Bar Culture

Fiction contributed by Death's Head. Last updated: 12th May 2003.

Cybertron, 1991.

Come, dear reader. Follow me. Follow me to a rarely visited portion of the wrecked former capital of Cybertron, the legendary Iacon.

For just around this bend lies a sunken stairwell, slick with grease and mech fluid. Sticky with dried lubricant and lumpen with the crushed brain modules and optics of the dead.

Come, I beckon you, come. Down the stairs, minding your head on the anti-gestalt death trap that swings from side to side, hoping to catch the head of an unwary combiner team looking for trouble.

For at the bottom of the stairs, lit by a single, solitary lamp, is a doorway. Sleeping in the corner is a large robot with a pre-Golden Age head and a brand new reconfigurable body, his shoulder’s heaving as he ventilates awkwardly and slowly, organic flies somehow living here, buzzing around his malformed cranium.

The doorway is dented and blackened by fire. It creaks on its solitary hinge, but the poor lighting does not allow you to see any further than the pool of spilled oil oozing beneath the frame, making slow but sure progress to the drain which now lies beneath your trembling feet.

Above the door is a lop-sided sign, with a legend emblazoned upon it in awkward characters, scrawled in red paint, a bizarre logo the only thing indicating that it is anything other than a lethal threat…

The sign reads….

MACCADAM’S OLD OIL HOUSE
(No Fun. No Smiling. No Meccanibals.)

Gingerly, you push the door open, hoping not to roust the sleeping doorman from his rest. You step over the oil puddle, grimly realising that it is oozing from the neck wound of a corpse lying at your feet.

And then, welcome.

Oh, welcome.

In...

BAR CULTURE

By Alex Smith

"So as I was saying to Rocky earlier…yeah…I mean, yeah, that’s my point exactly…"

"Bloody hell, what are they doin’ up there? Demolishin’ the Great Dome or summink…"

Siren pushed open the door and stepped over the leaky corpse lying across the floor. He held his olfactory sensors tightly shut as the smell of stale oil wafted towards him, trying to escape out the door to the usually cool, Cybertronian night.

No one had noticed him yet. Which was rather bizarre, given the current circumstances. The sense of haste, urgency and impending apocalypse was now all gone, and he found himself slowly swaying with the vabreshak. Shaking off his daze, he looked at the crowd.

Mainly your usual neutrals, a few empties, notable mainly by their lack of coherent body structure. Few grunt Decepticons here and there, the bartender and…and for Primus’ sake, Darkwing and Dreadwind! Just a few breems ago they had been up top helping save the planet with everyone else, and now they were down here getting drunk!

Siren decided affirmative action was called for. Prime’s orders were specific. All neutrals to be evacuated to safety bunkers, and anyone with defensive capabilities was to be enlisted in the battle.

Easier said than done, mind. It looked to be a tough crowd.

"Um, excuse me…"

Nope. No one was listening.

"Excuse me!" he shouted, but was drowned out by roars of success at the random disc table.

That does it, thought Siren. He unholstered his weapon and fired at the ceiling. Twice. Loudly.

Silence swam across the bar like a Sharkticon on syk. The squeak of the glass as Maccadam polished it pierced Siren’s brain, even as the stares of the burly patrons did the same.

Laserbeak fell to the floor with a crash, several holes in his wings and a punch-drunk look in his eyes.

"Um, everybody, now, um, listen up. I’m here under the authority of the Autobot-Decepticon alliance to, err, evacuate you all to a safe shelter on the other side of the planet. We have a shuttle standing by and…"

"Who th’hell d’yew think yew are, c’min’ in here, bustin’ up our place, and fer what?"

Siren turned to the rotund robot to his left who had addressed him. He had a 10-gallon cranial unit and two Sixshots holstered to his waist. A smoking syk bar dangled from his lips, held in place almost magnetically.

"Ah, sir, are you the one in charge here?"
"I think you’ll find that’s me. Who’s askin’?"

Siren turned to the bartender. He was a burly sort, no transformational capabilities and a mean grimace in his one remaining optic.

"Mmm. Yes. My name is Siren, Autobot Headmaster and…"

"I don’t care about your credentials, my son. This ain’t a POW camp, I don’t want your name, rank and number."

