I'm going to start by saying that all the research for this story is coming off google, and I'm changing some things to fit the story, but if there's anything in here that is confusing or flat-out impossible, let me know and I'll try to get it fixed or clarified. Programming isn't exactly my specialty, so concrit is welcomed.

Since ffnet seems determined to eat my punctuation, there might be a few typos, but:
:This: is non-verbal transmissions.
This is emails and the like.
"This" is regular speech.

:-hide… Ironhide! Are you receiving?:

He grunted and mentally shook himself. :Yeah, you're transmitting loud and clear. I was just thinking.: The code streamed around him, rainbow-bright data streams converted into readable lines that he could scan and alter from within the program.

A short burst of static signified Bumblebee's snort of laughter. :Think on your own time, man. We're falling behind, here. If we don't finish this sector within the hour, Prowl will have our afts.: Ironhide felt Bumblebee's attention wane, turning instead to study another section of code. In the code, they didn't even have true avatars, just colorful sprites that showed where they metaphorically were. In the code, there weren't even truly 'places'.

:I'd like to see Prowl take a patrol, for once. Slagger's got a stick so far up his aft-:

:Ironhide!: Bee yelped, slightly scandalized. Despite having worked with the other man before, he still wasn't quite used to his rough language. :You don't know when he's listening in!:

:He can get an earful,: Ironhide muttered, scanning a few lines of code himself. :We haven't found any trace of Decepticon activity since that last sting. I think they've broken.:

:I think they're hiding in a ghost server somewhere, licking their wounds. They're not done yet.:

Ironhide took a closer look at a bad line, but decided it was a regular glitch, rather than maliciously tampered with. He rewrote it, clearing up some command errors, before responding. :Maybe not, but we almost are. You want to make the report, or should I?:

:Eh, I can do it. Catch you later!: Bumblebee's signal cut off.

Ironhide pulled himself away from the endless sea of code, surfacing into the virtual city of Iacon. Unrealistically designed avatars walked by, dressed in gaudy outfits that would be impossible to replicate in the real world. Some 'bodies' were even custom-modded, sporting fur, feathers, strange skin colors or oddly-shaped limbs. Ironhide himself was satisfied with an avatar modeled off his real body; he was tall and muscular, with a square jaw, light blue eyes, and dark hair gone to salt-and-pepper. The natural muscles came from his dislike of spending free time within the system, preferring instead either to work out or design new hacking tools on his own private computer.

Speaking of… he was itching to try out the static bombs he'd programmed last week. They were useful little glitches he'd designed to fill the target's audio input with static and visuals with snow. But it was just when he wanted to test them that the 'Cons had to go and vanish…

"Aaron!" a voice hailed.

He turned to see Jazz, a friend and co-worker, sauntering towards him. The signature blue visor over his eyes gleamed, catching the artificial sun's light, contrasting with his dark skin and hair. "Chase," he greeted, using the younger man's registered name. Call signs were only for in the code; it was mod policy to keep the two separate.

"Hey, man, I finally got that new song I was working on polished up. Wanna come over later and tell me what you think? Oh, and Blake said to say hi."

Ironhide agreed easily, and they chatted for a few minutes. That seemingly casual comment meant something more. Oh, he had no doubt the man had finished a new song, but mentioning Blake- Prowl- signified business. When they parted, he initialized his disconnect sequence.

His visual input faded to the Autobot insignia against a white screen, and finally shut down. Pulling off the helmet and gloves, he stood up from the soft reclining couch. They lived near to each other, so he had a few minutes to wait before going to meet Jazz. He stretched and went into the kitchen. He grunted at the meager offering his fridge provided, grabbed the milk and poured a bowl of cereal. Coming out of the code always left him lethargic. In there, you could do anything, go anywhere… he understood all too easily how those few people got addicted, got lost, ignored clocks and alarms and wasted away hooked up to the virtual world.

That was why he made a point of staying out as much as possible, outside of his job. He was a good programmer and security officer, and he knew it, but keep it professional when he was in there, and it was easier to resist just staying.

Well, either way, the tech came with enough protections that most people would be disconnected before anything happened. There were emergency sequences built in that automatically disconnected the user after a time, but a good enough hacker could override just about anything. Of course, it was always those ones that caught the media's eye; there had been a story a couple of months ago about a man who'd been found still plugged in, after being dead for two weeks. "ARE AUTOBOT SYSTEMS TRULY SAFE??" had been plastered all over the newscasts for weeks.

