Chapter Text
Walking was agonizing. Everything hurt. No part of him had been left unmolested, or left undamaged. Mechfluids, transfluids and lubricants stained his frame, as more still oozed down his legs. Surely this time there had been permanent damage. The majority of the buymechs employed by the Crystalline Berth, and similar brothels in the Stews had rubberized valves installed early in their tenure as buymechs. It only took one or two injuries to allow them to accept this fate. These mods resulted significantly reduced sensation to the buymech, but they did not damage easily. Even now, approaching sixteen hundred stellar-cycles in this depraved prison, Prowl had never permitted one be installed in him. Despite all the time that had passed, and all the indignities he had suffered, the disgraced enforcer could not accept his life and death lay within the walls of the brothel. If it took another fifteen hundred stellar-cycles, Prowl would step beyond the brothel’s doors, and he would take his mechlings with him. This was not a desperate hope. No, if this was but amere hope it would have died long ago. This was a plan, and when the time was clear and right, Prowl would execute it.
As much as he longed for his berth, Prowl needed to clean the filth from his frame before he returned to his private suite. Already the Twins had seen too much, much more than young mechanisms should ever have been forced see. They did not need to see him with all these fluids drying to his frame. The clients had abused every micrometre of his frame over the course of their six joors session. He had no idea how many mechs had overloaded in him or on him, and he would not be able to identify all of the tools of torture they had used on him. His memory had not degraded at all during the many vorn of his servitude, but he had learned to close himself off when he faced clients with a taste for pain. They wanted him to cry and to beg. Prowl would do neither, had never done neither, not even when they had jammed that shock stick into his valve.
Surely that had done permanent damage. Not just accounting for the violent penetration, he had healed from such injuries more times than he would care to think about, but it been charged when they have forced it inside of him. It had burnt him, deep inside. Prowl had smelt charred protoform as they had ripped the shock stick from him. If he lost all sensation from this event, Prowl did not think he would be too terribly troubled, and that was a disturbing thought. Had coming to this point been better than simply accepting a rubberized valve? Pride had always been one of his failing. Begging would have saved him this damage, maybe. But his pride did not allow Prowl to beg the enforcers he had once commanded for mercy. Everyone of the party who had tortured him this dark-cycle had once served under his command. All had been good examples of everything an enforcer ought not to be.
Though the effort had his legs shaking, Prowl limped passed the narrow hall that led to his meagre rooms, and on towards the dormitory’s washracks. There were baths down on the main floor. Decorated with cheap crystals and mosaics, they were meant for clients to use. Those were the jobs the buymechs liked best, they gave them the opportunity to soak, and to get truly clean as they serviced rather benign clients. Often times buymechs came to blows over who would take such a session. It had been a long time since Prowl had been called on to serve such a client. No, Desecrus took distinct pleasure in assigning him clients with the most scandalizing tastes. He knew well that Prowl would not refuse the clients, he had more to lose then the other whores.
When Prowl had first entered the brothel, it had not been as terrible as it was now. Though he had never possessed a skill for entertainment, not dance, nor theatre, nor song, he had received the formal education no common buymech could have dreamed off, and so he had been popular enough with tradesmech, and merchants who fancied themselves high class. It had been a depressing, and desperate life, but the Twins had been enough motivation for him to bare the indignities as he had hoarded his tips he had earned with his compliments, and planned for the mega-cycle when he would be able to pay his debts to the house, and finally leave Praxus forever. There had been no way for him to know that Schema, the brothel master to whom he had sold his freedom, had incurred massive gambling debts. When the twins had only been learning to talk, Schema had defaulted on his debts, and the brothel, which had been used as collateral, had suddenly come under new management.
The new master had taken one look at Prowl, and the Twins and had declared him perfect for his newest venture. Where the Crystalline Berth had not been of the highest class, despite the grandiose designation, it had held itself above the worst perversions, more for fear of the enforcers than the question of morality. But Desecrus had no fear of enforcers, and he counted them as some of his favourite clients. The Crystalline Berth had taken on a considerably more menacing tone for the buymechs as soon as he had taken over. There were credits to be gained in deviant interface, and interface that was not so strictly legal. With so many enforcers as his patrons, Desecrus had feared no inspection or sanctioned. Even if they had wished to, no buymech had functioning comms. Schema had overseen the removal of such components in each of his prostibots. Prowl had learned early on that this was the norm. This was why enforcers did not receive tips or complaints from buymechs, complaining about the crimes promoted or committed in their brothel. They had no means to call for help.
