Title: Metamorphosis

Description: The death of their race was sealed with a single rash action ... and the only thing to come of it had no idea what was going on. G1 (AU), told from the perspective of several canon characters.

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers. That's why this is fanfiction. All original characters are not to be used without permission, which I will probably give if asked nicely.

Author's notes: Rewritten chapter one. Added some bits in the attempt to make this story more about the canon characters and hint a little further at what's going on. Some small details have also been changed and I added a little more snark to Ratchet's jargon. I do love me some Ratchet-snarkin' ...XD

Chapter 1: Bare Basics

This is like a thousand piece puzzle, when you only have put two pieces on the table. Who knows what the rest of it is going to look like?
- Anthony Sabino

Grumbling more out of habit than consternation, Ratchet put down his half-empty cube and left his office. The medbay sensors he'd routed directly to his own CPU had logged a spike of mental activity in his newest patient, enough to interrupt the first quiet refuel he'd had in weeks.

The small frame was lying on the table in the medbay proper that had been its permanent home since it had been brought to the base. There was no visual change since the last time he'd checked, but Teletraan's monitoring systems confirmed an definite increase of activity in its processor. It was limited to auxiliary systems only, but it was steadily increasing. This was a better sign than he'd expected.

He set the monitoring systems to inform him when it reached the required level for manual reactivation and, despite his still-grumbling fuel tanks, took the time to inspect the work he'd done on its physical hardware. He frowned at the blank optics which stared out from the bare facial wiring and the exposed cables and circuitry left uncovered by the minimal plating on the limbs and abdomen. Ratchet had seen the innards of more 'bots than he could count, and the sight of someone's basic systems left unprotected and vulnerable still made the medic twitchy. He had hoped they'd have more time to do something about that before the initial download had finished debugging.

To be honest, he'd had his doubts the programming would take at all, even with his careful upgrades. He'd never seen a CPU in such rough shape that was still able to coherently function. No creator would have dared put a spark into such a rudimentary, unprepared shell. He was tempted to have Teletraan run another diagnostic and full systems check just to be sure, but that would be a waste of time: the last one had finished only hours before and had come back clean. There was little danger in waking it up now; it was already waking itself up.

Ratchet activated his internal comm-link. ::Ratchet to Prime.::

::Prime here,:: the answer came.

::I believe it's safe to reactivate our guest now.::

Pause. ::So soon?::

::Everything checks out. If there are any problems, we'll only find them when it's online, and the sooner the better. Permission?::

::Granted. How long will that take?::

::Several hours. I'm going to do it slowly, to avoid shock. You remember the state it was in when we found it.::

::Indeed. Do what you think is best, and let me know when she's awake.::

Ratchet did a mental double take. ::'She?'::

Optimus' answer sounded amused. ::Haven't you seen the faceplates? Wheeljack made them to fit her cranial structure exactly. They look female.::

"Huh," Ratchet said out loud. It was as good as anything to base a gender off of at this point. His programming routines hadn't gotten that complex yet. :: And I assume he's basing the rest of his reconstruction off that template, is he?::

::You would be correct.::

He probably should have left medbay at some point in the last few days, Ratchet mused. If Prime, who never took a break to save his life, had found the time to examine Wheeljack's part of this project, it was a definite sign the medic had gotten too buried in his work. Then again, Wheeljack probably hadn't been out of his workshop in all that time either. "Exact cranial structure" indeed. The medic snorted.

::I'll page him and tell him to bring whatever he's got ready at this point,:: Ratchet cast a glance at the disturbingly fragile-looking body on the table. ::I know I sure wouldn't want to wake up looking like that.::

Light. Darkness. Flashes of colour, snaps of sound. It all rushed around, drawing it into a vortex of sensations that culminated in something akin to a single, mental "pop".

The images faded and left behind a curious sense of stillness and clarity. A barrage of sensations intruded on that stillness: vibrations of sounds, a sense of light and heat, the feeling of another presence close by ... Curious, it tried to expand its senses, reaching out first with audios that picked up the sound of constant repeated pinging and a low hum, then heat-sensors which washed the space around it in colours of purple, blue and yellow with spatters of red here and there, and lastly ... optics.

A dozen systems came online at once, bombarding its processor with information ... depth of field, light intensity, movement tracking, colour and pattern recognition ... data scrolled through its CPU faster than it could grasp. Thankfully, one by one these systems went dormant until its vision cleared and narrowed down to a single object of focus.

