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Specimen 173428 was bigger than a tank, pitch black, and covered in glittering energon suns. Its bizarre majesty was only slightly tainted by the sooty polycloth it lay upon; the hand-wrought basement flooring of the Iaconian Natural Sciences Institute demanded no less consideration.
Mirage knelt beside the monolith and chipped away at an energon sun with a sonic chisel. This crystal formation — a flat disk the size of his palm — only formed in the rarest of geological circumstances. Mirage knew this, but not much else about them. His specialty was in archeomnemetics. When the Director had found circuitry beneath 173428's hardened iron casing, he'd pulled Mirage from his duties, made him sign a non-disclosure agreement, and promised a bonus he couldn't refuse. Mirage was given a glance of the imaging results to confirm the presence of circuitry, and then tossed into the basement like a common ragamuffin to figure it out.
This tedious excavation was the work of a lower ranked employee. Mirage was sorely tempted to slip a few energon suns into subspace, but there was a 95% chance he was being recorded. He set them aside for the energeologists to study.
After a few hours of gently poking and prodding and peeling back sheets of ancient rust, a dull, black-painted surface was revealed. Mirage wiped it with various solvents and stuck the swabs into an analysis box. The paint was full of vanadium but not uranium, putting its age at about 9 million years, which matched the surrounding artifacts removed from Old Tarn. It was probably another trunk/storage device for the warlord buried deep there. If Mirage were lucky, it was one of the first subspace compartments. He would discover all manner of riches inside, not to mention the workings of a then-burgeoning technology, and would write a dozen papers and soak up the prestige.
Mirage's slender fingers felt along the edge of the surface. There— a slight dip, like a seam. He pressed it and it slid aside. Beneath was a panel with a number of ports and inputs. Mirage transformed his wrist and an articulated wire emerged. He set the tip to the shape most likely to fit and pushed it in.
As expected, complete silence. Mirage followed protocol and sent a friendly pulse into the system— enough to power a response, should the system still be viable.
No response.
Mirage sent another and another. He went through the whole spectrum, like the classically trained mech he was.
No response.
A pity, but not a surprise. He would use the laser apparatus to free the object, determine its purpose, clean it up, and collect his bonus.
—1101001ferciaþ0010010101—
Mirage smothered a scream.
A live wire — a live wire?! — Mirage's firewalls were already up, of course, but what was coming through was so old, it didn't even register as a threat, like a flower petal brushing against an anvil.
The system output was patchy and staticky. Mirage fell into his specialty with ease; he pulsed more energy, gently, coaxing the message out. It was like reaching into a gorge for yesterday's echo. The message was a tattered mixture of binary and an archaic language. Mirage's duty was to retrieve, not to store, so he gestured for a floating holo monitor and streamed the data into it.
The language was nearly unintelligible. Mirage pulled hard on one of his language mods. Old Cybertronian, unknown dialect. The mod struggled. Only the binary fragments between sentences were recognizable, undoubtably distress signals. The last thing this object had tried to scream out into the world before it was buried.
Mirage reached into his link and mapped out the nearby circuits. He fought the excitement in his lines and forced himself to stay calm. These circuits were older than any living mech. They were thin and delicate and required great care. He sent a bit of spark energy into them. Ah, that did something. He could definitely feel deeper into the network.
After a few more minutes, Mirage reached the limits of his gentle probe. This was a critical juncture. Stop the process and call for reinforcement? The circuitry might collapse at any moment. It needed a constant energy source, as the object it was embedded in no longer had one.
Forge ahead and be the first mech to ever record a full, ancient, intact system? Without proper support and hardware?
It truly was not a question. Mirage could feel the weight of the Institute's coveted crystalline award in his hand. His name, carved within, would catch and scatter the light.
Mirage pressed an autotopographer against the exposed plating of the object. It pulsed several times and the holo monitor lit up with a three dimensional scan of what lay inside.
“By Primus,” Mirage breathed. This was no subspace container. It was— it was—
It was no time to be distracted. Mirage directed the laser apparatus to cut around the energon suns. Bright white lasers zipped through the black coating. It sizzled. It smelled of iron and fell away in swaths.