Maccadam put down the glass slowly and deliberately.

"I want to know what makes you think you can come in ‘ere and shoot up my patrons?"

Siren thought for a second, and decided to go for an easier answer.

"Um, just outside, sir, is a planet-sized robot and I have orders to…"

Siren never finished his sentence. Within seconds several meta-card sharks had bundled him out the door. Siren never knew you could actually roll up steps. Shaking his head, he regained vision just in time to see a groggy Rocky moodily lumbering up the stairs, shaking off the worst of his 4 million-year hangover…

---

"You think that’s bad, blimey, you should’a been ‘ere earlier…"

Maccadam was addressing a small, skinny robot sitting at the bar picking at free nuts. He had long since stopped serving bolts when drunken Decepticons kept attaching themselves to the bar as an excuse not to leave. Not that that stopped them, mind, he grimaced. He had gone back to polishing the ever-present glass, the fine tin coating of which was now beginning to wear away after millennia of constant cleaning. No one had ever drunk from it.

"Yeah, crikey, these three blokes just waltzed on in ‘ere like they own the bloody place and start rippin’ people up. Buggered if I’m ‘avin’ that, I thought, and so…"

---

Three robots picked their way carefully down the steps. They paused as they took in the sight of Rocky, sleeping soundly in the corner, a lubricant bubble dangling from his left nostril. The lead robot pushed open the door – why was he so apprehensive, he thought to himself? Compared to these Cybertronians, he was practically a god. Still, fear rose up his spine like the first-rising vibes of a syk frenzy. His two companions looked at him quizzically, and reasserting his confidence, he strode through the doorway into the bar.

The three magnificent mechs stood in triangle formation at the entrance. Hook raised his arms and prepared to shout his shrill battle cry to the assembled Transformers. However, he stopped himself as he realised no one was paying him the least bit of attention.

He started again.

"Cybertronians! You’re end is at…"
"Shhh."

A small, skinny robot silenced him with a finger, his other hand holding a fan of meta-cards. Hook was incensed. He lashed out with his hooked arm and tore the robot’s throat out, sending oil all over the other patrons around the table. He heard several mutters of "bad show", "sore loser" and other dissatisfied grumblings. No actual fear, though. Or shrieks of terror. For pity’s sake…

"Cybertronians! You’re end is at hand, for now the chaos…"
"Ooh, is that Tyroxian engine oil!?"

Hook’s shoulders sagged as Line went running over to the bar and ordered 3 large glasses of the drink. What’s the use, he thought, and ambled over to the bar and sat down. It was gonna be a long apocalypse, he knew that now…

---

Line was dancing on the bar as Hook regaled a nearby patron with tales of their crimes on Ghennix. Sinker was passed out, his head lying in a pool of crude oil, nuts stuck to his head. Everyone had forgotten the altercation earlier and bar regulars slapped them on the back in a friendly manner as they passed.

Everyone except Maccadam, who was keeping a lazy eye on the three troublemakers.

Line had now decided to fashion a small hammock from his weaponry on the ceiling, and had pretty much passed out in it when the ropes snapped, sending him crashing to the floor with a dull thud. The impact woke Sinker, who looked around him, looked down at his empty glass and started thumping on the bar, demanding another one. Maccadam walked up to him.

"I think you’ve ‘ad enough, mate. Time for you and yer buddies to be off, eh?"

Line heard this, and stood up immediately.

"Shee, I don’t think that Yoo-Nee-Kron would….be besht pleashed wi’ that, eh?"

"Yoo-Nee-Kron? Who’s Yoo-Nee-Kron?" asked Maccadam, puzzled.
"A planet," replied Hook, standing up, "that devours everything in its path."
"Not on my watch it don’t. Hop it, now."

Maccadam picked up their glassed and filed them under the bar. This angered Sinker somewhat, who bashed so hard on the bar that he went through it, falling off his stool in the process. Maccadam sighed. Time to break out the heavy artillery.

"Know what else devours everything in its path?"
"I dunno" replied Hook.
"These."

