DECEPTICON
  "What in the name of every sake and pity there ever was!?!?" she shrieked, "Of
all the choices for your Optimus Prime who to make next!? To my distaste I've
learned your farrago of unlikely fictional robots, to keep track of your real
ones by, and of all that you could have made, a bit different from the toy and
in the stories, but still obviously [108] Shockwave!!! Rival to Megatron to be
chief Decepticon, cold blooded and logical, transforms to a ray gun. I suppose
that great tank on his back with a tube going from it to his left arm is a
flamethrower, since there's no such thing as a real ray gun. That thing could
burn half the town down! Too powerful!, for it could never incinerate the tramps
without incinerating your precious building also.".
  With a feeling of shock and disgust and unreality she looked up at the
towering purple steel bulk of Shockwave, not as an image that could be put out
of sight or switched off, but reality. The left arm, like in the stories, ended
in an open-ended steel tube like a gun barrel of frightening diameter instead of
a hand. The right arm, to her distaste, ended not in a hand like in the stories
but in a big clamshell grab from which an elastic-roofed conveyor ran up the arm
to some complication behind his shoulders. His chest stuck far out and his face
was a flattened hexagon with one eye in its middle, with upstanding steel ears.
Unlike in the stories, he had lorry wheels on his shoulders and the sides of his
knees and ankles, and the tank on his back. But she pulled herself together and
challenged the steel monster in her utmost commandingness: "Exorcizo te! Go back
to Cybertron! Leave this shelter which I have requisitioned for and in the name
of Droitwich's vagrants! You can't defeat the army, in the real world!".
  The steel monster said nothing, but went on hands and elbows and put its left
arm in the garage door. Mrs.Jones, like others before, realized that counting
Wernicke's robots leaving is no use if the number to count to is out of date.
This gave the common expression "one over the eight" a different meaning to her
from then on. Shockwave's motor revved as inside the garage his tube arm moved
about. The tramps watched in fear as coats and drink and scavengings and
anything else within range loose and not too big was sucked inside, and scraping
and rattling noises passed up its forearm tube and up the wide flexible tube
that ran from its elbow over its shoulder and into its back-tank. They
recognized an old story in new words: along comes a cleaner to take their stuff
and chase them out. Outside Mrs.Jones realized what was happening. "Not for
blowing but for sucking! Don't assume! You should know what `Thought' did?" said
James. Mrs.Jones sighed wearily at yet another sarcastic chapter in the unlikely
adventures of someone called `Thought' who was forever jumping to conclusions;
this time `Thought' had gone skindiving to poach lobsters and didn't know that
the local inshore fishing port now had one of those dredgersubs that Smith &
Malton's makes. The tramps backed away and watched helplessly as their stuff
vanished up the powerful suction tube as it untelescoped two more segments of
itself and reached right across the garage to stuff piled against the farther
wall. "Fwopp" went another coat into the tube. "My radio that I found on the
tip!" a tramp yelped as something bumped against the inside of the tube, "I
could listen to the moosic on it! I got it back from thieves twice. I got away
with it at St.Andrew's crypt, although I got a blowtorch burn off those two men
from stopping to pick it up. I got away with it at Smith & Malton's.". But with
everything else it went up the flexible upper part of the tube and into
Shockwave's mechanism and was consumed. The tramp's week's scavengings followed
it. The suction tube continued its impersonal work.
  The tube telescoped and was withdrawn. Shockwave inserted his other arm, with
the clamshell grab and the roofed conveyor. The tramps had real cause to worry
now, for the toothed grab easily swallowed one by one all their old mattresses
and other stuff that were too big for the suction tube. Three old bicycles
vanished together behind the closing steel jaws and were crushed into a
cylindrical bolus, and a bulge went up its intake. Old cartons and sacks of
scavangings vanished inside also. Finally the grab arm finished its work and
withdrew. The suction tube reappeared briefly, sucking out the edges and corners
of the garage, then withdrew. "This is our marchin' orders yet again. Again
we're left wi' nothin' but the clothes we're wearin'." said Catfood Joe who
Mrs.Jones had chosen as the best suited to lead the tramps. They obeyed, keeping
away from Shockwave as they came out through the garage door.
  "<Now> what's that thing doing!?" said Mrs.Jones as Shockwave crouched on the
floor. He folded his legs and put his arms straight down his sides. His
protruding chest hinged upwards, covering his head, and unfolded into a lorry
cab. Parts rearranged. Shockwave was now, undeniably, not a giant ray gun like
in the stories but a mobile refuse collection vehicle, with pickup arms and an
onboard destructor. As technology advances, refuse disposal equipment gets more
and more lethal looking.
