10 - Slugfest and Overkill and Irwin Spoon Goes to Cybertron

[Grand Moff Muffin]

THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF SLUGFEST AND OVERKILL

PART 1

Previously, in 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes':

The giant dinosaurs Overkill and Slugfest laid into Trypticon with murderous intent.

"Trypticon would win easily against either one of them," observed Streetwise, as Slugfest's chainsaw-like spine ripped through Trypticon's underbelly, allowing Overkill to take a big bite out of his neck. "But together they clearly have the upper hand..."

"We've got some new movement out there, Prowl," interrupted Trailbreaker, and they all turned to the screen to see a blast from Bruticus's sonic stun gun knock Overkill backwards, while Devastator's solar energy rifle burnt a hole clean through Slugfest's side.

"Looks like your old skirmishing buddies, the Combaticons, have finally picked sides," said Prowl to the Protectobots, as a punch from Bruticus removed Overkill's lower jaw. Trypticon recovered his footing and moved in for the kill.

Now read on...
___

The year 1993.

"That... was stupid."

"You calling us stupid?"

"Y... No. Erm. I'm just saying what happened in that battle was... a little bit stupid."

"'Cos I'll bite your legs off if you call us stupid."

How are you going bite my legs off when I've yet to reattach your lower jaw? thought Knockout, but wisely said nothing.

"Is Slugfest gonna be all right?" demanded Overkill.

"Sure," said Grit. "He was leaking fuel pretty badly when we brought you in, but I've got him stabilised now."

"You remember our deal, right?" said Knockout. "We patch you two up, and keep patching you up, and you protect us out here, at least until we've come to an understanding with... until people stop hunting us."

"The two of you, you're..."

Please don't say Micromasters, please don't say Micromasters, thought Knockout. You can't be that slow on the uptake, surely?

"...Constructor Squad," Overkill finished his sentence, his Cybertronian words projected from his electronic voicebox, happily unaffected by the loss of his jaw.

"Right."

"Where's the rest of 'em?"

"We're all that's left."

"And Trypticon refuses to take you in?"

"Yeah, as long as we're still wanted by the Autobots. But we accepted his rejection less st- violently than you and your sleeping friend."

Overkill thought for a minute.

"You're right," he said at last. "It was... stupid."

Grit and Knockout smiled and nodded, relieved that their patient hadn't lost all sense of reality.

"Trypticon was stupid to turn us away. We'd have been a real asset to him in his quest to restore the Decepticons to their former glory!"

The two fugitive Micromasters sighed, which Overkill interpreted as being a sign of their agreement with his worldview.

Outside the cave, a cold wind swept across the Cybertronian wilderness.

TO BE CONTINUED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF SLUGFEST AND OVERKILL

PART 2

"Materialising over there... the Space Bridge!"

"This is the voice of Ratbat, Trypticon! Our remote sensors indicate you've exceeded your energy budget for this mission. Return to Cybertron immediately!"

- Marvel's Transformers #27
___

The year 1994.

"So, here we go again, blasting off into space, slates wiped clean, our whole lives ahead of us. And to think, the Autobots just let us go. Awfully decent of Groundshaker to testify that we played no part in the killing of civilians on Klo, only ejecting from Soundwave and joining the battle once the Autobots arrived. Funny how they care more about the murders of aliens than the destruction of their fellow Autobots."

"I know all that," grumbled Slugfest. "I'm not stupid, you know."

"I'll tell you who is stupid - Trypticon, that's who. He's refusing to let us into his city even now that we're no longer wanted by the Autobots. Blatant favouritism, that's what it is - he said he's going to let Grit and Knockout in, just as soon as Prowl releases them from custody. But not us!"

"Well, we did try to kill him last year."

"What's that got to do with anything? If every Decepticon who ever tried to kill another Decepticon got banished, well..."

"Well, what?"

"Well, we'd look pretty stupid, that's all. No wonder the Autobots won the war."

"Oh, I'd wondered how they did it. I thought it was because Unicron killed most of us, and the Autobots had Nucleon and the Last Autobot and got the humans onto their side... but what you said makes more sense."

"Damn right it does."

"So... where are we going?"

"Well, we're banished from Earth and Klo."

"Pity. I liked Earth."
___

The year 1987.

Overkill and Slugfest laughed when they saw the state in which Trypticon returned from his battle with the Dinobots.

"I told you, you should have sent us," Overkill told Ratbat. "'Send us your deadliest Decepticon,' Shockwave said. Ha!"

"Well, I'm sending you and Slugfest now," snapped the Decepticons' fuel auditor.

"Good!" said Slugfest. "I knew you must have had a reason for re-engineering us to transform into... Explain to me again what it is I transform into?"

Ratbat sighed. "A really small object that won't arouse the humans' suspicion. That's all you need to understand about your new disguise mode."

"And how will that help us when we fight the Dinobots?"

"You're not going to be fighting the Dinobots!" said Ratbat, impatiently. "I warned Shockwave that I'd be pulling the plug, and I meant it. You're going to Earth to obtain fuel, not to burn it."

"But surely, as soon as we appear in our... other forms..." Overkill trailed off. "What are they, again?"

"They're dinosaurs, like the Dinobots, Grimlock and Snarl. With horns and weapons."

"Right, but there are no other robot dinosaurs on Earth, are there? So as soon as we appear in our dinosaur modes, the Autobots and Dinobots will see us and attack."

"No, they won't see you," said Ratbat. "Listen. Megatron and Shockwave see the planet Earth as being the land mass they happen to find themselves on - the land mass where the Ark crashed, and where all the Autobots are. I see the planet Earth in the round, as it were."

"You sure are smart, boss," said Slugfest, who hadn't understood anything Ratbat had said since he told them they wouldn't be fighting the Dinobots.

"The point is, there's oil in the Middle East, and there's gas in Russia, and there are no Autobots or Decepticons on that side of the planet. So that's where I'm sending you. You'll be the muscle in our Eastern Hemisphere fuel acquisition operation, unnoticed in cassette tape mode most of the time, transforming to dinosaur mode whenever a little local intimidation is required."

"If we're the muscle, who's providing the brains?"

"Here he comes now. Meet my protege, Greasepit."

"Hello," said Slugfest. "What kind of dinosaur do you transform into?"

"Greasepit doesn't turn into a dinosaur. He turns from a tanker truck into a petrol station."

"A what-now?"

"It's a place where humans bring their machines to fill up with fuel."

"Yeah, but instead of filling 'em up, my pumps will suck 'em dry!" smirked Greasepit. "You boys can help out by putting the competition - the genuine petrol stations - out of commission, to ensure they all come to me. Stories of robot dinosaurs scaring people in the night? The Autobots won't travel half way around the planet to investigate that, not with the Decepticons right on their doorstep. And whenever things go sour, we'll move someplace else! Earth's big enough for us to keep the scam running for years."

"So we will get to attack stuff?"

"Yes."

"Oh, good," said Overkill. "In that case, I love this plan."

"Yeah," said Slugfest. "Just don't ask me to repeat it back to you in my own words, okay?"
___

The year 1994.

"Yeah, those were good times, even after Greasepit became a Micromaster... at least, they were until Primus went and zapped us all back to Cybertron to fight Unicron. Heck, come to think of it, those big guns we used to shoot Unicron wouldn't have worked without the energy that we helped Greasepit to steal."

"Yeah, we sure played a major role, didn't we?"

"I'm sure that when the humans write up the history of the Transformers on Earth in the late 1980s, they'll give great prominence to Overkill and Slugfest, terrors of the eastern continents."

"Bound to. That stuff going on in America was just a sideshow, when you think about it."

TO BE CONTINUED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF SLUGFEST AND OVERKILL

PART 3

"Yeah... Happy days."

Pause.

"Overkill?"

"What?"

"Do you remember Yuri?"

"Hmmm?"

"I liked Yuri... He made me laugh. Especially when he consumed too much of that poisoned fuel."

"Vodka."

"Yes."

"Remember that time in 1990 when Airwave was stationed on a NATO base in Turkey, disguised as a Grumman F-14D Tomcat fighter jet, and he sent you that coded transmission containing secret information on Soviet tank movements, which you were supposed to pass on to me and Yuri so that we could go and attack their undefended fuel depot?"

