I patrolled the eerie streets undisturbed. Nothing passed my gaze unnoticed.

This was my world.

But it was time to see if I still functioned.

Transforming, I severed the optical feed to the spire and reverted to my robot mode.

Logically I knew there was nothing to panic about, but there was something deep-core about breaking the link to the planet and returning to this blind, amputated husk of an existence.

A quick diagnostic showed nominal power levels; at least I was still in one piece.

I slid the cover back on the terminal and inserted my left arm to receive the communication; a poor facsimile of the link I’d just awakened from, but it would waste too much power to activate the viewscreen just for this.

Plus I could gather more data this way.

“Report”

I’d suspected from the lack of ‘urgency’ and pomp in the communication that this wasn’t going to be from another Monitor, but logically the odds were against it being from this.

“Sàdar Darkwave, this communiqué is unsanctioned by the Energy Act; you will immediately justify yourself.”

The Sàdar looked miffed; had he expected any less?

“Monitor Shockwave, I understand the gravity of my transgression, but I feel it is justified.”

“I will be the judge of that. Speak.”

“I have been patrolling the 9th sector for the last vorn on foot as per my assignment.”

“This comm. originates from the 5th. Why have you exceeded your mandate?”

“Sir, as you know, the 5th is currently considered free enough of hostile activity to permit the use of Sentinels, however lately two have failed to check in,” he paused to consider his next words carefully, “Monitor, I have found an anomaly which I believe warrants your personal attention.”

I could sense his anxiety. It would be so easy for me to reach into his processor and just rip the information out. It would save the power –not to mention security risk- being wasted keeping the line open. But logic dictated that his usefulness to me might not be so diminished as to waste this resource like that.

Yet.

“I will arrive momentarily.”

I had lost count of how long it had been since I personally left the Darkmount.

I drifted over the landscape slowly; seeing it with real-world senses was slightly unnerving compared to my usual view from the ether.

Valvolux, and for that matter most of the Kaon had been blind to me for longer than I cared to recall; the 9th–5th border had been the scene of many skirmishes over the ages and despite having no real tactical value it’s lack of power, large outposts and the threat posed to any menials sent here had meant that it was mostly left alone by the Monitors and Mayhems in general.

As such it had become something of a mecca for empties and other vagrants wishing neutrality. Or sedition.

I made a note that as soon as the resources became available this place would be swept by the Mayhems; they’d been left long enough.

I neared the origin of the communication and saw Darkwave standing to one side of a clearing trying hard to extricate himself from a conversation with an empty.

The conversation ended as I felt the empty’s processor-case crush beneath my footplate as I alighted in front of the Sàdar.

“This better be good.”

Darkwave bowed slightly. He radiated anxiety.

“Shockwave. I have summoned you here because I believe this warrants your personal attention.” We talked as we walked to the center of the clearing. Something ‘did’ feel unusual. “I had a tip that there was a Well around here; upon following this lead I found it had been scavenged like so many others. But there was something else; an emanation of power I couldn’t place.” A pause, I wasn’t going to like the next part. “I sent a salvage team down the Underground to investigate, they didn’t return.”

No surprises there. “You have wasted the lives of four loyal Decepticons and an unaccountable amount of power on this operation Darkwave. Next time throw yourself down the Well; it would be more cost efficient.” The Sàdar trembled, fully expecting to be blasted. I couldn’t spare the power. “Report to detention centre AA23 for internment and power extraction; perhaps another will be able to use your energon more frugally. It might be also an idea to pray your internment niche doesn’t malfunction…”

Darkwave clicked his heels and headed off towards his fate. I didn’t expect him to deviate his course.

Logic indicated that the intervention of deities played only a small part in such matters, but some fools believed it helped.

It would remain to be seen if the situation justified reactivating another to become my new Sàdar; the power costs were only barely justified against their effectiveness.

But it did lighten the burden on the Monitors to have their rung of bureaucracy at work lightening our workload.

I filed a mental note to raise the subject at the next Monitor deliberation; they ‘were’ handy, but with the shrinking energy allocations and the increasing atrophy of our world, the continued luxury of their use was becoming questionable.

Matters at hand taken care of, I turned my attention to the Well.

“Odd…”

Transforming to give access to better sensors, I pointed my muzzle at the entrance to the Underground.

There were faint emanations being emitted; it was possibly just the energies of some vagrant trapped down there, or something equally explainable.

But there was something else, something shielded.

Almost as if something was trying to hide what it was.

Perhaps Darkwave was slightly less guilty of mismanagement than the situation had first indicated…

“Snaptrap, Hun-Grrr, report to my location.”

I didn’t give them a chance to reply to my comm. I knew that Snaptrap was on detail closer to this location, but I fully expected him to take as much time getting here as he thought he’d get away with.

I could trace my lineage back directly to the Lieges; Maximo had personally sparked myself and my trine-mates at the end of the Second Great War specifically to rival the Guardians and tip the power advantage they gave the Autobots.

