I, Lowtech

Template:Comicnav A high-ranking TransTech businessman finds himself inexplicably trapped inside a lowtech body, and will stop at nothing to regain what is rightfully his.

Synopsis

Axiom Nexus security officers Cheetor and Stungun are interrogating a suspect. In an attempt to get him talking, Cheetor activates a recording of another mech's memories.

The recording begins with lowtech offworlder Bulletbike awaking in an alley in an Offworld Zone of Axiom Nexus. He is convinced that he is actually the TransTech Bulletbike, CEO of RoboCo. His last memory in his old body was at a party celebrating a lucrative defense contract with the Senate. Someone must have captured him and downgraded his body into this primitive lowtech form.

A scuffle in the street with a gruff organic mech ends in the other's death, caused by Bulletbike stabbing him with a pipe. He dumps the body down a refuse chute into the Heap and takes the off-lined attacker's shiv before passing out.

Scrounge, a primitive mech, even by lowtech standards, rouses Bulletbike and offers him a drink. Scrounge guides Bulletbike to an EconTerm, necessitating a ride through the Offworld Zones' squalor in his new, decrepit vehicle mode. Upon arrival at the terminal, Bulletbike is dismayed that he cannot remember his account number to access his money.

At that moment, a holographic projection appears over the city, broadcasting TransTech Bulletbike's visage. He speaks of quelling danger in the Offworld Zones, and the lowtech Bulletbike realizes that his TransTech body wasn't stripped down or downgraded, but stolen from him. An impostor has taken his place. Scrounge offers to seek information in the Heap about Bulletbike's situation and rolls off.

Bulletbike holds up a passing Omnicon who looks like he's got money. The Omnicon's raised hands sparkle with the manifestation of an energon blade. One momentary blackout later, and Bulletbike's hand is covered with the mech's fluids. Bulletbike is more concerned with his lack of revulsion than with the actual murder.

Armed with the late Omnicon's cred-key, Bulletbike heads to Swindle, Swindle & Swindle. He orders a full system scan, but it comes up negative for spark swap. He opts for some of the Swindles' other services and departs.

Sometime later, as Bulletbike hides his latest victim, Scrounge pulls up. Bulletbike asks about a communications node, and Scrounge guides him to the alley behind Cryotek's place. He makes a call to his business rival Ego. Bulletbike, whom Ego wouldn't recognize in his current form, offers Ego information about a flaw in RoboCo's Vehidrones. In exchange, Bulletbike wants out of the Offworld Zones. Ego demands proof. After a fond farewell to Scrounge, Bulletbike heads to the warehouse district and confronts a Vehidrone. He exploits a weakness in its optics and retrieves the drone's Processor Matrix. Meeting with Ego, Bulletbike, now going by the alias "Wildfly", offers the Processor Matrix as proof of his information, and Ego escorts him secretly past the security checkpoints into Axiom Nexus proper.

Ego welcomes Bulletbike into his offices, which are adorned with varied weapons from across the Multiverse. After Bulletbike hands over a recording of his confrontation with the Vehidrone, Ego menacingly approaches him. Bulletbike charges and injects Ego with Nucleon, rendering him incapacitated. Bulletbike proceeds to abscond with several of the higher-end weapons from Ego's collection.

He pitilessly guns his way back into his own building to confront the impostor Bulletbike. Before entering the office, Bullletbike hears the impostor talking with someone on the comm about withdrawing security forces to the building for protection against the rampaging maniac. Bulletbike engages the impostor in combat, showing signs of encroaching insanity. Finally, he thrusts the impostor out the window. Security guards sweep into the office, and Bulletbike calmly explains that everything is all right. He then steps out the window, plummeting to the ground after his TransTech body.

Back in the interrogation room, the recording ends. Cheetor continues to question the impostor Bulletbike. Although everything points to TransTech Bulletbike being an impostor, there's no evidence to prove a spark swap ever occurred.

Starscream has a word with Cheetor. They discuss the Bulletbike case and a possible connection to the Transwarp Complex incident. Since TransTech Bulletbike recalled security forces to protect himself, the Transwarp complex was left open to attack from Alpha Trion. However, in addition to the lack of proof regarding the spark swap, there is likewise no solid connection between Bulletbike and Trion.