Even if he had found a means to make inquiries, Prowl could not have hoped to transfer his debt to another brother. Every brothel in the Stews had turned him away when he had made his inquiries, holding the newly emerged Twins in his arms. Even these outcasts had turned their olfactory ridges up at the sight of his creations. They had refused to have their establishments sullied by the presence of his foreign-framed bastards. Had he had even a single shanix to his designation, Prowl would have driven away from Praxus to face the unknown in the Crystal City, Vos or Iacon. But he had not had even a single shanix at his disposal. His procreators had drained his accounts immediately after disowning him. It had been an illegal act, but no Justice would have sided with a pariah, no enforcer would have investigated, not for him. The laws of citizenship in Praxus were clear, and they were cruel. It was a bitter thing for a mech who had lived and breathed the law for his whole adult life to admit, but the realities had been thrown in his face, and Prowl could not deny that Praxus was nothing close to a paradise, or a model state. No, it was a dark and cruel place with a pretty veneer that had fooled him, and continued to fool the world.
Prowl hissed as the scalding solvent spray cascaded over his brutalized frame. While the public pools and showers were finely tuned, the dormitory shower tended to run too hot or too cold. In this instance it burnt. His plating screamed as the solvent poured over his scrapes and deeper cuts. He kept a servo over his spark, and over his valve, to protect them both from the spray. Both were permanently exposed. Schema had thrown the protective panels away early in Prowl’s tenure, as soon as he had signed over his freedom. Common whores were to have no expectation of modesty, it might give them ideas of grandeur. Though it stung, he remained under the spray for several klik. From experience, Prowl knew if he waited the solvent would cool, and he would be able to do what still needed to be done. Sure enough, after only a few more kliks the temperature dropped notably, and Prowl braced himself against the washracks’ wall. He took the telescopic shower head, and aimed it had his ruined valve.
His optics shorted. Prowl would have screamed had he not locked his vocalizer down. It took a considerable feat of will to keep the shower head there, and to wash the mechfluid, and transfluids from within his frame. He shook, violently. The pain was excruciating. Tears pooled in his optics, before they streamed down his faceplates. Somehow this was worse than the original injury, Prowl had not imagined it could be possible. Primus, it burned. Though his legs threatened to give out from under him, Prowl forced himself to keep his peds. Once he was down, he knew he would not be standing again for mega-cycles to come. After keeping the shower head there for as long as he could stand, Prowl put back in its mount and turned off the spray. As carefully as he could he dried himself, and took stock of his frame.
There was no hiding his injuries from Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, and it grieved him. They would not see his valve, not if he or they could help it. His mechlings had trained themselves to always look straight up at his face, but they would see everything else, and they would see him limp in agony, and it would wound their battered young sparks. It hardly mattered how often he told them none of this was their fault, they carried so much blame in their sparks, and they had vocalized too often a deep loathing of their Polihexian frames. They called themselves ugly, though they were the most beautiful sparklings their originator had ever seen. If they had had doorwings, none of this would be happening, they would whimper as they scowled down at their own frames, and pulled at their plating. Prowl had always, and would always soothe them, but he knew they had wounded merely by existing. He had not done enough to save them, though he honestly could not see what he might have done differently, except never allowing them to emerge. That would have been the logical decision but when he had seen the scan, when he had known he carried Jazz’s creations within him, aborting them had never been an option.
His creations were overdo for their youngling upgrades. It would be another cost added to Prowl’s debt to the brothel, a debt that was supposed to contain only the cost of his original contract, with fees added on a vornly basis which covered his family’s maintenance, and housing. Yet somehow it seemed impossibly high. No doubt Desecrus was padding the account but exactly how was Prowl to prove it, and who exactly would care to right this? Exactly no one. Even if he was naive enough to believe any inspector would which to investigate the wage dispute, Prowl had no way to file a complaint. In the light-cycle, the Praxian would make arrangements with the medic who was contracted to the brothel to prepare the Twins for the upgrades. The recovery period would be a good excuse to focus on their lessons. As they were not Praxian citizens they were not entitled to a state education, unlike the creations of the other buymechs. Prowl had used the earliest joors of the light-cycle to teach them to read and to write, as well as mathematics. He did not have the means to teach them much more. They were such clever mechlings, but he had so few resources to share with them.