"Yes."

"And you tried to decode it yourself, and thought it was an instruction to us to cut off your fuel supply, and you flew into a rage and flattened that village."

"Yes, I remember... Yuri thought it was funny."

"Yuri helped us a lot."

"Too bad he got greedy."

"And caught."

"And shipped off to... Siberia?"

"That's right... Me, I miss Abdul and Osman. They were quite the double act."

"Always arguing about who got to pose as Greasepit's driver and who got to ride shotgun, when we set off on missions to raid fuel dumps and oil pipelines."

"Even though Greasepit drove himself... and neither of them had a shotgun."

"Yeah. That always confused me."

"I know."

"Overkill, let's make some new friends, can we?"

"We will. Where we're headed, there will be no shortage of characters like Abdul and Osman, and no shortage of business opportunities for a couple of robot mercenaries such as ourselves."

"And where are we going?"

"It's a planet not far from Earth that Ruckus and Windsweeper told me about, shortly before Sky Lynx destroyed them in the Battle of Klo. A gangster world... called Pz-Zazz."

TO BE CONCLUDED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF SLUGFEST AND OVERKILL

CONCLUSION

June 2019, the Battle of Mount Verona.

A Decepticon hunter-seeker skyship decloaked and opened its cargo bay doors, releasing a brace of harvester units, three Sharkticons and one Spy Cassette. The skyship itself - Ferak, his offensive and defensive systems upgraded and augmented by the late Backfire - transformed and landed with his harvester and Sharkticon comrades. The Spy Cassette, Overkill, recruited on Pz-Zazz by a strange man who claimed to be a reincarnation of every great military leader from Julius Caesar to Baron Ironblood, transformed to Tyrannosaurus mode and hit the ground running, side-mounted motion missiles locking onto the Aerialbots descending from the Space Bridge high overheard, titanium steel claws reaching out to rip a hole in the side of Optimus Prime's trailer.
___

The year 1999.

"So... what happened back there?" Beta Ray Bill wanted to know.

"I don't know what you're talking about," muttered Overkill. "We did as we agreed."

"We agreed that when confronted by the Dire Wraith guardians, I would whip the two of you out of my belt and throw you at them, and you'd transform into dinosaur mode and attack, diverting their attention and giving me time to use Stormbreaker to smash my way into the vault, retrieve the stolen hyper-core and make a clean getaway on board Skuttlebutt."

"So? We did our part."

"Slugfest did his part. You transformed into a six-inch Tyrannosaurus, bounced off the lead Dire Wraith's left elbow and knocked yourself unconscious. If your colleague hadn't snatched you up, you could easily have been trodden on in the confusion."

"Check the contract. It says we transform and attack on demand - it doesn't say what size we become when we transform."

Beta Ray Bill made an exasperated gesture and stormed off. Overkill looked up at his friend.

"And you can wipe that dopey look off your face," he snarled.

"I was just thinking of the time you got stuck as a cassette-sized dinosaur and went to inform Miss Fatale, who was our employer at the time. And you-"

"I know, I know."

"-couldn't reach the door controls, and so went under the door and surprised her in a-"

"Enough, all right? It was a cultural misunderstanding."

"I was thinking, Overkill, maybe it would be better if in future you just went into battle in your full-size dinosaur mode from the outset, and left the surprise transformations from tape mode to me, huh?"
___

June 2019, the aftermath of the Battle of Mount Verona.

Slugfest set the shuttle down in the blasted clearing. (The park rangers would most definitely not be pleased when they saw what had occurred during their government-enforced absence.) He used his scanners to home in on Overkill's energy signature, and found his partner under a fallen branch, his metal skin blackened and scorched.

"Overkill... speak to me!"

"Where were you?"

"I got the message mixed up. I thought the attack was next week. What happened to you?"

"Got shot by a stray bolt from a Circuit-Breaker. She wasn't aiming at me. To be honest, I don't think any of the enemy even realised I was there."

"Overkill, it's like I keep saying, you need to start off at the right size from the outset when going into battle."

"You're right. I've had it with being a Transformer. Contact Gutcruncher. Tell him I've finally decided. I will take the Nucleon. This will never, ever happen to me again."
___

A few days later...

"Well? Has it happened yet?"

"No, I'm still waiting for the change. They say the Nucleon sometimes takes effect quickly, but it can take weeks."

"Are you sure? Maybe it's happened already, but you just haven't realised it yet."

"I'm still waiting, I tell you. Look, I can still transform, see?"

"No, don't! You might-"

"Damn it."

"Transform back and forth again, quickly. You've got to get back to the right size before-"

"I can't."

"What?"

"I can't transform. I can't even move. I... AAAAAAHHH!"

There was a bright flash.

"Oh... Overkill."

"No! It can't happen like this! NOT LIKE THIS!"

"Look on the bright size- I mean, side. There's good business to be had for a tiny-but-powerful robot who's able to sneak under doors, and through ventilation shafts, and-"

"NOOOOO!"

THE END

[Grand Moff Muffin]

THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF SLUGFEST AND OVERKILL

EPILOGUE

"A defect in Overkill's transformation circuitry often results in him not being able to complete his transformations. Specifically, he transforms from cassette to Tyrannosaurus, but he's unable to grow to his full size. He remains the size of the cassette. When he's stuck at this size he's no more of a threat than a particularly vicious rat."

- Transformers Universe
___

Previously, in 'The Last Minispy' and 'Stylor's Speech':

It wasn't until the Autobots developed the miniature fuel and hydraulic systems in the first true Micromasters, and Thunderwing captured the Battle Patrol for analysis, that we were able to create fully mobile humanoid Transformers just seven feet tall. Sure, full-size Transformers like Ratbat and Soundwave could shrink when they assumed the likenesses of fixed-configuration objects, and the Insecticons could go one better and become tiny creatures with limited articulation for short periods of time, but they didn't have the versatility of the humanoid form, and they ran out of fuel in a matter of minutes. Proper miniaturisation eluded us for many years...

A rare group of subatomic particles that have become known on Earth as Pym Particles... are the key to altering the size and mass of objects and living beings. The process works, in laypersons' terms, by shunting matter into another dimension when shrinking, or by accruing extra mass from that dimension when enlarging.

Now read on...
___

The thing to understand about size-changing Transformers is that each has a 'natural' size and one or more 'unnatural' sizes. His natural size is the size at which he was built in the first place. Spy Cassettes are built large. Micromasters are constructed as seven-foot humanoid robots, expanding when they transform to their vehicle forms. Broadside expanded to an unnatural size whenever he became an aircraft carrier.

A Transformer can only refuel when in his natural size, because a drop of fuel taken on in miniature form will not increase in mass when he reverts back. Rather it will remain what it is, a drop of fuel. And if a Micromaster topped up his tank in car mode, it would burst and cover him in fuel when he shrank to robot mode.

Nucleon is a self-regenerating energy form, no top-ups necessary. This means that Action Master Overkill is in no danger of running out of energy. But while in his six-inch form, he cannot purge the old Nucleon from his system using new Nucleon, because a drop of new Nucleon is insufficient to counter all the old Nucleon his size-changing systems have shunted away to another dimension, which continues to fuel him, making him stronger, faster, more alive. And while an Action Master, he can't trigger enlargement via his transformation process.

In conclusion... he's stuck. An accidental miracle of miniaturisation. Incredibly useful... but frustrated beyond comprehension.

THE END

[Grand Moff Muffin]

IRWIN SPOON GOES TO CYBERTRON

PART 1

"ROBOT MONSTERS! by Irwin Spoon. Yesterday I was thrust into the heart of the giant robot camp, where the evil faction of Transformers known as the Autobots held me prisoner, no doubt to blackmail the government..."

- Marvel's Transformers UK #289
___

My name is Irwin. I was once a freelance reporter. I believed in that old journalistic rule that said 'Dog bites man' is not news. But 'Man bites dog' - that's news!

It was the year 1990. I'd been in the business for five years, struggling against 'old boy' politics and uncaring editors, and I still hadn't found my 'Man bites dog' story. And so I said, "Irwin, if the story won't come to you, you go to the story."