  "Next time, put your dirty verminous cartons and newspapers and scavengings
elsewhere!" James ordered, keeping well within range of Shockwave's grab arm, "I
help people worthy of being helped, but my number 2 garage is not a doss house!
I told you lot before to move on. Don't bother asking for anything back, it's
been ground up and will soon be dissolved to recover and separate any component
metals and energy of oxidation (or, approximately to you ignoramuses, to use it
as fuel and metal-pick the ash).".
  [110] Catfood Joe confronted Mrs.Jones and accused her: "You lyin' 'agbag! You
said our stuff'd be safe in there. You said we could `touch' that man Wer-nick
to let us use that room! We want the cost of all our stuff that that thing took!
Startin' wi' that fancy 'andbag and what's in it, and that pretty ring, and yer
coat instead o' my coat that that thing got!".
  "That thing even sucked my 'at off my 'ead!" another tramp accused, "<She>
lost us all our stuff! I <told> 'er not to mess abaht wi' Wer-nick and 'is
robots, but she wouldn't listen, she thought she could `touch' 'im.".
  "I lost two coats at St.Andrews, and one at Smith & Malton's, and now one
here. `Fwip' and it was gone!" said another.
  "I want the cost of my radio, and the tenner that my pickin's'd've fetched!
'And it over, miss!" said another.
  Meanwhile James went inside and locked the door. "At last!" he said, "After
half a day wasted, bad-bye to Mrs.Jones and her latest fat-headed idea. Her
saying that everything can be shared like sweets and anything's the same as any
other thing. This room stinks of rubbish and unhousetrainedness. Now to buy
disinfectant and fumigant. <More> to do which is nothing to do with computers.".
  Outside, surrounded by a pack baying about being led into a trap and bent on
robbery and battering, Mrs.Jones cursed Wernicke's and Transformers and
everybody concerned with them, and looked desperately for an escape. She was no
good at running, and knew it. The angry tramps closed in. Frantically she jumped
up into the only shelter within range - Shockwave's cab. Luckily it opened and
she could lock it from inside. She cursed the "flimsy apologies for shoes they
make nowadays" when one of her high heels broke off as she scrabbled up
Shockwave's wheel and cab side to get in.
  Inside she found an ordinary looking lorry cab inside with extra dials and
controls. From outside she heard barking as James came out again in his
riotsquad gear leading his Alsatian Timmy, and Mr.Davis the man next door came
out, also in riotsquad gear, leading his two Alsatians. The thwarted tramps
thumped at Shockwave's steel outside as he took Mrs.Jones away from the place of
disaster, away from any more hope of involving herself with vagrants, for the
word would get round that she had left in him and therefore was in league with
the cleaners and the chasers away. "I suppose Smith & Malton's get the separated
recovered metals?, after a fast efficient cleanup job to be proud of?" she said
as her spirits recovered somewhat, "All component metals tidily separated and
purified, even a little bit, and not a twinkle of a job for human scrap pickers?
Are even they to be mechanized out of a job? And that new market feeds all its
edible rubbish to pigs and goats. Of all the Transformers for me to have to ride
in: Shockwave!".
  Then from the dashboard came a voice as Shockwave spoke for the first time:
"That lot nearly cost Smith & Malton's a lot more than a cheap radio! A security
callout squad of theirs only just saved a valuable parcel of microchips that had
come from Wernicke's from being burnt for the fuel value of its wrappings! after
they pilfered round Goods Incoming. OK. I'll get you away from them.". Those
chips later became part of someone, who learned of that narrow escape that part
of his brain had had, causing a distrust that fitted in with the mentality of
the human that bought him, and caused other events.
  [111] "Out come everybody's guard dogs now. Lets go." said Catfood Joe
tiredly. The tramps went. It is fortunate that they could go. If Shockwave had
been mentally more like his fictional original, several more bulges would likely
have gone up his grab arm intake, and those tramps' story would have ended here.
But they were let get away.
  "Those scruffs!" said Mr.Davis, "Already they'd started turning my dustbins
out and pestering my customers and nosing round.".
  "Draugluin! Down!" You'll push me over!" said James to one of Mr.Davis's two
dogs which affectionately jumped up him.
  "No. He's Carcharoth." said Mr.Davis, "Draugluin's got the white tuft by his
left mouth corner. How's Timmy?".
  "I found where you got those two names from." said James, "The two Wolves of
Angband in one of Tolkien's books. They sure sound like the Wolves of Angband
when there's a bright moon at night. How's business?".
  "Fairish." said Mr.Davis, "At least my runner beans are coming on well. If I'd
put them out a day earlier, that stray late frost'd have $#@'ed them to @#$.
Can't they be bred to be frost hardy?".
  "Oh, <you>'re back." said Mr.Davis to Huffer who drove up, having just come
back from delivering goods to Merseyside.
