[ti]Ep 2.5[/ti]Darkness, my old friend
Dec 24, 2017 18:02:42 GMT -5
Post by Ratchet on Dec 24, 2017 18:02:42 GMT -5
(Outside Omega Base, early evening)
The sun had left the sky, turning a lovely shade of purple, a crimson band of light sitting on the far horizon. The overwhelming heat was leeching out of the rocks, casting heat waves into the air. The distant horizon danced and shimmied in the air. Far above, where the sky was getting darker fast, the first few stars were just starting to appear, faint pinpricks of light.
The purple and navy of the night sky stood as perfect opposite to the reds and oranges of the rocks below, a canvas of color.
A few night birds called as they flow overhead the Omega Base, leaving their nest to start their night time hunting of insects. In the distance, headlights of earthen vehicles slid by, their engines purring in the silence.
The quiet of the approaching night was interrupted by a heavy, mechanical humming. It seemed to come from the interior of the massive mesa that stood like a finger, pointing to the sky.
After a second, the mesa’s flat pinnacle seemed to split, and slid open, revealing an ascending platform rising from the interior of the mesa. Dust and a small amount of gravel toppled back into the chasm that opened, to fall and clatter on the platform.
With a faint hiss of hydraulics, the platform rose, and stopped at the top, bringing the lone occupant to the top of the mesa. The figure there remained still for a moment, then slowly stepped up onto the rocky surface. Gravel crunched under his peds, small rocks and pebbles clattering aside to resettle in the dust. The low light reflected off his white and red coloring, giving him an almost orangey look, as if he were glowing faintly from the inside.
Once the passenger stepped off, the platform sank back down again, the opening in the top sliding shut with a hiss. The vibration of the machinery caused the dirt and rocks to skitter and jump in place, perfectly disguising there was an opening there at all.
Ratchet walked to the edge of the flattened area, looking out over the scenery. His blue optics followed the light of the earth vehicles as they moved along the highways, unknowing of what was going on around their lives, unaware. Uncaring.
He sighed.
Ratchet rubbed his face, then dropped his hands. Shuttering his optics, he slowly tipped his head one way, then the other, trying to release some stress in his neck. He was rewarded with a series of cracks and crackles, then he sighed again, letting his tired optics gaze out again.
Sometimes....when it was quiet, like this. Completely quiet, and dark, and....calm....he could see some beauty in this planet. It was rare, but it was there. The blues, the violets and purples, the reds and the oranges....it was...nice.
It wasn’t Cybertron, of course. But it was ....nice.
Carefully, Ratchet lowered himself to the ground, sitting on the edge of the mesa, letting his peds and legs dangle over the sides. Grit and gravel slid from beneath him, falling into the void over the edge, far below. Another deep intake, another settling sigh, and then he fell silent again.
Ratchet looked over, his eyes resting on the cairn Arcee had made for Cliffjumper.
It hurt, to see it there. A memorial to yet another of their kind. A friend. Who had fallen. Ratchet hadn’t even had the chance to save him. His spark snuffed out by Starscream, he had never had a chance to be revived.
Another spark, snuffed out. Gone.
Some days he felt old, and some days he felt ancient, and today was one of those days.
“It’s quiet,” he said aloud, to the cairn. His voice was low, a soft, tired tone, “There’s not much of that around here, Cliffjumper. It’s rare. I have to grab it when I can. I hope you don’t mind me sharing.”
Silence for a few minutes. Overhead, the sky began to slow color change from purple to navy. A single star appeared, faint and weak, but there all the same.
Ratchet looked back out towards the road, where human vehicles continued to slide past now and again.
“I miss Cybertron on nights like this. When the Earth sky gets that color. I used to see it on Cybertron sometimes, when the moons would set just so. You didn’t see it often in Iacon, of course. Far too much light.”
Raising a servo, palm flat to his chest plate, Ratchet gazed down at his hand, and what was beneath it.
Ratchet was old. He was one of the oldest Cybertronians he knew. He was sparked well before the Golden Age, even before the Age of Wrath. He remembered leaving his settlement, walking for what felt like years, making his way to Iacon. Even then, knew what he was meant to be. He wanted to help others.
Then came the Golden Age.
“How beautiful it had all been back then, Cliffjumper.. The towers, rising up to the sky. The lights, illuminating everything. Energon had been plentiful. We had been making scientific discoveries every day, growing in leaps and bounds. Everyone was in peace.
Of course, things changed.”
The class system had arisen. And that was the black eye against his people, as far as Ratchet was concerned.
Beneath his palm, Ratchet could feel the inner workings humming along, his spark pulsing, a faint vibration that could just be picked up.
