eugenesis-text

He checked his chronometer, jumped to the floor and wandered around the edge of a large Autobot
symbol, loitering on its dovetailed crest. In front of him was one of only two entrances/exits. Dark and
hooded and soft-boiled under a weak blue light, it opened onto a corridor that connected Diosys to
Autobase. Soon, three thousand robots would pass through its turquoise beam.
He turned at the sound of footsteps. Clipped, curt and regular – they had to be Prowl’s. Sure enough,
the strategist appeared on stage, his databoard tapping a rhythm against his thigh. He was frowning, but then
he was always frowning. It was as if the corners of his mouth were somehow more susceptible to
Cybertron’s moderate gravity.
‘Progress report, Red Alert: how’s it going’
‘Ask me again in four hours. If we can pull this off without incident, I think I’ll retire.’
Prowl smiled at his databoard then looked around the arena as if noticing its size for the first time.
‘2987 Autobots. Think you can squeeze them in’
‘Logistics is your department. I just want to be sure that everyone who comes in goes out alive.’ He
unclipped a communicator from his waist. ‘Everything look alright from up there’
‘Beautiful,’ said Chromedome from a viewing gallery at the far end of the arena. ‘The spy cams are
working perfectly. I can even read the small print on Prowl’s databoard.’
‘I have every faith in both of you,’ said Prowl, quickly hugging the board to his chest. ‘I know
Rodimus does too. I’ll speak to you before the performance.’
Red Alert scanned the arena once more, ticking off a mental list of blind spots and weak points,
ledges and crevices… he knew something was going to go wrong. Something always did.
Wheeljack’s workshop lay deep within the bowels of Autobot City, below the empty storage vaults
and the maze of personal quarters. It was an oasis of junk and clutter in a desert of discipline. While the
other City-dwellers trekked the globe, exploring its peaks and troughs, plodding the Yukon or climbing the
Andes, he was always here, bending over pots of pale grease, swearing at a computer screen, scooping
wreckage off a worktop, sifting among fuses and heat-blistered circuit boards. It was here that he felt most
comfortable.
Today was an exception.
Today he slumped in his chair and stared blankly at his hands. He was experiencing a familiar
sensation: the gentle sadness of moving on. His workshop was almost empty, with spare parts and loose
equipment sealed inside transport boxes (Cliffjumper’s trusty glass-gun, Windcharger’s battered stealth
glider, Springer’s engex patch, which he’d been using to wean himself of pure-grade petrolax). Naked
tabletops blinked, surprised and embarrassed, in the light.
Soon he would be moving on, back to Cybertron, back to a caricature of a world full of aerial attacks,
bombing raids, infiltration and sabotage, battlefields and blackouts.
Perhaps it was funny. After all, at least he had been prepared for Magnus’ bombshell. With the lack of
Decepticon presence on Earth and the need for more troops on Cybertron, blah, blah blah… Autobot City was to be
dismantled, stripped and stacked like the machinery in his workshop, and the Autobots who called it home
would be ‘reassigned’. Despite Magnus’ tacit forewarning, Mirage’s verdict had been almost impossible to
accept. Maybe some part of him, some naïve, optimistic part of him, had assumed all this would have a
happy ending. As if these things ever did.
Magnus had said the move would take time, what with the galling preparations needed to uproot
Metroplex and ferry him back to Cybertron. Some Autobots were handling it better than others. Grimlock
had reserved a seat on the first cross-hop shuttle, eager to wedge a chair underneath the High Command
roundtable. Hubcap was despondent, having only recently requested a transfer to the City. Hound was
arranging for his poplars to be shared between the Witwicky’s gravestones and the controversial Beller
Memorial. Then there were the administrative chores: deciding whether Autobots would end up in
Autobase or Delphi, deciding which honorary Earth ranks could be maintained on Cybertron. It would all
take ‘a few days’, but Wheeljack, seeing no point in waiting, had decided to start packing.
He wheeled his chair to the nearest terminal and logged in. Schematics for the Ark and the Space
Bridge scored the monitor screen in green lines.
What are they going to give me to do on Cybertron Put up shelves in the Archive Centre