Fic
Title: Borealis 66/85: Transgalactic - Part I
Author: tainry
Disclaimer: Not mine, no money.
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing(s): Ensemble.
Warnings: Fluff! Wow, there weren't even any swears... ^^;
Summary: Wherein Vector Prime drops in for a little visit.
Notes: I'm hoping that posting in smaller chunks will let me post more often. We'll see if that works. ^^; I hope to have Part II done for next Friday. u_u;
~3K words.
BOREALIS: Transgalactic - Part I
2030 - October
An old Daft Punk song came on the base-wide speakers. …Work it harder make it better… After a few bars they were treated to the dulcet tones of Perceptor echoing down the halls from his lab: "FRAG YOU, VEN."
Yasmina grinned. "That's the song Event Horizon plays whenever Perceptor's been working for over four days without a break." She looked up at Ultra Magnus curiously. "He doesn't usually swear, though."
"No," Magnus agreed. "I don't think I've ever heard him swear before, myself." As they came abreast of the door, Magnus peered inside to make sure it was safe before entering. "Perceptor?" Hoist and Skyfire were converging from the other direction, but upon seeing Ultra Magnus, they smiled and waved, and retreated again.
“Although,” Yasmina continued, “if he doesn’t stop working by the end of this song, Ven moves on to Still Alive. At which point he starts throwing things.”
“Oh dear.”
"Ultra Magnus! So they've sent you in here to distract me this time, have they? Good morning, Yasmina."
"Is it working?" Ultra Magnus asked, his voice dropping a whole octave.
"Right," said Yasmina. "I'll just be toddling along, then."
'Thank you, Ms Abizaid," Magnus said, smiling. She saw the way he was bracing his legs. He was about to get pounced.
"You're very welcome," she said, and scurried off before things got loud.
CLANGGGG!
Yasmina skipped down the corridor like a woman half her age.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
Someone stood at the holotable, head tilted, watching the latest episode of As the Kitchen Sinks.
Optimus halted so abruptly that Jazz, directly behind him, took a leisurely nanosecond to calculate whether he should allow his excellent reflexes to stop him in time, or if it would be more fun to crash into Prime's aft. He settled for swinging around Prime's left leg in a move that evoked pole dancing without getting explicit about it. It took him another full nanosecond to register the stranger in the room.
"Vector Prime." Optimus wrapped a hand around Jazz's helm to keep him still.
"What?" said Jazz.
"Hello, Optimus," said Vector Prime.
Red Alert, Optimus sent hastily. Please do not be alarmed. We have a visitor. He is to be accorded freedom of the embassy.
Within seconds, Red was pelting into the war room, glaring at the newcomer. "How did you get in here and why didn't I detect your arrival?"
Vector nodded and made no sudden moves. "My sword and I," he said softly, "have certain properties."
"Rhysling!" Jazz said, visor flashing through its spectrum. "The stories are true?"
"Which stories, Jazz?" Vector came around the table, slowly, giving them time to get used to him. He was big, taller than Prime and more solidly massive, though Jazz got the impression that parts of him extended into dimensions they couldn't perceive. Unless Perceptor could.
Jazz chirped him a handful of his favorite stories. Vector Prime and the Moons of Cic. Vector Prime and Tluoc's Pendulum. Vector Prime and the Jagrafess of Raxacoricofallapatorias.
Vector Prime laughed, and Jazz and Red grabbed each other to keep from falling over. His laughter, his presence, stirred things in them that they, even they who had experienced the merging of their sparks, had never felt before.
"My dear Jazz," Vector said, and Jazz held tighter to Red to keep himself from jumping the legendary mech. "As you no doubt expect, some of those stories contain a nanocell of truth, while most are quite ...imaginative."
During this exchange, Optimus had remained still and silent. Vector watched him.
"I...did not anticipate meeting you so soon," Optimus murmured, reaching toward him. Vector made a rushing movement to close the gap, parts of him blurring strangely. He took Optimus' hand.
"Do not fear," Vector said softly. "Do not fear. I am here because I am interested in this little project of Perceptor’s.”
“Ah!” Optimus said, smiling. "You would like to meet him. Or...you have already, or...?"
"I have no difficulty operating within the constraints of what you perceive as linear time." Vector inclined his head fractionally. "It is, in a way, rather nostalgic. Please, do not trouble your physics processors, or twist grammar, on my account."
"Thank Primus," Red said faintly.
"Valiant Red Alert," Vector said, looking at the Security chief with grave respect. "Many yet stand due to your strength and vigilance."
Jazz propped Red up, both of them grinning at the ancient mech with dizzy amazement.
