Ep1.5 – 20,000 Leagues – Closed

[Deleted]

Optimus was still not cleared for active duty. Ratchet had made that transparent by threatened him with the various speculative repercussions of his ‘overdoing it’. Horrors would befall. He would lose his right knee again, somehow, because it was always that knee. Worse. He’d tear some critical internal welding, mass hemorrhage coolants into his fuel lines, suffer chemical toxicity and die. Dramatically. In a ditch. And the whole four million year old campaign would sum up with his tripping down a hole, which was about the time Optimus had to interject that he would, indeed, stay out of the field for a while longer.

Besides, the outing he was attempting was hardly the usual brutal fare.

He submitted to a full systems check and spent some time in voluntary shut down – woke up somewhat later than he’d agreed to (though not later than expected, Ratchet being Ratchet) and only then did he leave medical with a stamp of approval. Twenty minutes later found Optimus in the control room, checking the groundbridge system and logs. As he cycled through the checks, he allowed himself to admit that there was some part of him that was anxious. That seemed strange. To be anxious about such a thing as talking after so long fighting, nearly dying, the paralyzing shunt of nerves in his chest was not unlike the fear that settled in before he set out on an unknown assignment.

He did not, in whole, know what he was going to do.

Systems check done.

He opened his comms. “Metroplex. This is Optimus Prime. Are you receiving?”

[Deleted]

The comm reached Metroplex as he was concentrating on shifting himself...very slowly, so as not to disturb the wildlife around him...to take better advantage of the energon vein underneath him. He had been delighted to find the small vein in the first place not several kliks after landing (his landing had, itself, uncovered the very tip of it). His tanks being what they were, Metroplex had started the long process of transforming out some of his old mining and refining equipment. It had (after some hurried repairs and recalibrations, made short work of the small pocket, and his refinery had managed to turn it into something usably pure (though contaminated in odd and not entirely unpleasant ways with carbon compounds).

His sensors had also detected further pockets of energon not far away. So, he shifted...carefully....

Metroplex's comm equipment quickly verified the Prime's frequency, and he promptly responded, "Metroplex, receiving, Prime. How may I serve?"


<<I'm assuming that this is maybe a day or two after Metroplex came down, and before Maintenance Call. "First visitor!" Metroplex says, "squee! ohgod, I need to clean up, I AM A MESS!">>

[Deleted]

It was still… eerie, to hear Metroplex speak. Optimus had to shake the insistence of his memory core that he was speaking to a ghost, so thoroughly had the fact of Metroplex’s death settled into him and set itself near the core of his personal loss at the Exodus. The failure was so internally built now that orgetting how to grieve was difficult. It was so rare that the horrors in the last 1000 years were ever undone that he did not, even now, fully believe it… which was actually part of the reason he’d rallied his still tenuously functional frame for this.

“It is strange to hear your voice, my friend. I had resigned myself to the notion I would not hear it again.”

Optimus checked over his shoulder to ensure that Ratchet or some other party was not present, then settled the palm of his right hand against his flank, where the armor of his upper chest gave way to silver abdominal plating. The uneven weld scar remained, running a diagonal path from his side across his chest. Though Ratchet had done much in the way of cosmetic repairs, there was no hiding the evidence of his last outing. He cycled his vents quietly, pressing two fingers into the tract of scar alloy and examining the bloom of pain as it came. Less than it had been in recent days. Healing. He relieved the pressure.

“Jazz reported your successful relocation to the Atlantic. How are you holding up?”

[Deleted]

Metroplex shifted sections A9-B12 one mechanometer forward and two to the left. "None were more surprised than I, Prime, when I awoke. I am glad, however, to be able to make the journey and support you again. For that, I thank Primus."

His movement pressed more weight onto the top of an underwater cavern, and with a crunch he collapsed it, settling further down into the Earth's crust. Silt and alarmed organics puffed up into the water as well as...pulverized energon dust. Metroplex opened one of his sampling vents to retrieve a larger sample for analysis.

"I am glad that Perceptor made it to you safely. I had reservations about his bridging out of me at speed. He proved me wrong, however. I believe I owe him a specially-refined draught of energon over it, when I can manage it." Metroplex shifted another mechanometer, fell another mechnometer through another section of crust. More energon. He was getting much closer. That was good.

Metroplex's glyphs were staid and matter-of-fact. "I am functioning. I was not constructed to withstand a water environment and I will require aid in refitting myself, but that is a secondary concern at the moment. I am low on energon, but I seem to have landed on a substantial vein of refinable energon that I am currently excavating. I require superficial maintenance, but my major structures are intact and stable. I am...functional." That last glyph was wreathed with satisfaction/usefulness/contentment.

"And you, Prime? And Omega One?"