On the police waveband, I heard a somewhat panicked report stating that a giant robot was running amok in upper New York State. Well, I thought I'd check it out. And guess what - it was true. Some fab glossies and some purple prose and I could write my own paycheque on this one! I just had to hang back, keep out of harm's way and I was home and dry. I figured the Avengers would be along soon enough to put an end to the wanton destruction. What I didn't realise at the time was that the Avengers were busy elsewhere trying to prevent a much greater disaster, namely global nuclear Armaggedon. The local military's early efforts to stop the rampaging robot, Superion, had been ineffective, and they had been ordered to focus their resources instead on evacuating civilians from his path. A full-scale air strike was out of the question given the likely casualties. Other operatives with more specialist skills were too far away to get there in time. The upshot was that the only ones standing between Superion and the nearest town were three of Superion's fellow Autobots - Grimlock, Prowl and Springer - and me!

Superion, it turned out, was being controlled by a 'cerebro-shell' injected into his brain by a Decepticon called Bombshell. The Autobots wanted to stop Superion without killing him, and the best plan they could come up with for achieving that was to send someone inside the giant robot to find the cerebro-shell and disable it. Not even an Autobot Micromaster was small enough to do this, but guess who was just the right size, and already there at the scene? That's right. Muggins.

I'd like to say I agreed to do it because I was heroic and willing to risk my life to save the lives of fellow Americans. But the truth is, I only consented when the Autobots bribed me with an offer of a tour of their headquarters and an exclusive interview with Grimlock, their leader. Anyway, I did it, and survived - as did Superion, who, once his sanity had been restored, promptly split apart into five smaller flying robots and made himself scarce before the authorities could get their act together.

That should have been the making of me - not only the story of my own heroism, but enough never-before-seen material on the Transformers to fill the front pages for a week. And I got the tour, and would have got the interview too, if I hadn't been snatched away from the Autobots by a Decepticon raiding party determined to prevent me from telling the world the truth about the Autobot-Decepticon conflict. The Autobots Bumblebee and Tracks saved me and drove me to a hospital to receive treatment for an apparent mild concussion.

The next day, I filed my story - the story that ended my career.
___

I told the world how the evil Autobots, after causing so much destruction in rural upper New York State, had abducted me with the intention of blaming the innocent Decepticons both for my kidnapping and for the Superion incident, and, posing as Decepticons, of blackmailing the government with the threat of revealing America's supposed willing complicity in the Transformers' complete infiltration of our society. It didn't really make sense, but I had enough photographs to get me onto the front pages and make people take me seriously, at least for a day or two.

Then the retaliation struck, as anyone in his right mind could have foreseen. Unfortunately, I was not someone in his right mind.

It began, of course, with Cecilia Santiago's Autobot Micromasters returning to New Yorkers' television screens with an accurate account of what had happened to me - or at least, everything that the Autobots knew about it at that time. They didn't know about the cerebro-shell now implanted in my brain, and so had no explanation as to why I was saying what I was saying.

The Daily Bugle reprinted stories from 1984 with photos taken in Oregon by one Peter Parker, which hadn't gone down too well at the time but made a lot more sense now.

Then Grimlock got in on the act, telling Prowl to sit back and watch as he called in a journalist who he knew he could trust. Joy Meadows had been scared by Decepticon threats of retribution the first time she'd attempted to record interviews with the Dinobots, but apparently kicking Combaticon butt on the slopes of Mount Verona does wonders for a reporter's confidence, and she was eager to give it another shot, and to hell with Decepticon intimidation. 'Joy Meadows: The Dinobot Interviews' ran on consecutive weeknights for a whole week in October 1990, and made me look like the utter fraud I was.

The Decepticon Soundwave made sure that a price was paid for that, and it was Grimlock's fellow Dinobots who paid it, as they fought fearlessly to defend their human interviewer from the assassins Soundwave sent to kill her. The Dinobots paid a heavy price indeed for Grimlock's public relations masterstroke, with Slag, Sludge, Snarl and Swoop all ending up inoperative and near to death once the battle was done. Grimlock was never seen in public on Earth again.

But that was no concern of mine at the time. Most damning of all, from my perspective, was the government's implicit endorsement of the Autobots, as evidenced by the authorities' complete lack of action against either the New York Micromasters or Grimlock's Canadian headquarters. In the decades since, I have learnt that the government came to an understanding with the Autobots more than two years before any of this, when they played host to the brain modules of five 'Throttlebots' installed in battery-operated toy cars. But at the time, they seemed indifferent to the unequal media war being waged between me on one side and the combined forces of the Autobots and their reporter friends on the other. (My publishers had, of course, realised they'd made a terrible mistake and unconditionally retracted their support for the stories by this time.)

Anyway, they trounced me. The Decepticons' plan was thwarted, hurrah. And my credibility was zilch.

And then, to kick a man when he's down, they decided it would make a good test case for America's first Transformer lawsuit. G.B. Blackrock and Ethan Zachary put up the finance, and Peter Parker recommended to Cecilia Santiago a New York lawyer who he trusted, and who was used to dealing with unusual clients. It was complete overkill - they couldn't hope to get any money out of me, as I had none. But they thought it was worth proceeding with the case if only to set a precedent in terms of the legal rights of friendly alien robots - or something like that. They meant well, and I went idiotically into the dock, representing myself despite my complete lack of legal qualifications, and swearing blindly that every word I'd written was God's truth.

Somewhere - possibly in the courtroom itself - the Insecticon who did this to me must have been laughing.

It had taken some months before the case came to trial, and in that time the Autobot base in Canada had been powered down, with only a skeleton staff remaining. Megatron was apparently no longer active on Earth, and the Autobots were focussing their efforts on threats of a more cosmic nature. So it fell to the Micromasters to represent the Autobots in the legal action against Irwin Spoon.

It was all going as you might expect, when suddenly there was a momentary flash of light. The only person present who was unaffected was the counsel for the plaintiff, who was already blind. Somehow he was the first person to realise that the Autobot Micromasters had vanished. But they weren't the only ones. In that instant, Bombshell was also removed from the planet Earth, along with almost every other Transformer, to go and fight one of those cosmic threats I referred to.

For the first time in many months, my mind was my own. And though I couldn't explain why I had done it, I knew what I had done.

I think it would be fair to say that I've had more than my fair share of bad luck in my life. So it was that the very moment I became my own master and shouted, "I must have been under Decepticon mind-control!" was the moment the Autobot Micromasters, who could have put two and two together and agreed that perhaps Bombshell might have the means to control humans as well as robots, vanished from the face of the Earth. With no-one left in the courtroom knowing the first thing about cerebro-shells, they continued to treat me as the unpredictable maniac they already took me for. But they couldn't continue the lawsuit without a plaintiff, so the judge had no choice but to dismiss all charges. The Autobots would have other opportunities to clarify their legal standing on the planet Earth.

I was a free but ruined man.

TO BE CONTINUED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

IRWIN SPOON GOES TO CYBERTRON

PART 2

When I said I had no money, that was a figure of speech. I meant I didn't have the kind of money that would make suing me financially worthwhile. However, I had managed to stash away my commission for the photos and stories, and if the publisher wanted it back, then tough. The photos were genuine even if the stories weren't, and I figured it was meagre compensation for what I'd been through. I had to give up my New York apartment and head south in my van, but the money would keep me from starving for a few years while I sought to rebuild my life.

Of course, I didn't know for certain what had been done to me, but I had a fair idea. Remember, I'd been inside Superion's head and held a full-size cerebro-shell in my hand. It wasn't such a stretch of the imagination to suppose that the things might come in miniature.

Was I the only human to have been controlled in this way? If so, it would be very hard for me to prove my claims. But if not... I became obsessed with the thought that there might be someone else out there, somewhere in this vast nation, who may have experienced what I experienced. This was before the Internet had really taken off, so I had to do my research the old-fashioned way. At least my journalistic skills assisted me on this score.