Vector linked arms with Optimus and tight-beamed, I fear my presence may have rather more of a disruptive effect on your people than I anticipated.
Feeling more than a little disrupted himself, Optimus raised an optic ridge. Because we have only recently begun to reproduce in the manner you and your cohorts employed?
Yes. You have passed through our population bottleneck, Optimus.
Optimus wondered for a nanosecond whether it was safe for Vector to tell him that, but supposed he wouldn't have said so if it wasn't. It gave Optimus great hope. The war would never again take so devastating a toll. Optimus would rededicate his spark to make certain that was so.
As they moved out into the hangar, mechs gathered and followed. The human embassy staff and NEST personnel were bemused to see their mighty guardians stagger and stumble over each other and collide as if blinded in Vector Prime's wake. The cloud mind went electric as news of his arrival spread.
Who's Vector Prime? Maggie and Glen asked at the same time. And why are Sides and Sunny acting like lovestruck teenagers? Maggie added, amused by the incongruity. They were flooded with varying answers before the first question had been completed. Vector Prime was one of the first Cybertronians created by the Allspark at the dawn of the universe. He was the Herald of Primus, the Demiurge of Time, the Great Observer, a Guardian of Cybertron, and he had singlehandedly defeated the entire Naratnos First Battle Fleet.
"He doesn't look that old," Glen whispered to Maggie as they ran up the stairs to the mezzanine.
"What were you expecting, a long beard?" Maggie teased.
"I dunno," Glen said. "Gears and steam, maybe. The Primordial Lever..."
Do bear in mind, Glen Whitmann, Vector said, modulating his transmission so as not to damage the human's delicate receiving equipment, this is not my original form.
"Oh," Glen squeaked. He moved to join the striding vanguard of Autobots, but Maggie put a hand on his arm.
I think…I think we should let them be, she told him on their private channel. This feels like a personal, Cybertronian thing.
Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I understand.
Maggie beamed and hugged him. It had taken years, but she’d married him for good reasons.
The Autobots passed under the red stone arch into bright sunlight. Glimmering, folded things on Vector Prime's back rustled, unfurling slightly. The metal of his skin seemed to expand in the solar warmth. The hilt of Rhysling glowed turquoise at his shoulder.
Thundercracker and Strake landed with Prowl between them, the three touching earth at the same time. Thundercracker abruptly felt as though he'd just stepped off the kindling platform. Kup laughed, catching the edges of Thundercracker’s expression. Know what you mean, lad, he tight-beamed. Strake tried to be small, unnoticed, hiding behind the elder Seeker.
"Ahhhh," Vector purred, caressing Prowl's face as they came abreast on the road leading to Wheeljack's tower. "There you are, dear Prowl."
Prowl's chevron went crimson, and Strake leapt forward to catch him as he stumbled. The intonation and harmonics Vector used had been extraordinarily intimate.
Wow, Strake said. You don't know what that was about, do you?
Not yet, apparently. Logically, Vector did not make mistakes in allowing people to know things ahead of their proper time. It would give a Time Guardian too much work cleaning up the resultant mess, according to lore and Prowl's own computations. Therefore, it was of no consequence, literally, for Prowl to know that he and Vector Prime would, some time in the future, become quite close. He patted Strake's shoulder in thanks and got his feet properly back under himself again.
Prowl and the Seekers joined the growing host in its progress toward Wheeljack's tower. Perceptor was in the process of moving himself and much of his lab equipment in, combining his expertise with Jack's in order to begin construction of the prototypes for the space bridge. Bets were being made as to how long such proximity would last, given the two mechs' disparate personalities, and whether the odds had increased or decreased that Nevada would get blown sky high when something went wrong.
The heavy blast door opened as they approached. Wheeljack stepped out. "Good," he said. "Maybe you can make him see reas--whoa." Not every day did Wheeljack emerge to find a legend on his doorstep.
Vector smiled. Tracks and Mirage tried to hold each other up.
"Are you and Perceptor arguing already?" Optimus asked. "Or would that be 'still'?"
Wheeljack broke off staring at Vector with some effort. "He's off his cycles, I'm telling ya. First he concocts this whole new sub-branch of mathematics, then he sends Rutile and Borealis off to churn through a metric aftload of those equations. Then yesterday they come cheeping and clanking back here with their answers and Perceptor jumps around like he's just proved the Inirba Formula, and presents me with a whole new design! Not just modified, no, but completely redone! And don't you start, Ratchet! I can't believe I'm the one arguing against innovation and experimental intuition either, but you guys, this is crazy!"
"What seems to be the problem?" Vector asked, maintaining a remarkably straight face. Smokescreen decided never to play poker or shreen with him.