[Deleted]

“I am well,” said Optimus, though more automatically than he had perhaps intended, his default response to most queries about his well-being and more notable this time around because he was not, in fact, well. He laid a hand along the still healing weld along his sides again, reliving, like you did every wound, the brutality that gave it to you and imagined how much worse it could have gone. The myriad scenarios of his own death were an ever present movie-reel in the sub-directives of his consciousness, but the trick was to stop thinking about them and exist in a vacuum beyond the possibility of your own death. Optimus shrugged it off. “Omega One is doing well, though we’ve suffered losses here on Earth. The situation is not ideal, but the violence, for a time, seems to be at a lull.”

A very short lull, he knew. The Nemesis had been badly damaged, stripped of important resources and sabotaged quite thoroughly. Megatron had, apparently, abandoned his post as commander for a time and the in-fighting would likely throw things briefly askew but the Prime knew Megatron well enough to know how well he recovered from staggering upsets. He also knew Megatron well enough to know the warlord would take the events at the Neutral Base, internalized them, and fashion it into hatred afresh.

This was not unexpected.

Metroplex and everything about his survival and arrival, however, was.

“Metroplex… are you in any condition to speak with me more directly?”

[Deleted]

Metroplex paused in his excavation efforts, his answer automatic. "Of course, Prime."

Metroplex transformed Scamper and sent him rushing hurriedly down his internal halls toward the habsuite areas that Perceptor had occupied. It was the most comfortable part of him: it had power, an energon dispenser, and comfortable seating, at least. It pained Metroplex that that was all he had to offer the Prime...but at least he had that.

"These are the coordinates for a comfortable section of my internal structure." Metroplex debated the propriety of his next statement, then decided that it should go without saying anyway and that it was not presumptuous to state the obvious. Just in case the Prime had forgotten. "I would be honored to speak with you, Optimus Prime, whenever you might wish to visit."

[Deleted]

Optimus, already keying in the coordinates, sent back a more open-wave comm –inflected with informal glyphs of gratitude and promise to be through the groundbridge shortly. As he keyed the coordinates, the Prime could not quite shake the feeling, again, that he was about to walk into unfamiliar territory. Not in the literal sense (though he suppose that was true in a fashion – single-spark city formers being so singular) but rather in the sense that, generally, allies who died before your eyes seldom came back and gave you the opportunity to say things you did not. In his experience allies and enemies who ‘died’ outside your line of sight could half and half pull feats of astounding happenstance and reappeare unharmed… or had been vaporized as described.

But not the ones who died in front of you.

The bridge spun up and Optimus set it to close behind him, logging his location before turning from the console and walking into the tunnel of light. The drag of physics within the nexus of the ground bridge dragged at it always did for that split second, the air of Omega Outpost giving way suddenly to colder, damper, darker air and in that moment his Galactic Positioning System wobbled internally, equalizing as best it could to tell him he was no longer in Nevada but rather on the other side of the world entirely and very, very far below sea level. The pale green of the groundbridge light shimmered and gleamed of the dark metal angles of the walls, the floor and ceiling. This light very shortly went out, the portal closing behind him and leaving only the dim running lights within the atrium.

With no context, Optimus could have believed he was back on Cybertron – something essentially Cybertronian in the architecture. Architecture that he knew was more than that.

“Metroplex.” He addressed the room at large, looking in no particular direction. “Thank you for having me aboard.”

[Deleted]

Metroplex slowly raised the lights in the habsuite's atrium, illuminating an area that Perceptor had used as a secondary laboratory and relaxation area (the scientist had made very little distinction between investigation and relaxation.) The far side of the room was taken up by several long tables (which were empty) and cabinets, which were full though no doubt hopelessly jumbled from atmospheric re-entry and landing. The other side of the room was furnished with a seating area and energon dispenser. Certainly nothing palatial, but comfortable enough.

"You are very welcome here," Metroplex stated, his voice coming from wall speakers even as a far door opened and Scamper walked in.

Metroplex's natural EMF was muffled by his very construction and by necessity. It would have been incredibly uncomfortable for his inhabitants to be constantly subjected to his EMF in the same way that they sensed standard-sized Cybertronians' fields. There had been some who had insisted that they could feel cityformers' fields and had avoided or preferred certain or all cityformers for that particular reason, but by and large, Metroplex's sole method of nonverbal nuance was in his glyph choices. And, if he had a drone near, in physical demonstrations.

Thus, the relief and joy he felt at having the Matrixbearer (protected, Metroplex's coding murmured happily and quite illogically, as Metroplex knew more than most his own inability to protect his charges) once again in his halls was demonstrated in the shades of fealty and loyalty and affirmation and love-for-leader that colored his glyphs as Scamper stood before Optimus and knelt on one knee, helm bowed.

