Ep1 –Interlude Gasket – Closed

[Deleted]

It was a trick to walk steadily, Optimus found that out very quickly upon exiting the lower tunnels and all the nausea he’d left at the mouth of the long chute to the basement came back again. He walked back into the light and felt disoriented for a moment. He let that moment stretch without examining it, the Neutral Base falling slightly to the right of him for some reason. Optimus just kept walking, moving througha kind of vacuum space while a very large section of his mem-net shifted and re-contextualized – like an energon cube dropped, shattering, then reconstructing itself in reverse to take on a new, ugly, and razor-edged configuration.

You always suspected this though, said part of him, four-million years old, battle-mask fused long shut. Insanity is not so sudden as that, and it never suited him. He was already that before you met him and when you met him the face he presented was like any alt-mode: a functional disguise. Are we not a species of Adaptus? Presenting faces and forms as we see fit? Megatronus was an alternate form and Megatron was always the root. It is simply confirmed now by his own words, as though his actions did not in themselves speak –

Optimus shook his head and looked up. He was in the Main Atrium, a steel girder at his pedes and when he followed the length of it, the structure led to the section of the great cavern where Gasket knelt, working on what Optimus supposed was Sideswipe’s bar. That briefly begged the question: Where is Sideswipe? Ironhide and Cleaver were nowhere to be seen, likely discussing the presence of Megatron elsewhere from prying audios.

“Gasket, can I have a moment?”

It felt strange starting a conversation: like he should start conversations differently now because something had charged so thoroughly for him, like the universe had realigned two feet to the right and only he knew.


((OOC: Dis thread for you, Lat. :3 Let me know if it works.))

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The atrium flashed in vicious popping and sparking as a blade of sheer thermic fury cut rapidly into a piece of thick sheet metal. The seam glowed yellow as it bonded with the adjacent piece, the weld clean and regular as though enacted by a master craftsman of at least two local decacycles. Across the face of the cratsman the light glinted off clear white and azure optics, the color darkened slightly against the brightness. Gasket had knelt before the bar to get at the underside plating to put the pumps and tubing in place that would eventually be run out to the energon storage tanks. For him that was not a worry; Sideswipe would sort out the specifics.

He was just there to assemble the body of the bar, the heavy lifting and harder welding work.

With torch in hand he had worked for several macro-kliks in silence, digging through golden era memories of what he had just witnessed. His memory storage had run several algorithms to find reports of both of the beings he had witnessed not so long ago and he'd gotten several hits. Reviewing the words of mega-years before he had simply fallen into routine, happy to go through his less pained memories and reflect on something closer to neutral.

The sound of pedes on the rugged floor did not cease his toils but brought about further focus. Cleaver and Ironhide had been about somewhat but he didn't bother with them; they had more than enough on their own to deal with. However, when he felt the warm ebb of that particular EFM he stopped, cutting the gas flow to the welder before resting back on his haunches.

"Hello Prime."

“Gasket, can I have a moment?”

Smiling he looked up at his new commander, Gaskets optics clearing of their polarization to allow him to see Prime all the better.

"You may have... as many as you wish."

Standing he placed his implements down and leaned up against the bar, the construction thus far sturdy enough to hold his bulk well enough.

"I expected you, somewhat. If my... prediction was correct then you must have much to reflect on."

His EFM was kind but a slightly tense air slipped in behind it, enhancing the intensity.

"To meet him again in that way... I am not sure I believe the circumstances myself."

[Deleted]

The Prime stepped over the material Gasket had laid out, moving into conversation distance from the larger mechanoid.

“His circumstances – at least from Cleaver’s medical expertise and my own personal witness – appear to be genuine. He is compromised. A core-lock perhaps or simply corrupted section in his mem-net, but the details do not change the result which is that he does not presently recall the war.” The Prime paused a moment, optics flicking sidelong before he looked back to Gasket. “A situation like this has arisen before during the course of our conflict. Memory loss, core-lock, and recursive neural net corruption is a fairly common techo-biological injury, more regularly occurring among the scout-class and high-end infiltrators. But the core-lock of a military commander of this level is unprecedented. If it were me suffering the affliction I have no doubt that Megatron would… exploit that.”

Optimus’ tone was inscrutable as his face, reflecting so little upon this development as to be unbelievable. To not react to this was as much false as to be glad of it, but in that moment he could little find it in himself to present any face. Gasket knew, though, a touch more than many bots who worked under his command – his memory was longer and he’s spoken fluently on the Decepticon uprising, seen the society pressures that made it inevitable.

“But as it stands, he just wanted to hear the truth from me, I believe.” You didn’t owe it to him to speak with him, said some part of him again. “I doubt his condition is anything but temporary. I had a few… questions to ask myself. I cannot say with any confidence this strange back and forth will... change anything.”

