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“I’m coming up on the source of the distress signal now. Looks to be an organic planet, not dissimilar to Earth, but no sign of civilisation – yet.” Glitch forced herself not to speculate on the planet’s future and to focus on her mission. “The signal’s still there, faint, but strong enough that I can track it to a landmass near the equator. It must be automated; it’s too regular to have a living operator, and I can’t pick up any Cybertronian energy signatures, Autobot, Decepticon or neutral, but I’m going to have a closer look anyway. Better safe than sorry.”
“Fair enough,” Bumblebee conceded over the commlink from their home base in Detroit. “How’s the ship holding up?”
“Absolutely fine. The hull breach might never have been there. She handles like the proverbial dream in microgravity, has enough Energon to last a stellar-cycle at this rate of consumption, and made the space-bridge crossing as easily as a human would cross the street. Lockdown didn’t deserve her.” The IG-2000 class starship was nominally property of the Cybertronian state, confiscated from her previous owner, a notorious bounty hunter, but in practice she belonged to Glitch and her mentor Ratchet, who had – once the ship’s databanks had been raided for evidence and Lockdown’s stolen trophies removed – repaired the hole Lockdown had made in the side trying to kill them, converted his operating room into a proper med-bay and stripped out most of the weapons systems, leaving the stealth tech intact. Being based on a densely populated planet only partially aware of their presence, Team Detroit did need a less conspicuous mode of medium-distance transport than Omega Supreme, and the two medibots were already familiar with Moth, as Glitch had renamed her (much better than Death’s Head). The arrangement wasn’t exactly conventional, but it was technically legal.
It also meant that when a distress signal on an old Cybertronian frequency had been picked up by long-range scanners and no other team could be spared, Optimus Prime, Glitch’s commander, had been persuaded to send one of his ‘bots to check it out. Ratchet was a better pilot, but he was neck-deep in some new project for his old friend (and, one solar-cycle, more than that, all their friends hoped) Arcee, and Glitch needed the field experience. (And was marginally better suited to a possible first-contact situation, not that anyone said so in so many words.)
“You do, though.” Bee always knew how to make her blush. “I’ll pass on your update. Watch your backplate out there, OK? The base isn’t the same without you.”
“I will.” Glitch touched two digits to her chestplate, over her spark chamber, then to the screen, a gesture Bee copied. They didn’t refer to their relationship out loud over comms – it could be used as leverage by an eavesdropping ‘Con, and intra-team liaisons were officially discouraged – but there were other ways to say I love you. “Glitch out.”
She cut the connection and turned her attention to landing, with Moth’s cloaking device engaged just to be on the safe side. The source of the distress signal was obvious – a crashed ship, which probably hadn’t been very spaceworthy even before its encounter with what looked like a piece of asteroid. Not obviously Cybertronian, though the occupant(s) might be – or have been. Glitch set her own ship down in a nearby clearing, activating one of her homemade protocols to scan for vertebrate life directly below the landing gear and avoid any that might otherwise come to harm. She couldn’t do much about plants and invertebrates, other than regret the inevitable damage her presence would cause. A wider-range scan revealed a cluster of smallish (by her standards) mammals, predators to judge by their behaviour, around another lifeform. A very interesting one. Cybertronian in some ways, not in others. And clearly in need of help. The crashed ship’s pilot, presumably.
After setting up the console for a swift exit, she transformed and roared down the landing ramp and towards the cluster of creatures, revving her engine to frighten off the predators. They scattered, leaving their prey behind. Said prey turned out to be a female anthropoid with arachnid characteristics apparently grafted on, a bit shorter than Optimus, maybe, and in a pretty bad way. As well as the damage the animals had done, she seemed to have been caught in some kind of explosion, which had left burns and scorch marks all over her body. A piece of her chestplate was entirely missing, revealing Cybertronian circuitry with an organic circulatory system threaded through it. Fascinating. And sorely in need of repairs.
Somehow, the woman was still conscious. Her optics focused first on Glitch’s face – she had transformed back to robot mode to tend her patient – then on her Autobrand, which caused her to jerk away in alarm.