Within was a body, connected at the thigh to Mirage by the thin wire. Mirage could scarcely breathe. It was an ancient flier, lying in a state of agony, arms futilely crossed over his face. This mech and all his brethren had died in an ancient battle disrupted by a volcanic eruption.
What manner of frame could house circuitry and keep it hale for so long? Ancient energon had been far more potent. Perhaps a combination of that and the mech's own particular, hardy biologies? Mirage could not say. But he would still get his papers, oh yes. This mech's circuitry had been excellently preserved. The holo monitor was streaming with data. Glyphs flew by so fast, Mirage could hardly read them.
The monitor beeped and flashed red. Before Mirage could register the problem, the body emitted a hideous, metallic shriek. Mirage startled and his connection came loose. The body shuddered. Mirage gasped.
There was another shriek and a blur and Mirage found himself lifted and slammed against the wall, talons at his throat and his waist. The body — the mech! — bared his teeth and shook his head. His eyes were white. They flickered and flooded with red.
He stank like ancient metal. His field emerged in a wrathful wave and he tightened his hand around Mirage's throat. He leaned in close, breath like a furnace, and said, “Hwā eart þū? Hwær eom iċ?”
“I— I—” Mirage's Old Cybertronian mod stuttered. It finally had enough data to identify the dialect: Old Vosnian. But he'd never studied this dialect. All the speakers had died and left little record.
As Mirage's mod struggled, a million questions arose in his mind: What would the Director do with this mech? Lost in time as he was, he had no citizen number or vocation. Would the Institute suppress his existence? Would Tarn claim him, or Vos? What would he eat? Who would teach him the language and the modern world? By Primus, he had none of the required antivirals. His unshielded, unencrypted telemetrical array was broadcasting across the public spectra. Why, if they weren't in the basement, he would've been infected by a dozen worms already—
And, beneath it all: would Mirage be able to study him and get his papers?
The mech sneered. “Hwær is se hlāford?”
Just as the mod provided the translation, Where is the lord?, the mech slammed Mirage's helm into the wall.
Mirage's vision swam with red alerts and damage reports. The fantastical questions would have to wait. This mech was a warrior, cruel and merciless. Mirage prioritized backing up his own brain and sent an emergency hail to the Institute's security branch. He kept his field calm and swallowed his own fear. He didn't have an answer this warrior would like. This conversation would go much more smoothly in the modern language. The Cybertronian brain had remained virtually unchanged for millions of years, so the mod should work. Mirage sent a package into the public spectra called Andgiet — Understanding — and pulsed his field meaningfully.
The mech ignored it. He shouted words the mod didn't know, curses, most likely. “Se hlāford, þu wenċel!”
Mirage winced. He was no servant! He sent the Andgiet package again and said, shakily, “Þīn hlāford is dēad.”
The mech's eyes brightened. He stepped back, wings shaking. Only then did he seem to register Mirage properly, and the room, and all the specimens and hanging skeletal frames and scrolls and books and electric machinery. His biolights snapped on, a lovely reddish purple, and he finally snatched the package.
His venting slowed as he evaluated it. Mirage eyed the exits and the comm's he'd been ignoring. Security would arrive in moments.
The mech's face and field and body went through every emotion in minutes. Thankfully, his telemetrical array went quiet as he installed modern shields. Mirage had sent him a basic sanitary data pack, as well as a brief explanation of where he was and where he had been dug up and what year it was and the outcome of that forgotten battle and a thousand other things—
“I beg your forgiveness,” said the mech. He sank to one knee and held his palms up.
—and Mirage's own status in the Institute, which he had included half out of pride and half out of a sense of self-preservation. He had characterized himself as a noble scholar, which wasn't far from the truth, by his own assessment.
“Forgiven,” Mirage said. “Your name?”
“Skywarp,” said the mech. He flicked his wings.
Mirage was familiar with modern wing language. This motion must've been lost to the ages. He assumed it was deferential. “The protectors of this place are coming soon. I will not tell them of your transgression if you agree to behave without violence.”
“To whom do I belong?” asked the mech. His field dipped in mourning. He had surely seen that the continent no longer operated under monarchies and warlords. Tarn ruled via councils and Vos via pure democracy.
Yourself, is what Mirage should've said. He knew it in his spark and in his struts and in his lines. Yourself, you are a free mech. But he said, “I found you and I saved you from your prison. You belong to me.”