Dead Star's Echo

Wildride had checked his brain in at reception.

The tunnel to Shokaract’s cell took two breems to reach at Wildride’s average cruising speed. The Cloister Facility had been evacuated on Shokaract’s initial incarceration. His unique and terrifying ability to remote control Transformers via their cerebral units within a 25 kilomatre radius meant that not even the security teams could guard him closely. Wildride had been assigned the task of overseeing the situation, allowing himself to be modified by Tow-Line. The quick-release mechanism installed meant he could safely eject his brain into external housing a remote-control his body, and evade Shokaract’s control.

Wildride’s body arrived at the door of the cell and transformed. His large arm made light work of the numerous locks, joists and barriers. The conditions here seemed damp, and the bolts had begun to rust. Wildride noted a slight increase in humidity.

He entered the cell to see Shokaract in his usual, crouching position. To the left of the Predacon was a large hole and a small pile of gnarled and torn steel. It was as if somebody had literally chewed a hole into the alloy floor.

“Are you trying to escape?” Wildride’s body asked.

“I am just sitting here, quietly,” Shokaract replied with his raspy voice.

“Then why is there a gaping hole in the floor, with Cataclysm and Antagony missing?”

Shokaract took to his feet and walked up to Wildride. “You’re not like the other Autobots, are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re like me,” Shokaract announced, getting right to the point.

“I am nothing like you!” said an angered Wildride.

Shokaract paced around Wildride. “No, no. Definitely something about you that makes you like me. They way you were... made.”

“I’m not here to discuss my creation,” Wildride said. “I need to know what’s going on underneath this cell.”

“I can show you, of course,” Shokaract purred. “But you’ll need to come back here, with your brain reinstalled back into your head.”

“Why?”

Shokaract returned to Wildride’s front side and stepped in closely. His voice became a whisper. He reached out with his clawed hand and scratched a line down Wildride’s abdomen. “Because I want what is itching inside of you!”

It was Grimlock at the door.

It was easy to tell, the way the frame gasped sharply as he knocked from the other side. The Autobot Commander shrugged his shoulders and knocked again. He knew better. If Mach Alert was indeed accessing the security net, then his audio receptors would be non functional and no amount of knocking would get his attention. Grimlock looked to the right and noticed the correct way to get Mach Alert’s attention; a small, round button which, when pressed, would signal to him that he had a visitor. It was standard protocol. But Grimlock didn’t care much for pushing buttons. He knocked again.

Inside, Mach Alert closed his online connection and removed the slim cable from the side of his head. Of course most of the Citadel operated wirelessly now, but he preferred old fashioned insulation for his secure transmissions.

Grimlock knocked again, making Mach Alert jump. He stepped up to the door on his side and pushed a small, round button. There was a slight hissing sound as the lock pressure was released and the door slid open. Mach Alert looked up at Grimlock’s hulking form and momentarily forgot who he was talking to. “Problem with the button?” he asked sarcastically, before realising and nervously adding, “uh, commander.”

Grimlock walked into the room, forcing Mach Alert to the side. “Have assignment for you.”

“For me?” Mach Alert asked. “Really?”

“Yes, really. Now you going to stop acting nervous and take assignment?”

“O-of course. What is it you need for me to do?”

“Me concerned about security of Shokaract.”

“I thought Wildride was overseeing the situation.”

“That what me concerned about.”

Mach Alert gestured for his leader to come further into the room. “I’m not sure I understand.”

Grimlock handed a datapad to Mach Alert. “Swoop been checking activity log. Did you know that Shokaract and cronies been relocated to three separated facilities?”

“Well it’s no secret that Shokaract is perhaps the most dangerous prisoner we’ve ever incarcerated. Maybe there were potential security problems at the previous sites?”

“Maybe. But me smell a fishy rat, and me need you to investigate.”

“Isn’t, say, Sideswipe more qualified for something like this?”

Grimlock folded his arms across his broad chest. “Me see what you mean,” he said, half-tilting his head.

“You do?”

“Me know you close to Wildride and feel uncomfortable with assignment.”

Mach Alert looked away. He’d been rumbled. “Well he is my brother.”

Grimlock laughed. “Transformers no have brothers. Sure, you and he might be created at the same time, but you not brothers. Brothers is stupid, weak human term.”

