eugenesis-text

His optics settled on the technical data unfurling below a picture of the Space Bridge. ‘It would have
worked, too’, he said out loud. ‘It really would.’
‘Not getting maudlin, are we’
Wheeljack swivelled away from Ultra Magnus’ reflection. ‘I’ll take that as a joke. How is everyone’
‘Surprised. Upset. Angry. Same as you and me… Centurion can’t believe he’ll be moving to another
planet.’
‘Where’s Mirage’
‘With Ratchet, getting ready to go. I wouldn’t like to hang around here if I were him.’ Magnus
replaced the electron microscope he’d been examining. ‘Anyway, I just came down here to see how you
were.’ He gestured to Wheeljack’s computer screen. ‘I’d erase that if I were you. We don’t want evidence
of an Autobot Space Bridge falling into Decepticon hands, prototype or not.’
‘Of course,’ said Wheeljack quietly as he watched his commander leave his workshop. ‘Right away.’
The three Decepticons lay on the operating tables like slabs of raw meat. The oil-spattered
Quintesson surgeon, Ferrax, shuffled around them like a nervous diner at a buffet, wondering where to
start. His hands were the colour of olives, smeared as they were with a genealogy of grime that could be
traced to a thousand innards. He wore a headband full of welders and needle-lights; underneath, lubricant
sprang from microscopic pores in his forehead. After a brief prayer to the Progenitors and a nod towards the
wipe-clean copy of the Old Texts (he’d just re-read Book 3 and was feeling particularly vengeful), he
flipped micro-instruments from his fingertips and set to work on the nearest Decepticon cerebellum. He
removed a portion of the skull’s outer casing and prodded the brain module.
The Decepticon convulsed, his torso heaving towards the spotlight as if trying to turn itself inside out.
Ferrax shrank back until both he and the Decepticon had relaxed – until their teeth stopped chattering and
their spines had reasserted themselves.
Xenon stifled a gasp of pleasure. ‘I was growing bored with the operation,’ he said, moving closer to
the corpse. ‘But that was worth waiting for. Tell me, is he dead’
Ferrax mumbled something. His vocal synthesiser had partially eroded thanks to endless vials of
battery acid (he was a binge drinker) and frowned. A corneal tic puckered the flexi-steel around his one
good eye. He held his hand up to Xenon’s face. A dead ball of circuitry was skewered on his fingertip.
‘Excellent,’ said Xenon. ‘And what about the Cybertronian’s body You’ve left the cerebral
connections intact’
Another sniffle, another twitch.
‘Good. Hooking up the new brains will be simple.’
Ferrax threw the brain module aside. It overheated as it hit the floor and was engulfed in a delicate
skin of flame.
Scrawled across the slopes of Mount Kyth was a black, lipless mouth, a slanted crevice lost among
thousands of similar pockmarks. Emyrissus had been laying there, pinioned between toothless steel, for nine
hundred days now, a laser rifle resting between his arms. His legs had seized up through lack of movement,
and he had long since abandoned any notion of comfort in favour of simply bearing the pain of immobility.
But, being a loyal little Micromaster, he accepted his circumstances without malice. After all, he’d
volunteered for this assignment. Rodimus Prime had been brutally honest when briefing him: this was a
dangerous mission, potentially fatal, involving long periods of tense inactivity. He would be bored. He
would be isolated. He would not be allowed to contact any of his team-mates until the mission was
accomplished.
And yes, it was as bad as it sounded, but the objective… assassinate Galvatron
He’d accepted without hesitation.
He looked through the optic enhancer and saw the usual view: the east face of Darkmount (thirty
miles away but appearing much closer), the dirty blue walls, the colossal Decepticon symbol, the amalgam
of walkways and weapons and entrance hatches. He knew every ridge and furrow with pornographic
intimacy, but one area he knew best of all – the large plexiglass window fronting Galvatron’s throne room.