Fic
Title: Borealis 75/92: Heartlines - pt 5
Author: tainry
Disclaimer: Not mine, no money.
Rating: R
Characters/Pairing(s): Ensemble, Chromedome/Rewind, Countermeasure/Hound, Rain/Inferno/Arcee/Firestar/Smokescreen, Rain/Prime
Warnings: PnP, sparks, slash, human-to-robot, OCs
Summary: Wherein Lifeline and Catscan watch the ocean, Countermeasure gets snuggles, Rain gets lessons in robot smexing, Sarah!robot grows, TC is thinky, and Sarah!robot decants.
Notes: ::flops:: Well, there will be at least one more part to "Heartlines". ^^; Lots to cover before we move the planet.
~5600 words.
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
BOREALIS: Heartlines - Part V
2077 - October
The rock beneath her aft was serpentine. Hydrous magnesium iron phyllosilicate. A group of common metamorphic rocks. The narrow, irregular crescent of beach lay behind her, cool grey sand, green and grey pebbles, strewn with drying kelp. Salt and organic proteins blew heavy in the moist air. Her chemoreceptors were on the sides of her face, beneath protective cheek spars. She could hear birds calling, and the wind rushing against the cliffs around her and the trees tossing atop the cliffs, several of her heights above. She knew humans often found watching the ocean soothing, part of the multitudinous rhythms of this planet.
Lifeline found it reassuring. No two waves ever broke the same way. She watched them carefully, paying attention to how the light changed as the day came and went, and the night. She had found that she did not like being indoors, though she could tolerate it. Kalis had not been quite as adept at simulating natural environments; running too many chaotic threads at a time took up precious energy, and there were clever shortcuts, some of which took a long time for even a trained observer to notice.
Catscan understood. He joined her on the rock, watching the waves with the same intensity and purpose, though he had been drawn fully back to reality long ago by the undeniable concreteness of Ratchet’s spark.
Glyph was in New Guinea. She was almost finished learning every human language that still had at least one native speaker. Dozens of obscure, dying languages had become extinct during the course of her self-appointed task, but Glyph had taken it with professional calm. Languages changed, merged, split, fell into disuse. Much like living things themselves. And ephemeral lifespans were, well…ephemeral.
“Another pod,” Catscan said, casting his senses out into the water. Humpbacks were migrating. Now and then they caught scans of the great, solitary or sometimes paired, wandering Blues, like deep-Seekers, booming their songs of location and kinship and warning and topography. He put his arms around Lifeline, pressing his chest into her broad shoulders. The wind was chilly, though the sun was warm on their fronts, and she settled her hands over his, revving her engine for the heat.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
Twelve years he’d been back on Earth, and they hadn’t left him alone for one second. Countermeasure was more grateful than he could express. Someone was always near; well within range of hands or fields or a soft voice, layers of the cloud mind kept bright to hold him when the dark things inside him boiled to the surface and had to be fought, pixel by pixel, back down. Sideswipe rickrolled him just seldom enough it always took him by surprise.
Arms around him from each side, Hound and Mirage accompanied him down to the oil bath; Mirage with half his systems shut down already, including his optics. Countermeasure loved the trust Mir so unconsciously placed in him.
As usual, once they came around the curve of the hallway they found the oil bath already occupied. Jazz and Tracks, Ramhorn and Steeljaw snuggled up to Blaster, with Jazz and Tracks’ progeny, Chromedome, completing their little circle with Eject and Rewind in his lap. (Rewind had been let into the Bodleian and had stayed for six weeks without a break. He was still buzzing with excitement but his poor little body was near collapse. He’d been just as bad in Egypt and Australia, China and the Rift Valley. Blaster was running out of ideas for getting him to recharge regularly instead of only when he was on the verge of stasis.) They were sitting half-submerged on the ramp at the shallow end of the pool, talking softly, perhaps to avoid waking the recharging symbionts, or just in a quiet mood. Chromedome and Jazz scooted carefully around to open a space for the approaching trio.
He would never get tired of this, Countermeasure knew with a relieved sort of certainty. Never get bored watching the way Chromedome nuzzled and nibbled on Rewind’s antennae as the little symbionts stirred in his lap - not as asleep as County had thought. Rewind lifted his face for a deeper kiss, and scooted around until he was straddling Chromedome’s lap. Eject shifted over to snuggle up to Blaster and his hostmates. Blaster could get ESPN even all the way down here, and from Blaster’s clump he had a better view of Rewind and Chromedome.
Mirage went limp against County’s side. Hound handed him a dipper and County gently used it to pour the clear oil over Mirage’s shoulders, watching Chromedome and Rewind as their caresses grew more fervent. Mirage’s fields fluttered and fell quiet.
You can lean him on me, Jazz tight-beamed, smiling fondly at Mirage, if you an’ Hound wanted to get more active. County suspected Jazz just wanted to cuddle Mir. It was a devout act of close friendship, cradling someone as they slept. Mirage didn’t stir as County and Jazz rearranged him, but he did sleek himself right up against Jazz before sinking more deeply into recharge.
So nice, to have Hound’s knowing hands on his body with others tenderly embracing next to them. So fine, the symphony of fields and quiet cries echoing from the domed ceiling. Chromedome opened his chest, pale amber light reflecting from the oil, dancing on the walls and ceiling. Rewind chirred urgently, splitting his own chest, baring his small, carnelian spark; they touched, spinning bright, heat blowing outward from their union, Hound’s mouth fierce on County’s, Blaster’s body arching as Rewind and Chromedome overloaded, the other symbionts shuddering and chirping with shared ecstasy, and everyone settled deeper into the oil, draped over each other, until only a few headfins and shoulders and Blaster’s great big feet showed above the surface.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
“Hey, how’s it hummin’?” Keep it smooth, Rain thought. Keep it casual. Polyamory, yeah? How hard could it be? He’d gotten “the Talk” from Ratchet, which mostly consisted of a file download, and he’d read that and assured Ratchet after that he had no questions or qualms.
Arcee and Firestar lifted orbital crests at him and kept walking. Rain shrugged. Lots of other fish…hm. Water Babies. Only he couldn’t tell what half of them were.
He clapped a hand to his helm. He kept trying to pitch everyone into narrow little boxes labeled “he” and “she”, and it was getting real annoying. There was so much they had never tried to explain. So much they couldn’t really explain until he had the body and the senses that would make explanations unnecessary. He ran after Arcee and Firestar. Both of whom the humans called “she”, but were in fact - and so obviously - je and she respectively.
“Sorry,” he said. “Look, I’m just…sorry…” Maybe something in his CPU was glitched. He should talk to Ratchet. Or Smokey? Arcee and Firestar exchanged a glance and took his hands. Inferno, he, Scalam class not Guardian class like Ironhide and Ranger, came down the hall toward them, tall as Prime, optics bright. He stepped close to Rain, laid a big, gentle hand on his shoulder, the thumb trailing across the top of his pectoral armor. Their fields tangled and Rain reeled, awash in the heat of the three bodies moving around his, drawing him toward the nearest bunkhouse.