Around him, the other mesas slid slowly into blackness as shadows crept up their sides, like ink, defying gravity.
Although Ratchet was old, he didn’t look all that old. Age didn’t leave it’s markings on a Cybertronian like it did organic species. They didn’t wrinkle or wither.
Their inner components, however, aged, and grew weak. They failed. They worked less efficiently.
Being a doctor, however, saw to that.
“You know, as old as I am, everyone is surprised I haven’t just rusted away. But I’ll let you in on a little secret, Cliffjumper. One not even Optimus knows.
I wasn’t allowed to age. It wasn’t an option, not for me. As I grew in skill, I was needed more and more. It was my duty, I was told. My duty to my people. Just as it was the miner’s duty to mine, it was mine to save the ill, the sick.
Especially the upper class citizens, and the old Prime.”
Ratchet’s voice, still low, and quiet, grew bitter, “Inner workings were removed as they grew weak. New ones installed. I can’t tell you how many times my lines were replaced. My tank twice. Pump at least four times. While my spark aged, my inner bits and pieces had been swapped out for newer ones, again and again and again. I suppose I was an experiment, in that regard. I’m not sure it’s been done to another.”
Ratchet gazed down at his hand, his voice quiet. The shadows grew, rising to the top of the mesa now, sliding stealthily over the medic, his blue optics luminous in the low light.
“Sometimes I wonder how much of me remains. Sometimes I lay awake when I should be recharging, and I listen to my pump, and I wonder....did my original sound the same? I...I can’t remember anymore.”
Silence.
“I wasn’t allowed to age. Do you know how odd it feels, Cliffjumper? My processor is the same, but from the neck down I wonder if anything remains I was sparked with. I can’t remember if everything was replaced or not....”
A dry chuckle, “I suppose I should be grateful. I’m healthy and fit, I can throw down with most of them, strong and agile.
But you know....lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my spark siblings. Those I was sparked with. They’re gone now. Either the war took them, or they passed long before.”
Ratchet picked up a small stone from the ground, turning it slightly in his digits as he thought. After a moment, he spoke again. It left a faint chalky mark on his fingertips, a pale dust, only illuminated by the light from his optics. Around him, all was dark.
“I can’t remember the name of my village. I was thinking about it the other night, and I can’t remember. I should. I should remember, things like that are important, but....I can’t. Isn’t that funny?"
Ratchet smiled sadly in the darkness, but the smile faded.
"It’s gone now. I went back, once, just before the war, but....there’s nothing left. Only me, I suppose.”
He watched cars pass. The night had finally grown darker, the sky finishing it turn from a lovely purple, to navy, to black. Stars lit up the sky, brilliantly, far from the light pollution of the human city. There was a bright slash of light across the middle of the sky – the Milky Way Galaxy. Just one Galaxy out of thousands in the sky.
“I’m lucky in something else, too. We don’t lose our mental processes due to age, like some organics. Senility, it’s called. Dementia. God knows, if that awaited me, I think I’d walk up to Megatron and spit on him. I imagine it would be a quick death.”
Far, far in the distance, a car horn sounded. Humans, fighting over something, or impatient to get going with their short lives.
“The years are heavy, though, Cliffjumper. Oh, so heavy. They sit on me, sometimes. Like a weight. Sometimes, when I recharge, if I go deep, when I come to, I can’t remember where I am. It takes a few minutes to remember I’m no longer on Cybertron.
That Cybertron is....dead.”
Ratchet sighed, suddenly feeling foolish. Sitting on top of the mesa, talking to a pile of rocks.
Being a doctor had its risks, and one of them was that seeing so many good people die no matter how hard you worked on them, or fixing up soldier only to have them go out and get blown up again....it tended to make one question everything. Because surely a kindly God wouldn’t make his children go through that. Or develop illnesses that made no sense, had no cure, like Zero Point.
After a while....you stopped thinking there was any reason to anything. That after death, there was ....nothing.
You were sparked, you lived, you loved, and you died, and that was the end of it.
Ratchet slowly gathered himself, and rose, pushing himself up to his peds. He paused, on the edge of the mesa, gazing down at the rock he held in his hand. Slowly, he lifted his head, his optics on the cairn.
Stepping forward, Ratchet gently placed the stone on top of the cairn, making sure it settled in easily before letting go.
“I should get back. I’m sure something in the Base is about to fall apart.”
Ratchet turned, grit crunching under his peds as he walked, moving back to the lift. A signal sent out from his internal processor started the opening moving, the two heavy plates sliding back with a grinding groan.
Ratchet took another step forward, then paused.
He turned, looking back at the cairn, and dipped his head.
“Rest easy, Cliffjumper. You’re missed.”
