Ep0.5 – “That Guy Was a Jerk” – Closed

[Deleted]

Piston Gasket had been on the mend for about a week now. The peculiar situation behind his arrival – his being in stasis and simultaneously in human use for an untold number of decades – had Rachet somewhat concerned and it had been his suggestion that Gasket be monitored carefully. The mech predated the war, his build and design literally something that Prime’s generation had seen in museums. He was all ‘clockwork and pulleys’ as Ratchet had put it. Not literally… exactly. It was Cybertronian techno-biology, but that of a generation and sub-class so estranged from their current evolutionary standard that the medic was, apparently, floored by the mech’s existence.

“Most mechs like him should have upgraded or gone offline. I have no idea how he just… didn’t.”

Optimus kept this in mind as he left the control room and descended into the lower levels of the silo, to one of the larger atriums where Gasket would be making his quarters. The mech had been slowly and carefully recharges and repairing from his catatonic state in stasis. Much of his self-repair had fallen off without energon to keep it going. Mechs had survived eons in stasis though, so it wasn’t so surprising. It just meant that Gasket needed time to get back up to regular strength. Coming to the entry way of Gasket’s quarters, Optimus rapped on the roll down garage door alloy that served as entry way. Everything about this base was obviously human adapted for robots. He was so accustomed to it, that it took a conscious “this is a garage, not a room” thought for him to recall that on Cybertron they had had doors their size.

“Gasket.” He spoke clearly through the door. “Ddo you have a moment?”

[Deleted]

Silence.

Despite the size of the old bot, the number of moving parts, the room he had been given for quarters did not experience as much as a decibel of audible noise. In fact, the old bot may as well been inanimate, simply a massive statue of dark metal. He was "dressed down," seated on the large form that was his armor and weapons tender with back strut propped against the wall.

His optics were offline, the azurite and quartz highlights of his optics lacking the brilliant glow that would normally fill them. His servos were balanced on his leg assemblies and his helm was down against his chassis.

He was reflecting; lost within the recesses of the matrix. Memories played across his consciousness, running through cycle after cycle of images from before the war; the golden spires, the winding byways... the peace.

Peace.

Gasket's memory banks froze on the initial file for the war, the memories of it kept tightly locked away and buried on his storage drives. Mentally venting he scanned away from it; the memories would remain undisturbed this breem.

He had mended with the aid of the medic on base and in little time he was operable again. A full recharge did much for his frame and his numbers, 4505 had been touched up with the help of the human children and the nanites across his frame.

Gasket was mildly amused by the reaction he had gotten from some of the bots, amazed at his simpler construction and his claimed age. He'd explained to the medic, one Ratchet, that his frame was not as old as it seemed; the mechanisms reflecting his current alternative form more than any former upgrade. It did not prevent the obligatory comments he expected and with few more astro-kliks of talking he had retired to his quarters to rest.

It was little more than a large garage, boxes and containers stacked chaotically. It was dark, it was quiet, it was secluded. It was perfect. So there he sat, reviewing memories. He did not move as his audio receptors picked up footsteps beyond his door but when a rap rang through the emptiness his helm rose, optics coming online.

The question was unsurprising, neither was the voice.

I have a... great many moments, Prime. Reaching over he activated the door. Come in.

Glancing up to the Prime he smiled, realizing that without his armor he gave off more of the aire of age. His frame was slight, his lines dark and gray, and over certain joints and hinges small rust spots still showed. Nodding he gestured across from himself to a small pile of boxes.

Please, sit a while... keep an old bot company. Waiting until Prime did as asked or refused Gasket vented and stretched, trying to work a glitch out of his leg assemblies.

What is on your mind, young one?

[Deleted]

‘Young one’.

That was going to take some getting used to. Optimus nodded once his gratitude as he entered the other mechanoid’s haphazard quarters, the heavy fall of his footsteps echoing against the far walls and reverberating through the air. The stillness in the room was almost eerie, carrying very little of the residual energies that most unguarded mechanoids left behind them.

Ratchet had been saying a few things as to the nature of Gasket’s design being… unique, since he didn’t think ‘antique’ and ‘should be a museum’ were medical terms. The Prime took a seat on the indicated boxes while Gasket laboriously attended to some kink in the linkages of his long legs. Optimus was used to working with mechanoids both massively larger than him and those only the size of humans, but Gasket’s size for a single-function mechanoid was impressive.

