“I got one! I got one!” Daniel cried as he excitedly began the reel the fish in.

“Careful, Daniel,” Hot Rod said, “if you reel him in too fast, the line will break, and then he’ll get away.”

“I know, I know,” Daniel said, reeling more slowly.

“I can’t believe my audio sensors,” Arcee said, lying on her back and staring up at the clouds, “Hot Rod just told someone to be careful and slow down.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” Kup said.

“You should know,” Hot Rod replied, “you’re old enough to have seen the first time for most of them.”

“Did I ever tell you about the first time I told a story?” Kup began, “I tell you, those were the days... a bot could be happy back then...”

“Give him some line when he pulls, Daniel.” Hot Rod said.

“I know, I know,” Daniel said, despite not knowing.

“You know,” Arcee said, barely paying attention, “there are plenty of high tensile polymers that we could replace that flimsy line with, which would give it a strength no terran fish could break.”

“Really?” Daniel asked, an entire world of more successful fishing opening up before him.

“That wouldn’t be sporting,” Kup said. “You’ve got to give the fish a fighting chance. Otherwise it would be like shooting a Vandarian fuzz-worm with a laser musket.”

“Oh,” Daniel said, disappointed.

“Of course, if you don’t shoot the fuzz-worms with a laser musket,” Kup explained, “They’ll just keep following you around like a pack of Antillian bumble-puppies.”

“I think that cloud looks like a bumble-puppy,” Arcee said, pointing vaguely at one of the clouds.

“Eh, only if you shot the bumble-puppy with a laser musket,” Kup replied. And then almost under his breath he added, “that’s not a sight you forget.”

Daniel continued reel in the fish, giving him some line when he needed it, and pulling it back as soon as the fish relaxed for a moment, slowly bringing the fish closer and closer to the shore. Hot Rod watched over Daniel’s shoulder, Arcee pondered the clouds and smiled as she watched Hot Rod and Daniel, and Kup sat quietly thinking of the old days.

Daniel beamed with pride as he pulled the fish out of the water. It was a beauty, a little over eight inches long, with silver and green glistening scales, and writhing on a hook at the end of the line.

“Nice job, kid,” Kup said.

“I can’t wait to show my dad!” Daniel shouted.

“He’s a little small, so we should throw him back,” Hot Rod said, “but we can take a quick picture.”

“Done.” Arcee said, glancing over and recording the image via her optics.

“Hold him gently but firmly, and slide the hook out,” Hot Rod instructed.

“Ow!” Daniel cried, jabbing himself with the hook as he slid it out of the fish’s mouth. He tossed the fish back into the river.

Arcee had raised herself up when Daniel cried out, but she held herself back as Hot Rod took care of it.

“Let me see,” Hot Rod asked.

Daniel offered up his hand, which was bleeding from a small cut.

“Rinse it off with your drinking water, and then keep some pressure on it, and it will be fine.”

Kup looked over at the wound. “Nasty cut kid. That reminds me of a story... did I ever tell you why Shockwave only has one hand?

“It was back in the early days of the Great War, before the Constructicons built Megatron... or was it before Megatron built the Constructicons... no, it must have been between them... anyway, I remember that Shockwave was creating drones to pad out the Decepticon army. Or at least they called them drones.

“But just because you called something by a name didn’t make it so. It’s sort of like how they call Spike your father, Daniel.”

“What?” Daniel asked.

“Oh, I meant it’s sort of like how they call your father ‘Spike’. He’s not a Spike. He’s not cool enough to be a Spike. Anyway, where was I?”

“Insulting Daniel’s father,” Hot Rod replied.

“Ah yes,” Kup continued, “the single, unblinking optic of Dultrius watched as Shockwave--”

“Who’s Dultrius?” Arcee asked.

“We’ll get to that... the single, unblinking optic of the Dultrius watched as Shockwave cut apart three fallen warriors, taking parts from two to reconstruct the third. There was always activity in Shockwave’s lab, and the door sensor stood a mute witness to all of it.”

“So Dultrius was a door sensor?” Daniel asked.

