Written by DBX
"Necessity is the mother of invention." I don't know, some old saying that got passed down from generation to generation. One of those things that just lost its meaning over time, that's why I try to find the meaning to these sayings. This one in particular ran in my mind when we were investigating this tip the Matrix gave Rhinox. We weren't given any specifics, just that it was a covert mission inspecting some lab on the edge of Cybertropolis. We wouldn't have to go too far into Cybertropolis so we had less of a chance of getting caught. Before this mission, I had thought of that phrase in a different light. I thought that as long as Necessity had a good intention behind it, then her son Invention would be a real great guy. Truth is, sometimes Necessity can be one wicked mother, and you haven't seen anything until you've met her kid.Covert mission. That usually involves two things: one, you need some stealthy people and two, getting caught is really going to suck. As long as you can get that first part right, you shouldn't have to worry about the second part. Naturally, Prime went with the only two Autobots who could possibly get in and out of a building without being seen, me and Dinobot X. Of course I pleaded with Prime to let me go alone, I got an "Unsatisfactory" in the "works well with others" column. I was a thief, a good one if I do say so myself, but being a thief is a one-man job. Some people can pull off that whole team business but that's more people to get caught. It's easier to make a fast getaway if you don't have to worry about your buddy. Oh well, I've always enjoyed a challenge. I hoped X would turn out to be good at this, because it's too much of a challenge if you have to carry someone the whole way.
Our destination was on the second level of Cybertropolis, we had to do a little climbing to get to it but nothing we couldn't handle. The lab was pretty modest looking, but I wasn't expecting a big neon sign that said "Top Secret Laboratory". Well...maybe not a <I>neon</I> sign. First rule for breaking and entering, find a way in. There's a term I use for thieves who walk in the main entrance, "Community Service Workers". We had to find another way in. Back door, window, ventilation shaft, and in extreme cases, sewage system. In this case, there was a side door with our names on it.
"Ever done any infiltration before?" I asked Dinobot. He looked like he was lost in thought, "Oh, that's right. Nevermind."
After some careful work with a decoder, I sprung the lock on the door and started to open it. Before I could X grabbed my arm to stop me. A blade sprang up from the top of his wrist and he cut through part of the door facing,
"What was that?" I asked.
"Motion sensor. It would have tripped the moment you opened the door." he said.
"How did you know?"
"I didn't, but if there was something there I've already cut the wiring for it."
"Well, good work." we walked into the building and into the middle of a long hallway stretching to the right and left. Ballistic had a map of the buildings interior that he gave us, it was about five years old but there was a good chance everything was still in the right place. It's hard to move an entire room. We walked to our left to where the main lab was. We crept slowly down the hallway for fear that there were guards somewhere. The door to the main lab was locked but there was no key plate. It was a time lock.
"Give me a minute to find the security room, I can have this disabled in no time." I said. Before I could pull up the map to look for the security room, Dinobot used his blades to slice right through the lock like it was butter. He was beginning to get on my nerves. I'm the professional thief, not him.
"Not bad, but you're leaving a mess." I said looking at the sliced up door. Sloppy, very sloppy.
The main lab wasn't much of a sight. It looked like any other lab I had seen. We weren't even sure what we were looking for. We started looking through files trying to find any important documents that might give us a clue as to why we were here. I never cared too much for labs, they always had this ominous evil feeling. All too often they were used to screw with the natural order of things. Techno-Organics for example. Maybe we picked it up from the humans. They were constantly trying to improve themselves. Weapons, genetic engineering, cloning. I had heard once that Cybertron broke relations with Earth because humans were using technology like a kid with a gun. A lot of Cybertronians considered the human race to be dangerous. Personally I liked the friendship theory. Sure, it's easy to be someone's friend, hang out a little, share some information, and at the end of the day you're nice enough to buy them a drink. That's the whole reason Cybertronians hate Quintisons. Sure, the enslavement thing sucked but the real reason was that when you bought one of them a drink it was in multiples of five. Oddly enough, it was the exact same equation with humans. If they could properly function when they were sober there would be no wars on their planet.