“Sh-sh-sh, just lie still,” Glitch soothed in her best “calming frightened person” voice. “It’s all right; I’m a medibot. My name’s Glitch.”
Despite her injuries and clear dislike of the young Autobot, the woman bit out a laugh. “Who inflicted that on you?”
“Sentinel,” Glitch said casually. “You know him, I believe – Elita-1.” She met two of the woman’s four red optics, her gaze steady. “Or do you still prefer Blackarachnia?”
“You know who I am?” Blackarachnia’s optics widened in surprise – then narrowed in suspicion.
“There are only three techno-organics known about on Cybertron,” Glitch explained absently as she continued to assess her patient’s condition. “And only one of those is part-spider, or a Decepticon.” The remains of the Decepticon emblem were visible above Blackarachnia’s chest wound. “Now, I can cut the pain in your cybernetic half quite easily, but I don’t think I can do the same for your organic half. Archa-7 spiders aren’t exactly my speciality. I’m sorry.” She meant it.
“Don’t be,” Blackarachnia almost spat. “This foul contamination has been nothing but trouble for a thousand stellar-cycles. I’m used to it.” She seemed to mean it, too, which was somewhat depressing.
“Okey for dokey…” Glitch found herself quoting Jetstorm as she adjusted the settings on her EMP generator. Carefully – very carefully, as the worst injury was unnervingly close to Blackarachnia’s spark chamber – she anaesthetised the damaged components, then mentally put them to one side for a while. “I need to clean these bites and scratches before they get infected. I don’t know what antibiotics will work against the bacteria on this planet, or what they’ll do to you. But it’s going to sting, I’m afraid.”
“Do what you have to do.” As Glitch found a bottle of antiseptic in her repair kit – almost too small for even her delicate servos, but on the large side for the human techs she sometimes helped back on Earth – and started to apply it, quickly but thoroughly, Blackarachnia’s optics flicked over her face and chestplate again. “I have to say, I wouldn’t have expected an Autobot to come to my rescue.” Her voice became an almost sultry purr, despite her wounds and the less-than-gentle disinfectant. “Especially such an attractive one.”
“You can cut that out,” Glitch told her. “You’re not my type.”
Blackarachnia seemed taken aback for a moment. She’d probably expected either flusteredness, ruder rejection or – possibly – reciprocal flirting. “What is your type, then?”
“Male, standard bodyform, yellow with black accents, not much taller than me, fast, chatty, quick-witted, kind-sparked, immensely loyal, and incredibly brave, among other things. Name of Bumblebee. I believe you’ve met him – or, to be accurate, poisoned him twice, nearly killing him the second time, though you spared his life in the end, and trampled him once. Though I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t remember that last one. I gather there was rather a lot going on.” Glitch met Blackarachnia’s optics again with an apologetic smile. “I should probably have mentioned that I’m Team Detroit’s junior field-tech. I haven’t been there long – I only joined the team a few decacycles after their last battle with Megatron.”
“One of Optimus’ misfits? I should have known – ow!”
“Sorry. That was the last one, you’ll be happy to know.” And a just reward for insulting Glitch’s friends. Petty, but she literally hadn’t been able to help herself. She focused on the chest injury next. It looked like an acid burn – a battery damaged in the crash, perhaps? Cybertron had long since abandoned other chemical energy storage in favour of Energon, but older technologies were still in use elsewhere. When she gingerly applied a few drops of aqueous sodium hydrogen carbonate to the metal edge of the wound, the tell-tale foam confirmed her first hypothesis. More bicarb solution neutralised all remaining traces of acid, allowing the injury to be inspected and treated.
The internal damage wasn’t as bad as it might have been. Blackarachnia’s organic tissues had buffered the acid’s impact, reducing the effect on her internal circuitry, which in turn had shielded her arachnid circulatory system. That was very good; Glitch had little experience even with the humans she saw every day, let alone a completely alien species. A few components were beyond repair, but she had replacements for them; the housing of a couple of others had been weakened, but not worryingly so. The only big problem was a piece of shrapnel wedged between two circuit boards, bridging the gap between the pieces of what had been a single wire. It was the work of a nanoklik to switch out the broken wire for a new one, but the shard of metal had to come out.