  "Brrrm!" said Huffer, "And I'd have been quicker without yet more roadworks.
`Contraflowzh, contraflowzh, contrazh belong in N-hic- aragua, not here' [quoted
from 74], as someone said that time. Big rush of motorway building, they wear
out all at once and all need resurfacing at once. Same as with tyres.".
  "Here we are." said Shockwave stopping at a bus stop, "Sorry, but I've other
work to go to.".
  "Sorry but this, sorry but that, the only sort of sorry anybody is nowadays is
`sorrybut'." Mrs.Jones thought, and got out of him.
  She got home, her head feeling full of pressure like an air cylinder, and went
upstairs to rest. "Back home at last." she said, feeling the inevitable effects
of having yet another detailed considered plan to put some part of the world to
rights knocked back into her by people who didn't want to lose out from it and
told her to leave stuff alone, "He talked of arresting: rest, rest, sleep and
sleep. Ooh my head. The world warns itself against me and watches out for me.
Not so in Chellingham under the Vedilii: all that space in his villa, and income
from his estate, and he <could> spare some. Not like nowadays. This is needed;
that is a very important part of so-and so and can't be spared. Under the
Vedilii things were simpler, and anything was given away at need, and evasions
were ignored.
    `Cursed be Ceolla who came to this place,
    with cruel meanness, unkind of heart,
    and savage his sword 'gainst those who sought from him aid,
    injustice enjoying, from Germany coming.
    From landing craft he led his thugs,
    and Caius's heir to the cawing ravens
    the first he fed. That a fine deed was!
    For Aegidius in Abraham's bosom
    found warm welcome; but with Woden and Thor
    the violent one no Valhalla found,
    warrior's welcome after war's ending,
    but different and dire when he drew to his end. ...'.
  No point telling people this. They read it like any other story, then lay it
aside. All my energy's gone. That unspeakable James Wernicke, rejecting good
English `Robinson' and taking a German name. Why do these tired periods come?
It'll be spring before this one's over and I can be encouraging things that need
doing. Rest - rest - sleep - sleep, and let the world eddy round my `seawalls'
as it will. All I get is `No thankyou.' or `Oi, leave that alone!' or `That
doesn't need doing.'. I flog myself out rounding up flowers for that event, and
the steward says `No, it's arranged. No need for them. Sorry, but ...'.".
  "Well!" Shockwave thought as he drove along a suburban road, "So much for my
first day in the `real world'!. The stories about us, which were copied into me
as my past, are mixed into different versions. Three different versions of my
fictional end: at least none of them was from rust, what human Vikings called
`the straw death', i.e. in bed of natural causes without having seen action.
Forget it. Most people don't think like that now. The world's too crowded to
rampage about in nowadays. There's no such thing as a ray gun. If I am still a
Decepticon, I am a retired one. It is logical that I obey Optimus Prime and
James Wernicke in this world where all of us are weaker than in the stories and
no hope of space travel. At least I'm roughly the right shape in my robot form,
except for my wheels and my back-tank. I guess I'll probably end up cleaning up
people's untidyness. What a shape for Optimus or James to choose for me ...". He
broke off his reflections, for he recognized some men who were at Hopkins TV
Repairs's goods entrance arguing.
  It was the tramps who he had ordered off from Wernicke's. They were offering
to take Hopkins's scrap old television sets away for him. Hopkins and his
middle-sized flop-eared dog refused the offer and threatened to call the police,
for he knew that they would be sold falsely described as good second hand sets,
and Hopkins's, and the television repair trade in general, would be blamed.
  "Off with you! My scrap sets stay here till I take them to the destructor.".
said Hopkins. His dog barked. [112] "C'mon!" wheedled Catfood Joe, "It'll save
yer 'avin' to take 'em away, and yer can get back to yer work ... Look out
be'ind! It's that funny dustcart again!". Shockwave backed in with his right
side against Hopkins's goods entrance.
  "It's all right." said one of them hopefully, "We were just discussing some
business. I'm Mr.Brown, and this is Mr.Green, and we were sent by Mr.Batoncharge
to finalize ...".
  So far as a pretence of being business reps, but the state of their clothes
and his ignorant mispronunciation of their supposed boss's name gave them away.
"It's Bhattacharya! Get it right!" rapped another who was better at pronouncing
foreign names, but it was too late. "Well, you see ..." one of them started
hopefully. Shockwave gave a short account of events so far.
  Hopkins, who knew of Wernicke's robots and was not startled, agreed, for he
was sick of seeing a scrap throwout with half its insides missing brought to him
for mending by someone not well off who had spent all his savings on buying it
from some conman who told him it was a good cheap set. He said so. His dog
barked continuously at the dirty tramps, who had to duck aside as Shockwave
suddenly unfolded his grab arm into the yard and asked Hopkins which of the
televisions were scrap.
