[Location: Quasar Club, Date: Not recorded, Time: Early Off-cycle, Status: 0 errors detected]
I don’t taste the mixed cube as I tip the contents into my intake and fail to hear the music gliding up from beneath our booth.
Streak is chatting with the next booth over with the privacy wall folded neatly aside so he can clap the other mech on the shoulder and give him a little friendly shake as they both laugh.
“Your friend’s real shy,” the other mech comments from far away.
“Oh, not at all. He’s just one of those brainy types you know. Always in his processor. Some mechs get all the luck when their forged; looks and ram.” Streak lays the flat of his arm against his optical ridge while his own cube dangles elegantly from his digits. “But, it’s also way past his recharge time and this is our third club.”
Streak makes it look effortless. As if the whole universe has not rewritten itself. How can he be so relaxed after the silo?
We were in the silo for a few groons, leaning together against one of the walls at the very top, perched on a narrow band of metal and near one of the latches. The silo had been packed, but in a controlled sense. Bots great and small, lining the walls and floor. The inside of the place made up of hatches, latched shut, but ready to be thrown open for a hurried escape.
At the center of it all, a stereo mech had transformed and relayed a recording: a deep authoritative voice laying at our pedes the tyranny of the our society, the need for change, and the road going forward toward that goal in so many aspects I had not given much processor resources toward before.
I take another tasteless sip, not hearing whatever Streak and the mech talk about now.
My assignment was to find out where Streak had been going, but I see now this is what Command really wants out of it: proof of treason and rebellion. I am under orders to inform them of what happened at the silo. Once they know about it, they will send a force out to disband the gathering and to take the stereo mech in for questioning. Our squad-commander would pat me on the back-plating and let me stay in my position, at least that is what he implied.
Part of the speech drifts through my processor: you are being deceived.
I sit my cube down and scoot out of the booth.
“I am returning to base before I crash.”
“I’ll be along shortly, but don’t wait up for me. Sweet recharge, Sol.”
I nod and show myself out with the weight of the world on my wings.