When We Dared The Dawn

Chapter 17

XVII. Anomaly

Systems online. Designation unknown.

She sat up with a gasp, breathing deeply, forcing oxygen back into her lungs. Everything in the room burst back at her, blasting a concentrated nebula of sensation in her face.

It hit her like a volley of boulders. Heat flared in her chest, her back, the pit of her stomach. Static and what sounded like Morse code tapped its way through her eardrums, making the earrings burn white-hot in her lobes. She looked around, half-blind and disorientated, at the helix of colours and shapes around her. Everything around her seemed to press flat against her body, heightening her awareness of it: she could feel every single one of her the hairs on her arms, every follicle on her scalp, the light sheen of cold sweat on her skin, the soft mattress supporting her back and shoulders.

Program name: Rose, start-up 001.

The words registered. She didn't physically see them, nor did she hear them, but she did register them.

Stabilising visuals.

Suddenly the haze cleared, and she could make out basic shapes again. The colour was leeched completely from her vision, leaving her in monochrome, then slowly but surely bled back in, each part of the spectrum reappearing in order. She realised she was looking at a halogen light, one of the many that lit the medbay.

Activating auditory receptors.

Her heartbeat was less of a beat than a buzz in her chest. But now she could hear something beyond herself. She could hear a soft conversation - wow, that's Optimus and Ironhide - and someone using the blender in the kitchen unit, which was a hell of a long way from the medbay. She had the notion it was strawberries they were blending, something about the barely-perceptible crunch of the tiny little seeds as they were smashed apart by the blades. It was surreal, but somehow acceptable. The other strange thing was that Optimus and Ironhide were most definitely not speaking English, but she sensed they were talking about her - and that she was unintentionally eavesdropping.

Instigating motor control.

She blinked, tried to move, but her limbs were like dumbbells.

'Rose, can you hear me?'

Voice pattern recognised: Autobot Ratchet, CMO.

Her eyes didn't feel right - taut and hot - but she managed to budge them to the source of the voice.

'Ratchet,' she said, very softly.

Vocal unit active.

His optics were close to her, smouldering blue.

'Welcome back.'

His voice flooded her with a sudden, intense heat. It spread from her chest and seeped into every last inch of her body, and she flushed right to her fingertips. It was such a shock - such a satisfying shock - that she jerked upright. Her hand wrapped around the rail at the side of the cot, and she gripped her t-shirt at the chest, suddenly drenched in sweat.

Spark levels: optimum potential.

'Rose?'

'I'm fine.' She took a deep breath. 'How long have I b-been out?'

'A while.'

Rose tried to quell her shivering. 'A while,' she repeated. 'How long is a while f-for giant alien robots?'

The muscled arms of his holoform were suddenly around her, gently easing under hers and looping tight around her waist. She nestled into them, shivering, eyes moving feverishly around the medbay. Her vision seemed to have gone back to normal, though everything seemed brighter and clearer than before. The edges of things were as sharp as Japanese knives.