Of course that was ancient history; Megatron and Soundwave had disappeared, and our sire had escaped off world unnoticed.

Thus I wasn’t worried in the least about what I’d find down there. If it came to it I would have enough power to destroy both gestalt commanders.

No, their value to me here was something far more subtle than either brute would appreciate; experience had showed that in a few instances, Primitive intuition found things that hard logic might overlook…

“What is it Shockwave, I was busy.”

“Your drinking games can wait Hun-Grrr, and pray that I don’t find out where you hold them…”

That bought him into line just as Snaptrap arrived.

“Good, you’re both here.”

Snaptrap smirked; “What is your bidding, Monitor.”

“Logic indicates that your assistance be required in a matter bought to my attention,” I indicated the Well behind them. “You are to accompany me down there.”

Hun-Grrr stiffened reflexively, earning him a jab in the casing from Snaptrap, “What’s the matter? Afraid of the dark.”

“Why you impudent little…”

“Silence! You are both here in an observatory capacity, so keep your diminutive processors on task. Miss something important and it will be your head.”

Both snapped to attention, but I could tell Hun-Grrr was keeping a mental note.

Moving the debris aside showed the entrance would be large enough to just squeeze through; radio rangefinder indications showed the bottom to be maybe thirty levels straight down.

I went first. At the bottom was a small entryway widened by Snaptrap.

We walked in silence, steadily heading down an incline that took us a further ten levels down.

The passage opened out on a large cavern; sonar barely located the other side, but showed it to be roughly circular.

We were standing on a narrow ledge that seemed to run the circumference of the vault.

“Which way?”

“Down”

I couldn’t sense the bottom, but it seemed to be the most logical way to go.

Stepping off the edge, the three of us flew down in silence.

“This place doesn’t smell right”

“That’s you.”

There was a slight thump and then a loud crash; Hun-Grrr snickered.

“Boss, we found the bottom.”

The energy fields down here were stronger, almost enough to see by.

I risked a quick active sensor scan of the area.

“Just how deep are we?”

There were a number of places on Cybertron which ran deeper than the maw; few were entirely catalogued before the Fourth Great War.

“Deep enough. Lets go.”

We headed off in the most likely direction; the primitives shifted, giving better access to their animal senses.

The ceiling here was vaulted, the ground seemed to have a slight rise.

“I don’t like this; if this place has been pillaged, where’s all the signs of it? We saw a few torn conduits in that first chamber, then nothing?”

I had to concede he had a point; there was also no sign of Darkwaves salvage team, although that was no surprise.

“What the Smelt?”

We came to a large wall, the top of which was almost level with the ceiling.

“This is a dam. How long ago was this built?”

Snaptrap started scaling the wall while I hovered to the top.

“Interesting.”

The dam was dry. The three of us stood on the edge, looking out over a town.

“They built this dam and simply flooded the city? What for?

We picked our way down.

The architecture placed this place as being as old as early Bronze Age, but there was nothing to indicate the age of the wall. Everything was covered in a layer of rust scale from the liquid methane drying out; hulks of vehicles had become shapeless mounds under the shale.

Hun-Grrr sniffed the ground, looking around cautiously with his left head.

“This place smells of death; I don’t know how long ago it happened, but this place wasn’t cleared out before they flooded it.”

Snaptrap kicked his feet in the dust before bending down to lift up what had once been a corpse; the leg crumbled in his hand, causing the rest to crash back down with a loud thud and cloud of rust. The Seacon looked around disdainfully, perhaps uncertainly. “What the Spires happened here?”

Movement out of the corner of my optic.

Something misshapen lurched towards us; both feet and it’s left arm seemed unresponsive, it moved by twisting it’s shoulders, clawing at the ground with it’s one good arm.

It was Cybertronian, but a much older model than I’d ever imagined to still have function. It was in such a bad state of corrosion as to be barely functional. It wore a carapace of rusty overgrowth which extended down one leg, the result of a diet exclusively consisting of the same shale that pervaded the entire area.

Snaptrap regarded it for a moment, before taking a few steps towards it, “I’m gonna enjoy ripping that things head off.”

The stench of death seemed to intensify as the creature raised its empty optic sockets in the direction of Snaptrap’s advance; it was blind and barely aware of it’s own surroundings, but it seemed to sense the movement.

“Idiot!” Snaptrap twisted slightly at Hun-Grrr’s warning, but didn’t have time to react as the creature’s carapace seemed to sprout several rusty tendrils from around its circumference.

One flail struck him across the back, sending him sprawling. With a lurch it came forward again.

Hun-Grrr’s fire breath lashed out towards it, incinerating the nearest tentacle. The creature recoiled with a searing shriek.

It began to turn; back the way it came. Hun-Grrr closed the distance quickly, snapping its neck with his powerful jaws.

“Stop.” The dragon paused, about to crush the monsters head. He backed away as I approached.