“You might think so, but we’re a close team. Like you and your Dinobots.”

Grimlock unfolded his arms and rested his left hand on Mach Alert’s shoulder. “Me trust you have best interests of all Autobots at heart.”

“Well, of course!”

“Then me make promise to apologise if you find nothing fishy going on,” Grimlock said. “And me never before make promise to apologise to Autobot. Only Dinobots ever hear apology from Grimlock.”

Mach Alert smiled. “Okay, I’ll do it. And when you apologise for being wrong, will that make me a member of the Dinobots?”

Grimlock shook his head. “Number one rule of Dinobots: No police cars.”

Mach Alert tracked the convoy as it motored through the lower tympanic membrane of the Sonic Canyons. He was lying flat on his front, propping himself up with his elbows, with his tracking scanner in his left hand. It was an uncomfortable position. Infra-red sensors told him there were four passengers; the three prisoners and Wildride.

Mach Alert rolled over onto his back and dug an alpha scanner from a storage space within his left thigh. He fumbled with the controls and returned to his original position. He slid his finger over a control and pointed the device at the control.

As he let the device takes its readings, Mach Alert activated his communicator. “Wildride?”

The familiar voice echoed out of the communicator. “What is it, Mach?”

“Where are you?”

“We're in the Sonic Canyons. I’m transferring the prisoners.”

“Where?”

“I can’t really say over the airwaves.”

“Where’s your brain?”

“Safe. I am taking every precaution,” Wildride reassured.

“Okay, Mach out,” Mach Alert said, closing the connection. He visibly relaxed and nodded to himself. He knew that despite Grimlock’s suspicions that his brother wasn’t up to anything ‘fishy’.

Mach Alert’s alpha scanner signaled its report. “Odd,” Mach Alert commented.

And then a sinking feeling enveloped him as the device told him that it had detected alpha waves emanating from Wildride’s body within the convoy at the bottom of the canyon.

Grimlock had been right.

The convoy was moving at a comfortable speed of 60 bpk, the quiet humming of its engines amplifying and echoing up the sides of the canyon, shaking the ground above. Wildride sat at the controls, keeping his optics on the road ahead.

Behind him sat his three captives. To all outward appearances, he was merely ferrying them from one high security installation to another. He had called ahead to the Polyhex site. As per his instructions, the facility was evacuated and a makeshift cell prepared. The more Wildride thought about it, the more he realised it was the perfect diversion.

But to all inward appearances it was an entirely different matter.

Wildride took his eye off the road for a moment as he noticed a thin trickle of oil escape from an even thinner scar on his abdomen. He felt a sudden, sharp pain. A burning itch that he was too scared to scratch. Wildride called out.

“Cataclysm, take over,” Shokaract ordered.

The cat-like robot pushed Wildride out of the control chair and wrapped his hands around the steering wheel. Wildride crawled into the back of the convoy.

“What’s wrong with him?” Antagony asked.

“He can’t control it.” Shokaract replied.

“Amateur!” Cataclysm snarled.

Shokaract signaled to Antagony and she transformed into ant mode. She knew what was coming. Wildride lay on his back. The small scar on his stomach grew up to his neck and down to his crotch. He lurched backwards. Shokaract grappled with Wildride, removing some of his bulky armour.

The scar suddenly split wide open and a small, spindly robot crawled out from inside Wildride. It appeared to wheeze and spit, clawing its way out of a membrane matrix that enveloped it. Shokaract pushed his palm onto Wildride’s scar and used his powers to quickly heal the wound.

“Uhh,” Wildride tried to speak as his vision came back into focus. He saw Antagony wrap her mandibles around the newly birthed robot’s head. She bit down, crushing its head. The rest of its body flayed wildly, not yet realising that its head had been destroyed.
Antagony returned to robot mode and fired her weapon pointblank at the dying mess, reducing it to ash. “What a mess,” she commented.

Shokaract grabbed Wildride’s head and forced it to face him. “This is not the time or place,” he growled angrily.

Mach Alert sat on the ledge of the canyon, his legs dangling over. Like the rest of the population, he had no clue what was going on underground. But the nagging in his head told him to stop being so naive. He looked again at the alpha scanner, as if to double-check. Wildride’s brain was definitely inside his head. He had acted against protocol and allowed himself to come into contact with Shokaract without taking the necessary precautions.