“Aw, don’t worry about it, Rain,” Inferno drawled softly in his audial, lips brushing polished black metal. “We can show ya a few things. Then you’ll get some of this confusin’ stuff figured out…”
He felt a whirl of hands and bodies, around him, a part of him. Somehow he ended up on a wide berth at floor level, propped in Inferno’s lap, the firetruck’s chest warm and solid against his back. Windcharger and Smokescreen joined them; ke and zhe respectively. Hands stroked him, how was there room? Engines purred softly, all their fields meshing; Rain fumbled for a moment, not consciously aware of how to influence the bend and sway of his EM spectrum, until someone - Smokescreen? - showed him. Cables slithered between, over armor, Rain opening ports he hadn’t used yet, shivering with each new connection, knowing they were holding back, giving him space to expand and accept.
I am not Bobby Epps, he thought. Not any more. Who he was is a part of me, but not the whole. I am a Cybertronian with the mindstate and memories, and therefore something of the personality of a human; but my spark is new, is me, my basis. My spirit. Spark be true. He felt a brief stab of sorrow, understanding a little of what Perceptor had sacrificed, but also how his spark had given him the courage to do it. Perceptor maybe wasn’t exactly the same person he’d been before the war, but who was?
I am Rain, he thought. And what Rain really wanted right then was Inferno’s mouth on his own, and for Inferno’s hand to never stop stroking him right there. Gentle laughter bloomed through the link, and heated agreement; Fer’s mouth was good for kissing, his hands felt good on bodies, his fields and mind warm and broad and comforting in the way great power leashed by experience and kindness could be. Metal bodies surrounded Rain, metals hands petted him, the first licks of static skittering under his armor, making him shiver and arch. He was aware both at once of his body and the expanding complexity of the mental, hardline link; he was built to encompass all of it, not having to switch his focus, however rapidly and adeptly, between multiple tasks; his physical brain was set up to process hundreds of separate threads independently, parallel, powerful - and so fast!
Just wait, they hummed to him, smiling, kissing, nibbling on his fingers. Rain writhed in their arms, but they kept pulling charge away, not letting him ground, keeping him from overloading, showing him the full, extended pleasure of slowly rising heat and excitement. There was nothing between his legs to show his pulsing, aching need; instead his fields blew outward, dark and rich with desire and the mechs around him hummed louder, engines revving, coolant pumps laboring, chevrons and other helm fins flaring red with heat, dispersing into the air with the scents of their oils and alloys.
Open, they coaxed him, Firestar and Inferno’s hands stroking each other on Rain’s chest. Open. Be the Rain we need not fear!
Ultimate vulnerability, ultimate strangeness to the mindstate that nestled within him; this body that could crack itself open like an egg, like a ribcage, and not die! Rain felt Inferno’s armor shift against his back, Arcee’s chamber seals snapped aside with audible snikks within her small, angular chest, Firestar was folding herself back, layer by layer, Windcharger already spilled bright, hard, blue light across the room. Smokescreen had parted his armor but was trying to remain more an observer, to stay on the edge, until they knew for sure that Rain would be in no distress.
Ultimate arousal, ultimate longing! This body, this new life, so young despite almost a century of memories in his core, this body wanted this ultimate connection with a fierceness that shocked him. Rain arched, armor snapping aside, spark chamber juddering in his chest, sparklight dancing bright, warm blue, mingling with the others, their colors blending, reflecting from glassy armor, refracting through not-glass alt-form windows, until Firestar leaned in, copper-red spark, an eternity falling in, galaxies whirling, and their coronae touched.
Practical determination, quiet strength, intelligence and ingenuity pushed past their limits over the long grind of the war, sacrifice, joy in function performed well, love expressed in keeping loved ones safe! /FIRESTAR/ How beautifully their names suited! How beautifully all their parts fit! All the layers, perceived at once, clear and magnificent. Hardlines. How could he distinguish bodies, when everyone touched everyone else, could feel and be felt - and yet he could. Individuals making up a whole. Minds linked, a blending of nevertheless distinct flavors. Now sparks; souls! Somehow one-in-many. All of them riven by suffering, yet whole, and healing themselves, healing each other.
His body lashed as the charge grounded - not entirely dissimilar, this little death, flash and flush of electrochemistry; more dramatic, though, lightning striking twice, thrice, sending shockwaves and plasma through the air.
Melted. He was sure his entire inner structure, oh yeah, his protoform, had melted. “How,” he murmured dizzily, “does anyone survive spark-sharing with Optimus?” And what a way to go, if they didn’t.
Firestar half rolled off him, whooping with laughter.
“First time with him is definitely intense,” Arcee said, smirking at Firestar.
“Every time with him is intense,” Inferno amended, rather purrily.
“Because you like it like that,” Firestar snickered. “So do I. So does Red.” Red in particular thrived on that intensity. It burned through all his empty spaces. “Optimus has greater control over his spark than most people - even before he went and Allsparked himself. He’s the Prime. If the sheer power of sharing with him gets scary he can tone it way down, give you only what you want, what you need, not smelt you into slag.” She shifted, stroking Arcee’s helm, thumb tracing an old scar. “The Protector, though. He wasn’t so good at tuning himself down.”
“Mmm,” rumbled Inferno.
Rain unshuttered his optics, cycling them wide. “You…got jiggy with Megatron.”
“Have done,” Firestar said. Like Ironhide, she’d always been military, but had sided with the Prime when the world changed. “Also intense, but not in the same way as with Prime. Optimus you feel like you could happily, joyously lose yourself, he’d let you that far in if that’s what you wanted. Megatron was always fiercely himself and you were at your strongest, felt the most powerful you’d ever been, with him. You had to be, or you’d break.” She whirred sadly. “It was no big mystery why so many followed him at first.”
Rain blinked, thinking through several things at once. Human history and Cybertronian. Brother against brother. Military versus civilian. How conflict could go from small scale to large. Robert Epps’ job with Lennox’s squad had heavily overlapped Prowl’s. “Civil wars suck,” he said, with so many layers of harmonics Arcee sat up, impressed.
“They purely do,” Inferno agreed.
…
For an activity that didn’t (always) require a lot of thrashing around, interfacing sure could take it out of a bot. Rain came online twelve hours later, alone on the berth. Arcee had patrols to run, and there had been a chemical plant fire that Inferno and Firestar had hustled off to help with. He didn’t mind. There was no sense of abandonment, not with the cloud mind bubbling away just below the more businesslike levels of comm traffic. He got a few curious pings (Hound, Mirage, Bee, Ironhide, Smokey; Ranger conspicuously silent, but everyone knew what Rain had been doing - what he had been doing that Ranger had not), including an amused but affectionate one from Arcee.
Sleepyhead.
Yeah, yeah. Sunday morning, man. Besides, he wasn’t on the duty roster yet. He was like a college student on summer vacation. The last day of, maybe, but that was a whole day to enjoy. And Optimus Prime was sitting at the end of the berth, watching him.
“Good morning,” Optimus murmured, smiling. It was, actually. Outside, the sun was coming up.
Rain tried to say good morning back, all casual, but his vocoder made an incredibly embarrassing meep instead. Prime’s voice. Prime’s voice did things. And now Rain had a lot of context for the things that voice did, and the things his body was doing in response. What was the difference between hardwiring plus core programming, and what humans called instinct? Rain decided he kind of didn’t care. With a certain amount of work, you could override either, but sometimes that wasn’t the fun way. His engine revved.
Optimus scooted closer, beside him, somehow managing to make the maneuver look dignified, almost ritualistic, like a samurai changing his stance. He’d done something to his shields; Rain could feel the heat of his body…no, the heat of that enormous spark. His own spark was doing weird pirouettes in his chest.
