Chapter Text
This chapter is T-rated for surgery and a whole lotta moral relativism which may not be suitable at any age.
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Ratchet looked from the glowering Seeker to the anxious medical apprentice, and then finally at the frail, formerly bipedal organic mostly hidden in the Seeker's hands.
Primus, had the entire world gone glitched?
The animal was baring its dentae in a bizarre grimace, whilst waving one of the two, multi-digit prehensile appendages that was not impacted by its injury. It vocalized several short, melodic sounds. A threat display of some sort?
"Well, are you going to let me examine it, or just stand there flaring your armor at me?" Ratchet demanded of the Seeker.
"The language protocols really would be helpful..." First Aid suggested again.
"I do not need to incorporate an entire packet of organic bleating in order to conduct an examination. If you are not going to hand over the creature, then you can leave. I’m a busy mech and don’t have time for this."
Thundercracker's dark snarl was interrupted by a priority ping from Ratchet's console.
"Give me a klik," he said, pivoting to face his desk. A quick scan of the priority code -- marked by the gleaming Tower glyph of Iacon -- gave him the origin of the message. Reaching over, he hardlined into the communications server, receiving the official communique and decrypting it.
Ignoring First Aid’s anxious hovering, Ratchet read the message. Then, cycling his optics, read it again.
"Hunh. What a fan-fragging-tastic coincidence," he muttered, turning again to face the motley assemblage in his office, considering all of them a little more carefully.
The Seeker's weaponry hummed, crackling ominously on standby, Thundercracker obviously fighting to keep his threat displays from turning into violent action. Seeker threat-assessment and reaction protocols were highly tuned and volatile: a necessity for a frameclass designed for aerial battles where decisions of life and death were made between one astrosecond and the next. It didn’t make them any less fragging annoying to deal with, however. The organic chirped something at Thundercracker, and the big Seeker looked down, wings relaxing by a fraction. Interesting. Ratchet didn’t think he’d ever seen a Seeker respond to a pet quite like that before. Still, Ratchet wasn’t going to question his good luck, especially if it meant he didn’t have to slap Thundercracker with a medical lockdown and kick him out of his medbay.
"So. That was a priority request from the consortium of city-states, all of whom have trading privileges on your organic’s homeworld. They’re requesting medical personnel.” He vented roughly, showing what he thought of the request. “Because Cybertron has so many to spare, of course."
"Why?" First Aid asked. Ratchet didn't need to do a scan to know that First Aid's processing modules were running hot as the apprentice tried to figure out how to be one of the medics sent. Which, considering how emotionally compromised he already was, would probably be just about the worst idea since the outlawing of Megatron by the Senate, back in the dark times of the Schism.
"That’s classified," Ratchet said shortly, trusting that First Aid knew better than to pry. The report indicated some sort of civil unrest -- native organics, aided by rogue Vosians, had been attacking organic and Cybertronian installations. According to the missive, the Lord High Protector was considering an additional request for military intervention on behalf of both the Cybertronian interests and those of the humans they were aiding. Iacon knew that the medical guild wouldn’t send medics into a warzone without some form of military protection, not at any price. Not if Ratchet had anything to say about it. Even the rawest novice medic, fresh from the Academe, was far too valuable--and vulnerable--to waste. But if Megatron approved the movement of troops....
Ratchet ran one hand over the crest of his helm briefly, his optics narrowing as he considered the human in front of him. "All right--go ahead and transmit the language pack. It seems I do have some questions to ask it after all."
The file was a simple one, a million or so terms at most, many of them having to do with the organics’ biological processes. Useful, that. He recalibrated his vocalizer, checking for proper concordance with the range and tones required by the new language.
The human interrupted the process. “Hi there,” it repeated. “Thundercracker says your designation is Ratchet -- it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Hrmp. Wish I could say the same.” Ratchet waved in the direction of the examination table. “All right--put it down over there, and I’ll get started.”
The Seeker hesitated, then obeyed, settling the human down onto the soft metalmesh surface in a sitting position. The human reached back, planting one hand to steady itself. “We typically prefer gendered pronouns,” the organic offered pleasantly. “Or our names. I’m Chip -- or ::Chip::, if you like.”
