Transformers: All Spark

Chapter Seven: Defectors and Dreamers


The convoy lead by Hot Shot arrived swiftly at the main repair garage at the center of Velocitron’s only real city. Hot Shot transformed to his robot mode and began to clear a path through a group of civilian bots who had heard rumors of an “accident” in the restricted region of Seta Alpha Five.

“Stand aside, everyone!” Hot Shot ordered the crowd, “Clear a path! Towline! Get them inside and into Cryo Regeneration Chambers quickly!”

Towline pushed through the multitude best he could without hurting anyone, entering the medical garage with Hot Shot close on the bumper. Blurr remained outside, closing the doors and standing in front of them like a nightclub bouncer to keep the curious populace at bay.

“Move along, people!” Blurr commanded, “This isn’t a variety show! Show some respect, and go about your own business!”

When the throng finally dissipated, Blurr looked out to see Freeride coming up at last over the horizon in her vehicle mode. She came to a stop just a couple of feet in front of Blurr, but she did not transform.

“Anything follow, Freeride?” the mech asked.

“No,” the femme answered flatly.

Blurr nodded; “Good lookin’ out,” he complimented as he opened the medical doors for Freeride to go in, “Hot Shot’s waiting for you inside.”

Freeride gave no acknowledgement as she drove through and headed straight for Hot Shot upon which point she finally transformed to robot mode. Her posture was cold and silent as she stood there with her arms crossed over her chest plate, waiting for her father to speak.

“How’re the roads, Freeride?” Hot Shot asked after a moment. His voice was calm as he turned to face his Sparkling.

“Clear,” Freeride answered at a low but hearable octave, “Whatever was out there obviously has no desire to roam too far from the ravine. I did a quick scout just to make sure.”

“Good work,” Hot Shot nodded, “and once we complete our search for Blade Stryke, I’ll have Blurr activate the restriction barrier he’s been working on. That’ll ensure there won’t be a repeat of this incident as well as keeping the creatures bound there.” He then put his hand on Freeride’s shoulder much to the femme’s surprise, “You’ve done me proud, Freeride. You put aside your own well-being to help your brother and friends. I won’t soon forget that.”

Those words caused Freeride to look up into her father’s optics. I made him proud? she echoed in her mind. For a brief instant, the femme wondered if her decision to defect was what she really wanted as Lockdown’s offer suddenly sounded ridiculous. However, the moment passed quickly as a different thought took up residence in Freeride’s mind. No, she thought bitterly, he doesn’t care what I do. His concern is only for Hotstreak, and he said that merely to ease the pain of the possibility of losing him. Of that she fully convinced herself, but she managed a small, shy smile, pretending to believe Hot Shot’s words.

“Thanks,” she whispered faintly.

Hot Shot nodded once at her then proceeded to fill her in on the current situations; “Siren’s going to make a full recovery,” he reported, “Her Stasis Lock was nothing more than a defensive reflex from the shock of being hit so hard. She was out of the CR in less than five cycles and has since been moved to resting quarters to recharge.”

“What about my brother?” Freeride asked with false concern.

“It’s…” Hot Shot hesitated, “…it’s too early to tell, kid. He’s in Deep Stasis, and the CR probably won’t do much good other than keep him online for a little longer. Kyle has opted to build Hotstreak a new body, saying his old one can’t be repaired quick enough to sustain his life Spark. They tried to rescan a new vehicle mode for him, but since he’s missing too many parts, that was impossible. Even salvaging what bits and pieces of his arm and leg wasn’t enough for the program to repair him properly. Kyle and Max have been working on the new body for the last ten cycles, and it may take two or three solar cycles to complete. Monica and Zak have come to help as well.”

Freeride nodded; “I’m going to check on Siren, then,” she said.

“Sure, sure, Freeride. Um, Blurr’s setting up a search team to go look for Blade Stryke, if you and Siren wish to help out.”

“I’ll run it by her.”

