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Age of the Machine (Market Comodity 3)	By : Scienceteacher Category: Transformers > G1 > Round Robins Views: 6356 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Do not own Transformers/Hasbro, Am not making a dime off of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-A.o.M. part 1
- 2-A.o.M. 2
- 3-A.o.M 3
- 4-A.oM.4
- 5-AoM 5
- 6-AoM 6
- 7-AoM 7
- 8-AoM 8
- 9-AoM 8-1/2
- 10-AoM 9
- 11-AoM 10
- 12-AoM 11
- 13-AoM 12
- 14-Once upon a time
- 15-AoM 13
- 16-AoM 14
- 17-AoM 15
- 18-AoM 16
- 19-AoM 17
- 20-Family Ties
- 21-AoM 18
- 22-Family Ties Pt 2
- 23-AoM19
- 24-Family Ties Pt 3
- 25-AoM 20
- 26-Family Ties Pt 4
- 27-AoM 21
- 28-AOM 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
Chapter contributed by : kuroikitsu

Sorry if this chapter seems kinda pointless and awkward but I had a really hard time with this one. This one felt more like the beginning than the other two did, and I suck at beginnings. So the only compensation prize is that this chapter is longer than the other two. I will get around to answering your questions and getting things moving as soon as I can. Guess I just need to get all this awkwardness out of the way first, lol. Please review, hearing what you think helps me muchly…

Family Ties

Chapter 2- Introductions

They were about 500 yards away from their new home, as Anita told him, when Zero heard someone shout “You’re back!” It was female, that much Zero could tell despite the gas mask inhibiting her voice. She attempted to run to them, only to slip, fall, and skid down the ash rifts stopping just a few inches from knocking them over as well.

Anita giggled through her own mask- she had put it on just before they left Zero’s old hideout. “One would think you’d learn by now Dree.”

Hesitantly, the other girl stood up, laughing at herself. “I left my common sense at ‘home’. Lord knows I’m no good without it.”

“You’re barely any good with it.” Anita replied, the softness in her voice making the words more of a joke than an insult.

“Let’s get inside. Even with the masks, being out here too long can’t be good for us.” Anita’s mother insisted, walking ahead of the girls, gesturing that Zero should follow.

Zero Cool did so hesitantly. Though he had nowhere else to go, he was still unsure about how much he really wanted to stay with Anita. She wasn’t Maria, or Nana, and something in him just ached for his owners. His humans.

It seemed that all that had survived were basements, for this was another basement setup. It wasn’t falling in on itself yet, though the entrance was nearly blocked off by cemented ash. The entrance lead to a ‘room’, if one could call the sheets of material blocking the small space from the rest of the basement a room. Anita and the other girl quickly followed. “Don’t move,” Anita told him as the three women began stripping. First the masks and helmets- and for the first time Zero could tell that the other girl, Dree, was black, her skin a mix between hot chocolate and that of a Hershey’s bar. After the masks came the coats, heavy, bulky things, but surprisingly warm, then the snowsuit. With their gloves they brushed off as much of the residue as they could and brushed Zero off as well before taking off the gloves and reaching into a bucket of water that Zero hadn’t noticed before. Grabbing the wet rags, they rung out as much water as they could before washing off their faces and yanking the rags through their hair, getting as much as the surface ash off as they could, before wetting the rags again and washing Zero down. Then they took off their boots before leaving the now filthy room.

Zero followed mutely. When it came to the ash, they were incredibly efficient. Something Zero hadn’t expected. “We found a clone.” Anita’s mother announced to the group. Even with Zero, there were no more than 15 of them. And yet… yet Zero felt almost overwhelmed by the sheer amount of life there was.

Most of them didn’t bother to stop what they were doing, but they did at least look over at him. A Blurr and a Jazz clone were over at the table in the corner preparing something, probably food. Two children, about 10, were reading, half mindedly petting a Ravage clone who shifted every time the steady motions paused. The rest, a Megatron clone, a Swindle clone, and two humans, a man and a woman, were playing… Spades, if Zero’s optic was right.

The Megatron clone paused and stared at Dree before pointing at the back room. “Hm?” The girl asked in confusion before glancing back. “Oh!” She exclaimed before walking back to the room. The hum of a vacuum made Zero look back. She was vacuuming the ash out of the room. Made sense, once he thought about it. By leaving the ash there, it was damn near impossible to avoid breathing it in. Getting rid of it was the safest route. At least he wouldn’t have to watch another human die from it.

After she finished, the black girl sat next to the Megatron clone, wrapping her arm around him with a, “Sorry, I didn’t even think about it,” as she rested her head against his shoulder. She looked perfectly at peace, though Zero didn’t know how since his shoulder was incredibly blocky and square and his cannon dug into the flesh of her breast and belly. It just couldn’t be as comfortable as she made it look.

