Blinking, a nearly man-sized, sable stoat emerged from the stasis pod. Though she stood in the most brightly lit area of the dingy room, it almost seemed she found shadow to melt into.
From the darkness on the side of the room opposite the pod, a voice greeted her. "Well, well, well. Not bad, I guess, but fer what I paid, I expected something a little more... extreme...."
"Where am I?"
"Home, fer now. Transform." It was not a request, but an order.
She seemed to consider for a moment, then, "Stalker, Maximize!" The stoat was replaced by a slender fem-bot. Almost entirely black, she was trimmed in a dusky red, and in a few places accented in silver.
"Stalker, eh? Could be a stroke of luck after all. Iomax's gonna hear from me, though. He said ya'd be Transmetal."
"Who are you?"
A tall, brightly red and green bot stepped out into the light. "Name's Bloodwing. You can call me sir, I guess. Yer gonna be learning a lot here, real quick."
"Yes... Sir." She smiled, eagerness quickly replacing her masque of confusion. "Where do we start?"
***
The hovering dragonfly scowled as Stalker became visible in front of him. He struck out, knocking her back a few paces. "Ya just wasted energon. The stuff ain't always so easy to get. Ya go pulling that on a run, yer gonna run out when ya need it most." Bloodwing transformed, hitting his charge again, this time hard enough to bruise her.
"But you said to sneak up on you." She didn't understand what she could have done wrong. Bloodwing had wanted an unnoticed approach, and her cloak made her as unnoticeable as possible, as far as she knew.
Bloodwing reached out a hand, grabbed her by the shoulder, and turned her so that she was facing the debris-strewn side of the alley. "That's what that's fer. Don't try to tell me ya can't sneak through them shadows, or at least slip under all that cover. Yer black-coated 'n slinkier than all Pit! Go back to the start of the course and try it again."
Transforming to Beast Mode, Stalker skulked to the end of the alley. "No point in having a cloak if you aren't gonna get to use it," she grumbled. "Alright," she called. "I'm ready."
"I'll give ya 10 nanoclicks, and I'm turning my optics back on."
The stoat hurried into cover, and ducking and weaving, made her way back to her teacher's position. Popping her head up when she was lateral to him, she asked, "Better?"
"I suppose if I hadn't been looking for ya, I might not've seen ya." Stalker smiled; from Bloodwing, this was high praise. "Of course," he continued, "I woulda heard ya even if my audio was out; how much junk didja knock over?" The stoat's face fell. So much for a job well done. At this rate, it was beginning to seem to her that she would never do well enough that Bloodwing would see fit to tell her even what she was training for.
"Slag this," the now beast-mode dragonfly spat. "Back to base; we'll drill weapons fer a while."
They wound their way through a few alleys before finally coming to 'base.' It was the third home the pair had occupied in as many decacycles. "So, uh... What're we running through?"
"Get yer sword. Yer gonna learn a lot today, want ta or not."
***
Stalker grimaced as she drew her sword. She had hoped it would be target practice. On the first day Bloodwing had begun to 'train' her, she had hit with a shot nearly as often as did he. Unfortunately, her benefactor was in a foul temper, which seemed to predispose him for melee combat. He was a master swordsman, and it often seemed as though the fem would never be able to measure up with a blade -- as she failed to measure up in so many other things. Stalker looked up as Bloodwing transformed, and nodded to indicate that she was ready. As ready as she was going to be, in any case.
"I want ya to concentrate on yer attack. Don't worry about my using this" -- he gestured with his sword -- "to do anything other then defend myself if ya should manage to get off a half-decent swing."
A puzzled look crossed Stalker's features, but she nodded, and advanced. She attempted a few blows that Bloodwing easily parried, then overextended herself badly. In a flash, her opponent had swept her legs out from under her, and stood with the point of his sword over her spark cavity, leaning on it.
"Hey, you said--" she cut off as he leaned more heavily on his blade.
"Never trust an opponent, weasel." Stalker cringed. She was a stoat, and considered that to make her superior to any mere weasels. "Never trust 'em in a deal, or in a fight."
"But... We're both Maximals."
"Fer convenience only. Alliance's just another way to convince a job offer that yer the right bot for the job. Anyone can switch their activation code. Anyone. Just keep it out of sight unless yer makin' a point by it."
"But... You're...."
"All I am is a cold-sparked son of a Go-Bot. Ya think I bought the pod ya came outta 'cause of some kinda nice-guy routine?" He stepped back, and allowed his student to stand. Yer an investment kid, and it's time ya started earning yer keep. Get some rest, yer going out tomorrow."