Ratchet heaved himself to his pedes. “I’m a medic, not a xenosociologist, creature. I only care about your functioning, since my trainee here--” he shot a narrow-focussed look at First Aid, and had the satisfaction of watching the younger medic duck his helm, “-saw fit to make it my business. But if you insist on chattering on, then you can make yourself useful while I examine you. Tell me about your planet. Are there any metallivores? Naturally-occurring acidic fungi, cybervirii, or other natural hazards?” He glanced to the Seeker. “You--remove those ridiculously flimsy organic coverings. I don’t want my scans contaminated by its surface adornments.” He reached over, triggering a class-one sterilization field-scan to identify and remove harmful surface organisms. “I suppose I should count myself lucky I don’t have to deal with any real organic armor,” he muttered, keeping a secondary optic on the results of the scan, just in case the creature was infested with something.
The creature made an odd series of noises, almost like a tiny engine hiccupping. Ratchet glanced back over, wondering if the human had been startled by the noise of their discussion. His chemoreceptors weren’t picking up any of the usual fear-responses off its hide, however. Just the opposite, in fact; perfectly relaxed, the human was baring its dentae at him again as the hiccup-noises went away.
“Figures. I go halfway across the universe to talk with an alien doctor, and the first thing he tells me to do is take off my clothes.” It snorted, an oddly mechlike sound. “Are you going to tell me to turn my head and cough next?” Despite its words, the human seemed to be inclined to be obedient, pulling its chassis-covering over its head as Ratchet watched. Divesting the rest of its coverings took little time, especially once Thundercracker moved to assist, talons working with surprising delicacy to remove pede- and leg-coverings. Without them, Ratchet noticed, the little human had no armor at all, its soft organic frame covered only by thin keratin and collagen hide. Like being completely covered in unshielded sensory arrays--no wonder the species was having difficulty surviving on its own planet.
Ignoring the human’s bizarre pronouncements for the moment, Ratchet nodded in satisfaction at the creature’s unclad state. “That’s better.”
“Chip’s spinal strut was fractured,” First Aid offered hesitantly.
“Yes, I am well aware,” Ratchet said, leveling a look at the young medic. “I am also aware that you incorporated microspinarette tubules into your hands. You do know that they’ll do you no good, correct? Your current configuration would only pick up bacteria from the human’s own skin and introduce it into protected tissues, killing the creature both slowly and painfully.”
First Aid's armor visibly drooped, and he peered disconsolately at his four hands. Deceptively simple in appearance, shaped like standard manipulating limbs, a medic’s hands were perhaps the height of Cybertronian engineering and transformative capability. Installing unapproved modifications ... Ratchet was not happy with how the young medic had allowed his spark to overrule his cortex. He should have known better than to take such risks. Especially when his assumptions could so easily have proven fatally wrong for the organic he professed to care so much about.
Ratchet huffed a vent. “Go find this localized welder attachment. Incorporate it with your spinnerets; use this configuration for sterilization. Got the file? Then quit standing around! Go!” He waved the young medic towards his racks of spare medical equipment, then hooked his own fingers together and stretched, loosening the primary joints, checking for wear. Unlike newer medical builds, he had just two hands -- fancy-aft hardware, Ratchet had found, wasn’t nearly as important as the ability to fully and judiciously use what you had. After a quick series of checks on the transformation seams, he unfolded the minor joints and shuffled the device order.
The solid plating on both gauntlets, wrists, and every digit fractured, opening up into slivers and rods, transforming, realigning into a dizzying array of tools: fine sensors, articulators, chisels, occluder, nanite spray assemblies, tiny saws, drills, lancets, forceps, hooks, electron pushers, and a hundred different blades, all of them assembling and disassembling in a metal whirr.
