TREASURE IS TROUBLE
  [46] Time passed and life went on. Much of it, for Transformers as for Men,
was unremarkable and does not take long to chronicle. I and my followers got the
usual amount of requests to open buildings and public events. Ratchet started to
take a medical doctor training course, to live up to his fictional reputation.
It did not take as long as with men, for Transformers can read or see something
and know it at once. They got many enquiries about their ancient and recent
fictional past, as if it was real. On April 1st they had had the same telephone
nuisance as zoos have. If of a million people living within reach of a zoo, only
1 in 20 get a message to ring `Mr.C.Lion' or `Mr.L.E.Fant' or whoever, and only
1 in 20 of those are fooled by it, it is still not funny for the zoo's
switchboard staff having to answer 2500 useless phone calls as well as their
usual business. James and Optimus's people had this same nuisance. Occasionally
April 1st junk messages hang about on unattended desks or telephone answering
machines and are acted on much later. One such told someone to ring `Mr.Straxus
at Polyhex Ltd': usual silly stuff, for High Lord Straxus, Decepticon governor
of the province and city of Polyhex on Cybertron, is thankfully fictional only.
Several times the persistent idiot rang us, for it was our number that he had
been given, and each time Wheeljack answered it and gave the same reply. By the
time the thick character gave up pestering us, Wheeljack was late going to his
day's work helping Hoist and Jazz repairing the old factory building which they
had been at for quite a while. And from this delay, other things arose.
  Somewhere in Droitwich, an undisciplined loose mongrel dog's hunting
instincts, left over from its wolf ancestors, found a passing cat the readiest
thing to chase. The cat fled from its scared owner, and eventually reached a
tree and safety. But the dog barked so fiercely up the tree that the cat jumped
across from the tree to some nearby scaffolding - round the factory that
Wheeljack was helping to repair. The cat's owner, a boy called Alistair, in his
anger risked the dog's fangs and went after his cat. Finding no ladder, he
climbed up one of the supporting poles. "All right, Pusskins, I'm coming." he
said, and swore vengeance on the ugly-minded vicious dog for hunting his cat. He
got to the top and caught Pusskins, and was about to go down when the `floor' at
the top of the scaffolding, two loose planks lying across pipes, slid out from
under him and left him lying lengthwise on a pipe over empty space, calling for
help. Pusskins stood on his back yowling. The dog barked and growled and snarled
continuously below.
  [47] Wheeljack collected Mr.Alan Edwards, who was helping him, and finally got
to the site. If it hadn't been for the repeated silly phone calls delaying him,
he would have arrived earlier, and this wouldn't have happened. Edwards was
going to go to change the welding cylinders when he heard the two planks fall,
followed by a boy calling for help and a cat yowling above him, and the dog.
Wheeljack was not tall enough to reach the top of the scaffolding. Edwards also
knew that dog; he was sick of it, for it kept coming out of a nearly housing
estate scavenging and threatening people and turning bins out like a tramp and
trying to steal the workmen's lunches. Now it had a boy and a cat treed up the
scaffolding. And the scaffolding had started to settle and become unsafe, which
is why Edwards had taken the ladder away. Too late he had found that the
previous owners had dug out a wartime bomb shelter and not filled the hole
properly - right under an important part of the scaffolding. A man's weight on
it might easily have brought it down. The dog still barked up the scaffolding.
Edwards looked in alarm as Wheeljack reached inside himself and took out a
threateningly large and mechanical looking long-barrelled gun powered by a big
underslung compressed air cylinder. "I can shout loud enough for him to hear me,
but he can't shout down loud enough" said Wheeljack.
  Wheeljack aimed upwards and pressed two controls. There was a hiss as the
chamber pressurized and a loud compressed air bang. A weight trailing a line
flew from the gun and over the scaffolding. The line settled over the boy's
back. The dog barked and growled at the same time, and bit the scaffolding in
angry frustration. The boy was scared to look down. After a bit Wheeljack told
him to pull on the line. He did so, and up came a large walkietalkie.