But why? Mach Alert asked himself. Wildride’s not stupid.

Mach Alert wasn’t ready to believe that his brother could betray the Autobots. They were all created together, him, Wildride and Speedbreaker. He wouldn’t betray them. Would he?

Mach Alert massaged his temple and shook his head, hoping to shake away his feelings of paranoia. He needed to find out what was happening to Wildride. Cybertron needed to find out.

Wildride sat on the floor next to Shokaract. Coolant escaped from small ports on his forehead and ran down his face. He had never felt so tired or vulnerable.

“I never expected you to be so fertile,” Shokaract commented. “Of all the Neogens I’ve known--”

“I am not a Neogen!” Wildride snarled.

“Isn’t that what Fire Convoy used to say?”

“How did you know that?”

“Your mind belongs to me now. I know everything about you.”

Wildride wanted so desperately to fight back. “That’s not really very fair is it? I know nothing about you.”

Antagony kicked Wildride in the small of his back. “He’s here to take over the planet,” she snarled.

“Come now,” Shokaract said. “If Wildride is to fully embrace who he is, and become one of us, then we can at least share some of our secrets.”

Cataclysm called from his position in the cockpit. “Some planet gets cyberformed and our species gets planted there by you Autobots; we evolve, we grow, we war. Our leader, Megatron, makes a plan to travel back in time to Earth and kill Optimus Prime. We don’t think that’s such a good idea, so we break away and travel back in time to Cybertron--”

“Enough!” Shokaract shouted. “I said only some of our secrets.”

Wildride shrugged and then stood up. “We’re approaching Polyhex,” he said. “I’d better take over the driving.”

“Grimlock he—”

Mach Alert cut the transmission. For a fleeting moment, he wanted to tell Grimlock what he’d discovered so far, but that wouldn’t be fair on Wildride. Mach Alert wanted to give his brother a chance, to not jump to conclusions, and to hear his side of the story.

Mach Alert transformed into vehicle mode and headed for Polyhex.

“You didn’t give us much notice,” remarked the guard as Wildride entered the building, “but we’ve done the best we can.”

“Well done,” replied Wildride curtly. “The cell is on the ground floor level as instructed?”

“Yessir.”

“Good. Now get you and your weak-willed cerebro shell out of here before I fetch the prisoners.”

Shokaract paced around his new prison cell with his arms thrown upwards. “More spacious than the last one,” he chuckled.

“Well I am glad you like it,” Wildride said. He turned around and made for the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Shokaract asked.

“This is the plan, right? I leave you here for a while and then we transfer you again.”

“No, no, no. We’re past that stage of the plan now.”

“What do you mean?”

Shokaract gestured to his Heralds, who had transformed to beast mode. Antagony sunk her mandibles into the floor and tore into it, lifting slab after slab of metal. Cataclysm leapt into the shallow hole and started digging with his paws, his claws shredding the metal below. Within seconds they had already dug a tunnel some metres down.

“Those disused utility ducts of yours down there provide the perfect environment for us,” Shokaract smiled.

“For what?”

Shokaract pushed Wildride to the rim of the tunnel opening. The Autobot looked down into total darkness. He could faintly hear the two Predacons scurrying around, their claws and teeth scraping against the metal walls of the underground tunnels. Shokaract pushed again, but Wildride resisted.

“They’re waiting for you,” Shokaract hissed perversely.

“W-what for?”

“You’re one of us now!”

Polyhex was largely uninhabited since the Decepticons left Cybertron. Those Autobots that lived there before the war were either dead now or too traumatised to return. Mach Alert was too young to truly appreciate the horrors of war. He always took it personally, the way the other Autobots shook their heads and rolled their optics at his inexperience. But the truth was that they eyed him with envy, that he hadn’t lived through the atrocities. And because they were Autobots, they didn’t begrudge him. They were glad that all they had fought for meant that Mach Alert could enjoy the freedom they had earned him.

Mach Alert’s responsibility, and for those like him, was to make sure history was never repeated and that freedom on Cybertron was upheld.

As he approached what used to be known as Darkmount, he could make out the entrance to the security installation. Wildride was standing in its doors, the glow from the lights inside outlining his form with an icy hue.