  "They're all scrap, else I'd keep them inside." Hopkins replied.
  "Take your pram in before they take <that> also." Shockwave advised.
  "Its not mine. It's one of them's, an old one to carry scavengings in." said
Hopkins.
  "But we ..." a tramp started.
  "Shut up. I've taken all the good parts out of them." said Hopkins.
  "Leave those, you %$#@!" Catfood Joe shouted as the grab scooped up one of the
old televisions, "They could've fetched a fiver each!, to let us all in the
doss'ouse for a week! Now it seems that that man Optimist Primus that they say
drives Wer-nick's big red artic wants to move in on everybody's tottin' pitches
now!".
  "You told James that both dosshouses had shut down [see 105]. Captain
Blowtorch had a bellyful of complaints from his neighbours when you lot were
dossing there." said Shockwave.
  "<Not> to sell as good sets to people who bring me them to repair and I've got
to disappoint him! I'm sick of that!" said Hopkins. Shockwave's toothed
clamshell grab started systematically picking up and swallowing the old
televisions. Oblong bulges went up the elastic conveyor cover into the big
cylindrical grinder on the front of his back-tank. He began to enjoy the feeling
of cathode ray tubes exploding harmlessly in his steel-walled grinder as the
sets were ground up. He grabbed the old pram, which had one of the televisions
in.
  "Leave it! You'll scratch it and break the screen! And I need the cart to ..."
a tramp pleaded, pulling at the pram's handles.
  "... carry stuff to sell dishonestly to buy drink." Hopkins completed. Drink
and idleness and having no idea of doing a steady day's work got most tramps
into vagrancy and will keep them there.
  [113] "Switch that thing of!" Catfood Joe ordered.
  "No fleshling gives orders to Shockwave." said Shockwave the mobile
destructor, and opened his grab and jerked it forwards. It shut with a hollow
"clommp" and a crunch, leaving only the pram's handle sticking out between the
interlocking steel teeth for the tramp to pull at. "Aw! You've squashed it!" the
tramp lamented, and let go just in time as Shockwave shook his grab again and
the handles vanished inside. A bulge went up its intake. In the grinder,
concentric counter-rotating spiked steel drums with sharp-edged holes in them
reduced pram and television to smaller and smaller pieces which were flushed
through into its processer.
  "I don't care!" said Hopkins, "The old rhyme `Hark hark the dogs do bark, the
beggars are coming to town.' used to be all too true! I'm not going back to
tolerating large aggressive gangs of tramps on the roads, like it was before the
police started.".
  Shockwave cleared up all the scrap televisions, and Hopkins's other rubbish
while he was there. Other people came to see what was happening. "Oh no, here
comes half the street to see us off." a tramp complained.
  "Hang on, dustman, you can have this. Fancy new rubbish vehicle the
Corporation've got, I see." said a man approaching carrying a big boxful of toy
monkeys and teddybears.
  "Aw! They're <sweet>. Givvus. C'mon." a tramp wheedled, planning to sell them
at a street market.
  "No!" the man snapped, "Monkeys' heads are held on by a nasty spike. Not as
sweet as they look. Bears are stuffed with dirty contaminated rags and mouldy
straw at some disreputable place in the Philippines. I found what they were
after I bought them. I haven't taken them to the tip, else some totter'd have
scavenged them and sold them at the market.".
  "Grab some each and run! He's only throwin' 'em away, or there goes our next
dri' - I mean dosshouse money." Catfood Joe ordered.
  "Oh you don't." said the man with the box of bears and monkeys, and threw it
up and aside. Catfood Joe grabbed at it in vain. Shockwave's grab caught it and
closed around it with a final-sounding deep hollow metallic "clommp". Some hoped
to get them back off a tip, but all hope faded when their eyes followed the
bulge up the intake to what it fed into and on it read a maker's plate: `Smith &
Malton's type 3 general purpose rotary grinder'. "Smith & Malton's, Smith &
Malton's, no getting away from the name!" one shouted in dismay, "Forget it! We
can't beat the system! And 'ere come two more people out of an 'ouse to order us
off.".
  "Leave it. Lets see if the Aunt Sally [= Salvation Army] l'll let us in and
give us anything if we tell them a good enough story." said another.