Wheeljack's voice over it quickly told the boy how to operate it to talk through
it. The dog still growled below. Pusskins's claws dug in in fright, holding on.
Midges bit the boy's bare legs, and he couldn't reach them to slap them off.
Pusskins screeched and the dog below cursed. Wheeljack started to talk about
Transformers through the walkietalkie, to take the boy's mind off being scared,
and told him to slide slowly back towards the edge and let his legs dangle over.
The boy said he was called Alistair, and had a model of Wheeljack at home. "What
about that dog?" the boy asked. The scaffolding started swaying. Wheeljack told
Edwards to fetch the 12-foot ladder, and wished he still had some bones that he
had given to James's dog Timmy the previous day, to distract the dog with.
Edwards, hearing that idea, refused to "hostage negotiate with someone's
uncontrolled fidohound", but took a steel bar and shouting "Scram, you mangy
mongrel. Leave my site alone, leave kids alone. I don't care if your owners
suddenly come out of the woodwork and call me every bad name under Earth's sun
or Cybertron's. Beat it!" ran at the dog. He scored one blow on its rump, and it
whined and fled, but it was soon back barking and confronting, as often before
when he or his men had chased it off.
  The line-gun was Wheeljack's design and not a bought make. He had felt it was
about time he got back to designing things, within the limits of what the
properties of matter and energy in the real world allow. He longed to design a
spaceship like in the stories, but knew that it was quite impossible. He put his
gun away and took the ladder (which Edwards had now brought) and held it up in
his hands, so that Alistair could slide backwards onto it off the scaffolding.
Pusskins yowled. "Don't press the red button on the walkietalkie, it makes
`peeep' over your voice." Wheeljack said.
  "I don't hear the `peeep'" said Alistair.
  "It just transmits the `peeep', it doesn't make it aloud audio at your end."
Wheeljack replied.
  "Pusskins is still standing on my back. Owch his claws." said Alistair, "The
pipes are swaying again, worse - help!".
  "Let the walkietalkie dangle and back off onto the ladder quick!" Wheeljack
exclaimed, mentally cursing the junk phone call for `Straxus' which had delayed
him from being in time to stop the dog from chasing Pusskins up the scaffolding
in the first place.
  Wheeljack holding the ladder with Alistair on it backed away hurriedly as with
loud clangs and crashes and squeals of bent metal and wrenched pipe connections
all the scaffolding on that side of the building fell in a tangle. [49] He put
Alistair in his arms and dropped the ladder. "You're <huge>, Wheeljack." said
Alistair, seeing him properly for the first time, "Where's Pusskins?".
  "Ha ha! Nemo me impune lacessit!" said Edwards laughing, for Pusskins had
landed safely, and was standing sideways on Wheeljack's head like the lion on
the crest of the Scottish royal coat of arms, whose motto is "Nemo me impune
lacessit". Wheeljack put Alistair and Pusskins on the ground, saying "How
strange we must seem to you, electromechanical but intelligent and able to think
independently like people. We've only been around about a year despite our
fictional ancient history.".
  "You'd better go off home, your mother'll be wondering where you are." said
Edwards.
  They had forgotten the dog, which, barking and angry, chased Pusskins, who
this time could not reach a tree, but had to resort to rolling over to present
all four feet protruding sharp claws. Cat and dog fought savagely and
desperately. Pusskins managed to avoid the dog's teeth, but made several deep
claw wounds on the dog's lips and ears and around the eyes and got onto the
dog's back. While the dog ki-yied with pain and tried to lose its unwanted
rider, Edwards, thankful for his thick overalls and industrial gloves to protect
himself from being scratched also, seized the chance and took hold of something
that he had longed to get hold of for a long time - the back of the dog's neck,
and held on hard, calling "Alistair! I've got the dog's scruff! Call your cat
off and get some cord from the hut!" The dog whined and panted. On Edwards's
instructions Alistair used the cord to make around the dog's neck a running
loop, stopped so it couldn't be clawed it right open and lost. Alistair picked
up and petted Pusskins, whose tail was still fluffed out like a bottle brush,
while Edwards gave the undisciplined cur a totally unfamiliar hard thrashing,
and then led it up and down on the cord. It pulled and jerked, for it was its
first time ever on a collar and lead. He tied it to a scaffolding pole, and
later took it to a police station as an unruly stray. Alistair took Pusskins
home and told his father Colin what had happened.
