Come play in the sand box. (Wheeljack makes his own fun.)
Title: Theory and Practice
Warnings: Mad science!
Rating: G
Continuity: G1, Footnotes AU
Characters: Wheeljack
Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.
Motivation (Prompt): "I could do with a little help here"
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Wheeljack had a theory.
Now, the recommended procedure when a scientist had a theory was to test a scale model. This might have even been the standard procedure. However, the war had axed test budgets and standards in one go. Nowadays, if there were resources for preliminary experiments, caution was chucked out the door in favor of investing everything into actual tests instead. Who knew when the Decepticons would attack next? It was all or nothing in budgets and science alike, these days.
Thus, Wheeljack had a theory, and he immediately put that theory to the test. Do not pass Go, do not collect 200 credits. Think, compose hypothesis, and begin building device.
His theory was based on past events, as reflected upon from a perspective today.
Subject: himself.
Goal: not exploding.
Test: building something.
No, that was too broad a test. Rewind back to his thought processes going into this experiment. It wasn't so much that he minded exploding. It happened. Except that it was happening far too often. Even devices that seemed completely benign in their harmlessness — how could hydrogen dioxide explode?(1) - exploded. It baffled him.
Wheeljack's successful inventions were the stuff of legends. They had also all been built by him alone. No other Autobots had been involved.
Admittedly, no one else had witnessed his successes. The days of science publications and conventions were long gone. But neither had there been the spectacular explosions that characterized his inventions created in conjunction with Skyfire, Perceptor, Ratchet, or even Huffer or Grapple. On Cybertron, Wheeljack had been part of a thriving company. He'd been famous for being on the cutting edge of engineering innovation. He'd been respected. When he'd joined the Autobots, the Decepticons had feared him.
Nowadays, Wheeljack wasn't feared. Yes, the humans had strict limitations on what cities he could approach(2), but he was the laughingstock of the Autobots. The Decepticons ducked when they saw him coming, but that wasn't fear – it was common sense.
Every one of his past inventions had been celebrated as brilliant successes. By himself, he could still put together devices that the humans marveled at and even Ratchet grudgingly admitted were worth the possible damage.
However, add another Autobot to the lab and he could bid the day goodbye. He'd end up in medbay, blackened and slumped in defeat, with whatever he'd been working on scattered in pieces. It did not make sense. Autobots were all about cooperating with each other. It just so happened that Wheeljack's cooperation tended to explode.
So. Back to his experiment. He was the test subject. The goal was to not explode.
Because Wheeljack had theory.
Hypothesis: working in conjunction with other Autobots resulted in failure.
Evidence: Past inventions that were now commonly used. Past respect, and a towering reputation among scientists, especially engineers. He used to get fan mail from engineers. Present day evidence: the occasional experiment he conducted alone resulted in solid findings. The machines he constructed alone were dismissed as yet more of his crazy gonna-explode inventions, but those were the ones that worked. In his memory, not a single one of the inventions he'd made with the help of another Autobot worked the way it was supposed to.
Test: Make something. By himself. Then widen the test.
He'd been at a loss as to how to properly widen the test for this hypothesis, but the war had taught him to dive into work when the opportunity presented itself. It hadn't taught him much about that opportunity being created by sentient sand invading Cybertron(3), but Wheeljack could learn fast. The week of the sand invasion had turned out to be ideal for testing.
Optimus Prime and Megatron had hammered out a temporary cease-fire agreement in order to jointly deal with the invading sand, and half the Cybertronians on Earth had gladly taken the excuse to flee back home. Wheeljack had offered his expertise, of course, but one of Megatron's first terms in the cease-fire - via Starscream and Soundwave's insistence, apparently - had been his exclusion from the mission. Prowl had agreed without quibble. He'd seemed somewhat relieved, in fact, possibly because Wheeljack, even on a good day, was unpredictable. And explosive. Jazz had laughed himself off a chair.
Wheeljack hadn't thought it funny at all, but it had presented a nigh-unheard of opportunity to have the lab all to himself. All the other scientists were off working on the crisis. A perfect time to pin down where his unpredictable reputation sprang from, no? He buckled down to his testing with a will.
When life gave Wheeljack lemons, he made over-powered boosters to shoot them through the stratosphere at supersonic speeds.
By day three of the week, Sideswipe was still staggering, and his optics had a peculiar shine to them. Wheeljack hadn't been able to track down Powerglide, but Sideswipe volunteered twice more just in case the first time was a fluke, Wheeljack - come oooooon, please?
Sunstreaker, oddly, merely marched into his laboratory the third day, plunked a handful of paint cans and a polishing set on the first level surface he saw, and beat a hasty retreat to the door. That was a strange reaction to experimenting on Sideswipe. Wheeljack didn't know what to think about that. He assumed it was hint, but he didn't have a golden paint job. He had his own polishing set…somewhere. Okay, so he wasn't nearly as fanatic about his appearance as Sunstreaker, but…really? Did he look that bad?
Since the fuel sediment was settling anyway, he spent some time tweaking paint formulas until it could pass through the cartridge feeder in one of Ironhide's older model nitrogen guns. A faster paint applicator was a practical thing to make for Ratchet. A nice side benefit was that the new paint formula was both quicker to dry and noticeably shinier than before(4).
Secondary proof for the test: even working with material as volatile as liquid paint pressurized into a cartridge, nothing exploded. He got a smear of yellow on his hands which wiped right off.
By day five, Wheeljack had a new reactor in the boosters - but no test subject. Sideswipe had been disqualified due to an inappropriate base frame. Arms were meant to stay attached, after all, and that wasn't likely to happen at the projected speeds. Wheeljack predicted the booster would reach supersonic speeds, and Sideswipe had begged to try anyway. But the point was to get through the experiment without an explosion.
Powerglide was, according to rumor as told by Blaster, in hiding. The Aerialbots were off playing spotters in a serious game of catch-the-sand with every other flyer, Decepticon or Autobot. That left Wheeljack needing help of the flying variety, and that was in short supply among the Autobots left on Earth.
Well. In for a credit, in for the budget. Theory went, working with Autobots resulted in failure…and he did need to widen the test.
[* * * * *]
Footnotes
[* * * * *]
(1)Spike had once said, only half as a joke, "You could make muffin batter explode!" Out of morbid humor, Jazz had pasted a recipe entitled 'Danger: Bran Muffin Explosives. May contain nuts and/or TNT.' on his laboratory door the next day. Wheeljack had, after some research, built a human-sized oven and purchased bran muffin-in-a-box dry mix (nuts optional) from a local bakery. It required two cups of water and an egg. He hadn't even turned the oven on when Perceptor walked in — and the mixing bowl erupted in a fountain of batter.
(2)Utah banished him outright. California banned him from approaching within 300 miles of the San Andreas Faultline. Oddly enough, New York City never noticed or cared when he was in town.
(3)Cosmic, sentient sand. And the other Autobots thought he was strange? He'd never thought of creating tiny nano-beings that burrowed into circuitry and gorged on electric current and coolant, then solidified in a mech's joints until the dust-storm swarm's feeding frenzy was sated. Cybertron had been incapacitated by the time Shockwave's distress call reached Earth.
(4)Wheeljack left it on a table and forgot about it, but the next time he left the lab he nearly tripped on the polishing kit. It had been taken apart and set up against the door in a configuration that puzzled him immensely. The kit box now featured a lit candle, a picture of Wheeljack, and one of Sunstreaker's etching stylus. It acquired a signed 'Thank You' note from Tracks later that day.