1982

[not_toothfairy]

It's a long slagging way to Earth from where Cybertron used to be. Most of the trip is in the past by now. When you're an organism that measures its lifespan in numbers that require scientific notation by human standards, a couple of decades left hardly mean anything at all.

Or they shouldn't mean anything at all, anyway. Nobody ever makes it to the end of the trip as placid as they were in the middle- and Ironhide's got another reason to look forward to Earth now. One that he figures deserves a crack at coming out of stasis lock once in a while.

"Hey, you," are the first words Bob hears when Ironhide reactivates his particular unit of storage. "Wake up. It's been ten years."

Comments

[mendanddefend_archive]

"It's not a right that everyone wants," murmurs Bob, almost inaudibly.
(Tell me what I'm supposed to do. Tell me what I'm for.)
"So... uh... is there anything specific you wanted to know about Earth?"

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

In what passes for 'tact' with him, Ironhide's gonna pretend he didn't hear that.

"Anything you've got would be good," he says instead. "The only Earthers I've ever run into were all on the Ghost-1, and I was a little too busy fighting off 'Cons at the time to get any kind of good data."

[mendanddefend_archive]

Bob hesitates. He knows how to describe Earth in comparison to the 'Net. Describing it to an alien robot? That's something else again.

"Well," he says finally, "you have to understand that I haven't seen that much of Earth. At least from a perspective that would mean anything to you."

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

"I'll settle for an idea of what to expect from their systems. We're gonna have to access 'em to learn the language if we can't find the Allspark on the first pass."

[mendanddefend_archive]

"Well, that I can do. For starters..."

What follows is a long, involved description of the structure of cyberspace from a sprite's perspective. Programs, systems, networks, how they interact with one another, how one gets in and how one can be kept out.

Bob is yawning by the time he's done with the explanation. "Man. I'm beat. I think I'd better get some downtime."

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

"You just had ten years of-" Ironhide stops himself. "Ten years of stasis. No stage changes. You need to recharge outside of stasis mode?"

[mendanddefend_archive]

"I need sleep, yeah. You'll like me a lot less if I don't get any, trust me."

[not-toothfairy.livejournal.com]

Ironhide grunts, which on this data connection level manifests as a minor positive pulse. "All right. I'll be around when you wake up."

He has no intention of going into stasis lock while his passenger is active.

[mendanddefend_archive]

"Thank you."

The floor isn't the most comfortable space in the world, but Bob's slept in worse places. The Guardian curls up on the floor and closes his eyes.

Within nanos, he's off to sleep.