19/04/11: This chapter has been "fixed" and re-uploaded to comply with continuity information given in The AllSpark Almanac, Volume 2. Namely, the location of the crime has been moved to Metroplex (given as the location of the Guilds Domesticus), and a few other minor continuity errors have been fixed.

Author's Note: Some concepts and plot devices used in this fan fiction are purely made up, and cannot be found in the AllSpark Alamancs due to me not having written them. :P

CHAPTER ONE

INCIDENT

When he and Wheeljack had first been moved to the Council's private housing, located deep within the walls of Fortress Maximus, Perceptor had spent a good deal of time complaining about what he saw as the gross misuse of resources whilst Wheeljack rolled his optics and unpacked heavy crate after heavy crate. The central concern of Perceptor's cold ire had been the oil-bath room, a large, sound-proof chamber that housed an oil-bath that could have cleaned two hundred Bots, let alone two. It was kept simmering at a gentle but cleansing temperature, Red Alert explained, and was changed every four days. This did nothing to improve Perceptor's attitude towards it, and he avoided using it as often as possible. The Council itself had several small oil-bath rooms located within the Ministry of Science, for those working heavy over-time, and they suited him just fine.

Today, however, he was begrudgingly grateful that he could bathe away from his colleagues. Fixing Wheeljack's latest disaster had meant spending a long time in alt-mode – both of them – and after the first twenty or so hours, joints he didn't even know he had were thumping dully against his nerve receptors. For possibly the first time since joining the Ministry, Perceptor had cried off work early and gone slinking jerkily home, moodily tapping his way through a few documents as he stalked along the silent streets. He paused outside his door and peered into the blackness surrounding him. A sound? No, his audials must be mistaken. That comes from working too hard for too long, Wheeljack's voice echoed in his head. It was a lecture he'd heard too many times before, and it seemed like his own mind was now turning against him. Perceptor growled. He wasn't in the mood.

As though he knew he was being spoken of, Wheeljack activated their personal commlink. Another Ministry service Perceptor would rather do without – Ultra Magnus had insisted that all departments be able to keep in constant contact with one another, and therefore every individual had commlinks to all of their colleagues. It was an irritating addition to an already overloaded set of rules, and Perceptor was determined to bring it up at the next Council meeting. He was having trouble enough focusing on his projects without having that annoying nudging sensation suddenly press without warning against the edge of his mind.

"What?" He snapped.

"Hello to you too," Wheeljack's cheerful voice boomed into his consciousness. Perceptor glowered as he finally located his key-card amongst the various items he was carrying with him, let himself into the house and stalked straight for the oil-bath room. "Did you make it home okay? You looked really messed up back there."

"Yes, I'm here." Perceptor glared at the viscous rainbow-sheened liquid. "What do you want?"

"Aw, listen to sparkling! You definitely need an early night." Wheeljack teased. Then he turned serious. "I've gotta pull overtime – just a few lines of code and, er, a correction or five – and I can't find my key-card. If I ring the buzzer will you let me in?"

Perceptor clicked his denta together in annoyance. "It's only our first month here and you've already lost your key-card?" He blinked up at the harsh lighting, then began to search the walls for the switch that dimmed them. His optics ached. "That has to be some kind of a record, Wheeljack."

"I know, I've never kept something for so long! I'm as surprised as you are. So is that a yes?"

"If I hear the buzzer, I'll let you in. I'm only going to rest for a few hours anyway." Perceptor located the switch and turned it almost all of the way down. Thankfully the metal flooring around the bath had been painted cream, so he could still just about make out where the edge met the churning liquid.

"Hey, ah-uh. Red Alert told you to recharge until dawn. Then maybe she'll let you back in the lab."

"Red Alert is not my superior. I will come back to work when I am ready to." Perceptor reached one arm around the back of his neck-strut and began to unclasp the lens barrel he carried on his shoulder. He hadn't been aware of how heavy it had become, and was only too thankful that his chassis type allowed detachment.

"You know she can lock the Laboratory doors if she wants to." Perceptor could almost see Wheeljack's smirk. "Ooh, I'd better go. She's glaring at me now. I'll speak to you later." The commlink went dead. One of Wheeljack's more appealing qualities: he knew when to end a conversation. A very good quality, one of which their new lab assistant had not yet learnt. Radion. Brash, boastful, lumbering, imbecilic, stupid, inane, loud dolt. Perceptor could probably think of more adjectives if he had had the energy, but he refused to waste valuable time complaining to himself about the new member of staff.

A few minutes later he already felt the oil working wonder on his joints. He was at the shallow end, barely submerged, holding a datapad in one hand and a mug of low-grade in the other. Whenever he needed to flick the page of his datapad he used his little digit, but the text was small and tightly compacted so this didn't happen very often, even for a speed-reader such as Perceptor.

And given the fascinating subject of the text – fascinating to Perceptor, at any rate, any less scientist would merely find it incomprehensible – he didn't think anything remiss when his audials registered the door to their quarters swish open and shut with unusual haste. Nor did he think twice about the footfalls behind him. It was only when two servos clenched around his neck-strut and hauled him kicking and flailing out of the warm oil that his conscious mind remembered Wheeljack's missing key-card, and the fact his partner wouldn't be home for several more hours.