I eventually found him in the pages of the Arizona State Herald - Richard Vasquez, chief engineer at Hoover Dam. Four years before my ordeal, Richard, better known as Ricky, then only an assistant chief engineer, used a gun to hold his colleagues hostage in the main control room and ordered them to shut down the dam, transferring control to the Insecticon Shrapnel. The Decepticons' Space Bridge materialised with a giant drill that began boring its way into the dam itself - for what reason wasn't entirely clear, but it had something to do with the Decepticons' quest for energy. My old pal Superion showed up to save the day but seemed incapable of resolving the situation. Ultimately, it was Ricky who broke free from the Decepticons' control and destroyed the drill. The Decepticons fled and Ricky was taken in by the police for questioning.

I wish I had the luck of Ricky Vasquez. You see, Bombshell had gloated over what he had done in Ricky's presence, even to the point of making him lick a grease spot off the Insecticon's foot as a demonstration of his cerebro-shell's effectiveness. So Ricky was able to tell the police exactly what had been done to him. His colleagues and family stood by him and swore to his good character (I wish I had such friends), some of his colleagues had seen the Insecticons in the control room and heard them - and the gun, Megatron - talk. And, of course, he had used Megatron to destroy the drill. In short, he was a local hero. And he kept his job, overseeing the repairs of the damage caused by the drill.

The Autobots probably never read the Arizona State Herald, and none of them ever talked to Ricky Vasquez, so I guess they really hadn't clocked that Bombshell could control humans when he did his number on me.

I met with Ricky Vasquez and talked to him at length. I described what a full-size cerebro-shell looked like, and asked him if it bothered him that there might still be one lodged inside his head. He said no, it didn't, because it had clearly stopped functioning the moment he saw his little girl on the dam and used Megatron to destroy the drill, rather than the Aerialbots. He counted himself lucky and was content with how it had all turned out.

Me, I wasn't quite so laid back. As far as I could tell, my own cerebro-shell was still fully functional. It had just stopped receiving instructions. But if Bombshell ever returned...

I thanked Ricky Vasquez and left him to enjoy the rest of his life, taking with me all the documentary evidence I required to corroborate my theory as to what had been done to me.
___

The news that the Transformers were beginning to return to Earth caused my anxiety levels to go through the roof, but at least the authorities were ahead of the game this time around. They had already taken the opportunity offered by the robots' absence to gather up the fallen Decepticons stored in various bases and crashed spaceships and make certain that they would never function again - a policy that the Autobots would frown upon after it was too late to do anything about it. This included the four Stunticons who had abducted me and been subsequently deactivated and imprisoned by Grimlock's Earthforce. I shed no tears for the demise of Motormaster.

Autobots were being permitted to return to Earth, Decepticons were warned to stay away or else. Even those who had made peace with the Autobots on Cybertron would be terminated with extreme prejudice if they showed up here. This offered me some comfort, but how could they be sure? The Insecticons were so tiny...

TO BE CONTINUED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

IRWIN SPOON GOES TO CYBERTRON

PART 3

I was determined to be rid of the cerebro-shell before Bombshell returned to Earth and picked up where he left off. I wanted it removed by professionals with the best surgeons and medical equipment. And I wanted it to be used to prevent other men and women from being controlled in this way in future.

I badgered an old journalistic contact who'd had some dealings with the shadier side of government, and finally he came through with what he said was an old SHIELD number. He couldn't guarantee it was still valid. Using it, I eventually succeeded in speaking to someone who called himself Mr Johnson. Said he did indeed represent SHIELD, and I believed him, for surely anyone merely pretending to work for SHIELD would refer to themselves as 'Agent' Johnson rather than 'Mr', right? I told him my story, what I wanted and what I had to offer. He told me to go to a certain non-descript skyscraper in Chicago and ask for him by name on the fourteenth floor.

They certainly seemed to have top tech in that place. They showed me a scan of my brain, and sure enough, there it was, a miniature version of its big brother who I'd met inside Superion. Then they knocked me out, and when I came around hours later, they showed me what appeared to be an identical scan to the first, only the cerebro-shell was now absent.

I breathed a sigh of relief and asked if I could see it. They said no, unfortunately, the boffins at headquarters were so keen to get their hands on it that it had been flown away by a helicopter waiting on the roof the minute they got it out.

My head was partially shaved and bandaged, but I felt all right. They transferred me to a normal hospital to rest up for a day or two, and Mr Johnson gave me his card and told me to call him direct if I needed anything in future.
___

A few years later, in 1997, I got restless again. I still hadn't shaken my ambition to be a reporter who delivered the big scoop. But now, an interview with the Autobots just wouldn't cut it. They were no longer special. Micromasters appeared regularly on television, other Autobots worked with the emergency and security services, and a large green one had even become a part-time movie star.

But no-one had taken the next logical step. No-one had got an interview with the Decepticons. I wondered why not. Humans had been across the Space Bridge to Cybertron, where the surviving Decepticons had established a settlement and appeared to be behaving themselves. It wouldn't be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is, right?

I must have been crazy. While I had the cerebro-shell in my head I was terrified of the Decepticons returning to Earth, and now I wanted to go and visit them? And yet, once I'd had the notion, it wouldn't go away. I became obsessed with making it happen.

But how? There were only two ways for civilians to visit Cybertron. One was to enlist with Cameron Space Control and somehow get yourself assigned there, and the other was to be so fabulously wealthy that you could afford to buy a seat on Richard Branson's new spaceplane for adventurous multi-millionaires. Neither of those was going to happen.

I thought of getting in touch with the Autobots I already knew to see if they'd let me cross the Space Bridge. I knew the Aerialbots were up there, patrolling Earth's skies, but I'd never actually spoken to them before. Grimlock, Prowl and Springer did not appear to have been present on Earth for at least six years. But Bumblebee had made a few public appearances, and my guess was that he was still here on Earth, in America, if only I could find him.
___

Once again, persistence and concentration yielded fruit, and I traced the yellow Volkswagen to an address in Portland, Oregon, right back where it all started. It was a long drive, but I had no other plans pressing.

When I arrived, my heart sank. At the house where I expected to find Bumblebee and his friend, Buster Witwicky, I could see no sign of either of them. There was a silver Datsun parked in the driveway, and an attractive but clearly over-stressed redhead trying to get her shopping out of the back of it while simultaneously fending off questions from a precocious five-year-old girl and simultaneously soothing the girl's three-year-old brother, who was having a tantrum about something of no doubt Earth-shattering importance.

I left them be, and drove aimlessly around the town, hoping to catch a break.

Then, when night was falling and I was just about ready to give up, there it was, a yellow Beetle disppearing around a corner two blocks down!

I followed at a distance and saw it enter a repair shop. I parked and approached on foot. I heard the sounds of tools clattering and a woman's voice, interspersed with snatches of music from the car's radio. It sounded like she was speaking to someone on the phone while trying to find a channel she liked. I moved closer, staying out of sight. I heard the radio playing a few bars of Frank Sinatra, 'Strangers in the Night', and the woman called out, "Who's there?"

I cleared my throat, and replied, "Sorry, I got the wrong address."

Then I heard a different voice, a friendly, familiar, robotic voice, call out, "Hey! I know that voice! It's Irwin Spoon!"

A car door slammed, an engine revved, and before I knew it the Beetle had driven itself out onto the road and transformed.

TO BE CONTINUED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

IRWIN SPOON GOES TO CYBERTRON

PART 4

Bumblebee listened to what I had to say,
And showed great sorrow in his own robotic way.
He said he felt bad for not having suspected
That a human's mind could be by Bombshell directed.

He asked me whether I regretted signing on,
To stop the rampage of his pal Superion.
I thought for a minute, then, "No," I said.
"But I regret not quitting while I was ahead.
If I'd packed it in then, I'd still be a winner,
But I got greedy, and I got eaten for dinner."

Now I needed more than ever a big story or two,
And I'd never got the promised Grimlock interview.
Bumblebee admitted... that what I said was true,
Adding, "Grimlock's gone. What can I do for you?"

I took a deep breath, and let it out,
Suddenly having a moment of doubt.
But here I was - I'd better press on.
"I'd like to interview a Decepticon."