"Okay, look," Wheeljack said. Lifting an arm, he projected a ghostly holo image. "Space bridges are constructed as a solid ring. Always. That's how it works, you can't have gaps in the field emitters or you end up leaving bits and pieces of your cargo or yourself behind, and that's never fun." The annular image rotated slowly. Like a closing iris, a blue glow spread from the inner edge of the frame to the center.
Many of the gathered mechs returned to their interrupted duties as the argument was taken inside the tower. They'd pick up the optical and auditory feeds from friends who braved Wheeljack's lair.
Wheeljack led them down a level, to a comparatively uncluttered staging area, with a large holo tank in the center. Wheeljack gesticulated at what was displayed. "Space bridge equals solid ring, right? Well, look what Perce wants us to build!"
At the center of the display was a scale representation of Cybertron and her two remaining moons. Around them were arrayed a circle of small modules like beads on a necklace, several kilometers apart. They looked rather like Art Deco swallowtail butterflies.
"Sure," Jack said, "it saves on material with a ring this big to break up the emitters like that, but now you’ve got to bend the field in completely unnecessary ways, and the cost in energy-!"
"Is nowhere near as severe as you posit it to be," Perceptor said, emerging from the next level down, sounding cross.
The big mech who stood beside Prime turned slowly as Perceptor approached. Slow as a world spinning to meet a new moon. Perceptor swayed, would have fallen if he hadn't locked his legs. "You're... you're... "
"I am," Vector said.
"Firstforged."
"Yes."
“But that is not a Firstforged body,” Perceptor said, sensory array whirling. “You’ve been substantially modified - at the molecular, no, the quantum level. When-?”
“If I answer that question,” Vector laughed, “it will only spawn another, and another, and we will be down here until this desert again becomes a sea.”
“I suppose so,” said Perceptor, though that outcome had an appeal.
Vector knelt and held out a hand. "Come. Show me your design."
Perceptor stumbled forward, an arm cable extended, but Vector took his hands, establishing a link through his skin, metal to metal.
“What are you… how… Oh my. Oh my!” Perceptor felt the contact surge through him like the spin of iron atoms aligning to a powerful magnetic field, akin to a particularly thorough transscan, but two-way and lingering. Perceptor’s firewalls buckled and internal warnings flashed across his CPU as he scrabbled after input streams from Vector that his processors were unequipped to handle. The old, long capped and buried stumps deep within his pectoral frame where his secondary arms had once been ached.
Easy! Vector pulled him closer, modifying the link gently, sidestepping Perceptor’s half-blind grabs for data. Relax. You will harm yourself. Show me only your new field equations.
Mastering himself, Perceptor wrangled his curiosity to the back of his CPU and brought up the equations, proud of how beautifully they fit into the established physics lattice and solved a handful of vexingly thorny theoretical problems. Rutile’s CPU had proven agile with the new math; while Borealis had employed her atypical thought processes to contribute ideas and novel approaches.
Yes! Vector said. Very well done indeed, Perceptor.
Perceptor clutched at the edges of the link as Vector disengaged. Why…why did you come…? 87.3 percent of his systems rebooted. Vector caught him as his body went limp.
“I am here,” Vector said, “to reforge my bonds with my people. To remind myself of my charge, my past, and the necessity for humility in proper measure.” He stood and carried Perceptor up and out into the sunlight, watching the scientist’s mobile face as stage by stage he recovered full consciousness. “I have come to meet you, to learn from you. All of you.” Setting Perceptor on his feet once he could stand, Vector reached out to the mechs around him, touching shoulders, brushing fingertips, optics dancing with a vast, cosmic fondness.
I don’t know about you, Jazz tight-beamed to Optimus and Prowl, but I think there’s more to this love-in than he’s saying.
Precisely what I surmised as well, Prowl agreed.
Hm, said Optimus.
As they wended their way back to the mesa, Optimus guided their steps, in the temperate way a Prime had, up to the top, to engage in the Cybertronian equivalent of feasting.
There were far more Cybertronians on Earth now than the first time they had indulged in an iguana-pile and their sprawled limbs and bodies covered the expanse of stone, even piled two or three deep. Thundercracker and Ironhide fussed about being a high-value target as they had during the Burning Man dance - with about as much heed paid. Mirage shut Thundercracker up rather thoroughly, much to Strake’s amusement.
In the center of the jostling mass and slithering cables, Vector Prime smiled, and stretched luxuriously on his ventral surface in the sunlight next to Optimus and Ultra Magnus. With a contented sigh, he extended his solar sails upward and out, translucent and glimmering like blue topazes in the autumn air. Intricate patterns and glyphs etched across his skin shifted, their edges flashing iridescent as he absorbed energy. Cables had been shyly offered him from several parties, but Perceptor shared flickers of his experiences in the earlier link. To further illustrate, Vector engaged his dermal comm system, watching the reactions with amusement as the colors of the Autobots’ chameleon mesh turned brighter, more vivid under the touch of his hands.