  "No!" Catfood Joe ordered, "At 'im! Teach 'im 'e should've given us 'em, not
'ad 'em ground up for waste!". He and his followers charged. Hopkins ran for his
back door. [114] But Shockwave's grab was as quick, and closed on Catfood Joe
from above, and had him. His legs stuck out between its teeth, and his arms
stuck out of its corners. "No you don't!" Shockwave exclaimed, "Back on
Cybertron, `dead-enders' soon learned not to hang around Decepticon headquarters
thieving and robbing!". Most of the tramps knew nothing of the Transformers
stories. "What's he gibbering about?" said one, and climbed up Shockwave's cab
to tell the supposed human driver to "Stop! Switch off! Your grab's got my
mate!"; but backed off in dismay when he saw there was nobody in there.
  Shockwave wondered what to do with the squirming grabful. After his experience
of the harm that pilferers can do round electronics works, the matter very
nearly ended with a shake and a gulp, and a bulge going up his intake; but his
coldly logical nature told him that he was not ruler of anything in the real
world and hadn't the means to defy indefinitely the laws of men; he put his grab
down and opened it. Catfood Joe thankfully got out of it and told the rest to
"Leave them. Leave that silly Mrs.Jones's ideas. Try the Sally Ann [= Salvation
Army] again.". The tramps went away together, muttering.
  "I told you so. The people with 'ouses merely get rough if we go too far. That
shopping area, they organized rotas of each other with dogs and walkietalkies so
we couldn't even shelter in a doorway or ask anyone for the price of a cup of
tea [actually to be spent on alcoholic drink]. All we get is `keep out of
premises, keep away from people, keep your hands off stuff'.".
  "That thing grabbin' 'im: I reckon that if nobody else'd been watchin' ...".
  "Rubbish areas locked, great tall bins that I can't get into, on-site
destructors, destruction without tippin' first, now talkin' mobile destructors.
They say that some stuff that Smith & Malton's makes can sort out all the metal
from in anythin'. Even we have our livin' taken off us by machines.".
  Shockwave went back to Wernicke's for a night's rest after a most unexpected
first day in the real world in a most unexpected shape, with no more flying, and
no hope of return to any of the Decepticon bases that he `remembered', and
having to live with Optimus and the Autobots. His recovered metals compartments
were not full enough yet for him to need to go to Smith & Malton's to empty
them. By morning his onboard recycler destructor had consumed all of what he had
taken in.

        [115] Next morning, across the road's children Derek and Jimmy went to
Wernicke's no.2 garage, which still smelt of disinfectant. "This is the room
that James turned the tramps out of yesterday. Crumbs! Look at that tanker! It's
got a Decepticon badge on. Is it Octane?" said Derek. (Octane transforms between
robot and tanker lorry and large plane, as a toy and in the stories.)
  "It's no Transformer that I know of. It'll be just a lorry that's in for Hoist
to service it." said Jimmy.
  "I'm not Octane. I'm not Onslaught either. I am Shockwave." it said.
(Onslaught transforms between robot and missile carrier, in the stories.)
  "Derek! It spoke! It <is> one! But none of them've got that great grab like
that. And Shockwave doesn't look like that." said Jimmy.
  "It's to pick up all the rubbish with, including naughty boys that hang round
across the road's garage instead of going to school." said Shockwave.
  "We can't." said Derek, "The buses are on strike. Are any of you going past
our school, please?".
  "All right. I've got to go for some diesel. Get in my cab." said Shockwave.
  Their arrival at school caused some surprise. "I"m about used to you two
arriving in talking robot cars, but what is <that>!?" said the headmaster, who
was out front looking out for stragglers, for the bus strike had thrown
everything out of order, "I know a Decepticon badge by now. Is it Wernicke's
latest robot? Which one is it? Or were you driving it already so young?".
  "I am Shockwave. I am based at Wernicke's." it said.
  "Can you take a computer terminal to Prowl for him to take to Worcester
grammar school? He teaches there." said the headmaster.
  The headmaster picked up the box. He knew Shockwave's role as a Decepticon
leader in the stories, and was nervous about seeing a real one of him. As he
went along Shockwave's right side, he saw the grab and its intake, and the
maker's plate on the grinder, and what he realized about what they were for
didn't help his peace of mind. Suddenly there was a large metallic movement and
a loud hollow "clommp", and in front of his now empty arms was the grab. "That
isn't some rubbish for grinding up!, you Decepticon as bad as in the stories!
That Wernicke's gone too far! I'll sue!" shouted the headmaster, expecting a
bulge going up and a grinding noise; but Shockwave merely reached round and put
the box in his cab. The headmaster's heart missed several beats. He hoped that
such a traceless disposer-of and rubbish collecter and metals recoverer had a
responsible personality; he thought of something with a body like Shockwave's
and a mind like a human aggressive wandering thieving scrap picker's, and
shuddered. Shockwave had little to do as yet, so he went to Worcester himself
and handed the terminal in his grab in through a goods door to Prowl. The mode
of delivery startled the pupils, but Prowl called for silence and the lesson
continued.