That object was a face.

Grey metal, malleable and twisted into a bemused frown, framed by a white helmet with a large V-shaped crest that made the face look angry, though somehow it didn't think it actually was. The two blue optics in the face were focussed intently and it found itself staring back, oddly mesmerized by their glow.

"Well," the face said. "You're finally awake. It's about time."

Ratchet could not hide his amusement as he severed the uplink. Normally looking through the optics of another 'bot was a vaguely disconcerting mix of sensory input coupled with surface emotions and reactions. Most advanced processors instinctively blocked him out of the deeper functions that would take an invasive scan to penetrate, but this little 'bot's mind was startlingly clear and open and her rudimentary programming translated his visual image with unashamed curiosity.

His readout from the datapad confirmed what the uplink had told him: sensory input was functioning normally. He was a bit worried about the flashes of random code when she first came online: that didn't usually happen with a slow reactivation, but there was no sign of any malfunction. He took a moment to adjust the volume of the audios and visual colour-balance to match the standard parameters before speaking again.

"I'm going to activate your motor controls," he told her. "This may tingle."

To his surprise, her whole body twitched, faceplates contorting in surprise. He paused and waited for any sign of pain or discomfort before continuing. None came. His own sensors could detect electricity running from her core battery down her limbs, activating the circuitry only barely concealed by the spartan plating. She still hadn't moved voluntarily, or even made a sound.

"Open and close your right hand for me," he instructed.

Her optics flickered, a sign she was processing the information he'd just given her. He frowned. It shouldn't be taking this long. A protoform usually took to its first programming like oil to a new cog.

Slowly, the tiny, slender fingers twitched fully open, then curled in, then opened again. Each try became more fluid.

"Good, good," he murmured. "Now the left."

She obeyed much quicker this time. Both hands opened and closed together, first one by one, then in sync.

"Excellent. I'm going to need you to sit up now."

That took a few kliks to process, and even longer to enact. Slowly, very slowly, she raised her upper body. He adjusted the incline of the table until it was flat by the time she sat fully upright.

Then she raised her hands to stare at her fingers. And wiggled them. Without being told.

Ratchet could not have hoped for a better sign of normal cognitive function, and yet he got one. Her gaze moved from her hands to her feet, and when one of them twitched experimentally back and forth her face brightened in sheer delight. She actually swung her legs over the edge of the table and stretched all of her limbs out in front of her, rotating her ankles and wrists.

The medic drummed his fingers on the berth, trying to remember the last time he'd been this entertained. He almost hated to interrupt her.

He cleared his vocalizer to get her attention. The little bot looked up at him and froze, arms and legs still extended stiffly. He could almost see her processor whirring as she took in the sight of him, towering over her even from where he stood at the other end of the table. She stretched out one hand, as if to try and touch him, and fell short by a good distance.

Rachet frowned again, looking back at his readings. Was her depth perception off? He hadn't noticed anything during the uplink, and his data indicated normal visual function. He glanced up to see her probing at the wires that linked her to Teletraan's console.

"Don't touch those!" he barked, sheerly out of habit. She jumped and dropped her hands, optics startled and completely unshuttered.

Great, Ratchet snorted to himself. Less than a breem awake, and she's already got "innocent puppy-eyes" down pat.

He pretended he hadn't seen that. "System calibration appears fine," he muttered to himself. "Boot-up is slow, but the lack of original rudimentary programming might account for that. Motor control," he smirked, "seems fine. How do you feel?" he turned his attention back to the little bot.

She stared at him, optics wide. He stared back. She didn't speak.

He frowned again. "Well? What's the matter? Vocal processor not functioning? Let's have a look."

He stepped closer and seized her chin with practised ease, lifting it to expose the wiring in her throat where the vocalizer rested, just beneath the intake shaft. What happened next surprised him.

A guttural, static-laden voice blurted some indecipherable protest, and her tiny fist collided with the side of his face with enough force to rattle his audio sensors.

It didn't hurt precisely, but it was enough to stun him momentarily. Especially the sound of that voice. Slagging Primus, had that vocalizer really been that badly calibrated? Slowly he turned his head back to glare daggers at his patient, who had her hands clapped over her mouth. She actually shrank back, tucking her elbows in and giving him those wide, innocent optics again.