Prowl would need to dig into his small savings in order to pay his dues for the immediate future. Clients did not come to the Crystalline Berth to have their spikes suck, and that was the only service Prowl would be able to provide for a quartex, or longer. A sensible businessmech would have demanded the clients foot the cost of such extensive repairs, but Desecrus practised a policy of the customer is always right, including when they maimed his buymechs. The only exception was death. On the rare occasion where a prostibot died of his injuries, the client or clients responsible were expected to pay the cost of the unfortunate mechansism’s remaining debt, as well as the costs of a replacement’s training. Despite overall low cost of his whores, Desecrus’s invoices for such grim events were high enough to persuade even the most brutal clients to reign themselves in just that small amount. There had not been a death in the Crystalline Berth in two vorns. This last one to die had been new to the brothel. Those who had been around longer knew when the line was crossed, and when they could defend themselves with the master’s complete blessing. The poor young mech had not known when or where to draw this line, and he had died for his ignorance.
It was a sobering to realize his injuries this time were enough to pose a threat to his life. Rust infection would be the greatest threat. Perhaps even internal leaking. Recognizing this, Prowl knew he would have to spend the credits for some basic medical treatment, and likely wipe out what would remain in his savings after he paid for his creations’ upgrades. That too was sobering thought. Whenever he got close to saving enough credits to pay down the outlandish debts hanging over him, something inevitably happened that threw his progress vorns backwards. Over fifteen thousand stellar-cycles it had been one thing or another, upgrades, medical care, or something else. If Prowl had known, Primus if he had known, he would have stayed on the streets, risked unregistered prostitution. Certainly, he would have earned enough to pay his way from Praxus far more quickly, and he would have been free to escape the city-state of his emergence.
Both the injuries and his fading hopes exhausted Prowl to the very core of his spark, and he limped and struggled from the washracks, and down the hall to his rooms. Part of the reason his living costs were high as they, compared to others employed by this brothel, was the fact that he had not one but two private rooms, though the closet that served as the Twins recharge space could hardly count as a proper room. Prowl’s space was only a little bigger, just large enough for a berth. For the simplest single client sessions, this was where he took them, it was the same for all the buymechs. They all had the same narrow berth, identical storage chests, and nothing else. In some ways Prowl preferred his deviant clients over those with those simpler tastes. He hated interfacing knowing the Twins were huddled together in their closet. He hated when they could hear him... work.
The door to his berthroom had stopped functioning properly stellar-cycles ago, and Prowl struggled to push it aside. He collapsed against the half open door, thoroughly drained by the effort, but straightened quickly and stepped into his room. Prowl stared at his peds, and tried not to limp to badly, wanting desperately not to scare his mechlings too badly with his condition. Except they were not there. Immediately, Prowl’s spark flared with fear as his helm shot up. He knew full well Sunstreaker and Sideswipe only used that closet to hide, and to recharge. If originator was with a client in his berth, they preferred to entertain themselves on the floor of this room. Before Prowl pushed the adjoining door aside, he knew they would not be there. Their berth was empty. A canvas lay on the simple blanket, the sketch halted mid stroke. Prowl’s spark went cold.
They ran wild during the mega-cycle, before clients came to utilize the buymechs services. In the joors where the other mechlings were in school, the Twins played in the courtyard, with or without Prowl’s supervision. At this joor though they should have been waiting for him to return, they always waited for him to return. Though really they should have long been in recharge, late as it was, Sideswipe had actively refused to do so if his originator was not there from an early age, and Sunstreaker went along with his twin in this instance. It was not as though Sideswipe would have let him recharge if he had ever tried. Where could they be? It was late, so late that every other sparkling or mechling would have been recharging.
Somehow, even though every single step was agonizing, Prowl ran. He ran down the hall, down the stairs, past the private lounges where other buymechs were serving larger groups. He ran past the public bath, and those poorly painted mosaics. Though he heard gasps, Prowl did not acknowledge them, neither did he pause to acknowledge the questions shouted after him. When he reached the courtyard, Prowl lurched to a stop, clinging to the narrow column at the top of the stairs. The courtyard was empty, his mechlings were not there. Where, Primus, where were they? Overcome with terror now, Prowl pushed away from the column. His optics shorted, and he swayed, but Prowl could not, he would not fall. He had to find his creations.