You convey both data and energy through your armor? Ratchet asked, kicking at Wheeljack, Chromia and Ironhide as they pretended to shield their optics from the torment of glowing chartreuse. Radio and subspace frequencies?
Yes.
No cables at all? Red Alert asked, sounding disappointed.
Vector lifted a hand. From the wrist a slender silver tendril extruded, thickening and forming a proper jack at the tip. Bots shifted and shivered as it waved idly about for a moment before being drawn back into the substance of Vector’s arm. “I am yet Cybertronian,” he said. “I adapt as you do.” He let the hand fall - onto Optimus’ chest. The fire of Optimus’ reaction roared silently through air and cables.
Coming in from a long-range patrol, Drift climbed as fast as he could and leapt over the mesa’s edge. Vector turned sharply toward him. That longsword, he tight-beamed. You will take very good care of her, won't you?
Yes sir, Drift replied in kind, keeping his harmonics even but nearly tripping over Windcharger and Bluestreak as he picked his way over to snuggle into a spot among Perceptor, Prowl, Raze and Strake. “Bumblebee’s on his way, with his family.”
“Mmmm, Bumblebee,” said Wheeljack. Arcee revved her engine in agreement.
Half an hour later, Bumblebee left his humans in the care of Maggie and Glen inside the embassy (with a promise to Dani that she could come up later maybe, when the robots’ collective thermal signature wasn’t enough to fry NEST’s more fragile robot-detection gear) and scrambled up to the simmering mechpile. Evac shifted a leg to offer a stable foothold, and soon Bee found himself crowdsurfting over to where Wheeljack had shoved a little space between himself and Ironhide. Ironhide didn’t seem to mind, nuzzling the younger mech affectionately. Vector observed them with satisfaction.
In October, the average temperature varied only by twenty degrees between day and night. Metal and composite cooled slowly as the sun completed its arc amid lakes and mountains of fiery clouds. Vector sat up to watch, furling his sails. Others watched as well, torn between the sunset and the glow of it reflecting from Vector’s mirror-bright skin.
“Guardian of Cybertron,” Sunstreaker growled, shaking off the spell for a moment. “Why weren’t you there when Megatron was wiping out our sun?”
“Was I not?” Vector said quietly, head bowed.
Perceptor would have leapt to his feet but Wheeljack held him down. “It wasn’t Shockwave!" Perceptor said. "It was you who saved the moons. Who saved Cybertron! I thought the gravitational stresses were greater than… Of course!” Cybertron as a planet was somewhat peculiar, more ductile, less dense than most rocky planets. It should have been destroyed rather than flung intact into space. “The power it would have taken to…oh, Prime…!”
Vector traced a pattern on the stone (which Perceptor recorded and would ponder the significance of for eons to come). “Yes.”
From the shelter of Trailbreaker's arms, Bluestreak raised his hand. "I have a question, too," he said. "Okay, you're Vector Prime and he's Optimus Prime. I thought there could be only one. Or is this a time travel thing?" Murmurs of agreement and laughter rippled across the mesa top.
“Optimus is the Prime. I am merely a Prime.”
“Uh. How does that work, exactly?”
“Primes are not now what they were when I was made. We were touchstones, lodestones, foci…conveying this is difficult…not leaders precisely, but…”
“Would it be easier in Cybertronian?” Glyph asked.
Vector shook his head. “The communication modes we used then are as foreign to modern Cybertronian as that is to English. And incidentally, Optimus, that particular glyph on the side of your helm does not say ‘This End Up’. Nor does it mean ‘records clerk’, you great clot.”
Optimus laughed. “What does it mean, then?”
“It means ‘Prime’. The one glyph your scholars interpreted correctly. That and the number five.”
Ratchet leaned toward him. "You can read the Allspark glyphs?"
"Yes," Vector said, simply and with no harmonics indicating classified or taboo knowledge. "But not because I am Firstforged."
"Not...but...?" Bluestreak began, head cocked.
"Because he has had contact with the civilization that created the Cube," Perceptor said, inclined at a somewhat drunken angle against Prowl, his tone what one might be forgiven for calling lightheaded. Ratchet, Optimus and Glyph bolted upright in unison, getting themselves growled at, but not too seriously.
“Might we,” Optimus began.
“Have a translation?” Glyph finished for him.
Vector Prime laughed, the happiest he’d been in centuries. “You certainly may.”