Mach Alert transformed into robot mode at the entrance.

Wildride strode towards him. “Hey, Mach,” he said.

“Uh, hey,” Mach Alert replied. “How did the transfer go?”

“Without a hitch,” Wildride said.

“Well let’s hope this place is secure enough for them,” Mach Alert joked.

“Heh,” Wildride grunted.

Something felt wrong to Mach Alert. His brother was a bully. Of the three of them, he had the strongest opinion, the loudest voice, and the harshest manner. But today felt different. There were no put-downs or personal comments or threatening gestures.

This was not the Wildride that forced Sideburn to kill.

“Want me to come with you?” Mach Alert asked.

“Where?”

“To get your brain,” Mach Alert said. “It can’t be good for you being separated from it for such extended periods.” He paused before adding further comment. “It could explain why you don’t seem yourself.”

“Do you think I am not acting normally?” Wildride asked.

“You seem... different.”

“I’m tired, that’s all.”

“Well okay then,” Mach Alert said. “I’m just concerned, that’s all.”

“Don’t be. I don’t need it.”

“Suit yourself.”

Wildride transformed into vehicle mode and sped off home to Iacon, leaving Mach Alert standing in a cloud of energon fumes. The Autobot turned to the entrance of the building and walked inside.

Wildride arrived in Iacon, sure that his decision was the right choice.

“Can I help you, sir?” a guard asked Mach Alert.

“Why yes, yes you can,” Mach Alert replied kindly. “Can you give me the locations of where Shokaract had previously been incarcerated?”

“Sure. Just give me a sec and I’ll punch up the details.”

Wildride stood at the perimeter of Praxus Square and wondered why he hated Neogens.

He recalled a conversation with Fire Convoy; he was a Neogen, but he hid it behind a suit of armour. He was taught to hate Neogens, to hate himself. They were impure, devoid of the primal lineage. They had no right to Cybertron, to share the same space as true Transformers. Star Saber had the right idea, to ship them away, out of sight. But why did he leave some behind? Was it a cruel twist, a cheap game to see how they’d integrate themselves into society?

Wildride walked up to Ultra Magnus’s statue, gazing up at his bulky form. Compared to him, Neogens were frail and weak. Fire Convoy had covered it all up with armour. And so did Wildride. And Speedbreaker and Mach Alert. It was a personal closet they were each too scared to come out of.

As the thoughts and bitterness flowed through his mind, Wildride came to realise that it wasn’t Neogens he should be hating. He was one! How could he hate himself? With others like him around, it was time for Wildride to finally accept himself for what he was, to confront the others, to confront the Autobots.

No, it wasn’t the Neogens he hated after all, it was the Autobots.

Mach Alert arrived in Kalis as night fell. He remembered Ultra Magnus’s stories of how the dead walked here, or so they thought at the time. There was always a logical explanation to events that don’t make sense. Mach Alert hoped that if he began at the beginning, he would make sense of Wildride’s actions.

The first site of Shokaract’s imprisonment was ahead. It was an old factory of some kind, empty now of course. Power had been cut to this sector. It was derelict. Mach Alert felt alone, but he had promised to give his brother a fair chance before he told anyone else.

He entered the building and switched his vision to infra-red mode. His view was noisy, the infra-red energy desperately reaching out for objects to reflect on. His footsteps echoed along the corridors as he made his way deeper into the facility. One by one he peered into the empty cells; each one empty save for the smell of burnt energon and ansidoc discharge. The last cell—the one occupied by the three Predacons—lay at the end of the corridor. The door was open, teasing Mach Alert to swallow his fears and enter.

Mach Alert composed himself, and stepped into the cell. His imagination was firing on all cylinders. He expected the door to clang shut behind him, locking him in. He expected to find a corpse hanging from the ceiling. He stopped and activated his vocaliser. “Hello?” he asked the darkness, expecting the imaginary corpse to reply.

The word echoed out into the cell. Mach Alert heard a slight scurrying noise by his foot. Something small was crawling around in the darkness. He tuned his audio receptors and followed the sound to a hole in the ground.

Mach Alert knelt by the rim of the hole. He paused for a moment. Gathering his wits, he reached with one arm into the hole. He didn’t expect it to be particularly deep. It looked obvious that the Predacons had tried to dig their way out.

