Tales of the Intermezzo - Kiss A Transformers Universe Story copyright 2006 by Dave Van Domelen based on properties owned by Hasbro =========================================================================== "intermezzo - n. A brief entertainment between two acts of a play." - American Heritage Dictionary [2061] Astoria Waldorf-Hilton sighed and opened her eyes again. The painkillers held her gently in a cocoon of lightly glowing cotton, a mist through which she saw her sons and daughters, grandchildren and even one great-grandchild surrounding her. Her husband had been dead for decades now, caught in the orbital bombardment of 2025, but she didn't intend to follow him to the grave. Not yet. It had been a good life, no doubt about that. It had its share of pain, all lives do. But on the balance it had been worth living. So much so that Astoria was determined not to throw in the towel just yet. After all, she was very, very rich. And technology had made great advances since the Transformers first awoke on her fragile little planet, especially medical technology. Ideas that had once been purely the domain of hopeless dreamers and kooks were now well-established science. People had been placed in medical stasis for extended periods and successfully revived when it was possible to cure what ailed them. There still wasn't a cure for being old and worn out, but Astoria was a bit of a hopeless dreamer herself. She closed her eyes and didn't open them again for a very, very long time. * * * * [2302] "I think she's coming out of it," a strange voice said as Astoria clawed her way up through the darkness. She felt like she'd been asleep late into the afternoon, with that stiffness that comes from too much of a good thing. "Mrs. Waldorf-Hilton?" asked another strange voice. "Yyyyuh?" she replied. "Blugh," she added, as she realized she had the worst case of "morning mouth" ever. Then her eyes finally opened, to a blazing white room with a pair of fuzzily indistinct figures standing over her bed. She winced. "Lower the lighting another thirty percent, looks like she's got a worse case of light sensitivity than most," the first voice said, and the room became merely annoyingly bright. "Who are you?" she asked as she could finally make out enough details to tell that she didn't know these people. Her voice rasped harshly from disuse, but felt stronger than it had before she.... Died. She'd died, she remembered now. So, of course she didn't know these people. It probably took several years to find a way to fix her up, and hospitals had a faster turnover than that in most positions. "I'm senior medtech Johanssen," the first speaker introduced himself. From his dark hair and swarthy skin, he really didn't look like a Johanssen, though. "And my companion is medassist Takashi," he gestured to the second speaker, who did at least look Japanese. "How long has it been?" Astoria asked, looking at her hands. They were still wrinkled with age. "And why am I still old?" Johanssen chuckled, a professional sort of laugh, intended to put you at ease but not really accomplishing that goal. "Give it time. We've restored your telemeric levels, your own body will fix itself over the course of the next few months. By this time next year, you'll practically look like a teenager. As to how long, it's the year 2302." "What?" Some part of her realized that she must still be on some kind of medication, because she didn't feel *nearly* as freaked out as she knew she should be. "It took that long?" "Understand, Mrs. Waldorf-Hilton," Takashi explained, "the conditions of your extropian contract specified well-proven technology unless an emergency required immediate revival. Clones, cybernetics, nanotech...they've all turned out to have risk levels deemed unacceptable by your executors. Telemeric extension therapy was first considered in your own first lifetime, but it wasn't until fairly recently that it could be performed on humans. And after that, it was another decade before it was clear that there were no adverse side effects. Even now, it's still performed only rarely, because of the expense, and the fact that it only works on about a tenth of the population." "You're part of that lucky one in ten," Johanssen added. "Anyway, we're just the wake-up service. Now that you're up, we'll be scheduling physical therapy for you, and counseling sessions to help you get integrated into modern society. One of the other benefits of your more cautious approach... we've had plenty of time to work out the mental side as well as the physical." * * * * [2305] Astoria jogged down the pedway as whisper-silent vehicles shot past overhead. Funny, when she was first this young, she'd hated things like jogging. She'd done it, of course, because she had a figure to maintain, and a personal trainer to motivate her. But even a couple of years after getting back her lost youth, she hadn't gotten bored with the simple pleasures of running until she couldn't run any farther. Especially since that distance was measured in kilometers, not meters. Her therapist, of course, was worried that it meant she was trying to run *from* something. Her therapist worried about a lot of things. That was his job. Her job, however, was to be one of the idle rich. Some economic downturns and a few wars over the centuries had trimmed back her trust fund in places, but even after the fantastic expense of her rejuvenation treatments she would still be able to live for decades more before having to consider finding a way to make an honest living. And that assumed she didn't simply do well enough in