15/13/1,201,356 Allsparked Cycle (AC), Rallying Age. Starday, 0:37 Hours Dialgem Local Time, Caminus
Rusty hexagons and spires bubbled up and down the blue skyline around me, head at rest on the gray narrow bridge floor that stretched out beyond my sight. After I pressed my palms to the metal beneath me, I attempted to raise myself and remember how I got here.
Vague memories of my neural cluster just underneath the armor plating on the back of my neck being synched to a recharge/stasis aid box rolled into my hospital room arose, to communicate with my brain module and circuitous system, attempting to induce dreaming recharge.
So, this is probably a dream unless I've wound up on a precursor ruin that I don't recognize-begs the question of if this dream is related to the Aleithia dig. Hmmm…
Once I sat up, I tried to focus on imagining my datapad custom rig into the dream state with some of my processing power, an old rectangular green and red Zistor-30b I had modded and retrofitted over the last twenty millennia. Just need a little tool anchor if this isn't going to be my subconscious having the journey- the familiar circuit accented datapad appeared in my hands.
Good- I can lucid-dream, there is a person I'd like to have tag along too- I was vaguely aware of feeling a little heady as the dream almost slipped away into memory archive rehashes of cuddled moments holding each other, long talks under starlight, laughter and ironic banter on the job and hot-parking the mystery/action videogames we liked, of our first time kissing each other; all this with tender dialogued experimentation. Oh sweetspark, I want to see you-
"Well, if it isn't my favorite bulb-speedster, seeking me out, what's the adventure this time?" a sturdy hand touched my own that was holding my datapad, and I looked over up the blocky arm and to rest on the visage of the stout frame paint schemed in deep teal, gray, and black, with chartreuse yellow biolights, and a softly smiling blue-optic pointy bihorn-helmed face above the downward sloped upper torso like my own.
"Tap-Out, beloved, it's good to see you," I leaned in and kissed the side of his helm, and surprised to not feel his hand rub over my fingers in reply, as was typical of him. "I needed to confirm a few things- since I can lucid dream, I figured I'd risk the dream changing all together by thinking of you, but we're still here. Second, I think I wasn't sure I want to be alone half-consciously exploring what is something either from an internal problem I have or possibly a contact condition from Aleithia- in the latter case, I've heard enough stories from Nautica and Parsec to know that being unwillingly thrown into an unfamiliar world can be lonely. So," my hand turned over to squeeze his gently. "Darling Conjunx, do you want to help me figure out what's going on?"
"I'd love to," Tap-Out nodded and patted my shoulder before he stood up, his war hammer appearing in his right hand. "You found a key that lets us talk to you, congratulations" the voice no longer sounded like Tap-Out as I remembered him, instead there was a chorus of dial-toned voices speaking in 9891.43 Electro-Aud, with beeps, bleeps, and boops among the more prominent sounds.
What an odd choice, that's a rarely used Cybertronian language, maybe my sleep problem isn't from Aleithia, but the language used for me is distant, and us?! my spark wanted to act like this was Tap-Out anyway, but while I stood I keyed in a psyche-diagnostic to my Zistor-30b to determine how much of the code that was running in my dream was mine- and the datapad immediately logged out an internal error of not being able to search.
"Who are you?" I stood still. "Also uh, if I'm not talking to my brain here, sorry about kissing your cheek."
"Cheek?- So that's what that word means. No worries. No, we're not your beloved to be sure, but a riddle, not fully knowable, like all life-" not-Tap-Out threw the pointy side of their hammer at a pylon in the distance, which caved in on impact into a constellated space with lines of light moving from star to star, with no star positions I recognized. They offered a hand. "We want to show you something: joining the rush of photons, to share knowledge that may help you, so that what happened to us doesn't happen to you, so that Unicrons might not visit your world again. You're a zoomdare, are you not? We only know a little of what it means from your memory and thoughts that we can translate."
"If you're referring to what for me and not everyone like me is a sense of joy at speed, adventure, learning, intrepid attitude, with a sensitive reification from the world building a psychological momentum, all of this shared or paralleled in a different way by the whooshflare whose appearance you've assumed," I crossed my arms. "Yes, I am. And that comes with seeking to be comprehensively informed about the decision I'm about to make and have a choice not to do this."
"Oh, Glyph," the voices grew small. "We didn't mean to offend the aesthetic structure of your peoples, that was a faux pas- all we want to do is show you some of what we gleaned of the Biotects before their disputes tore our worlds apart. We are the last of the aleithians that we know of- and you formed a cybernucleic neutrino link with our database when you and your friends were digging through our ruins, when you opened the archive hall-"
For a moment, the dream returned to the massive green gates I had unlocked carefully with Anode over the course of hours- opening to the unlit canyon stone hall inside, my comms and mine alone catching momentary static with a bit of a headache when I stepped inside, out of the evening red sun and into the dark lit up once more, by the our biolights.