  [50] "Agh. After all that, the scaffolding hire firm'll want paying for the
damage, I suppose." said Edwards as he and Wheeljack started to tidy up the
tangled fallen scaffolding, "Now to dig out the bomb shelter and refill it
properly, and wonder what to fill such a big hole with solidly enough; or make
the hole into a cellar.".
  "It'll take time, either way, and in the meantime we'll still need to reach
this part of the building to repair it." said Wheeljack, and then stopped,
seeing Alistair and his father coming. Wheeljack and Edwards then both returned
to repairing what part of the building they could reach without the scaffolding.
Edwards used an ordinary blowtorch fed from cylinders on a cylinder trolley,
while Wheeljack protruded a built-in blowtorch from his right hand.
  "Next time your cat runs up and gets stuck, call the fire brigade, they've got
escape ladders." said Colin annoyedly to Alistair, "And I've told you about your
fantasies, so has your mother. Transformers are only toys and stories, like
witches and dragons and UFO's. That TV program about Wernicke's was only a
put-up, to advertise his computers ...", but broke off in shock as he saw a real
full-sized Wheeljack welding and cutting at the building like in the stories.
"Now that boy won't believe a thing I say, I bet." he thought in dismay, "No
point punishing him. He's had enough fright already.".
  Teatime drew near. "Look! He's transforming! Just like in the stories!"
Alistair exclaimed as Wheeljack folded himself into car form for Edwards to
hitch him to some junk that needed hauling to the back out of the way. Mares'
tail clouds (= cirrus) had been steadily advancing over the formerly blue sky.
Colin noticed these and the implied threat of rain, and regretted to Alistair
that next day's picnic was probably cancelled, for he had no love of eating
picnic food in a car with rain streaming down the windows.
  Jazz drove up and transformed. Wheeljack held a girder up while Jazz welded it
in place with an ordinary blowtorch, whose controls were rather small and fiddly
for Jazz's Autobot-sized hands. "Nobody thought to look at the roof here down
the years." said Jazz, "Some of these girder joints are more rust than steel. I
hope our customer doesn't think `forget about it' and disappear without paying
us. He'd thought he'd got a bargain, buying this place cheap three years ago. He
found later why it was so cheap.".
  At 6.30 pm Hoist, who was also there, called a halt for the night, and for him
and them to check each other over and get some rest.

        [51] Next day I came with a big rubble bin fastened on my flatbed trailer, and
transformed, and dug out under where the scaffolding had subsided. Under a few
inches of hardcore to make the ground look solid were broken pieces of the bomb
shelter mixed with the remains of much common rubbish which had rotted away
leaving hollows. I found old newspapers dated October and November 1957. "More
workmen who promised to take all rubbish and rubble away, but instead buried it
around the place. Hard job finding the culprits after so long. No wonder the
ground here subsided under a bit of weight." I said as my rubble bin gradually
filled. Wheeljack, who was helping me, picked up the last bit of the bomb
shelter's floor and got down to solid ground, and managed to suppress the urge
to make a startled engine revving noise at what he found beside it. He called me
to look.
  "Men esteem this sort of stuff as very valuable, from artificial bright stuff
for ornaments was very scarce." I said, looking at the plastic fertilizer bag
full of silver and gold objects, "Likely for thirty years some ex-convict has
been regretting his choice of a hiding place. Lucky he didn't use a sackcloth
sack, or as it rotted these gold coins would have gone all over the place.
