Disclaimers in Part 1

That dusk, a soft and gentle desert evening with a hint of crispness to come after the sun was fully down, Jazz was doing what he thought of as "his rounds." He had discovered early on that he was, in his present form, wireless.

Well, not completely, but the presence of iron all around him, such a problem for Diarwen, gave Jazz freedom, if ever he needed it.

He went from home to home, using the electrical system on the base, checking up on everyone and everything, and then used the wire fence to "walk" the perimeter.

And there, not far distant from what would one day become the children's playground, he found Optimus Prime, parked in his alt form, facing a striated rock outcropping hewn into marvelous shapes by the wind…sulking.

One of the things that made Jazz Jazz was the level of his interpersonal skills. He'd seen Optimus sulk before. He also knew that his leader refused to label it as such…"thinking the situation through" was the phrase that tickled Jazz' memory banks.

And his sense of humor.

But the interpersonal skills won out. Optimus' sulk was not black with red fulminations around it like small crawling lightnings, as Sunstreaker's tended to be; it was a brown study, about the same color as the rock he faced.

Bad enough. Therefore Jazz sent a glyph of greeting, and continued on his way.

But Optimus responded, so Jazz sent, ::Heya, boss bot. How ya doin'?::

There was a long, long pause. Then, too heartily, ::Fine, Jazz. And yourself?:

::'M fine, Optimus. What's botherin' you?::

Another very lengthy pause. Then Optimus sent, ::I am unsure what to do about the rumor circulating about Diarwen and me.::

Jazz had sufficient self-control not to laugh (AKA "accidentally let slip an amusement glyph"). Instead, he sent, ::Just let it be, boss bot. Item of the week this week, forgotten next week.::

::I suppose that might be best.::

::Yeah. An' this way, you won't do any damage to Diarwen by arguin' about her with a stubborn old medic.::

Optimus heaved a heavy sigh. ::Exactly what is known about the disagreement between the two of them?::

::Only that Ratchet's not talkin' to Diarwen much, an' pretty much not politely when he does. But boss bot, the medic's been on everybody's bad side at least once, an' Primus knows, we all been on his. Don't mean we don't love 'im, just means we take his bein' down on somebody with a grain of salt. 'S only Ratchet, y'know?::

::Yes. I know. I just wish –:: Optimus broke off, and settled himself onto his springs, sighing again. ::I need to think the situation through before I take any action, Jazz.::

That was the closest Jazz had ever come to hearing Optimus admit to sulking. He smiled (configured certain electrical currents in a particular way) and sent, ::Sounds good ta me, boss bot. See you back at the base.::

Optimus remained unmoving, either thinking the situation through or just plain sulking, as Jazz left.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Diarwen walked down the sloping path from the barn to where the grass met a narrow strip of rocky beach, shaded by a few tall beech trees that had survived the storms of many years. Optimus, only his front tires on the beach, was in his alt form watching the tide come in.

The sun cast his shadow long before him, crossing the beach to darken the water. It was late enough in the evening that the charter boats were returning.

Diarwen realized with a start that she had lived here long enough to recognize many of them on sight, and to know where their captains lived in the little seaside town up the road. It had been a long time since she had cared to know a place so well.

Mission City was where they were stationed. This Maryland shore, where Diarwen had first told Betony Lennox who and what she was, where she had lived until the Battle of Chicago, was home. She was glad there had been time to visit, and even moreso that Optimus had found a reason to be in Washington, which made it easy for him to meet her here.

She came up beside Optimus' driver's door and said, "I love the view from here."

"It's quite peaceful."

"Yes. Optimus, it is good to see you. I am happy to be home. It felt as though I was away much longer than two weeks."

"Yes, it did. I am glad to have you back."

"How have things been in Mission City?"

"Busy. We have people in from the other Sectors for training this week, and Lennox is not happy to have so many civilians underfoot at once. Some of them have never held a gun before. I have my doubts how effective they could be in the field—I think it more likely that their presence would endanger the rest of us since we will have to look out for them."

Diarwen smiled. "We cannot all be in the vanguard. I would presume that their skills are best used within their own Sectors' areas of expertise."

"Yes, but have you ever known non-combatants to stay in the rear where they belong?"