“Yes, yes, Dultrius The Door Sensor. Anyway, Dultrius felt a sense of deja vu, but could not remember when he might have seen something like that before. This bothered him -- not the lack of memory, but the sense of deja vu. His memory hardly lasted a moment, but the vague feeling of familiarity suggested that he had seen this all before, countless times.

“Shockwave had been working for five hours and seventeen minutes. The sensor couldn’t remember that far back in the past, of course, but he could remember that one minute ago Shockwave had been working for five hours and sixteen minutes.

“That’s how door sensors worked back then. They couldn’t remember much of anything, and they had all sorts of tricks for keeping information they needed in their memory banks.”

“Sounds like my father,” Daniel interrupted.

“No, no, I knew your father,” Kup said, “and he had the most amazing memory... or was that his parrot? Oh, I can’t remember.

“Anyway, Dultrius wasn’t entirely sure he approved of what Shockwave was doing, but ultimately there was little he could do about it. He could refuse to open, but there were manual overrides on the door, so that wouldn’t do much.

“Besides, he had been programmed to open the door. It gave him great satisfaction to live up to his programming -- he had a purpose in life, and by opening the door, he fulfilled that purpose. I wish I had a purpose in life...

“Someone had once told him that ‘Freedom is the right of all sentient beings’. It was an intriguing concept, to be sure, and it had stuck with him. He thought about it at least once every thirty seconds. He was never able to figure out what that freedom would really be -- just not opening the door when someone approached, or opening the door at random? Why would he want to do that?

“Dultrius didn’t know Shockwave’s purpose, but it seemed more complex than his own, and judging by the battle scars to Shockwave and the warriors, it seemed like it might conflict with the purposes of some other units.”

“Do all door sensors think like that?” Daniel asked.

“Well...” Kup pondered, “I don’t rightly know. I’ve never bothered to speak to many of them, but those I have spoken to fell into two camps, those that spent a lot of time meditating and pondering their place in life, and those that kept screaming in mute terror that they were a sentient being trapped as a door sensor.”

“That’s terrible...” Daniel said.

“That’s why we only gave them a little bit of memory. Distract them for a few minutes by making funny faces at them, and they forget all about being trapped because they can’t remember thinking about the alternatives.

“Anyway, to the far right of Dultrius’s vision, about 12 meters away, he could see another door sensor. Consulting his memories, the sensor noted that at least as of 30 seconds ago, that other sensor was his friend. Having no reason to question this, the sensor just acknowledged the information, and set a reminder to reconsider the situation in another 30 seconds.

“Dultrius and the other door sensor shared a joke. Every minute, one would tell the other, and then the one who told it would purge the joke, and a minute later the other would repeat the joke back and it was as funny as if they had never heard it before.”

“What was the joke?” Daniel asked.

“‘When’s a door not a door? When it’s ajar.’ -- It’s not a very good joke, but door sensors think it’s hysterical.”

“That’s a dumb joke.” Daniel said, pronouncing judgement on it.

“If you think it’s dumb in English,” Hot Rod said, “you would really hate it in Cybertronix. It doesn’t even have the pun.”

“Now, now,” Kup said, “there you’re making a rookie mistake. Door sensors don’t speak in standard Cybertronix, they use the antiquated variant known as Cybetonix, where bzzt and vzzt have the same sound.”

Hot Rod paused to consider this, and burst out laughing.

Arcee didn’t even bother to shake her head. “You’re so immature,” she said flatly, her attention still on the clouds.

“What’s so funny?” Daniel asked, pleadingly.

“We’ll tell you when you’re older,” Arcee said, continuing to stare at the clouds. “That is, if you’re not very mature.”

“Ahem,” Kup said, regaining control of his story. “Well, Shockwave kept working for a while and the three shattered warriors were now one complete warrior, and a pile of spare parts. As Shockwave lifted the new warrior up into a sitting position, the door sensor started tracking the new occupant of the room, prepared to open the door if it approached.

“The new occupant did not approach, however, and its optics remained blank and unfocused, with barely more illumination than a carrier charge would give it. The new occupant’s chest was still open and Shockwave continued to work.

“‘Report!’ A disembodied voice said. The door sensor processed this quickly, and determined that there was no indication that the disembodied voice would need to exit the room, and quickly dismissed it.” As he told the story, Kup did his very best Megatron impression for the disembodied voice.

