Trickster 8

Trickster 8

Unsettling Discoveries

A Transformers Prime Fanfiction

    "There now!" Salcha Franklin called out cheerfully. "Isn't that all better?"
    "Actually it is," Arcee stated surprise tainting the gratitude in her voice.
    The strange death colored semi was unnerving to say the least. Simply having somemech that looked so much like an offline Optimus rolling around would have been bad enough but his forcefully cheerful demeanor added to the surreal nature of the situation. She had asked Optimus in Cybertronian what he thought of the strange creature and the Prime had only said that the humans appeared to trust him. Certainly the young male who had started this mess seemed to give him his full cooperation, and the older humans followed his orders with alacrity.
    A cold wind was whipping the snow around and dark clouds promised more soon. Salcha had helped Optimus unhitch from his trailer after herding the Prime over to a secluded corner under the trees. Leaving just enough room for two semis to sit comfortably side by side the creature had produced several large tarps and stretched them from the ground on one side of the trailer, over to the lower branches of the trees, and to the ground. The entire set up was just tall enough for their smoke stacks to poke out of the top. He had the humans secure the tarps to the hard packed soil forming a roughly triangular shelter. The creature backed up beside Optimus and carefully spread a tarp on the ground in between them.
    "There," he said proudly as Arcee and the humans ducked into the space lit by the two truck's running lights. "That should keep the wind and snow off of us for now."
    "This is a pretty sweet set up," Jack said admiring the effectiveness of the improvised tent.
    "Yup," Sal confirmed as he carefully guided Arcee onto the tarp. "Here, this should keep you off the cold ground Miss. It's an old Franklin motto that you should always be comfortable Jack. Now, you humans just set yourself down right here and hold on a second," there was a pause as the rustling of tie straps could be heard in the surrounding forest then almost faster than the eye could follow there was a small pile of dead branches centered between them. He brought out a gas torch and soon a small fire was crackling merrily.
    "Not very boy-scout," Fowler commented dryly looking at the green propane canister.
    "Would you rather wait for me to rub two sticks together?"  The truck demanded with a huff.
    "This is fine Sal," Jack soothed the big rig with a stroke along his running board,  "better than fine."
   "It is, isn't it?" the truck hummed proudly firing up his engine. "And that should keep us even warmer and keep anyone from eaves dropping."
    "Who are you concerned about?" Optimus inquired curiously as he felt the other semi move a bit closer, lightly touching their rear wheels together.
    "The trees have ears," Agent Johnson growled quietly.
    There was a pause as the assembled beings took in his words but then Sal broke it with a nervous chuckle.
    "Anyway! The reason we are here is so Zech can explain what's going on. So have a seat and without further ado! Here is your stick!" the big rig handed the trucker a two foot long stick that had been worn smooth down to the core wood.
    "A scrap of organic matter is going to help him explain complex temporal mechanics?" Arcee demanded harshly.
    "Humans use sticks to explain lots of things toots!" Sal responded smugly reaching out and lightly smacking the femme on her aft with a tie strap. "It's-yeouch! My appendage!"
    "Arcee!" Optimus said sternly.
    "Sal!" Zech gasped, eyes widening in shock and embarrassment. "Where did you learn that word?"
    "What appendage? Cousin Jenna's-"
    "No! Toots?"
    "Oh, Uncle John. I'm guessing I should apologize?" the semi asked curiously.
    "Yes!"
    "Okay then. Sorry Miss Arcee."
    "You should be!" the warrior snarled backing towards Optimus and giving the gunmetal grey rig a death glare.
    "Arcee," the Prime said and there was something unspoken in his tone.
    "Sorry for cutting off your tie strap," she growled sullenly.
    "Apology accepted," Salcha returned with a resigned sigh as he scooped up the twitching black scrap. "But it was probably all my fault. It usually is."
    "I'll explain later," Jack promised the creature, chocking back a wave of laughter.
    "Chocolate!" the grey semi suddenly called out.
    "What?" Fowler asked with a scowl.
    "The hot chocolate is ready!" the semi called out eagerly. "I heated this up for you human types and me. Sorry Optimus," he said as he handed out the travel mugs, "I don't think you guys can drink this stuff."
    "Thank you for the offer," the Prime replied.
    "So let's begin," Zech called out as he smoothed down the snow between the two semis and Arcee.
    Johnson sat down on Salcha's running board and Fowler mimicked his movement on Optimus. Jack crouched down beside Arcee wrapping his hands around the mug and staring expectantly at the tall Native American. Zech closed his eyes and for a moment appeared to be praying. Then he crouched down and drew a set of parallel lines in the snow.
   "Please understand first that our ignorance of this matter far exceeds our knowledge, and none of what we claim to know could be called scientific. But there is an event that sometimes occurs that some among us can observe and react to and there are certain facts that we are aware of. This event is very dangerous. It centers around two people. These two people will be the only humans who are truly aware of what has happened. It is usually highly localized."
    Zech paused and took a deep breath.
    "Any questions so far?"
    "So this event is localized around Darby and Salcha here?" Fowler asked.
    "No, just Jack," Zech explained. "Sal appears to be," he hesitated a bit and his face scrunched up in thought, "temporally grounded."
    "So the timeline was altered," Optimus stated softly, "changed from what it once was."
    "Sort of," Zech corrected leaning forward. "Imagine a powerful river like the Columbia constantly flowing, carrying all of us along. We can perceive the present only, we can remember the past, we can speculate on the future; but we are essentially at the mercy of the current. Every so often a strong pylon is sunk into bed of the river," the trucker drew a small circle in the center of the parallel lines. "So long as it is whole the river flows easily around it, but it can be split." Zech smoothed over the drawing and drew two half circles about a foot apart. "The half that moves can be placed anywhere further down the river between the time of its original creation and the time it is used. This creates a breach in the flow between the two; the core of the time disturbance. The old time line and the new still exist but they are separated. The disturbance continues down past the second half of the pylon making the time stream," Zech paused again seeking the best English word, "disturbed, rough. That's the basics," he said with a sigh looking around at the gathering.
   "There was an event," Optimus interjected. "In the previous time line Jack traversed time to interact with me. I cannot remember the point in time where he originated from but I can clearly recall when he arrived in the past."
    "Like I said, this is more myth to us than science," Zech said with a frown. "But there have been records of people hanging on to early memories for a few moments. If the effects spread back in a linear fashion then your longer life spans might enable you to hold onto those older memories for longer. Until the shockwave reaches back that far in time."
    "While this change has been disastrous to us personally," Optimus stated, "I do not see how it is inherently dangerous."
    "No matter how strong the pylon is," the trucker said grimly, "the river is always stronger in the end. The time-stream will heal itself."
    "But that's good right?" Jack asked in confusion.
    "When the two differing time lines remerge there will be inconsistencies, and a discharge of energies," Zech explained. "A man would have been in one town and finds himself in another and a freak storm whips up from the displacement. A woman was cooking dinner but finds herself talking with a friend miles away. But the fire she left is still burning and catches something on fire. The longer the disturbance lasts the worse it becomes. You need to understand this hasn't happened in decades, and hasn't been common for centuries. Usually this was someone in a small village who wanted to change something and was too ignorant too know the danger. It was a geographically isolated event. But in this day and age where people travel easily across continents the effects would be even greater, possibly catastrophic."
    "What if," Jack suddenly spoke up nervously, "what if it was something like a spaceship suddenly being yanked back to Earth from light years away?"
    "That," Zech stated grimly, "could very well be an extinction level event."