“This is going to hurt,” she warned her patient, wishing she could do more for her. “I’ll be as quick and careful as I can, but it’s in pretty deep – probably lodged in your organic component.” She found a piece of wood in her repair kit. “I recommend you bite down on this. Broken dentas and choking are among the last things with which I want to deal right now.” Blackarachnia took her advice, reluctantly. “Ready?... Three, two…”
Glitch’s magnets yanked the foreign body out before her patient could tense up around it. Blackarachnia screamed into the piece of wood, nearly biting it in three, then glared at the field-tech, who had other concerns. There was blood on the shard’s tip; a close inspection with the aid of a penlight revealed that the wound it had left behind was already clotting over, but that wasn’t unalloyed good news. “I need to clean this one too, but it really is the last one.”
“It had better be,” Blackarachnia muttered, but she only hissed a little when Glitch poured a few drops of antiseptic onto the injury. “You were lucky. A shade to the left, and that would’ve hit an Energon line. Incidentally, what is your fuel situation, if you don’t mind my asking? Can you survive on just Energon, or do you need organic food as well?”
“Energon seems to be enough. The transformation process didn’t go that far.” Something seemed to occur to the techno-organic. “You seem to know your trade well. Would you be willing to help me…”
“Remove your organic half? Given that you’ve nearly died at least three times so far trying to do that, no. I would be willing to help you accept who and what you are, though. It’s high time you tried that instead.”
“Oh, that’s easy for you to say,” Blackarachnia lashed out. “You’ve never been infected with organic filth and turned into a freak. You don’t know what it’s like.”
“No, I don’t,” Glitch agreed. After a beat, she added, “I only know what it’s like to be different from the first moment of your existence. To know you’ll never be what’s expected of you. I’ve come to terms with that, thanks to my friends, and I don’t see why you can’t. By the way, this,” she indicated Blackarachnia’s internal structure, “isn’t filth. Organic and cybernetic systems intertwined, working together to make a single being – it’s beautiful.”
“Glitch,” Blackarachnia realised, ignoring that last part (for the present). “I should have known. Processor malfunctions?”
“That’s what some people call them. Apparently humans call them autism and anxiety; I just call them part of me. And that’s not what Sentinel meant initially. I was sent to his squad too early, by a system error.” Not an accidental one, she had long suspected but never proved. “It came to mean my… differences… later. That stung at first, but I’ve moved past that and claimed it for my own.”
“How so?” Blackarachnia seemed genuinely interested.
“I’m an error in unjust systems, a problem for Decepticons and corrupt Autobots alike. A sign that something’s wrong and needs fixing. I don’t have issues – apart from the anxiety; that is a problem – I am an issue. Now,” Glitch was glad she had something medical to discuss, because she’d run out of other words, “normally I’d cut and paste in a replacement panel for your chestplate, but I don’t want to damage your organic tissues any further. With your permission, I’d like to extend your existing armour a little way. That’ll make it thinner, but avoid putting heat burns on top of acid burns. I don’t think either of us wants that.”
“Just do it,” Blackarachnia said. After a few nanokliks, she added, “If I were to return to Earth… would your team accept me?”
“Optimus would, in a sparkbeat. I’ve seen the way he looks when anyone mentions you, even indirectly. He still cares about you.” Glitch had accidentally raised the topic in her first decacycle at the Plant. She had been rambling about religious changes in sixteenth-century Europe – why, she had never known – and glanced up to see a faraway look in her Prime’s optics. Without thinking, she had asked what was wrong; he had deflected at first, then admitted that she reminded him of someone he used to know. Her thoughts had flown to Elita-1, and, stupidly, she had said as much. He had confirmed her assumption, then shut the conversation down PDQ, but even she could read the hurt and hope in his face when talking about his former friend. “Ratchet would complain, but reserve judgement. Jazz would be the same with less complaining, and Bumblebee might put up a token resistance, but I think he’d come round pretty quickly.” Especially after the whole Wasp/Waspinator debacle. Bee had seen someone he’d known for a long time – not a friend, but perhaps the next best thing – changed in just the same way Elita-1 had been, and plucked up the courage to try to heal the rift between them even so. He’d adjust.