There was no life in this shell; it had been vacant for eons, but the animating force was still present.

I reached down, ripping the back of its neck open to expose its severed spinal cable, holding the end against the barrel of my left arm.

The creature’s fractured memory yielded willingly to my efforts. For Hun-Grrr’s benefit, I transferred to him.

“It’s started again. More of us can feel it now.

Pulsing, shifting of the ground. It invades our recharge cycles with images of its desires.

There have been more killings. More have gone insane and joined the cults which roam the streets killing anyone they find.

Our town is condemned. They have quarantined us here; a redundant action as the only ones that walk the streets are the hoards; more join their number daily.

The wall is progressing. It seems clear now that the intention is to drown the town and all those in it.

There will be no escape; I can feel it gnawing at the back of my mind, the urgency growing.

I just hope they are justified.”

I wiped the rust off my gun barrel as the smoking relic collapsed to the ground; I had seen enough, my electric current had taken care of the rest.

Snaptrap was sitting up, knees bent with one hand resting against his forehead.

Hun-Grrr’s Well-aimed kick to the ribs was rewarded with a scowl. “I’m ok, damn thing was in my head was all.”

He climbed to his feet as I approached. “I’m good; that clinkerheap just messed with me a bit; claimed to know exactly what was going to happen to me in the end.”

I looked into his optics; he was still in there, just shaken.

I expected Hun-Grrr to comment on his weakness, but instead he seemed to be concentrating on something else.

Something subtle had changed in the fields in this place. There was a sense of movement; a grating, scraping sensation.

Hun-Grrr walked over to the base of the dam wall and began to dig.

The sense was getting stronger now; it had rhythm; a monotone beat that reverberated somewhere in the back of my mind.

Snaptrap seemed to hesitate slightly, then joined in the excavations.

They disappeared into the hole they had created; I followed them in.

“The walls…” Hun-Grrr’s expression showed awe, and perhaps fear.

The very walls seemed to be coated in a moist substance; they pulsed with a wet, organic beat.

We walked on in silence town the tunnel; it was barely high enough to stand.

Snaptrap and Hun-Grrr both seemed to be dragging their feet now. Their apprehension was palpable, I could feel their fear beginning to spread; it was gnawing at the back of my own mind now.

The fields were claustrophobic now; too scrambled to navigate by.

I almost tripped over something in the dark. Kneeling, I could see it was another corpse.

This one’s head was missing; it seemed inanimate.

It had died slumped against the wall; one arm was outstretched, the fingers having slid down the wall from an inscription gouged into the living surface.

The Doomsday Door is open.

“I will not die down here!”

I heard motion behind me. Now was not the time to panic, but on some level of logic I knew that the Primitive instinct had had enough.

“No, you fool, we…”

I stopped; something had enveloped me. My mind clouded over.

For a moment I thought I was deactivated; I couldn’t feel my body.

All I could do was recoil in my mind from the presence around me.

I knew what it was. On some level I had always known what it was.

And as I faded deeper into it, I knew that those primal fears had no idea.

When the first sparks of life formed in the universe, the first few molecules complex enough to be considered the genesis of existence, eons before any degree of awareness developed, this was what it feared.

This was unnamable, a malevolence which sought one goal; the utter cessation of all existence.

I felt myself yield to it, to drift deeper into its folds. There was nothing else other than this, no rival to what it wanted, no will to resist. Nothing to fight for.

“Come ON Blinky, MOVE!”

I felt a force on my neck, threatening to remove my head.

My own legs, still barely able to stir, yet there was a drive to either keep up or have my head torn off.

I turned, lurching after Snaptrap. He had released me and was fleeing up the tunnel; the last threads of resolve he had expended on me were completely gone.

We both ran in blind, abject fear.

I scowled, Rat-Bats ugly face filling my view screen.

The accountant had gone over my reports and as expected, demanded full justification of my expenses.

“Your reports are random nonsense, your…”

I drifted back out of the conversation. Idly the axiom ‘randomness is a fallacy, you just don’t have a big enough formula’ came to mind, but I dismissed it, slightly less sure of its truth now.

I didn’t want to think of the fact that we hadn’t even closed the way off behind us in our flight; logically I knew that it would have had little impact anyway.

I had scoured the dataways for information and had finally located one tiny reference.

It was recorded pre-golden age from the rants of a self-proclaimed prophet right before his death. Remarkable that such a thing would even be catalogued, the reference read ‘on the Final Day, existence will be forgotten by the one who has waited for eternity to fulfill this purpose.’

Rat-Bat was right; the full cost of our venture would require remuneration via cuts somewhere in the future. Any further research into the matter would not be possible.

I knew this. Logic dictated that it was so; we could not afford this, even if the need to do so was warranted.

But I also knew that to forget about what we had found would be a very grave mistake.

For the first time in my existence, I could not agree with the logical solution, and no further deliberation on the matter would break this stalemate.

And that, more than anything, was what terrified me…

Fin.