Ironhide had just rolled his eyes at that; of course the systems were safe. He was part of the security force that made sure they stayed that way. It was the users that were slagging idiots.

They'd had a field day with the Decepticons, too. There were other hacker gangs, but the 'Cons had changed almost overnight from nuisances to real trouble. Some new punk had showed up, completely changing the gang's standing. After an incident that interrupted services to several small online businesses, the security team had tracked down eight members. The police had arrested them, and they'd been banned from the system.

He finished his cereal and dumped the bowl in the dishwasher before going to change. A simple gray shirt and jeans were good enough; unlike some of his coworkers, he honestly didn't care about his appearance.

It was only a short walk to Jazz's apartment, and the smaller man answered quickly when Ironhide knocked.

"Hey, man, come on in." He tipped his head in invitation, blue visor catching the light. Like Ironhide, he kept his virtual avatar almost the same as his real appearance.

The visor was in compensation for the fact that Jazz was actually blind; special ports implanted in his temples connected it directly to his optical nerves. Though the visor couldn't 'see' in as much detail as real eyes, it served to cover the scarring where his eyes had been and restored most of his lost vision. Ironhide had never quite figured out how to politely ask how the hell he'd lost his eyes.

"So what did Blake want to say?" he started. Jazz was looking grim, a worrisome expression on the most laid-back man Ironhide knew.

"Bad news, of the public kind," Jazz told him.

Ironhide frowned. "I was just watching the newscast, there wasn't anything out of the ordinary."

Jazz shook his head, sighing. "This hasn't hit the news yet. It won't until tomorrow, but we need leads before then."

"Leads to what?" Ironhide was definitely concerned now, as evidenced by a mild thickening of his southern accent.

The other man handed him pictures, and explained, "They found her an hour ago. Senator Decimus' daughter. She was logged in using her father's account, but playing some fighting game under a different handle. Apparently, right around the time her character lost the battle she was in, she had a heart attack."

Ironhide looked at the photos. They showed a young girl, Autobot systems helmet askew on her head, dead. "A teenager had a heart attack?" he asked, disbelieving.

"Exactly. And at the same time…" he showed Ironhide a computer printout. "An unknown program was executed. All we can get from the system is gibberish, it's been run through a cipher we haven't been able to crack yet."

He was right, all that was on the printout was random characters and symbols, completely nonsensical. "So why are you talking to me about this?"

"The police are working on it, but we're a bit wary about giving them full access to the system. Blake still has friends from his days as a cop, so they've agreed to let us help from the inside. Namely, you and Sam."

"Huh. You sure the kid's up for something like this?" Bumblebee was the youngest member of the team, just barely old enough to be legally working for them, but he was a brilliant programmer, if a bit idealistic at times. He'd been snapped up almost as soon as he'd applied, and had been partnered with Ironhide, one of the oldest members of the team.

Jazz shrugged. "He's got the brains, certainly. I was a bit doubtful about giving him this assignment, but who am I to question the big dogs?"

"Hmm. Hey, what game was she playing?"

Jazz flipped through his report. "Mecha-Gladiator, it says here."

Ironhide blinked. "That explains why he wants Sam on this. The kid loves that game. He'd be able to talk to other players, spot if anything was unusual, that sort of thing."

"Well, here's your copy of the report, that's everything. You and Sam need to find out everything you can tonight; the more the better. Try to have a report in my and Blake's inboxes by 8 in the morning, all right?"

"Will do." He was already thinking, planning where to go and what to check for any idea of what had happened. It unlikely in the extreme that anything had actually happened through the net, there were programs upon programs specifically designed to protect users from anything inside that they couldn't handle. These were the kind of security features that no user could disable; they were within the code itself, where even some of the best hackers had a hard time getting into.

He headed back to his own place quickly, intending to get straight to work. If he wasn't going to be guaranteed sleep tonight, he wanted to get as much done as possible.

Laying back on the gelfoam recliner, he fitted on his helmet and gloves, and logged in. "Welcome, Aaron," came the standard, inflectionless greeting. He put in a second password, and the voice repeated, "Welcome, Ironhide." A small icon in the corner of his vision informed him that Bumblebee had left him a message.

