Chapter Three
Beta

"Everyday he tries
Every night he dies
Looking for someone like him
Someone who don't walk by him
Someone who knows what
The invisible man understands"
—Billy Idol, The Invisible Man

Plans for heading directly to the library were inexorably cut short when Twilight announced that Beta wished to see Dusk immediately. “She knows you probably want to have a few hours of shutdown,” the older femme noted kindly as they stepped out of the hopper.

“I’m fine,” Dusk effortlessly lied, staring wistfully as the tail end of the hopper disappeared down the street. Twilight made no further comment; rather, she threw her arm around Dusk’s shoulders and guided her into Beta’s domain.

The home of one of Cybertron’s premiere relics was located on the edge of the scientific district, wedged between the suburbs and the laboratories. Beta liked to be close to the action, and this was the only way to do it. (That, and she was getting old, and it seemed that no matter how shiny the upgrades were, her spark was failing.) As with the rest of the district, the outside façade was coated with a shimmering gold and silver patina. It rose several stories into the clear waning day and stretched for almost the whole block. Along the many balconies, some of Beta’s femmes lounged, going over their notes of the day, or just relaxing. Some waved to Twilight and Dusk, but only the older femme responded; Dusk was too lost in her jumbled thoughts to lift a digit.

Few femmes were about at this time of the day. Twilight nodded to some of her sisters as they passed, arms full of datapads and holos, chattering quietly between themselves. Once clear of the foyer, Twilight’s arm dropped suddenly and Dusk suddenly found herself able to move more than an inch from the taller femme’s svelte side. She twisted to the left, rolling a kink in her shoulder servo; the joint clicked once, and slid free. She stood respectfully quiet as Twilight strolled up to a wide bay door set into the far rear of the ground floor and rapped smartly on the side panel. Not a second later, a soft chime sounded and the door slid open. Taking charge, Dusk did not wait for Twilight’s guiding hand; she eased herself around the older femme and stepped into Mother Beta’s private chambers.

“I cannot make Sentinel Prime’s conference, I’m afraid,” the stooped figure in the corner was telling the sharp-planed face on the screen.

“Beta, my dear,” a cool, collected baritone replied, “this is the third meeting in a vorn that you’ve backed out of. Surely you’re functioning properly?”

There was a deep laugh. “As well as I can, A. Not all of us age as well as you.”

The two white slashes on either side of the mech’s nasal ridge drew down with his lip components. “So be it. I’ll send you a disc of the proceedings.”

With a slight hiss and click, the screen went blank and Beta, hero of the War of Autonomy, turned to greet her guests. Datatracks spoke of her deep green armor with its pale verdant edging; these days, it was nigh impossible to tell, save for the few swatches on her wrists and ankle joints. Beta had faded to white right along with the memories of her actions. In the place of her heralded crossbow were yards of wires and tubes that kept her failing systems functioning properly: loops of wire criss-crossed her back, thin, transparent tubes were attached to her chestplate, feeding Energon directly into her fuel tank via a portable processor.

It was easy to see that Beta had long forgone any desire to see out any more vons than she had to. It was simply a matter of time – a time that none of her creations wished to crest.

Slowly, Beta walked to a chair that floated a few inches above the floor and eased her weary frame into its comforting embrace. Thus freed from her own weight, she folded her hands before her and addressed the present company. “Twilight. Dusk. Welcome home, young Dusk. I know that you’ve had a rather arduous journey, but if you could give me a synopsis of your trip with the traders?”

Dusk worked a wad of lubricant around in her mouth before swallowing. She had thought she’d prepared herself, intellectually, for this meeting with her creator, but she’d been wrong. Beta’s presence, her legend, tended to overwhelm the young femme.

“Mother –” she began hesitantly, “my kit –”

“Was stolen,” Twilight interjected. “By Switchblade.” The mech’s name hissed from the blue femme’s lip components like a curse.

Beta’s carefully folded hands did not betray any surprise she might have felt at this pronouncement. She merely shifted her shoulders back into the chair’s soothing embrace. “No doubt he is holding this ransom for some outlandish prize,” she remarked neutrally.

Twilight huffed. “He’ll return it – I just don’t know when.”

Old scars flickered in Beta’s faded blue optics. “Dusk; download what you can recall into the main computer. Then give us an account.”

Gladly, the sky-colored femme skittered around the older Cybertronians, who immediately locked optics once she was out from Beta’s view. Pattering up to the huge orange supercomputer, Dusk peered around for a connection port, found it, and carefully drew a thin wire from her side and secured the end into the port. Instantly, she was within the computer’s bowels, bits and pieces of code scrolling madly on the insides of her optics. Fear of being overwhelmed gripped her but a moment before she forced herself to take control. Silently, she called up the program that would access her personal databanks, her memories. Invisible hands reached for this pure data, drew it out and shoved it into its own virtual maw in less than a nanosecond. Quickly, Dusk severed the connection and let her personal cord roll back into her body.