Rain tried again to say good morning, hello, take me now, something, anything. Prime… he managed the single glyph, undecorated, ancient, needing no elaboration.
“Hmmm?” Optimus bent close, nibbled inquisitively at Rain’s temporal spar. Prime was curious, Rain could feel it openly in his fields.
Prime! Rain wrapped his arms around Optimus’ neck, pulling him down, pulling their bodies together, mouths together, his chest armor parting, chamber seals disengaging.
“Easy, Rain,” Prime murmured between kisses. “Gently.”
Prime… So close, so close… What of armor, if it separated them, kept him from this center of desire? His body understood, ardent and determined.
Optimus drew a thumb down Rain’s chamber seam. Slowly.
Torture! Rain shuddered, curled his hands to keep from clawing. Sky-blue light gleamed, waxed, shone, blazed against Prime’s armor. To be so open, and Prime’s hands so near, his spark so near; Rain lay still, did not writhe, but only via steely resolve.
Spark of Hound and Mirage’s sparks, Prime said, his harmonics and subharmonics thousands of layers deep, of course you would be beautiful! Heavy armor parted, heavy protoform, heavy chamber walls, strong enough to house the blue-white giant. Rain did not quite whimper as the outer heliosphere swept through him. Inescapable as the approaching shock-shell of a supernova. Rain dove into the contact, his corona reaching wildly outward, prominences whipping and braiding in their eagerness to mesh with Prime. They were met and caught, caressed; Rain was laid bare, defenseless…and enveloped in a love so vast he could find no way to measure or describe it, make no comparison in even the sharing with Inferno and the others. Spacetimelove itself bent deeply around Prime’s spark, bowing, falling joyously into that well. And if Rain was laid bare, so was Optimus. Nine million years of a life built around his people, the war a hideous wound that only now was beginning slowly to heal.
Rain keened, learning newly this capacity, and cried out in wonder and ecstasy, surrendering to overload.
…
How long had he been offline? A quick flick of thought at his chronometer - handy, that - told him it had only been about half an hour. His chest was hot but no longer steaming. There were other sleepers now in the bunkhouse berths. Optimus lay beside him, optics off but awake.
There was nothing…nothing in his human experience to compare this to. Bobby had known the cell-deep relief at survival against terrible odds, had known wedded commitment and carnal bliss, paternal joys, the boundless love of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren; his human legacy through time. Religious ecstasy? No. But maybe that was close, in human terms, maybe as close as one could get.
That didn’t mean the human experience was without worth - indeed the very fact of his current existence proved otherwise. Sometimes, though…sometimes comparisons were useless.
Recharge, Rain, Optimus hummed, curling beside and around him. Think later.
Yes, o my Prime!
Heh.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
Ironhide showed Rain how to manufacture ammo. The heat of inner forge and nanoassemblers, intimate workings; the satisfying thunks as new rounds slid into their chambers; the solid, warm feel of full magazines; the savage enjoyment of eating metal, the delicate textures of mineral/supplemental wire; the leashed fire of chemical propellants and weaponized corrosives. The suspended, breathless feeling of transformation, followed by solid settling in the new configuration. Having weapons that were literally a part of him was fantastic, heady, intoxicating; lines of power surging through them extended from his core. And by slag he couldn’t miss anything he had a solid lock on!
Including Ranger. They soon discovered the joys of shooting at each other using the lowest power settings. Better than paint-ball! Ironhide actually facepalmed - Rain took vid. Ratchet made threatening noises over comms…which dissolved into laughter when Ironhide transmitted a mental image of himself taking both Rain and Ranger over his knee...
Rain didn’t care. Let the old bots fuss. They were out at White Sands, blowing shit up! Fun!
Until he and Ironhide and Ranger returned to the embassy, and Rain got a look at Prime. There was nothing sad or reproachful in his demeanor or fields, but Rain just got this vibe… Wasn’t hard to figure out. Prime wished the newsparks didn’t have to train for battle at all. They shouldn’t have to.
And not all of us do, Rain reminded himself. Me and Ranger, we know this shit already. So maybe it was thinking about Rain and Ranger compared with Borealis. Borealis hadn’t taken to fighting right off. She ended up having to because she was a great big fat Prime-kid target. That sucked ass. But that’s the way things were, for now. He went up and leaned on Prime. Leg, anyway. Damn tall mech.
Welcome back, Rain, Prime said, curling a hand around Rain’s helm. Rain sort of found himself purring into it. Was your excursion to New Mexico enjoyable?
“Hooah,” Rain said, grinning, laying in several layers of harmonics and subharmonics, most of them ironic, but a couple expressing that big booms were basically cool. You can take the man out of the Rangers, but…you couldn’t take the boy out of the Autobot? Something like that.
Hound and Trailbreaker from outside and Mirage from somewhere down below converged on him for hugs. He’d only been gone a couple days… Hugs were good, though. Hound was solid - not tippy like his alt mode had a reputation for being - not tall but good to hold on to. Trailbreaker moreso. And Mirage, lithe and slim. Okay, so Rain liked hugging Mirage. For long hugs. Hugs that would have made Bobby Epps squirm. Rain had been thinking about doing more than hugging Mirage and Hound, but that was a step he wasn’t quite prepared for. Not yet. He wasn’t actively squicked out like Borealis seemed to be - and Ranger, the glitch, was still celibate - he could feel in himself that at some point his niggling, ghostlike objections to snuggling his parents …progenitors… were going to evaporate. Maybe not all at once. But sometime.
Meanwhile he was perfectly happy to let Mirage and Hound and TB drag him and Ranger and Ironhide down to the oil baths. The white sands at White Sands were sneaky as shit and somehow got everywhere even when you thought you’d had your shields up the whole damn time.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2078 - December
Layer by layer, seed by seed, her CPU grew. A fading in of consciousness, sentience. Self-awareness came later, as the memory data became selectively accessible. She could feel her body assembling itself, slowly growing as more mass was added. Each new skein felt so bright, so full of potential! She could be anything! A choosing. Like the choosing of sparks within the starry expanse of the Vector protocols. There were bodies Sarah had admired, others she had learned to fear. And yet, to overcome fear, learn more. Take the form? Yes. The skeins of mass knew every shape, were pliable, obedient, bent themselves to her will, once she had a will.
Later. There were others, in the tanks beside and around her. The two, to either side - she could feel their nascent fields, as they could feel hers. Once they had hands, they pressed them to the sides of their tanks, reaching for each other. No, no sense in taking Roddy's road. They would be smarter. Wait for legs. For wings.
…
They weren't allowed into the growth tank chamber. Thundercracker understood the Autobots' caution, though he knew and Prime knew and Prowl knew that nothing in space or on planet would induce him or Strake to harm the newsparks. Their protective algorithms had been fully restored to prewar standards. They weren't allowed in the chamber, but the rumors flitted through levels of the cloud mind that they had access to.
Three new Seekers were building themselves in those tanks up in Oregon. (There was something odd about that, but neither TC nor Strake had paid any attention to the processes of building or kindling since stepping off the kindling platform at Simfur themselves.) Three new alphas, to be precise That there were three meant...well, it was obvious what would happen. And it was for the best, really. One new alpha would have made things complicated for them and Prowl. Jazz was an interfering pain in the afterburner, but he wasn't wrong. Proper trining took at least a vorn, anyway. His trining with Starscream and Skywarp had been forced, yes, but it had saved his life, and he'd been grateful, once the agony of losing Novawind and Saberfall had eased. He could admit that now, when his new, nascent trine would be so good, so true, in a few decades, when Prowl would allow himself to be rebuilt. All the sweeter for having waited. All their firewalls would come down during those flights. Very rarely, trines failed at that point, but almost never when they'd had time to do things properly. So he was a traditionalist. Nothing wrong with that, considering.