Freeride said no more as she turned away from Hot Shot and headed for the chamber that Siren had been transferred to after her time in CR. The smaller femme was awake and sitting up on the lift she had been lain on with a power cord attached from a generator to Siren’s chest plate above her Spark chamber.

“Hey,” Freeride addressed from the entrance, “how’re you feeling?”

Siren never turned to face her friend; “I’m not in the mood for a pep-talk, Freeride,” she said stiffly, “Go away, and leave me alone.”

Freeride did no such thing as she walked in and sat next to Siren; “Still mad at ‘Streak, huh?” she asked.

“How’d you guess?” Siren snapped sarcastically, “Thanks to that sarian, Blade’s probably been terminated by those freaks in the ravine! I will never forgive him for that! I don’t care if he’s your stupid brother!”

“I wasn’t going to ask you to. Actually, I thought it’d be fair to tell you that Hotstreak probably won’t be reprimanded for his actions today…that his blatant disregard for his and Blade’s safety has been pretty much overlooked by my father.”

“What?! Why? How can Hot Shot just brush this off his shoulder?”

“He thinks the little beating he got out there was enough punishment, and—”

“No! I won’t let him get away with this! He’s caused me to lose the closest thing I had to a sister, and I won’t rest until I see him suffer for it—even if I have to rip his Spark out myself!”

“Whoa, easy, Siren!” Freeride hushed the small femme, “Now’s not the time for that, but your chance will come sooner than you think.”

Siren gave Freeride a strange look; “What are you talking about?” she asked.

Freeride then explained her encounter with the Decepticon Lockdown and his offer of resources to find Blade Stryke and to really show their “friends” what they were made of. Siren clung to every word, becoming more interested by the nano cycle.

“Should Hotstreak actually survive his encounter with the monsters of the wasteland,” Freeride concluded, “he’ll have his servos full when we take him down for all the wrongs he’s done. What do you think?”

“I’m in!” Siren declared without hesitation.

“Good. Blurr’s leading a search team out to Seta Alpha Five in just a few cycles. We can use that as a cover for our leave. Let’s go.”

Siren disconnected herself from the recharge center and followed Freeride out of the medical garage to rendezvous with Blurr and his already massive team of search and rescue volunteers.

“Wait for us!” Freeride called out, “Siren and I are coming, too.”

“Good to have you with us,” Blurr acknowledged, “it’ll make the search easier. All right, team! Transform, and roll out!”

All the bots in the team went to vehicle mode and took off towards Seta Alpha Five. Freeride and Siren stayed close to the back of the group, waiting and contemplated their chance to break away and head for their new lives as Decepticons…