"Not often," she had to admit. "We shall have to teach them Titania's first rule of combat, I should think."

"And what would that be?"

"'Do not get killed.'"

He rumbled a laugh, and shifted, almost imperceptibly. With warmth in his voice, he asked, "And yourself?"

"My trip to Ireland came up empty, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. They are recovering their own language. It is different, there are of course changes over so much time. But still, in a crowd I can almost imagine myself back in my Dublin... I stopped in a pub, and the food and the drink were very like what I remember. I believe that I am going to have to take Wheeljack up on his offer to try to rediscover the process of making mithril. Or to find something else that I can safely use."

"I am sorry it came to nothing."

"I do not regret going." She tilted her head. "And what goes on on base?"

"Diarwen, there is something that I need to tell you, and I hope you will believe me when I say that I think there was no slight to you intended by anyone we know."

"Slight?"

"There is a rumor about the two of us."

"That I care for you as more than a friend? That, dare I hope, the sentiment might be returned?"

"Would that part of it be nothing but rumor?"

"Many a rumor is true, to one extent or another," she replied, with a warm twinkle in her bright eyes. "We have each been alone for many a year, we two. Whose business is that?"

"No one's. But the rumor is more than that."

"Now, I have always thought I had quite a good imagination, but I find myself at a loss here. Exactly what is it that these rumors suggest that we've done together? If it's physically possible, I might try anything at least once!"

Optimus laughed. "Unfortunately, I don't think the rumor-mongers thought that out very well. And my imagination seems to be no better than yours in this. Our two species have such different needs."

"A pity."

"Indeed."

"Even if such a thing were true, there would be no dishonor on my part. I have been widowed for hundreds of years. I have no attachments to anyone. And...you have had no romantic ties to anyone since...Ariel...?"

"No," he said quietly. He had told Diarwen about his intended's death in a campus protest gone wrong, vorns ago in Iacon at the dawn of the war. "Under the circumstances, I never expected to grow close to anyone again."

"Neither did I," Diarwen replied, fully understanding the situation of a wartime leader from her years as one of Queen Titania's knights, as well as the difficulty of moving on from widowhood. For many long years, she had not thought moving on was something that she would ever choose to do, for all that turning herself into a living memorial was not what her late husband would have asked of her.

"Diarwen, what we do have, we will have for a long while to come, Primus willing. Berthmates we could find, if we wished."

She sat on his lower step and laid her cheek against the warm, living metal of his door. "True. Perhaps we should simply ignore the rumors. People will speculate as they wish. Paying attention to it only encourages it. I am not angry that such rumors exist."

"Agreed." He watched the flowing tide for a while. "I do love you, Diarwen."

"And I you."

The fishing boats were borne home on the evening tide, and Diarwen knew how they felt when they made harbor.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

When the base's security cameras picked up movement in Wheeljack's lab, Jazz paid it only scant attention, until he realized the movement was around the table where his new protoform was being assembled, along with Skysong's next flyer, and three undifferentiated protoforms that they were going to have on hand for emergencies. A bot's spark and processor could be kept alive in a medical long-term stasis unit if a protoform was unavailable, but now that they had the ability to build protoforms they might hope that would not be necessary.

Ratchet had consulted with Jazz upon first starting the build, to be sure the saboteur got exactly the frame he wanted, but since then there hadn't been too much to see. The medic and the chief engineer, with the assistance of everyone on the base with the necessary skills, humans and bots alike, had been constructing various parts and sub-assemblies, procedures that were not very interesting to watch.

But today, Wheeljack was opening a crate that had come in from Nellis, where the Decepticon vehicles captured after Chicago were being studied. It contained cybermetal that would be recycled as his new protoform's chassis and armor.

Now, it finally became real to him that he would actually have a frame soon.

One of his data-mining subroutines pinged for attention. He brought it forward to see what it had found.

Along with everyone else, he had been horrified when he'd seen news reports of ten people killed at a Portland-area software company. But workplace violence was not, sadly, uncommon. Like everyone else, when he heard there had been no gunshot or stab wounds, he supposed some sick person with an ax to grind had put something in the break room coffee.