“And what about the others? The ninja, the big guy and the kid?”
“Sari and Bulkhead are on Cybertron, but Sari’s gone through some pretty big changes herself recently; she’d understand. Bulkhead’s one of the kindest ‘bots I know.” Except where active ‘Cons or Wasp were concerned. “And Prowl’s… with the Allspark.”
“Oh.” Blackarachnia fell silent for a while, allowing Glitch to start cutting a sheet of Autobot alloy to fit the partly filled hole in her chestplate. Then she ventured, “And Sentinel?”
“He’s… a work in progress. But we’re practically independent from him in many ways. Optimus has made that very clear.”
“I’d have thought it’d be the other way around. Sentinel the loose cannon, Optimus the stickler for the rules.”
“They’ve both changed, since what happened to you. Optimus was thrown out of the Academy when he took the blame, which gave him the freedom to develop his own, rather effective way of doing things. Sentinel refuses to put another digit out of line, which allowed him to climb the hierarchy pretty quickly – all the way to Magnus. Yes, I’m serious.”
Blackarachnia managed to stop laughing. “Sentinel, Magnus? Primus help Cybertron – and him. And you, if he was your drill sergeant.” Glitch grimaced, but declined to be drawn on the details of her time under Sentinel Minor’s direct authority. Partly because she had to concentrate on welding the new plate into place.
“There, all done,” she said at last. “I think the remaining injuries are all organic, and will heal on their own, especially with the gel I’ve applied – apart from these.” She ran a digit along one of the ragged edges where Blackarachnia’s spider-form front legs had been torn off at the middle joints. “This is old damage. From the transwarp explosion?” Blackarachnia confirmed her hypothesis. “Given time, I think Ratchet and I can put some prosthetics together to give you back your downloading power. But the organic components will have to grow back by themselves – if they can.” She half-hoped they wouldn’t.
“But you’ve fixed everything else, as far as you can?” Glitch nodded. “Good.” Faster than a human eye could follow, dentas bared, hissing with fury, Blackarachnia lunged for the young mech.
Who wasn’t there. She had computed her now-opponent’s likely reaction to being seen in a vulnerable state, to having her centuries-old obsession denied again, even to having her location known to an Autobot, and thrown herself backwards as the techno-organic moved, rolling and rising to a fighting stance, EMP generator and scalpel at the ready. “As I said: I’m from Team Detroit. I know who and what you are. And I may be kind, but I’m not stupid.”
“So why did you help me?” Purple strands of silk shot towards Glitch, and were sliced to pieces by her scalpel, but the medibot made no attempt to counterattack – yet. Not physically, anyway.
“You needed it. When I see someone I can help, I help them. It’s that simple.” Not to the Decepticon, it seemed.
“Because that’s how you were programmed? Because you’re a good little cog in the machine?” Blackarachnia punctuated her sentence with a swipe towards Glitch’s only ranged weapon, which the Autobot easily deflected, ignoring the obvious opening in favour of retreat.
“Because that’s who I chose to be.” Glitch sought for the right words, and for once found them, or perhaps they found her, spilling out without her consent. “I had a choice, so long ago even I can’t remember. I could shut out the confusing, overwhelming world and be what Cybertron wanted me to be, play it safe, stop feeling so much, forget what it’s like not to wear a mask. Or I could keep my spark open and be who I was meant to be. Take risks, feel so much it hurts, care. Give myself away until there’s nothing left. And I chose to care. It’s turned out to be more than worth the risk.”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to take your word for it.” Blackarachnia launched another web attack, which was about as successful as the first. For some cycles, they stalked each other around the clearing, one aiming to capture and probably kill, the other just staying alive and free, and keeping an optic out for a chance to use her EMP generator. She knew it worked on techno-organics – well, on Sari Sumdac, to be exact, but Blackarachnia had more cybernetics and fewer organic components than Sari. The EMP generator would guarantee her victory and survival, if she could use it.
The situation abruptly changed when both combatants became aware that they were being watched. More predators like the ones that had attacked Blackarachnia, some much bigger – the tallest might reach Glitch’s waist even on all fours – had surrounded them, using the cover of the trees at the edge of the clearing. Their duel forgotten, the two females stood back-to-back, waiting for the predators to make their move.