The old Autobot turned then, making his way back to the lift, and slowly descended back into the base, on foreign soil, so far from the place he called home.
End
The sun had left the sky, turning a lovely shade of purple, a crimson band of light sitting on the far horizon. The overwhelming heat was leeching out of the rocks, casting heat waves into the air. The distant horizon danced and shimmied in the air. Far above, where the sky was getting darker fast, the first few stars were just starting to appear, faint pinpricks of light.
The purple and navy of the night sky stood as perfect opposite to the reds and oranges of the rocks below, a canvas of color.
A few night birds called as they flow overhead the Omega Base, leaving their nest to start their night time hunting of insects. In the distance, headlights of earthen vehicles slid by, their engines purring in the silence.
The quiet of the approaching night was interrupted by a heavy, mechanical humming. It seemed to come from the interior of the massive mesa that stood like a finger, pointing to the sky.
After a second, the mesa’s flat pinnacle seemed to split, and slid open, revealing an ascending platform rising from the interior of the mesa. Dust and a small amount of gravel toppled back into the chasm that opened, to fall and clatter on the platform.
With a faint hiss of hydraulics, the platform rose, and stopped at the top, bringing the lone occupant to the top of the mesa. The figure there remained still for a moment, then slowly stepped up onto the rocky surface. Gravel crunched under his peds, small rocks and pebbles clattering aside to resettle in the dust. The low light reflected off his white and red coloring, giving him an almost orangey look, as if he were glowing faintly from the inside.
Once the passenger stepped off, the platform sank back down again, the opening in the top sliding shut with a hiss. The vibration of the machinery caused the dirt and rocks to skitter and jump in place, perfectly disguising there was an opening there at all.
Ratchet walked to the edge of the flattened area, looking out over the scenery. His blue optics followed the light of the earth vehicles as they moved along the highways, unknowing of what was going on around their lives, unaware. Uncaring.
He sighed.
Ratchet rubbed his face, then dropped his hands. Shuttering his optics, he slowly tipped his head one way, then the other, trying to release some stress in his neck. He was rewarded with a series of cracks and crackles, then he sighed again, letting his tired optics gaze out again.
Sometimes....when it was quiet, like this. Completely quiet, and dark, and....calm....he could see some beauty in this planet. It was rare, but it was there. The blues, the violets and purples, the reds and the oranges....it was...nice.
It wasn’t Cybertron, of course. But it was ....nice.
Carefully, Ratchet lowered himself to the ground, sitting on the edge of the mesa, letting his peds and legs dangle over the sides. Grit and gravel slid from beneath him, falling into the void over the edge, far below. Another deep intake, another settling sigh, and then he fell silent again.
Ratchet looked over, his eyes resting on the cairn Arcee had made for Cliffjumper.
It hurt, to see it there. A memorial to yet another of their kind. A friend. Who had fallen. Ratchet hadn’t even had the chance to save him. His spark snuffed out by Starscream, he had never had a chance to be revived.
Another spark, snuffed out. Gone.
Some days he felt old, and some days he felt ancient, and today was one of those days.
“It’s quiet,” he said aloud, to the cairn. His voice was low, a soft, tired tone, “There’s not much of that around here, Cliffjumper. It’s rare. I have to grab it when I can. I hope you don’t mind me sharing.”
Silence for a few minutes. Overhead, the sky began to slow color change from purple to navy. A single star appeared, faint and weak, but there all the same.
Ratchet looked back out towards the road, where human vehicles continued to slide past now and again.
“I miss Cybertron on nights like this. When the Earth sky gets that color. I used to see it on Cybertron sometimes, when the moons would set just so. You didn’t see it often in Iacon, of course. Far too much light.”
Raising a servo, palm flat to his chest plate, Ratchet gazed down at his hand, and what was beneath it.
Ratchet was old. He was one of the oldest Cybertronians he knew. He was sparked well before the Golden Age, even before the Age of Wrath. He remembered leaving his settlement, walking for what felt like years, making his way to Iacon. Even then, knew what he was meant to be. He wanted to help others.
Then came the Golden Age.
“How beautiful it had all been back then, Cliffjumper.. The towers, rising up to the sky. The lights, illuminating everything. Energon had been plentiful. We had been making scientific discoveries every day, growing in leaps and bounds. Everyone was in peace.
Of course, things changed.”
The class system had arisen. And that was the black eye against his people, as far as Ratchet was concerned.
Beneath his palm, Ratchet could feel the inner workings humming along, his spark pulsing, a faint vibration that could just be picked up.
Around him, the other mesas slid slowly into blackness as shadows crept up their sides, like ink, defying gravity.