He watched sunlight flash on Strake's wings, 10,000 kilometers below; a graceful, silver and black shape. So sweet, so good. And just the thought of Prowl in an alpha body set his engines roaring. Ratchet and Skyfire and Perceptor were working on a design when they had a spare cycle or two. Ratchet had blabbed. Thundercracker wondered if they'd let him and Strake upgrade at the same time, because whatever those three came up with was going to make their current design look like a stop-gap patch job. Which in a sense they were, once Cybertron's infrastructure had collapsed. People had to keep upgrading, to maintain any kind of combat edge, but they had to do it with whatever materials or expertise was on hand, and both had only gotten more scarce as the millennia wore on.
Well. New alphas were new alphas. This was going to get interesting.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2079 - May
She came out of recharge slowly, languorously, stretching her limbs though she had no muscles and tendons as such to require warming. It felt good anyway. She was warm, every intricate part of her body supported by the thick colloid of the growth medium. She extended and contracted her wing-shards. She and the others had consulted, they had their alt modes picked; Cybertronian designs from before the war at base, but with very modern modifications. They were beautiful. They knew it, they had chosen to be so.
They could get out of the tanks on their own if they needed to. If the worst happened and no one was left alive, not even Ven, who could activate the opening sequence for them. The worst had not happened.
Perceptor, she sent, smiling at the fondness in his auto-reply. His full attention shifted as soon as it was safe to do so. She knew he’d been working on something delicate and important. The nova-nets, he told her, grudgingly using the name Scrapper had coined.
Are you all ready to emerge?
Yes. Whenever you’re ready for us.
We’ll be right there!
By the next morning, those who wished to attend had assembled, flying up from the embassy or in from other places via Azimuth and Blueshift. Skyfire, Borealis and Polaris were in deep space - Polaris and Borealis in M100, Skyfire on his way back to Earth, but two weeks out.
She and her batch-siblings smiled at everyone, jiggling with excitement. There was Ranger, off to one side, optics on her alone, trying to appear nonchalant. Rain, leaning against a wall, Mr. Cool, but with fields making wild loops and wings all over the room. Ah, there he pulled them in. Someone must have said something. She giggled.
The colloid drained. A tickly process that left her feeling hollow and wobbly for a second, fragile and strangely dry. There was no residue. The plex tank walls retracted and the twenty newsparks descended. She went to Beachcomber first, folding herself down and down; he was so tiny and warm against her broad chest, his arms barely able to reach around her neck. She nuzzled his helm, glancing up at Miles watching from the catwalk with Yasmina and Joey and Marcus. Oh, yes. They would have an interest in observing this process. Observing her. Their heart-rates were only a little elevated. Excited, happy, not worried.
Her senses were set only a little below Cybertronian norms. She would require only one more major adjustment, and then some fine-tuning for her frametype. Seeker. Alpha. Impulse and Volley were alphas, too. The three of them could already feel the attention directed at them. A number of Autobot newsparks had chosen flight modes, but none had ventured to be alphas until now. She released Beachcomber, straightening somewhat to embrace Perceptor, who was more than twice Beachcomber’s height.
“Serenity,” he said, hugging her with all four arms. She had whispered to him her new name a few weeks before, pleased to share with him one brief secret before her life became wildly communal.
When the show had originally been on, Sarah had barely heard of it. It sounded too weird. Then her life had gotten a lot weirder, and stories about people just trying to scrape by under difficult circumstances, even when those circumstances included being out in space in a rust-bucket of an old ship, seemed a lot more relevant to her interests. Now her life was an order of magnitude weirder than anything on the show. And she liked the sound of the word. She felt she had gained a measure of that trait, and that it might be a valuable thing to bring to the Autobot camp. She conveyed this to Optimus, who agreed warmly. Although the other Autobots would tease her a bit.
An alpha? Cliffjumper laughed from the embassy. Named Serenity??? The cloud mind tossed the name around with amusement and thoughtful observations that a serene alpha might be a good idea, if it worked. Or maybe he…she? She. She, then…or maybe she would be an example of the naming tradition of the Jehren, who gave their vessels names opposite of desired traits in order to avoid unwanted notice by the gods. Serenity broadcast a raspberry.
“It’s a lovely name,” Ranger said, fidgeting off to one side. Serenity smiled at him as she stood to hug Optimus. Optimus was about due for another mass-removal and was currently taller than she by a meter and a half.
“Welcome, Serenity,” Optimus said, gazing into her optics. His field washed through her, enfolding and warm, unequivocally pleased by her chosen frame, and not for reasons of combat advantage.
“Thank you, Prime.” She let him go reluctantly, but she needed to go over and hug Ranger before he melted or something.
“It’s a good name,” Ranger insisted as she knelt and they embraced, metal arms, metal bodies, powerful sparks. She knew he would never, bless him, make the mistake of calling her Sarah. He was small, but solid. It felt so good to hold him again, even with the differences! A part of her could not have failed to recognize him.
More wings moved toward them. Volley and Impulse, the other two alphas. Ranger looked up.
A bolt of sheer possessiveness lanced through him - and then dissipated, never to return. The three of them had grown together, would belong together. Sarah had given up care of her husband to his squad, hadn’t she? Trusted them to protect him, have his back all those years. Ranger understood alpha trines in a basic way, a tactical way perhaps, but he was not unsympathetic. Volley and Impulse knelt and joined their snuggle, fluttering their wings and optical shutters at him, acknowledging the connection between him and Serenity with pleasure. They knew they’d always have dedicated backup.
“Party in the entry hall!” Beachcomber called, leading the way up and out.
…
“Can we call you Seekermom now instead of Seekerbane?” she asked, at the end of her checkup. Volley and Impulse were already done and waiting for her impatiently. She buried her face in his sensory fins as his fields glowed with a resounding, emotional YES! (She had wanted to nuzzle his lionfish head for decades, or Sarah had, but only now could she do so easily. Some of his vanes felt zingy against the metal of her face, some were sharp, but she didn’t press too hard.)
“Oh, please do,” Perceptor said aloud, hugging her powerfully with his strong-arms.
Thank you, Serenity, Prime tight-beamed from the embassy. His glyphs expressed a quieter, vaster joy than Perceptor’s. This is why the Matrix wanted human memory engrams in Cybertronian bodies. You enrich us.
Too bad you aren’t collecting them from more humans. It wasn’t a critique, exactly.
By what criteria would we choose, if not that of friendship? Humans call this nepotism, but we…we have become so few, our bonds of “family” so fractured and mended in whatever ways we can…
Some humans would say you should preserve the great and the good. In fact I think Raoul said as much, didn’t he?
Yes. But that is not what we want them for. How is any individual, no matter how great and good, more human than any other?
…Okay. You’re right. Optimus?
Yes?
I love you.
He laughed. I love you, too, Serenity.
“Are you talking with Prime?” Perceptor asked. A bit nosy. She nibbled at his mid-helm vent.
“Yes.”
“I surmised as much. Your fields have become - as Beachcomber would put it - whirly.”
Part VI
Table of Contents
.
