“Our team’s up after the next bout. Ya ready?”
“I hardly think -” Megatron began.
Rumble shook his head. “Not sure that’s your problem, Boss, if
you don’t mind me sayin’. Your problem is, you think too much.
It’ll be fine, you’ll see.” And he strolled off to find his
brother, leaving Megatron sitting on a makeshift bench below an
illegal fighting pit, staring at his hands and wondering whether he
could really do this. True, when he’d smashed his fist into that
Senate enforcer and felt plating buckle beneath his fingers, felt the
warmth of living fuel spatter over his face, it seemed to awaken
something in him; but to take on a lackey of the Senate in the heat
of the moment was one thing. To walk calmly into a gladiatorial
arena and hurt a complete stranger, possibly kill him – that was
something else.
In the tense quiet, Megatron could hear someone humming. Then
singing, very softly:
Rain fall sharp, and the mist rise cold,
And the foreman come down for his purple gold,
He’ll take it from your cart, or he’ll take it from your
lines,
Or he’ll take it from your spark, ’cause you’re married to
the mines.
Megatron rose without really meaning to, and followed the sound until
he stood over a spindly bot with a drill arm that reminded him, for a
painful moment, of Impactor. “Where were you a miner?” Megatron
murmured.
The bot started. “Uh – Luna-2. Before the energon started
drying up. You?”
“Messatine. Much the same.” He sat down a little ways down the
bench, giving the stranger some space. “We had the same song.
Only… some of us came up with a variation, on the chorus.”
“Yeah?” The bot seemed grateful for the distraction, and turned
towards Megatron. “You remember it?”
“Oh yes.” Megatron hummed deep in his throat, finding his pitch.
Then, in a voice a little rusted with disuse, he began to sing.
Rain fall sharp, and the moon rise blue,
No purple gold without me and you,
Take your axe, take your hammer, meet the foreman at the door,
Tell him we ain’t married to the mines no more!
The song began in silence, but by the time Megatron was halfway
through, there were a few mutters, here and there; whispers of,
“Mmm-hmm,” or, “Right on,” though their owners kept their
faces turned away. By the third line, a few smiles were breaking
out, and when Megatron finished, he lifted his head to find half the
room looking at him, grins on their faces.
“Sing it again, miner,” someone called.
Megatron obliged, and this time, a few other voices joined in. The
third time, most of the bots in the room were singing, and the rest
were stamping along with the beat; and when Megatron roared out,
“Take your axe, take your hammer, meet the SENATE at the door!”
cheers broke out.
The whole crowd chorused back, “Tell
’em we ain’t married to the mines no more!”
“Boss?”
Megatron turned. Rumble was grinning in the doorway, but all he said
was, “We’re up.”
“Hey, miner!” a voice shouted after him as Megatron turned to
leave. “What’s your name?”
“Megatron.” And with that, Megatron of Tarn entered the arena
for his very first gladiatorial match.
He didn’t say, “With an R.” He didn’t say, “As in
neutron.” But for once, he didn’t have to, because no one got it
wrong. When he won, the waiting fighters started chanting, and the
audience took it up in turn: “Meg-a-tron! Meg-a-tron!”
And Megatron – always thinking – began to see the shape of
something forming, in the faces and the voices and the fuel-slick
sands beneath his feet.
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