Treasure is trouble. It attracts undesirables. It is no wonder that humans said
that particular valuable items had a curse on them. The legal owner and the
thief, or their heirs, will both claim it. We must say nothing. This lot goes
straight to Droitwich police station by the shortest route. Luckily it won't be
through rush hour traffic. If reward comes to us, then it does; if not, then
not. Then we take the rubble to the tip. Then we go home to Wernicke's and do
nothing else outdoors today.".
  This was done, without immediate complications. The complications started
later. The valuables had been stolen from a country mansion, but an insurance
firm had paid out on the loss, so they now belonged to the insurance firm -
which, some years before we found the valuables, had `gone into liquidation'
(i.e. closed down and ceased to exist). Meanwhile the original owner's son
wanted at least some of the valuables back, as they were heirlooms. "Luckily our
part in this was only a small part, as finders." I said to Wheeljack, "What is
our position in law? I and Ratchet have each been a witness in court once, and
the magistrate accepted us without query as able to give evidence same as
humans. James Wernicke and people living near his factory accept us as able to
own property, but that has not been put to test of court yet. Some still say
that all property and actions of us real world Autobots are in law those of
James Wernicke who made me. If anything good or bad comes to James or to us
later as a consequence of us finding these valuables, it is in the future.".
  [52] My brain is set up so that when I am running low on fuel, or it is too
long since I was serviced last, I feel tired, as a warning not to go too far; it
is similar with humans. Also, my brain needs a rest from work sometimes. Next
day, as arranged, I took across-the- road's children to Dudley Zoo. The rain
started at once. As I went through south Birmingham, they were a bit surprised
to find that Bournville was a place and not just a brand of chocolate. (There is
a chocolate factory there, where I have taken from Liverpool docks many loads of
cacao beans that chocolate is made from. They grow in Africa.) The children's
small talk inside me continued. By the castle hill of Dudley I was again left in
a car park being rained on, while they enjoyed themselves in places too small
for me to enter. Oh for Cybertron, where the buildings are to our scale. Oh once
again to see the cities of my ancient home. My own city of Iacon under its huge
dome; Vos and Tarn whose inhabitants fell to blows with each other, until
Megatron blamed Iacon wrongly for starting the trouble, and so the Decepticon
dissention started and flared into war. Polyhex, which later became the
headquarters of the Decepticons on Cybertron. The Celestial Spires. The great
temple in Iacon where the Matrix Flame ever burns. All gone like ghosts. Oh for
even a few square miles where I could found a real `Autobot City', or at least a
town. With tedious effort we have made as close copies as can be made to six of
my companions of old, and a seventh is partly made. Children sometimes show us
models of us which they have; it is not the same as the real things would be. I
miss Jetfire, I miss Prowl, I miss Bumblebee, I miss so many of them. What to do
in all this wet? Find a transport cafe and have a steak and chips? Brrrrm,
forget it, that's an image that I have picked up from human truckers by CB radio
conversations in my many long lone journeys hauling goods for men. No point
brooding about it. While I waited, as often, I tried the TV channels. (No need
to watch a TV set; I can send the signal straight to my brain's seeing cortex,
like when we send maps to each other by radio.) Recorded football; children's
programs; a commercial for Transformer toys. Two cats sheltered under me. It
still rained.
  A car park attendant approached me, complaining about delivery drivers parking
in the visitors' car park. I explained that I had brought some visitors in. Like
many, he was startled to discover that I was real and that the TV program about
Wernicke's was not a hoax. The attendant recovered from his fright, and, since
the rain had kept most visitors away, he let me go round the outdoor parts of
the zoo. The elephants impressed me: their brains were bigger than human brains,
and could conceive quite complicated ideas; but lack of a few critical design
features in their brains denied them full intelligence, and, unable to easily
imitate heard sound, couldn't develop speech to communicate ideas in detail. In
the real world I wouldn't have existed without humans; and humans wouldn't have
existed without elephants, which evolved into forms big and strong enough to
push forests down to get the tree leaves to eat and thus create the African
grasslands, so Man's ancestors had to come down from the trees and live on the
ground; of the rest of the story, many books tell. Likewise the lion is a
skilled cooperative hunter, but still can't talk. All that is needed is that
critical nerve cable called the `arcuate fasciculus' between the hearing cortex
and the mouth movement cortex. Easy for such a thing to develop in the small
brains of parrots and budgies without room for abstract ideas to form to give
the bird something to talk about; far less easy in a big-brained mammal.