Now, however, something else entirely had cropped up on an FBI computer. Jazz looked through the file, then put in a call to Charlotte Mearing.

"Director, when ya get some time, Ah have some information for ya."

"Thank you, Jazz, I'll be right there."

A few minutes later, the human-sized door opened to admit her. He rezzed his holoform and nodded. "'Mornin', Director."

Mearing was wearing BDUs instead of her usual tailored suit, because she was going out to observe a training exercise planned for later that day. She looked younger, somehow, in the military uniform than she did in office clothing. "Good morning, Jazz. What have you got?"

"Ah found out where the S2 director was, up until a week ago Friday that is."

"What do you mean?"

"James Smith was the owner of Premium Software, in Beaverton, Oregon," Jazz explained.

"Wasn't that where the massacre happened? Was he one of the victims?"

"No, but he's still unaccounted for. When the police searched the building, they found some papers partially burned in a wastebasket, and one of 'em had Smith's name on it. When the BOLO on him hit the system, the FBI picked up on it because, as S2 director, he's on someone's watch list. I don't know whose."

"Good luck finding out, that's above my pay grade. But there's a 'they' who keep a watch on all of us above a certain level. You do realize that we're microchipped?"

"Kinda hard not to—every time you walk by an RFID sensor, it pings. You were the only one on base who had one, until these new people came in."

"It's as much for our protection as to keep track of us. It may make it easier to find him."

"Assuming he wants t' be found. Wouldn't be hard to remove one of those chips, would it?"

"No, not at all. They're just under the skin and about twice as long as a grain of rice. It would be simple to find and remove one," Mearing replied.

"That ain't all. FBI records tie this Smith to a man named Wilburn. They worked together on a project under DARPA supervision having something to do with Direct Neural Interface technology—not that kinda interface!" Jazz laughed at the expression on her face. "The deal is, they're tryin' to come up with a way for humans to connect to a computer, so y'all can shadow the net like we do."

"That sounds like cyberpunk fiction. Did they have any success?"

"This particular project? No more'n Chip's had with his wheelchair. But that was about five years ago. They've had time to improve it."

"True. Does it look like this project had anything to do with what happened at Premium?"

"It almost has to. Wilburn's wife reported him missing since sometime on Friday as well. Locals are treating it as a missing persons case, but they don't know about th' DARPA connection to Smith."

"Bring Optimus in on this and see what he thinks. We need to send a team up there, but it's his call on whether that team should include mecha. So far, it sounds like a Sectors issue."

Jazz said, "Yeah, Sufri was a Sectors issue, too."

"Sufri was a damn WMD. Let me know what else you find."

"Sure thing. Careful out at the proving grounds. Some of those people need a babysitter to keep 'em from shootin' their toes off."

"They're learning," Mearing grinned. She had it on good authority that Lennox had threatened anyone who didn't qualify by the end of the week with remedial shooting lessons with Ironhide. Due diligence had thereafter spread like wildfire.

Jazz checked out a few more leads before disturbing Optimus. ::Boss, we got a situation that the Director wanted me t'run by you.::

::What is it, Jazz?::

The saboteur explained. ::She wants to send some humans up there to check it out, wanted to know if you think a bot ought to go along with them.::

Optimus thought about it. ::Send Mirage,:: he decided.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Maggie Madsen packed a bag. She had not expected to be sent into the field, not to investigate a mass murder. But detectives weren't going to find out what had been going on in that laboratory. For that, they needed IT professionals, and she knew without conceit that she and her partner, Glen Whitman, were two of the best.

On first glance, they had nothing in common. Maggie was Australian, blonde and tanned, and enjoyed fashionable clothing. Glen was African-American, big and heavy-set and an obsessive snacker. She'd taught him to dance, and regularly badgered him to take her out dancing; the exercise helped, but he'd never be thin.

In most other ways, they were from opposite ends of the spectrum (as well as the earth). Maggie was outgoing, Glen was quiet. But when they worked on a programming project, the synergy was magic. They'd been together professionally since the Battle of Mission City, personally since a short while later.

Glen strapped his laptop into its case and stuffed the pockets with cables and peripherals. "Got everything, Maggie? Mirage is waiting outside."

"I think so. If I forgot anything, I'll pick it up when I get there."

