Palingenesis: Trinity

Chapter Rating: T

Content: Mild tactile, p-n-p, sparkplay

Relationships: Recline/Metroplex, Recline/Metroplex's Drones

Summary: Recline has a serious conversation with Metroplex's drones, and then they play.

AN: I told you updates would be short

"Ask us," the quietest of Metroplex's drones said from amidst the tangle of mechanisms on Recline's charging platform.

"Ask you what, Slammer?"

"If you can share what we learn together with First Aid and his brothers."

Recline's platform vibrated slightly. "Memory recovery has a very strict code of ethics. I wouldn't ask that. Unless we recover their own distinct files - and can positively identify to whom they belong. It's your decision which of your own memories you share, after you have reintegrated them."

"And we disagree," Six-Gun snapped, the embodiment of Metroplex's hostile, "mama bear" side. The part of the vast being who would protect his own at any cost. The defensive drone sat up, extracting himself from the pile. "The memories concern them, and should belong to them as well. It may be all they have of what they were." Six-Gun's finger poked into the plush platform, emphasizing those final words.

Recline shifted, gently urging Six-Gun back to his resting position. At least this way he could hold Metroplex close, even as he was held within cityformer. "I don't know if they even want those memories, dear ones. And you may feel differently after you begin to review the files."

"The memories are not just our own," Scamper explained, sitting now with his fellow drone as Slammer stretched out, then sat as well. Recline shifted to their new position, supporting limbs and struts. "Cityformer memories have long been sources for archivists, law enforcement, even ordinary citizens seeking greater clarity on events they were a part of."

"Even a city deserves some privacy," Recline countered softly. "You have rights now that may be rather at odds with your original coding. Those memories are not raw data or security files. They are also what you thought and felt."

"Metroplex is not concerned with privacy other than the privacy of those who dwell within," Six-Gun said. "There are many files he does not consciously review without permission of those they concern, unless it is a matter of safety and security. There's much we no longer know, but we do know that cities who become private and jealous of their own memory files are dangerous."

"It is natural to want to share what concerns the only sparks Metroplex could kept safe," Slammer finished.

"I don't wish to make an offer to the Protectobots that you later will regret and wish to revoke," Recline explained gently, field enfolding, assuring. "We do not know what we are going to find in those files. This is uncharted territory for me, and I've journeyed through blocked memories with many a mech."

"Trust us, trust Metroplex," Scamper said, curling back into Recline's peace, reaching over to trace a playful pattern among the glyphs on his base. "Even if we find things we wish to hide, it is better that they be shared, openly, from the beginning."

To show that he is whole, no matter how broken, Recline thought silently, willing this to indeed be the case.

"I will offer to share with the Protectobots what we learn together, but you may revoke that permission at any time," Recline said as the other two drones settled down once again on the platform. Recline could not monitor all of Metroplex's vastly complex systems, but he could monitor these three as they took the rare opportunity to play and recharge together, spending a few hours simply relaxing, a trinity of red, black, white and grey within a much larger whole.

"I will not revoke it,' the three said as one, and Recline enfolded them. The time for words and worry was over. They had a month of grueling work ahead, and tonight was for pleasure. His cables twined and slid around limbs and between seams, connectors caressing eager ports, weaving them together even though they were already one. Later he would caress the small casings and then their very spark-nodes, relishing the massive fluctuations of a titanic field as the pleasure amplified and resonated in the vast furnace of Metroplex's sparkcore.

Metroplex would, of course, dutifully warn his trusted skeleton crew of inhabitants "overload imminent" - not that there would be any doubt.