He took it better than I had feared,
Despite my request being somewhat weird.
I explained the thinking behind it all.
He said, "Let me go and make a call."

He left me with his friend. Charlie Watson was her name.
Whenever he needed repairs, it was to her garage he came.
She was Buster's cousin, and therefore Sparkplug's niece,
And had followed in her late uncle's footsteps - may he rest in peace.

I asked why 'Bee played music, rather than speak,
When the two of them were alone, and I was taking a peek.
She said it went back to the time that they first met,
Ten years earlier, when Decepticons were closing the net.
Bumblebee was wounded, his speech circuitry was shot,
And he was leaking his life fuel all over Sparkplug's lot.
Sparkplug was in the hospital, only Charlie was here,
And she'd never met a Transformer before, so she had some fear.

But she'd managed to save him, and just in time,
As two Decepticons, partners in crime,
Came looking to finish what their comrade had begun,
And kill the yellow Autobot before the rising of the sun.

Bumblebee fled, and Charlie went too.
They had a plan for what to do.
They led the Decepticons down to the docks,
And set a trap, and hid in the rocks.
When Dropkick and Shatter were in the right place,
They copped a sea-going tanker full in the face.
It rolled down and crushed them against the cliff wall,
And not much was left of them at all.
Bumblebee sank to the bottom of the bay,
And Charlie dived in to make sure he was okay.
[He was. Bumblebee's little levers love a good swim.]
And they've been good friends ever since that time.
How strange - this chapter's come out in rhyme!

Bumblebee returned. "It's like I thought," he said,
"Most of the right sort of 'Cons are dead.
There are two groups back on Cybertron:
Trypticon's lot, about twenty-strong,
And Gutcruncher who has half as many.
Of Gutcruncher's pack, there are not any
Who have met a human or lived on Earth,
So talking to them would have little worth.
Half of Trypticon's crew are just the same,
And the other half - well, you see, they came
From Earth to begin with. They were built here.
So as alien invaders they are really small beer.
You need a Cybertronian Decepticon,
Who spent time on Earth before our war was won.
Most of them are dead, thanks to your government's deeds,
When they cleaned out all the bases, and followed up all the leads.
Several survive, we think - out among the stars,
But for now we don't know who or where they are."

I was disappointed, and, at the same time, somewhat relieved.
If there were no Earth-invading 'Cons left, I could not be received
By them on Cybertron. So I did not have to go.
And I could sleep easier. It was just not meant to be, you know?

I thanked them both for helping me.
And was getting back in my van when Bumblebee
Said, "Give me your number, and I'll get in touch,
If the situation on Cybertron changes much."
___

More than twenty years have now passed.
Some went by slowly, others fast.
I'd resigned myself to fade into obscurity
Rather than achieve fame through journalistic purity.
I could vent my spleen on forums and blogs,
Where the opinionated fight like cats and dogs.

Then, out of the blue, I got a text
From Bumblebee. I thought, "Whatever next?"
It said, "Are you still interested in doing a story
With Evil Decepticons in all their glory?"
I was past my prime, but I had to ask, "Why?"
He said, "A lot of old 'Cons refuse to die.
The last few years on Cybertron
Have seen a large number of Decepticons
Return to join Trypticon's merry band.
They're the sort you wanted to interview and
They got in touch with us to say
They'd be pleased if you'd drop by next Tuesday."

TO BE CONTINUED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

IRWIN SPOON GOES TO CYBERTRON

PART 5

Nebulos, the year 1987.

"Oh, no - violence in any form was forbidden..."

"Gort - please, speak..."

"My apologies, carbon-based life-form. I-I meant no harm. Please - take this to your planet's leaders. I... I hope your companion can be repaired."

"Repaired? His head is bleeding! We need to get him to a hospital!"

"'We'?"

"This was your fault! Are you going to help me or not?"

"But my mission..."

"Screw your mission. This is more important!"

"All right."

And so, Highbrow transformed.
___

And so, I went to Cybertron.

It was ridiculously easy. You'd have thought that travel to another planet would require astronaut training, a spacesuit, months floating in zero-gravity, extreme g-forces, food in capsules, etc. And plenty of sleepless nights wondering whether it was too late to back out.

But no. My instructions were simply to drive along a certain unmarked road and just keep on going when I got to the giant metal suspension bridge. Just one safety warning - don't drive off the side. I felt a little insulted - that applies to all bridges, surely!

Yes, my pulse was racing and I was sweating a little, but compared to a launchpad blast-off at Cape Canaveral, this was a piece of cake.
___

The first thing I need people back home to understand is that it's dark on Cybertron. I mean, it's always night-time. 'Cos there's no sun, obviously. There are two very bright stars in the sky, which are apparently getting closer each year (one of them is a gas giant, actually), and this is the star system containing the non-aligned planet Scarvix. The Transformers have plans to nudge Cybertron into orbit around its sun in around fifty years' time. Maybe then the planet will experience true daylight for the first time in four million years.

Artists' impressions of Cybertron do not normally convey the planet's perpetual night-time state. They may sometimes show Cybertron with a dark, starry sky, or with the stars obscured by a purple-orange haze of pollution, but the ground normally appears to be well-lit. It isn't. Where there is no artificial lighting, the surface of Cybertron is pitch-black. The Transformers have become accustomed to this, adapting their optical sensors to work at very low light levels, use infra-red, and so on. Humans do not generally possess such adaptations.

Fortunately, I drove off the Space Bridge into the most brightly lit part of the planet Cybertron - Iacon, Autobot City.

I won't beat about the bush - Iacon is beautiful. Earth's greatest cities at night have got nothing on Iacon. For a start, the tacky colour-clashing advertising of human cities is entirely absent. In its place, picture a hundred golden Shards and Eiffel Towers of varying dimensions, all reaching for the sky, with gently curving expressways looping up, down and around them, artistically intertwining with the buildings. And a great, clear dome, larger than Manhattan Island, more than ten kilometres in diameter, encompassing all. Beyond the dome, just a few lit radial expressways - straight, rather than curved - disappearing off onto the black beyond.

I understand that only a hundred or so Autobots live here, under their leader, Thunderclash Prime. The rest of the citizens are Cybertronians who were neutral non-combatants during the Autobot-Decepticon conflict. Most of them never had the gift of transformation bestowed upon them by military science, and they come in all shapes and sizes. Humanoid configuration as default? Forget it!

But I was met by two familiar faces - the Autobots Prowl and Wheeljack. Prowl was the city's chief administrator, Wheeljack his head of technology. They greeted me cordially, all sins long forgiven, at least on their side. They escorted me to a helipad on the roof of a sprawling building that they referred to as 'Metroplex', where an SH-2 Seasprite helicopter waited, the liaison officer from Cameron Space Control leaning against its side, eating a cheese salad sandwich, ready to take me to see the Decepticons.
___

The flight out to Tyrest, where the Decepticons were now based (their former stomping grounds at Kalis being given over to planetary engine works), was a lot less comfortable than my drive across the Space Bridge. Wheeljack had promised to look after my van, but as it faded to a speck on the ground I wondered if I'd ever see it again. We flew out through an opening in the Great Dome, and the lights of Iacon gave way to blackest night.

I looked over my companion in the rear of the chopper. It was immediately clear to me that Lieutenant Danita Santella was far too glamorous to be a proper combat soldier - skin, hair and nails that perfect had surely never seen real action. Public relations was clearly her purpose in this outfit. I'd Googled her before leaving Earth, but as usual the Internet contained a lot of rubbish. It said she was half-Italian, half-Nebulan. Her father had been Earth's first ambassador to Nebulos, and her mother the first Nebulan to ever meet a Transformer. She had a brother on Earth, a sister on Nebulos, various nephews and nieces. It said her mother had been killed in a shootout with space pirates when she was two, and her father died six years later repairing a leaking hyperdrive. Sources claimed that the eight-year-old Danita had saved herself and her siblings by piloting their damaged ship all the way to Cameron Space Control and carrying out the docking manoeuvres without the aid of an autopilot.

Yeah, right.

Nevertheless, I found the military-garbed woman's presence somewhat unsettling, and we didn't speak much on the way out.

"I see you're wearing an air filter," I observed at one point.