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
Part II
Table of Contents
.
Author: tainry
Disclaimer: Not mine, no money.
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing(s): Ensemble.
Warnings: Fluff! Wow, there weren't even any swears... ^^;
Summary: Wherein Vector Prime drops in for a little visit.
Notes: I'm hoping that posting in smaller chunks will let me post more often. We'll see if that works. ^^; I hope to have Part II done for next Friday. u_u;
~3K words.
BOREALIS: Transgalactic - Part I
2030 - October
An old Daft Punk song came on the base-wide speakers. …Work it harder make it better… After a few bars they were treated to the dulcet tones of Perceptor echoing down the halls from his lab: "FRAG YOU, VEN."
Yasmina grinned. "That's the song Event Horizon plays whenever Perceptor's been working for over four days without a break." She looked up at Ultra Magnus curiously. "He doesn't usually swear, though."
"No," Magnus agreed. "I don't think I've ever heard him swear before, myself." As they came abreast of the door, Magnus peered inside to make sure it was safe before entering. "Perceptor?" Hoist and Skyfire were converging from the other direction, but upon seeing Ultra Magnus, they smiled and waved, and retreated again.
“Although,” Yasmina continued, “if he doesn’t stop working by the end of this song, Ven moves on to Still Alive. At which point he starts throwing things.”
“Oh dear.”
"Ultra Magnus! So they've sent you in here to distract me this time, have they? Good morning, Yasmina."
"Is it working?" Ultra Magnus asked, his voice dropping a whole octave.
"Right," said Yasmina. "I'll just be toddling along, then."
'Thank you, Ms Abizaid," Magnus said, smiling. She saw the way he was bracing his legs. He was about to get pounced.
"You're very welcome," she said, and scurried off before things got loud.
CLANGGGG!
Yasmina skipped down the corridor like a woman half her age.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
Someone stood at the holotable, head tilted, watching the latest episode of As the Kitchen Sinks.
Optimus halted so abruptly that Jazz, directly behind him, took a leisurely nanosecond to calculate whether he should allow his excellent reflexes to stop him in time, or if it would be more fun to crash into Prime's aft. He settled for swinging around Prime's left leg in a move that evoked pole dancing without getting explicit about it. It took him another full nanosecond to register the stranger in the room.
"Vector Prime." Optimus wrapped a hand around Jazz's helm to keep him still.
"What?" said Jazz.
"Hello, Optimus," said Vector Prime.
Red Alert, Optimus sent hastily. Please do not be alarmed. We have a visitor. He is to be accorded freedom of the embassy.
Within seconds, Red was pelting into the war room, glaring at the newcomer. "How did you get in here and why didn't I detect your arrival?"
Vector nodded and made no sudden moves. "My sword and I," he said softly, "have certain properties."
"Rhysling!" Jazz said, visor flashing through its spectrum. "The stories are true?"
"Which stories, Jazz?" Vector came around the table, slowly, giving them time to get used to him. He was big, taller than Prime and more solidly massive, though Jazz got the impression that parts of him extended into dimensions they couldn't perceive. Unless Perceptor could.
Jazz chirped him a handful of his favorite stories. Vector Prime and the Moons of Cic. Vector Prime and Tluoc's Pendulum. Vector Prime and the Jagrafess of Raxacoricofallapatorias.
Vector Prime laughed, and Jazz and Red grabbed each other to keep from falling over. His laughter, his presence, stirred things in them that they, even they who had experienced the merging of their sparks, had never felt before.
"My dear Jazz," Vector said, and Jazz held tighter to Red to keep himself from jumping the legendary mech. "As you no doubt expect, some of those stories contain a nanocell of truth, while most are quite ...imaginative."
During this exchange, Optimus had remained still and silent. Vector watched him.
"I...did not anticipate meeting you so soon," Optimus murmured, reaching toward him. Vector made a rushing movement to close the gap, parts of him blurring strangely. He took Optimus' hand.
"Do not fear," Vector said softly. "Do not fear. I am here because I am interested in this little project of Perceptor’s.”
“Ah!” Optimus said, smiling. "You would like to meet him. Or...you have already, or...?"
"I have no difficulty operating within the constraints of what you perceive as linear time." Vector inclined his head fractionally. "It is, in a way, rather nostalgic. Please, do not trouble your physics processors, or twist grammar, on my account."
"Thank Primus," Red said faintly.
"Valiant Red Alert," Vector said, looking at the Security chief with grave respect. "Many yet stand due to your strength and vigilance."
Jazz propped Red up, both of them grinning at the ancient mech with dizzy amazement.
Vector linked arms with Optimus and tight-beamed, I fear my presence may have rather more of a disruptive effect on your people than I anticipated.