***

~Three Days Later~

The next couple of days were harder than anyone could have imagined. Today was supposed to be the start of the Velocitron Grand Prix, but with four of the top five contenders out of commission—Hotstreak: mortally damaged, Blade Stryke: missing in action, and Freeride and Siren were officially absent without leave—Hot Shot could not allow the race to even take place. He had only just heard that Freeride and Siren had taken off somewhere, but he figured they just needed to blow off some steam. Even though they had not checked in for almost half a solar cycle, he never felt a dire need to seek them out. They just lost a friend. Why accuse them otherwise? As for Hotstreak, a part of Hot Shot felt like it was his own spark on the line as he watched Kyle Hansen and his family try to repair the damages to his son. Well, in a way, it kind of was…after all, Hotstreak’s spark was literally half of Hot Shot’s. He heard the whispers amongst them. They said such things as the body was irreparable and spoke of a possible spark transfer. When Hot Shot finally asked about Hotstreak’s progress, Monica Hansen, Kyle’s wife, told him that a transfer was indeed necessary. Hot Shot informed the humans that there were not exactly spare bodies laying around the planet as such a thing is created when a spark comes online. I left no room for the suggestion of using a “dead” body as its ability to hold a spark after being dormant just for so many weeks would be non-existent. The notion of a transfer was beyond Hot Shot’s reasoning, since it was unheard of for a Spark to just switch bodies. Needless to say, Hot Shot was surprised beyond capacity when Kyle and Max explained to that they had been working closely with Towline to build a new body for Hotstreak. With the collaboration of Earthly and Cybertronian technologies, this motley crew of mechanics actually managed to build a compatible form to relocate Hotstreak’s spark. There were risks, of course, one being that since this was an artificial transfusion and not a protoform choosing its alternate mode, there was a slim chance that the transfer would not take. They assured Hot Shot, however, that it was no immediate danger; it helped that Kyle and his family had studied Transformer anatomy nearly all their lives. That was mostly thanks to the close involvement Kyle’s parents Coby and Lori Hansen and his Uncle Bud had with the Transformers during their time on Earth and in space searching for the Cyber Planet Keys. Hot was overjoyed that they found such a way to save Hotstreak, but he would have been a fool to think it was a good idea to celebrate so early in the procedure. So he did not. If that was not stress enough, he had also received word from Jetfire on Cybertron that he was on his way to Velocitron via Space Bridge with Crosswise and Scavenger to get Hot Shot and go after their endangered explorers. Bad timing. Hot Shot still needed a stand-in to lead Velocitron while he was away. This knowledge kept him out of the medical garage while the others tried to revive his son, but he tried to periodically. It was a three solar cycle procedure, and on this last day, he was not prepared for what was about to happen.

The prototype that had been built as Hotstreak’s new body was poised in the center of the garage, a tall, deep red robot with golden orange flames scrawled upon the armor. It was an impressive sculpture of many different metal alloys, but basically without any obvious features. Towline said Hotstreak’s Spark would shape and form the face and other features as his personality would see fit, just like a protoform would at its creation. Hot Shot stood off away from those working on Hotstreak’s new body, looking at his oldest Sparkling in the Cryogen unit.

“I can only hope to Primus,” he whispered to himself, “that Hotstreak pulls through.”

Max, who had been up on the prototype’s shoulder unit heard the mech speak, but she made no response. She sighed in understanding then went about her work. Before long, her own voice echoed through the room.

“Okay,” she said, “I’m almost finished connecting all the wires and tightening all the bolts and greasing all the gears up here. Where’s everyone else standing?”

“Joints in the knees, feet, and hips are done,” Kyle reported confidently, “and Towline’s just finished coating the Spark chamber; it’s ready to install.”

“Hotstreak’s still stable,” said the brunette woman—Monica Hansen—at the computer consol, “but I keep getting odd blips from his core consciousness. It could be nothing more than the equivalent to a human in the state of REM, but I know for sure that if we don’t get his spark into the new body soon, it will extinguish within the hour.”

“I’m not hopeful of his chances,” Towline sighed, “In all my life cycle, I’ve seen bots terminate from wounds less devastating than this.”

“We worked to hard to start doubting now,” Monica reminded him, “Clocker?”

“Well,” Clocker responded, “with a few more tweaks, Zak and I will have the transformation cog in place in just a few cycles.”

“Zak and I?” a young male voice echoed with annoyance from somewhere within the prototype’s structure, “All you’re doing is holding the spotlight, Clocker! I’m the one doing all the work!”

“We all have our own parts to play,” Clocker answered smugly, “My part happens to be holding the light. If that’s not good enough, I’ll take my light elsewhere.”

With a teasing chuckle, Clocker turned the bright light he was carrying off, and almost instantly everyone could hear the sound of metal crashing and the unmistakable thud of a heavy tool hitting the top of a human head.

“Ow!!” Zak cried out, “Son of a—!”

Clocker started laughing with amusement; “See?” he said, “I’m working just as much as you are, Z—hey! Ouch!”

A wrench came flying out from wherever Zak was lodged and nailed Clocker right between the optics! The young man popped his head out of his crevice to get a better view of his target.

