Picket Fences out In Space - Transformers Series

9. Thinking Space

                Dex and Nightbeat sat near one another in the rear passenger section of Sky Lynx's shuttle mode. They were on a trajectory straight back to Cybertron. No stops. It was time they headed home; a place without sticky floors, or blood lusted organic creatures, or terrifying dreams, or monsters too large to fathom.

Nightbeat had thrown a cloth shawl over his lap and powered himself down to rest. The shawl was beautiful, covered in intricate patterns of Gold against a soft green. Dex wondered if such things were common with Cybertronians. Do I have prized possessions? But these were Dex's less important questions. "Nightbeat? Are you ok?"

The sleeping bot did not respond.

"Hey. What are you doing under there?"

"Nightbeat has gone to his private thinking space. He blocks things out, and focuses on the texture of that shawl. It helps him calmly process things, assemble hypotheses. He does it when he's got more information than he knows what to do with. He only pulls it out for really big cases." Sky Lynx's voice was heard from the ambient space around Dex.

"A big case? What does that mean?"

"Back on Cybertron, Nightbeat is a Private Investigator. He used to work for the Justice Department, one of Sentinel's Decepticons, but for some reason he quit. Good thing he did, too. I don't think we'd be friends if he had stayed with those...well with them. He's better off on his own."

Dex put their pointer fingers together. "I wonder if I'm the big mystery you're working on," they said softly to Nightbeat, half hoping he didn't hear. Dex got up and walked up to the cockpit. "So Nightbeat is an Investigator. You're an actor, right? Are you famous?"

"Ah well, fame is—how do you say it—subjective. And fleeting. There was a time when I was cast in production after production. I was always working. I suppose to people in the industry, I had a recognizable face. But I never had that one big role that would help me break out as a star, and become a household name. But it'll happen eventually. We live a long time, so it's only a matter of time if I keep at it."

"Why did you decide to travel with Nightbeat instead of to continue acting?"

"I'm...taking a sabbatical. That's all. Plus, Nightbeat said he needed my help."

"You two must be closes friends."

"We've certainly known each other a long time." Sky Lynx changed the subject. "Say, I wonder if you're aware that planets actually shine more brightly than the stars, without an atmosphere in the way. Those that we are passing now don't have any atmosphere."

Dex looked out the window. He could see countless planets passing by. Blue, green, red, white, and...grey. They shone just as brightly as Dex's eyes as they peered upon them. It was wondrous. Still, it was impossible to stop thinking about what had just happened to them. "Sky Lynx?"

"Yes, cherub?"

"When we were in the mushroom...thing, what did you see?"

Even though he was in shuttle-mode, it was very obvious that Sky Lynx was considering his answer with the utmost seriousness. "I saw heaven."

"Heaven?"

"I saw the Well of All sparks. The All-Spark. I saw where I'm going to go when I die. I thought I had died."

"That sounds scary."

"It wasn't. Me, along with the souls of countless other deceased individuals were all swimming together and overlapping as one enormous collective. It was tranquility made manifest." They sat quietly for a few moments. "And, little one, it would be most appropriate for you to tell me what you saw, at this juncture."

"I can't really describe it well. But I do know that it felt familiar. Like it was a place where a friend used to live."

"Tell me any details at all you can remember." The voice came from the cabin behind them. Nightbeat's now-uncovered head was poking into the cockpit. He was bracing himself against the doorway. His legs were apparently greatly damaged from his encounter with the mold people. He must be in great pain, thought Dex.

Dex smiled for a moment, glad to see their friend showing interest. "Well, it was a sort of home. An alien house. And there was a Cybertronian at the door, but I could tell they didn't live there. They taunted me, and then they transformed, and then the whole world started to transform, and I felt this extremely painful hunger in my chest. And I was...I was scared that I was going to be trapped, alone. But then you rescued me."

"Tell me about the home. What was the climate? Did you recognize what kind of species might live there? Did you get a good look at the stars?"

"Um, no. I wasn't really paying attention to those details, or maybe, those details weren't really there for me to look for? It all just seemed like a dream."

"I thought maybe you were remembering a place you had been. Any details that would help us locate it, any clues to where you come from."

"Then wait, maybe...nope. I don't remember anything else."

"Blast," Nightbeat muttered. He retreated back into the rear seating section, and slumped back onto the floor, pulling the blanket back over his lap, and powering down again.

"Maybe that's...Maybe that's me. Maybe I am just a dream. Maybe I'm not...you know, real, like you guys. God, Sky Lynx, what if I'm not real? What If I'm just a bunch of ideas thrown together by some dreaming entity? Maybe I was born yesterday, and that's why I can't remember anything? What if Nightbeat never figures out who I am?" Sparks started to flicker out of the bottom of Dex's eyes.

Sky Lynx deployed a small robotic arm from a compartment above Dex's seat. It reached down and started to pat the top of Dex's head. "There; there. Everything's going to be alright. I don't care if you're a Cybertronian, or a dream, or a ghost, or a black hole hologram. It doesn't matter if you were born yesterday or 6 million years ago. We're going to take care of you, and we're going to find out what happened to your transtector. Nightbeat will figure it out, I guarantee it. He's the greatest detective in the world."

Dex gave a little sniffle. "Thanks Sky Lynx." They looked over their shoulder into the rear passenger area at Nightbeat sitting on the floor covered in his shawl, pouting. "I know he is."