Author: tainry
Disclaimer: Not mine, no money.
Rating: R
Characters/Pairing(s): Ensemble, Chromedome/Rewind, Countermeasure/Hound, Rain/Inferno/Arcee/Firestar/Smokescreen, Rain/Prime
Warnings: PnP, sparks, slash, human-to-robot, OCs
Summary: Wherein Lifeline and Catscan watch the ocean, Countermeasure gets snuggles, Rain gets lessons in robot smexing, Sarah!robot grows, TC is thinky, and Sarah!robot decants.
Notes: ::flops:: Well, there will be at least one more part to "Heartlines". ^^; Lots to cover before we move the planet.
~5600 words.
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
BOREALIS: Heartlines - Part V
2077 - October
The rock beneath her aft was serpentine. Hydrous magnesium iron phyllosilicate. A group of common metamorphic rocks. The narrow, irregular crescent of beach lay behind her, cool grey sand, green and grey pebbles, strewn with drying kelp. Salt and organic proteins blew heavy in the moist air. Her chemoreceptors were on the sides of her face, beneath protective cheek spars. She could hear birds calling, and the wind rushing against the cliffs around her and the trees tossing atop the cliffs, several of her heights above. She knew humans often found watching the ocean soothing, part of the multitudinous rhythms of this planet.
Lifeline found it reassuring. No two waves ever broke the same way. She watched them carefully, paying attention to how the light changed as the day came and went, and the night. She had found that she did not like being indoors, though she could tolerate it. Kalis had not been quite as adept at simulating natural environments; running too many chaotic threads at a time took up precious energy, and there were clever shortcuts, some of which took a long time for even a trained observer to notice.
Catscan understood. He joined her on the rock, watching the waves with the same intensity and purpose, though he had been drawn fully back to reality long ago by the undeniable concreteness of Ratchet’s spark.
Glyph was in New Guinea. She was almost finished learning every human language that still had at least one native speaker. Dozens of obscure, dying languages had become extinct during the course of her self-appointed task, but Glyph had taken it with professional calm. Languages changed, merged, split, fell into disuse. Much like living things themselves. And ephemeral lifespans were, well…ephemeral.
“Another pod,” Catscan said, casting his senses out into the water. Humpbacks were migrating. Now and then they caught scans of the great, solitary or sometimes paired, wandering Blues, like deep-Seekers, booming their songs of location and kinship and warning and topography. He put his arms around Lifeline, pressing his chest into her broad shoulders. The wind was chilly, though the sun was warm on their fronts, and she settled her hands over his, revving her engine for the heat.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
Twelve years he’d been back on Earth, and they hadn’t left him alone for one second. Countermeasure was more grateful than he could express. Someone was always near; well within range of hands or fields or a soft voice, layers of the cloud mind kept bright to hold him when the dark things inside him boiled to the surface and had to be fought, pixel by pixel, back down. Sideswipe rickrolled him just seldom enough it always took him by surprise.
Arms around him from each side, Hound and Mirage accompanied him down to the oil bath; Mirage with half his systems shut down already, including his optics. Countermeasure loved the trust Mir so unconsciously placed in him.
As usual, once they came around the curve of the hallway they found the oil bath already occupied. Jazz and Tracks, Ramhorn and Steeljaw snuggled up to Blaster, with Jazz and Tracks’ progeny, Chromedome, completing their little circle with Eject and Rewind in his lap. (Rewind had been let into the Bodleian and had stayed for six weeks without a break. He was still buzzing with excitement but his poor little body was near collapse. He’d been just as bad in Egypt and Australia, China and the Rift Valley. Blaster was running out of ideas for getting him to recharge regularly instead of only when he was on the verge of stasis.) They were sitting half-submerged on the ramp at the shallow end of the pool, talking softly, perhaps to avoid waking the recharging symbionts, or just in a quiet mood. Chromedome and Jazz scooted carefully around to open a space for the approaching trio.
He would never get tired of this, Countermeasure knew with a relieved sort of certainty. Never get bored watching the way Chromedome nuzzled and nibbled on Rewind’s antennae as the little symbionts stirred in his lap - not as asleep as County had thought. Rewind lifted his face for a deeper kiss, and scooted around until he was straddling Chromedome’s lap. Eject shifted over to snuggle up to Blaster and his hostmates. Blaster could get ESPN even all the way down here, and from Blaster’s clump he had a better view of Rewind and Chromedome.
Mirage went limp against County’s side. Hound handed him a dipper and County gently used it to pour the clear oil over Mirage’s shoulders, watching Chromedome and Rewind as their caresses grew more fervent. Mirage’s fields fluttered and fell quiet.
You can lean him on me, Jazz tight-beamed, smiling fondly at Mirage, if you an’ Hound wanted to get more active. County suspected Jazz just wanted to cuddle Mir. It was a devout act of close friendship, cradling someone as they slept. Mirage didn’t stir as County and Jazz rearranged him, but he did sleek himself right up against Jazz before sinking more deeply into recharge.
So nice, to have Hound’s knowing hands on his body with others tenderly embracing next to them. So fine, the symphony of fields and quiet cries echoing from the domed ceiling. Chromedome opened his chest, pale amber light reflecting from the oil, dancing on the walls and ceiling. Rewind chirred urgently, splitting his own chest, baring his small, carnelian spark; they touched, spinning bright, heat blowing outward from their union, Hound’s mouth fierce on County’s, Blaster’s body arching as Rewind and Chromedome overloaded, the other symbionts shuddering and chirping with shared ecstasy, and everyone settled deeper into the oil, draped over each other, until only a few headfins and shoulders and Blaster’s great big feet showed above the surface.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
“Hey, how’s it hummin’?” Keep it smooth, Rain thought. Keep it casual. Polyamory, yeah? How hard could it be? He’d gotten “the Talk” from Ratchet, which mostly consisted of a file download, and he’d read that and assured Ratchet after that he had no questions or qualms.
Arcee and Firestar lifted orbital crests at him and kept walking. Rain shrugged. Lots of other fish…hm. Water Babies. Only he couldn’t tell what half of them were.
He clapped a hand to his helm. He kept trying to pitch everyone into narrow little boxes labeled “he” and “she”, and it was getting real annoying. There was so much they had never tried to explain. So much they couldn’t really explain until he had the body and the senses that would make explanations unnecessary. He ran after Arcee and Firestar. Both of whom the humans called “she”, but were in fact - and so obviously - je and she respectively.
“Sorry,” he said. “Look, I’m just…sorry…” Maybe something in his CPU was glitched. He should talk to Ratchet. Or Smokey? Arcee and Firestar exchanged a glance and took his hands. Inferno, he, Scalam class not Guardian class like Ironhide and Ranger, came down the hall toward them, tall as Prime, optics bright. He stepped close to Rain, laid a big, gentle hand on his shoulder, the thumb trailing across the top of his pectoral armor. Their fields tangled and Rain reeled, awash in the heat of the three bodies moving around his, drawing him toward the nearest bunkhouse.
“Aw, don’t worry about it, Rain,” Inferno drawled softly in his audial, lips brushing polished black metal. “We can show ya a few things. Then you’ll get some of this confusin’ stuff figured out…”
He felt a whirl of hands and bodies, around him, a part of him. Somehow he ended up on a wide berth at floor level, propped in Inferno’s lap, the firetruck’s chest warm and solid against his back. Windcharger and Smokescreen joined them; ke and zhe respectively. Hands stroked him, how was there room? Engines purred softly, all their fields meshing; Rain fumbled for a moment, not consciously aware of how to influence the bend and sway of his EM spectrum, until someone - Smokescreen? - showed him. Cables slithered between, over armor, Rain opening ports he hadn’t used yet, shivering with each new connection, knowing they were holding back, giving him space to expand and accept.
