CHAPTER TWO
--The Lost Light, centuries earlier--
Rewind woke up screaming.
Chromedome was instantly there by his recharge slabs, grabbing him by the shoulders and gently shaking him to calm the archivist down. "Rewind! What's wrong? Are you all right?"
Rewind quickly calmed himself and rubbed his head. "I'm... I'm fine. Just a bad dream. A flashback. With a databank as large as mine, it's bound to happen at least once."
"What was it about?" Chromedome asked.
"I was remembering the Dark Dawn, five hundred years ago. Cycle 9314, the day the Functionists recalled the laser pointers."
"The laser pointers?" Chromedome said, stumped. "Rewind... no such thing happened. The war was already long underway then and the Functionists had been all but abolished. We even fought alongside a laser pointer during Cycle 9314; remember Shimmerstick? We fought with him at the Manganese Mountains against Scorponok."
"But it says here in my database that...." Rewind paused as he viewed the information in his head; information which, he soon realized, he had absolutely no recollection of. The Takeover, the Dark Dawn, the Purge... none of this matched what had once been there, what he himself had experienced.
"Domey," he said very quietly, "what's happening to me?"
* * *
"Okay, explain to me what just happened."
"It would appear we have a rogue crewmember on our hands," Ultra Magnus said to Rodimus, who had just awaken on a recharge slab in the medibay. "From what Rung has told me, Brainstorm walked into Swerve's little more than an hour ago and opened his briefcase, after which everyone except him fell to the floor unconscious-- with him ending up buried underneath, of course.
"The medics have just checked the distilleries and say that the engex there had been spiked with poison, which the briefcase must have activated upon being opened."
"Lethal poison?" Rodimus asked.
"Hard to say. Swerve always dilutes his drinks, which might be why it only knocked them out instead of killing them."
"So why wasn't Rung affected?"
"Because he is a teetotaler-- much like myself, which is why I wasn't affected and was able to go after Brainstorm."
"And yet he still got away."
"Yes," Magnus said with a sigh. "Apparently he took the Magnus Armor into account and used a gun on me which separated me from the Magnus Armor. By the time I pulled myself out, he was long gone."
"Any idea on where he's gone to?" Rodimus asked.
"No, but I'm having Red Alert and his team scour every inch of the ship. No shuttles are missing in the hangar bay, so he couldn't have left the ship."
"We'll find him," Rodimus said assuredly. "Wherever he's gotten to, we'll find him. In the meantime, let's get Ricochet's Transwarp drive up and running. It's time we brought WALL-E back to the future."
--Cybertron, the future--
Upon arriving at his brother's home, the first thing to strike Minimus Ambus as odd wasn't the holographic sign reading "You are our eyes" (those were commonplace enough) nor was it the harvester unit retrieving a deactivated Lunabot. No, it was what first caught his notice when he walked in.
"What happened to Dominus' library?" he asked as Rewind closed the door behind them and EVE. "He used to have so many datapads, it made the Hall of Records look pathetic."
"Thanks to the Purge, it's all been reduced to a single bookshelf by Dom's recharge slab," Rewind said.
"You mentioned the Purge earlier at the spaceport. I've been away for two thousand years, so I might need some elaboration."
"Five hundred years ago, the Functionist Council declared nearly all history records preceding the Takeover as falsehoods and had them all destroyed and all the libraries shut down as a result," Rewind said. "The only things they've preserved are records on the Age of Nova Prime-- specifically those on functionism when it first started to develop under Nova and how it's developed since then into Nominus and Guardian's reigns."
"I see," Minimus muttered, rubbing his chin. "So, where is Dominus?"
"Hang on, I'll go get him for you. Feel free to make yourselves comfortable; our home is your home, after all." With that, Rewind went off to fetch his partner, leaving Minimus alone with EVE.
A light emitting from around the corner led Minimus to a viewscreen, on which footage of some riot was playing. Front and center was an orange and white femme with goggled eyes, clutching holding a transformation cog in her hands. As if that image alone wasn't bizarre enough, the t-cog was also on fire.
"Reject the Adaptusian faith!" the protester exclaimed as she rallied her followers. "Live your life without purpose! All hail the Useless One!"
With those words, she tossed the transformation cog at a Functionary attempting to corral the protesters. In retaliation, the officer fired his gun and her head was blown to pieces.