There were whole combiner teams that might have only just been a head over the locomotive.

“I wanted to see how you were settling in,” said Optimus in what was becoming a staple opener for him these days.

He leaned forward slightly, bracing his elbows against his knees, looking up at the other mech. Gasket’s armor was apparently easily de-segmented from his endo-structures, because he’d removed large sections of exo-plating, leaving off the great mass and weight that they added to the mech’s usual stature. The long, bare assemblage of Gasket’s frame was strange. The Autobots had been fighting for so long that most of the new generation didn’t have removable exo-plating, not without medical overrides and even then not always. Armor was too evolutionarily essential for their race now.

His own armor was fused. Ratchet himself couldn’t have removed it without cutting the alloy from his frame. None of this was in Optimus’ tone or EM field as he addressed the elder mechanoid however. He simply held the other Autobot’s gaze, optics clear and neon Matrix blue in the dim lighting.

“I apologize for the accommodations. Our numbers have been grown faster than we can moved equipment from habitation rooms.”

[Deleted]

Having worked part of the glitch out of his once-injured leg assembly Gasket turned his attention fully to the Prime. He was glad that the containers that Prime was sitting on held him up; you never could know with human construction. Some could withstand the strongest weapons ever built while others simply fell apart at the slightest breeze. Aside, Gasket's countenance curled into a smile as the expected question was asked.

Yes... oh yes quite well. The physical recovery is much easier than... the psychological. He paused, venting to emphasize his point as his EMF became more positive with a hint of his troubles behind it. The cycles asleep have... not been kind.

His comment was sincere but sweeping; there were a great many things that had gone wrong and many of them reminded him of the world they had lost. But perking up, trying not to cogitate on the past, was the functional goal of his matrix coding at current. He was intent to leave it where it belonged for now.

Plenty of time to revisit the dead in the cycles to come.

His wn field held steady as Prime spoke again, his new commander's EMF re-enforcing his own, positive feelings and coding running in the background of his matrix. The apology that was uttered caused Gasket to chuckle, his azure and white optics falling on the Prime's own, his helm shaking as he responded.

On the contrary, Prime... this lodging is quite adequate. With such a large group... of bots in a small space it can get very loud. This room is quiet... I like quiet. Slowly he glanced over to the piles of boxes stacked at certain points around the room. The sorting took only several kliks; it is easily livable now.

His smile grew as he looked back at the Prime. His laborer programming was still as active as ever, urging him to make the place orderly, tidy... the room was taken as a job when he was first given it. He doubted Ratchet or any of the other Autobots had in fact used this room for anything since they had arrived.

Were these the... old times I would have offered you a gem of energon, asked your story, and conversed for a breem. Wereas now the remainder all know your story, energon is scarce... all we have left is time.

His frame groaned and creaked as he leaned forward to look even closer at the frame of the Prime. It was the first time he could just look at him; frame and all without glitching optics or a clouded matrix. He looked strong, capable, steadfast... everything he expected from a Prime. Still couldn't get over how short he was, though. He paused before shaking his helm.

Primus's spark, Optimus... He paused, allowing the rarely used given name to slide from his vocabulator. Could you ever have imagined that we would find... and live upon a planet like this?

[Deleted]

“No, my friend, I did not. Not on such a world as this.”

It was not often that Optimus felt the age of another weigh in on him, but the comprehensive stare of Piston Gasket certainly held a tangible heaviness. His tone and EMF remained sober in this response, though during Gasket’s commentary upon the old days and former customs long since fallen by the wayside, he did offer a brief flicker of knowing regret. It was strange talking about something like playing host as one would have back on Cybertron when Cybertron itself was lost – the topic of loss when speaking of their planet was so enormous, so incalculable, that the idea of grieving was beyond most.