Satisfied that everything he might need was in good working order, Ratchet refolded the tools back into their resting states, queuing up the non-invasive diagnostic devices and manipulators he was likely to need. Given the human’s lack of any organic exoskeletal armor, it was unlikely he’d need to open the creature in order to properly scan the damage. Which, if Ratchet was being honest with himself, was somewhat of a relief. He’d never liked attempting to repair organics. Overriding their neurological processes or applying chemical-based sedatives in order to interrupt pain-responses was always a chancy business, and he’d never enjoyed the organic fluids, viscera, or the corresponding cleanup that such operations always entailed.
“Wow,” the human breathed, tiny optics watching avidly. “Like the mother of all Swiss Army knives.”
Ratchet did a lexicon check for the term, then scowled. “I am a medic, not a creator-mech. But even if I were, I would hardly create something so primitive and limited as one of your little hand-tools. Now. This--” Ratchet stabbed a re-transformed digit at the metalmesh, “--is a medical berth. Examinees lay down on it.” He idly counted down the small eternity until the human complied, arranging its limp legs, then laying back. There went another tenth of a klick that he’d never get back. Perhaps he could do some administrative work on tertiary threads. “Good. Now hold still. Does your planet have any predators that could threaten mecha? Any recorded outbreaks of cosmic rust or scraplet infestations?”
“Tell you what, Bones,” the human replied. “I’ll trade you a question for a question. I’ll start with your first one -- strictly speaking, *I’m* a metallivore.” It bared its dentae at Thundercracker, who seemed momentarily uneasy. “But if you mean a primary reducer, rather than an organism that just utilizes free ions and certain chelates, then yes, we have some.”
Thundercracker cycled his optics, his wings twitching. “The species lists indicated none.”
“A few bacteria do it. Desulfovivrio reduces sulphate. Leptospirillum ferrooxidans can oxidize ferrous or manganese ions, if they’re available,” Chip corrected. “And animals suffering from pica may occasionally ingest small inert metal objects.” It held up a hand, fingers spread, to demonstrate the size.
“Hold still. Bacterial rate of action?” Ratchet snapped. Most organic single-celled organisms could not derive nourishment from a Cybertronian’s plating, but if these ones had an extremely aggressive growth pattern....
The human seemed to feel that fell within the purview of Ratchet’s first question. “To my knowledge, they can’t devour more than about three ::millimechanometers:: every twenty-six ::orn::, even in saltwater. Rarely a problem on land-based structures.” Chip eyed the large, studded plate -- Ratchet’s transformed palm -- which the medic passed slowly over its body. “What are you doing?”
"I doubt you would be able to understand," Ratchet said wryly, making a note in the appropriate file to provide any medics sent to the creature's planet with a few extra doses of plateguard. The bacteria were hardly a hazard, but it was always worth taking precautions on soupy, festering mudball worlds.
Chip bared its dentae again. "Try me, doc."
Ratchet snorted, but gamely picked through the language file. “I am applying short bursts of radio-frequency radiation to your mass. This generates a readout of your molecular quantum states, allowing me to construct a complete model of your internal structures.”
“Ah, nuclear magnetic resonance imaging.” The human’s optical ridges pinched together, an oddly worried gesture, and it lifted a hand to touch the metal atmospheric scrubber attached to its face.
“Don’t remove that,” Ratchet snapped. Primus, did the creature think that Ratchet was some kind of a half-coded medical drone? Or a newly-framed medic without the control to keep from magnetizing or heating certain metals? “And quit moving!”
“Oh. How do you supercool the magnets?”
Ratchet narrowed his focus on the human. “No slipping in extra questions. What about cybervirii?”
The human bared its dentae again, apparently a gesture of amusement. “None to my knowledge, though our computer systems did suffer from software viruses -- malicious code attaching to desired programs. Trojans, rootkits, read request intercepts, etcetera. Of course, at this point most of our networks are offline, except for the local ones. Plus the viruses probably weren’t compatible with your systems anyway. How is your NMR assembled?”
Ratchet had finished passing his hand over the organic’s body. It would take a few moments to properly compile and analyze the the wealth of data from his scans … he supposed it wouldn’t hurt anything to indulge Chip’s curiosity. Holding out one forefinger, Ratchet unfolded a general scanner stud about the size of the human’s fist, letting the fine internal substructure petal apart one layer at a time. “Spatial excitation generator, gradient coils, prepolarization modulator, gyromagnetic chipset...” he named all the components large enough for the human to spot, its wet little optics going wider and wider. “...resonance damper, shielding, magnet.”
