Painted Black

1

The factory was massive, endless it seemed. And still it felt cramped, with more machinery and workers than should be held in two factories. The walls were dark with soot, the windows letting in only a subdued light through the grime. An everlasting cloud of smoke moved sluggishly around the ceiling, the ventilation system once meant to expel it long removed and dismantled for parts. And the noise, the roar of machinery and un-cleared filters, the beating of hammers and screams of drills and hydraulics filled the factory to the brim.

Perhaps the most startling sight of it all was that of the workers themselves, all uniformally black. And it wasn't the glossy black of a high-end finish, but the uneven, matte finish that took fifteen minutes to apply and began to flake as soon as it dried. If it weren't for the grime and complete lack of access to water, the workers might still show glimpses of the colors they once held.

Bumblebee stared down at his dark, filthy servos and contemplated color and how much he had taken it for granted years ago. His hue was gone, buried, sprayed over with the dark finish that took away any semblance of individuality the Autobots might have left. A Decepticon symbol was painted on the wall just in case any of them forgot, but no one did anymore. Bumblebee had stopped looking at it a year ago.

He worked at his place on the factory line, attaching machinery together with a set of bolts and pushing it along down the set of rollers to the next mech. He did so completely with his left servo, his right wrist having gone bad a month back from over-work. There were no repair facilities in this work camp and no medics, only the bi-monthly medics that came in to repair the Autobot prisoners who were worth repairing. And Bumblebee didn't want anyone to know. If he was deemed inefficient and not worth fixing and refueling, he would be taken out back… and that would be the end.

The mech beside him coughed and then began coughing harder, his ventilation system long due for a clearing. He'd been coughing for weeks, ever since the last Autobot had dropped dead beside Bumblebee and had been replaced with this one. Bumblebee had stopped asking his coworkers' names, it just made it harder when they were gone.

"Something the matter with you?" a gruff voice asked. Bumblebee resisted looking up, but out of his peripheral vision he could see the Decepticon guard standing in front of the mech beside him. Bee kept his helm down and continued working. Primus knew what would happen if the guard asked him a question and he was forced to speak. Any hint at his identity, that the last Prime's elite scout was still alive would be the end of him. He remembered what had happened to the other speed vehicles, namely Blurr.

Blurr was assigned as an errand mech, as were all of the fast cars, pulling a trailer of parts from one camp to another until he could no longer pull anything. Bumblebee had been taking scrap metal to the dump when it happened, when Blurr sluggishly shuffled to the back end of the camp, the guards shoving him along. He saw the piles, piles of offlined Autobots left back there to rust. He watched Blurr walk back behind the piles and heard the tell-tale shot fired from the guard. And that had been the last of them, the mechs whose names Bumblebee knew. The acquaintances were all gone, the friends, the loved ones. The Autobot Elites. The humans. Everyone.

"What about you?" the guard growled, and Bumblebee's optics shot up to meet his. He shook his head furiously, continuing the work he had stopped in the daydream, trying to get his right wrist to cooperate despite the burning agony of moving it. "Fantasizing about your next vacation to the mercury seas?" the guard laughed, continuing on his way.

Bumblebee thought it was over until the guard stopped and pivoted on his heel, quickly grabbing Bumblebee's wrist. He wrenched it back and Bee screamed, artificial vocals straining from the pain and the lack of use.

"I thought so," the guard said over Bumblebee's whimpers. He held tightly around his wrist, glaring down at him. It seemed, to Bumblebee's relief, that his vocals were still not recognized. "Well you're in luck. There's a medic coming today, and you might just get a chance to have that wrist put to work again. Go to the end room and stay there."

Bumblebee nodded, backing away from the guard and hurrying down the aisle and out of the main factory room.

To be continued.