“Ey! Don’tcha have any manners? Momma said we found a new clone!” Anita shouted loudly, more than loud enough to be heard since the sound echoed through the large, but fairly sparse basement. Grumbling, this time everyone stopped, though Zero sensed it was more to stop Anita from saying more than from any true interest or respect. “Now we can do introductions. Everyone, this is Zero Cool.”

“I’m Dria. Well, it’s Alexandria, but no one calls me that anymore.” Dree, apparently Dria, said her voice happy and cheerful as she clung to the Megatron clone. “This is my sister Alicia.” She said, pointing to the woman at the game table. Their skin was the same hue of brown, and their eyes were the same inky black, but the similarities from there ended. Even from where she was sitting, Zero could tell that Alicia was at least half a foot taller than her sister, and their bodies were nearly opposite in construction. Dria had a delicate face, large eyes, small nose, and a small pouty mouth, where her body was built for endurance. Her bone structure as large and though she was curvy (Zero amended his list, they both had the same large eyes and hourglass figure), she was not delicate in any way. Just by looking, one would think she was easily intimidated, but in a fight she wouldn’t do too badly. Alicia was her exact opposite, with a strong jaw, broad nose and full lips, but her structure, though tall, was delicate. Her height and size were intimidating, but she would probably go down fairly easily. Alicia nodded at him. “Call me Lici. Everyone does.”

The Megatron clone stared at him for a moment, but at Dria’s nudging, introduced himself with a frown. “I am Hades.” His voice was calm, cool, and full of power. It gave Zero more chills down his back strut than it had any right to. (He seemed fully deserving of the name Hades already and he hadn’t done anything. That was just creepy.) Hades was one clone he was going to make sure to stay on the good side of.

The Swindle clone introduced himself next. “Touzoku.” He laughed a little. “Woulda like to play a round? I’m sure you’ve got something you can lose.” Zero fought a shiver at the way Touzoku’s eyes roamed his chassis. It was almost like he wanted to rip him apart and take anything valuable.

The man was next. “I’m Damien.” The words were accompanied by a slight wave. Damien had a head full of long black hair that had grown past his shoulders and was developing a nice beard to go with it. His eyes were a hazel green and his skin olive. Despite the chilly air he merely wore jeans and a tee shirt, placing his muscles on high display.

“Hey dude, I’m Blues.” The Jazz clone introduced himself, looking up from his cooking. Zero couldn’t help the snicker that left his lips. Blues smirked back. “Yeah, I know. But I’m more of a hip hop guy m’self.” He said, pop-locking for a few seconds to prove his point.

The Blurr followed. “MynameisTranquility.WhyZeroCool?Wasyourownerafanofmovies?” The Blurr clone had somehow managed to get from the table where he helped Blues to right in front of Zero, staring at the clone as he conducted a full body investigation of Zero, lifting his arms and circling him.

It took Zero nearly a full minute to understand the tangent, much less respond. “Hi Tranquility. Why did your owner name you that? Was she a fan of oxymorons?”

Tranquility’s optics narrowed for a moment before he conceded. “Good point.” The words were only slightly faster than a normal person’s (or clone’s), though Tranquility shook with the effort to keep his words understandable.

The Ravage clone stared with dim optics for a moment before calmly introducing himself. “I am Blake.” His optics closed fully as he went back to ignoring Zero. Strangely, Zero Cool was okay with that. Hell, it was preferable to the others so far. It felt normal, habitual, like something so familiar that he simply forgot about it but had noticed its absence.

The two children didn’t speak. Blake twitched. When there was no response, Blake simply used his tail and paw to push the books away from their faces. The two sighed in tandem. “I am Rachel.” The one on the right said at the exact same time as the one on the left said “I am Sara.” Both had shoulder length blond hair, though it was matted and dirty now, and ocean blue eyes. They blinked at him and shifted closer to Blake. They were exactly alike, from the top strand of their blond hair and elegant (snotty Zero would call it) pointed noses, to the ends of their long pale legs and small feet. Zero was almost certain that if he asked Blake, the Ravage clone would assure him that they breathed in tandem as well. Going back to their books, (which Zero noticed were different though from the same series), they pushed their glasses up, square black frames that fit the air of practicality they gave off. It was then that Zero noticed that they did something physically different. Sara pushed her glasses up from the middle. Rachel grabbed the side to yank them up. They were different!

“Don’t worry, they do that to rile people.” Anita whispered in Zero’s ear.

“Ah, I never did tell you my name. It’s Bianca.” Anita’s mother told him as she did a quick head count. The action was more habitual than actual thought. “We’re two people short.” She frowned as she began to do a mental checklist.

Hades interrupted her before she could finish. Not looking up from his game, he said, “Sparkles is due back within the hour to report from his mission and Tyquien is on lookout for him.”

Bianca nodded in acceptance. “Tranquility, did you and Touzoku ever fix my laptop?”