Minimus winced at the scene. "It would appear the rallies have only gotten worse over the years," he murmured. "Amazing that the Functionists would allow something like that be televised."
EVE said nothing. Minimus looked down at the probe bot, watching her float in place with her blue optics positioned in a stoic expression. Had the organics who created her intentionally designed her model to look so detached and emotionless? Or had the Functionists modified her and the other Earth robots in some way?
Clearing his vocal processor to get EVE's attention, Minimus said, "That waste allocator at the spaceport... it might have just been me, but it sounded like he was trying to say your name."
"I assure you that I have no knowledge on who he was or why he seemed to be familiar with me," EVE replied monotonously.
"Do you remember anything at all prior to your service to the Primal Vanguard?"
"Any such memories have either been erased or stored away. And if the latter case, I see no purpose in retrieving them."
"What if I asked you to?"
EVE lifted her cerulean gaze at him, emotionless as always. "Would you?"
Before Minimus could reply, Rewind returned to them, with another mech following him.
"I found Dom," the former said. "He was just finished recharging. He's pretty eager to see you again."
Minimus said nothing. In fact, he could barely even register the archivist's words, instead staring in utter horror at the computer screen which had replaced his brother's head, showing black text on a blue screen.
<Hello, brother,> it read. <Long time no speak.>
--The Lost Light, present--
"All right, so here's the low down," Rodimus said to the Autobots he had summoned to the bridge. "Once we've jumped to the future-- AKA WALL-E's time-- you guys and I will head down to Earth and we'll try to find and identify what it was that transported WALL-E here. Meanwhile, Ultra Magnus will commence a full-scale search for Brainstorm on the ship. Any questions?"
"Yeah, just one," said Skids. "What if we don't find the thingmajig WALL-E found? What if it's gone or something?"
"Then it's no big deal. We just drop WALL-E off and then go after Brainstorm."
"I think what Skids is trying to get at is, what if the... let's call it a device," Nautica said. "What if the device did more than just bring WALL-E here? What if it's done something else besides that?"
"Do I look like Alpha Trion to you?" Rodimus retorted. "I don't exactly have some Sigma Orb to look into and see everything. Look, we'll deal with it-- whatever 'it' is-- when we get to Earth. Are we all set, Perceptor?"
"Affirmative, captain."
"Then let's go."
--Cybertron, future--
"D-Dominus?" Minimus stared at his brother in utter shock. "What... what's happened to you?"
"The Functionists have made him a flathead," Rewind said with a sad sigh. "The original use of empurata had become so commonplace that the Council decided to upgrade it, leading to... this."
"Can he still communicate?"
<Only through text on my screen,> Dominus responded himself, the words typing out on his screen. <The Functionists found it the best way to silence me after I became a bit too loud for their liking.>
"Wait," Minimus said. "What do you mean by that?"
Rewind looked up at his partner. "Should I tell him?"
Dominus took a moment to respond. <Yes.>
Turning to Minimus, Rewind said, "Dom and I have been acting against the Functionists for years-- even before you left Cybertron. It started out as a small, secret operation until we decided to become more verbal. And then, well...."
"And then Dominus got robbed of his voice," Minimus said, getting the idea. He rubbed his helmet, somewhat overwhelmed by these sudden developments to him. "You certainly weren't kidding when you said my brother was busy."
"Sir, I suggest we report these rebels to the Council," EVE said, speaking up for the first time since Dominus had entered the room. "They are violation Section A1, Paragraph 13 of the--"
"I am aware of the rules, EVE," Minimus said. "And I am not about to turn them in. Besides, the Functionists have already done their job to silence them."
"Even so, they are still wholly capable of spreading their slander and--"
Minimus held up a hand to silence her. "EVE. That's enough." To Rewind and Dominus, he said, "I know you're about to ask me to join your crusades. If it's all the same to you, I'll need the time to think about it. Besides, I'm due for a meeting with my teammates. With the Primal Vanguard being shut down, we're all going to need new jobs."
"We won't hold you up then," Rewind said. "See you later."
As Minimus left, with EVE trailing behind, Rewind then looked up at Dominus. "So what do you think? Is he onside with us?"
<It's hard to say,> his partner replied. <My brother's always been a bit hard to read.>
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