[Deleted]

As the Prime spoke, characterizing the status of the Cybertronian warlord as he did, Gasket was slightly surprised at his own ability, or luck, at determining what had happened to Megatron. Despite the fact that the beast of a mecha was now known as Megatronus the old bot had no trouble inserting the latter designation into his voice box as though it had been just last cycle that he had used the name.

His optics never left the Prime as the point was made. However, despite the time he had spent on Earth it did seem to be rather unusual to be something of a confidant to their illustrious leader. Allowing a small smile to cross his dentals he remembered why that was; it took a good memory to recall half of what Gasket had lived through. In fact, as the Prime explained about the condition Megatronus was in, he recalled nearly half a dozen of such occurrences. Ashcat, his former colleague, had suffered from a few breems after his helm had taken a piece of construction debris the size of a large cassette.

Oh Ash... you would have been a better conversationalist to a Prime...

“I doubt his condition is anything but temporary. I had a few… questions to ask myself. I cannot say with any confidence this strange back and forth will... change anything.”

"All signs in my cognizance point to the... pro tempore nature of his condition, Prime. Despite my own desires to the contrary, nothing has changed but our own situational functions. Also bear in matrix that you would never... consider exploit his weakness for your own gain; it matters not what he would do."

Allowing his processes to catch up, he stood to step over the low husk of the bar and to obtain a position slightly more within the field of the Prime. If nothing else, he needed a friend. Gasket realized, however, that he had to prevent something that he himself had fallen into during his long vorns of inactivity.

"As... desirable as it may seen to reactivate long quiet memory strains you must do so ever cautiously. Do not allow yourself to... fall into matrix processes long since past, Prime. Despite the desirability of such actions it will only bring you... more pain."

His voice was deep, sincere as his optics gazed at the Prime. His EFM was stern but compassionate as it blended with the confusion he was detecting from the Prime.

"No matter the answers he gave, Prime, no matter the words that you gave him; everything that has happened, the blame cannot be placed on any... one party. My memory banks are still accurate, Prime; fault for such a thing cannot be leveled on any one action or inaction, but the collective path that... all and none of us must bear."

Shaking his helm, Gasket took another small step forward, trying to think of something better to say.

"Any change that there is to be had, Prime..."

He paused slowly raising a digit and pushing it forward to tap gently against the Prime's chest plate.

"Will only be in a direction more in keeping with the brother... you knew."

A change, Gasket hoped, for the better. Perhaps it was the ideals that Megatronus had lost when he failed to become a prime that corrupted his purpose. Such a vivid reconstruction in such a way may actually help them all in the long run.

[Deleted]

“The brother I once knew,” repeated Optimus.

He was certain he’d meant to complete that thought but it rendered back to him unfinished. Old thoughts, he supposed, were getting in the way of whatever it was he’d been about to say. Gasket’s good advice was going to waste on the Prime who couldn’t seem to derail from matrix processes long past – not the one’s he’d thought he would fall prey to though. Not the old memories, the ancient ones buried under four million wars of war, hyper compressed below the recollection of the last thousand years of the war, where their stalemate war collapsed into genocidal all-or-nothing earth-scorching and murder.

Those more immediate memories were informing his currents thoughts, still.

“I do not think that there was ever a brother I knew,” said Optimus, folding his arms. “And the direction he sought was exactly the course he followed. It seems now to me that my suspicions were correct: by the time I knew Megatronus, the trajectory of his course was set and I made no difference in its procession.” Except, perhaps, to speed his progress to the Senate floor and inundate people to the idea of his heroism… and later, to stand as a late obstacle in his path. “If I sought to look to old memories, there is little fear of that now. He has all but confirmed to me that there was never any value in them, or at least… not the value I had once assigned them.”

Optimus was looking at the bar Gasket was working on, the familiar, essentially Cybertronian construction of it. So familiar, again, a piece of an old world pulled out of the past and set under alien skies. It hurt looking at it for some reason. Like every memory of Cybertron was not as he remembered – all colored wrong, too brightly, and too well. He wondered, Gasket with his long memory how well he remembered their dead world, if he too romanticized and polished the memory to a false shine.

Orion had been a historian once. Optimus wondered how he would have read the story of Optimus Prime and Megatron as a third party: what a pair of fools. Couldn’t they see where this would lead? Not, mind you, that any decent person could have predicted the fratricidal obliteration campaign that finally ended them all.

[Deleted]

As the Prime reacted, speaking of things which could only cause Gasket to listen in silence, the old bot slowly began opening memory files, digging out reference points from the era directly pre-war; Zeta's Primacy. Even as the current Prime spoke he became uneasy, digging back into those particularly painful memory files with a drive that he had not felt in a long time. Those were chaotic days as he recalled them, a great turmoil brought about by the Prime preceding Optimus. As his matrix hit upon the target files he redirected his full attention back to the prime.