Messing with nature is what it all came down to, technology wasn't supposed to mix with organics. The Oracle messed with nature, Primal messed with nature, and now we were all paying the price for it. Some psychos aren't satisfied though, they've got to mess with nature more than once. Sometimes nature fights back though, and it was written right there in black and white,
"X, you'd better take a look at this." I said. The file I was holding detailed several experiments that were overseen by Destron. The experiments were to eliminate the techno in techno-organic. Destron had talked about Cybertron becoming fully organic but I had no idea he was taking it this far. They had found a cache of the organic compound and were using it in their experiments to make totally organic transformers. There were several mentions of the name "Noble" and something about a DNA sample. There was also a data disk labeled "C-72". I remembered that as one of the experiment numbers on the tombstones in the cemetery outside of the city. We took the disk to a computer and popped it in.
A video began playing of the same lab we were in and a close-up showed a holding tank in the corner. I hadn't paid much attention to it until now. There were a few lab technicians standing around and I recognized Destron who was talking to a female Cybertronian,
"I-I'm not sure about this." she said nervously.
"Nonsense. You're about to become a pioneer, one of the first of our kind to achieve organic purity." Destron said trying to convince her. What was that lizard doing? Some lab technicians led the woman to the holding tank and once she was inside, they closed the door sealing her in,
"Begin the experiment." Destron ordered. The lights in the room flickered on and off as the machine warmed up. A close-up of the apparatus showed the organic compound flowing into the chamber along with a strange electrical light, I had seen it before but I wasn't sure where. After a few seconds there was a frantic pounding from inside the chamber.
"She's resisting sir." a technician said.
"Adjust the experiment accordingly." Destron said coldly. The female Cybertronian was now screaming for them to let her out but none of them made a move to help her. The screams became blood curdling and then they stopped. A second later the lights in the room went off,
"Backup generators are coming online." a technician said. Some flood lights turned on but the room wasn't quite as bright as before. Destron walked in front of the camera,
"Open it." he said. The chamber was opened and a thick smoke rolled out of it,
"Ugh, that smell!" one of them complained. The smoke cleared a little and I caught a glimpse of something in the chamber, it looked like a horribly mutilated body. She was dead.
"By Primus...." a technician said in shock.
"Turn that camera off!" Destron yelled. His hand reached for the screen and then the video ended.
We were both speechless, it was hard to believe what we had seen. Dinobot removed the disk from the computer,
"We have to take this with us." he said.
"Yeah." I said nodding. I walked over to the holding tank in the corner, not sure what I would find. I forced it open and looked inside, there was no indication that it was a killing chamber. Just an ordinary silver cylinder, nothing special about it. I examined the machine hoping to figure out what it was they had used to attempt the transformation. There was an opening at the top for a canister, one they used to put the organic compound in, but I couldn't identify what the other main element had been. That strange green arc I saw on the video. Then I remembered where I had seen it before, it was plasma energy. I quickly scanned one of the files for any mention of the plasma energy, I found something about an accident that occurred three years ago when Primal had tried to stop Megatron from using the Key to Vector Sigma on the organic core. He had countered it by using the plasma energy chamber. The plasma energy combined with the Key's energy had caused Megatron's beast mode to be separated into a separate entity that he had at one time possessed. A totally organic creature named Noble. Now Destron and his scientists were trying to do the same thing with a techno-organic Cybertronian. Instead of separating the two though, it had caused such a conflict in the techno-organic bodies it was used on, it actually ripped them apart, just like on the video. I was no scientist but I could see where this was a bad idea.
