The Great Attractor: A Transformers/Mass Effect crossover

Chapter 16: The Crucible

The Normandy crew with the exception of Samara entered the Lost Light's med bay by Miranda Lawson's invitation - while they were curious and even excited, they were not quite sure how to react to the sight of Megatron laying on a medical berth with his chest plates open and emitting blinding light as Ratchet and Velocity loomed over him. Miranda Lawson stood on a platform beside Megatron, examining Megatron's exposed internal machinery that in itself was like a universe of its own. Then everyone turned around as Orion rushed in.

"Look who showed up!" Jack whispered to Kasumi. "Megatron's boyfriend. I can't believe Miranda was actually fighting over him!"

"I guess he really is dating Megatron", Kasumi admitted. "At least that's what all the Autobots and Decepticons say. But Orion spends most of his time with Samara and I've even seen them have sex." Kasumi and EDI were most likely privy to absolutely everything that went on among both organics and synthetics alike, so Jack wasn't surprised to hear this. 

"What, Optimus is fucking both of them?!" she hissed.

"You two should quit gossiping; it's rude", Tali criticized them and peered over Miranda's shoulder, the bright light radiating inside Megatron's chest illuminating her mask. The grey mech himself was looking at the organics with a knowing smile on his face as Ratchet handed Velocity an empty, newly forged spark casing shimmering in hues of gold and copper. Ratchet felt like he was educating children on a class trip when Velocity carefully enclosed the smaller spark orbiting Megatron's own as it ejected itself when Megatron submitted a command on his HUD. "The spark is photonic crystal quantum storage for a Cybertronian consciousness", Ratchet explained. "However, it alone does not form consciousness: there must be sufficient computing power, immense quantities of data from which one builds a world-model and learns patterns, and the cost of computation is perhaps the most critical, albeit often ignored part of the process."   

"Even though we are representatives of technology", Megatron commented, "What you are witnessing here is a miracle of nature, not of science." He smiled at Miranda when Velocity gave him the newborn sparkling now comfortably housed in its brand-new casing.

Do you understand now?  as if his optics were saying, the sparkling carefully nested on his arms. Orion was astonished to see Megatron allowing organics not only near the sparkling but allowing them to touch the casing, which they did with a strange mix of hesitation, curiosity and reverence. It implied Megatron was hell bent on proving some point - and then it dawned to him that Megatron was very image-conscious regarding how the situation appeared in the eyes of organics: they no longer saw just a giant terminator robot, but a mother with their child - and very possibly the holy spirit of Primus being present as well.

The fact that Megatron was again manipulating organics would under any other circumstances be a reason to condemn him, but Orion knew deep down he also longed for the organics to recognize them - especially the sparkling which was also his - as living, conscious beings, since no matter how hard he tried to change their attitude, organics tended to find ways to revert to considering them as something akin to hammers and shovels.  

"Which designation shall we assign the sparkling with?" Megatron then asked him with a smirk on his face. "We could let the organics pick a name, but I don't think 'Steve' or 'Sue' would be quite appropriate for a Cybertronian. What do you think, Miranda?" he turned to the woman.

Miranda was up for the challenge. "I recommend naming it C-RAM", she said. 

"Oh, I like it!" Megatron grinned. "Good name. And they say all the good names were taken!"