"Metroplex heeds the call of the last Prime."

[Deleted]

There was a momentary silence in which Optimus didn’t move for a moment nor say anything. The resonation of the cityformers’ voice through the interiors seemed to go on forever, the frequencies of a mech thought lost and a frame-class thought eradicated. Optimus had seen the last of the cityformers fall on the day of the Exodus – had commanded him to rise, then allowed him to fall so that the Ark and its crew could make a final bid for the future of their race. It was not the first time he had spent a life under his command… it was the first that one had been so recovered, however. The Prime did not consciously move, but found himself kneeling and taking, gently, the shoulders of the maintenance droid – as though the construct may all fall to rusted ash.

That was how fragile the city-former still seemed to him.

Standing the inner atriums of the Cybertronian’s architecture and still it seemed not real.

“Metroplex… in our darkest hour, when it seemed that we were all well and truly lost, you gave your life to light our way.” He stood up, carefully drawing the droid to its feet – a symbolic gesture only, maybe one that didn’t hold the same meaning to a frame-type like Metroplex, maybe not even appropriate but… “I thought you were lost. We all did. After, when we found a moment to speak for the fallen, we counted you among them - a hero. We owe you more than I can say.” His voice carried on low frequency through the whole of the room. " My friend, you bow to no one.”

[Deleted]

A hero.

Cityformer sparks and personalities were, more than any, cultivated for their task. This Metroplex knew from experience and common sense. No one wanted to bear the cost of constructing and sparking a city-sized mech only to find that the spark settled in its spark chamber was disobedient or antisocial or otherwise unsuited to its function. This included, Metroplex assumed, a certain amount of humility being baked in.

Certainly he had never thought of his actions as "heroic". He was a bit taken aback by the characterization.

"I was only performing my function to the best of my abilities," Metroplex said. "There was nothing else for me to do. I certainly could not come with you," he pointed out.

Scamper's small hand raised and fell to settle on Optimus Prime's gauntlet. It was a gesture that Metroplex had seen more than performed, and Scamper's EMF was not the personal connection that should accompany it, but the Prime's own gesture needed an answer. "When I woke and realized how much time had passed, I feared that I was alone. That the war had destroyed everything and everyone. That the Autobots and the Prime I served were gone. And then I heard your call, Optimus Prime, and my spark was lifted. I was not alone. Your endurance and leadership through so much conflict is much more heroic than any one act could ever be."

[Deleted]

“One act,” said Optimus quietly, “does not lose its value in the face of a longer history. You are not alone, Metroplex. And what you did that day will not be forgotten, not by me. Not by anyone who was there that day, not by anyone who hears the history of this war when it ends.”

Presuming the war ended and they were victorious, assuming that there would be any of them left in the universe, any Spark still spinning that might care about the history of their dead world and those who stood until the last to defend it. If anyone would remember the course of the war, honestly, it would be a cityformer – repository and living monument to the history of Cybertron in microcosm (if such a word could apply to such a titan). In the haze and desperation of those last days on Cybertron, Optimus had met Metroplex only long enough to know him as the monolith that brought down so much of Megatron’s army – never as the city who housed and watched war tear its populace apart in the streets.

It seemed now he might have that chance.

Optimus laid one hand, briefly, on the repair droid’s shoulder before gently letting him go and, one hand moving to press slightly against the weld on his side, moving toward one of the greater side atriums. He could hear, faintly, the sound of hull pressure far away, ancient metal corridors shifting in the black crush of the ocean. Galactic Positioning Systems told the Prime they were somewhere in the Atlantic, the sum total of the cityformers massive weight settled into one of the most remote section of abyss available. On other planets hiding a mechanoid of Metroplex’s weight class would have been a more troubling task. On a planet more that 70% water…. it was slightly more doable a task.

“You mentioned that you do not recall how you came to be online, nor do your internal logs carry any record between your shut down on Cybertron and now. Does this trouble you?”

[Deleted]

<<We're assuming no Perceptor now that Ari's left, right? We can assume that Metroplex mentioned about his memory lapse himself, when he first made contact?>>


"I remember waking on Cybertron, then taking off for Earth, though all I knew at the time was that I was following your call. I do not, however, remember anything between the launching of the Ark and roughly two vorn ago. I...cannot explain this. My logs from the intervening time are...confused."

Metroplex's voice followed Optimus, as did Scamper. Scamper's optics caught the slight catch in the Prime's side. He thought about offering his medbay, but certainly a true medic would trump empty facilities. Still, Metroplex thought.... "I cannot help but notice that you are recovering from an injury. I can provide medical facilities and supplies, whenever they would be of use, Optimus Prime."