Glen picked up her suitcase, leaving her with only the shoulder bag that served her as both computer case and purse.

Mirage was in his alt form, a red Ferrari 458 Italia. He opened his doors for them, subspaced their bags, and a few moments later they were on the highway headed north.

-Sidhe Chronicles-

Beaverton, Oregon's Police Headquarters was tucked into a large brick building on a side street, just off the main drag: Tualatin Valley Highway, headed west to Hillsboro, the county seat. While the building itself lacked any charm, its setting was institutional-pretty, with substantial trees and grass interspersed along the brick and asphalt.

Their contacts were meeting them at a deli handily just across the lot from the PD.

Mirage parked. "What do you wish to take inside with you?"

He had only to retrieve Glen's computer case from his subspace, as Maggie had kept her purse with her. Glen said, "If we discuss anything important, we'll move it somewhere you can be there too. This is just rude."

Mirage said, "Yours is a NEST cellphone, no? I could use that as a secure point-of-presence."

Glen still felt a little like their friend was being sent to the back of the bus, but there probably wasn't a conference facility in Beaverton where humans and Cybertronians could have a meeting and everyone would be comfortable. It was either gather around in the parking lot, or set up some sort of telepresence for the bot inside a human structure. If Mirage was willing to roll with it, he would too.

To his surprise, though, the two Beaverton officers stood when they came in. The older of the two said, "Welcome to Beaverton. I'm Detective Grant Edmiston, and this is my partner, Detective Marcella Deem, BPD Homicide." Edmiston was in his fifties, short and stocky with blond hair that was fading to gray. He wore a suit and tie, nothing fancy but it fit him well. Deem was perhaps twenty years younger, her dark curly hair cropped clear of her collar. She wore a pair of black slacks and a windbreaker against the morning mist.

Maggie held out her hand for Edmiston to shake. "Thank you. I'm Maggie Madsen, this is my partner Glen Whitman, we're with NEST Information Services. That's our other partner, Mirage, outside."

"We've got some snacks here, and go ahead and order whatever you like on the department's tab. We set up in the department garage; sorry for the noise and the grease but it's the best we could do on short notice."

"I'm sure it will be fine," Maggie smiled.

Glen asked her, "What do you want from the counter, Mags?"

"Just a tall skinny latte, or whatever they call it here. I don't want anything from the deli."

Glen came back with her regular-sized cup, as well as a huge one and an over-stuffed foot-long deli sandwich. They went outside, added Mirage to the entourage, and drove the short distance to the Department's garage.

Office dividers partitioned off a generous corner of the garage, and folding tables had been moved in to make a work area. A large whiteboard held pictures of the ten victims, as well as Smith and Wilburn. Information about them was written below in various shades of dry-erase marker.

Two other men in suits were already there, one on a phone, the other filling out a report. They ended their current tasks and stood as the five of them approached.

Mirage had room to transform. Once the humans were at a safe distance he did so, sitting on the floor near the tables.

Deem moved a couple of folding chairs out of his way, while Edmiston introduced the two FBI agents, Kurt Karpinsky and Allan Kinsler. Glen introduced Mirage, Maggie and himself.

They gathered around the table. Karpinsky said, "Allan and I are here to help you out with your investigation any way we can, but our official interest is in locating Smith. He's considered a security risk, whether as a kidnap victim or as a person of interest in the case."

Edmiston said, "We're a small department here, and Beaverton has a low crime rate. While we're proud of that, I have to say this kind of thing, mass murder, isn't something we see every day. So I'd rather put any jurisdiction questions aside as much as we can, and concentrate on solving the case. I truly do appreciate your assistance, agents, and the three of you as well."

Glen said, "Well, Mirage here is a trained investigator, so he'll be more help to you on that end of things than Maggie and I can be. We're here about Smith as well, and we're also interested in exactly what they were doing in that lab. If it had anything to do with why the people were killed, we'll do everything we can to get to the bottom of that for you."

"Thanks. People who know computers are going to come in handy on this one."

"Can you bring us up to speed on what's been discovered so far?"

"We're still waiting for the ME and CSI reports. Victimology is a little further along, but outside of work we haven't found any other factor linking all of the victims. There's no indication of any family issues that might indicate a domestic dispute was at the root of all this. No one has been fired or otherwise left the company lately."