“God. It’s smaller than a watch battery.” The human shook its head, looked up. “One of the first research NMRs was installed on our campus, over half a ::vorn:: ago. The magnet alone, without power or cooling, weighed as much as you and was so big, they had to leave it outside while they cut a hole in the physics building to lower it in. Maintenance discovered it in the middle of the parking lot in the morning, thought the students had put some kind of giant metal wheel there as a joke. They attached a backhoe to it, tried to drag it away -- ripped up forty feet of paving and took out a lamp post before the physicists got there. Installed it anyway -- worked like a charm.”
Ratchet laughed. “A good thing superconducting magnets are fragging near indestructible.” Reminded him not a little of the pranks which young medics at the academe were known to pull. “You were a student?”
Chip shook its fur-covered helm. “Instructor. Doctoral mathematics and cryptography.”
“Hn.” Ratchet tilted his helm a little, considering. “Prime roots of one thousand four hundred ninety five?”
“Five, thirteen, twenty-three,” the human replied immediately.
Clever, for an organic. Not that a grasp of basic mathematics meant much in the overall scheme of things. “Good to know you deserve your classification. Turn over onto your underchassis. Belly.”
“Classification?” the human asked, setting about the lengthy process of obeying. Chip appeared to still have some control over its hips, but none at all in its... his legs or pedes. Ratchet supposed it wouldn't hurt to use the simple binary gendered personal pronoun the creature preferred when talking in its -- his -- language. Organic languages tended to assign a gender to everything, even non-living objects. Considering how much of an organic's coding was dominated by the drive to procreate, perhaps it made primitive sense. Cybertronian had pronouns for every frame class, function, and rank, not to mention the modifiers the indicated membership in various types of bonded and non-bonded cohorts. It was easy enough for Ratchet to apply a gender-modifier to the pronoun he would use for a class five pet belonging to an Alpha ranked Seeker.
“I was referring to the crude classification system purporting to measure an organic species’ advancement, on a scale named after its proponents -- Torch and Redshift. Natural hazards on your planet?”
Chip drew his optic ridges together, but concentrated on arranging his frame to Ratchet’s specifications. “Lightning, cosmic rays, high winds, volcanic eruptions. Water-based precipitation, including hail and deep snow. Temperatures range between 184 and 329 degrees, on a scale where zero is absolute zero, and 373 is the boiling point of water at sea level pressure. Humans live only in the central and upper part of that range.”
“The language packet contains your measurement scales, as well as your base-ten numeral system,” Ratchet noted, though it was unexpectedly clever of the organic to include reference points. “How high are these winds?”
“About seventy miles an hour sustained, gusts in excess of two hundred fifty. Both are rare. What do you mean by ‘advancement’?”
“A combination of inborn intelligence and social technologies. You organics change so fast and are so common, we needed some kind of a system just to keep track. Humans rank roughly at level five.”
“So... there are a number of organic species?” Chip asked, tensing a little as Ratchet prodded him manually, metal fingertips cool on the bare skin of his back, bumping firmly over his ribcage and pressing lightly on either side of his spine.
“Around a billion inhabited worlds in this galaxy,” Ratchet confirmed. “Easily a trillion-odd species. Or more. I don’t keep track.”
Chip sucked in a breath as Ratchet’s digits probed at the place the little creature’s spine had broken. Ratchet noted the reaction; not severe enough for true pain-response, but obviously the human still experienced some discomfort from the wound. “There are really billions of other sentient lifeforms?”
“Hardly sentient,” said Ratchet, though he lessened the pressure on the area. It probably would do no harm to apply a topical pain-blocker. Unfolding a spray nozzle, he applied a fine, cool mist over the creature’s back-surfaces, watching the fine-grained organic tension cables react, cilia prickling upwards.