***
"How am I supposed to get close enough to download the data track off his home system?"
Bloodwing leered at her. "See, ya got a... Tool most mercs don't. Yer a femme-bot. Ya can get nice and, shall we say, close to a Maxi like this guy. Wait 'til he drifts off to stasis lock, and you can nab anything you want from one of these fools, and be gone before they know what hit 'em. It's just a matter of... resource management. Know yer tools, and you can see any job you'll be able to finish. Now get goin'. He'll be at the club I pointed out to ya this afternoon. Don't come back without that data track." Bloodwing's voice had taken on a harder edge even then it normally had, and Stalker hurried away before whatever anger her teacher was feeling could find itself expressed on her.
***
The Deuce and Circuit was a small -- but fairly clean -- hole in the wall located in a sort of buffer district between one of the better-kept Maximal areas, and a notoriously rough Predacon part of town. As Stalker slipped in, the scent of energon and radium assailed her olfactory receptors. She looked around for the roped off "private" area Bloodwing had told her would be there. And it was. Filled by a... She strained her optics for a better look in the dim light -- no, this couldn't be the 'mark' her teacher had sent her to... to seduce.... She shuddered at the thought.
She tapped the shoulder of a passing femme who seemed to be some sort of lynx. "Excuse me?"
"If you're lookin' for work, you'd best come back before we open tomorrow, hon."
"I'm... I'm not looking for work. I just wanted to know if this was where" -- she paused to remember the name -- "where Vulcinor comes to unwind."
The waitress gestured to the roped corner of the room, snickering, "That's him over there, hon. Sorry 'bout your luck. I guess the usual femme got sick of him, huh?"
Before Stalker could reply, the lynx was already moving through the crowds by the bar. Swallowing hard, Stalker started toward the corner.
When she approached, Vulcinor looked up, a bit of something organic draped across his right tusk. He dipped his beak into a container of energon that reeked of radium, and then asked, "Yes?"
"Are you... Are you alone tonight, sir?" She tried her best to keep her optics on his, and hoped he couldn't smell the revulsion coursing through her.
"Not any more." He leered with an exponentially greater intensity then Bloodwing had, and patted the seat next to him, stretching out his wing along the back. He seemed to drool stray mech-fluid as she settled into the offered seat. "I'll even let you choose modes, sweetheart."
***
A very unhappy stoat blew into the quarters she shared with her teacher. "You didn't tell me he was--"
A warthog/vulture Fuzor? Ya didn't ask. Hope ya learned yer lesson: Always get all the relevant details, which means always know what the relevant details are." He offered her some energon, which she accepted eagerly. "Ya did get the file, didn't ya?"
She tossed a disk onto the table. "Yeah. The slagger had some kind of alarm rigged though, I almost didn't make it out."
"Idiot! Yer supposed to check fer these things!"
Stalker seemed almost to shrink. "I... I tried...." He hadn't told her there might be security rigged into the computer. And she had gotten out intact and with the file he wanted. It wasn't like she'd botched her first run out.
"Tried is as good as failed kid. Ya ain't ready fer work yet. I was wrong to think ya were."
"But..."
He stood, scowling. "C'mon, I know a place ya can work on playing with security systems."
***
The stoat panted slightly, and bellied under what she expected to be the lowest parameter of the motion-detector. With a stealth-mode transformation, Stalker found herself at a level to deal with the access point. She uplinked, holding her breath as she entered the security program. A subroutine fooled, and she was able to slide aside a panel and disarm the alarm spliced through the door. Opening it, she slipped into the shadows of the 'safe' room beyond.
"Ya promised me Transmetal. T2 maybe. I want my money back." Bloodwing's voice, lower than usual and guttural with irritation, gave away his position up ahead. Stalker advanced far enough to see him, a giant walking-stick Transmetal, and a computer display.
"You doubt the return on your investment, mercenary?" Iomax's voice was high and reedy; while it seemed to suit his Beast Mode, it made him sound as though he were speaking from a faraway room, through some sort of duct.
"Yer slaggin' right! I think I got the scrap-end of the deal."
The walking-stick turned toward the computer's console. "Allow me to present what we shall call Exhibit Alpha." He tapped a few keys, and an image began to form on the display.
From the shadows, Stalker watched intently as the picture quality sharpened. Within moments, it could be seen as an ermine. The white coat looked soft and luxuriant, down to the black tip of the tail, and the red optics were wide and friendly. The optics... Stalker stared, puzzled, then her jaw dropped as realization struck her. The optics on the screen were not just any optics, they were her optics. But how was that possible? She leaned forward, straining her audio as Iomax began speaking again.