"Yeah, the pollution on Cybertron can be as bad as in Shanghai."

"What about me?"

"You're just a day-tripper. As long as you don't have any underlying respiratory conditions, you should be okay. I have to work here."

And that was that.

TO BE CONTINUED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

IRWIN SPOON GOES TO CYBERTRON

PART 6

"So... any idea who we'll be meeting?"

"Not exactly. I mean, the invitation came direct from Bombshell, but I'm sure you knew that much already, right?"

I swallowed. "Yeah... At least, I suspected that was probably the case. So how come a slimeball like him received an amnesty from the Autobots?"

"All Decepticons who stuck by the 1991 truce got an amnesty, though they are barred from ever landing on a human world on pain of death. And Bombshell was a hero of the battle against Unicron - sacrificed himself to save his planet by going inside the enemy to infect his systems with a Creation Matrix virus. Would have been a dead hero too, if it weren't for the Nucleon."

I didn't understand half of what she'd just said, but it sounded like I wasn't going to get revenge against Bombshell through the Cybertronian justice system any time soon. And the thought of walking into the lion's den for an interview... But then I looked around myself, and my mood perked up. "Still, at least I'm going in there with a full military escort."

She looked blank for a minute, then said, "Hang on. Are you telling me you thought... Prowl was supposed to brief you on the travel arrangements!" She yanked open a sliding hatch separating the rear of the helicopter from the cockpit, and gestured with her thumb. "You'd better go and make the acquaintance of our pilot for today."

I scrambled to the hatch, looked through, and suddenly felt very sick. No pilot.

"Meet Vortex," said Danita, coolly. "He's a Combaticon." The helicopter jiggled from side to side - probably a gesture of greeting, but it made me lunge for the side door. "Very sensible," she said, helping me lean out safely. "Decepticons do not take kindly to humans throwing up inside them."

"Sorry," I said when I had recovered. "I just didn't realise I was inside an alien robot."

"Well, technically, you're not. Unlike me, Vortex is actually from Earth. Conceived in the dreams of Buster Witwicky, built from American steel... Maybe you remember seeing the commercials for Club Con back in '88? There was a helicopter in one of them, ferrying happy human tourists to their island paradise destination. That's the helicopter you're in now. All those humans got home safely at the end of their holiday, and I'm sure you will too."
___

Vortex landed at the Tyrest city limits, and we got down. I followed Lieutenant Santella through a checkpoint in the main outer wall. There was very little illumination to light our way, and I had to be careful where I stepped.

"Leave your bracelets outside the city," said a Decepticon guard.

"Go screw yourself, Pounce," said my guide, walking straight on through.

"How'd you know it was me?" the Decepticon called after her.

I saw the flash of white of her teeth as she half-turned to grin over her shoulder. "'Cos Wingspan won't dare come anywhere near me after what I did to him when I caught him peeping in my bedroom window!" she called back.

I watched to see if any retaliation would follow her blatant act of disobedience, but it seemed the guard was intent on finding other things to do.

Most of the streets were dark and deserted, but one building had lights on inside, and it was there that we headed.

"Hey, guys," said Danita, stepping inside. "Evil Decepticons, Mr Spoon. Mr Spoon, Evil Decepticons." She turned to me. "You want a cold beer or something?"

I was still gaping upwards at the giant robots looming over me, peering down at me like so many citizens of Brobdingnag inspecting the specimen that was Jonathan Swift's Gulliver.

Not getting a reply from me, Danita shrugged, headed over to a refrigerator in the far corner of the room, and began perusing its contents.

"Er... h-hello," I managed at last. After returning to civilisation, I succeeded in identifying all the robots present. The Insecticons were there. I recognised them straight away, having researched them thoroughly in advance. There were also a couple of red, orange and yellow robots with swords, who I later learnt were the Predacons, Rampage and Razorclaw.

"He doesn't look like much," grumbled Rampage. "Sure you've got the right guy?"

"Oh, yes, it's him, all right!" cackled Bombshell. "Welcome to your worst nightmare, human germ!"

TO BE CONTINUED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

IRWIN SPOON GOES TO CYBERTRON

PART 7

"Here are the four newly Matrixed brain modules you're owed," Danita told the Decepticons, nodding towards a bag she'd placed on top of the fridge. "Coded to act as replacements for the four deceased members of your Micromaster Constructor Squad, as promised."

"Were you expecting another helicopter from Autobot City?" wondered Pounce, entering the room, having apparently abandoned his post at the city gate. "'Cos we've got one inbound."

"It's not coming from Iacon," called down the Predacon eagle, Divebomb, from his perch on the building's highest point. "It's an MH-53 Pave Low. Looks like our old friend Blackout's decided he wants to go out in a blaze of glory."

"Who's Blackout?" I inquired.

"One of the last Decepticon true believers, who won't accept our making peace with the Autobots," explained Kickback. "He used to be a Micromaster, and back in the day he transformed into the front half of a B-1 Lancer, but he lost his combining partner, Spaceshot, together with their mobile anti-aircraft base, in the Battle of Klo, and shortly afterwards Blackout upgraded to his current helicopter attack form. When Trypticon refused his demands to reignite the war, he swore to find alien allies and have his revenge on all of us traitors."

"He's got an Elpasos Scorponoid!" warned Divebomb, and Kickback pointed to a screen on the wall, which showed the incoming helicopter drop a massive, grey, scorpion-shaped robot, whose rotating pincers tore up the surface of Cybertron as it burrowed its way towards us.

"Human, you want a piece of the action?" inquired Shrapnel, snatching up the bag of freshly Matrixed brain modules.

"Who, me?" I said, stupidly. (Thankfully, everyone ignored me.)

"You've got a mutual defence treaty with the Autobots, not with Cameron Space Control," observed Lieutenant Santella, sipping from a can of Pepsi Max. "You should take it up with Hopper. He's your liaison with Autobot City now, right?"

"That's true, but we're keeping score as to favours granted and received, and it wouldn't hurt you Space Marines to have one more in your column."

"Hmmm. Let me guess, Blackout's looking for death-by-'Con, and Decepticon politics is such that none of you wants to be the one to get your hands dirty right now."

"We'll gladly deal with the Scorponoid ourselves. It's not one of us."

"All right, but Vortex runs interference for me with his semi-automatic glue gun. Deal?"

"Deal!" said Kickback, hurrying to radio Vortex and update him on the situation.

Danita kicked off her shoes and asked me to look after them for her, then pulled off her military dress, and I couldn't help but notice several cuts and bruises on what I described earlier as her perfect skin. She pressed a button on one of her wrist bracelets, and ribbons of circuitry encircled her arms and legs and ran down her front from what I'd wrongly taken to be an ornamental neck ring. Then she gave me a reassuring wink and flew out of the window.

As I clumsily gathered up the rest of her clothes, the building began to shake. Bombshell transformed to his giant insect mode and opened his golden cockpit cover. "Better get in, human," he told me. "That Scorponoid will be surfacing any second now."

"Oh, crap," I muttered, but I could see no alternative, not if I wanted to survive the next five minutes. I got in. "What happens now if you shrink to insect size?"

"We both get hurt. Now shut up." And with that, he rose into the air.

The Scorponoid smashed through the floor, pincers whirling, missiles shooting off in all directions, and the Insecticons scattered. Pounce, Rampage and Razorclaw transformed to their big cat configurations and attempted to assail the intruder from the sides, but it was too fast, impaling Rampage with its stinger and hurling him out into the night, and smacking the other two cats away with blows from its enormous pincers.

"Look! There's another one!" I pointed, as a second giant robot scorpion scuttled towards the crumbling building, this one coming from a different direction.

"Double Punch," announced Bombshell, with smug satisfaction. "He's one of ours."

Sure enough, the newly arrived purple-and-blue scorpion proved its allegiance through its actions, blasting the Elpasos Scorponoid's tail clean off with a laser cannon mounted on its back, and then grappling with its pincers, snapping them off at the body. Razorclaw and Pounce renewed their assault on the now-helpless creature, tearing into it with their teeth and claws until its movements ceased. They sprang away, and Double Punch retreated to a safe distance, as the building collapsed.