  Meanwhile in another room in the school there was a meeting of the school's
parents and teachers society. "Agenda item 4: farm children not doing homework
because of farm work all evening and weekend. That persistent matter." the
chairman announced.
  "I'm sorry to interrupt, but your heating oil's come." said a parent.
  "It can't have. We're gas here." said the chairman.
  "Well," said the parent, "There's a purple tanker in the quad, with a
Decepticon badge on like a Transformer toy. Some drivers paint some odd things
on their vehicles.".
  "What's a `Decepticon badge'? The driver must've come to the wrong address."
said a teacher.
  "I better go see what he wants." said the chairman.
  "Before you go, can I please raise ..." Albert Smith (Paul Smith's father)
started.
  "Mr.Smith!" said the chairman, "You have already been told that your matter is
nothing to do with school. Anyway, your son no longer comes here, so you have no
place in this meeting as a parent or guardian of a pupil.".
  "I <will> be heard!" Albert Smith exclaimed, "Never mind keep brushing us off
and expecting miracles! That slot machine arcade needs making obey the law and
keeping under-18's out! It got my son Paul addicted so he stole my rates money,
which caused other trouble which <did> affect your school! Like that other
school that kept punishing boys for lateness caused by roadworks and traffic
(I'd never seen such a dinosaurs' wallow of mud and construction vehicles for
the boys to have to find a way through), fist fights between parents and
teachers, until bad publicity in the local paper and some bigwig's car being
written off when a boy desperate not to be late ran across and everybody slammed
their brakes on, put a stop to it. That arcade <does> concern you! `Those
machines are a swizz', as my son said once. Most of them are totally dishonest.
Children waste much time there, and schoolwork suffers.".
  "Same here." said another parent, "That arcade's placed just right to catch
people coming into town in the bus. It must go!". Other parents agreed also, and
the chairman capitulated and let the meeting decide what action to take against
the arcade.
  "This homework seems very consistent" said Prowl to his pupils in the computer
programming room, "- too consistent, Ellison (or should I say `Blackbeard'?),
Zahedani (or should I say `The Ayatollah'?), Robinson (or should I say `Lord
Zarak'?). The ingenious variety of exotic `handles' you call yourselves over the
CB - your home hobbies are your business, but using it to collaborate homework
means that your homework results don't match your real ability. I am not
Soundwave [head of Decepticon communications, in the stories], but I <can>
listen in to four radio channels at once. So, next time, your homework is to be
your own work only.".
  "Teacher's been earwigging [CB radio slang for `listening in']. Good things
never last." thought some of the pupils. Prowl continued commenting on the boys'
work.
  "Robinson, why your program failed is this: if you `pass the parcel' a pointer
argument in from one function to another, don't add another `&' unless you <do>
want a pointer to a pointer.
  Ellison, don't put expressions for pointer arguments when calling library
functions. You may get away with it on this compiler, but you won't get away
with it on all C compilers.
  Jameson, don't keep working out the same factorials over and over. Work them
out once and keep them in an array.
  Jackson, whatever you're chewing, swallow it down and give me the packet. Gum
chewing's a scruffy slovenly rude habit.
  Robinson and Brown, also: you seem to find last night's television football
interesting enough to discuss it in class whispering: lets have a 3-page essay
about it from each of you tomorrow.
  Brown, also: line your statements up. Your program looks like it lost a fight
with Ravage [a pantherlike fictional Decepticon].".
  Prowl wondered what exercise to give them next. His list said "write a program
to simulate playing pontoon", but after the trouble with the slot machine arcade
he was unwilling to create any more of a gambling atmosphere to entice
schoolboys into trouble. "Next exercise is: write a function to solve
simultaneous linear equations. Remember to look for unsolvable cases." he
announced, then through a window saw a group of adults in the playground.
  It was parents and some teachers, who had agreed what to do about the arcade.
A lorry belonging to Robinson's father (who was a builder) backed in, and they
all got onto its back. "Can I help?" Shockwave asked and drove up. His
appearance startled some of them, but most of them had heard of Wernicke's
Transformers by then. The parents drove about and collected more of their
number, and placards protesting against the arcade and its policies. Then they
drove to the arcade and formed in a picket line across all ways in, using their
placards to form a shield wall. Children tried to get in and were turned back by
them. A newspaper reporter arrived. The arcade operator threatened but realized
that he was outnumbered. Albert Smith, wearing a crash helmet with visor down in
case of trouble, after a pushing match and argument with the arcade operator,
went up to the `Golden Waterfall' machine which his son had often wasted much
money in. There are two ways of winning a jackpot: one is to get three bell
fruit, or whatever it says on the machine; the other way is a crowbar. "Lets
see. Peoples' money goes down the slots and in at the front," said Albert.