Call me when you get this. – Bee

He called, and Bee responded with an invitation to a private room, where they could talk without users or even other mods listening in.

"Hey," the kid said when Ironhide showed up. "Prowl had a bit more to talk about than just our report."

"Yeah, I know. Jazz caught me right before I left." Ironhide was actually feeling a little guilty about his earlier griping. A stick-up-the-aft Prowl may have been, but he was completely dedicated to the security of the system, and had a lot bigger worries than running patrols. "I assume you got the full file as well?"

"Everything Prowl and Jazz knew." Bee was eager to get started, Ironhide could see. "What should we check first?"

"The game. That's your area. See if you can pull a vid of the match, look it over for anything out of the ordinary, with her, her opponent, anything."

"Oh, come on," Bee scoffed. "It's a game. You don't have a heart attack from a game."

Ironhide glared. "Which is why we want to make sure. I don't think it's that either, but the more causes we can rule out the happier Prowl will be. Game data cycles out pretty quickly, too, so get on it."

"Yeah, alright. You going to help me?"

"I wouldn't know what to look for, and you do. While you're doing that, I'm going to look through her usage history." Effectively retracing her steps in Iacon would let him dig into the code, see if there was a virus that had attached itself to her somewhere. Though it was almost as unlikely as dying from a game, there was at least a small possibility that a virus had jammed her system and perhaps sent her into a panic.

Meanwhile, Jazz's team would be working on cracking the cipher on that program, trying to trace its writer, while the police would handle all friends and contacts, both real-world and online.

He dove into the code, examining every program that had her in its memory. She had gone shopping before the game, looking through an online store's repertoire of clothes for users' avatars. She didn't buy anything, though, and the store was virus-free. He'd just finished looking through it when Bumblebee opened a channel.

:Ironhide, I think you might want to see this…:

:Until you've got a definite lead, don't bug me, kid,: he sent back, disgruntled.

There was a moment of hesitation, then Bee's next transmission stunned him. There was an image attachment, a scene captured from the game vid. The girl's avatar was obviously the smaller character, light blue, thin and lithe with a feminine shape. Her robot faced off against a large silver one, imposing in its bulk. An enormous black cannon was attached to its right arm, and- the worrisome part- the small purple icon on its chest.

Ironhide was seeing red. :Look at him, Decepticon hacker scum, wearing that out in the open. He's taunting us!:

:It gets worse,: Bee answered him grimly. He sent two files, one from the game and one from the code, time-stamped for the exact same moment. In the picture, the silver robot firing its canon, the beam striking the girl's character straight on. In the other file, a readout from the code…

:It's… what is this?: It made no sense. At the same time as the weapon struck, the code seemed to go wild. Power levels fluctuated, the code changed to gibberish as a virus implanted itself, and the girl's life-sign recordings went flat. :A virus that kills the real-life host? Implanted through a weapon in a game? This makes no sense!:

:Regardless, it's what we've got,: Bee said. :I'm sending copies of this to Prowl. He wanted leads, and we've found a Decepticon.:

:Good job. See if you can find out who he is. I don't want to rule out other possibilities yet, though, so I'm going to keep going through the code here. I should be done soon, then I'll join you,: Ironhide told him.

:That part's going to be tricky too,: Bumblebee warned him.

:Why?: he asked. In his mind's eye, he could practically see Sam chewing on his thumbnail, the kid's nervous tic.

:Let me run down the list really quick. He's logged under a fake name, he's routed his signal through multiple public hotspots, and the system's insisting this is the first time he's ever logged in. He's pretty much untraceable, all we have is the handle he'd registered under for the game. I think he might be this mysterious new Decepticon leader we've been hunting.: All this was bad news on top of a disaster. A girl had died, in the very system they were meant to protect. With the way the media had latched onto problems involving Autobot Systems like a rabid bulldog, this had the potential to rip them apart. They needed to get this solved, to catch the Decepticons as soon as possible.

Ironhide's blistering tirade would have peeled paint, had there been any real paint around. It was a good thing Bumblebee knew the older man wasn't angry at him, as the mildest thing he said was, :So what the fragging hell is the slagger's handle, then!?:

:He was going by Megatron.:

I'm working on this story secondary to my other fic, a Stargate SG-1 and Transformers crossover, so updates probably won't be regular. Thanks for reading!

-Illogically

Ignorable postscript: Goodbye, Noodle, my dear ferret.