Feeling more than a little disrupted himself, Optimus raised an optic ridge. Because we have only recently begun to reproduce in the manner you and your cohorts employed?
Yes. You have passed through our population bottleneck, Optimus.
Optimus wondered for a nanosecond whether it was safe for Vector to tell him that, but supposed he wouldn't have said so if it wasn't. It gave Optimus great hope. The war would never again take so devastating a toll. Optimus would rededicate his spark to make certain that was so.
As they moved out into the hangar, mechs gathered and followed. The human embassy staff and NEST personnel were bemused to see their mighty guardians stagger and stumble over each other and collide as if blinded in Vector Prime's wake. The cloud mind went electric as news of his arrival spread.
Who's Vector Prime? Maggie and Glen asked at the same time. And why are Sides and Sunny acting like lovestruck teenagers? Maggie added, amused by the incongruity. They were flooded with varying answers before the first question had been completed. Vector Prime was one of the first Cybertronians created by the Allspark at the dawn of the universe. He was the Herald of Primus, the Demiurge of Time, the Great Observer, a Guardian of Cybertron, and he had singlehandedly defeated the entire Naratnos First Battle Fleet.
"He doesn't look that old," Glen whispered to Maggie as they ran up the stairs to the mezzanine.
"What were you expecting, a long beard?" Maggie teased.
"I dunno," Glen said. "Gears and steam, maybe. The Primordial Lever..."
Do bear in mind, Glen Whitmann, Vector said, modulating his transmission so as not to damage the human's delicate receiving equipment, this is not my original form.
"Oh," Glen squeaked. He moved to join the striding vanguard of Autobots, but Maggie put a hand on his arm.
I think…I think we should let them be, she told him on their private channel. This feels like a personal, Cybertronian thing.
Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I understand.
Maggie beamed and hugged him. It had taken years, but she’d married him for good reasons.
The Autobots passed under the red stone arch into bright sunlight. Glimmering, folded things on Vector Prime's back rustled, unfurling slightly. The metal of his skin seemed to expand in the solar warmth. The hilt of Rhysling glowed turquoise at his shoulder.
Thundercracker and Strake landed with Prowl between them, the three touching earth at the same time. Thundercracker abruptly felt as though he'd just stepped off the kindling platform. Kup laughed, catching the edges of Thundercracker’s expression. Know what you mean, lad, he tight-beamed. Strake tried to be small, unnoticed, hiding behind the elder Seeker.
"Ahhhh," Vector purred, caressing Prowl's face as they came abreast on the road leading to Wheeljack's tower. "There you are, dear Prowl."
Prowl's chevron went crimson, and Strake leapt forward to catch him as he stumbled. The intonation and harmonics Vector used had been extraordinarily intimate.
Wow, Strake said. You don't know what that was about, do you?
Not yet, apparently. Logically, Vector did not make mistakes in allowing people to know things ahead of their proper time. It would give a Time Guardian too much work cleaning up the resultant mess, according to lore and Prowl's own computations. Therefore, it was of no consequence, literally, for Prowl to know that he and Vector Prime would, some time in the future, become quite close. He patted Strake's shoulder in thanks and got his feet properly back under himself again.
Prowl and the Seekers joined the growing host in its progress toward Wheeljack's tower. Perceptor was in the process of moving himself and much of his lab equipment in, combining his expertise with Jack's in order to begin construction of the prototypes for the space bridge. Bets were being made as to how long such proximity would last, given the two mechs' disparate personalities, and whether the odds had increased or decreased that Nevada would get blown sky high when something went wrong.
The heavy blast door opened as they approached. Wheeljack stepped out. "Good," he said. "Maybe you can make him see reas--whoa." Not every day did Wheeljack emerge to find a legend on his doorstep.
Vector smiled. Tracks and Mirage tried to hold each other up.
"Are you and Perceptor arguing already?" Optimus asked. "Or would that be 'still'?"
Wheeljack broke off staring at Vector with some effort. "He's off his cycles, I'm telling ya. First he concocts this whole new sub-branch of mathematics, then he sends Rutile and Borealis off to churn through a metric aftload of those equations. Then yesterday they come cheeping and clanking back here with their answers and Perceptor jumps around like he's just proved the Inirba Formula, and presents me with a whole new design! Not just modified, no, but completely redone! And don't you start, Ratchet! I can't believe I'm the one arguing against innovation and experimental intuition either, but you guys, this is crazy!"
"What seems to be the problem?" Vector asked, maintaining a remarkably straight face. Smokescreen decided never to play poker or shreen with him.