In the meantime, Glitch used one of her magnets to retrieve her shield mod from behind her back. It had been Prowl’s, and Lockdown’s before that; its original owner was a mystery, and probably dead. After her own run-in with the bounty hunter, Ratchet had decided she needed a bit more protection, and that repairing the mod – shorted out by a couple of explosive Starscream clones – would be a useful exercise. The ethics of claiming stolen property were tricky, but Glitch had eventually concluded that as she hadn’t been party to the original crimes and the shield itself hadn’t been the motive for either one – probably – she could accept it from Prowl’s teammate and put it to better use than Lockdown ever had. Now, she handed it to Blackarachnia. “It’s no Skyboom Shield, but it’ll do.”
“You’re sure – about giving it to me, I mean?” The spider-woman was just double-checking; she had already accepted the mod.
“If they bite me, they’ll break their teeth and I’ll just get some more dents; if they bite your organic half, you’re in trouble. Again. Besides, you’re already injured and I’m not.” Blackarachnia accepted that and returned her attention to their mutual foe.
Without warning, one of the predators sprang at Glitch, and was knocked back by an improvised magnetic shield. Another sneaked up under cover of its packmate’s attack, only to turn tail, yelping, its fur singed by her blowtorch. By the sounds of it, Blackarachnia was having similar luck with her webs and Glitch’s shield. But the animals just kept coming.
“Can you transform?,” the field-tech asked as wave after wave of attackers beat against her shield. She was getting tired of having to hurt them to keep them away from her ally.
“I think so.” Blackarachnia’s tone was more certain than her words.
“My ship’s in the next clearing over, that way.” Taking advantage of a break in the battle, Glitch tapped out a command on the basic datapad she’d recently set into her right arm. “And now it’s unlocked. You’ll be safe there. I’ll cover you.”
She was as good as her word, extending her magnetic shield out as far as it would go as the techno-organic shifted into her spider mode and scuttled away. Blackarachnia was safe; now Glitch had to keep her that way. Oh, and stay online herself.
***
Blackarachnia’s servo – hand? Even after so long, she could never make up her mind – hovered over the fast-return control. Glitch had obligingly left her ship set up for an immediate takeoff, presumably in case of emergency. She could just take advantage of that. Abandon the kid as she herself had been abandoned by her kind. Her team would send a rescue ship, surely. It was the obvious choice, and such a tempting one.
And yet she hesitated. The tiny Autobot had known who and what she was, probably from the moment she set optics on her – was dating one of her past victims – but had tended to her injuries with what could only be called compassion. There had been nothing naïve or sentimental about it; she had been ready when her patient turned on her, defending herself with a serenity and competence that spoke of at least some combat experience and a good teacher. Optimus, probably. He’d tried to help her, too, but always fallen for her deceptions. Glitch hadn’t.
But there was still something about her that seemed all too familiar. Something that conjured up old memories of a brave, caring, wide-opticed young Academy cadet with a passion for history that led her to go with her boyfriend and their mutual best friend on an unsanctioned, not to mention illegal, mission to explore a crashed Decepticon ship on an organic planet, a mistake for which she had paid a terrible price. (All three of them had, she was starting to realise. Optimus had lost his chance at joining the Elite Guard, and Sentinel had lost part of himself. And they had both believed for so many stellar-cycles that they had lost her, as well as their friendship.)
Glitch wasn’t Elita-1, though. Yes, to judge by her accent she came from one of the higher echelons of society – not the highest, but high enough that her life had been easier than many others’ – but she had made herself a servant of all. Knowing Cybertron, that would have been almost as hard as climbing the social ladder in the other direction. And her malfunctions would have made it difficult to fit in anywhere but Optimus’ crew. Equally, she wasn’t Blackarachnia either. She was perfectly comfortable in her old-fashioned shell, with her atypical processor, at ease with herself and the position she occupied. She had turned a name meant to insult into a mission statement. She knew Cybertron’s leadership was corrupt, but still believed in the Autobot cause. The techno-organic found herself wondering whether she had been rash in refusing the young mech’s offer of help, and whether it was still open.
