I suspected that the Autobots had done... something else to Laserbeak when he'd told me the story of how he'd been held down while he was online and trying to get away, only to be released two minutes later. Nothing was done to him at all, he was fine aside from the grenade, which was easily removed and disposed of (Knockout could speak for himself). Then, there was that little blip, which was quickly dismissed as a minor communication error that would probably go away on its own. Looking back on it, it was painfully obvious that he'd been given a virus of some sort, which was passed onto me, then the mainframe.

And now that virus was probably finishing what the Autobots had started day ago. Downloading the Iacon database so Optimus Prime could decode it. More little blips kept interrupting my train of thought, preventing me from getting any actual work done. Not that I particularly cared. The encryption was not just electronic. The decrypted text was written in a coded form of the Iaconian dialect (the code happened to be different with each entry), which in turn had to be decoded perfectly, grammar included. And what did you get? A set of coordinates, the date the relic was logged, and the date it was buried. Nothing else.

And while Optimus Prime is not known for his hacking skills, neither possessing the tools, time, or knowledge of technology to do so; he is a true master of language, something I have privately respected him for in the past.

I suppose I could do the loyal thing and tell someone that there's a malicious virus on our mainframe that won't rest until the entire Iacon database is safely within the hands of the Autobots. I could be praised again for preventing a potential disaster. But at this point, I am more likely to be called a fool for letting it get this far. One would think that being in Megatron's good graces would help you avoid verbal and physical beatings. Not really. You just have a slightly higher ledge to fall off of. One wrong move, you're back at square one. I made those mistakes enough times early in my career to learn that.

Thing is, with loyalty, it has to go both ways. 'Lord' Megatron trusts me to manage everything in his army, to never betray secrets to the enemy, to help him out of a struggle.

He expects me to trust that he will be the ultimate victor in this millenniums long war, to trust that he will always be on the right side of justice; to trust that he is capable leading an entire race after it is all over.

Ha.

In my mind, I have no respect for this 'Lord'. In my mind, I simply refer to him as Megatron, because in my mind, I am his equal, possibly even his better. I have yet to push the limits of my strength, weapons, or fighting skills on any of my fellow officers, or most of the Autobots, for that matter. The crew fears me because of my surveillance tactics.

I can rat them out at any moment for anything they do. Yet I choose not to. The occasional party I ignore, as long as it can't be heard throughout the entire ship and it doesn't waste energon we don't have. The sneaking of extra rations is nearly always allowed. No one except the most desperate has courage enough to do it and those are the only ones that deserve get away with it. Megatron forgets that sparked bots require considerably more energon than the drone-like, sparkless beings who have only the most basic core programming installed. Loyalty, self-preservation (pain included), and speech, in that order. He also forgets that his officers are not the only bots who are actually alive. Perhaps he doesn't forget. Maybe he simply believes so strongly in working your way up from nothing that he declines to give them more than the eradicons simply on principle. I do not know which is worse.

And yet, I cannot go to the Autobots because I swore my oaths long before the council even knew about a resistance. I have saved Megatron's sorry spark more times than I care to admit (more times than he would care to admit, as well). I had gained Megatron's trust, simply to not have him breathing down my neck, watching everything I did. But now that I had crossed that line, to desert was suicide. The only thing that Megatron hates more than things not going his way is when things don't go his way unexpectedly. Starscream's betrayal fragged Megatron off to no end. My betrayal would have left multiple Decepticon casualties, including my own.

So I endure. I offer up my skills because I refuse to offer my spark. My assignments tend to keep me off the battlefield. I haven't killed an Autobot in an incredibly long time.

And surprisingly, I haven't done anything to any of the humans, including the Autobots' young charges and liaison with the U.S. government. To my constant amusement, they annoy Megatron, Starscream, and Knockout to no end ...they have proven to be quite the adversaries before, despite the somewhat unsettling difference in size and more fragile stature. Their minds are on par with our own; although their civilization is not as advanced due to the fact that they die much earlier than us and are still a fairly young race. The young one especially, maybe because his hacking skills rival mine.

Come to think of it, he's probably the one who wrote the virus. None of the earth-bound Autobots know computer programming well enough to write virus coding so flawlessly. While experiencing its effects, I'd begun to focus on what the virus felt like. Sneaky, yes. A simple, self-terminating virus that wouldn't leave a single mark when the entire Iacon database had been uploaded onto some external archive, to be immediately downloaded onto their mainframe. There would be no lasting harm done to me or our computers, which made it all the cleverer. Not a single footprint would be left once its job had been done, which would only make it harder to track. I don't even know if I can stop it at this point, and I'm not sure if I want to. Megatron's ways only bring death to our kind, and I know that this isn't what reform is supposed to be like.

I still mourn for all of those who have been killed in the claws of war, and pray to Primus, who I cannot even confirm the existence of, to let it end and end soon.

Pit, even if I hadn't heard the distress signal from Lazerbeak, I would have abstained from killing Wheeljack. He is my opposite in so many ways, yet in some aspects we are so eerily similar it makes me uncomfortable to interact with him.

Primus, I feel like a pacifist. Sometimes, I wish I was sided with the Autobots. Maybe I wouldn't wear my facemask all the time then. Or maybe I would have a clearer conscience. (I still feel a little bad about attacking the kids)

But that isn't the choice I made, so I still wear my masks to shield myself from my peers and the Autobots.

They can't know that I'm rooting for the Autobots because I just don't care about winning anymore.

They can't know how few I've killed.

They can't know that I have manipulated mission and battle plans, withheld information from Megatron, and disabled a cloaking device, all to give the Autobots an edge.

By the end of the war, I will either have died for my crimes at the hand of Megatron, or the judicial system of the Autobots; or even maybe have been welcomed back into civilization to help rebuild.

Until then, I will fight quietly for my beliefs. The silent ally.

I feel a drain on my energy as the virus destroys itself. My fingers move away from the keyboard to grip the edge of the console. I'm both relived and slightly saddened that I'm alone again, without having the feel of the boy whose mind is a match for my own.

I am loyal, but not to Megatron.

I am Soundwave, the one who has changed the fate of more than any could imagine.

I am myself behind the mask.

Ummm… this is probably the closest thing to a "plot bunny" I will ever have (I am strangely immune). I know I should be working on other stories, but this is something easy that I could do with the few minutes of each day I did have. Either way, I had to get it out of my system.

Make of it what you will.