It looked like I wasn't going to get that cold beer after all.

Bombshell flew us up and over the city wall to where Blackout lay face-down in robot mode, his limbs snarled up with glue, and his head a blackened cinder. Danita was sitting on his back, blowing on her hands to cool them after her exertions.

"Not my first Decepticon helicopter," she observed matter-of-factly, within earshot of Vortex.

"Where had we got to, when we were so rudely interrupted?" wondered Bombshell.

"Something about my worst nightmare," I grimaced, resigning myself to whatever fate had in store for me next.

"Did you save my shoes?"

TO BE CONTINUED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

IRWIN SPOON GOES TO CYBERTRON

PART 8

"You didn't really ask me here in order to give me an exclusive interview, to provide a much-needed boost to my journalistic career - did you?" I challenged Bombshell.

"Of course not."

I sighed. "I thought not. All right, then, why did you want me here?"

"Why, to have a little fun at your expense, of course!"

"And you knew this?" I called over to Lieutenant Santella, who was busily putting her uniform back on after her bout of circuit-breaking. She just shrugged. "This guy's dangerous, you know!" I protested, annoyed by her unflappability. "He puts little computer chips in your head to control your actions!" Then a new thought occurred to me. "Hey - are you controlling her?"

"Not currently."

"You mean you've controlled her in the past? Oh, God!"

"Calm down," said Danita, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Yes, Bombshell injected me with a cerebro-shell earlier this year, but I asked him to do it. I needed to have my conscious memory suppressed in order to get past a telepathic scanner. Then he had the shell self-destruct so that I could get past a technology scanner."

"You know what's always bothered me?" said Bombshell. "If the telepathic scan had come after the technology scan, the entire plan would have fallen over."

"I know. But in that situation we'd have come up with a different plan."

"All right, all right," I interjected, feeling a little left out of all of this. "So what do you want with me?"

"This!" said Bombshell, fixing me with his evil gaze. I froze. "Come here!" I felt my limbs moving of their own accord, walking me towards the Insecticon despite my best efforts to control my body. "Human, there's a grease spot on my foo-"

"Hey!" warned Danita, sternly.

"Spoilsport." Bombshell cupped his massive hand beneath my left ear, and I felt an excruciating pain in my head. "When I returned to Cybertron last year, I picked up Bumblebee's message from twenty years earlier, saying that you'd had your cerebro-shell removed and were now looking to revive your career by securing an exclusive interview with a proper Decepticon Earth-invader." He glanced contemptuously at Vortex. "I dismissed the message - it held no interest for me. Until last month, when I happened to be in Iacon while the Autobots were using the Space Bridge to travel to Earth. In that moment... I felt your presence! Now, how, I wondered, could I possibly sense you across the Space Bridge, if you'd had your cerebro-shell removed? There was only one logical answer to that conundrum. You hadn't! And sure enough..."

I only pieced Bombshell's words together afterwards, talking to Danita. At the time, I was in too much agony to take in everything he was telling me. But at last, mercifully, it was over, and the cerebro-shell popped out of my ear and landed messily on Bombshell's outstretched palm.

I staggered, ready to faint, and Danita caught me.

"Hell, why couldn't you just order it to harmly disintegrate like you did with mine?" she snapped.

"I wanted him to see it with his own eyes," said Bombshell. "And there was always a possibility he'd ask me to put it back."

"Wha-? Why?!" I gasped. "Why might I ever want you to put that thing back inside me?"

"Oh, I dunno," said Bombshell. "Maybe because somebody on Earth lied to you when they told you they'd removed the shell, and that somebody on Earth might be powerful and dangerous, especially once they realise you've come back from Cybertron without it. They'd know you've been consorting with Decepticons, and might not want you running around with the knowledge that they're in the business of using alien tech to control fellow humans."

"What - you think SHIELD, or whoever those people really were, have been controlling me for the last twenty years?"

"Maybe, maybe not. I have no idea who you've had dealings with. But now that you know you've had the shell in your system all this time, can you really be sure that all your actions of the last twenty years have been your own? For a psychological warfare specialist, I'm not very subtle. Lick that grease spot on my foot! Shut down that dam! Write a story portraying the Autobots as the bad guys! That's about my limit, really. But it doesn't mean that others couldn't use my cerebro-shells in a very different way, one that is more slow-burning and hard to detect. Of course, I could be wrong. It's just a theory of mine... but can you afford to take that chance?"

"I... I need to sit down," I said, then realised I already was.

Danita produced a slightly dented and dusty can of beer, and I drank half of it straight down.

"I... think I'd like to go back to Autobot City now," I said.

"Sure you don't want me to put the cerebro-shell back? We could turn the tables on your manipulators. It could be fun!"

I waved Bombshell away. No, whatever came next, there was one thing I was absolutely certain of. I did not want that cerebro-shell put back in my head. I just wanted to get back to my van and sleep for a month.

TO BE CONCLUDED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

IRWIN SPOON GOES TO CYBERTRON

CONCLUSION

I stand on a viewing platform high up on one of the Celestial Spires, looking down upon Autobot City.

I said earlier that Iacon was more beautiful than any Earth city. That was a load of crap. Yeah, the lights and architecture are a wonder to behold, but there are no trees, no birds, and the air burns your lungs. It's telling that not one binary-bonded Nebulan who survived the war chose to make his permanent home here.

Strange how your perspective on an unfamiliar land changes when you're effectively told you can't go home.

I spoke with Prowl, and he got his contacts on Earth to do a bit of research on my behalf. The building in Chicago where 'Mr Johnson of SHIELD' supposedly removed my cerebro-shell was demolished a few months after my visit, the fourteenth floor being recorded as unoccupied for the entire year preceding the building's demolition. There was no way to know now who those people really were. Supposing we were to ask the real SHIELD if they had an office on a certain floor of a certain building some twenty years ago, what incentive would they have to answer the question, let alone truthfully, even if they still had accurate records? They were an organisation built on secrets. But whoever the people were, they obviously had reason at the time to let me think they'd removed the shell, when actually they'd left it in my head.

I daren't go back to Earth with the shell having been removed, as that would send a clear signal to anyone monitoring or controlling it that they'd been rumbled, that I knew too much and should therefore be eliminated. And I wasn't having it put back in. Nor could I imagine living out my remaining years on Cybertron.

Dani Santella came to my rescue, with an offer of a new life and new identity on the planet Nebulos. By all accounts, Nebulos is a paradise world, much as Earth might have been in the absence of war and overpopulation. When formal relations with Earth were established in the early 1990s, the Nebulan government saw potential dangers to their way of life arising from uncontrolled immigration from Earth, and so instituted a strict policy whereby the number of Earthlings moving to Nebulos was forbidden from exceeding the number of Nebulans opting to go and live on Earth. Many Nebulans were attracted by the sheer scale and diversity of Earthen civilisation, so there was a steady flow in both directions, but there was still a long waiting list of Earthlings wishing to move to Nebulos. I don't know what favours my benefactor had to call in - she appears to have influence in all kinds of surprising places - but somehow I was bumped to the front of the queue.

Prowl assured me that his Headmaster friend, Nightbeat, and Nightbeat's Nebulan partner, Muzzle, would see to my new identity upon my arrival in the Nebulan capital city, Koraja. I was told to pack all my gear into the hold of Dani's Cameron star-fighter and be ready to lift off within the hour. I guess I will get to experience g-forces and zero-gravity after all, though no-one has offered me even basic astronaut training.

I asked what would become of my van. Prowl told me that Lieutenant Santella has certain plans for it. I decided not to pursue the matter.

And now, because I'm never going back to Earth, the memoirs of Irwin Spoon, which I've typed diligently on this laptop, must be deleted. They can never be published, nor read by anyone on Earth. They have no place in my new life.
___

Irwin Spoon finished typing, clicked 'Save' and exited the document. Then he right-clicked on the file name, and clicked 'Shred'.
___

A month later, Irwin Spoon's van drove back across the Space Bridge, and returned to Earth. Irwin Spoon's blog was promptly updated with a message sent from his smartphone, announcing that the ace reporter had gathered reams of exclusive new material on the planet Cybertron, ready for sharing just as soon as he'd met with his publisher in New York and ironed out the contractual details.