Pistongasket knew that the Prime was still at war with himself over what had just happened. Knowing what he did, Gasket could almost sense the guilt flowing from the very uneasy EFM that exuded from the mech in front of him.

“I do not think that there was ever a brother I knew,and the direction he sought was exactly the course he followed. It seems now to me that my suspicions were correct: by the time I knew Megatronus, the trajectory of his course was set and I made no difference in its procession.”

The old bot allowed silence to fall in the atrium before venting heavily. Reaching to his waist-assembly he pulled out his archimedes pipe and slid it up into his dentals before moving back to sit down on the bar. The EFM he exuded was simply thoughtful as well as empathetic as his optics looked away off toward the fine sandstone layering along the walls of the underground base.

"If such is the case he... decieved us all."

Motioning to a low seat Gasket motioned to it, hoping the Prime would take his suggestion as this was not going to be over quickly. As much as he was surprised by his own memories he had no reason to doubt them.

"This was before your time, Prime, but I remember the... beginning of the caste system."

"I remember the series of events that led up to it and, even after, I remember the Pit. I spent much time there with the labor corps, wiling away the breems betting energon chits on the best the lower castes had to offer. Mind you... I do not know when Megatronus was sparked but he was something none of us expected."

"Here was a... ray of hope, a patch of light in the darkness. Never had I seen, met a mech more devoted to our equality... until I met a blue and red "big-rig" on a small, blue alien planet."

Gasket smiled, his vocabulator rambling slightly in the vast memories of his past. However, he knew where he was going with this.

"You were sparked as an upper-low caste, a data clerk, but... as best I can tell, those ivory walls were not crushing. To us, the upper castes were unspeakably cruel, even ... us older mechs who they would have once called equals were not worth the energon to them."

"Megatronus emboldened us in those early joors, he stood for... the rights of all Cybertronians, high caste or low. We rallied around him not because of who he was... but what he stood for. He was the catalyst that actually improved our lot..."

Gasket paused; the improvement was not to last but when they were in such a bad way, anything was better than the status quo.

"It was hope, Prime. He gave us all hope that... we would not be under the heel of the despotic."

"Despite the ends, the means before you went before the... council..."

"That ideal, that brother you... used to think you knew did exist. Perhaps not... materially, only in thought, but what he stood for was real."

"Perhaps that brother... that mech you thought you knew impacted you. The most powerful force in this universe, Optimus Prime, is not a Planet-Cracker Missile, Unicron, or the Hammer of Solus Prime... it is an idea."

"While... I doubt any of us could have... anticipated..."

He gestured around them, inferring the death of Cybertron.

"The alternative, the failure of... your brother, that idea to bring us out of it is a fate far worse."

Leaning back he vented, sucked on the stem of his pipe, not making a move to fill or light it.

"Never doubt that the brother you knew... existed. While his cause has become corrupted, while it may not be exactly how you remember it, he... did stand for something meaningful. That meaning shall never be lost as long as you... Optimus Prime, fight for it."

[Deleted]

Optimus didn’t say anything as Gasket spoke, the long and slightly halting rhythm of his words and glyphs coming in their ancient cadence, an anachronism in and of themselves. There was something… something of Iacon in how he spoke, not the Iacon that Orion had been sparked into, constructed cold into the middle of Zeta’s Prime’s rule, the last of the Data Class frames of his make and model, before the design fell into obsolescence. Gasket didn’t sound like that. He didn’t talk like someone who’d been built into the social apartheid of the caste system; he pre-dated it and there was something instinctively comforting in that, like listening to a voice recording from the radio-logs of the pre-Golden Era, something from before Nova Prime.

Orion had experienced much of Cybertron through the vicarious cloud of digital media, a ghost world of numbers and history, compiled and forgotten and expanding in the dark, complicating and filling Halls of Iacon. Maybe it was some remnant of that. History, ancient words: the archivist in him was familiar with this, but Optimus felt some of his dread leave him word by word as Gasket spoke. And for a very strange and impossible moment, Gasket sounded very much like the Master Archivist in the basements of those old halls, explaining to him why the past was not a place to live, only to look back on when the path forward seemed so dark as to be unnavigable.

It was not so dark as that, but there was something essentially critical, as fundamental as his molecular structure in hearing Gasket assure him, like he so often assured others, that through the dark, through the long road to the present that it still meant something.