<<If Metroplex seems much more concerned about Optimus' side than his own possibly wonky databanks...he is! >>

[Deleted]

“Do not concern yourself with my injuries, Metroplex. It is nothing,”

The Prime consciously evened out the pace of his stride as he walked the cityformer’s halls. There were whole city blocks, Cybertronian city blocks, within the architecture of Metroplex’ alt mode. Though… in truth it was more likely that the arches and columns of the city-structure was more natural a form to Metroplex than the bi-pedal state which Optimus had roused him to back in the final days of Cybertron, when all city-formers had long since been thought dead or gone. Even now he still felt some of that pull inside him, like a magnetic north in his bodyshell tugging him in no direction in particular but forward. Optimus stopped at a juncture in the hall, where it split four ways, reaching up to brace one hand against the corridor wall.

The footsteps of Scamper, following near behind, pattered quiet as the repair droid stopped.

“Metroplex,” he said, standing there, the quiet groans of distant shifting metals rumbling through far away halls. He pushed away from the wall, moving to stand in front of the four branching corridors. He stood there a moment, very still, as though listening for something, feeling some vibration in the apertures of his framework. “Do you remember the day that we met?” Optimus flexed his right hand slightly. “I sensed your presence through the Matrix and you led me to safety through the Decepticon lines. I never asked back then – the war being what it was and time slipping so rapidly… I never asked if you called to me or if I simply found you.” He looked down the far corridor to his left. It seemed to yawn and stretch, a set of running lights coming on down that corridor, flickering, then gone. Almost a trick of the optics. “And if you did call to me… are you doing so now?”

[Deleted]

Metroplex kept his doubts to himself when Optimus, quite as expected, downplayed his own injuries. Metroplex imagined that the Prime had had much practice doing so. Still, he spent just a little of his own processing power analyzing the data Scamper collected from following and observing the Prime. There was a medic, after all, who might need it.

Optimus moved through Metroplex's halls, at first, like a mech moving to settle their meta. Metroplex had had many inhabitants who had done the same, particularly leaders. Those who carried heavy burdens that kept them from recharge and who would sometimes be chased out of their berths by their own worries and deliberations.

After awhile, however, the Prime's strides gathered purpose. Scamper followed, Metroplex content to share the journey and provide companionship if it might help.

"I remember that day," Metroplex said as they stopped. And he did. Such an anomalous day...a day he'd never expected to have, when he had been decommissioned, when the energon in his lines and tanks had slowed to a trickle and he'd expected nothing but stasis and a cold spark chamber. "I...felt you. I cannot say why, as my sensors at the time were mostly nonfunctional, even though some energon had been rerouted through my systems. But I sensed you. I sensed...that I should help you. I sensed others, hunting you, and I reconstructed your path, to lead you to safety. It was the least I could do...it was all I intended."

Metroplex reviewed those memories, not far away in his own meta, but datestamped so very long ago. The files were sketchy, the data sparse. He had not...strictly been aware until Optimus had thrown the switch to refuel him. He said as much. "I...did not call you then, Optimus Prime. And whatever you feel calling you now...it is not I."

[Deleted]

He was tired. First and foremost, that occurred to Optimus as he stood there in the middle of Metroplex’ corridors considering the strange pull at this proto-skeletal structures. He examined the sensation objectively – not painful, not even physical in the traditional sense of the word. He could find no bizzare spike in his biometrics, or pressing change up in the rhythms of his onboards systems, nothing to suggest that perhaps his wounds and some conglomerate of repair nanites and fatigue was causing him sensory hallucinations. The Prime stood there and debated whether he was, to some degree, going mad or not. Objectively, he doubted it because he didn’t feel like he was going mad. Or rather, he didn’t feel he had a pressing reason to go mad just then after a long track record of not going mad.

Insanity could be subtle though and when it came to anything even tangentially related to the Matrix, all bets were off.

The first real assault on his sanity had been the day the damn thing set itself into his chest and showed him the face of Cybertron from the inside out – not something that any Cybertronian was supposed to see all at once, he suspected, certainly not something they were supposed to feel. He felt a spark-deep swell of nausea slide through his fuel lines just thinking about it, focused instead on this feeling. He closed his eyes, shutting down his optical systems and quieting the inside of his head. He cycled his vents, breathed in the manner a mechanoid and continued to fell that tug inside him, like a fishingline in his lasercore. He’d felt this the day he found Metroplex, felt something alive in the corridors he walked.

“Metroplex… you are the last of the titans. The rest are… scattered, lost, dead, or salvaged. For that… I am sorry, but I know that in all the history of Cybertron, there has never been any saving a titan after a shutdown such as yours.” He opened his optics… and set off down the far left hallway. He ignored the pang from his side, focused on the pull, on talking. “You’re an impossibility, Metroplex. Surely, this has occurred to you. Have you any theories of your own? Are your systems… different in anyway?”