Irwin Spoon's van never made it to New York. Instead, it drove off the side of a bridge and ended up as a mangled wreck in a rocky canyon sixty feet below. There were no witnesses, and it should by rights have gone undiscovered for weeks. But it didn't.

Within hours of the 'accident', an unmarked black car pulls up just where the bridge begins, and a man wearing a black suit and black sun-glasses, tracking the signal from Irwin Spoon's cerebro-shell on his black smartphone, scrambles down the ravine to where the van lies broken on its side.

Before the man can begin to force an entry for the purposes of identifying the body that he expects to find inside, something bites him hard on the back of the neck.

He clutches the red spot, scratching and cursing. Then he stops.

Something is about to make the man forget. To make him forget... everything.

For within his bloodstream, a tiny, silvery capsule, injected into him by the supposed bug 'bite' moments earlier, unerringly makes its way to the tangle of neurons and dendrites that comprises his brain, where, in the area of the cerebellum that controls independent thought, it anchors itself... and takes root.

And the 'SHIELD' agent... no longer has a mind of his own.

THE END

[Grand Moff Muffin]

IRWIN SPOON GOES TO CYBERTRON

EPILOGUE

June 2019 was a good month for a human from Earth who wanted to enter Nebulan society unnoticed to be slipped past immigration, skipping all the usual interviews and background checks.

Since establishing formal relations with Earth in the 1990s and learning all about that world's mutants, Atlanteans, Asgardians, Olympians and other super-beings, Nebulos had been troubled by its own lack of superheroes. Much of it could be put down to having a population of mere millions, compared to Earth's billions, and the Nebulan environment being less conducive to random genetic mutation, but it worried them nonetheless. Certainly, Nebulans were on average healthier than Earthlings, less prone to diseases such as cancers, and ageing more slowly, and no doubt over time the intermingling of the races would yield mutual benefits, but large segments of Nebulan society envied the colourful diversity of their terrestrial cousins.

The surviving Headmaster Nebulans - Muzzle, Quig and Stylor - were treated as superheroes of a sort when they returned to their homeworld following the conclusion of the Autobot-Decepticon conflict. But it took multiple attacks by the Decepticon Micromaster Tracer in 1992, the massacre of the Council of Peers by 'Lazorbique', the bug-eyed robotic mercenary assassin from the planet Elpasos, in the year 1993, and the destruction of coastal settlements by a giant, worm-like, Cybertronian 'Driller', legacy of the late, unlamented Decepticon Shockwave, in 1994, before the Nebulan Circuit-Breaker Corps was established in earnest to defend the planet from any future alien acts of terrorist aggression. Nebulos had lost its innocence, and paid a high price for its newfound prominence on the Galactic map, but its people welcomed their glamorous new homegrown cadre of superheroes and superheroines with open arms.

And yet the powers of all the super-beings on Nebulos to date came through advances in robotic technology, and many Nebulans continued to look with envious eyes upon the likes of Earth's Dr Strange, Fantastic Four, Iceman, Spider-Man and Thor.

So when, decades later, in 2019, seven exiled 'Spectral Knights' from the lost planet Prysmos, temporarily resident at Autobot City on Cybertron, applied for Nebulan citizenship, the Koraja Council jumped at the chance to get hold of something Earth didn't have, and welcomed the Knights of the Magical Light with open arms. And it was the day on which the seven 'Visionaries' were paraded through the streets of the Nebulan capital, riding their exotic-looking 'Capture Chariot' and 'Lancer Cycle' past the Llyra Zarak Peace Memorial, that the private detective Muzzle smuggled Irwin Spoon through customs, and the Librarian Master Emeritus, Quig, presented him with papers certifying him to be one Edwin Spade, lucky lottery winner from the planet Earth, relocating to Nebulos in his mid-fifties for health reasons and in search of a quiet life.

Stylor's best-selling, action-packed autobiography was due to be translated into the major Earth languages, and the veteran Headmaster celebrity wanted a native speaker to polish the language for English-speaking audiences. Edwin Spade had just the writing skills Stylor was looking for. After so many years of dreaming of achieving fame through the telling of his own encounters with the Transformers, the former journalist from Brooklyn appreciated the irony of being doomed instead to help tell someone else's adventures, and make them famous just as his own past life was being erased. But after all that he'd been through, he accepted his fate without rancour.

After all, things could have turned out so much worse.
___

On Earth, the 'SHIELD' agent phoned his boss to confirm that Irwin Spoon was indeed dead, all electronic notes of his time on the planet Cybertron destroyed in the van wreck. His boss ordered him to torch the van. The regular authorities would have nothing but the vehicle registration to tell them who had died when they eventually bothered to show up.

Bombshell allowed the agent to carry out his boss's instructions, though contrary to his report the cerebro-shelled human had done nothing to establish who if anyone was inside the van.

The Insecticon then commanded the man to drive his own car several miles back along the road, to where the Space Bridge waited to carry him to Cybertron, for interrogation.

By the Autobots.

THE END

STORIES LISTED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

MISCELLANEOUS
The year 1987: Bumblebee 1987
The year 1987: Battlechargers Forever / Transformers #23 and 32
The year 1988: Terrorcons, Combine!
Beginning from September 1988: Tales from the Cosmic Carnival / Transformers #44
January 1989: A Stopped Clock / Transformers UK #199-205, 223-227 and 251-254
The year 1989: A Stopped Clock: Chimes at Midnight / Transformers #60-61

THE LAST DAYS OF THE TRANSFORMERS WAR
The year 1990: Transformers UK #229, 237-239 and 255-289
The year 1990: The Magnificent Six (Transformers UK Annual 1991)
The year 1990: Transformers #67-70
The year 1990: The Last Days of the Transformers War: Xaaron / Transformers #71-73
The year 1991: The Last Days of the Transformers War: Unicron / Transformers #74-75
The year 1991: The Last Days of the Transformers War: Nucleon / Escort Duty / Breaking Bonds / Transformers #76-80
November 1991: Top Secret
December 1991: Another Time and Place (Transformers UK Annual 1992)
December 1991: The Reckoning

WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWARDS
The year 1992: Destiny of the Dinobots (Transformers UK Annual 1990)
The year 1992: Stylor's Sequel
The year 1992: Stylor's Statement
The year 1992: Stylor's Speech
The year 1993: The Last Minispy (time of narration)
The year 1993: The Last Minispy: Jaws of Steel
The year 1993: Earth's Mightiest Heroes
The year 1993: Earth's Mightiest Heroes: Minefield

INTERIM
1991-2018: Sky Lynx May Be a Rubbish Toy, But...!
1994-2018: Marvel Superheroes Meet the Transformers

TWENTY YEARS LATER
The year 2014: Twenty Years Later
The year 2014: Twenty Years Later: Kup's Story Retold
September 2017 to July 2018: Prelude to the Predator War
August 2018: Where Were You During the Predator War?
August 2018: Life and Freedom
August 2018: Cameron Space Marines
September 2018: Titanium Shott Blaster for Hire
September 2018: Titanium Shott Blaster for Hire: Death's Head vs Grimlock
September 2018: Game Over
September 2018: Game Over: Walkthrough
October 2018: The Mad Marvel UK Mash-Up
October 2018: The Mad Marvel UK Mash-Up: Deadlier Games
November-December 2018: War of the Skull
December 2018: The Legacy of Rodimus Prime
December 2018: The Legacy of Galvatron
December 2018: The Legacy of Primus
January 2019: Remembrance
The year 2019: Choose Your Own Prologue
The year 2019: Choose Your Own Adventure
The year 2019: Choose Your Own Destiny
The year 2019: Choose Your Own Strategy
The year 2019: Choose Your Own Fate
The year 2019: Choose Your Own Ending
The year 2019: Choose Your Own Epilogue
May 2019: The Return of Optimus Prime
Ending in June 2019: Stories from Grand Central Space Station
Ending in June 2019: The Singular Adventures of Slugfest and Overkill
Ending in June 2019: Irwin Spoon Goes to Cybertron