When his vision had only partially clearned, Prowl turned from the courtyard, and staggered as quickly as he could back into the brothel. Could they have run? It was something he had always feared, as much as he wished them, wished them and himself to claim their freedom, they were too young, and too sheltered to survive the streets of Praxus. Enforcers would not care if someone hurt them, they were not Praxian, they were not tourists, so as far as the authorities were concerned, they did not exist. But they might have, they could have, they blamed themselves for abuse committed against Prowl’s frame. His precious mechlings. Prowl knew he could not jump the walls, physically or legally. It would be clear to all what he was, his naked spark and valve were testimony to that. Had so simple an escape been possible he would have run vorns ago, as soon Desecrus had taken over, or at least immediately after that first disgusting client. But Schema had taken his panels, and Desecrus had not been stupid enough to return them.
“Pantera you can’t be running around here like that!” Rapidfire, the current favourite of Desecrus, exclaimed. “You’re disturbing the customers!”
“Where are the Twins?” Prowl demanded, his voice rough with pain and panic. “There is nothing you do not see here, is there not? You say that a dozen times a mega-cycle at least. Where are they?”
“Go to your rooms, when they turn up, I’ll send them up,” the purple buymech said. His optics were too bright a red, which might have been blamed on Syk, but Rapidfire was not fidgeting, and he was not flushed with condensation. Moreover, he was pointedly not making optic contact. The mech was not a good liar.
“Where are my creations?” The disgraced enforcer demanded, pushing himself straight, his doorwings spread wide. He was no taller than Rapidfire, but vorns as an officer within the enforcers had taught him how to intimate even the largest of war built Praxians. Considering he had been the youngest Praxian ever to be named Praefectus Vigilum, Prowl had had extensive practice in this art.
“Desecrus took them to the cells,” Rapidfire squeaked.
Prowl jerked back, and almost lost his peds. The cells were where buymechs served the worst clients possible. Trapped below the main floor, their screams could not disturb the clients being serviced above their helms. Prowl had dragged himself up the stairs from that den of torment just under a joor before. Why were the Twins down there? Primus, could they have heard it all? Could they have seen? Horrified by this information, afraid for what Desecrus might have planned for his creations, Prowl whipped around and moved to run back down those stairs. Rapidfire stepped into his path, arms spread out he blocked the lesser buymech. Restraint burnt to ash, Prowl stared the mech down as he staggered to a stop.
“Get out of my way,” he ordered, with a commanding tone he had not had cause to use in a very long time.
“You can’t disturbed the master.”
There was no time to argue, even if Prowl had been in the mood for it. He pulled back his servo and punched Rapidfire in the helm, before the purple mech could think to react. The favourite fell, and fell hard. To his misfortune, and to Prowl’s pleasure, Rapidfire fell with his full weight on his right doorwing, and it dislocated with an ugly snap. No one came running to see the carnage, the sounds of interface had covered up the sounds of the fight. One of the benefits to being the favourite was the privilege of a weapon, not really meant to defend against unruly patrons so much runaway whores. Prowl rooted through Rapidfire’s subspace and stole the etched silver blaster from within.
For all it was a tacky piece, Prowl turned it over and confirmed it was a working weapon. Holding a blaster in his servos for the first time since the enforcer decals had been roughly stripped from his doorwings, Prowl had a moment of total clarity. This would be the dark-cycle. Though the risk of flight was more than just great, staying now was just as risky a prospect. Prowl gritted his denta as he grabbed the unconscious favourite by the wrists and dragged him off to the sitting parlour Rapidfire liked to lord over. It would not buy a fortune’s time, but it would buy enough. For good measure, Prowl jammed the parlour door. With Rapidfire secured, he turned and raced down the stairs as fast as he could in his current condition.
It should have been torturous, and really it was, but fear largely numbed the pain. Prowl moved quickly, if awkwardly, down into the basement. In Schema’s mega-cycle, this had be a vault to store engex, and illegal intoxicants. Now it hid a considerably more illegal practice. He had not forgotten his training, the knowledge was strangely reassuring to Prowl. Though he moved quickly, and though he was panicked, the buymech still managed to move silently. As Prowl let his tactical systems take over, it became an enforcer exercise, and even as nanokliks passed, Prowl did not give in to panic. Finally he heard voices, Prowl took a moment to ensure the blaster was charged and set for lethal force. Utterly silent, he slowly inched around the corner.