But mourning a lost home, a favorite shop, or music hall, the mathematic-calcite frescos painstakingly fused into the side of a tanker structure – those were the pieces of their homeworld that Autobots missed. A smell or a sound or – of course – a fellow Cybertronian lost in the calamity. A mech like Gasket had seen the rise of the Golden Age and likely what came before it and the coming of the war and the going of Cybertron for him… Optimus wondered if it had been for him as it had been for those of his generation. The Titan had watched the best eons of Cybertron decay, seen history as it happened, the world fall into chaos…

“Cybertronians,” said Optimus, “live for millions of years and yet refused to foresee the consumption of our own planet.” Or rather, some had seen it coming, but doggedly, tiredly, found themselves unable to stop it coming. “It was always… talked about, what would happen if Cybertron finally gave under the weight of our war but no one could imagine it and we did not imagine a world like this, outside the rest of civilized space.” He paused. “Inhabited by a species like humanity. It is nothing that our history could have prepared us for, even those who prepared for the worst.”

He held Gasket’s gaze for a moment, studying the other mech, then:

“It is strange, to still be at war, when we now number so few.”

[Deleted]

“No, my friend, I did not. Not on such a world as this.”

Nodding Gasket's smile grew another fraction of a micron as he knew that the serendipity of their finding this planet was indeed something to wonder upon. A beautiful planet populated by primitive yet inventive natives who reminded him so much of Cybertronians back in the earliest vorns of his memories. They lived simply, trying to survive the best they could. His smile faded as his EFM grew in fond memory of the selective slice of the past.

It was only after war came that Cybertron began to shudder... it was only after the war that Cybertron began to die.

As the Prime commented on their long ages, their vast wisdom, it was indeed amazing how shortsighted they had been; all of them. Glancing back up to the Prime's optics he allowed the kindness to seep back into his countenance.

"For all our wisdom, our advanced nature, hindsight dawned... far too late."

As the Prime continued about Cybertronians several ancient thoughts about their society crossed Gasket's matrix. They had been buried beneath the pain he felt over the loss of the planet but still they existed.

"'Civilized' space... perhaps that is our weakness. Perhaps hubris, the thought that we were... superior, eventually led to our fall. Your predecessors were... guilty of that at least. And Megatron... he is too proud to let this war end until all is but ash and shavings."

Leaning forward, the age and weight of his years behind him, Gasket's optics and EFM turned serious. His voice was clear, stable, and lacked the slow-halting nature of his normal voice.

"Despite all I have seen, Prime; this war will not cease until a definite victor is chosen. You will not rest while the Cons threaten Earth and Megatron will not stop until he controls every mote of ash and dust in his grasp.

Gasket's servo closed around an imagined ball of ash, the room echoing with a clang of metal on metal. Stopping he closed his optics and shook his helm, his servo opening with a light grinding of metal.

"But you... " he paused, his digit extending to point at the Prime. "Are so very close... to ending this war once and for all. Despite all we have lost... that is something."

Venting he sat back, withdrawing his servo and digit. With that off his chest Gasket nodded, looking back with a kind light in his optics.

"And that you do it while protecting the fleshl- the humans; for such a cause I could not but support it. Support... you."

[Deleted]

“Thank you," said Optimus, subdued somewhat by the giant's words, gratitude in the frequencies of his field. "Megatron's efforts against this world do indeed follow the same destructive course as his path on Cybertron. Our alliance with the humans is still somewhat tenuous at times. They have accepted a treaty with the Autobots to aid us in defending this planet against Decepticon incursion. We are the first response against Megatron and his army.”

Optimus did not choose just yet to address the subjects of his 'predecessors'.

It was not usually in him to think ill of the dead, but the most complimentary aspect of Zeta Prime's character had been his fighting ability, but even that had been tempered by a certain level of cowardice and his willingness to put Optimus in the line of fire to serve his own ends. Perhaps he could have changed. Perhaps. But a rifle shot had emptied the back of Zeta’s head before he ever came near such a reversal.

As he listened to Gasket, watched his hand close around the thought of their dead world, Optimus felt the Matrix pulsed low around the casing of his spark, the resonance of it so familiar to him that it was nearly indistinguishable now from the harmonics of his own body. He didn’t often think, at least if he could help it, about the nature of the symbiosis between himself and the relic. It rarely was a productive thought session.

“Gasket, I do not know how long precisely you have been out of contact with the greater developments and protocols during the war, Decepticon and Autobot alike." He paused. "Are you familiar with the Tyrest Accord?”