  "<I> hardly ever see money fall off the back either." said someone beside him.
  "and these pushers push it off the back - allegedly." Albert continued,
levering the cover off the machine and feeling inside, "but instead it rucks
into this heavy ridge along the front, just like coins don't on my dining table
when I push them with a ruler! You put them like that on purpose! So most of the
money that people put in, goes overside at the ends into your takings bin. Pity
you don't advertise that! Always the man running a gambling set-up wins in the
long run. I know a surefire way to break even: not to take part at all! It's all
right, I'll leave all the money here. None of it'll `stick to my fingers' -
Ekkkh! It has! Literally!". In disgust he scraped the sticky adhering coins off
against edges. He licked one, and it tasted of the beer that the operator had
poured in so it dried out sticky. He said so, and people heard him all too well.
"Jacko! It's a fiddle, like I said!" said one of a group of three teenagers in
studded leather jackets and crash helmets who had been inside when the
demonstration started.
  Meanwhile another demonstrator angrily said "People endlessly hope in vain for
a jackpot, they get enslaved as surely as by being chained and a gun pointing at
them. The only `fruit machine' that I trust is the plum tree in my garden!" as
he levered the top off a fruit machine. Thin gaudily painted sheet metal
squealed as it tore, a dreadful sound to the arcade manager. The cover came off.
Inside, the works were mechanical, not electronic; he quickly saw as much as he
needed of how it worked, and said so: "These two big glops of solder: he makes
$#@ sure the left and middle bell fruit never come up together! His money's
quite safe! No chance of a good win here. Keep your money in your pockets. Most
`try your luck' machines and stalls are dishonest.".
  "'Ere, mister!" said one of the three teenagers to Albert in a rough voice,
feeling in a pocket for something, "Where's that boss you were arguing with?
<We> want a word with him also! Me and my mates, we don't like being done in
here night after night.". Albert saw no reason not to tell them; they went away
and there was a noise of breaking and forcing open and throwing stuff about.
They returned; one of them had a pocket cassette player which made a continuous
noise of money chinking and falling. "'Ere! Jizzo!" he said, "Listen to this
tape I found when we were `doing over' the boss's office! No wonder it sounds
like people keep getting jackpots when they aren't! They'd play this over the
music speakers!".
  Meanwhile Prowl, who was coming home from school, heard police radio reports
of this disturbance, and knew that the parents' meeting had `gone over the top'
and led to a demonstration which became violent. He turned towards the arcade,
and radioed to Ratchet to go there also, for that sort of disturbance means a
likelihood of knives etc, and people getting hurt.
  More and more of the public who were in the arcade started baying for their
money back and the arcade to be closed down, saying that its manager had been
allowed to let underage children in and operate as he had because of connections
in high places. The manager feared for loss of his trading licence after the
inevitable publicity. A Salvation Army man arrived and said what he thought of
gambling machines; in terms which the manager did not like much. A policeman
said over his radio that he had expected trouble there some time. Several more
teenage motorcyclist types, who had been regular customers there, rode up or
even inside, their addiction slavery broken wide apart and replaced by furious
revenge on the slot machines which by cunning design and decoration had long and
falsely promised them riches. Covers were kicked or pried off. Spilt money and
fragments of circuitry and gearing littered the floor. Nothing would have
`bought them off' short of `setting the machines fairly', which would have meant
no profit for the management. Many things advertised to the public are for the
profit of the people that run them, even if the advertisement claims otherwise.
"A crowbar beats three bell fruit." said one as he forced the top off a `Nifty
Nudger', rightly suspecting cheating. A scuffle started in a corner. Ratchet,
who had had a weariness of "picking up fleshlings' pieces", called them to stop.
The voice from a driverless ambulance surprised some. The policeman had as
little desire to risk himself against that many as he was to defend the
dishonest den anyway. Ratchet called for a halt again, for he saw someone lying
on the floor. He transformed to robot form and crawled in on hands and knees.
"Holy Cybertron! Just like in my son's videocartoons!" the startled policeman
exclaimed. The original demonstrators slipped quietly away. Ratchet crawled in,
and men backed away from him. He found one casualty only, the arcademanager's
assistant lying beaten up on the floor. Few had sympathy for him; but Ratchet
stayed strictly neutral and thought of him as merely another casualty. The man
sat up, and thought that Ratchet was a hallucination. He stood, and someone led
him out.
  Ratchet found nobody else seriously hurt, and was going to go. The arcade
manager ventured to came out of the toilet that he had locked himself in. "I
don't know what's happening, a real Transformer and all, but you'll pay for the
damage." he said to Ratchet, or to his supposed human driver.
  "These machines are a cheat, including this one! He's as bad as a thief!"
someone said to Ratchet, and an argument started.