“Once you’re upgraded you’ll earn your keep,” Desecrus crooned at the Twins as they knelt at his peds, facing each other, a bottle of engex dangled from the brothel master’s servo. “It’s settle then. Your origin won’t have to do any of that again once you start paying your way. You’re such burdens. Naturally I’ll deduct your board, everything will go towards that debt Pantera earned for your sakes. You don’t deserve that devotion, you know. Ugly little scraplets that you are. But you’ll make good credit when you debut. We’ll have an auction for your first client. But first you need to be trained. I will take care of it personally. Open your panels... Touch each other...”
The mech dropped dead as the last glyph left his glossa. Prowl fired the blaster, and shot him through the spark before the thought to do so had finished circling through his processor. None of the buymechs in this or any other brothel in the Stews were foreign-frames. What migrants might find themselves working as prostibots in Praxus did so on the streets. They were not considered worth the cost of housing. This very fact had been Prowl’s only comfort as he had watch his mechlings grow in this den of licentiousness. It had not stopped him from watching the optics of those around him, Desecrus had never done more than sneer at the mechlings. He had never cast them a lecherous glance. Prowl had never imagined this was something he would have wanted.
“O’gin!” Sideswipe exclaimed. “Oh! O’gin! What did they do to you?”
“Never mind, Sideswipe,” Prowl replied, pointedly turning his back on the dead brothel master as he fought against the urge to purge. “There is no time. I need a blanket, something to cover me while we escape.”
“I got it!” Sunstreaker said, running into one of the empty cells. Sideswipe was frozen in place. He stared at his originator.
“I am alive, Sideswipe, my love,” Prowl soothed his creation, as he fell to his knees and he pulled Sideswipe into his arms. “That is all that matters. We are going to escape. We are going to run. If I stumble, I need you to keep going, to keep running. This is our only chance.”
“O’gin,” his mischievous mechling whimpered. “He made us listen. We didn’t want to. We covered our audials and he sent in more. He made us listen.”
“Sweetest spark, you are not to blame. You could never be to blame.”
Sunstreaker swept in a nanoklik later, squirming his way into his originator’s arms, the blanket forgotten beside them. Prowl felt the agony in his creations sparks as though it were his own. He held them tight, wrapped his field around them and flooded them with unconditional love. It was a poor comfort, too little a balm to make up for the horrific display they had been forced to witness. Thank Primus he had not screamed. Prowl could not imagine how distraught they would have been. This was enough, this was hideous enough. His bitlets had been forced to watch legions of mechanism entered and leave the cell, no doubt laughing about all they had done to their once proud commander. So many things his precious mechlings never should have had to learn.
“We must run, mechlings,” Prowl said. “There is a back door, just around the corner, locked to everymech but him. He will have the keys.”
He broke the hug, and forced himself to crawl over to the corpse. As he had with Rapidfire, Prowl dug through Desecrus’ subspace, slowly and methodically until he found the keycard. Along with the keycard, he found a credit slug. With the desperate hope that it would not be encrypted, he dropped it into his own subspace. Slowly turning on his knees, Prowl crawled back to the Twins, who were cuddled together, hiding their faces in each others necks. Someone would find Rapidfire eventually, or the mech would come around. Sooner or later someone would find Desecrus’ greyed frame. They needed to be gone before this happened. Prowl struggled to climb to his peds, his frame resisted every motion. It was only with his precious creations’ aid that he was finally able to stand. As soon as he was stable on his peds, with the Twins looking on, Prowl tied the blanket around his neck, and around his lower back. With the glow of his spark hidden, they would be able to blend into the shadows of the Stews. Forcing himself to walk, the Twins trailing close behind, Prowl found the hidden door.
The sort of interface that went on in the cells was illegal, if enforcers without ties to his patrons ever raided the brothel, Desecrus would have planned to flee down here, out the door, into the back alleys and out of reach. He never would have planned for his murderer to make his escape out these doors, and there was a certain justice in that. Holding his ventilations, Prowl swiped the key card, and only released a vent when the door squeaked open. His plating clattered audibly, somehow the air smelled cleaner than it ever had, though that must have been his imagination. Prowl beckoned the Twins out the door, and followed close behind them. The door shut with another squeak. His ventilations coming quickly now, the intensity of the pain between his legs growing again, Prowl held his twins to him as he listened. There was no sound of movement, no speaking, no ped steps. Taking each mechling by the servo, Prowl limped quickly down the alleyway.