She was jerked out of her thoughts by the sound of the landing ramp lowering, and a bronze-plated vintage Earth motorcycle racing up it, transforming into Glitch’s robot mode as the ramp was automatically raised behind her. The field-tech was still decelerating as she entered the ship’s bridge, finally coming to rest in the pilot’s chair. “Thanks for waiting.”
Blackarachnia didn’t even bother to be insulted. “You knew I might take off without you?”
“I realised about two nanokliks after you left. It would’ve been perfectly in character for you. But I’m glad you didn’t. I’d have had to rig up my own distress signal and wait for rescue, which would have been tedious. And I’m rather fond of Moth – aren’t I, old girl?” She seemed to be addressing the ship.
“Moth?”
“Well, it was better than Death’s Head. I like moths. They’re pretty, and they seem to have things figured out a lot better than we usually do.” Glitch appeared to be rambling as she double-checked the controls before taking off.
Death’s Head? Blackarachnia had thought the ship seemed familiar. “This was Lockdown’s ship?”
“Operative word, was. She’s state property now, on secondment to Team Detroit.” Blackarachnia decided not to ask. She didn’t have time, anyway. Glitch had opted for a smooth but near-vertical takeoff, and her passenger had to hang on to the co-pilot’s chair to avoid falling into the corridor. (Her organic components didn’t make it easy for her to sit down.)
“Where can I drop you?,” the pilot asked as they cleared the atmosphere and finally levelled out.
“Where are you going?” Blackarachnia was startled by the new offer.
“Back to Earth, eventually, but I don’t mind taking you elsewhere – as long as it isn’t New Kaon. This ship has receiving codes for every space-bridge in the network in her databanks. I don’t recommend trying anything with them, though. They’re protected by a Mainframe-designed encryption even I can’t break, decrypted only on transmission, and only a designated pilot can transmit them. It’s mathematically impossible to get around that system.” Kind, not stupid, Blackarachnia reflected. Glitch swung round to face her. “Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card, and you will still answer for what you’ve done since joining the Decepticons. But as things stand, I don’t think you’ll find real justice on Cybertron, let alone mercy.”
“Could you really take me back to Earth?” The words were out of the techno-organic’s mouth before she could stop them, but she didn’t really regret them. “Would your team truly accept me?”
“It might be tricky at first, but yes, I believe so.” Glitch laughed. “I’ll have some explaining to do, though, when I get home with Blackarachnia in tow.”
“Please,” the spider-woman yielded to the inevitable, to a decision already made, “call me Elita.” She wasn’t the young Autobot she had once been, but she would no longer be the Decepticon she had become, either. She would be something else again.
“Copy that,” was all Glitch had to say, her smile widening even further before she turned back to the controls. “Mind if I put some music on?”
“Go ahead.” Elita really should have heeded the smaller fembot’s mischievous grin. Glitch selected what looked like a vid soundtrack, skipping through to the seventh piece. A single, unaccompanied female voice was quickly joined by the medibot’s, an octave below.
I am not a stranger to the dark,
“Hide away,” they say,
“’Cause we don’t want your broken parts,”
I’ve learned to be ashamed of all my scars…
Elita found herself humming along, despite the subject matter; grinning even more broadly, Glitch pulled up a copy of the sheet music. Yielding to her new friend’s personality again, Elita took the hint and joined in.
But I won’t let them break me down to dust,
I know that there’s a place for us,
For we are glorious…
When had she last sung like this? For no reason other than the joy of being alive and with friends? Certainly not since Archa-7, and perhaps not for some time before that.
We are bursting through the barricades and
Reaching for the sun; we are warriors,
Yeah, that’s what we’ve become…
Just as they reached the space-bridge, the instrumental line and backing singers dropped away, as did Glitch’s voice. The little menace had probably been planning this from the beginning, but Elita found herself incapable of caring. She carried on, the words resonating with her decision at least to try to accept herself as she was. She still had flaws and failings that needed work, but being a techno-organic might not be one of them after all.
This is brave, this is proof,
This is who I’m meant to be,
This is me.