When she looked up, Beta had swiveled to look at her. Now …, Dusk thought; she put her hands behind her back and took up the orator’s pose. Her recollection started out shaky, but as she got deeper and deeper, the words came quicker, easier, more fluid. Passionate warmth underlay her speech, vibrating with such enthusiasm that even Twilight looked surprised.

Once done, Dusk unfolded her hands from behind her back and inclined her head – the traditional end. As she searched their faces for approval, the glow that had suffused her and given her courage, slowly began to ebb away, leaving Dusk the self-same shy femme that she had walked in as.

Measured, Beta nodded. “My dear, if your datapads reveal even more insightful information, I do believe I shall have to promote you. Well done!”

The flush of praise wound its way about Dusk’s Energon pump. Promotion! No sparkling was promoted to full scholar until they had completed an extensive training program and had undergone several excursions.

Beta tapped the arm of her floater thoughtfully. “Twilight. I need you to contact Hedge. See if she can secure Switchblade’s whereabouts.”

Dusk’s elation quickly dissolved into dread as Twilight’s lips cut a quick and hard line across her malleable facial plates. Beta noticed this as well. “Twilight; those discs are important.”

“I know,” the other femme replied hollowly, distaste etched into every line of her body.

Dusk peered at Twilight; there was definitely something more than she had let on. Switchblade had done something to her and she loathed that action with every grain of her spark. Carefully, the dying-sky-colored femme raised her hand. “Might I try?” she asked. “It is my kit …”

Beta shook her head sadly. “No, my dear. I suggest you head up for a recharge. We’ll see the safe return of your kit.”

Biting her lip, Dusk thought to press the matter, but she knew a dismissal when she heard one. With slumping shoulders, she bowed to Beta and trudged out the door.

Twilight pursed her lip components. Beta idly patted her hand, head tilted to the side. “I wouldn’t worry about her,” the old fighter murmured, eying the tubes that looped around her faded green wrist guards.

“I do worry about her, Beta – and so should you. We should nip this in the bolt; Dusk’ll find nothing but spark-ache and disappointment if she’s allowed to continue this pursuit.”

Beta sighed and rested her chin on her fist, fiddling with the wires that fed her the energy her spark could no longer generate. “Twilight, dear, did it ever occur to you that this may be something she had no choice in?”

The other femme’s brow ridge creased, furrowed, and then rose up in surprise. “What are you talking about? You programmed her the same as you programmed her sisters! She’s a scholar.”

“I do have some time to myself, when you’re not constantly hovering over me like a retrorat over congealed oil. Dusk’s main programming is of the scholarly nature, but not in the way you think it to be.”

Twilight was torn between a curious reaction and biting her lip from Beta’s slight reprimand. She chose both and leaned forward, encouraging the ancient matriarch to continue. “Dusk is one of three femmes I slid a covert ‘family’ program into. Thus far, she’s the only one to exhibit symptoms of that programming.”

“I don’t see how lubricating over Switchblade justifies as a successful experiment,” Twilight groused.

Beta’s brand new ventilator wheezed and she shook her head, casting her optics upwards. “Cast your opinion of Switchblade aside for a moment. This has little to do with him, though he may unwittingly become part of my experimentation again if Dusk continues along this track. Rather, Twilight, look at her research. What little she’s been able to download from her personal databanks is proof that the programming has been activated.”

“Semantics was never my strong suit,” the other returned heavily, “but Mother Beta, guiding the cortexes of others, no matter how gently, is unethical. So we saw with Switchblade.”

“You were built as a scholar.”

Twilight shrugged. “But with no hidden agenda.”

“—that you know of,” Beta parried deftly, her lip components quirking with no humor. She ran her digits over the lines that kept her functioning. “Admit it, Twilight – we are all the products of our creators. How much free will we are given is at their discretion. Dusk has all the free will Vector Sigma can bestow; I merely planted a suggestion. She came to activate the program of her own accord.”

Deep within her cortex, Twilight’s carefully-built ethics battled with her good sense and Beta’s cherished words. And then the decision came to her – no matter what Beta said, she wasn’t going to let Dusk drive herself off the edge. With a quick bow to Beta, Twilight excused herself and stalked out of the room.

Recharge was, of course, the last thing on Dusk’s cortex. Once free of Twilight’s constant optic, she skittered up to the library. Not one femme she met along the way questioned her, or stopped her to see what she was up to. That was the level of trust Beta’s femmes put in each other. Created by the same Cybertronian, they more or less “grew up” around each other, safe and secure in the knowledge that no one would cross them.