  "Hang on." said Ratchet, "I'll examine it, to say one way or another, to avoid
a fight starting." said Ratchet.
  Despite the manager's plea, Ratchet looked inside the bared entrails of the
Nifty Nudger. Thin probes extended from his hands and looked into corners. The
cover prominently said that `apple lemon orange' in that order gave the jackpot;
but, as Ratchet pointed out to all present, "the answer <is> a lemon, for this
notch filled with epoxy resin ensures that there's no more chance of the middle
wheel coming up lemon than of lemons being grown in the Polyhexian Acid Swamp
back on Cybertron.". More interlocking pieces ensured that if the left and
middle wheels came up both bell fruit, the right wheel could never come up as
anything to give a worthwhile prize. Some bits of scrap crudely brazed on
prevented the only other good win, which was three cherries in any position. He
said so. Other machines were similar. Only occasionally was a big win let
through, to encourage and deceive customers.
  [121] The arcade manager looked around in despair. All his careful cultivation
of `connections' had proved useless. Motorcycles and the unreal-looking form of
Ratchet stood among wreckage and litter and the strewn contents of his office;
the air stank of Ratchet's exhaust. The revenge of a slave who is no longer a
slave can be fearsome. "`Et tu, Bruticus or whichever one you are!'" he
misquoted at Ratchet, who in reply broke with medical neutrality and said what
he thought of the matter: "I know why it happens! Children try them from
curiosity. Some of them get bored after a while, but some get addicted to the
stress and anticipation that it causes, and soon can't break away. Keep away
from them! They're <all> dishonest, even those that give a `fair' amount of
prizes. Always whoever runs the gambling set-up wins in the long run, for he
sets the rules. What good's getting a £50 jackpot if you've got to put £200 in
first? Don't hope. Only rely on what you're certain of. Forget ghosts of
fractions of slight offchances and wishful thinking. Keep away from it and don't
let a gambling habit develop in the first place. Same with horserace betting.
Same with raffles. Same with fairground stalls. Always the man that runs it wins
in the long run. Don't gamble at cards either, for you still may lose a lot, and
there are so many ways of cheating that only a full time expert can keep track
of them all. The surefire way to break even is not to take part at all. `Just
might' means `probably won't': walk away and leave it!".
  More police arrived at last. Jizzo, his fury not spent, reached into the Nifty
Nudger, spat and cursed into the mechanism which so often had cheated him, took
out its cash bin, and with an angry oath threw it at another slot machine. A
cascade of coins fell from it. A policeman came behind him and started to arrest
and caution him, but stopped on noticing a pile of expensive watches behind
where the cash bin had been. They looked like some that had been taken in an
armed raid on a jewellers. The arcade manager saw this and tried to run away.
While the police were chasing and catching and interrogating him, the rest of
the people there got away. The manager tried to blame a non-existent temporary
secretary of his. The police went out, and looked in vain for the car that had
been there, for it was Prowl, who had gone. Instead they saw Shockwave, who had
followed Prowl closely, not wanting to get lost. The arcade manager asked "What
about my machines?". A policeman told him to forget it. Shockwave asked if he
could help, startling a policeman who reflected that each new sort of refuse
disposal equipment looks more fearsome than the last.
  [122] The final end to the arcade manager's hopes came as he watched Shockwave
transform. In robot form, lying on his belly, he could about get in. His grab
consumed wreckage and surviving machines one after another. The roofed conveyor
belt running up the grab arm fed the machines into what was obviously a rotary
grinder attached to the front of his mechanism tank, putting an end to hopes of
buying any of them back from a scrap merchant that the police might have given
them to for disposal. The last slot machine to vanish was 30 years old, an
antique in slot machine terms and the manager was a bit fond of it; but it was
as dishonest as ever. A flip of a lever sent a steel ball round a spiral to a
long row of `win' holes with only one `lose' hole at each end. But always the
ball flew past all the `win' holes to the left end `lose' hole: so it was
designed. Shockwave swallowed it and ground it up.
  [123] Shockwave backed out and transformed and drove away, leaving the arcade
and its attached store room and office empty of all except his exhaust added to
Ratchet's, while his mechanism started dissolving his haul to recover metals and
energy. Down the years the end of much was to be Shockwave's unattractively
functional rear end disappearing down the road. Two people watching saw that the
matter had ended much better than expected. Prowl drove back to school to take
the last afternoon class, and the demonstrators on their lorry followed him. At
the school, Prowl told everyone what had happened. One boy commented that he had
seen a coin-pusher type machine where there were £5 notes and cheap watches on
top of the money, which clearly showed that the money had not moved since last
time the machine was opened. "Always they're set up funny." he said.