A trapdoor opened beneath the three Unicronians, who squealed as they plunged into the darkness. As the trap door closed, the patrons heard a voice float up from the pit.

"Hello food!"

---

"Yup. Those old Mecha-Nibblers came in handy after all. Just goes to show, eh?"

Maccadam finished his story, and noted with some satisfaction the scared look on the robot’s face as he realised that he was sitting over a Meccanibal death trap. His pleasure was interrupted, however, as the door burst open and Rocky came dashing in, a look of blind panic all over his idiotic face.

"Boss! Boss!"
"What is it now?"
"There’s this…this thing outside, like the size of the bloody planet."
"Is it causin’ a commotion? Coz otherwise, I ain’t interested…"
"He’s got ‘is bloody toes in the booze cellar!"

Maccadam’s expression changed from pure indifference to one of pure, unadulterated hatred. He put down the glass, a little more forcefully this time, and marched to the other side of the bar. He pulled up some weaponry from a secret compartment and began strapping it to his arms and shoulders.

"Get out there Rocky, and you tell ‘im some fin’…"
"What should I say, boss?"
"Tell ‘im I’m coming! TELL ‘IM I’M SLAGGIN’ COMING!"

---

"Rocky?"

Maccadam looked around him. Apart from a foot the size of Polyhex just in front of him, Cybertron looked no different to usual. Looking up, he saw explosions, heard screaming and felt the planet itself vibrating.

Yup, no different to usual really.

"Rocky?" Where was that bloody idiot?

Suddenly, out the corner of his eye, he saw the oversized bouncer speeding towards the foot in his new tank mode, transforming at the last second and leaping against it. He began tearing at the large foot’s metal skin, hacking and rending, covered in oil and lubricant.

"Ouch" said Unicron, looking down at his poor toes. He exhaled a small ball of fire towards the source of the irritation.

Rocky was blown away completely, his shattered remains bouncing back towards Maccadam with a screech and a thud.

Maccadam looked down at his bouncer’s melted remains, his new body broken and melted beyond belief, but his hardy cranial unit barely scratched, and only a little melted. He knelt down and supported Rocky’s head. Rocky tried to speak.

"Did I…ack…did I do good, boss?"

Maccadam brought his face closer to Rocky’s and looked into his sad, melted eyes, wide with hope and brimming with fear.

"No Rocky. You did crap." He let Rocky’s head fall to the floor with thud, detaching itself and rolling down the stairs to the bar.

"But," continued Maccadam, "you have given me an idea…"

---

Maccadam made the last of the connections. The pipe was wired directly into one of Unicron’s major fuel lines, but the slow nature of the pump, coupled with Unicron’s sheer size meant it might take a while to take effect. It was worth wasting good booze knowing he’d given this arrogant twat what for.

Maccadam ambled back to his bar, picking up Rocky’s head on the way. Rocky had woken up again and was trying to speak.

"Tell my tale to those who ask, tell it truthfully…"
"Shut up Rocky, and just wait for the fireworks, why doncha?"

Maccadam flung open the door and poured himself a large quart of oil.

---

"NO! IT FILLS ME! WHITE HOT BURNING LIGHT! GOOD EVIL…"

Unicron, having just reformed into planet mode, exploded in a shower of sparks and twisted shards of shrapnel.

"Bloody hell, Mac, what did you give ‘im?"
"I pumped ‘im full of Crude Argalian Galactic Cruiser Oil."
"Isn’t that illegal anywhere other than the galactic rim?"
"Yup. I also put some vodka in there that I got on me ‘olidays."

The assembled patrons all clapped as it rained sparks and oil. Some of them were trying to catch the drink in their mouths.

"You’re a hero, now, Mac. You just saved the planet and our entire species from extinction."
"Yup. But don’t go tellin’ anybody, eh? I got a reputation to keep up, know what I mean?"

As the celebrations died down, robots began walking back to the bar slowly.

"Anyway, come on folks. I better get back in there. ‘Spect the place’ll be pretty full soon, what with all them Autobots and whatnot lookin’ to celebrate their little ‘victory’. And the place is still a mess…"

And with that, Maccadam and his associates stepped once more back into the bar, the door swinging in the suddenly chilly Cybertronian breeze…

END