[Deleted]

The EMF of Gasket was immensely positive as he returned to a very neutral posture on the pile of cargo containers he was utilizing for a seat. He didn't need a response from the Prime about his motives for being what he was and doing what he always knew was right. For once Gasket's regrets didn't hang so heavily on his frame as he sat in the presence of the one he would have ultimately had to answer to.

As far as the old bot knew, Optimus Prime did not hold grudges especially on transgressions so long past. As the room became silent again, Gasket's mechanical bits clicking and whirring at his slightest shift he nodded to no one and nothing in particular. Existence, for the first time in a long time, was looking bright.

Expecting that the Prime would speak, Gasket simply sat patiently. After all, they had all the time they could ever want.

“Gasket, I do not know how long precisely you have been out of contact with the greater developments and protocols during the war, Decepticon and Autobot alike. Are you familiar with the Tyrest Accord?”

Though not what he expected as a question, especially not now that the war was all but over, Gasket had to sit back and cogitate for a moment on the specifics of an important aspect of Cybertronian military policy. He did not exactly remember many of the specifics to the Accord itself but he knew the premises well enough to follow them.

"I was... young on Cybertron when that Accord was drafted. Tyrest was a good bot from what I remember of him. The agreement was... necessary, to say the least." Gasket paused, reflecting of the implications of the Accord on the war and if it may have been breached. "I took the Accord for granted when we landed. Had I been discovered I wouldn't have allowed myself near a scrapper in any situation... not if the humans had any way of knowing my identity." He paused again and looked back to the Prime.

"If I may, Prime. Why do you ask?"

[Deleted]

“It is a matter of fore-warning,” said Optimus quietly, a faint restlessness passing into his EMF. “Besides the Decepticon threat, there are rogue native organizations on earth; one in particular has three times now made itself a hazard to my team for the purpose of acquiring knowledge of Cybertronian technology. They call themselves MECH. Previously, they took one of the Decepticon officers in an effort to learn our biology.” Optimu’s optics narrowed very slightly, clearly recalling an unpleasant memory. “More recently they captured Arcee and attempted to strip her for her spark, nearly killing her, Jackson Darby, and his mother June in the process.”

He paused a moment to let that settle.

“MECH’s existence has somewhat strained the alliance between ourselves and the governments that we have allied ourselves with. If MECH develops weaponry based on our science, they will use against the human race and likely against us. The Tyrest Accord, however, continues to stand and is one of the core components of our alliance with the human race.”

The Prime’s tone didn’t waver. “As such, I have to ask if, during your landing, you abandoned any ship here on earth or stowed away anything other than an energon supply at Zeta Prime’s request. Earth was seeded eons ago by Cybertronian technology, both Autobot and Decepticon. If you know the location of any tech at all, their retrieval is an Autobot priority.”

[Deleted]

A matter of... Forewarning? Gasket leaned forward curling his digits and playing them across the roughness of his chin. He also noticed a very subtle shift in the Prime's EMF as it became more restless. What he proceeded to describe sent a shiver of concern through Gasket's systems. He spoke of a splinter group of the native humans, a group that was not only aware of their presence but actively invested in acquiring Cybertronian technology. For the first time in deca-cycles Gasket felt true concern for their situation.

It made sense that Prime asked about the Accord in this light but, for all his years, he could not remember if something like this constituted a breach of the law. What's more, this MECH was dangerous if they had taken a Con and threatened the diminutive femmebot he'd met. Doubly so if their actions had the Prime concerned. It did not take much cogitating for the old bot to see why. They also did not seem to care about the costs either if they were willing to endanger other humans to further their own goals.

Another problem... practically more decepticons to deal with.

At least they would likely keep the secret; it would be all the more difficult to gain access to Cybertronian biology and nanotech if all Earth's governments were clamoring for a slice. But was that really important? Something else lurked his matrix.

Gasket wondered if the Russians were still threatening mutually assured destruction.

Suppressing the thought for now, surely he'd find out later, he continued to listen politely. The Prime's assertion that the accord still stood was reassuring and drew a nod from the old bot; just so long as the humans did not get it in their heads to ask for their technology to fight against MECH things would likely be workable at least.

When the Prime's dialogue passed out of their situation with MECH and the terran governments and onto a question directed at any technology Gasket would have brought along with him the digit slowed to a stop on his chin.