A path illuminated in his HUD, and he followed it without thinking. Early in his service as Praefectus Vigilum, Prowl had uncovered the locations of some Praxian stops along the Free Road, a network of anonymous homes and businesses that smuggled fugitives to safety in distant city-states. The “road” began in Kaon, and spanned across the whole of Cybertron. When he had first stumbled upon the Praxian sites, Prowl had intended to organize an enforcer raid, but at the last moment he had decided against it. Back then, Prowl had decided if even a single abused or threatened mechanism was able to escape his or her tormentors through this route, it was worth the chance criminals might use it too. He had reasoned with vigilance, fugitives from his justice would not make it to the safehouse. Under the light of the moons, Prowl felt the urge to weep. There was no way he could ever have imagined he would have had cause to use the Free Road back then, but he would be grateful always that he had chosen to break the rules just this one time.
As the moons set and the sun’s first rays glowed on the horizon, Prowl’s legs began to buckle under him. There was no time to rest, no time to linger, but it was increasingly difficult to walk on. He leaned on his brave creations, and when he thought he could not take another step, they pushed him to keep moving. When he said they should leave him, the Twins forced him onward. Finally, in the earliest joors of the light-cycle, they arrived at the small clinic, at the very edge of the Stews. Just as he let out a relieved vent, Prowl’s legs finally gave out and he collapsed at the front entrance. The streets were quiet now but that would not last much longer. They needed to make their way to the alley, to the side door...
Sunstreaker hammered on the door with more force than you would ever expect from a sparkling. Sideswipe crouched next to Prowl, his optics scanning the street, standing guard over him as his twin railed against the door. The windows lit up after no more than a klik. Prowl could not stop his frame from shaking. Though his every instinct demanded he pull the blaster from his subspace, Prowl knew he would be as much a danger to his creations as the mechanism moving within the clinic. His originator protocols called for him to guard his creations against the coming threat, but Prowl was too weak. Sideswipe’s lean frame all but folded against his, and Prowl looped his arm around his waist. As Prowl reached for him, Sunstreaker moved to beat against the door again. It flew open and he tumbled forward.
“There, there little mech,” a warm voice crooned. “Where’s the fire?”
“Fire?” Sunstreaker asked, with a bit of a snarl. “It’s my o’gin. I thought you were a medic.”
“Just a figure of speech, mechling,” the medic said, just as warmly, despite Sunstreaker’s snarl. He towered over them as he stepped into the doorway, and looked down to Prowl, partly hidden by Sideswipe, who stood over him with his plating flared out. “Well, let me take a look young one. It’s alright, I’m a medic, I’m not in the habit of hurting frightened bitlets and origins.”
“I don’t wanna,” Sideswipe grumbled. “How we know we can trust you, h’uh? Conduit didn’t give a flying frag about O’gin. Or anyone else.”
“Some medics don’t deserve their insignias,I’m Hoist. What are you three called?”
“He’s Sunny,” Sideswipe said, gesturing to his brother.
“I’m Sunstreaker!” His twin retorted. “He’s Sideswipe. Our o’gin’s Prowl.”
“Good to meet you three. Let me take a look at your o’gin, Sideswipe.”
Sideswipe relented, though he did not move away. Rather, he sat down at Prowl’s side, and his posturing made it clear the sparkling would move no further. Hoist knelt in front of them as Sunstreaker stepped around and leaned against his brother. It was exhausting to do so, but Prowl raised his servo and stroked the helms of both his mechlings, doing the only thing he could to put them at ease. He felt a tingle as the medic’s scanners passed over his frame. Though it made his plating itch in an odd way, Prowl did not fidget. Immediately after the medic finished with him, his scanners turned to the Twins. Neither mechling had experienced the sensation before, and both fidgeted. Hoist showed no sign of impatience. It was not as though it effected the scanners’ accuracy.
“You’re in rough shape, my friend. I think we’d all feel better after you’re in the clinic. I’m going to lift you up and carry you. I don’t think there’s a way to do it where it won’t hurt. Mechlings, follow me, alright? You’ll all be safe with me, I promise you that.”
Prowl braced himself for pain. The medic looped an arm under his legs, and another around his back, and stood. No question it hurt, but not nearly so badly as he had expected. Hoist had a gentle touch, and he was strong. There was kipple extending on his back, not quite doorwings, but it hinted to Praxian heritage, though his build and helm suggested he had also had a Tagonian procreator. The narrow orange kibble would not have been enough to grant the medic Praxian citizenship. It was a reassuring observation. Hoist was unlikely to feel any strong loyalty to Praxus, and likely no small amount of distaste. Prowl’s senses faded for a moment, only to flare to life again as Hoist lowered him onto a medberth. A hiss of pain escaped him before he could stop it.
