped aside to allow the Constructicons to filter past. ‘I dunno, Nightbeat,
doesn’t this make you… uncomfortable’
‘What, you mean all these Decepticons’