I am not Bobby Epps, he thought. Not any more. Who he was is a part of me, but not the whole. I am a Cybertronian with the mindstate and memories, and therefore something of the personality of a human; but my spark is new, is me, my basis. My spirit. Spark be true. He felt a brief stab of sorrow, understanding a little of what Perceptor had sacrificed, but also how his spark had given him the courage to do it. Perceptor maybe wasn’t exactly the same person he’d been before the war, but who was?
I am Rain, he thought. And what Rain really wanted right then was Inferno’s mouth on his own, and for Inferno’s hand to never stop stroking him right there. Gentle laughter bloomed through the link, and heated agreement; Fer’s mouth was good for kissing, his hands felt good on bodies, his fields and mind warm and broad and comforting in the way great power leashed by experience and kindness could be. Metal bodies surrounded Rain, metals hands petted him, the first licks of static skittering under his armor, making him shiver and arch. He was aware both at once of his body and the expanding complexity of the mental, hardline link; he was built to encompass all of it, not having to switch his focus, however rapidly and adeptly, between multiple tasks; his physical brain was set up to process hundreds of separate threads independently, parallel, powerful - and so fast!
Just wait, they hummed to him, smiling, kissing, nibbling on his fingers. Rain writhed in their arms, but they kept pulling charge away, not letting him ground, keeping him from overloading, showing him the full, extended pleasure of slowly rising heat and excitement. There was nothing between his legs to show his pulsing, aching need; instead his fields blew outward, dark and rich with desire and the mechs around him hummed louder, engines revving, coolant pumps laboring, chevrons and other helm fins flaring red with heat, dispersing into the air with the scents of their oils and alloys.
Open, they coaxed him, Firestar and Inferno’s hands stroking each other on Rain’s chest. Open. Be the Rain we need not fear!
Ultimate vulnerability, ultimate strangeness to the mindstate that nestled within him; this body that could crack itself open like an egg, like a ribcage, and not die! Rain felt Inferno’s armor shift against his back, Arcee’s chamber seals snapped aside with audible snikks within her small, angular chest, Firestar was folding herself back, layer by layer, Windcharger already spilled bright, hard, blue light across the room. Smokescreen had parted his armor but was trying to remain more an observer, to stay on the edge, until they knew for sure that Rain would be in no distress.
Ultimate arousal, ultimate longing! This body, this new life, so young despite almost a century of memories in his core, this body wanted this ultimate connection with a fierceness that shocked him. Rain arched, armor snapping aside, spark chamber juddering in his chest, sparklight dancing bright, warm blue, mingling with the others, their colors blending, reflecting from glassy armor, refracting through not-glass alt-form windows, until Firestar leaned in, copper-red spark, an eternity falling in, galaxies whirling, and their coronae touched.
Practical determination, quiet strength, intelligence and ingenuity pushed past their limits over the long grind of the war, sacrifice, joy in function performed well, love expressed in keeping loved ones safe! /FIRESTAR/ How beautifully their names suited! How beautifully all their parts fit! All the layers, perceived at once, clear and magnificent. Hardlines. How could he distinguish bodies, when everyone touched everyone else, could feel and be felt - and yet he could. Individuals making up a whole. Minds linked, a blending of nevertheless distinct flavors. Now sparks; souls! Somehow one-in-many. All of them riven by suffering, yet whole, and healing themselves, healing each other.
His body lashed as the charge grounded - not entirely dissimilar, this little death, flash and flush of electrochemistry; more dramatic, though, lightning striking twice, thrice, sending shockwaves and plasma through the air.
Melted. He was sure his entire inner structure, oh yeah, his protoform, had melted. “How,” he murmured dizzily, “does anyone survive spark-sharing with Optimus?” And what a way to go, if they didn’t.
Firestar half rolled off him, whooping with laughter.
“First time with him is definitely intense,” Arcee said, smirking at Firestar.
“Every time with him is intense,” Inferno amended, rather purrily.
“Because you like it like that,” Firestar snickered. “So do I. So does Red.” Red in particular thrived on that intensity. It burned through all his empty spaces. “Optimus has greater control over his spark than most people - even before he went and Allsparked himself. He’s the Prime. If the sheer power of sharing with him gets scary he can tone it way down, give you only what you want, what you need, not smelt you into slag.” She shifted, stroking Arcee’s helm, thumb tracing an old scar. “The Protector, though. He wasn’t so good at tuning himself down.”
“Mmm,” rumbled Inferno.
Rain unshuttered his optics, cycling them wide. “You…got jiggy with Megatron.”
“Have done,” Firestar said. Like Ironhide, she’d always been military, but had sided with the Prime when the world changed. “Also intense, but not in the same way as with Prime. Optimus you feel like you could happily, joyously lose yourself, he’d let you that far in if that’s what you wanted. Megatron was always fiercely himself and you were at your strongest, felt the most powerful you’d ever been, with him. You had to be, or you’d break.” She whirred sadly. “It was no big mystery why so many followed him at first.”
Rain blinked, thinking through several things at once. Human history and Cybertronian. Brother against brother. Military versus civilian. How conflict could go from small scale to large. Robert Epps’ job with Lennox’s squad had heavily overlapped Prowl’s. “Civil wars suck,” he said, with so many layers of harmonics Arcee sat up, impressed.
“They purely do,” Inferno agreed.
…
For an activity that didn’t (always) require a lot of thrashing around, interfacing sure could take it out of a bot. Rain came online twelve hours later, alone on the berth. Arcee had patrols to run, and there had been a chemical plant fire that Inferno and Firestar had hustled off to help with. He didn’t mind. There was no sense of abandonment, not with the cloud mind bubbling away just below the more businesslike levels of comm traffic. He got a few curious pings (Hound, Mirage, Bee, Ironhide, Smokey; Ranger conspicuously silent, but everyone knew what Rain had been doing - what he had been doing that Ranger had not), including an amused but affectionate one from Arcee.
Sleepyhead.
Yeah, yeah. Sunday morning, man. Besides, he wasn’t on the duty roster yet. He was like a college student on summer vacation. The last day of, maybe, but that was a whole day to enjoy. And Optimus Prime was sitting at the end of the berth, watching him.
“Good morning,” Optimus murmured, smiling. It was, actually. Outside, the sun was coming up.
Rain tried to say good morning back, all casual, but his vocoder made an incredibly embarrassing meep instead. Prime’s voice. Prime’s voice did things. And now Rain had a lot of context for the things that voice did, and the things his body was doing in response. What was the difference between hardwiring plus core programming, and what humans called instinct? Rain decided he kind of didn’t care. With a certain amount of work, you could override either, but sometimes that wasn’t the fun way. His engine revved.
Optimus scooted closer, beside him, somehow managing to make the maneuver look dignified, almost ritualistic, like a samurai changing his stance. He’d done something to his shields; Rain could feel the heat of his body…no, the heat of that enormous spark. His own spark was doing weird pirouettes in his chest.
Rain tried again to say good morning, hello, take me now, something, anything. Prime… he managed the single glyph, undecorated, ancient, needing no elaboration.