“I wonder mechlings, if you’d like to watch a show while I take care of your o’gin?” Hoist asked.
The mech in question raised his helm, and watched as Hoist led the Twins to an holo-imager in the corner of the room and turned it on. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe had never had the chance to watch cartoons and as the fanciful images projected from the imager, they were immediately entranced. Hoist guided the sparklings down onto the cushions in front of the holo-imager, and draped a blanket over them before he returned to Prowl. When he did, Hoist pulled a privacy screen to block the mechlings from seeing the examine, and Prowl was beyond grateful for this courtesy.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice has hoarse with pain he had become too exhausted to repress.
“It’s my honour as a medic,” Hoist replied. “I’m going to cut off the blanket, rather than untie it. I think that’ll be easier for you. Those sparklings are due for upgrades.”
“They are,” Prowl admitted, feeling so much guilt for this failing. “It has been difficult to schedule a time, and to spend the credits.”
“I understand,” Hoist said, and it felt like a benediction. “They’re healthy mechlings, despite the conditions you must have had to raise them in. Before I send you on the road, I’ll help them upgrade. You’ll need to rest a while before you can make the journey, so there’ll be time enough for it.”
“We cannot stay long,” Prowl replied, fear rising in his spark, and choking him. “I killed a mech to get away. Enforcers will be looking for me.”
“They won’t look here. I don’t legally exist, and this place exists for mechanisms like your bitlets and me. The enforcers don’t know it exists. Even if they looked here, and no enforcer ever has, this treatment room is behind a false wall. The best engineer in the world built it. Under scans it registers as solid metal, thanks to the materials Jackie used. You’ll be safe. I’ll see to it.”
“It is difficult to imagine,” Prowl said. An enforcer had known of the clinic, and its location, him. But Prowl elected not to mention this, for fear Hoist would cast them out. As the medic had said he would, Hoist cut the blanket away. Prowl was laid bare again, it was surprisingly humiliating.
“I don’t doubt it is,” Hoist replied, and Prowl wondered if he had teeked his humiliation. “I’m going examine the damage to your plating first. Will you tell me how long you were in the brothel?”
“Fifteen hundred and seventy-seven stellar-cycles. They were still newlings.”
“Their ‘genitor wouldn’t help? Your family.”
“He is dead. He never knew of them. My procreators drained my personal accounts before I could access them, after I was dismissed from my function for gross misconduct. Because I carried them. Because I gave emergence to them and did not leave them in a gutter to die. I found myself with nothing. No one would hire me, not even the better brothels, not if I insisted on keeping them. They were mine, I would never give them up.”
“The health of those mechlings is a testimony for what you were willing to do to see them grow. I’ll give you the contact information for some counsellors. It would be worth talking to someone. The three of you have survived the Pit, but surviving the Pit comes with scars. I’m going to put your peds in stirrups to examine your valve. Before I start the exam, I’m going to give you a strong buffer. You shouldn’t feel anything. If you feel like recharging, don’t worry about fighting it.”
At some point during the examine, did Prowl drift off, despite a token resistance. He felt nothing as Hoist did his work, though he distantly heard the whirl of tools. When he came around again he was numb, and his thought processes were slow and cloudy. As the fog slowly cleared, his vision came into focus, and he found the medic looking down at him. Hoist gently described his injuries and what would need to be done to repair them. It was all so much worse than he had imagined. His valve had been rupture. The charge of the shock stick had all but obliterated his lining, as well as scorching many of his internal components. Out of his line of sight, he heard the Twins cackling merrily along with the imager. When was the last time he had heard that sound? It had become impossible to hide as much of the torment Prowl experience mega-cycle after mega-cycle as they had grown older. They had matured too quickly as a result. Maybe now they would get to be mechlings. Maybe they would be able to climb, and race and play. There was no delaying his repairs, his survival was at stake. Hoist gave him a stronger sedative. Listening to the sound of the Twins laughter, Prowl drifted off again.
“I’ve given them the minerals they need to prepare for the upgrades,” Hoist explained when Prowl woken completely late the next mega-cycle. “I’ve brought in a couple of specially programmed CR chamber. They’ll recharge through it, completely painlessly, just like they’re supposed to. In the meantime, I don’t want you leaving that berth. I’ve repaired the internal damage, but the nanite plug needs to do the rest.”