Then I was back on the bridge, with the aleithian amalgam, and squinted, trying to process the whole thing. "Apology appreciated, and you mentioning the Biotects being at fault for the end of your world is sorrowful, but what you just told me also means you violated my bodily and mental autonomy, if you understand what that is-"
"We do-" the aleithians interjected, "it was different for us. We were much more gestalt than you, all our minds everywhere in every frame- and are very sorry about how this happened, it was an automatic emergency system trying to upload an information update to someone the archive custodial algorithm thought was a survivor who was out of the loop. We tried to find a way to communicate, but our programs aren't very compatible even with our two species' common originators adaptive gesture tokens and primordial languages- so what was supposed to be trying to induce a dream conversation left you sleepless. We're very sorry, again. It took us many days to even be able to get out of your memory storage."
"Wait you're saying we're able to communicate because- COMMON ORIGINATORS!" I exclaimed, the speculations held for so long might be true, and I might get some peace of mind in my head again sooner than later by extracting these aleithians into a frame and processor core of their choosing. "I can't believe this! So, it's really true, that on some level some of us in the galaxy share a source beyond chance or heat-efficiency! I- I understand that you weren't planning on first contact, you were hoping for survival, we'll work out a way to sort this out, when I wake up, I'll see if some people can dive in my head and help sort out program communication-"
The dream fell away and I found myself lying on the silver hospital bunk I had been resting on, the upper half at an incline my back shape. More familiar stars visible from Caminus and the twinkling Dialgem cityscape out the window of the light beige-blue boxy room. On my right on its simple green cart was the large gray box and a folded-up cable that had put me to sleep, and on my left- a sturdy hand ran over my stubby left horn on my helm, the other hand clasping mine, a look of resplendent joy crested across his face.
"You're awake! Oh thank the cosmos, you're awake-" Tap-Out's voice stopped short when my rapid lean up, brief caress of his forearm wheels, and encirclement of his back with my arms was followed up on with a long osculation on the face.
The rounds of my living metal lips sneaking in between and under his own mouth, a clunky metallic smooch whispered into the space around us when I pulled my lips away.
Mouth hanging a little ajar, his optics rested meeting my own, while he softly, firmly, hugged me, and he chuckled. "You seem to be very happy to see me dearest Glyph. What in the stars was going on in that language-nerdy head of yours, sage of my spark?"
Seeing his knowing kindness and go-to attitude waft in his words and attention with the kind of words he used and the was a relief compared to what I had just been through, conjoined with the stress over the chorus I could feel in the back of my mind now, trying to avoid putting a bunch of weight on my brain module processing but nonetheless there. I started to cry, burying my head into his left shoulder after a feeble nuzzling of horns.
"I have no experience with plurality like some of our friends beyond sometimes imagining people I care about, and I feel so much pressure because I've got the last of the aleithians all up in there taking up memory data space who need a home that isn't me- gods I'm so scared, so excited but so scared- they say we have a common origin with them, and that the Biotects almost wiped them out- ah, gods, with everything about to happen, it's too much-" I now clung hard, shaking.
He rubbed my back in a circular motion up and down the length of the slight slope of my back. "There there, warrior-poet, sounds like you went through a lot in there, take it slow, you'll have plenty of time to tell me in and Triage what's going on." I turned my head to look at the bulky ridge rounded and tall bot or red and gray with lines of cyan biolights, sitting next to the recharge aid box. The circular helmed bot who had overseen putting me to sleep and run through the possible diagnoses and solutions before that point with xeir medical team.
Xey smiled at me, waving. =Take your time, Glyph. I thought it might be some sort of contact issue but we couldn't find anything the first time we looked through your brain module, maybe you being asleep made it easier for all this to play out, we saw a lot of code we didn't recognize acting up, and when we couldn't figure out what to do with it and your CPU started to strain, we woke you up. Is there any urgency I should know about?=
My trickle of energon droplets down my face was stilled by determination. "Yes, I want them out of my head but happy in some sort of mobile frame and cortex. You're going to have to put me back under and have a coder tag along via gestalt patch so we can figure out the borders of their code together and extract them to a sensor equipped computer at first at least."
The weight of it all pressed a sigh out of my psyche. "That's the only urgency, figuring out how to keep them safe and have a diplomatic dialogue will come next." I sat up, still holding Tap-Out. "I think though, I need some waking moments with someone I love, before I face the dance again. Would it be all right if I take a walk and roll on the grounds after I explain what I know to you?"
"Certainly, and if to at least reduce a lot of news commotion over your situation, I'll happily keep pace with the two of you in case something happens."
I nodded, and tried to gather my recollections. While I did so, I messaged to Tap-Out privately =It's so good to see you and be with you, with everything happening like the beautiful moments more than a million years in the making on remarkability that I bet will work through Cybertron as a crucible what with activity over rejoining the Cosmopolity, I can't think of who else I'd want at my side more than you, wheel-soul, martial artist of my spark= I withdrew my hands from his back and kissed him on the cheek.
He rubbed my fingers with his and his palms, and replied =You read my spark, starwheel. And you're right about Cybertron being a crucible thing I think, I don't know all the circumstances but a bunch of our beloved pals are departing for Cybertron by request of Elita One=
He then rested his hands on my forearm wheels, leaving my sensor circuitry abuzz in response there and on my hands while I processed what he wrote as well.
=!?What- interesting. Tell me later, love.= "All right, Triage, I think I'm ready now… so I came to on a gray bridge crossing a blue space surrounded by rusty hexagons and spires…"
