LC - The Hidden Blood Line

LC - The Hidden Blood Line

This is not my usual TF story. This is set within the boundaries of Tessombra’s Liquid Consciousness Universe. You will need to read her stories to understand this one.

I found the idea of having to hide a blood line intriguing. According to myth and legend, it’s been done before. It is only to this idea I am referring to, not the people named.

This is set after – LC Owning Humanity and LC First Losses

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It was the sound of a crash that brought Sunstreaker running into the living room. Sides and Strata were standing open-mouthed looking at Melissa, both at the torrent of bad language and abuse being hurled at the television and the fact that she had………………….. thrown the glass of water at the screen, which showed a pro and anti robotic debate.

Sunstreaker took a step towards her, freezing as she turned her head to look at him, eyes wide, tears rolled down her pale cheeks. She turned on her heel and fled up the stairs.

Strata made to go after her.

“No.” Sunny said. “I’ll go.”

Something had been wrong for over a week now, ever since she’d got this Norovirus or ‘Winter Vomiting Bug’ that was sweeping the country.  She had been distant, hazel eyes lost in some other reality.

He knew she rarely used bad language, he didn’t even know she knew some of the words she’d cursed the TV presenter with. She was almost as inventive as Ratchet. Sunny heartily wished the medic was here, but he and Ironhide were still in Germany.

Huddled under the quilt, Melissa wished she was anywhere but where she was. She just couldn’t stop shaking.

‘If I don’t think about it, it’ll go away!!’ She knew it wouldn’t, but in times of extreme stress, the mind can easily revert back to simple childish logic. ‘If I close my eyes, I can’t see you and you can’t see me!!’ that had always been one of her favourites.

But how? D’oh!! She knew that!! But she’d been careful and after what Jack had said; it couldn’t be an accident could it? Sunny wouldn’t do ………… No, not deliberately. Which meant that Jack was wrong? But wasn’t he the expert? The questions raced round and round her mind, like hyperactive hamsters on a never ending wheel.

He was coming. She felt him now in the same way she could feel the temperature change. He was near, he was worried, so was she!!

She curled tighter into herself, wishing she could continue curling, vanishing into a tiny black hole. That’s what she felt was opening at her feet, the ground around it turning into sand that slipped down, threatening to take her with it.

Sunny approached the bed and the shapeless lump slowly. He didn’t understand how someone could lie beside him night after night and be so distant. She hadn’t said anything, but he’d known that she didn’t want any intimacy. It was totally different to how they had been before.

She had left the bed to pace the kitchen for hours, returning to snatch an hour or two of fitful doze, before rising and going day after day to work. They had sent her home on sick leave when she’d fainted.

She had refused to go and see her own doctor, saying she was fine. For someone who was a first aider, she was a terrible patent. Sunstreaker was now determined to contact Ratchet and have him come to England and examine her. He knelt by the bed.

“Is it something I’ve done?” He whispered. The silence was almost visible.

The edge of the quilt moved as a hand appeared, small, long nails painted gold. It vanished into his as he kissed the back of the fingers and held them to his cheek.

Her voice was almost swallowed by the inside the safety cave.

“Sunny, what are you?”

Every nanite in his body went into lockdown before erupting into panic mode.

“No silly!! I know what you are!! What are you in the way you said, Optimus is your leader, Prowl’s a tactician, Ratchet and First Aid are medics. What are you and Sides?”

This was where he was afraid he would lose her. “We’re killers.”

The quilt moved again, he caught the gleam of an eye.

“Define killers?”

“We’re toughlines. Our function is to fight.”

“Oh!!” His hand was pulled into the cave. “You mean you’re soldiers? My Dad was in the army before I was born and in the TA when I was a child. Guess you’re the equivalent of AI SAS?”

Not revulsion and dismissal, just acceptance and understanding. More of his arm vanished. Where she led, he would follow. He crawled under the quilt as she made room for him, wrapping his body around hers as his hand had encircled her fingers.

“Will you teach me how to fight?”

“What!! You!!”

Anger flared, hot and bright. “I’m NOT weak and helpless!!” She twisted, moving away.

“That’s not what I said!! And not what I mean. I’ve just always felt that you’re a peacemaker. A negotiator. That you would persuade with words, not guns. And that’s what I’m here to do, protect you.”

She was still. “You can’t be with me every moment Sunny. What if I have to defend myself………………. Or others? I don’t want to be Rambo’s kid sister. More an Ellen Ripley. If the big, bad alien comes to get me, I want to be able to do more than just scream at it.” She moved back into his embrace.

“You could swear it to death.” He teased. “Do you have any weapon’s experience?”

He could feel the heat from her face.

“Do water pistols and sucker arrows count?”

“They’re a start.”

If she wanted to learn, he would teach her. It would make him feel a little better, he’d heard about the attack on Adria and Liss, Strata and Phyr were very vulnerable. The thought of his world without her was as frightening as imagining his world without Sides.