  Seeing me walk round startled a few visitors, as usual. I pointed out to some
of them that in the real world I ran on diesel and not on `Autobot fuel'. The
rain refused to let up. My passengers returned; I transformed back to artic cab
form so they could shelter in me. Driving was difficult in the rain and traffic,
and I had to tell my passengers not to distract me, and not to drop food crumbs
about in me attracting mice. Cybertron and Oregon, where I ruled a numerous
people, slipped further into the remote irrelevant past. Something had a
puncture on the Droitwich exit slip, causing a tailback. My passengers talked
about nothing much. My left glove compartment gradually filled with litter and
sweet papers. Every day my felt less like the ruler of a people and more like a
trucker. My status as an independent individual like a man was still not legally
settled. The traffic started to move again. The car in front of me couldn't
restart its engine. Men hooted, then swore, then got out and pushed it onto the
grass verge. I drove on and got home.

        [54] That evening a university neuroanatomy class came to study how my brain
worked, as easier to study in detail than a human brain. I could not let them
poke about inside, but I could display on a screen what any bit of it was doing.
I gave the usual lecture on neuroanatomy and brain function. I explained the use
of various primary and secondary sensory areas, which get their input from sense
organs, but can act as `scratch paper' when I am thinking about something, and
about my equivalent of the human brain's `cingulate gyrus' which gets its input
from the emotional / instinctive centres. I used a big VDU screen on a wall to
display what parts of my brain were doing. Finally they left. One of them
wondered aloud if "the Red Lion gyrus still gets its input from the draught
bitter barrel this late at night". As they left, across the road's son Derek
came in and climbed up me. I asked him what he wanted so late.
  "I left my comic in you when I went to the zoo." said Derek.
  "It's on the ledge behind my left seat, together with several packed lunch
wrappings." I said, "I am not a litterbin. I don't see what you like so much
about that particular title, it's nearly all shooting and little showing the
characters as people. Someone read a previous issue of that comic in me at
Birkenhead and it gave me odd dreams.".
  "But I like it." said Derek.
  "Well I don't." I replied, "I had too much of that sort of thing for `real'
back on Cybertron. At least the stories merely said "there was war" and showed a
frame or two of it, not going into it endlessly. I don't need teaching what
noises guns make.".
  My brain's seeing area was still linked to the VDU screen as the neuroanatomy
class had left it. Derek found that if he held his comic to my right front cab
eye, it appeared on the screen. The next page was a full centrespread double
page picture of a violent tank and artillery battle, thickly peppered with the
usual graphic spellings of gun and explosion noises. I, like some, soon `wearied
of death poured out in great floods', or of having to read about it, and felt
tired. As Derek watched, the image of his comic on the VDU screen readjusted
itself into an opened road atlas of Poland. "Ha ha, Op, very funny. I had half
an afternoon of Poland and Russia in history and geography. I don't want any
more of it now." Derek objected, but got no reply; then he realized that I had
gone to sleep and the screen was showing my dream. That dream world had turned
up once before [see 43], again set off by that comic. The less appropriate or
sensible a resemblance is (such as that comic strip spellings of gun noises, and
Polish placenames, both often end in `-ow'), the likelier it is to be used as a
theme in dreams as the brain `sweeps and tidies' itself by running with its long
term memory storer running in reverse to remove inappropriate connections
between ideas.