“Most are class one or two, like your... microbes and plants,” First Aid told the human, emerging from the back room, rubbing his hands over his gauntlets and arms as he settled his plating down into place. “Social animals and large, highly networked organisms are often three or four. Your planet has many. Some fungi, for example.”
“Fungi.” Chip’s hands fisted, the human apparently disliking the thought that his species was classified a single step above fungi in complexity, intelligence, and social organization. Ratchet did admit that the Torch-Redshift scale had its limitations, but still. Several species of fungi had managed to populate multiple systems, and could survive long periods in space on various asteroids and comets. That certainly gave them a boost in their ranking. As a broad-spectrum classification, Torch-Redshift was accurate enough. “Is there such a thing as a class six organic?” Chip asked.
“Certainly. Eight or ten thousand in this galaxy.” Ratchet glanced over to where First Aid was awaiting his verdict, pinging the other medic his results and proposed treatment plan. “Are you ready to begin?”
“Now?” First Aid froze, processing the hefty file his mentor transmitted.
Ratchet was tempted to simply send them on their way. But then again, there was his concern over First Aid's stability. To see such a promising student become so obsessed... “Do you intend to waste my time with a second appointment?” Ratchet snapped. What purpose would delaying treatment serve, except to prolong the creature’s infirmity?
“I... no. Just... just a moment, please.” His hands still warm from incorporating new hardware, First Aid reached out to stroke the little human’s helm fur. “Ratchet believes there is a ninety-two percent chance we can repair your injury, Chip. Would you like to proceed?”
Chip gave Thundercracker a concerned glance. "What does the procedure entail?"
A clever creature indeed, Ratchet thought. Could the Seeker handle being present without tipping into violence -- that's what he was really asking. Could the human somehow sense the Seeker's wildly flaring fields? “Minimal fluids, some bone breakage,” shrugged Ratchet. The Seeker would most likely be fine, though it was certainly odd that the Vosian had allowed his guardian coding to imprint on an ephemeral animal in such a manner.
The human, on the other servo, looked a little worried. First Aid stroked his fingertips over Chip's neckplates. "We made the right decision to immobilize your spine immediately after the injury, Chip, but your vertebrae have healed incorrectly. Ratchet plans to precisely refracture your spine using directed acoustic pulses. We will then make a series of micro-incisions that will allow us to reconstruct the pieces, and infuse them with a temporary microweb to support the bone while it regrows."
"What about the spinal cord itself?"
"Cell-mimicking nanites," Ratchet explained. "The cells in the injury region underwent apoptosis and need to be completely replaced. First Aid is fabricating the nanite solution now. You should have partial to complete nerve function restored within eight days. Reconditioning of the affected muscle masses may take a few orn, however."
Chip's wet optics widened, the little creature looking up at First Aid in wonder. "You are fabricating nerve cell replacements? Just like that?"
"These nanites should be able to mimic any of your cells," First Aid corrected. As a trainee, First Aid had never produced this type of nanite before, but Ratchet’s scans and instructions were sufficient to guide him through the process. Ratchet had picked up more than a few tricks during his long tenure as a medic, both on and off-world, and the supervised repair of an organic should be well within First Aid’s ability. "They are based in part on the technologies that give us our transformative capabilities."
"Like a mechanical stem cell," Chip murmured.
"An imprecise comparison, but it will do," Ratchet allowed.
"Is there any chance my body will reject the replacements?" Chip asked.
"Minimal, but if your immune system does malfunction, the nanites can be replaced easily enough. Now do you wish to proceed or not? I have plenty of other tasks I could be accomplishing." Ratchet was, in fact, completing several, having just responded to a message from an eccentric creator-mech requesting more specialized code to use in the berthformer he was crafting.
Thundercracker stepped forward. "The repair sounds quite simple and low risk, Chip. I advise that you proceed."
"Alright, let's go for it," the human said brightly, barring its dentae yet again in what Ratchet assumed was an organic version of a full-frame smile. It was... rather endearing, frag it.
Under the watchful gaze of the anxiously hovering Vosian, they began.