“Paybacks suck, don’t they!” the human called out, laughing in his own twisted pleasure.

The room was completely filled with laughter now, as Zak and Clocker exchanged many more words before someone finally stopped them.

“As entertaining as all this is,” Monica said, “we’ve still got a lot of work to do. If you two would be so kind as to put the games and squabbles to bed, we can avoid destroying Hotstreak’s new body before there’s a chance for him to use it, okay? No need to waste our time now.”

“But—!” Zak and Clocker protested at the same time.

“I said put it to bed!” Monica pushed back harder, showing she meant business.

“Yes, ma’am,” the two agreed quickly.

Clocker turned the light back on, and Zak crawled back into the prototype and resumed working.

Monica Hansen was the forty-two-year-old wife of Kyle and mother of three children: Max and Zak—the twins—and Danny—the youngest, who was still on Earth with his grandparents. Monica had long, stringy brown-red hair that reached to the center of her back and hazel eyes. She was lean with a height of right under six feet and no trace of wrinkles or graying hair. Like her husband Kyle, Monica was a computer and robotics genius, but unlike him, she had not spent her entire life around the Transformers. Originally, Monica had gone to school to learn how to design and build animatronics for movie props and theme parks, and it was not until after her marriage—when Kyle took her to Autobot City on Earth—that she even knew the existence of this race of robots. Since then, she dedicated herself to studying Transformer anatomy and structure with the hope of learning new ways to help humanity with the technology.

Zackary “Zak” Hansen was Max’s fraternal twin brother, younger by about five minutes. He had short, spiked brown hair and hazel eyes, looking more like his mother where Max looked more like their father. He was exactly six feet tall with an athletic build. He never cared much for computers, but thanks to his grandfather Coby, Zak was able to hone his mechanical skills beyond what he could have learned in any school. This as one might guess gave him quite the advantage in the courses he did take. The bickering between him and Clocker was common as each one of them thought himself wittier than the other, and it was always a competition to out-wit each other—a competition that never gets finished before Monica has something to say to end it.

After another ten minutes, Zak climbed out of the prototype completely. He was covered from head to toe in grease and oil from being wedged between gears and wires just to place the transformation cog perfectly in its place. There was a loose wire hanging to the side of Zak, which he grabbed a hold of and rappelled down and off the prototype.

“Cog’s in place,” he said, snatching a towel off the table to clean his face off, “Let’s give this thing a whirl.”

“Okay,” Kyle agreed, “Max, come on down so I can get this going. With any luck, we got all the creases right the first time, and it’ll bend, split, and rotate properly when we transform it.”

Max tweaked one last wire before she took her own cable off the prototype. Towline then pressed a button on his computer consol which caused the wires that kept the prototype in place to pop off allowing free movement.

“Keep your fingers crossed,” Kyle said as his finger hovered over a red switch on a little remote control he carried, “three…two…one…transform!”

Everyone held their breath as the prototype complied with the commanded transformation. It was slower than a true transformation so that the human mechanics could detect any defects in the model they built. Indeed, they had the fortune of not finding a single mistake as the prototype went from robot to vehicle mode. It was sleek and sporty with a cobalt blue finish.

“Wow!” Clocker exclaimed in awe, “What is that?”

At this point, Hot Shot walked over to the finished project, smiling for the first time in a long time; “That, Clocker,” he said proudly, “is a high-running sports car known to the humans as a Subaru WRX, an older model, but no less coveted by collectors if I’m not mistaken.”

“Don’t look at me,” Kyle said with a playful sneer, “Max and her brothers picked this form. I would have picked something with a little more armor.”

“Dad!” Max chuckled, “You wanted to turn him into a 1960’s hippie van!”

“Yeah, well,” Kyle defended folding his arms over his chest childishly, “it had Hendrix on it.”

“Hendrix was like a hundred years before our time,” Zak spoke up, “and the van would have looked lame amongst the racers on Velocitron. The Subaru suited his structure much better, anyway.”