Now that was a question.

When he had landed he'd not imagined that this planet would have such advanced natives; he'd not had the instruments to even tell they were there conclusively. Venting lines of steam from his back he leaned back, thinking of anything that might have fallen from his chassis when he entered the Earth's atmosphere. It did not take long for him to establish a whole stock of what he had on him when he arrived in the Sol system.

"Negative, Prime." Gasket paused, pulling up a transportation manifest from his matrix of everything he had transported off Cybertron. "I do not... know how comprehensive your data storage files are so I understand if this piece of history was forgotten; this... chassis, this bulky form was constructed as an interstellar tug capable of travelling many hundreds of light years unsupported. When I... found this system and decided it was sufficient for my needs I crashed the energon containers in the hydrol oceans. This frame... I was the only piece of cybertronian technology to wander the galaxy for giga-kliks."

Gasket paused, reviewing his myriad of memories regarding his mission for the infamous and illustrious Zeta Prime. But nothing else struck him as to this insignificant planetoid, this oblate spheroid of quartz and carbon.

"That is all I can offer, Prime. If Zeta sent... reserve technology to this planet I was not privy to its location." He paused again, his mind hitching on the current coordinates of his dumped containers. "I will... provide the coordinates to the energon containers when next I speak to Ratchet. They should have survived... ten deca-cycles at twice the pressure I estimated from these oceans."

Gasket smiled.

"Will give you current energon stores a much needed... boost."

[Deleted]

Optimus offered the other mechanoid a careful smile, nodding.

“Thank you, Gasket. I’ve never worked closely with a Titan Class, but we certainly will need both your capabilities and the supply boost. Despite our secrecy, Megatron’s mining operations are robust. League, has been over worked keeping fuel supplies optimal.” Optimus was about to say the League would appreciate a break, but ‘appreciate’ might have been too friendly a word. League had been surly at Gasket’s arrival and Optimus wasn’t inclined to put words in the mariner’s mouth. Instead he switched topics.

“It has been a long time since the Cybertronian race has held an alliance with an organic species, to say nothing of one so young. All of our previous allies were at least informed on the matters of intergalactic warfare. Humanity is less so. They ask questions, not all of which I am able to answer. Despite this, they have been one of the least violent first-contacts in my memory.”

And, though Optimus did not say so, this was likely because most civil space with a basic instinct for survival knew not to ally themselves with either side of Cybertronian conflict. An Autobot could outlive the civilization that brokered a treaty with them, to say nothing of the government who brokered it so such alliances were… tenuous. The Autobots had not been on earth long enough for the children, Fowler, or his commanders to understand what it meant to align themselves with a techno-biological race… and Optimus, though he knew it was limited, was enjoying this naïve time. Before they comprehended, truly, what their strange allies were.

“It is certainly the first time we’ve had civilians directly interacting with us, to say nothing of… adolescents. During the Golden Age we never looked out side our borders. Our focus was so deeply turned in.” And yet, still blind. "It is strange."

[Deleted]

The Prime's thanks, his mention of the upstart young League, and a mention of Megatron's robust mining operations on earth had the older bot nodding his head in understanding, his optics losing focus in concentration. There were several things that were now on Gasket's matrix; overwhelming sensations from his reactivation, MECH, the ongoing war, the human children that were under their care, and so on would be cogitated on for several rotations to come. He would take his time, too.

When the Prime switched topic Gasket's optics sharpened and looked down onto him once more. His words switched to one of the old bots primary concerns with his reactivation; the humans in their care. He commented that former allies were at least versed in the methods of warfare in a Cybertronian time scale but humans... well humans were a different matter.

Humanity was fragile, short lived, selfish, and biological. On a Cybertronian time scale humanity's current lifespan was quite short... and that is why Gasket wanted them to survive. This young species deserved its chance in full.

"I can... cogitate of a few who were not so peaceful. My concern is that should our presence become... public information, that peace may not last. As well as... prying government eyes from all over the globe."

His comment was more of a statement, a matter of fact realization that he knew the Prime would agree with. While Gasket didn't know the current political climate, they could spark off another world war between the humans if they were not careful.

