eugenesis-text

mythical period, beloved by old-school theoscientists, when the holy moulds for Primon and the First Ones
had been set and left to cool; when the divine energies of Primus still swirled across a brand new planet.
He wondered what alterations would Galvatron make to the space-time fabric, what ‘minor’ tweaks
and tucks he had in mind. He imagined stepping outside to see that Cybertron was golden, or looking at
the sky to see three moons, or realising that his aching servos no longer ached. Except no one knew if it
worked like that. Not anymore. Not since the Time Wars.
He stiffened at the sound of nearby gunfire. Misfire, Snapdragon and Slugslinger rushed into the room
and saluted when they saw his raised concussion blaster.
‘Before you ask,’ said Soundwave, ‘he’s gone. Time-jumped.’
‘You think the Autobots are behind this’ asked Slugslinger.
‘I doubt it. Galvatron has done this of his own volition. For the moment I recommend that — wait.’
He pressed his temple. ‘Security has just detected an Autobot within range. My sensors indicate…’ He
pointed at the window. ‘He’s over there! On the mountainside!’
Soundwave retracted the window, allowing Misfire and Slugslinger to leap into the wind-rush and
morph into aircraft mode. He watched their rear thrusters shrink as they approached Mount Kyth.
‘Perhaps I spoke too soon,’ he said to Snapdragon, settling into the throne. ‘Contact Sixshot and tell
him there’s been a shift in power. Tell him I am in command.’ He looked at the statues sulking in the
shadows and wondered if it was time to be measured up.
Nightbeat climbed on stage to get a better look, but gangs of surveyors and analysts still obscured his
view. They combed the ground, absorbed to the point of obsession, like sixty people looking for a contact
lens. The arena floor was smeared with oil and flashburn and gluey blue lubricant. The actual cater
screamed in silence, an open mouth ringed with ash.
He had to admit that he wasn’t entirely surprised by what had happened. In a way, he wondered how
the assassination attempt could have been avoided – by taking time out beforehand to interrogate every
attendee for telltale signs of Decepticon sympathies By scouring the legendary High Command blacklist
(criteria for inclusion: past Decepticon affiliation, pro-Technoist political views, open support of Grimlock’s
‘No [Autobot] Code’ campaign) By hooking up every single trooper to Wheeljack’s lie detector and
bombarding them with questions about Xerxes and Slaughter City, about the Vos/Tarn space race, about
the Creation Ceremony in 3 rd Cycle 270, Squadron 117 and other emotive Decepticon subjects, looking
for that telltale electroline flutter
No, there was no way to weed out double agents with a few loaded questions. This tragedy was no
one’s fault except Doubleheader’s, although if Red Alert ever regained consciousness, Nightbeat knew that
he’d disagree.
Prowl had contacted him shortly after the explosion and asked him to get to Diosys ASAP. He’d had
to push past streams of shell-shocked Autobots to reach the eye of the storm.
Chaos.
Medics were ferrying injured troops away while Red Alert’s security team tried to keep order; one of
the Invisibles was missing, presumed dead, but no one knew where to start looking for him. Autobots were
shouting at each other or sitting with their heads in their hands. Prowl was just standing at the lectern, his
face a mess, shouting out orders that everyone ignored.
Nightbeat remembered seeing Rodimus Prime and Red Alert’s bodies being stretchered away from a
fresh crater. Rodimus was barely recognisable. One dull optic glimmered in a mass of scrunched circuitry,
an upper row of teeth sign-posting the end of his face. The lower portion of his body was missing.
Red Alert had fared little better. His left arm had been reduced to a scorched and stunted javelin, and
as for the rest of his torso – well, it may as well have been scooped and hollowed.
The crowd only started moving when the med-teams had carried their cargo out of sight. It suddenly
became noisy again, but it was bomb noise, trauma noise - aching and snappy and tiring. Nightbeat had
waded towards the stage, through the nervous chatter, through the grimaces and grief. Pointblank had
grabbed him en route and stammered something about hearing the explosion, about Prime being dead
because of the explosion, about being hurled across the arena by the force of the explosion. Nightbeat had
stopped, and nodded, and moved on.