Hoist wasted no time, once Prowl was properly alert and could grant consent, and the mechlings were well fuelled, he put them in the CR chambers, though it took some convincing from their originator, and a few joors were of snuggles. Once the protocols were activated, all that was left for Prowl to do was lay there and wait. The time was not wasted, however. Bit by bit the medic repaired both Prowl’s plating and protoform, and he constructed new armour for his chassis, and a new modesty panel as well. It was a funny thing to be whole after so long living as half a mechanism, to know he could walk down the street, when he was permitted to walk, and no one would give him even a sideways glance. No one in Iacon, because it was Iacon that Prowl had decided would be their final destination, would ever know the function he had been forced to perform, and he felt an indescribable sense of relief.
Though the surgical repairs were complete, the work of the Praxian’s self-repair systems was not yet done. His valve had been ruined beyond any hope of repair. Hoist had replaced it. Due to the complexity of the sensory system, he had also had to attach new nodes and biolights in precise points within Prowl’s new valve. The plug within him now served to assist his frame in integrating the new components. If Hoist had only made one misstep, Prowl’s frame could reject the new part, or his sensory nodes could be dead. Despite all he had gone through, Prowl preferred the idea of being whole and he obeyed the medic’s every instruction.
It was easy to obey. The demands on his self-repair systems were great, and even fuelling only on med-grade, Prowl recharge more than he was awake. On a whole that was not so terrible, it was easier on his psyche to recharge rather than watch and worry over the Twins. Hoist said everything was going along in a textbook fashion, but it was natural for an originator to worry. So he followed medic’s orders and remained in the berth. In those moments when he was online, Prowl made plans, or tried to. It was hard to focus his processor enough to make any progressive. Whenever his focused drifted, he thought of Jazz. It was odd. That mech had been dead for twenty vorns, but he still managed to steal Prowl’s focus. There was only one single thing Prowl knew for certain. When the Twins were ready they would drive for the Crystal City, from there Prowl would buy transport to Iacon, and a bright new future.
“Which of your procreators was Praxian?” Prowl asked in a moment of lucidity.
“My ‘genitor,” Hoist replied. “He was a good medic, taught me a lot before he sent me to the Academy in Iacon. He set up this clinic, millions of stellar-cycles ago. When he passed he left it to a trust, he couldn’t leave it to me, of course. But the trust leaves it to me to manage. He was one of the founders of the Free Road. This clinic was one of the original stops.”
“I will be eternally grateful he saw to your education. I have taught the Twins as best as I can. There are great gaps in their education.”
“You might not have had the resources my ‘genitor did, but you’ve done well by them, I think. They can read and write, they have a good understanding of math. With those basics, they’ll catch up with everything else quick enough. You’ll see... From your accent though, I can guess you had a higher education.”
“They are wealthy, had they wished to, they could have seen the Twins set up with tutors,” Prowl explained. The bitterness remained, but his voice was hollow. “I had no way out of Praxus. Only that brothel would hire me. I did not imagine I would be there so long. I saved every tip, every single credit. I got so close, just a couple thousand shanix way, so many times. But something always happened to double, and then quadruple my debt. Obviously he was falsely padding it, but what could I do? I am an outcast, a registered buymech of the lowest order. No enforcer would care to listen to me.”
“That’s an unfortunately common trap,” Hoist said. “I’m sorry your procreators robbed you, that’s a sick thing. Don’t worry about credits anymore. The Free Road has a fund for this sort of thing. We’ll get you where you want to go, and get you settle. Whatever credits you have, are yours.”
Prowl did not weep. Instead he let his helm drop, let his consciousness fade. He had never considered that the Free Road would be a charity. No, he had thought it was another smuggling route. The events of these fifteen hundred and seventy-seven stellar-cycles need never have happened. Over these many stellar-cycles he had interfaced with hundreds of strange mechs, endured every kind of depraved interface a hundred fold, and he could have escape Praxus without ever submitting to a single degradation. He felt sick and stained in a way he had not before. Though Prowl tried to reason that the Free Road operated on rumour and myth, you were not meant to know how it truly worked, it did nothing to ease his self-disgust. Because he had not recognized that mechanisms might be generous, because his own background had painted the world as selfish and jaded, he had not seen the Free Road for what it would actually be. Recharge came up and claimed him again. This time it was all his thousands of missteps to haunt his memory fluxes.