----------
Thirty minutes. The entire procedure took just half an hour, with Chip awake and aware the entire time, First Aid bent over and focussed on the delicate work. Ratchet assisted and observed, testing First Aid’s understanding and making corrections where necessary... and somewhere along the line, found himself having a conversation with the organic.
"How did an instructor of mathematics and cryptography end up as an indentured pleasure worker?" Ratchet asked as he continued to test the connections along Chip’s nerve pathways, making sure that none of them had been damaged as well. The transmissions bypassed the damaged portion of his spinal cord that First Aid was preparing to inject with the nanite solution. "Surely your world still had some use for those skills, even after an environmental and economic collapse."
Chip grimaced as another tingle of real rather than phantom sensation travelled his calf. "I had a place in one of the enclaves. I didn't come from money like most of the people there, but cryptography was useful. They needed to stay one step ahead of the other compounds, and the ruling council wanted to try to crack your language. Then I heard humans were going offworld, and I knew I had to try. If polishing metal all day won me a chance to see a different star system, to meet more advanced lifeforms, it seemed worth it. Wasn’t much of a choice, really: I could either play the slave for people who made it clear I was replaceable, or I could work for aliens who could actually teach me something worth knowing."
"Hn," Ratchet grunted. "A seeker of knowledge. That explains the Vosians, I suppose."
"We recall all too well our long history of treaties crafted to the advantage of both the Senate and the same Tower consortiums who now control Chip's world," Thundercracker rumbled, emerging from his quiet brooding. "Vos has the strength to redress those grievances. Considering our scientists discovered Earth in the first place, we will not stand for the deception and exploitation of one of its species by those whose legal claim we are challenging."
Ratchet arched an optical ridge. "My understanding is that the humans volunteer to be indentured."
Chip nodded as First Aid pressed something that felt wet into the small cuts on his back. "To work polishing and detailing mechs, yes. I didn't really mind overloading the mechs who let us practice on them at the training facility, either. Usually I treated it like a medical procedure, especially after I got one of them to explain the purposes overloading served for your systems. Different cultures, different values, after all, and I always thought mine was too hung up about sharing pleasure. But sexual slavery? Refused food and water unless I did what I was told? Being bought, sold and traded -- used so hard I broke, and then was discarded? I never agreed to that."
Chip squirmed, even as he marvelled at the tickling sensation from the arch of his right foot as Ratchet tested another nerve. The medic paused in his evaluation, studying him. "I would chastise you for failing to read the contract more carefully, but as you are a category five, our law requires Cybertronians to make certain you fully understand the implications of your agreements."
Which was a weird way of putting it, Chip thought. Ratchet didn’t seem to have a problem with the idea of people as pets, as things to be owned, just with the way that end had been accomplished. Perhaps Cybertronians had no moral reservations about owning other sapient beings? Or.... "So, where on this scale does sentience come into play? Or does that vary?" Chip asked carefully.
"Sentience? Well, we know of a handful of technorganics who have a spark-equivalent. Some are functionally extinct -- like the Quintessons. The Torch-Redshift scale doesn’t really apply to them... but if it did, they might rank eight or nine."
Chip nodded, feeling cold as his suspicions were confirmed. "You don't consider me or my species sentient?"
Ratchet gusted a heavy sigh from his vents. “Do you have a spark? A core that can be moved from frame to frame and which encapsulates everything you are?”
“No.”
“Then there you have your answer.”
"But... that's so closed minded," Chip insisted earnestly. "You require that other beings have to be a form of life like your own to be sentient? People back home often refused to recognize sentience in other great apes, elephants, or dolphins simply to preserve their sense of importance or belief that they could do whatever they wished to other species. No wonder most of your kind think nothing of rape, or forcing humans to perform for food."
"I'm a medic, not a philosopher or a politician, Chip. But I do know that classifying your species as we do gives you certain protections you would not otherwise have if you were a higher level organic. Considering what your species has done to its world, had you been classified as true moral agents, the mecha who petitioned for intervention might have done so on behalf of other level four or five species on your planet, to protect them from you." And if the humans had threatened other planets... Megatron, frankly, seemed to enjoy reducing alien races to a pre-civilization technological base.
