Matrix Cage

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
IDW Autocracy
Orion Pax
Following my trend of writing ever more miniscule-audienced continuities…me trying to connect ChaosTheory!Optimus to the Autocracy!psychopath
for tf_speedwriting prompt “empty inside” last three lines from canon

“Ya comin’?”  Ironhide’s voice, gruff but friendly enough. “I’m buyin’ the first round.”

Orion Pax shook his head, almost glad of the excuse. “I have to meet with Zeta Prime.”  He was not one for after-hours socializing. Not anymore. Part of him revolted at the very idea: there was a war crashing down upon them, a wave made of darkness and violence, and celebration, levity seemed…offensive, somehow. 

But more than that, he felt the distance between the mechs on his team, now more than ever.

Ironhide pulled a face. “Don’t envy you that,” he said, and after one last look, turned to gather the others, shepherding them  out of the ready room, leaving Orion alone with his thoughts. 

Which was, Orion knew, where he least wanted to be.  He sighed, grabbing a small buffing tool. The last raid had left some long scratches in his armor, in one or two spots the blue stripped down to bare silver.  It wouldn’t do to meet with Zeta Prime himself, scuffed and damaged.  The buffer whirred on, and he moved it, blankly, over his armor, the scratch-scouring pad barely registering on his sensor span. It didn’t hurt. Nothing did.  Not since….

No, he wouldn’t blame it on that. The Senator had released him from prison, cleared the charges, wiped his record clean, set him free.

And what he had done with his ‘freedom’ was his own, praise-worthy or blame-. He’d wanted to continue, to prevent the festering resentment he’d seen on Megatron’s datapad, and day after day frogmarched past his desk at the Rodion Police station from rupturing into war.

He’d failed that.  Looking at his face in the mirror, he had to admit that. The blue optics were dim, almost haunted. He’d matched force with force, trying to press down against the tide of violence. He’d believed Megatron, or at least, the Megatron that had written that treatise.  It was like for a first time he had heard, really heard, the voices of the mechs he arrested.  He’d fallen into the trap of viewing them as criminals, not citizens, of categorizing them by crime and recidivism and likelihood of violence.

And in that moment, he’d seen them through their own optics: stripped of opportunity, denied chances, refused even the basic dignities: the pride one had to earn his own way in the world.  Megatron had opened his optics.

And he’d closed them, willingly, out of a dark, burning betrayal. Because Megatron had betrayed him first. He had believed, he had dared to think he could change things.

Or had he? Had he truly believed, or had he simply been too broken by the murders of Springarm and Wheelarch, too horrified by the bullying and corruption, that he had snatched at the bold words, as the only light in his darkness?

He’d been mad, surely. He’d been…unwell, to crash into the Senate chamber, one of his own mechs’ ruined bodies slung over him like an offering, a shield. He’d been out of his senses, out of order, out of line. 

This was his second chance, and he was paying for it with the hollow cage in his chassis, an emptiness inside that felt like it would never be filled, a destiny too big for him to reach. 

He'd thought violence wasn't the answer, but even in that moment, violence was what he had reached for. It was a language they'd all learned: violence and fear, burning like fire over Cybertron, consuming it more thoroughly than flame.

He cut off the buffer, reaching for the little jar of touchup paint, chin against his throat cables as he smeared blue wet lines over his scratched armor. It wasn’t vanity, not from him, not now. It was simple adherence to the rules.  Rules mattered. The law mattered. The law and nothing else. 

The room seemed to echo around him, stainless, gleaming chrome and spotless white tiles, a place where the strike teams washed off the stink and smear of battle.  Everything clean and tidy, pristine, redolent with the powerful scent of order.  This was how it should be: big and bright and clean. Nothing like the darkness outside in Nyon, nothing like the muddy politics of the Senate chamber.

Big and clean and…echoing empty against his hollow chassis.

He shook the thought off, changing the pad on the tool to the buffer, running it swiftly over his armor, smoothing the blues together, covering the damage, erasing the signs of violence. He checked his chrono. Almost time. 

The empty room seemed to hold the sound of the buffer’s whine, a simple machine, doing its duty, hiding traces of things too impolite to be seen.

The questions on the datapad, that had seemed so burningly alive, lit by the color of Springarm’s dying optics,  seemed to mock him now.  In whose interests do you exercise power?  To whom are you accountable?  How do we get rid of you?

Comments

[ravynfyre.livejournal.com]

Reading your grasp of politics and society just makes me boggle... especially since you can illustrate everything so entertainingly, too! I envy you your skills!

[hopeofdawn.livejournal.com]

I'm not familiar with this continuity at all, but this fic is intriguing and evocative. I can really feel Orion's lack of hope in this ....