Although Ratchet was old, he didn’t look all that old. Age didn’t leave it’s markings on a Cybertronian like it did organic species. They didn’t wrinkle or wither.
Their inner components, however, aged, and grew weak. They failed. They worked less efficiently.
Being a doctor, however, saw to that.
“You know, as old as I am, everyone is surprised I haven’t just rusted away. But I’ll let you in on a little secret, Cliffjumper. One not even Optimus knows.
I wasn’t allowed to age. It wasn’t an option, not for me. As I grew in skill, I was needed more and more. It was my duty, I was told. My duty to my people. Just as it was the miner’s duty to mine, it was mine to save the ill, the sick.
Especially the upper class citizens, and the old Prime.”
Ratchet’s voice, still low, and quiet, grew bitter, “Inner workings were removed as they grew weak. New ones installed. I can’t tell you how many times my lines were replaced. My tank twice. Pump at least four times. While my spark aged, my inner bits and pieces had been swapped out for newer ones, again and again and again. I suppose I was an experiment, in that regard. I’m not sure it’s been done to another.”
Ratchet gazed down at his hand, his voice quiet. The shadows grew, rising to the top of the mesa now, sliding stealthily over the medic, his blue optics luminous in the low light.
“Sometimes I wonder how much of me remains. Sometimes I lay awake when I should be recharging, and I listen to my pump, and I wonder....did my original sound the same? I...I can’t remember anymore.”
Silence.
“I wasn’t allowed to age. Do you know how odd it feels, Cliffjumper? My processor is the same, but from the neck down I wonder if anything remains I was sparked with. I can’t remember if everything was replaced or not....”
A dry chuckle, “I suppose I should be grateful. I’m healthy and fit, I can throw down with most of them, strong and agile.
But you know....lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my spark siblings. Those I was sparked with. They’re gone now. Either the war took them, or they passed long before.”
Ratchet picked up a small stone from the ground, turning it slightly in his digits as he thought. After a moment, he spoke again. It left a faint chalky mark on his fingertips, a pale dust, only illuminated by the light from his optics. Around him, all was dark.
“I can’t remember the name of my village. I was thinking about it the other night, and I can’t remember. I should. I should remember, things like that are important, but....I can’t. Isn’t that funny?"
Ratchet smiled sadly in the darkness, but the smile faded.
"It’s gone now. I went back, once, just before the war, but....there’s nothing left. Only me, I suppose.”
He watched cars pass. The night had finally grown darker, the sky finishing it turn from a lovely purple, to navy, to black. Stars lit up the sky, brilliantly, far from the light pollution of the human city. There was a bright slash of light across the middle of the sky – the Milky Way Galaxy. Just one Galaxy out of thousands in the sky.
“I’m lucky in something else, too. We don’t lose our mental processes due to age, like some organics. Senility, it’s called. Dementia. God knows, if that awaited me, I think I’d walk up to Megatron and spit on him. I imagine it would be a quick death.”
Far, far in the distance, a car horn sounded. Humans, fighting over something, or impatient to get going with their short lives.
“The years are heavy, though, Cliffjumper. Oh, so heavy. They sit on me, sometimes. Like a weight. Sometimes, when I recharge, if I go deep, when I come to, I can’t remember where I am. It takes a few minutes to remember I’m no longer on Cybertron.
That Cybertron is....dead.”
Ratchet sighed, suddenly feeling foolish. Sitting on top of the mesa, talking to a pile of rocks.
Being a doctor had its risks, and one of them was that seeing so many good people die no matter how hard you worked on them, or fixing up soldier only to have them go out and get blown up again....it tended to make one question everything. Because surely a kindly God wouldn’t make his children go through that. Or develop illnesses that made no sense, had no cure, like Zero Point.
After a while....you stopped thinking there was any reason to anything. That after death, there was ....nothing.
You were sparked, you lived, you loved, and you died, and that was the end of it.
Ratchet slowly gathered himself, and rose, pushing himself up to his peds. He paused, on the edge of the mesa, gazing down at the rock he held in his hand. Slowly, he lifted his head, his optics on the cairn.
Stepping forward, Ratchet gently placed the stone on top of the cairn, making sure it settled in easily before letting go.
“I should get back. I’m sure something in the Base is about to fall apart.”
Ratchet turned, grit crunching under his peds as he walked, moving back to the lift. A signal sent out from his internal processor started the opening moving, the two heavy plates sliding back with a grinding groan.
Ratchet took another step forward, then paused.
He turned, looking back at the cairn, and dipped his head.
“Rest easy, Cliffjumper. You’re missed.”
The old Autobot turned then, making his way back to the lift, and slowly descended back into the base, on foreign soil, so far from the place he called home.
End