the markets to live off dividends. But...well, that assumed she wanted to stay a drone. A name at the top of a balance sheet, enjoying what amounted to an extended retirement. She supposed she could resume a more active hand in controlling the businesses that had been held in her name, but she'd gotten bored of that ages ago. Literally ages ago. Astoria had been a businesswoman, a mother, even a politician for a single rather undistinguished term. She didn't really have the aptitude for the arts or sciences, and none of the sports suitable for a rich person in this day and age really appealed to her. Although she did like some of the new spectator sports involving men in tight-fitting uniforms...she had the hormones of a young woman again, after all. What should she do with herself? She stopped at a bench and leaned against it for a moment, checking her pulse. "No one really gets me," she sighed. That was the problem, she decided. The various programs she'd been put through had done a wonderful job of preparing her for this brave new world. Culture shock had been gradual and minimal, and she was able to function in this society better than most people born to it, if not as well as she had done so in her own time. She had many acquaintances, if none she might really call friends, but that was something she'd had to deal with in the old days too. But while she could understand them, they really didn't understand her. She was a relic, a curiosity, and it was like most of them were waiting for her to do something amusingly quaint. And while there were a few other "rejuvs" around from the 21st Century, they weren't people she knew. Everyone she knew during her old life was dead. Everyone...? No, not QUITE everyone.... * * * * [2306] Astoria was still a rather rich woman. And while she was a relative newcomer to this day and age, she had a lifetime of experience to draw on, as well as a personality that wouldn't let her stop until she got what she wanted. Illegal, most of it turned out to be. She'd learned during her "orientation" that one did not even speak about Cybertron anymore. Things had gotten a lot worse shortly after her death, and when the Great War finally ended, there was a very strenuous demand on humanity's part that the Autobots and Decepticons get the HELL off Earth. All of them that had survived, anyway. So, she'd bought technology salvaged from Cybertronians on the black market. Contacted ethically-challenged scientists who sought to recreate Cybertronian processes, and funded them. Hired alien traders to bring her news of things she couldn't find out on the official networks. News of people she couldn't find out about otherwise. All of it added up to extensive legal penalties if she were caught and couldn't buy her way out of the charges. They didn't use prisons anymore, but there were worse things than being shut up in a cage. At best, she'd end up poor and a social outcast. At worst...she didn't like to dwell on that. Now, however, she'd managed to avoid all of that. Her specially modified one-person space yacht had crossed a line in the sand, to mangle metaphors. Now she had to worry about much more immediate and lethal consequences. "Attention, incoming craft. This is Cybertron space control. Identify yourself." "Here's where I find out if the repairs to that transponder really worked," she muttered to herself, activating the device. It had been taken from the shattered body of a Transformer who had been destroyed in 2025 and never recovered, presumably because no one cared about him. "Welcome back, Skyhammer. Please land at grid five-niner-seven for processing." "I have a message for one of the former Autobots, I'm told he currently goes by the name Nightglider. Could you ask him to meet me at the landing pad?" "We'll ask. No guarantees." Nightglider watched the ship come in for a landing. "What does a Pretender like Skyhammer want to talk to me for?" he asked the Maximal standing next to him. Inkbomb shrugged. "I thought Skyhammer got scragged. So who knows? That ship looks more or less like his Pretender vehicle shell, though. Maybe it was one of the repair-unit models and fixed him up eventually. Hey, at least we were in the neighborhood, so it's not like we had to cross a continent to see what Skyhammer wants." The ship landed, and the cockpit opened up to reveal a rather graceful looking armored figure, about the size of most Maximals. Or maybe a... "Hey, that's a Nebulan!" Inkbomb pointed out. "But the skin color's wrong. Definitely a binary bonding armor, though." "Oh, no...it can't be," Nightglider muttered. "Powerglide!" the figure called out in a decidedly feminine voice. "It is," he added. Suddenly, the figure launched herself at Nightglider, shocking everyone except, maybe, Nightglider himself. She threw her arms around him and kissed him passionately for a long moment, then came up for air. "Miss me?" Astoria asked. =========================================================================== Author's Notes: Recently (i.e. late March 2006), TakaraTomy announced a new line in which toys and a radio show would revolve around Transformers getting special powers when kissed by Magical Girls (if you don't know what those are, think "Sailor Moon"). This was greeted by such horror by fandom that I decided I had to do SOMETHING with the idea. :) Granted, I ended up going a totally different direction, but these notes are for talking about my inspirations for stories, too. The timeline stuff may be a little off here and there, but I don't really care that much about keeping things that tight.