"What you are looking at is an extrapolation of the construct data taken from the original Stasis pod at a point following it being paused -- if you will -- upon the selection of a protoform animal being completed." He entered another string of characters, and the picture moved to the side, as a huge grid with certain points plotted appeared. "These points represent the original proficiencies this diplomat fem-bot was to have had." A few more keystrokes, and new points appeared in red, roughly 45 degrees off from the originals. The black of the tail-tip in the picture began to bleed out, covering the rest of the ermine. "As you can see, it took a great deal of work to accomplish a programming and structure shift that would leave the protoform suited for your particular line of employment. To be honest, I think you should count yourself lucky that no aspect of her core programming was damaged or lost. If you had insisted on the Predacon shell program being instituted, I am certain she would have suffered certain... defects."
"Yer telling me I'm not gettin' my credits back, aren't you."
"That is precisely what I am telling you, Bloodwing."
"Slagger."
"I merely look out for my own interest in making a deal which requires utilization of my own particular gifts. You knew this when you agreed to the contract."
Bloodwing scowled. "Yeah."
"You knew also of the consequences if you attempted to end your portion of the agreement?"
Stalker, who had been backing up steadily, knocked into a shipping container, sending it crashing to the ground.
"Slag!" Bloodwing was not amused. "I'll talk with ya later, Iomax. My investment and I are going back to base, to discuss making yerself known to yer boss when ya come in the slaggin' room!"
He flew over to her, and knocked her toward the door so hard that she stumbled, and nearly fell. "What did ya think you were doing, weasel? Hoping to make an escape?!"
"I... You... I thought..."
He herded her out the door as he answered her stammering. "I made it clear to ya on yer first day outta the pod that ya were an investment. Maybe ya were a custom-bought tool, but that still makes ya a tool."
"But... I would have been --"
"You'll be whatever the slag I tell ya you'll be."
"But, I think --"
"If I wanna know what you think," he growled, knocking her flat on the ground, "I'll tell ya what it is before I ask it. Now shut yer trap or I'll shut it fer ya; fer good."
Stalker hushed, and did not continue the argument on the walk back to base. She had never seen quite this end of her teacher's temper before. It was frightening even to think what might happen if she pushed him any farther, even if she did want to know more about where she had come from. Bloodwing had long since proved to be her superior in matters of speed, strength, and strategy. He reminded of that every day. It was why she stayed; she knew running would be useless unless she had something stronger to run to. It made her hate him though, knowing she could never have an option, an opinion, even a voice of her own. She hated him quietly, and one day she knew it would be war between them. One day, she would prove herself worthy. Worthy of acceptance, perhaps even approval.
***
As a Stellar cycle slowly passed, Bloodwing began to send his charge out more frequently. A job was now something that Stalker could expect as many as five or six times in a decacycle. Every time she completed an assignment, Bloodwing seemed more displeased; each time he found fault with her work. This pattern seemed as though it would hold forever.
***
Stalker finished repairing her fusion rifle. "I'm just supposed to knock him out; nothing else?"
Bloodwing cuffed her on the back of the head. "Ya just knock him out, and then make sure he stays down while ya radio me. I'll come in the back at your signal."
"I don't understand what you're going to do that I can't."
The bug-bot grabbed his student's wrist roughly. "There's a whole slag of a lot ya don't know, femme, and it's gonna get ya put in a slag heap if ya don't shut up about it. You'll do as I say. I had ya made, and I can sure as Pit have ya broken if I want to."
Optics focused on the floor, Stalker nodded silently as she stood, then she walked out of base.
***
"He's down sir, but I don't know for how long."
"I'll be there in a few clicks to see how much of yer mess I've gotta clean up before I do my job, weasel."
When the dragonfly buzzed into the room, it was to a scene of disarray and scorch marks. The owl had put up quite a fight before Stalker could lay him low. She looked beyond wounded herself. But even as Bloodwing approached, he could see the glow of T2 healing powers spreading across the older bot's body. He grinned, and Stalker could see in his eyes a sort of light she had never seen before.
"What's there to do?"
"Leave, if yer the coward I think ya are. I'll be along."
"I... I want to stay.
"Stupid Stalker. Never could tell what was good fer her." He continued to mutter insults and speculate as to her shortcomings in the fight as he transformed and knelt by the body of the Transmetal Two Owl.
Straining, Bloodwing peeled up a loose bit of paneling, and a blue glow lit him from the inert body. Stalker took a step closer, then two as she strained to see what her mentor was doing. Taking a small energon blade from a forearm panel, the mercenary whispered something Stalker couldn't quite hear, and plunged his blade into the pulsating spark.
