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Megatronus onlines, experiences something he was never supposed to—and lives on to spend the next four score vorns slaving away in the mines below Nova Point, surviving horrors the likes of which you would not believe. What did he experience?
This is to be revealed later. For now, it is important that you understand how these sorts of things begin. That is to say, life.
There may be some of you that question such a postulation: are the cold-constructed truly alive? A subject of debate among some high-caste circles and occasionally inflammatory, but allow me to put in my two shanix and say this: when a mech has a spark, a designation, and hopes for the future, what prerequisites does he miss to make him alive? I would say ‘none’—but perhaps I have been corrupted; indeed, the functionists may tell you so, and I will certainly plead along those lines if these writings are indeed to be my downfall. Call me a coward, I would not disagree: I have never been as brave as Megatron, and will never claim to be.
But I digress. Allow me to begin where I arguably ought to: the beginning.
Few forged mecha truly know how it is to online as a cold-construct. If you are reading this, it is almost certain that you do not—such is the way of ratioism and literacy. The functionists will tell you that it is like ‘awakening to pure certainty’ and that we are in this way ‘blessed’ by Primus.
I will tell you the truth. Onlining feels like being jolted awake from a night so debauched that one’s drives have yet to reboot. Perhaps the processor-ache is milder, but forged mecha are privileged in that their drives do not record those clumsy nascent vorns so viscerally. Can you imagine the experience of accessing your optical centre for the first time? Likewise, with the experience of receiving one’s first packets of audial data? Do try, I implore you. Then be certain that the reality is more jarring yet.
When Megatronus onlined, he did not awake to blissful certainty—far from it. He awoke abruptly as the spark was loaded into its chamber, virgin optics onlining to the mercifully dark transport interior, his audials not so lucky under the assault of the mine’s din. He gasped, seeing at first naught but red, his optics’ glow impregnating his otherwise lightless surroundings.
Would that this need not mentioning, but necessary to mention it nonetheless is: we cold-constructs do not wake with built-in instructions. The functionists can hard-wire directives into a mech no sooner than you or I; that is to say, not at all. ‘Disposables’ do not need to want their lot in life. They simply need to work. And if one cycle a mech stops working, well. No mech is truly disposable, but any mech can just as easily be treated as such.
When the transport’s doors opened, the light that flooded in was blinding in its relative intensity, despite the nascent morning. Megatronus’ first word was “what—” and it was cut off when he was yanked out onto the unforgiving ground. Such was Megatronus back then, so unlike the Megatron of tocycle: lost, confused—if not directionless, then craving direction.
“Hey— be careful!”
And those were the first words Megatronus ever heard. How ironic that he would never take them to spark; how fitting that they were directed to his handler instead. Indeed, that voice would in time come to be his direction, his desire, his raison d’être.
Orion Pax would become Megatronus’ raison d’être, and he would not know this for four score vorns and a little more.
Large, azure servos grasped his rerebrace, helping him to unsteady pedes. It was so fundamentally dissimilar to the rough handling that had introduced him to intermechanoid touch, that by the time his processor decided that he liked it, Orion had let go and turned to face down his handler. From over Orion’s helm, a towering backdrop even half-hunched, he watched the ensuing argument unfold speechlessly.
“Sir,” the handler replied tersely, “I’m afraid that for your own safety, I must ask you to keep your distance from the miner. They can be dangerous.” He did not dare touch Orion, certainly not yet: he was of far too low a caste to even consider it.
“Perhaps to handlers who seem to pose active threats,” Orion snapped in response. “I did not expect generous treatment, but I—perhaps naïvely—had hoped at least to see a modicum of respect for the mecha who provide our city with its quotidian supply of energon.”
His handler’s dermae thinned. “With regret, I must inform you that you may have been naïve, sir.”
“Have I? Are miners in some way undeserving, when they are so instrumental a cog?”
“Sir, I must inform you, the newest batch of miners have been cold-constructed. That includes the miner behind you.”
Orion glanced back at Megatronus, caught off-guard. Megatronus, in turn, could do no more than stare dumbly in return, unsure how to placate the subtle consternation in those gentle optics. Still, when Orion turned back, he did not let his uncertainty show. “I fail to see the relevance of the fact.”
“Cold-constructs don’t have real sparks, sir.” The handler’s deference was beginning to buckle under his irritation. “Why are you so concerned? I assure you, sir, they aren’t advanced enough to be grateful to you for your noble intervention, and likely wouldn’t be even if they were.”
“Your arguments are not consistent with your actions,” Orion rebuked. “If they are sparkless, then why bother treating them harshly? Surely, were they truly without independent thought, they would not resist polite, civilised directions?”
“With all due respect, sir, experience has taught me otherwise. Now, I must insist that you step away from the miner. I will not be repeating myself, and will be forced to ensure your safety for you if you do not comply.”
Orion held his ground for but a moment, before common sense and maybe even fear got the better of him. “Alright, alright, I’ll do as you say. If only in the spirit of keeping this discussion civil.”
The blue-and-red mech stepped away, and Megatronus found himself stumbling an unconscious metron in pursuit. Stabilisers unaccustomed to bipedal movement immediately gave out, and only by the grace of Orion’s quick and supportive servos did he not crumple to the ground. “Vector Sigma, is this the danger of which you so insistently warned me? He can barely stand!” Orion looked up at him, worried optics the blue of a polar summer sky. “Are you quite alright?”
Was the feeling Megatronus felt then love? I do not know. Some loves are so deep, so integral, that they stop feeling like it, becoming compulsions instead. Does a mech love energon? The answer, generally, is the very same to the question of if a mech can live without it. Personally, I do not think that what it was he felt for Orion then could be called ‘love’—nothing so soft, not for a long time yet. For the vorns that followed, it was not Primus to whom Megatronus directed his prayers.
In that moment of uncertain softness, he did not get to reply to Orion. He would curse this fact well-nigh cyclically for the coming millennia, but the simple truth of the matter was that he had not rightly known what to say. Barely two kliks of silence had stretched before it was broken by a low, booming voice. “Orion! There you are. You don’t make yourself easy to find, you know that?” Megatronus would curse the voice’s owner just as frequently the first few vorns, but strong emotions are harder to ascribe to an undesignated stranger.
This stranger—a boisterous mech with an incongruously sombre paint scheme—was nearing them now, braces wide in jovial recognition. Upon reading the tension in the scene, however, he slowed. “I’m sorry, is everything alright here?”
Orion, clearly as relieved to be found by this acquaintance as the mech was to find him, shot a quick look of warning to Megatronus’ handler. “I should quite surely hope so, mister…?”
“Steelgate,” the mech ground out, vocaliser struggling to synthesise something appropriately polite. “Sir.”
“Mister Steelgate. I do hope our discussion has been enlightening—it certainly has been to me. Please do remember to be kind first and foremost to the upstanding miners who uphold our society.”
“Of course, sir,” Steelgate replied. He would proceed to spend the next six millennia treating Megatronus twice as harshly as any other member of his batch, a punishment for indirectly humiliating him. When Orion finally finds out about it, the guilt will gnaw at him for orns, but that is not for decavorns yet.
“Very well then, good cycle to you, Steelgate.” Orion turned then to Megatronus. “And good cycle to you too, solemn worker. I do hope we meet again sometime in the future.” And of all the naïve hopes Orion harboured that cycle, this one was likely to be the worst offender. Unbeknownst to anyone at the mine entrance then, however, it would prove to be one of the few that came true.
So, then, what did Megatronus experience in those precious few kliks before the mine swallowed him whole, which he’d never been supposed to?
By Primus, dear reader. He’d experienced kindness.