"We define sentience differently than you do, Chip," First Aid said softly. "The word is a poor translation for the glyph to which Ratchet refers. Some mecha do question whether our definitions are appropriate ... but the classification system also offers you protections under the law because of your limitations and vulnerabilities."
"So if we were... categorized higher we would have fewer rights?"
"You would be deemed to have greater moral agency and responsibility for actions that impinge on other species," Ratchet corrected. "If you had greater potential for self-determination and impact on the wider universe, you would be held to higher standards than your organic instincts and coding. ‘Freedom is the right of all sentient beings,’ but with that freedom comes the greatest responsibility. Prime insisted on such laws once Cybertron became mobile and the space bridge network was expanded. To protect others from ourselves, primarily."
"Well, doc, I hate to tell you, but if your laws are supposed to protect a lesser species from being taken advantage of by more dominant ones, you may need to take a closer look at them." The words were, perhaps, a little more bitter than Chip had intended. Ratchet didn’t seem to take offense, however, venting softly in the Cybertronian version of a snort.
"Hn. I doubt you hate to tell me that at all, human."
------------
Raoul’s comm implant pinged him impatiently--again--and he rolled over and groaned. Burying his face in the luxurious pile of silken pillows, he pulled the comforter over his head. What the ever-slagging fuck? Tracks knew better than to wake him up early on the first day of his vacation. Or wake him up at all. They weren't scheduled to leave for Tarn and his long-promised sight-seeing trip until next orn, which meant he should have over a week of doing nothing and nobody at all (well, nobody but Tracks and maybe Blaster and his crew if they stopped by for some fun, but they weren't fucking clients, they were family). Honestly, Tracks was going to find himself doing a lot of fucking self-service if he thought he could wake Raoul up early on the first vacation he'd taken since they'd moved into the new shop.
He ignored the comm when it pinged him again, wishing he could rip the thing out. Hard to do when the thing was an injection of nanites that had apparently migrated to whatever part of his brain dealt with verbal communication. Then he heard the door to his apartment sliding open, Tracks leaning down and peering in.
"Is your comm malfunctioning?" Tracks asked, sounding haughty and exasperated. Then again, when didn't Tracks sound that way? Before Raoul could even think of an appropriate set of expletives, Tracks was reaching in and gathering him up, comforter, pillows and all. "Wake up, we have to get ready to leave in a quarter joor!"
"Anda que te coja un burro, Tracks. What part of 'two weeks of vacation twice a fucking year' did you forget?"
"Vacation? What the--never mind. We don’t have time for this! We have to get you ready. You have to get *me* ready. We've been summoned to Iacon, do you understand? Iacon, for an audience with the Lord Prime. And the Lord High Protector is in residence. Do you have any idea what this means, Raoul?"
“Means you can bite my ass,” Raoul growled, hanging bonelessly over Tracks’s fingers, so that the mech had to pluck and tug at the comforter to unwind him, like a pig in a blanket. One of his nice pillows went spiraling down to the floor. “And get me new bedding, while you’re at it. Ain’t fucking easy to do the laundry here, yanno. Let one of the guys on duty wax your balls, or whatever.”
“My bearings are already in good order,” said Tracks insistently. “But my rims and solenoids -- and none of the others can detail sensor plating like you, anyway. The transport will be here in a quarter-joor, and Iacon--”
“Iacon? I thought we were goin’ to Tarn?” said Raoul, lazily letting his leg flop over the edge of Tracks’ hand. He scratched his stomach and yawned. Tracks had been promising to show him this rust sea thing for most of the past year.
“You haven’t even been listening -- oh, Primus. Get your civilian and warframe tools together, both sets, the best we have. There isn’t time to order new ones. Bring enough clothing for an orn, whatever else you need that isn’t already in the carry-cube. I’ve got to assemble enough supplies and we have absolutely *nothing* suitable for something like this.”
“Wha--?” Raoul squinted up.
