fateandfortune

It had definitely been an eye-opening experience for Knock Out as well. Being able to interact in his natural form with humans as an imPort -- even though he still occupied an "outsider" perspective in the fact that they were summoned by the Porter -- had been a dizzying change from having to hide at all times outside the ship. And it had, over the course of the year that he'd been there, helped temper his otherwise intense (though not undeserved at the time) dislike of humans in general.

"Cybertron had something similar," he discloses. "Where outliers were ostracized, persecuted. Given extra restrictions even within the forced castes. Functionism was brutal regime."

But this is her story, not his. Her tale is lining up with the research he's done through the internet so far, at least. "It didn't leave you with much of a choice, especially not if registering didn't keep those who had safe. Be a legal prisoner or an on the run criminal... no good option either way."

She nods distractedly, half of her thoughts on how horrible it was that their worlds had such a thing in common. Why couldn't any species just accept everyone? Why did there always have to be someone who was hated by others?

"It worked for a while. We hid on the outskirts of big cities, making supply runs when needed. We tried to gather intelligence on what was coming next. But when they sent soldiers and Sentinels out to hunt us all down..." Her voice goes a little quieter. "We fought back as much as we could. The soldiers were easy, but the Sentinels... They kept changing their design. They could mimic our powers, track us by our DNA. And then they could find anyone with the mutant gene, whether it was expressed or not. They found anyone who would have mutants in their family, even if it was still generations away. Anyone who resisted or aided mutants was killed or imprisoned, and they didn't care what they destroyed in the process."

So essentially, what they were doing at the moment. It sounded like he was right about keeping them out of the larger cities.

But this also provides Knock Out with some key information about the Sentinels that he didn't have before, namely their tracking capabilities with regards to DNA and mimicking powers. He was assuming, though he had only media confirmation, that mutant abilities ran the same gamut of manifestation as imPort powers had. Everything from mundane, harmless tricks to hugely destructive capacities.

"I wonder if your own powers work on a DNA level as well," he muses thoughtfully. "That would explain why they don't affect me. What kind of range does this tracking have, do you know? I can't--" He mentally reaches out and taps against the impenetrable firewalls of secured military networks reflexively, but there's not so much as an iota of yield. "Trying to get into that information is going to attract attention we don't want," he settles with. "I'm sorry. It's just not my function. Someone better equipped would be..."

But the phrasing Rogue had used was nagging at him. True, they'd seen only a small portion of the country on their travel thus far, but nothing looked destroyed. No newspaper articles had flagged his tracers as wanton destruction.

"Then what happened?"

She glances up briefly at his musing, trying to filter through her memories to find the information he wasn't able to provide through his own means. It had been so long, though...

Those answers will come later. It's that last question that silently demands a response.

"The world ended," she says simply, as if it should be obvious. "Two-thirds of the population carried the mutant gene, so they were taken care of. Cities burned and only the ones who were useful were kept alive." Her voice breaks on the words, splintering as her muscles tense at the horrible memories that surface. "I can still taste the ash in the air. I still see the mass graves in my dreams. We lost the war and they just picked us off one by one until there was almost no one left to fight."

A world on fire and in ruins... it's something Knock Out knows intimately well, has lived through himself. He doesn't say it of course, but it's there in the way he watches her steadily, giving her description the necessary weight it needs.

"That's what you meant, when we were leaving that farmhouse in Iowa. You said the year was the same, but that your world wasn't like this when you left. This is... something new."

A universal anomaly? He knew about as much of the theory as an average scientist who didn't specialize in dimensional theory. Frankly, he wasn't sure whether this counted as a point for or against being some kind of Porter hallucination. It wasn't his world, and it wasn't the one Rogue was from, even if it was a variant of it.

"Did you ever meet Riptide, in the Porter world?" he asked. "He and I were from the same universe, but not the same version of it. We never did figure out why the difference. Maybe that's... somehow what's happening here."

It still didn't explain why he was here, though.

No, she'd never met Riptide, and so she shakes her head at the question. He'd been the only one of his kind she'd had the pleasure of meeting, a fact that makes her indescribably sad now. How many other opportunities had she missed in the year she'd been in that world?