Of course! The Predacons had tried to dig their way out and Wildride, his brother, realised and had them transferred, maintaining the security of Cybertron.

But Mach Alert’s hand could not find a bottom to the hole, and his optimistic theory was reduced to a faithful hope. He stopped. He could hear the scurrying noise again. There was an echo to the sound this time, as if it was coming from a large tunnel.

Mach Alert reached in with his other arm, throwing all sense away in his search for the truth. Before he knew it, he was crawling into the tunnel, squeezing his body down underneath the cell. The scurrying he could hear became louder. It sounded like there were hundreds of the things crawling around down here.

The tunnel began to widen. He kept crawling until the tunnel became so wide it couldn’t support him. Mach Alert fell out of the tunnel and into a pool of water. He quickly got himself to his feet. He looked up at the mouth of the tunnel wondering if he could jump back into again. He looked around. The scurrying noise had gone. He could make out a letter “A” etched into the wall and he realised he was in a utility duct, part of the underground network used by the Autobot Resistance during the war.

Mach Alert had two choices. He could either follow the flow of water or try and jump up back into the tunnel and head home. His responsibility to the Autobots made his decision for him.

Wildride tapped at the communicator built into his forearm. Mach Alert wasn’t responding. He needed to find his brother, to share with him all he had learnt, that they didn’t have to live life hiding their true selves from the Autobots. Wildride had found a new family, and knew it was only right that Mach Alert joined them.

He traced his finger over the still-healing birthing scar on his abdomen, excited that Mach Alert would soon be joining them.

The smell was overwhelming, like nothing experienced on Cybertron before. Mach Alert was tempted to deactivate his olfactory sensors. The ripe stench reminded him of his time on Earth.

As he made his way through the waterlogged tunnel, he could hear noises again. This time it wasn’t just a simple scurrying noise from one creature. It was a cacophony. He couldn’t pinpoint any individual source of the noise. It sounded as though there was a crowd ahead. He kept his pace, and the smells became stronger and the noises became louder.

Mach Alert changed the settings of his lifesign scanners to start reading organic life. As he continued to march forwards, a strange and unnatural confidence stirring within him--his curiosity getting the better of him, he saw an opening ahead where the tunnel he was in met three others. The sounds became louder. He could begin to make out shapes of the creatures, organic as he had deduced. As they came into his view, and he into theirs, it dawned on him that it wasn’t the noise of a crowd, but of a herd.

A check of his databases on Earth confirmed what he saw in front of him: a zoo. There were tens of hundreds of animals here, each different, each hidden underground. Mach Alert struggled to put what he saw into context. He couldn’t compute the missing variable that linked Shokaract’s continual relocation to the existence of herds of Earth animals living underground.

Before the realisation hit him, a lone grey wolf stepped forward from the pack and growled at Mach Alert. The Autobot thought back to Earth when he dealt with Megatron’s pet Bruticus. Mach Alert held a hand out. “I don’t mean you any harm,” he said.

The wolf turned away as if to return, and Mach Alert lowered his guard. The wolf turned back, leapt forwards, transformed into a blue and grey robot and wrapped his hands around Mach Alert’s neck.

Mach Alert lay on his back, trying to push himself away from his attacker. His hands plunged into the viscous matter that he had become submerged in. The blue and grey robot crawled on top him, spitting oil from its mouth. With blank optics it began chanting as it grabbed Mach Alert’s shoulders.

The robot lifted Mach Alert’s shoulders up towards him and threw them to the ground. The back of Mach Alert’s helmet cracked with the impact. “Reject knowledge,” the robot chanted.

“Eliminate imagination,” it said, repeating its movements.

Mach Alert’s optic shields cracked from the third impact. “Uniformity is essential.”

With the fourth impact, several of the animals started to surround him. “Free thought is the enemy of progress.”

The robot gripped harder as it threw Mach Alert down again. Its chanting grew louder. “Free thought is the enemy of progress.”

“Repetition equals education.” Mach Alert twisted his head away as he was thrown down for a sixth time.

Several of the creatures transformed to robot mode, joining in the chant. “Rigidity strengthens the mind.”

The continuing blows began to disrupt Mach Alert’s systems. White noise filtered through and filled the periphery of his vision. “Automation equals enlightenment,” the robots continued.