“You can give me a once-over on the transport. The trip will take a few joor. But then you’ll need to recharge; I’ve no idea how long we’ll be kept waiting, and you’ll have to be--”
“That’s what I was *trying* to do when someone decided to ring my comm off the fucking hook,” Raoul said, sitting up to give the mech a serious look. Like Tracks wasn’t already glossy enough, for chrissake--Roul could see his face in the big mech’s plating. Raoul had gotten pretty good at figuring out a mech’s expression, though, and Tracks seemed... more than a little worried. “Look, big guy. Just tell me -- what’s going on?”
"No time!" Tracks implored him as they crossed through the main hatchway into the shop. He set Raoul down at his workstation and turned to one of the big racks, adding supplies to the substantial set of transport cubes that were already assembled.
Raoul folded his arms and didn't move.
"Pack, Raoul. Primus, please just pack! A Primal summons is the most -- Raoul, this could destroy us or make us. I have no idea why we've been called. It could mean being appointed to the staff of the most powerful living being in the known universes. It could mean being imprisoned for breaking some law when I got you from Kalis, or for something we've done since, though I can't imagine anything we’ve done that’s worth a summons like this. And it could mean everything for you and your planet, do you understand? Everything."
"Alright, alright," Raoul said, shrugging, even as his stomach twisted into knots. "I'm packing, cool your combustion, pendejo. You'll make yourself spring a fucking leak. And then guess who gets to clean between the cracks while you whine like the big sparkling you are."
"Thank you, Raoul," Tracks said, and Raoul thought he heard a tremble in the mech's voice. He'd seen Tracks stressed many times. But scared?
"Whatever, I know. You love me and you're gonna have my babies."
Clutching a canister of touch-up nanites -- a brilliant shade of red that Raoul had used, like, twice in the last three years -- Tracks turned wide mechanical eyes on Raoul. “And for the love of Primus, no more jokes about implanting your organic spawn into people!”
-------------
"You are troubled," Thundercracker's voice rumbled from behind him. Chip was hovering halfway up the vast window, staring out at the towers and pinnacles of Vos, thousands upon thousands of lights jeweling the massive, ancient upthrust that formed a ridge of sharp, deadly looking metal.
"I should feel better about what happened," Chip said softly, curling and uncurling his toes. It had been several days since the surgery. He could already feel his ankles; at this rate, he’d be walking in a week.
"Ratchet is one of the Prime’s own medics. He is an advisor to the Prime, and even at times to the Lord High Protector," Thundercracker admitted, careful not to add his personal opinion on what difference that would or would not make.
"I just... he spoke about the number different organic species which are vastly more advanced, and still not considered sentient by you guys. Or all the others that have *not* completely messed up their planets...." Chip's voice trailed off, not even sure how to give words to the sensation that had engulfed him once the euphoria had worn off.
"How is that relevant to the manner in which your species has been taken advantage of and enslaved? Other planets are not your concern," Thundercracker observed, his tone dispassionate.
"It's relevant because... because in the big picture, we humans really are only a passingly interesting sex toy.”
“Hardly ‘passingly’,” Thundercracker interjected.
Chip shook his head. “We'll likely drive ourselves to extinction, and never explore or impact the wider universe. Our own planet will hardly notice our absence -- except in that something else can rise to take our place." Chip glanced to Thundercracker. In the dimness, the jet’s chassis was flecked with lights -- he looked like the skyline, like the stars the Seeker travelled so easily. His species, only four billion in number, largely controlled this galaxy and had begun to explore dozens of others. Chip’s species couldn’t even feed all its members.
Thundercracker took a step forward, into the reflected light of Vos. He stood beside Chip's chair, intense crimson optics fixed upon the little human.
"Limitations are a furnace that will either smelt you into scrap, or hone your edges. It will be up to humans, both individually and as a species, to decide what your path will be -- that of complacency and unimportance, or of overcoming your limits.” He paused, letting Chip absorb that, then added, “You do not seem the type to mire yourself in irrelevance."
Chip vented quietly. “It won’t be easy. We humans … we’re a pretty fractious species. And considering all the damage we’ve already done to our planet … fixing it will be an uphill battle.”
Thundercracker shrugged, a ripple of plating. “It always is.”