That is, until Switchblade came along. There was such an insignificant amount of information about him, Dusk thought as she climbed the stairs to the house’s main databanks. She knew three things, all of major significance: (1) Beta created him as some sort of scholarly mech experiment; (2) Twilight was his mentor; (3) Switchblade snubbed them in favor of partying with the “elites”. Now, she didn’t know Twilight that well; barely, really. Most of the femmes tended to stay in their “creation circles”, meaning they socialized with those Cybertronians created in the same cycle as themselves. Dusk had five “sisters”, two of which were now off studying at the Iacon National Logistics Center. The other three she barely saw, as they were off and running with their own mentors, leaving her by herself. All she knew about Twilight was that she held a position of great importance, one that provided her with enough credits to live by herself – and to give her a Transforming body.

Dusk winced at the mere thought of rearranging her parts and pressed her hand on the library’s recognition pad. DUSK, it bleeped, and with a slight hiss of pneumatics, let her through.

Could they have been … “involved”? she thought as she shut the door behind her to afford some semblance of privacy. To her great joy, it was completely empty. Though open-cortexed, Twilight didn’t seem to be the kind to take up with anyone – mech or femme. At least, that was Dusk’s base opinion.

Sliding into an open console, Dusk keyed up the main databanks and dutifully logged in her name and password when prompted. First, she called up a list of all of Beta’s creations, ordered by date of sparking. The comm promptly splayed the text out, even grouping them under their project headings: “Scholar I”, “Tech II”, “SCH-F Ia”, among others. As the vons recorded cycled down to the present date, the number of femmes created waned, ending at a date some three vons ago. Under the heading “SI-P” there was only one femme listed.

Now, had Dusk been more curious, she would have wondered about the abbreviations and what they stood for; as things were, she was intent on finding one name and only that. Scrolling up, she peered carefully at the screen, looking for Switchblade’s name. To her surprise, it was there, lying in plain sight, two groups under Twilight’s and wedged between the names of two prominent advisors to the Iacon Council.

Dusk sat back, wondering if this was all some sort of security joke; that if she called up information on Switchblade, some alarm would sound and her intended promotion would go down the tubes. She’d probably be sequestered and her memory banks wiped. In the end, some nagging, niggling little voice in the back of her cortex moved her finger over the mech’s name.

SWITCHBLADE, the comm intoned and promptly opened up the mech’s file.

“I thought I’d find you here.”

Dusk jumped, her digit skittering across the screen, causing several windows to pop open all at once, cluttering the monitor. “Twi –! I …!”

Twilight’s voice box rasped static as she pulled a chair over to Dusk’s console. “Tell me something,” she began quietly. “What makes him so slaggin’ important?”

Confronted with providing an explanation, Dusk’s main processor hiccupped. “I … he’s different,” she offered plaintively, shoulder struts rising in embarrassment.

Twilight nodded thoughtfully, if a little patronizingly. “I see. I’m different than you. But does that make me worthy of a search?” She turned the monitor to peer at the cavalcade of text. When she met Dusk’s optics, the other femme found no trace of the helpful scholar who had met her at the spaceport.

“I … don’t know,” she protested. “I’m just curious, and I’m following up on it. That’s what Mother Beta says.”

“Elites are nothing but trouble,” Twilight insisted. “They care for nothing but themselves and they’ll sooner run your skidplate over than stop and seem helpful.”

Dusk frowned, her shyness rapidly taken over by feelings of being incensed. “I’m just curious,” she insisted.

Twilight’s optics did a small dance inside her ovoid face, her twin struts vibrating slightly on either side of her head. “Fine.” A slow puff of air whistled out of her nasal passage. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She tapped the table once for emphasis and then pushed herself up and left, leaving Dusk to stare at the empty air. Slowly, she sank back into her chair, not having realized how far forward she’d been leaning.

Maybe Twilight was trying to protect her, but what good was Dusk as one of Beta’s creations if she didn’t try and fail? On her own, no less. Stuffing her chin into the palm of her hand, Dusk turned the monitor around and carefully clicked off all the unnecessary windows until she got back to the main screen. If Twilight was going to make such a federal case of the matter, than Dusk might as well be thorough in her research. Spite was a foreign concept to her, having been raised in a community environment; but to be approached with such vehemence, well, she could bend the rules now and then.

SWITCHBLADE, the comm dutifully tolled, rolling off the mech’s complete schematics, PROJECT 1-A. IMBUED WITH BIO-PROGRAM G5. SUFFERED NEUROLOGICAL LAPSE. PROJECT TERMINATED. Dusk sat back, staring at the script that scrolled past her optics. “Bio-program G5”? She tried searching for that term in a separate window, but came up blank. By no means technologically-savvy, she had to give up and hope that somehow, someday, she’d catch someone using the phrase. The “neurological lapse” had to be chance breaking through Vector Sigma’s initial programming, as well as Beta’s specifications.

A slow, steady beep with an accompanying red light in the lower right-hand corner of her right optic warned her of her increasingly low energy levels. Wistfully, Dusk powered the comm down and stood up. It would have to wait, alas. Slowly, she walked away from the console and out the door and made her way to her room and the complete security of her recharging berth.