“If you’re a soldier, does that make you my personal Action Man?” She made the pun about her own surname with a touch of humour in her voice. “I still like to think you’re my knight in shining armour though.”

He smiled. She’d asked him to show her his ‘other’ self. He’d done it self-consciously, fearing rejection, but she had been interested and intrigued.  Running a hand across his chest plate, up his face and around his neck.

“Smooth, shiny. You look so perfect. Why would you want to be with me? I’m just a flawed human.”

He warmed his plating to her temperature, stepping closer and pulling her body gently to his. He could smell the shampoo and conditioner she used. Tea tree oil and almond. Her perfume. Her own unique scent that he could follow through the densest crowd.

“You’re not flawed, you’re multi faceted. Always fascinating. Intelligent. Intuitive. You think cross-laterally as well as lineally.”

She giggled, he could get lost in those sounds.

“I should get you to write my CV.” She touched his lips with hers, a gentle chaise kiss that turned more carnal as her tongue lapped at his top lip. He opened his mouth in invitation, an invitation she lost no time in accepting.

That was the night they had discovered that human’s do have an electromagnet field, although she had called it an aura. A flickering of lightest blue that had ghosted across her pale skin.

“It feels like the static that’s in the air just before a thunder storm.” She said. They could hear it crackle as it merged with his. They also found, it got brighter!!

That was the first time she called him ‘Galahad.’ Her perfect knight. They had joked about knights and Dragons. Just about every room in her house had Dragons of some shape or description in it. She even had a Dragon egg timer.

“Why Galahad and not Lancelot?” He’d wanted to ask her that question for some time.

“Lancelot betrayed Arthur. He betrayed himself. Galahad was pure, he found the Grail. At least according to the Vulgate Cycle. In other stories it’s Gwaine or Perceval.”

“Then you must be my Dragon Grail.” He joked. She flinched.

“There are two schools of thought. One is that it’s pronounced San Graal, meaning Holy Grail. The other that is should be Sang Real meaning Royal Blood.”

Sunstreaker was confused. “Ones a thing and ones a someone?” He queried. He felt her nod.

“You read the Bible? About Mary Magdalene?”

It took Sunstreaker a second to remember the whole book, to find the name and the relevant passages.

“There’s some evidence that Mary was a whole lot more than she’s depicted in the Bible. That she was one of the founders of the movement, even that she was the wife of Jesus. After the Crucifixion, she left. She was supposed to have moved to France, with a child or children. The Knights Templar were started to protect them, a ‘royal’ bloodline. A lot of the evidence is suspect, but there may be a kernel of truth. Many legends have a basis in fact.”

“So why isn’t this better know about?”

“She and Peter were protagonists?  When she left, she was vilified, called a prostitute, a whore!! Written out of history because she was female.” Her voice caught. “The Great Goddess, The Earth Mother had been worshiped for about 25,000 years. Representations of her are among the oldest human artefacts. Her worship has been supplanted by Gods who are male. Women were and still are in many ways regarded as second class people, that they can be owned by a man.”

Sunstreaker stroked her neck. He knew that this was important, if he could decipher it.

“ Perhaps that’s why I can so readily accept that you are people and not possessions. Do you know that women have had the vote in England for only 80 years? In some countries, they still don’t. My Grandmother often told me of my Great Grandmother, she was a Suffragette. She got arrested for knocking a policeman’s helmet off and jumping on it. I remember her, just.”

She was silent for a minute, remembering the image of a tiny doll like woman whose eyes were the same as hers.

“That’s want got to me. Ohh!! I threw a glass at the TV!! Strata must think I’m as mad as a hatter.”

He chuckled. “She knew that already!!”

Sigh!! “There’s red hair in the female side of my family. I don’t lose my temper often, but I can go off like a rocket!! It was something I had noticed. Many of the ‘ pro’ robotic people were female, the ‘anti’ male. There was one young woman; it looked as if she had some friends with her. She was making an extremely articulate and intelligent argument for AI’s. This guy jumped up and shouted at her. “If you let one of them touch you, you must be a real sluttish whore.”

She huddled into him.

“They were baying like a pack of rabid wild animals. The poor girls looked so scared. And that weasel of a host stood there with a big grin on his face!! Y.. You would never, never think that of me?” He got fear, a desperate need for reassurance.

“Never!! Up until and after the Sun goes Supernova!! If anyone called you that, I’d turn them into a pretzel!!

“Thank you. Hadn’t you better answer Sides? He’s been calling you for the last ten minutes.” She yawned; the warm cosiness was getting to her. The last refuge of the desperate called with a siren song.

“You can hear him?” Sunstreaker was astounded.

“Humm, no, just a buzzy feeling coming from you.” Her eyes felt like lead. By the time Sunstreaker had told Sides she was okay, he could feel from her regular breathing that she was asleep. He pulled the quilt down. She was still far too pale, lips almost bloodless, dark patches under her eyes. What could be wrong with her?