eugenesis-text

‘And you’ve no idea what that entails’ Centurion could not believe they were racing towards a
cosmological hot spot they knew nothing about.
‘We’re relying on guesswork. The wormhole can go one of two ways. It might expand—’
‘Good or bad’ asked Hound.
‘The eye of the wormhole would envelop entire cities and transport them across the time-stream.
Eventually, all of Cybertron would be teleported backwards of forwards in time, depending on the whim of
the Primal consciousness – we could materialise inside the Hub, or the Sentient Core, or a void of pure,
post-purge abstraction.’
‘Bad, then. And the other possibility’
‘The wormhole simply collapses.’ Nightbeat shook his head at Hound’s optimistic grin. ‘Except if it
does that any time soon, Optimus Prime is stranded here, out of time.’
‘But surely that’s good news for the Autobots of 2012’
‘Yes, but it’s bad news for the Autobots of 1984, the ones lying deactivated on a volcanic floor. Of
which you were one, Hound.’
‘Ah.’
‘From now on, the subject is officially off-limits. Whatever the state of the wormhole, if we can get
close, we do: we need to protect it. If the Quintessons cross the threshold, god knows what will happen.’
Nightbeat leant over Red Alert in the pilot seat and peered through the viewscreen. All that could be seen
below were quill-thin motorways circling Yuss like stretch marks.
‘Is a direct aerial approach wise’ asked Red Alert. ‘The Quintessons have surveillance globes
everywhere.’
‘I don’t care. We’ve taken the quickest route from Delphi to Yuss without any interference, and if
the Quintessons get in the way now, so be it.’
He was tired of taking precautions, tired of wringing his hands while the Quintessons had free run of
the planet. From this moment forth they would tackle the enemy head-on: direct action, brutal and
decisive. Prime had the Fortress; Galvatron had Aquaria. One way or another, this is how it ended.
‘Uh-oh,’ said Red Alert, studying the scan-screen. ‘Uh-oh,’ he said again, a little louder, so that the
rest of the crew took notice. ‘The instruments are playing up. Readings are off the scale.’
‘Can they be trusted’ demanded Nightbeat.
‘Well if they were accurate, we’d be flying at twice the speed of light. So no. Something’s wreaking
havoc with our gyro systems.’
Frenzy pointed ahead. ‘Something like that, perhaps’
Up ahead, the celestial temple gleamed with a nuclear sheen. Lightning danced across a plateau so
fractured that it had become little more than a patchwork of tight-knit obelisks.
The shuttle rolled to a halt outside the temple. The air was fissured with pockets of rogue
temperature, and when the Autobots disembarked they were caught off guard by the nonsense climate. A
spasm of energy rippled through their bodies, through their shuttle, through the Acid Wastes, and across the
entire planet—
In Tene, a secret commune of Neutrals dropped dead from circuit poisoning; in Subterrania, a Lifer trapped in the
throes of morphbirth screamed as the embryo started to grow inwards; somewhere inside Delphi, Springer came back to life
thinking of the next circuit-booster; in Eocra, a city street was transported 289 years into the future, where it materialised
in front of a dying robot signing a treaty; and for 0.8 microseconds the planet reversed its orbital course.
Nightbeat wasn’t to know any of this background stuff. He just bent his head against the wind and
walked into the temple. To his horror and relief, the Ark of 1984 was still visible through the portal’s
throbbing frame. If the Quintessons had discovered the wormhole, they obviously hadn’t used it: the
destination point was exactly as before. How could he have left it unguarded
Lightning skewered the temple horizontally, roping the opposite walls together with terrifying force.
The stained plexiglass windows erupted over the pews, a support column toppled like timber and a clump
of desiccated bodies fell from the ceiling. Nightbeat brushed glass from his shoulders and looked at the
worshippers. Was this the end they had foretold Was this J’nwan
Having mastered his aerial mode a little quicker than his comrades, Jolup moved into pole position
and landed on the runway on top of the Quintesson fortress.