By this time, Gasket's optics had brightened and his EMF had taken on a serious and slightly worried tone. He did not want to start another war... not with or for these fleshies...

When the Prime's next comment followed from his statement about the humans Gasket's EFM shifted significantly. He liked the company of the children, even the talkative female one in small pulses, and he was sure that he could strike up a conversation with the maternal unit of Jack's. She would be a useful source of local information and current events.

But when the Prime's vocabulator alighted to the Golden Age... well, Gasket froze; even his joints stopped creaking. In his matrix several images flew across his optics from that time... the best time in their history. Plus, Prime's comment, his last few syllables, could not but draw a nod from Gasket.

"Strange... yes. I have other choice... binary terms but it does not enhance the meaning further."

Pausing while the room went silent Gasket had to shunt his memories away once more.

"It is a change and, despite the risk involved including... stepping on them, the presence of the children is something that is truly a wondrous change of pace." He paused, his EMF brightening slightly. "During the war these joys, these small... small bits of time, just never occurred yet were more precious than energon."

He smiled as his thought process caught on something else.

"Hah, I almost think that Zeta trued to outlaw certain... groupings or congregations at one point." He paused. "Or was he trying to outlaw groups imbibing quantities of high grade. Huhah!"

He guffawed loudly at the thought of some of the goofy ideas that Zeta had indeed tried to make into law. It was a strange step away from speaking of the humans but he was sure some human laws were quite similar.

[Deleted]

Optimus stared for a split second, then his own smile caught him slightly off guard – it crossed his mouth short and startled, gone fast. He wasn’t certain what brought it on except… “I remember that,” he said, and before that got him a look he clarified. “Do not mistake – that was before my time but I… archived that data-stream back in the Iacon Hall of Records long before the Uprising.”

The Prime’s optics were elsewhere, fixed on some indistinct corner of the room and pulling from some semi-compressed memory log the details of that bizarre time, so long ago, when the universe to an archivist was the vast data network into which he’d been sparked awake. Iacaon archivist builds were one offs traditionally – no cohort to speak of, full-frames, brought online as living data conduits, made to process and organize data and told not to think on what it was they were archiving. As a bottom line – that had always been the fatal flaw, so to speak, in Pax: he could not help but think.

So much data passed through his neuro-cortex and just as much went unnoted and unremembered, but he remembered that only because… “His own delegates shot down the motion,” said Optimus, leaning forward, bracing his elbows against his knees, gaze finally coming back to the room and falling on Gasket. “At the time, I didn’t think much of it, except that the Hall archived data from the law guilds as well. The enforcers had been putting down violence in the southern city-states because of an ex-gen shortage. It was a law bot rep who shot down the motion, him and half a dozen mechs who owned interests in the ex-gen distillery markets. I remember that.”

Drunk and discontent is better than sober and wronged, the law mech had said. Sober: dangerous. This was his bottom line. Alert and knowing was dangerous and Zeta had agreed. That had been the first time Optimus, Orion, had noticed something… wrong. Optimus been online less than a vorn. It seemed strange that Gasket had seen it, had seen a lot more than that. Titan-class predated the caste system even, which had sparked under Zeta’s reign. Optimus sobered slightly at that.

“Interesting how he could not outlaw drink… but he could outlaw certain frame types from walking on certain streets.”

[Deleted]

The old bot nearly voiced his incredulity when the Prime spoke of remembering one of the most unacceptable laws ever brought up by the previous Prime. In their long lives Gasket had always had a good hunch when estimating ages, Optimus didn't strike him as that old. Thankfully the comment was qualified an astro-klik later and the old bot nodded in understanding. He'd forgotten that, before becoming Prime, the one before him was a data clerk; it was an odd shift from what he was now.

But one with a mastery of history could avoid their so often repeated mistakes.

When the Prime began to to into exacting detail of the goings on, however, Gasket leaned forward; this was something he had never know. He'd been a civilian, a lower caste member since being sparked and as the Prime continued to speak about several aspects of his not inconsiderable knowledge of that time began to truly make sense, memory conduits reactivating in his databanks.

"The labor corps... protested violently in the early days before that ruling was struck down. I remember it well... we tried to protest utilizing logic to show them the errors in their programming but they would not hear it." He paused. "It was a step toward the war... as you and the other younglings know it."

