Picket Fences out In Space - Transformers Series

7. Sudo Root part 4: Call of the Noid

"You've reached Triominos, how can I help you." I can hear the employee's frown over the phone. Also, that does not sound like a question.

"Can I get aaaaaaaaaaaaa one extra-large Nucleon cube?" I said into the receiver.

"Okay. One extra-large Nuka Cube. You want any garlic bread with that." Still not sounding like a question.

"Ahhhh sure."

"Aight, I got one extra-large Nucleon Cube and one order of garlic bread. You want this for delivery or pick up." How come no one uses question marks anymore?

"Delivery."

"Where to." Like pulling teeth.

But that is a good question. Where should I have it delivered? 

Where am I? 

I'm sitting on a stool at the counter in a small room. It seems like some sort of rustic home built for a middle-income family. But everything in here is so alien. There is furniture made of organic material, some rigid, some soft. Yellowish light fills the room, radiated from bulbs above my head. The floor is soft with long yarns protruding as a continuous rug throughout the house, except in the kitchen where there is dirty white tile. There are metal appliances plugged into the wall by chords. There is a view screen in the corner showing images of dancing organic creatures. Wait—I—that's called a television. Where is this place? Why do I know about it?

"Um...maybe you have my address on file? My name is Dexiţ̶̛̻͓͍̤̦̤̦̬̲̳̿̎̐̓͐̌̀̈͗̊̉͘͘͜͝ä̴̛̛̼̟̮̝͖͉͔̳̪̙̟̞͚̼́̄͌̆́̌̿́͛̈́͑̀s̶̢̱͔͉͉̳͚͚̙̣̳̬͓͚͆̈́͛̍̐͗͜͝͝ẗ̵̗̟͚̳̜̰͓̙̪͔̈́̃̇̈́͆̿̾͝r̸͚̆̚ǫ̵̰͆̍̇͑̃́̿mal."

"Let me check." I could hear the clicking of a rolodex over the phone. How do I know what a rolodex is? I coiled and uncoiled the wire of the receiver with my index finger while I waited. "Ah yeah. Dexiţ̶̛̻͓͍̤̦̤̦̬̲̳̿̎̐̓͐̌̀̈͗̊̉͘͘͜͝ä̴̛̛̼̟̮̝͖͉͔̳̪̙̟̞͚̼́̄͌̆́̌̿́͛̈́͑̀s̶̢̱͔͉͉̳͚͚̙̣̳̬͓͚͆̈́͛̍̐͗͜͝͝ẗ̵̗̟͚̳̜̰͓̙̪͔̈́̃̇̈́͆̿̾͝r̸͚̆̚ǫ̵̰͆̍̇͑̃́̿mal. Here it is. Do you still live at 53 Swamp Garden of Earthly Delights?"

"Yes, that's right," I said, even though I honestly had no idea. But it felt right.

"Ok. Your total is ten-fifty. We'll have it for you in 30 minutes or less, or it's free. Avoid the Noid." He hung up immediately.

What's a noid? I inexplicably know some things about this place, but not everything. I set the receiver back in its cradle on the wall-mounted rotary phone.

There was a knock at the door. I peered through a glass hole onto the porch. It wasn't my order. It was a short, gaunt Cybertronian clad in red cloth, with tall pointed ears that flopped to either side. "Who are you?" I called out.

"I'm the Noid."

"The guy on the phone said to avoid you."

The Cybertronian looked at me through the keyhole. It replied "The guy on the phone had the right idea." The pajama-clad Cybertronian began to convert to his alternate mode, panels sliding and separating, apparently unfolding into space that wasn't visible, the disjointed pieces shrinking to impossible small vertexes: he was transforming along a fourth-dimensional axis. But is wasn't just the Noid's body that was shifting, the house, the street it was on, the neighborhood—all of these were collapsing into high-dimensional space. I hungered to see it, but I couldn't. My eyes weren't made for it.

I see the delivery car driving up along the side of a road, now stretching from a bottomless pit into the sky. They were trying to get to reach me, but the roads didn't connect anymore. The driver got out and waved the food in the air looking at me. They wanted to get me the food, but I couldn't. They were three dimensional, but locked onto a two-dimensional plane of travel, and we were separated by a fourth-dimensional rift. They didn't make it. 

It's been 31 minutes. The food was officially late.

The ravenous hunger hurt so bad that I couldn't process my surroundings anymore. All I could focus on, all I could see, all I could feel, was a yearning for garlic bread and nucleon. Someone used to listen to me, make all my pain go away, but now we aren't together anymore. I cry out into the void, come get me. I am here. Feed me. Give me shelter from this storm. Bring garlic bread.

Light returned to my eyes. A hand grabbed my arm and pulled me out into the open air. Mushroom matter sloshed off of me like wet sand. Someone came and rescued me. It wasn't whom I was trying to reach. Someone else answered my call. It was Nightbeat.

"Excellent detection, Nightbeat! That's twice you've heard Dex's signal when I didn't."

"Th—thank you. I'm glad you heard me." The vision I was having faded from memory quickly, but my feelings of warmth and safety remained.

"Yeah, thank Primus I did. The three of us were all spread out so far that it doesn't even make sense. This plant—this fungus, it intentionally split us up. I wonder..." Nightbeat put his thumb and forefinger up to his chin. I think he does this when he's moving puzzle pieces around in his mind. "We were all restrained differently, so at first it seemed random where it put us, but we were also put equidistant from each other. I wonder if it is trying to keep us from some important location."

"If it doesn't want us to go somewhere down here, maybe we shouldn't. We need to get as far away from this thing as possible," I said it, and I meant it. Even if we had never arrived, we would have spent too much time here.

"You and Sky Lynx can go, but I have to find out what's going on." But, Nighteat, I don't want to leave you either, especially not now that you've just rescued me, I think to myself.

Sky Lynx raised his head and gave us a serious look. "I plan to see for myself the true nature of this world. They showed me something amazing. I need to know more about this place."

Please, Primus, don't let me be lost from them again.