“‘You destroy drones faster than I can construct them, Megatron.’ Shockwave said, and the door sensor disregarded this.” Kup’s Shockwave impression was nowhere near as good as his Megatron impression.

“A door sensor’s job is very complex. It has to anticipate when a bot is going to want to walk through the doorway, and open for that, but not open if the bot is just pacing around. So the door sensor has to watch and listen to everything.

“That’s part of why they are given almost no memory. You wouldn’t want some bot recording everything you said or did, would you?”

Daniel acknowledged that he would not.

“‘The attack on Nebulous Axiom commences in two hours, I need as many warriors as possible.’ The door sensor parsed out the phrase ‘two hours’, computed the distance to Nebulous Axium, the likely speed of someone travelling to there, and the need for a few minutes of preparation time, and set an indicator that it should be more alert in forty five minutes.

“‘Yes, Megatron,’ Shockwave said, providing no useful information to the door sensor.

“Shockwave pulled a circuit board out of the new occupant, and its head slumped forward. The door sensor stopped tracking the warrior as an occupant that might leave.

“Shockwave stood, and walked over towards the other door. That door slid open as Shockwave approached. Dultrius was reminded that the other door sensor was its friend, although the memory of how that friendship was formed was long lost.

“Shockwave began unbolting the other door sensor from the wall, carefully removing the connecting bolts, attaching a temporary power supply and then removing the main logic systems.

“Dultrius stood in mute horror, his single unblinking optic focused on the cannibalization of his friend for logic systems. The other door sensor had a friendly rating of over 95%, and the loss struck Dultrius deeply.

“Shockwave’s frequent appearances before Dultrius’s optic had caused Dultrius to consider him warmly, with a friendship rating of 62%. The other door sensor, however, had been in Dultrius’s optic range non-stop for an eternity. They had shared meaningful glances, and long boring stares.

“Dultrius downgraded Shockwave’s friendly rating to 14%, and set a timer to remind himself that Shockwave’s mere proximity was no longer a factor for increasing Shockwave’s friendliness rating.

“Once Shockwave installed the logic board into the rebuilt warrior and rebooted it, it began whirring and making a funny growling sound as it began processing all the information that had been programmed into it. That’s just what happened with those older systems, it takes a while to get going, I ought to know.

“The drone assimilated all of its new programming and stood up. Shockwave computed that their chances in battle had increased slightly, and began to lead the drone towards the door.

“Dultrius hesitated for a moment before opening the door. He didn’t like Shockwave any more, and he was a bit rebellious. But as the Decepticon approached, his programming and his purpose took over, and he opened the door.

“Now, if you’ve ever done something you really didn’t want to do, you’ll know that you feel like something an ick-yak coughed up after you do it. Dultrius felt a deep sorrow in his circuits, and a deep shame, and wished that there was something else he could do.

“As Shockwave began to step through the door, it suddenly dawned on Dultrius -- not only did he open the door, but he also closed it.

“Dultrius slammed the door shut on Shockwave, severing his hand from his body, and burning out the gears and motors in the door. Shockwave and his new drone had no choice but to leave through the other door, and leave Shockwave’s hand behind.

“The battle at Nebulous Axiom didn’t go well, and Shockwave had to pack up and move his lab before he could do anything about Dultrius’s misbehavior.”

“Why didn’t he just replace his hand?” Daniel asked.

“He did,” Kup said, smiling, “but he replaced it with a laser cannon.”

“Why?”

“Which would you rather have, a right hand, or a laser cannon?”

Daniel smiled. “Laser cannon.”

“Well, first thing we have to do is chop off the hand,” Hot Rod said, playfully flipping out a saw from his right hand and revving up the spinning blade.

“Nooooo!” Daniel shouted, laughing.

After some awkward laughter where Hot Rod pretended to physically mutilate the boy, they all settled back a to enjoy the day.

“What finally happened to Dultrius?” Daniel asked.

“He was just a door sensor, so we used him for spare parts. I’ve got three of his servos in my shoulder, and Optimus got his logic board.”

“I think that cloud looks like a door sensor,” Arcee said.