***
Stalker awoke in a bath. "Where am I?"
From the darkness around her, she heard Bloodwing's answer. "Back room at Iomax's. You'll be here fer a while yet. I told ya to get outta there. Just about gave ya up fer scrap."
"What... What did you do to him?"
"Athaenatron? The same thing I'm gonna to do to ya if you don't learn to watch my back and play nice like I tell ya to. Now go back into stasis, and let the bath do the work."
***
When she had recovered, Stalker found Bloodwing a little less degrading, if a bit more distant. She was sent out every few days on some sort of job or another. Mostly they were simple retrievals, but some small number required interaction, or the sort of tool use she had learned so early in her career. Stalker never saw or spoke with the 'bots who hired Bloodwing. She suspected he was passing off her work as his own -- keeping it from the mercenary circles that he had acquired an assistant of sorts. But to say so would have been to invite expulsion from their hideout, and she was so busy seeking approval (however unconscious the action might have been), that she failed to see that there might be some advantage to striking out on her own.
On a hot afternoon, Stalker was returning to Base with her most unusual retrieval yet -- an undamaged drone from the home of a low-level Maximal diplomat. As she entered the hideout, it seemed to her that something was wrong. Advancing into the rear hallway, she called out to Bloodwing. Three large Predacons were in his quarters, and he was trussed in a set of energy bonds. Stalker backpedaled -- directly into a fourth Pred.
"Yessss... Wonderful that the ssstudent hassss returned from doing her... Homework..." The speaker was the only of the Predacons in Beast Mode: a king cobra. "Glad you didn't misssss out on giving ussss that little trinket...." The intruder Stalker had backed into neatly snatched the drone from her hands.
"You can't do this!" She drew her sword.
The cobra sighed. "One final lesssson for you, weasssel, a lesssson in oddssss and ssself-presservation... There are four of ussss, and two of you... The bug isss in no posssition to make demands, and you are halfway to helplessss... If you ssstood a chance, it would be advisssable for you to attempt to thwart ussss, you cannot... Your only option isss to join with ussss to sssave your fur coat... Perhapsss if you are helpful... Our bossss will reward you..."
Stalker nodded mutely. The snake had a point that she was outnumbered, and she was already low enough on energon that unless she had a clear shot on running, it would seem to be worse for her to engage her cloak. She sheathed her sword, ready to cooperate.
A megacycle and a litany of answers later, Stalker found herself staring up into a grim-faced hyena fem-bot. "You made the right choice, weasel--"
"Stoat."
The hyena growled, and restated. "You made the right choice, stoat. These boys had orders to make sure there weren't any loose ends. I gotta say your stealth skills, when you think quick enough to use them, are a credit to your occupation. Shame there isn't room on the payroll for a spy or thief, but there isn't. If you contact an old badger by the name Burrimus, he'll be able to offer you any future merc work we need done. Fact is, if you can return that drone undetected, he'll have a payment ready when you contact him."
Stalker smiled. "I'll go tonight."
"Excellent. It's been a... pleasure doing business with you, Stalker." As the stoat turned to leave, the hyena had one final word of advice. "You'd do well to learn to use that cloak more quickly, if you want it to be an advantage. Unaware, Slyther and his crew might have been takeable, even by a green pup like you. Or at least, you would've been able to get out of there before they realized how important you might be as a game-piece, and been forced to eliminate you."
***
Stalker strode proudly into the small arms dealership. "Burrimus?"
"Go away, kid."
"They said you'd pay me."
"Yeah, they say a lot of things, don't they. You'll get paid when I do, which is once a Stellar."
"I...."
"You're on the payroll now, kid. Undercover merc work. They'll have you turning your old pallies around so fast, it'll make your head spin off it's moorings."
"They --"
"They is that kid, a they. Don't trust what they tell you, trust what you know. You know they'll sooner spark you then look at you. You also know they're the ones going to be forking over the credits once a stellar. I'll be in touch with you when I've got something for you, kid. For now, you're a shadow, so live like one."
"I don't think --"
"They aren't paying you to think. They're paying you to get the job done however you can, and to not cause trouble. You screw up, you're history. You just leave, they don't say a word."
Stalker turned around and left the shop without a goodbye; it did not seem one was needed. The badger would know where to find her. Slyther had found Bloodwing, and the dragonfly had been meticulous about keeping his whereabouts hidden.
Walking home, Stalker could not have known that her life was about to change. She could never have seen around the corner that would bring a sonic-speed panther, and an existence driven by the instinct for survival, and the lessons that Bloodwing had taught her, both in and out of his training sessions.
fin
Author's Notes:
--Lacy Conley