Wheeljack leant against the outside wall of his home and kept his digit on the buzzer. When Perceptor still failed to appear at the door, he let his head fall softly against the hard metal wall and tried his commlink again. Nothing. The line was open, but Perceptor wasn't responding. He checked his internal clock. 01:12. It was feasible that his partner was in recharge, but Perceptor had always been a light sleeper and after this amount of time he ought to have responded to the buzzer, if only to smack Wheeljack with a data-pad for waking him up.

At this point, Wheeljack didn't think to consider anything wrong. Perceptor was just about as anti-social as anybot could be, and it was Wheeljack's opinion that he had simply gone back to work at the Ministry and that they had somehow missed one another. He considered briefly going back to look for him, the settled for walking across the street and trying Red Alert's buzzer. She answered on the second ring.

"Look, I know I said 'see you soon', but I didn't think it would be this soon," she grumbled. "What's the matter?"

Wheeljack grinned. "You know how to bust locks, right?"

She pursed her mouth-plate. "Officially or unofficially?"

"Yes or no would do it."

"Yes. But I haven't done it in years." She looked over Wheeljack's shoulder at the deserted-looking house. "I guess Perceptor isn't answering? That's odd. I thought you said he had trouble recharging?"

"Yeah...I figure he's snuck back to work. Can you let me in? Think of it as aiding a patient who urgently needs rest," he added when she frowned.

Ten minutes later they were stood on the open threshold. Something cold began to slosh around in Wheeljack's fuel tanks. "Um..." He said. "He always leaves the living area lights on. Always. I didn't even think they had an off switch."

Red Alert, whose house was a mirror image of her neighbour's, turned to the left and felt along the wall until she found the switch. When she flicked it, nothing happened. "Now that is very odd. If it was a power cut, it would have hit me too. The whole estate's on the same grid." She formed her arm into a torch and switched it on.

Under the piercing beam of light they approached the berth-room. Both berths were empty, and neither of the tarps had been disturbed. "Um..." Said Wheeljack again. "Percy's a neat-freak, but he never ever remembers to straighten the tarps. Ever. Not even in the Academy. I used to bug him about it at inspection time, only time I ever got to get one over him, heh." He was babbling, and he knew it. Of course it was perfectly obvious that Perceptor could have just gone straight back to the Laboratory after a short oil-bath, but his partner had seemed genuinely tired and had even said over the commlink that he was going to have a rest before returning. He turned towards the doorway. The oil-bath room was directly opposite the berth-room, and he suddenly felt certain that he didn't want to go in there. It was as dark as the rest of the house, and the white door-frame seemed to loom threateningly through the dark, like an unknown future destination in a nightmare. The one you spend the entire dream fighting against moving toward, but no matter what you do your pace never slows and the nightmare never ends. He shivered.

Red Alert caught his frightened gaze and nodded. "Wait here," she said. When he moved to protest she cut across him. "I've had my military training from the Ministry. You two haven't as of yet. If there is somebody in the house, you'll only hinder me. Stay here and only come if I call you."

She stole quickly and silently across the living area floor, then paused beside the frame of the oil-bath room door. She faced a dilemma. She wasn't armed, and she couldn't risk losing the torch on her arm for one of her laser cutters. She cast her optics around the dark living area. Perceptor's microscope attachment was lying discarded on a bench in front of the televiewer. She went to retrieve it, then stopped. Using two digits she carefully rolled it over, then recoiled sharply. The side that was fabric-down was covered in mech-fluid.

"Wheeljack," she said slowly. "Go across to my place and call Fortress Security. Tell them we've got a possible Code Seventeen. They'll know what that means."

"So do I." Wheeljack replied quietly. "What have you found?"

She pointed her torch at the front door. "If you want to help, go now. I can't call them and...and help in this situation all at once. Please. Go." It was a practical suggestion, but it also helped to mask the fear she felt when she straightened up and turned once more towards where she knew the oil-bath room door was. Once she heard Wheeljack leave – vents working more heavily than they were a few moments before – she swung the torch back around and started to move towards the imposing door-frame.

It seemed to take an eternity to reach it. Once she was halfway there she caught the faint whiff of spilt mech-fluid; stood in the entrance, torch pointing in at the mess her friend had become in just a few short hours, it was all she could do not to lose consciousness. Trembling, she activated a commlink to her most Senior Nurse and requested an emergency medical team and plenty of equipment used for keeping a patient alive whilst in transit. The Senior Nurse asked for the extent of the injuries, and Red Alert replied that since she was obviously standing on the periphery of a crime scene, she didn't dare risk touching the bo...the patient.

"With all due respect, ma'am, can you at least confirm the patient is alive?" Senior Nurse Siren was no fool. She knew how to not waste medical resources on hopeless cases.

"He hasn't faded yet, but he will soon." Red Alert tore her optics away from the scene and tried to focus on a nearby wall. It was glowing faintly pink. Smears of fluid everywhere. She felt herself retch, and stumbled out of the chamber, just managing to keep her tanks in check. "Siren, get everybot here. Everybot who graduated from the Academy at least a couple of years ago and knows a think or two about...about mess."

Siren caught the message. "Yes ma'am. Address?"

Red Alert gave it to her and rung off, staring blankly at a holograph hung on the wall next to the berth-room door. It was of 'the team', as they called themselves: herself, Wheeljack, Perceptor, Mainframe, Botanica. All looking contented. All looking alive. She physically shook herself and activated another commlink. It simply said: "Code Seventeen confirmed."