eugenesis-text

‘There’s no room for luck in science,’ snapped Perceptor, wiping oil from his brow. ‘Let’s get this
over with. I’m activating Delphi’s transmitter now, Soundwave. I am afraid that this might hurt.’
Soundwave’s teeth chattered as untamed energy coursed through his neuranet. He transmitted the
jamming frequency with a single thought; and at the same time, every single light in Southern Cybertron
switched itself off.
And suddenly Shrapnel heard voices…
Sound – well, that in itself was a novelty. Rich and layered, ranging in pitch and volume, it exploded
against receptors that were suddenly and inexplicably revitalised. He continued listening, building a
vocabulary of sounds, too afraid to raise his optic shields (Did he have eyes And if so, was there anything to
see).
The sounds carried their own associative memory. He recalled the jackboot snap of gunshots, the
vacuum rush of a full-frag explosion, the clip and tear of a laser hitting home. Electrobars, fine red spray,
needles in the neck… His body screamed as a billion sensor nodes gorged on fresh stimuli. It was good
pain, though: honest and immediate.
He could hear voices outside. People were talking about the Quintessons, about escape, about the
colour of their skin. They talked about a place named Delphi and the need to get there as soon as possible.
He transformed into insect mode, slipped out of his chains, attached his antennae to the nearest electro-bars
and swooned at the rush of power. The volts raged through his miniaturised body, spreading to solar cells
and energy membranes; with a single thought, he reversed the flow and overloaded Kledji’s generator.
Gossamer-thin threads of energy spread through the complex, hopping from cell to cell, leaping across bars
and balconies, shutting everything down.
By the time Shrapnel disengaged, the prisoners were breaking free and transforming into hover-cars
and pulse-planes and a hundred other modes. One thought burned in their minds as they ran through the
spray-chambers and into the open air; one thought forced them across the runway and into the fully fuelled
transport ships. The thought that was so compelling, so persuasive, that no one questioned it; right now, all
that mattered was reaching a little-known Autobase in the Sonic Canyons.
Wherever he looked it was the same, like some garish version of Unicron’s Pit.
Sheets of flame; rusting cadavers heaped into centipedal body-sculptures; hip-high trenches wet with
fuel pools and mouth oil; a sky full of neon strata.
Quantax knew that watching the battle from the balcony was madness: one stray shot from below
could kill him. He didn’t care. Out here he could survey his kingdom and the mighty army he
commanded. They were fighting to protect him. They were dying in order that he may live. How could he
cower in a bunker in the face of such beautiful sacrifice
A signal inside his head told him that the last of the Frontier Squads had arrived and added their
weight to his ground force. Such perfect timing, such peerless tactical flair. The am-tanks had toppled, the
rail-guns had overheated and the recyc units were now nothing more than burning beacons, but it didn’t
matter. The troops themselves were risking their lives to defend him. That was enough.
He filtered rad-smoke and petrofumes through his olfactory sensors, grabbed a laser rifle and hoisted it
to eye level. His crosshairs prowled the battlefield, passing over the writhing bodies, seeking out an easy
target.
There. Found it.
It was one of a thousand gunshots; just another hard red thread of energy skimming across the
battlefield. Optimus was looking elsewhere at the time. He didn’t see the distant flash of light; he didn’t see
the laserbeam hit home. To him, Mainframe’s head simply… popped.
Optimus screamed at the sight of a suddenly headless Autobot take a backward step, clench his fists
and topple, plank-like, onto the turf.
In that one stilled moment, that contraction of time and motion, the battle was transformed.
Mainframe, quietly-spoken computer hacker from suburban Mytharc (the first Transformer to launch a sub-