“Hmmm?” Optimus bent close, nibbled inquisitively at Rain’s temporal spar. Prime was curious, Rain could feel it openly in his fields.
Prime! Rain wrapped his arms around Optimus’ neck, pulling him down, pulling their bodies together, mouths together, his chest armor parting, chamber seals disengaging.
“Easy, Rain,” Prime murmured between kisses. “Gently.”
Prime… So close, so close… What of armor, if it separated them, kept him from this center of desire? His body understood, ardent and determined.
Optimus drew a thumb down Rain’s chamber seam. Slowly.
Torture! Rain shuddered, curled his hands to keep from clawing. Sky-blue light gleamed, waxed, shone, blazed against Prime’s armor. To be so open, and Prime’s hands so near, his spark so near; Rain lay still, did not writhe, but only via steely resolve.
Spark of Hound and Mirage’s sparks, Prime said, his harmonics and subharmonics thousands of layers deep, of course you would be beautiful! Heavy armor parted, heavy protoform, heavy chamber walls, strong enough to house the blue-white giant. Rain did not quite whimper as the outer heliosphere swept through him. Inescapable as the approaching shock-shell of a supernova. Rain dove into the contact, his corona reaching wildly outward, prominences whipping and braiding in their eagerness to mesh with Prime. They were met and caught, caressed; Rain was laid bare, defenseless…and enveloped in a love so vast he could find no way to measure or describe it, make no comparison in even the sharing with Inferno and the others. Spacetimelove itself bent deeply around Prime’s spark, bowing, falling joyously into that well. And if Rain was laid bare, so was Optimus. Nine million years of a life built around his people, the war a hideous wound that only now was beginning slowly to heal.
Rain keened, learning newly this capacity, and cried out in wonder and ecstasy, surrendering to overload.
…
How long had he been offline? A quick flick of thought at his chronometer - handy, that - told him it had only been about half an hour. His chest was hot but no longer steaming. There were other sleepers now in the bunkhouse berths. Optimus lay beside him, optics off but awake.
There was nothing…nothing in his human experience to compare this to. Bobby had known the cell-deep relief at survival against terrible odds, had known wedded commitment and carnal bliss, paternal joys, the boundless love of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren; his human legacy through time. Religious ecstasy? No. But maybe that was close, in human terms, maybe as close as one could get.
That didn’t mean the human experience was without worth - indeed the very fact of his current existence proved otherwise. Sometimes, though…sometimes comparisons were useless.
Recharge, Rain, Optimus hummed, curling beside and around him. Think later.
Yes, o my Prime!
Heh.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
Ironhide showed Rain how to manufacture ammo. The heat of inner forge and nanoassemblers, intimate workings; the satisfying thunks as new rounds slid into their chambers; the solid, warm feel of full magazines; the savage enjoyment of eating metal, the delicate textures of mineral/supplemental wire; the leashed fire of chemical propellants and weaponized corrosives. The suspended, breathless feeling of transformation, followed by solid settling in the new configuration. Having weapons that were literally a part of him was fantastic, heady, intoxicating; lines of power surging through them extended from his core. And by slag he couldn’t miss anything he had a solid lock on!
Including Ranger. They soon discovered the joys of shooting at each other using the lowest power settings. Better than paint-ball! Ironhide actually facepalmed - Rain took vid. Ratchet made threatening noises over comms…which dissolved into laughter when Ironhide transmitted a mental image of himself taking both Rain and Ranger over his knee...
Rain didn’t care. Let the old bots fuss. They were out at White Sands, blowing shit up! Fun!
Until he and Ironhide and Ranger returned to the embassy, and Rain got a look at Prime. There was nothing sad or reproachful in his demeanor or fields, but Rain just got this vibe… Wasn’t hard to figure out. Prime wished the newsparks didn’t have to train for battle at all. They shouldn’t have to.
And not all of us do, Rain reminded himself. Me and Ranger, we know this shit already. So maybe it was thinking about Rain and Ranger compared with Borealis. Borealis hadn’t taken to fighting right off. She ended up having to because she was a great big fat Prime-kid target. That sucked ass. But that’s the way things were, for now. He went up and leaned on Prime. Leg, anyway. Damn tall mech.
Welcome back, Rain, Prime said, curling a hand around Rain’s helm. Rain sort of found himself purring into it. Was your excursion to New Mexico enjoyable?
“Hooah,” Rain said, grinning, laying in several layers of harmonics and subharmonics, most of them ironic, but a couple expressing that big booms were basically cool. You can take the man out of the Rangers, but…you couldn’t take the boy out of the Autobot? Something like that.
Hound and Trailbreaker from outside and Mirage from somewhere down below converged on him for hugs. He’d only been gone a couple days… Hugs were good, though. Hound was solid - not tippy like his alt mode had a reputation for being - not tall but good to hold on to. Trailbreaker moreso. And Mirage, lithe and slim. Okay, so Rain liked hugging Mirage. For long hugs. Hugs that would have made Bobby Epps squirm. Rain had been thinking about doing more than hugging Mirage and Hound, but that was a step he wasn’t quite prepared for. Not yet. He wasn’t actively squicked out like Borealis seemed to be - and Ranger, the glitch, was still celibate - he could feel in himself that at some point his niggling, ghostlike objections to snuggling his parents …progenitors… were going to evaporate. Maybe not all at once. But sometime.
Meanwhile he was perfectly happy to let Mirage and Hound and TB drag him and Ranger and Ironhide down to the oil baths. The white sands at White Sands were sneaky as shit and somehow got everywhere even when you thought you’d had your shields up the whole damn time.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2078 - December
Layer by layer, seed by seed, her CPU grew. A fading in of consciousness, sentience. Self-awareness came later, as the memory data became selectively accessible. She could feel her body assembling itself, slowly growing as more mass was added. Each new skein felt so bright, so full of potential! She could be anything! A choosing. Like the choosing of sparks within the starry expanse of the Vector protocols. There were bodies Sarah had admired, others she had learned to fear. And yet, to overcome fear, learn more. Take the form? Yes. The skeins of mass knew every shape, were pliable, obedient, bent themselves to her will, once she had a will.
Later. There were others, in the tanks beside and around her. The two, to either side - she could feel their nascent fields, as they could feel hers. Once they had hands, they pressed them to the sides of their tanks, reaching for each other. No, no sense in taking Roddy's road. They would be smarter. Wait for legs. For wings.
…
They weren't allowed into the growth tank chamber. Thundercracker understood the Autobots' caution, though he knew and Prime knew and Prowl knew that nothing in space or on planet would induce him or Strake to harm the newsparks. Their protective algorithms had been fully restored to prewar standards. They weren't allowed in the chamber, but the rumors flitted through levels of the cloud mind that they had access to.
Three new Seekers were building themselves in those tanks up in Oregon. (There was something odd about that, but neither TC nor Strake had paid any attention to the processes of building or kindling since stepping off the kindling platform at Simfur themselves.) Three new alphas, to be precise That there were three meant...well, it was obvious what would happen. And it was for the best, really. One new alpha would have made things complicated for them and Prowl. Jazz was an interfering pain in the afterburner, but he wasn't wrong. Proper trining took at least a vorn, anyway. His trining with Starscream and Skywarp had been forced, yes, but it had saved his life, and he'd been grateful, once the agony of losing Novawind and Saberfall had eased. He could admit that now, when his new, nascent trine would be so good, so true, in a few decades, when Prowl would allow himself to be rebuilt. All the sweeter for having waited. All their firewalls would come down during those flights. Very rarely, trines failed at that point, but almost never when they'd had time to do things properly. So he was a traditionalist. Nothing wrong with that, considering.