"We should leave soon. We have the information we came for." Dinobot said. I wasn't ready to leave yet, I wanted to find out more about these experiments. Were all of those graves in the cemetery just unfortunate sparks who had been duped into these experiments? In anger I punched the wall, but something felt weird when I did. Almost like it wasn't a wall, it was a door. I could feel the seams of the door so I had X use his can opener to pop it open. The doorway led into a very small chamber, in the center of the room was a large cylindrical glass chamber filled with water. Inside of it was a badly decomposed body that looked like nothing I had ever seen before. It wasn't a techno-organic....it was a totally organic Transformer. At the base of the chamber was a small plaque with a single word inscribed on it "Noble".
It was beginning to get too freaky for me. Failed experiments, dead Cybertronians and the rotting corpse of some freak of nature. I didn't know what I had expected when I took this mission but this wasn't it. All I knew was I wanted to leave.
"That's it, we're out of here." I said turning to the door,
"I thought you wanted to gather more information." X said.
"Yeah well not anymore. I've seen enough." I said, "We need to get out of here and report back to Prime before the Guard catches up with us and adds us to the experiment list."
As if to prove me right, alarms started going off all over the building."I told you that job you were doing on these doors was too sloppy!" I yelled. We ran out of the building the way we came hoping to get out before the Guard could respond to the alarm. All hopes were dashed as soon as we made it outside, they were waiting for us. I would have run, Dinobot had a better idea. He immediately attacked the Guard members trying to make some headway. Reinforcements would backup anyone he knocked out so that was a bad idea. I could have used my cloaking ability but that would leave X to fend for himself, I was a thief not a monster. I followed Dinobot doing my best to fight off the Guard, some of them carried long-range weapons but most used energy staffs. Even if they were trying to kill us, we couldn't kill them. I was able to force a staff away from one of them and I used it to knock down the ones who got in my way.
"Nightwolf follow me!" Dinobot shouted. He ran to one of the transports the Guard used. We both jumped in and he immediately took the controls,
"Can you drive this thing?" I asked.
"I'm about to find out." Dinobot said. He turned up the accelerator and drove down the street, "We have to make it back out of the city!"
"No kidding. But how? We're on the second level and they're going to have all of the ramps closed by the time we get to them!"
"There is another way." he said driving away from the city. The road dead-ended into another one that was blocked at both ends. Straight ahead was the forest but it was at least a quarter of a mile drop. Dinobot accelerated to the vehicle's top speed, still aimed straight ahead,
"Uh X? We can't make that turn at this speed." I said hoping he wasn't going to do what I thought he was going to do.
"We aren't turning." he said. He <I>was</I> going to do what I thought he was going to do. We shattered through the guardrail and down toward the field below.
I woke up in the transport with a great view of the ground through the windshield. We had nose-dived right into the field from Cybertron's upper level,
"X, you dead?" I asked.
"No." he said.
"Good, 'cause I'm gonna kill you."
"Kill me later, we still have to get back to the others." he said kicking the door open. Once out of the transport, we got a good look at the wreck,
"Not one of the better landings I've seen." I said, "But considering this thing was never meant to fly I think you did okay."
"Any landing you can walk away from is a good one." he said smirking. I think that was the closest thing to a smile I've ever seen on him.
By the time the Guard got to the transport, we were long gone. That's just one more thing to add to the fines we owe for the property damage. It's not like I'm going to let them cash in any time soon. All in all, Dinobot X didn't do too bad for his first infiltration mission. I still say he was too sloppy. Cutting up doors, crashing vehicles, too loud to be considered a true thief. He had a lot to learn, but at least he got us out of there alive, and with the information we were sent after.
"Necessity is the mother of invention." For Destron and his followers, becoming totally organic as a necessity, the invention it spawned was a chamber of death that has already killed too many Cybertronians. Intentions have everything to do with actions. Primal had good intentions when he saw the Great Reformatting as a necessity. Destron's intentions were evil, or so I keep telling myself. And I will keep telling myself that. I'll tell myself that when we give the data we collected to Prime, I'll tell myself that when we go back to destroy that lab, and I'll tell myself that when I kill Destron. Nothing is so necessary that it should cost that many people their lives. Destron's going to pay for this.