Mach Alert could feel the robot kneeling on his shoulders, gripping harder on his head. As he pulled up on his head for a ninth time, Mach Alert could feel the struts in his neck buckle. “Reject ambition.”

The robot pushed its thumbs into Mach Alert’s mouth, driving his head down harder into the ground. Mach Alert tried to speak, to reason. “Reject culture,” his attacker sang.

Mach Alert wasn’t sure if he could survive another blow. The blue robot pushed its face up against Mach Alert’s and spat across his face. “There is nothing else.”

The blue robot paused suddenly. He loosened his grip on Mach Alert, allowing the Autobot to scrabble backwards and away. The robot lunged forwards again, opening out his hands. Mach Alert realised the process was about to start again.

Desperately searching for the words, Mach Alert held up his hand. “Reject knowledge!” he screamed out.

The blue robot closed its hands into fists.

“Uh, Eliminate imagination!” Mach Alert shouted.

The robot relaxed its arms and let them hang by its waist as it stood up. It cocked its head to the left, waiting for the next line. Mach Alert stood also. Taking a moment to get his bearings, the Autobot focused on the way in. The blue robot moved towards Mach Alert, growing impatient. “Automation equals enlightenment!” he cried.

Realising he was out of sequence, Mach Alert second-guessed the robot’s movements and ducked. The robot threw itself at the Autobot, but was too slow. Mach Alert side-stepped out of the way. He pushed through two more robots and dashed back into the tunnel.

The group of robots reverted back to beast mode and gave chase.

Slipping on the wet surface of the tunnel, Mach Alert ran for his life, back to the tunnel-mouth that brought him down here. He could hear multiple footsteps behind him. He reached his planned escape route in a matter of seconds.

But the animals were too quick.

Claws and hands grabbed at his ankles as he tried to haul himself up into the tunnel. The sheer number of arms begging for him to join them was overwhelming and Mach Alert could feel himself sinking back down. He began swinging his legs, kicking at the herd, but it was no use.

Mach Alert felt a hand suddenly grab his shoulder from above. He looked up into the darkness but could see nothing. The hand gripped tightly and pulled Mach Alert up, away from the clutches of the animals below. Trusting the force that pulled him free, Mach Alert relaxed his exhausted body, allowing his knees to scrape against the rough surface of the tunnel.

Back in familiar, dry surroundings, Mach Alert recognised that he was back in the cell. He looked forwards to see who had saved him, readjusting his optical sensors. “No!” he cried, “not you!”

Mach Alert pushed Wildride aside and sprinted out of the cell, along the corridors and back out into the open. He transformed and shot out of Kalis like a bullet from a gun.

As he sped across the void between Kalis and Iacon, Mach Alert’s mind was reeling. He couldn’t begin to comprehend the implications that the secret underground army. In the far distance, he could see the ambient glow of Iacon’s lights echo into the night air. He checked his internal systems and found a fuel leak in his internal reserve. He could either stop and transform and patch up the leak or keep pushing on home. His scanners showed Wildride closing in on his position.

Mach Alert chose to keep running.

Behind him, Wildride fired a concussion missile. Seconds later a small explosion erupted to Mach Alert’s left causing him to veer off to the side. Mach Alert decided to change his plan and he sped off to the east towards the Sonic Canyons.

Wildride wasn’t giving up. He fired two more shots at his brother, both purposefully missing.

Ahead, the amber glow emanated from the Sonic Canyons. Mach Alert made a quick calculation, making sure he had enough energon left to clear the first crevice. He knew Wildride would be too heavy to follow. The edge of the ridge closed in, and Mach Alert accelerated.

Mach Alert launched himself over the side of the ridge and made a prayer to Primus. Behind him, Wildride slowed to a stop to watch. Mach Alert soared through the night air, the underside of his vehicle mode bathed in orange light. He turned off his engines and transformed in mid-air, preparing himself for landing.

But he didn’t make it to the other side.

Mach Alert slammed into the side of the ridge, just a few metres from the top. He dug his fingers into the surface and gripped hard. He strained his neck to the side and peered down over his shoulder. Below his dangling legs, he could see the bottom of the crevice. It was a very long way down. He lifted his hips and scrabbled his legs, trying to find footing. He glanced behind him to the other side of the ravine. His brother was nowhere to be seen.