The Blurr clone shook his head sadly. “Mygreatestapologiesthatwecouldnotcorrectourmistake.ShallIfetchitforyouanywaysMommaB?”

“No that’s-”

“I can fix it.” Zero proclaimed.

“Are you sure?” Bianca fixed him a long steady look.

“Yeah, and if I can’t, it’s not like it can get worse than broke, right?” Besides, Zero… didn’t really fit in here. Computers and circuitry was something he knew. He was a programmer. It beat sitting around here watching everyone be lively and know each other.

“…alright. Would you mind Tran?” Bianca asked.

“Absolutelynot.Ineverminddoinganytingforyou.” Tranquility blushed lightly, the words even faster and more blurred than normal. He then zipped out of their sight.

Blues laughed. “Momma, when are you gonna-” The words were cut off by the blue blur that was Tranquility.

“Hereyouare.”” Tranquility put the computer on the table fairly close to his own ‘work’ space.

Zero looked over the mess. Mess, being the most accurate term he could think of. “What were you trying to do?!”

“They were trying to power it with the batteries from the infected clones. It’s what they did for the vacuum.” Anita said, walking over and looking over Zero’s shoulder.

“And how many attempts did that take? They blew up half the computer!” Zero gestured towards the abused laptop’s insides.

“Somewhere between 9 and 15.” Bianca admitted.

Zero shook his head, mumbling to himself. Crash could have made a better attempt than this and his brother thought that smashing something with his pile drivers was ‘fixing’ it. “Where are your tools? I’m gonna need a flathead, a Phillips, a soldering iron…. Do you have any spare circuits??? Zero demanded more than asked.

Three hours later, Zero had fixed the computer. Actually, he had more or less, rebuilt the computer, but the hard drive had still worked so it didn’t have to be completely reprogrammed. During that time, he had met Tyquien. He was Dria’s and Alicia’s cousin. Zero nearly didn’t believe it at first, the caramel coloured teen seemed as unrelated to them as Anita did. It wasn’t until Dria and Tyquien were playing around, wrestling, that he realized the similarities. They all had the same head shape and the same eyes. Tyquien and Dria had the same nose, though he had Alicia’s mouth and near delicateness- if a boy who was obviously in shape could be described as delicate. He had also met Sparkles, who arrived exactly two minutes before Hades was going to comm him. The Laserbeak clone had looked at Zero and said, “As long as you don’t try to feed me crackers, we’ll be fine.” The imagery had made Zero laugh so hard he nearly soldered through the circuit he meant to fix.

Zero turned the device on and had almost plugged himself into it before remembering another failsafe that had been installed into the clones. Plugging himself into the computer would set him into full lock mode. With a growl, he created his own program, a virus essentially, to change his owner registration. Logically, he could change his entire system, but that was just something he didn’t want to try. He liked who he was, after all, and changing would have been a disgrace to Maria and Nana’s memory.

“Anita. I need you to do me a favor. When I’m plugged I, I need you to press enter. The program will do the rest.” Zero told her.

“Al-alright.” She hesitated, but didn’t argue. Thank god. He plugged himself in and felt his systems go into lock mode. It was odd, he still sensed everything going on around him, but he couldn’t move. It was freaky. It was downright scary, actually. If something were to happen, he couldn’t possibly think of defending himself. Someone could rip him apart piece by piece and he would be helpless to stop it. Not cool. He could feel the program working through his systems. Perhaps it was because he designed it and knew what it was going to do? But it was like an itch in his wiring that he couldn’t scratch. He felt himself deactivate, the last active thought on his processor being, I forgot about that. Hopefully the computer will show them my code…

He had been deactivated for a little over an hour before the program stopped and self destructed as he designed it to do. Mentally, for he physically couldn’t move, he frowned to himself. It took far too long to do that. If he ever redesigned it, he’d have to find a way to make it quicker, and to ensure that it didn’t deactivate him. It was simpler to go through programs that were off but considering that his processers were still running, there was no point in it. Dimly, he heard Anita’s voice.

“Frenzy activate, owner code 47600-L-9984-TDI.”

Without a thought, Zero Cool sat up and looked at Anita. “Model 47600-L-9984-TDI activated, registered owner- Anita Sanders.”

“It worked!” Anita cheered, hugging him.

Zero smiled dimly, but there was still one more think running through his meta before he could relax. His owner had to be the one to name him, after all. “Is Zero Cool still my designation?” He asked, almost hesitantly.

“Huh? Of course!” Anita told him, not even giving the words a thought. It wouldn’t be until hours later, in the dark of night while she was supposed to be sleeping would she realize why Zero had asked her that, or why he would fear the change. But at the moment she was blissfully unaware, content that she had somehow been able to help the Frenzy clone get the owner he needed- her.

“It worked.” Zero repeated as he finally hugged her back. He had owners- humans again, and he didn’t have to give up the last thing Maria and Nana gave him to do it.
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- 25
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Age of the Machine (Market Comodity 3)