“Thank you, Piston Gasket.” He meant it. He tried to mean it every time he said something like that, but in that moment it was in his EM field, every harmonic of the frequency of his engines and glyphs, laced into Cybertronian the sub-sonic phonemes of every word. He found that some of the tension had gone from the hydraulics of his body, drained from his linkages. Blue optics flickered, closing briefly, before he lifted them again to look at the Titan mechanoid like he hadn’t quite seen the bot in his entirety before. “Again, as every time before, your counsel is welcome and greatly appreciated.”

[Deleted]

As Gasket finished speaking he realized that there was a number of glyphs that he had exuded in his speech that he had not used since before the war. There were symbols for hope, perseverance, power that he might have used talking to Ashcath but few others. The Prime, he realized, was a mecha that could understand these ancient glyphs not only in their small conversation but in the context of the history that so few actually recalled.

Upon giving the Prime a moment to reflect on his words, however, Pistongasket realized that the context that he had used, the history that he remembered so vividly, was not something the Prime had been able to access in megacycles.

A historian without a history of his own.

As the Prime began to speak the old bot found himself slightly taken aback by the accolades afforded him by his commander. He had never thought his own memories as anything special as it was nothing but his nature to collect everything he could as he lived his operational life so much longer than many others.

"You are most welcome Prime. But you... flatter me. Though my memory banks are far from comprehensive there are a great many things that... serve to shed light on even the more ancient of data-cells."

Smiling Gasket sat back, immensely honored by the accolades given by the Prime; he could not recall a time where his matrix was so filled with pride.

"I did not give any council that... I thought may have been inaccurate. It is... important to remember the past so mistakes are remembered... and not repeated."

Nodding he vented heavily, rethinking that he might actually want to light his pipe now. The glow of that strange day was... palpable.

"My memories are always... at your call, my friend."

[Deleted]

What uneasy had settled itself into the structure of his framework, Optimus found somewhat lessened. Though he felt certain that, like every other time uncertainty or doubt had afflicted him, that he would have found a path out – to be immediately reassured and by the words of another instead of his own rationales, was relief on a strange day. He nodded to Gasket, his EM field already much changed since he’d walked – dazed and somewhat numb – through the atrium entrance, his spark spun off its natural course and set in a wrong orbit of fear and dread. It changed nothing. Nos changed nothing. Nos also changed everything. At the root of their war, the true seed and root of it, lay a dead innocent – one of the many dead innocents the caste system had laid low too soon, but it changed what Optimus saw in Megatron. To him, that seemed a great change.

It made more sense, perhaps. It did not justify anything, but it put a recognizable face on what had become a caricature of malice and sadism. Orion had not understood the day Megatron had abandoned the Senate floor, cutting ties with him and the Council – he’d blamed prime, blamed anger but he had not understood the depth of it, what defeating the old guard meant to Megatronus. Accepting the handout of the elite who’d killed his only cohort – it was unacceptable and, after all, he had an army lying in the wings.

They were long past revenge now, but… Optimus couldn’t help but wonder about the dead child.

“I will leave you to your task. I should find Ironhide and appraise him of the situation.” The Prime’s gaze fell on the locomotive’s handiwork. “You should take this, Gasket. It is every bit as beautiful as the designs of Cybertron. Sideswipe will be glad of it and I hear he is a good friend to have.” He did not mention was a terrible enemy the red commando also made. “When it is done, I will buy your first round.”

[Deleted]

Placing a servo on the bar, Gasket could only nod at the Prime as the servos and gears of his matrix obviously spun. Though the old bot knew more than he let on about the war itself he hoped that what few words, helpful glyphs that he had offered at that moment would be enough to at least move the Prime forward. It would not do to allow the Prime to slip into a destructive cycle of self regret and doubt.

A smile crossed his dentals as their EFM fields seemed to resonate for an astro-klik, the sensation holding untold joy for the ancient mech. Though it was minor, a secondary joy from actually acting as a confidant to the only remaining Prime, it was something he doubted would ever permanently leave his memory banks.

However, that was not the last joy that Gasket was to receive.

As the Prime excused himself, hoping to find Ironhide and have more of the soldier's thoughts on the situation, their leader left him with not only a fine compliment on his work but a suggestion of who he should meet. Gasket knew that Sideswipe was the project head but that mech was indeed someone that the laborer needed to meet.

"Once again, you flatter me Prime. I am... merely doing one task I was sparked for."

A large smile crossed his dentals as he nodded and looked up the hallway deeper into the atrium.

"Ironhide... should be just up there. Tell him that his EFM is detectable at several hundred meters. Good day, Prime."

Smirking Gasket stepped back and watched as the Prime did the same. Turning back to his task he retrieved the welder and another piece of steel.

I will engrave a memory into this bar... so that none shall forget why the fighting began.

It would be subtle... but it would serve as a reminder. Innocents lost and, perhaps innocence found.

((Fin?))