Stats

Writers: Greg Sepelak and Trent Troop
Pagecount: 47pp
Originally published: online exclusive for the Transformers Collectors' Club on September 17th, 2008
Illustrations: Nick Roche
Colors: Winston Bolen

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Predacons	Others
Cheetor Scrounge Skyblast Stungun	Blastcharge Bulletbike Starscream Swindle the First Swindle the Second Swindle the Third	Backslash Sling	Cyclis Ego Bulletbike

Notes

• Scrounge isn't very good at being Xaaron. He claims he has a Matrix and that he's from universe Primax 093.0 Epsilon. Decoding that technobabble allegedly pegs him as an Emirate Xaaron from Transformers Fan Club fiction published in 1993. Yyyyyeah.

Transformer references

• Cameos:

• The description of Bulletbike's first victim (lizard head on chest, lizard hind-quarters on shoulder, and plant-shield) matches Sling. His second victim is described as a white aerial Omnicon, like Skyblast.
• Early on in the story, Bulletbike rolls past Timelines Flareup and Animated Bumblebee, indicating that this tale occurs concurrently with "Bee in the City", where those two characters teamed up for a while.
• The robot that shoos Bulletbike away from Cryotek's back alley is Backslash, who, in an alternate universe, works for a different Cryotek.

• The Swindle, Swindle & Swindle shop and Ego's showroom are stacked with Transformers easter eggs:

• Swindle, Swindle & Swindle's shop features Catilla's helmet, Bludgeon's helmet, Jetfire's arm guard, Bumblebee's "Bee-Yotch" air freshener, a box full of empty Matrix containers, the bird sculpture from Pz-Zazz, Starscream's crown, one of Omega Supreme's rails, a Golden Disk, the Magnificence, jars with a T-Rex, a gorilla and a spider on their labels, a Powermaster engine/suit and a sheet full of faction symbols.
• Ego's showroom, meanwhile, displays Leozack's gun, Stalker's missile, an Autobot jet pack, Scorponok's claw, a time-jump mechanism, Skyblast's Energon Spear, Blacker's sword, Tantrum's sword, Battle Ravage's tail-mace, Star Saber's Saberblade sword, Skywarp's arm guns, Megatron's fusion cannon, Soundwave's weaponry, Fistfight, Optimus Prime's ion blaster, Ultra Magnus's gun, an Exosuit, a Velocitronian Cyber Planet Key, the All Spark and the Matrix. While not pictured, Ego's desk is said to be built out of the shield of a Scorponok hailing from Primax 787.3 Alpha (in English, it's the Scorponok from the Japanese The Headmasters cartoon, so it's likely the Zarak Shield), and a sword labeled "Sword Of Megatron" hovers over it. Also not pictured but mentionned are a Requiem Blaster, a Reconfiguration Matrix and a spherical Vok instrument.

• "Ego" is Generation 1 Starscream's French-Canadian name. He runs "C-Kar Technologies." Argh.
• Likewise, "Bricolo" is Scrapper's French-Canadian name. And he's an artist making furniture out of Transformer parts.
• "Corvo" is Skywarp's Italian name.
• Cheetor and Stungun muse that the whole Bulletbike fiasco could easily be set straight if only they could explain how TransTech Bulletbike's spark ended up in the lowtech Bulletbike's body. (As it stood, there was no evidence of spark transfer, so that wasn't a viable theory.) Additionally, the impostor Bulletbike recalls much of his forces to his building to protect him from the rampaging lowtech Bulletbike. This has the added effect of leaving the Transwarp Complex open to attack. Taking into consideration the events of the Transcendent story, a possible answer appears. Topspin's spark-manipulation abilities would easily explain the spark transfer, setting up the removal of the guards from the Transwarp Complex, allowing Alpha Trion to escape to his home world.

Real-world references

• The title is a reference to Isaac Asimov's famous novel I, Robot.

• The plush lizard in Ego's office is the Winslow, a central MacGuffin of Phil Folgio's "Buck Godot: Zap Gun For Hire" comics.

External links

• Transformers Collectors' Club exclusive fiction (must be a logged-in member to access)