“I’m going to have to agree with the kids,” Hot Shot said.

Kyle shook his head and waved them all off; “No one respects the classics anymore,” he said with faked grief then turned to his wife, “Okay, Monica. We can try the transfer now.”

He controlled the prototype once more and put it back into robot mode for the transfer. Towline reconnected the stabilizing cords as well as a tube-like valve which he attached from the prototype’s chest cavity to Hotstreak’s Spark chamber. He nodded to Monica, giving her the “go ahead” for the first transfer attempt. The human woman then flipped a few switches on her control panel then hovered over a medium sized green button.

“Initializing Spark Transfer…now!” she declared as she pressed the button, “It’s a go!”

For a moment, everyone was excited and proud of their accomplishment. However, just five minutes into the procedure, the alarms went off! A red strobe drowned out all other light in the garage and dangerous electrical feedback flowed through the wires between the CR chamber and the prototype.

“What’s going on?” Hot Shot demanded, “What’s wrong?”

“I—I don’t know!” Monica stammered as she struggled to shut the alarms off, “The neurological anomalies are erupting everywhere in his core consciousness…it’s—it’s like he’s fighting against us…like he doesn’t want to be saved!”

“Impossible!” Hot Shot protested as he began banging on the CR chamber, “Come on, Hotstreak! Pull through, son!”

“Hot Shot!” Monica shouted in alarm, “He’s not responding! You’re not helping by acting this way!”

Hearing the commotion, Blurr ran into the medical garage to see Hot Shot pounding away at the regeneration chamber with Monica shouting at him to stop. Without hesitation, Blurr took his commander under the arm joints and pulled him away and out of the garage.

“Keep him out of here!” Monica ordered, “He’ll do more damage than anything in his current state, and I can’t have him interfering with this process! I have to terminate the transfer now, or else Hotstreak will go offline. We won’t get another chance to save him after that!”

Without waiting for responses or permission, Monica slammed her palm on the cancellation button, effectively silencing all the alarms and stopping the flow of electricity in the wires. Everyone but Monica felt slightly guilt ridden about the failed transfer. The brunette simply brushed the situation off her shoulder and went back to work.

“Okay, everyone,” she said with a calm sigh, “Let’s try again. Reconnect the wires and reset the CR chamber to compensate for the last attempt.”

“I don’t know,” Kyle said, much to everyone’s surprise, “He fought against us. Whatever happened out there in the waste has got him not wanting to come back. We’ve exhausted all our ideas and our skills have hit their limits.”

“No,” Monica shook her head, “He’s still online, which is our first advantage.”

“What’s the second?” Zak asked.

“The anomalies. They were ecstatic and rampaging during the transfer but settled when it was canceled.”

“And that means what, exactly?” Max inquired.

“I don’t know for certain, but my theory of REM can be ruled out. This activity is similar to a human coming out of a coma. Sometimes, comatose people are fighting against death in their dreams, so when they are coming out, they can feel threatened as life and death both fight for them…basically what I’m saying is that maybe—just maybe—if we slow the process a little, we might have a more successful transfer the second time around. Also, if we talk to him, it may distract his core from all things happening out here.”

“Not that I’m doubting the plan, Monica,” Towline said, “but what if this doesn’t work either?”

“Then we’ll move on to the next idea…and we’ll keep going until we can no longer remember what we’ve tried.”

“Maybe we’re just dreaming too big,” Kyle said in sorrowful doubt.

“If it weren’t for big dreamers,” Monica countered, “we wouldn’t be where we are now. Nothing’s impossible, you know. So…you gonna help or what?”

Kyle finally smiled again; “Whatcha want me to do, boss?” he asked.

Monica returned his smile; “Help Towline reattach the wires,” she said, “Everyone else, take shifts and speak to Hotstreak. Let him know we want him back.”

With renewed spirits, everyone went about their new assigned duties.