"It might be," she acknowledges before sitting up slightly, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs. "Or it might be my world. We—" Deep breath. "One of my team used her powers to help change the past. It was a last stand, one last effort to fix things by stopping the war before it ever started. We went back fifty years but I never knew if it worked. The last thing I remembered from my world was the Sentinels breaking in and preparing to kill us all."

But she had no idea why he was here. If only she could answer that question.

His hand came up to rest behind her on his leg. It gave her something to lean against, if she wanted... but the positioning also enclosed her slightly, as if forming a protective barrier between her and the outside world.

"Fifty years..." Knock Out echoed. The same time frame where his research had indicated there'd been a major shift in the way mutants were handled in this world. It was too coincidental to be unconnected.

A frown pulled at his faceplates in contemplation. Her team?

"Would they be able to answer that, if you could contact them? Your team..."

She leans against his hand without hesitation, instinctively seeking that protection he offers even if realistically he can do nothing against the living nightmare that she'd survived.

"There's only one person who was supposed to remember," she tells him, wishing she could give a different answer. "No one else ever did when Kitty used her power. The only reason I do is because I was pulled out before I—" Scrubbing a hand at her eyes, she realizes she's beginning to feel those very few hours of rest that had been anything but. "They might not even exist here. We went into things knowing that changing the past might mean some of us would never be born."

They'd made the call that it was worth the risk. She would have done the same had she been given any say in the matter. By the time she'd known anything about it, it had been too late.

Ah yes, that paradox of time travel. Rogue's aborted sentence leaves only a few options about what she'd been about to say.

Rogue's explanations had definitely helped, but he still lacked information. They needed more insight into the capabilities of the Sentinels, the methodology of human soldiers, and that kind of thing just wasn't available in non-secure locations. If Rogue's knowledge was based on a world that had been changed and technically dismantled, they had no way of knowing how accurate any of this was.

"They might not," he allows. "But it sounds like this place has already done away with supposed to as a general rule, so the possibility remains. Unless it's something you don't think is the right call?"

Seconds feel like hours as she considers telling him. She'd told so few people the truth about what she went through, the whole truth of the situation, that dancing around the subject has become second nature. But if they don't remember, then there's no point in dredging up the past, is there? It's just more heartache that he doesn't need to bear witness to.

"It's probably the only call we have," she finally decides, leaning more heavily against him. "We were based in upstate New York, though. That's not exactly local."

The yawn overtakes her suddenly, cutting off anything else she might have wanted to say, and she blinks heavily when it ends. "Sorry, sugar. I didn't sleep very well last night."

He spends about two seconds considering the route. "We'd have to detour," he agrees. "Go far enough west to avoid the cities due north of here. We'll keep that option open for now, all right? Maybe it won't be necessary."

Rogue's yawn and sleepy demeanor is endearing. "I didn't either," he admits. Unlike his conflicted thoughts earlier about keeping his own fears private, this isn't something he feels he needs to hide. "Do you want me to change to alt? You could nap."

Endearing. She feels like a little kid fighting against naptime at school as she shakes her head, straightening up slightly in a failed attempt to be more awake.

"I can just move to the floor," she counters, though it's without her usual strength. "You've been cooped up for days, you should use every second you can to stretch out."

He ex-vents, his expression one of faint exasperation but not ire. Carefully and slowly, giving Rogue plenty of time to move or otherwise tell him to stop, he cups his other hand under her and lifts her off his leg. There's an effortlessness in the movement; she weighs so very little compared to him, but his digits never tighten beyond a gentle pressure.

Rather than setting her on the floor however, he folds his arms together across his torso, just below where the armored part of his chassis ends. The planes of his forearms press together, making a relatively flat place that's big enough for her to curl up in.

"A compromise," he pronounces. "I'm not... there are surely more comfortable places, but..."

The way he moves her — not for one second does she feel even an ounce of fear. He picks her up so carefully and she lets him do it, trusting him without hesitation. If anything, his action makes her feel safe, protected... especially when he settles again.

Shaking her head at his words, she just gives him a soft smile and lays down in the space he's provided, tucking an arm under her head for a pillow. "This is perfect," she assures him, already drifting into that foggy half-asleep world. "Thank you, Knock Out."

psl.

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