"Okay, look," Wheeljack said. Lifting an arm, he projected a ghostly holo image. "Space bridges are constructed as a solid ring. Always. That's how it works, you can't have gaps in the field emitters or you end up leaving bits and pieces of your cargo or yourself behind, and that's never fun." The annular image rotated slowly. Like a closing iris, a blue glow spread from the inner edge of the frame to the center.
Many of the gathered mechs returned to their interrupted duties as the argument was taken inside the tower. They'd pick up the optical and auditory feeds from friends who braved Wheeljack's lair.
Wheeljack led them down a level, to a comparatively uncluttered staging area, with a large holo tank in the center. Wheeljack gesticulated at what was displayed. "Space bridge equals solid ring, right? Well, look what Perce wants us to build!"
At the center of the display was a scale representation of Cybertron and her two remaining moons. Around them were arrayed a circle of small modules like beads on a necklace, several kilometers apart. They looked rather like Art Deco swallowtail butterflies.
"Sure," Jack said, "it saves on material with a ring this big to break up the emitters like that, but now you’ve got to bend the field in completely unnecessary ways, and the cost in energy-!"
"Is nowhere near as severe as you posit it to be," Perceptor said, emerging from the next level down, sounding cross.
The big mech who stood beside Prime turned slowly as Perceptor approached. Slow as a world spinning to meet a new moon. Perceptor swayed, would have fallen if he hadn't locked his legs. "You're... you're... "
"I am," Vector said.
"Firstforged."
"Yes."
“But that is not a Firstforged body,” Perceptor said, sensory array whirling. “You’ve been substantially modified - at the molecular, no, the quantum level. When-?”
“If I answer that question,” Vector laughed, “it will only spawn another, and another, and we will be down here until this desert again becomes a sea.”
“I suppose so,” said Perceptor, though that outcome had an appeal.
Vector knelt and held out a hand. "Come. Show me your design."
Perceptor stumbled forward, an arm cable extended, but Vector took his hands, establishing a link through his skin, metal to metal.
“What are you… how… Oh my. Oh my!” Perceptor felt the contact surge through him like the spin of iron atoms aligning to a powerful magnetic field, akin to a particularly thorough transscan, but two-way and lingering. Perceptor’s firewalls buckled and internal warnings flashed across his CPU as he scrabbled after input streams from Vector that his processors were unequipped to handle. The old, long capped and buried stumps deep within his pectoral frame where his secondary arms had once been ached.
Easy! Vector pulled him closer, modifying the link gently, sidestepping Perceptor’s half-blind grabs for data. Relax. You will harm yourself. Show me only your new field equations.
Mastering himself, Perceptor wrangled his curiosity to the back of his CPU and brought up the equations, proud of how beautifully they fit into the established physics lattice and solved a handful of vexingly thorny theoretical problems. Rutile’s CPU had proven agile with the new math; while Borealis had employed her atypical thought processes to contribute ideas and novel approaches.
Yes! Vector said. Very well done indeed, Perceptor.
Perceptor clutched at the edges of the link as Vector disengaged. Why…why did you come…? 87.3 percent of his systems rebooted. Vector caught him as his body went limp.
“I am here,” Vector said, “to reforge my bonds with my people. To remind myself of my charge, my past, and the necessity for humility in proper measure.” He stood and carried Perceptor up and out into the sunlight, watching the scientist’s mobile face as stage by stage he recovered full consciousness. “I have come to meet you, to learn from you. All of you.” Setting Perceptor on his feet once he could stand, Vector reached out to the mechs around him, touching shoulders, brushing fingertips, optics dancing with a vast, cosmic fondness.
I don’t know about you, Jazz tight-beamed to Optimus and Prowl, but I think there’s more to this love-in than he’s saying.
Precisely what I surmised as well, Prowl agreed.
Hm, said Optimus.
As they wended their way back to the mesa, Optimus guided their steps, in the temperate way a Prime had, up to the top, to engage in the Cybertronian equivalent of feasting.
There were far more Cybertronians on Earth now than the first time they had indulged in an iguana-pile and their sprawled limbs and bodies covered the expanse of stone, even piled two or three deep. Thundercracker and Ironhide fussed about being a high-value target as they had during the Burning Man dance - with about as much heed paid. Mirage shut Thundercracker up rather thoroughly, much to Strake’s amusement.
In the center of the jostling mass and slithering cables, Vector Prime smiled, and stretched luxuriously on his ventral surface in the sunlight next to Optimus and Ultra Magnus. With a contented sigh, he extended his solar sails upward and out, translucent and glimmering like blue topazes in the autumn air. Intricate patterns and glyphs etched across his skin shifted, their edges flashing iridescent as he absorbed energy. Cables had been shyly offered him from several parties, but Perceptor shared flickers of his experiences in the earlier link. To further illustrate, Vector engaged his dermal comm system, watching the reactions with amusement as the colors of the Autobots’ chameleon mesh turned brighter, more vivid under the touch of his hands.