Glen asked, "What about someone who was still there, but having trouble at work? Has anyone been reprimanded frequently or anything like that?"

"Several hard drives were wiped and drilled. We think the employee records were on those."

Glen and Maggie looked at each other. "Our killer was someone who knew 'best practices' when disposing of a computer containing confidential information. Most people would just 'format c' and leave it at that," Glen said. "At best, they might know to overwrite the drive several times."

Edmiston asked, "Mirage, might your people be capable of recovering data from those damaged drives?"

"Some of it, possibly. It depends on how thoroughly they were destroyed. If you are comfortable sending them with me, we can maintain a documented chain of control while we make the attempt."

"Yeah, would you, please? I know what our folk can do, and it's a lot, but this is a little beyond them."

Mirage asked, "How exactly were these people killed? Were they indeed poisoned? I have heard speculation to that effect."

Deem said, "We're still waiting on the report, but the ME says preliminary tox screens were negative."

"What about this Wilburn? Are there any other connections besides his DARPA work with Smith?" Maggie asked.

"None we've found yet. He's an associate professor on Pill Hill" – he looked at the uncomprehending faces, and amended that - "at Oregon Health Sciences University, and none of the others worked there. Portland PD caught his missing persons case, and since they didn't know of his connection with Smith, a missing-adult case with no signs of foul play wasn't the highest priority. We didn't know anything about him until the agents here started asking questions about him. We don't even know for sure yet that he's involved in this—but it would be a hell of a big coincidence if he wasn't, since he and Smith went missing at the same time."

"When was the last time anyone saw him?"

"He taught a class Friday morning," Agent Kinsler replied.

A uniformed female officer tapped on the edge of the office divider. "Sir, here are the LUDS that you requested."

"Thanks, Dowling," Edmiston replied.

Maggie asked, "What are LUDS?"

Edmiston parceled out the sheaf of papers. "Local usage details—it's a record of calls to and from a particular number. We have the company switchboard and the victims' cell phone records." He paused, then looked at Maggie and Glen. "We won't know what we're looking for until we find it. A pattern of calls could indicate that someone was being harassed, for instance, or if the same number turns up on multiple people's phones, that will raise a red flag."

It reminded Maggie very much of poring through millions of lines of code, without knowing the nature of the error she was looking for until she found it. She extracted a pair of reading glasses from her purse and went to work.

For Glen's part, he stifled a smile and forced himself to concentrate on the phone records. He had never told Maggie how hot he thought her glasses were, he was afraid she'd think it was silly. It was kind of like the Wonder Woman syndrome in reverse. Glasses tended to get associated with smarts, and to him, smart was sexy as hell.

They rarely broke—the no bedroom talk in the office, no office talk in the bedroom rule. It had kept their working and personal relationships strong after practically being joined at the hip 24/7 for the last four years.

For the most part, they worked quietly. Mirage quickly scanned all the LUDS into a database, and determined that there were no common callers on every phone, aside from lunchtime calls to a couple of restaurants which delivered to the industrial park. There was, however, a long list of numbers common to several of the phones.

Maggie suggested, "Mirage, can you lower the importance of numbers that it would make sense for them to call? Computer supply companies, for example. That should filter the more likely prospects to the top."

"What of the taxicab company?" Mirage asked. "There are many calls for cabs."

Deem said, "I'll check. Unless they send the same cabbie out there every time, probably not. But the drivers might have noticed something."

Maggie had thought homicide investigations were rather more exciting than this, judging from the television shows that she had seen. She was just as glad that shootouts and mad chases were not on the agenda.

She smiled at herself, then thought that the day was still young, and she might get lucky yet.

The next break came late that afternoon. A sanitation worker had turned in a plastic bag containing Smith and Wilburn's phones and IDs. That almost certainly put the two in the same place at the same time, confirming that they were working on one case rather than two, but there was still no way to know whether they were suspects or kidnap victims.

"Still, a BOLO has gone out on them," Deem said. Mirage quirked an orbital ridge, and she added, "A 'Be on the Lookout for' advisory. It's been sent throughout Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and California."

End Part 2