"The mandate to disperse, to not walk in certain places depending on caste was... unbearable. Old frames like myself who'd lived through vorns going wherever and with whomever fought it the hardest..."

His EFM darkened as the memories, flooded back. He wanted to rant, to express an injustice that had long since been forgotten.

"That was the only time in my operation that I saw the inside of a prison cell."

He paused, his optics slowly gliding up to rest on the Prime's, his intent of what was to be said aiming for more weight due to his current circumstances. He leaned back and pulled out his pipe, pulling a small pinch of coal dust out to fill it.

"Spur, Ashcat, Skate, Blackball, Riptrack, Hotbox, and I had gotten off shift from working on the Senate Library tower; I assume you... know the structure. We were tired, low-charge, and all interested in a rest. Bravo-Niner sector held one of our favorite haunts; all of us wanted a cube of ex-gen to unwind. None of us knew the ruling had come down in favor of the segregation and we walked into a sector which enforced it liberally, one that also happened to contain our destination."

Pushing a digit over the pipe bowl he activated a small lighter in the handle and the powder caught, a small amount of smoke carrying straight up and toward a small ventilation grate.

"We were all construction and labor frames, stubborn, young in those days... and not willing to take no for an answer. There were almost a dozen high caste guards that confronted us; they let us get a ways into the sector before stopping us. All short, high caste frames and not a damned processor among them and all had with the best weaponry from back then. Blackball, our supervisor at the time, tried to... reason with them, got a weapon stock to the chassis."

Lifting his pipe to his lips but did not take a draw... the memory was powerful.

"Ash... Ashcat told me that it was Hotbox who threw the first servo... cracked the guard's spark chamber and threw everything into chaos. We were set upon and... next solid memory was more guards arriving to subdue us all with stasis modules."

He let his servo with the pipe fall, his optics unfocusing and falling to the floor.

"Earned four Orns of imprisonment, convicted of inciting violence, disturbing the peace, walking in the wrong sector of Iacon. The guards all survived but... Hot-B, Spur, and Black..."

Gasket vented heavily, his EFM going from dark to a deep sorrow before rebounding as the memories were quickly compressed once more. He stopped and looked back to the Prime.

"I am sorry Prime. I have strong emotions on the... waning vorns of the Golden Age and many a strong thought about the then senate and Prime. Forgive my ranting."

Placing a digit over the coal pipe once more he extinguished it by quickly agitating it, upturning it to empty the ash into the tender on which he sat with a puff of ash.

[Deleted]

Optimus didn’t say anything while Gasket spoke, watching the strange arrangement of aged facial-plating move in micro-shifts, the pale lenses of the titan’s optics unfocused and thinking, eons back, four-millions years and farther, into the cresting vorns of the Golden Age (A Gilded Age, was the sub-plate sneer. “What ‘Golden Age’? There never was one.”) and Optimus wondered how time could wear even on their species. Designed as they were with their long psyches, their near-immortality, and what it was for a race of mechanical beings to orchestrate their own genocide and for pre-Golden Age mechanisms to watch the arc and fall of their species – living the history that Orion had been sparked to archive.

“There is nothing to forgive,” said Optimus sincerely.

And that was true, of this moment at least. Though for their race there was far too many wrongs that needed forgiving, too many old sorrows like the ones reverbing deep in the energy field around Gasket’s massive frame, humming quietly in the subdued frequencies of his own EMF. He didn’t say ‘I’m sorry’, not aloud. It was there in the pitch of his engines and the complex chord of electromagnetics off his frame – as real to them as a hand on a shoulder to a human, an empathy for loss.

“There was a time,” he said after a moment, “when I would have sought you out, Gasket, before the war. When the Hall of Records was assigned to seek witnesses of the eras for chronicle, before Zeta passed the laws to limit our rights to be neutral watchers and archivists.”

He glanced away a moment. “By the time I came online, they had revoked the Witness Rights of my function class. I supposed… that was when Zeta remembered to be ashamed, at least, of what he was doing. Enough to try to cover our eyes, bar us from even seeing the violence he was making law.” The Prime looked back up, expression thoughtful. “It is important that we don’t forget, Gasket, the things that brought us where we are. Your words will always be welcome to me. Never underestimate their value.”