Mach Alert began the arduous climb to the top, pushing his tired fingers into the hard metal and pulling himself up. He was burning energon at an accelerated rate and knew full well that he didn’t have enough to get home. But he tried anyway. He had to get word to Grimlock.

He looked up at the top edge of the precipice, overhanging over the ridge. It looked as though it were rusting, from the warm glow. Mach Alert paused for a moment. He needed to rest. He looked down and then up again, focusing on the field of stars that had been sown into the sky. He refocused his optics again, noticing a figure standing over the edge, waiting for him.

“You’re hanging by a thread,” Wildride snidely called down. “And I’m holding the rope.”

“I’d rather let go and fall to my death than come any where near you,” Mach Alert shouted up at his brother.

Wildride knelt down at the edge of the ridge. “Oh, why is that?” he asked rhetorically.

“You’ve betrayed us,” Mach Alert said. “I’ve seen what you’ve done.”

“I’ve only done what comes natural to us,” Wildride explained.

“Protecting Cybertron is what comes natural to an Autobot!”

“I’m not talking about being an Autobot. I’m talking about being a Ne—”

“Don’t say that word!” Mach Alert begged.

“I can say what I damn well want,” Wildride snarled. “And if I shout it loud enough into the canyon, the whole planet will hear.”

“No!”

“Yes!”

Mach Alert shut his optics and pushed his fingers deeper into the surfacing, stopping them from slipping out. “What’s happened to you? We trusted you. And you’ve abused that trust by ferrying those Predacons around the whole planet, letting them replicate and create their underground army.”

“Aw,” said Wildride, “you make it sound so bad.”

“It is bad. How many of them are there? A hundred? A thousand?”

Wildride laughed. “Try adding a few more zeros. They’re all down there waiting for the command. Waiting to destroy the Autobots.”

“And you’ve joined them,” Mach Alert said, “is that right?”

“Damn straight!” Wildride laughed. “And you’re joining us, too.”

“You’ve gone mad. I’m getting out of here and telling Grimlock.”

“You’re new best friend, eh? Tell me, Mach, will he still be your friend when he finds out the truth about you?”

“He wouldn’t care either way.”

“Now I know you don’t believe that, otherwise you would have told him already. You would have told them all. Face it, you’re ashamed.”

Mach Alert looked deeply into the surface of the canyon. In its mottled surface, he could make out a blurred reflection of himself. “I used to be. Before.”

“Before what?”

“Before I witnessed Fire Convoy’s great deeds on Earth.”

“Pah!”

“His time is over, as is the Autobots’. It’s Shokaract’s time now.”

“I will die before I join his side.”

“Come with me now. I can show you a place where you can truly be yourself. I can show you to love yourself.”

“Love?” Mach Alert spat. “That’s not you talking. He’s brainwashed you.”

“It was Star Saber who had been doing the brainwashing, pushing his neophobic ideals onto us. I tell you, Mach Alert, he may be dead, but even out here you can still hear his echo.”

Mach Alert kept silent, not knowing what to say. He wanted so much to be able to trust his brother again, to believe his words as the truth, to give in to the promise that he could find a place where he could truly be himself. But no, he still had a responsibility.

Mach Alert released his grip and let himself fall.

Mach Alert awoke to the sound of humming machinery and a burning pain in his abdomen. As the red clouds of pain faded from view, he realised he was restrained. Crude metal clamps were pushing his wrists and ankles to the floor. He called out but no one answered. He didn’t dare wonder where he was.

He tried to rotate his neck to the side, but his throat had also been clamped down. He could only look up. He called out again, but still nothing.

Something brushed past his arm and he could suddenly hear that familiar scurrying sound again. He knew where he was. The scurrying disappeared and he could hear footsteps, getting louder with each step, and a familiar face came into view.

“Wildride?’ Mach Alert asked. “Where have you taken me?”

If Mach Alert was able to sit up and see for himself he would know that he lay inside a medical facility, housed deep within one of the underground cities built underneath the surface of Cybertron by Shokaract’s secret army.

Wildride pointed at Mach Alert’s face and then down at his abdomen and began chanting: “Reject knowledge... Eliminate imagination... Uniformity is essential... Free thought is the enemy of progress..."