He watched sunlight flash on Strake's wings, 10,000 kilometers below; a graceful, silver and black shape. So sweet, so good. And just the thought of Prowl in an alpha body set his engines roaring. Ratchet and Skyfire and Perceptor were working on a design when they had a spare cycle or two. Ratchet had blabbed. Thundercracker wondered if they'd let him and Strake upgrade at the same time, because whatever those three came up with was going to make their current design look like a stop-gap patch job. Which in a sense they were, once Cybertron's infrastructure had collapsed. People had to keep upgrading, to maintain any kind of combat edge, but they had to do it with whatever materials or expertise was on hand, and both had only gotten more scarce as the millennia wore on.
Well. New alphas were new alphas. This was going to get interesting.
<{>~~~<(o)>~~~<}>
2079 - May
She came out of recharge slowly, languorously, stretching her limbs though she had no muscles and tendons as such to require warming. It felt good anyway. She was warm, every intricate part of her body supported by the thick colloid of the growth medium. She extended and contracted her wing-shards. She and the others had consulted, they had their alt modes picked; Cybertronian designs from before the war at base, but with very modern modifications. They were beautiful. They knew it, they had chosen to be so.
They could get out of the tanks on their own if they needed to. If the worst happened and no one was left alive, not even Ven, who could activate the opening sequence for them. The worst had not happened.
Perceptor, she sent, smiling at the fondness in his auto-reply. His full attention shifted as soon as it was safe to do so. She knew he’d been working on something delicate and important. The nova-nets, he told her, grudgingly using the name Scrapper had coined.
Are you all ready to emerge?
Yes. Whenever you’re ready for us.
We’ll be right there!
By the next morning, those who wished to attend had assembled, flying up from the embassy or in from other places via Azimuth and Blueshift. Skyfire, Borealis and Polaris were in deep space - Polaris and Borealis in M100, Skyfire on his way back to Earth, but two weeks out.
She and her batch-siblings smiled at everyone, jiggling with excitement. There was Ranger, off to one side, optics on her alone, trying to appear nonchalant. Rain, leaning against a wall, Mr. Cool, but with fields making wild loops and wings all over the room. Ah, there he pulled them in. Someone must have said something. She giggled.
The colloid drained. A tickly process that left her feeling hollow and wobbly for a second, fragile and strangely dry. There was no residue. The plex tank walls retracted and the twenty newsparks descended. She went to Beachcomber first, folding herself down and down; he was so tiny and warm against her broad chest, his arms barely able to reach around her neck. She nuzzled his helm, glancing up at Miles watching from the catwalk with Yasmina and Joey and Marcus. Oh, yes. They would have an interest in observing this process. Observing her. Their heart-rates were only a little elevated. Excited, happy, not worried.
Her senses were set only a little below Cybertronian norms. She would require only one more major adjustment, and then some fine-tuning for her frametype. Seeker. Alpha. Impulse and Volley were alphas, too. The three of them could already feel the attention directed at them. A number of Autobot newsparks had chosen flight modes, but none had ventured to be alphas until now. She released Beachcomber, straightening somewhat to embrace Perceptor, who was more than twice Beachcomber’s height.
“Serenity,” he said, hugging her with all four arms. She had whispered to him her new name a few weeks before, pleased to share with him one brief secret before her life became wildly communal.
When the show had originally been on, Sarah had barely heard of it. It sounded too weird. Then her life had gotten a lot weirder, and stories about people just trying to scrape by under difficult circumstances, even when those circumstances included being out in space in a rust-bucket of an old ship, seemed a lot more relevant to her interests. Now her life was an order of magnitude weirder than anything on the show. And she liked the sound of the word. She felt she had gained a measure of that trait, and that it might be a valuable thing to bring to the Autobot camp. She conveyed this to Optimus, who agreed warmly. Although the other Autobots would tease her a bit.
An alpha? Cliffjumper laughed from the embassy. Named Serenity??? The cloud mind tossed the name around with amusement and thoughtful observations that a serene alpha might be a good idea, if it worked. Or maybe he…she? She. She, then…or maybe she would be an example of the naming tradition of the Jehren, who gave their vessels names opposite of desired traits in order to avoid unwanted notice by the gods. Serenity broadcast a raspberry.
“It’s a lovely name,” Ranger said, fidgeting off to one side. Serenity smiled at him as she stood to hug Optimus. Optimus was about due for another mass-removal and was currently taller than she by a meter and a half.
“Welcome, Serenity,” Optimus said, gazing into her optics. His field washed through her, enfolding and warm, unequivocally pleased by her chosen frame, and not for reasons of combat advantage.
“Thank you, Prime.” She let him go reluctantly, but she needed to go over and hug Ranger before he melted or something.
“It’s a good name,” Ranger insisted as she knelt and they embraced, metal arms, metal bodies, powerful sparks. She knew he would never, bless him, make the mistake of calling her Sarah. He was small, but solid. It felt so good to hold him again, even with the differences! A part of her could not have failed to recognize him.
More wings moved toward them. Volley and Impulse, the other two alphas. Ranger looked up.
A bolt of sheer possessiveness lanced through him - and then dissipated, never to return. The three of them had grown together, would belong together. Sarah had given up care of her husband to his squad, hadn’t she? Trusted them to protect him, have his back all those years. Ranger understood alpha trines in a basic way, a tactical way perhaps, but he was not unsympathetic. Volley and Impulse knelt and joined their snuggle, fluttering their wings and optical shutters at him, acknowledging the connection between him and Serenity with pleasure. They knew they’d always have dedicated backup.
“Party in the entry hall!” Beachcomber called, leading the way up and out.
…
“Can we call you Seekermom now instead of Seekerbane?” she asked, at the end of her checkup. Volley and Impulse were already done and waiting for her impatiently. She buried her face in his sensory fins as his fields glowed with a resounding, emotional YES! (She had wanted to nuzzle his lionfish head for decades, or Sarah had, but only now could she do so easily. Some of his vanes felt zingy against the metal of her face, some were sharp, but she didn’t press too hard.)
“Oh, please do,” Perceptor said aloud, hugging her powerfully with his strong-arms.
Thank you, Serenity, Prime tight-beamed from the embassy. His glyphs expressed a quieter, vaster joy than Perceptor’s. This is why the Matrix wanted human memory engrams in Cybertronian bodies. You enrich us.
Too bad you aren’t collecting them from more humans. It wasn’t a critique, exactly.
By what criteria would we choose, if not that of friendship? Humans call this nepotism, but we…we have become so few, our bonds of “family” so fractured and mended in whatever ways we can…
Some humans would say you should preserve the great and the good. In fact I think Raoul said as much, didn’t he?
Yes. But that is not what we want them for. How is any individual, no matter how great and good, more human than any other?
…Okay. You’re right. Optimus?
Yes?
I love you.
He laughed. I love you, too, Serenity.
“Are you talking with Prime?” Perceptor asked. A bit nosy. She nibbled at his mid-helm vent.
“Yes.”
“I surmised as much. Your fields have become - as Beachcomber would put it - whirly.”
Part VI
Table of Contents
.