You convey both data and energy through your armor? Ratchet asked, kicking at Wheeljack, Chromia and Ironhide as they pretended to shield their optics from the torment of glowing chartreuse. Radio and subspace frequencies?
Yes.
No cables at all? Red Alert asked, sounding disappointed.
Vector lifted a hand. From the wrist a slender silver tendril extruded, thickening and forming a proper jack at the tip. Bots shifted and shivered as it waved idly about for a moment before being drawn back into the substance of Vector’s arm. “I am yet Cybertronian,” he said. “I adapt as you do.” He let the hand fall - onto Optimus’ chest. The fire of Optimus’ reaction roared silently through air and cables.
Coming in from a long-range patrol, Drift climbed as fast as he could and leapt over the mesa’s edge. Vector turned sharply toward him. That longsword, he tight-beamed. You will take very good care of her, won't you?
Yes sir, Drift replied in kind, keeping his harmonics even but nearly tripping over Windcharger and Bluestreak as he picked his way over to snuggle into a spot among Perceptor, Prowl, Raze and Strake. “Bumblebee’s on his way, with his family.”
“Mmmm, Bumblebee,” said Wheeljack. Arcee revved her engine in agreement.
Half an hour later, Bumblebee left his humans in the care of Maggie and Glen inside the embassy (with a promise to Dani that she could come up later maybe, when the robots’ collective thermal signature wasn’t enough to fry NEST’s more fragile robot-detection gear) and scrambled up to the simmering mechpile. Evac shifted a leg to offer a stable foothold, and soon Bee found himself crowdsurfting over to where Wheeljack had shoved a little space between himself and Ironhide. Ironhide didn’t seem to mind, nuzzling the younger mech affectionately. Vector observed them with satisfaction.
In October, the average temperature varied only by twenty degrees between day and night. Metal and composite cooled slowly as the sun completed its arc amid lakes and mountains of fiery clouds. Vector sat up to watch, furling his sails. Others watched as well, torn between the sunset and the glow of it reflecting from Vector’s mirror-bright skin.
“Guardian of Cybertron,” Sunstreaker growled, shaking off the spell for a moment. “Why weren’t you there when Megatron was wiping out our sun?”
“Was I not?” Vector said quietly, head bowed.
Perceptor would have leapt to his feet but Wheeljack held him down. “It wasn’t Shockwave!" Perceptor said. "It was you who saved the moons. Who saved Cybertron! I thought the gravitational stresses were greater than… Of course!” Cybertron as a planet was somewhat peculiar, more ductile, less dense than most rocky planets. It should have been destroyed rather than flung intact into space. “The power it would have taken to…oh, Prime…!”
Vector traced a pattern on the stone (which Perceptor recorded and would ponder the significance of for eons to come). “Yes.”
From the shelter of Trailbreaker's arms, Bluestreak raised his hand. "I have a question, too," he said. "Okay, you're Vector Prime and he's Optimus Prime. I thought there could be only one. Or is this a time travel thing?" Murmurs of agreement and laughter rippled across the mesa top.
“Optimus is the Prime. I am merely a Prime.”
“Uh. How does that work, exactly?”
“Primes are not now what they were when I was made. We were touchstones, lodestones, foci…conveying this is difficult…not leaders precisely, but…”
“Would it be easier in Cybertronian?” Glyph asked.
Vector shook his head. “The communication modes we used then are as foreign to modern Cybertronian as that is to English. And incidentally, Optimus, that particular glyph on the side of your helm does not say ‘This End Up’. Nor does it mean ‘records clerk’, you great clot.”
Optimus laughed. “What does it mean, then?”
“It means ‘Prime’. The one glyph your scholars interpreted correctly. That and the number five.”
Ratchet leaned toward him. "You can read the Allspark glyphs?"
"Yes," Vector said, simply and with no harmonics indicating classified or taboo knowledge. "But not because I am Firstforged."
"Not...but...?" Bluestreak began, head cocked.
"Because he has had contact with the civilization that created the Cube," Perceptor said, inclined at a somewhat drunken angle against Prowl, his tone what one might be forgiven for calling lightheaded. Ratchet, Optimus and Glyph bolted upright in unison, getting themselves growled at, but not too seriously.
“Might we,” Optimus began.
“Have a translation?” Glyph finished for him.
Vector Prime laughed, the happiest he’d been in centuries. “You certainly may.”
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
Part II
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