eugenesis-text

‘I don’t know whether you’re a Decepticon or a Quintesson,’ continued Prime, ‘but if you kill that
robot, I swear you’ll be the next to die.’
Jolup gave his most innocent expression as he looked between Prime and Centurion. ‘Kill this robot
I can’t kill him. You see…’ He relaxed his grip. ‘…He’s already dead.’
Centurion’s body exploded on contact. Lava smeared the walls of the crevasse as Optimus roared his
disbelief.
Before the revenge shots could knock him off balance, Jolup jumped over the precipice, transformed
into jet mode and re-emerged half a mile nearer the temple.
‘He’s yours, Astrotrain,’ said Optimus, and turned to Thundercracker. ‘Find Nightbeat and ask him to
send you home. Tell him I’ll be along shortly.’
Sevax knew that something was wrong – he could tell by the grin on Hound’s face (people didn’t
usually smile when one of their hands had been ripped off). Then he felt the gun against
his ribcage.
A plasmabolt sliced through his stomach, leaving a gaping exit wound. He sank to his knees and
looked up for the killshot, but it didn’t come: the Autobot had just been decapitated by a low-flying
wingtip.
Jolup transformed and pulled Sevax to his feet. ‘By Gnaw’s Teeth! If you spent less time memorising
the Old Texts and more time training in the Sharkpit, you wouldn’t get into these scrapes. Patch yourself
up while I get Ryknia. We’re leaving.’
Nightbeat hung from Quantax’s waist as the Quintesson tried to climb up the wall of the crevasse and
onto the temple floor. He looked down (the lava was obscured by whitened smoke) and then up (the sky
above was caked with ash and brimstone). They got it all wrong, he decided: Hell is above us, Heaven
below.
Quantax hoisted his leg onto the temple floor and swung the rest of his body up so forcefully that
Nightbeat came loose. He pushed his fingers into the walls of the crevasse, hoping to bury his entire hands.
Through the smoke, he saw Quantax stretch to his full height. In an ideal world, he decided, this would be
the moment when Optimus arrives and saves the day, but twice in one week was pushing it.
Quantax smiled – and then his chest exploded. The blast hit him from behind and emerged from
under his chin like a blossoming firework. The second shot knocked him over the precipice, and he
screamed on the way down.
Nightbeat scrambled onto solid ground expecting Optimus to lean forward with an outstretched
hand. Instead, he saw Ryknia, Sevax and Jolup huddling around a semi-conscious Trailbreaker, having
forced him to open fire on their leader. The Quintecons flinched when they realised they’d been seen and
made a dash for the wormhole.
Nightbeat beat them to it. Outlined by froth and radium fizz, he blocked the portal and held out a
steadying hand. ‘This isn’t going to work,’ he said feebly, and realised that the Quintessons had no intention
of stopping.
‘Think of a common point in time!’ shouted Sevax, leaping over pews. ‘Think of the operation that
put us in these bodies!’
Nightbeat looked about in vain for a weapon and saw the mindpurge device, upturned but intact. It
jumped about in his fingers, refusing to stay still. He fell onto his haunches, activated remote sweep and
fired. Three lightning bolts jumped from the black box and found their targets instantly.
The Quintecons did not notice the energy threads lancing into their foreheads or feel the virus floss
their brains; they just kept on running. With each step they lost more memory: short-term mnemonic files
were deleted, personal history was smudged and recent events undid themselves. Suddenly, the last year of
their lives was lost behind an impenetrable wall of electronically induced amnesia. By the time they crashed
past Nightbeat into January 1986, Sevax, Ryknia and Jolup were motivated only by the will to survive.
The wormhole shuddered at their penetration and sank more energy into its surroundings. A shellshocked
Nightbeat stood up, squinted through the mist, and saw Thundercracker screaming towards him in
aerial mode. He leapt clear, fumbled with the mindpurge, felt warm air against his face, and watched a