After a poignant moment, he finally gave a tight nod. "Alright," he said slowly, "you get that one free. But if you ever do that again, I will bolt you by your ankles to the ceiling. Understood?"

She stared at him, hands still over her mouth.

"Nod if you mean yes."

She nodded emphatically, the joints in her neck creaking.

"Good. Now let's see to that vocalizer. You sound like Omega Supreme, for Pit's sake."

She let him lift her chin this time and insert the tool that extended from his finger. The vocalizer had been tricky to install: she hadn't actually had one of her own, so they'd had to make do with a spare from Wheeljack's lab, left over after the construction of the Dinobots. He'd had to literally jury-rig it into the wiring beneath her chin. But it seemed to be holding, and a few quick adjustments would bring the pitch and tone down to something a little more feminine.

"There," he said, "try that."

Pressing a hand to her throat, she made a few uncertain staticky garbles. Annoyed, Ratchet looked back to his datapad again. He'd installed the necessary programming for formulating speech, though her earlier outburst indicated it might not have taken. He ran a scan of that section of code, looking for errors.

"Who ..." a soft, breathy voice interrupted him. He looked up at his patient, her hand still on her throat. "Who ... you ... Who ... are you ...?"

Well, that was something, at least. "I'm the one who put you back together," the CMO grunted. Well, Wheeljack and I, he amended silently. "Though you didn't give me much to work with. How do you feel?"

"...fuh...feel...put togeth-thu-thurr...together" She made another soft breathy sound, but her voice was definitely stronger this time. Maybe there was no malfunction after all. She seemed to be experimenting with it, the same way she had with her hands and feet.

"Yes, yes," he muttered, taking the opportunity to extend one of those hands and test the grasping and tensile strength of her fingers, making adjustments with another small tool as he went. "Well, in any case, you should be able to think much clearer now that I've installed some proper components into that CPU of yours. Not that you'd remember anything from before, anyway."

"Where ... am I?"

The wording and tone were strong enough to make him smile. As with the motor functions, it seemed the vocal software had just taken some time to fully boot up. "Good," he said, releasing her hand and moving up to the elbow. "Very good. You're in my medbay, in a place called the Ark, on the planet Earth. Does this mean anything to you?"

Silence. Wide optics again.

"Hmm, it should," he mused, rotating her arm at the shoulder. "Your databanks should be fully accessible by now. I'm going to have to run some scans on that." There was also that nasty little bit of code he hadn't been able to fully purge, but he doubted that was causing it.

She stared at him, and he was pretty sure she hadn't understood a word. Which wasn't entirely a novel reaction in most of his patients, regardless of their CPU function. Her next question actually startled him.

"Am I... safe?"

Safe? he mouthed the word. What the Pit did she mean by that? She shouldn't have enough grasp on her situation to consider the concept of danger at this point, besides which Teletraan's uplink should be keeping her basic instincts calm. Her original hard-drive had been useless and too damaged for an uncorrupted download, but it was possible she might still have residual imprints from those memories. If that was the case ...

Ratchet released her arm and leaned down until he was at optic-level with her. "Listen to me very carefully," he said, his voice low and even. "My name is Ratchet. I am the Chief Medical Officer at this base, and while you are here, I will allow nothing to harm you. Do you understand?"

She nodded slowly. "Yes ... Rat-chet."

"And," he continued, giving her same rundown he gave every new patient he had ever had, "while you are in this room, you'll do exactly as I tell you, without question and without fuss. Got it?"

She nodded again, and a small, nervous smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. "Yes, Ratchet."

He stood upright again. "Good," he said easily, picking up her other hand and continuing with his examination. "That's very good. Keep that in mind, and we'll get along just fine."

"Who ... am I?"

The facial expressions were a good sign of proper emotional output. This question made Ratchet struggle to hide a smile of his own.

"Now that," he mused, "is a very good question. I don't have a clue. I imagine we'll figure that out the same time you do. Now," he let go of her arm and indicated she turn to face the console. "I want to test how you've incorporated those datafiles I downloaded into you. I'm going to run some visual stimulus by you. Just relax and don't move."

"Yes, Ratchet."

He looked up and frowned. "You ... can just say 'yes', you know."

"Yes, Ratchet," she sang. The small smile had turn into a broad grin, as if she were incredibly pleased with herself and her new game. Her legs swung idly back and forth over the edge of the table.

"Stop that."

"Yes, Ratchet."

The medic groaned inwardly. This, he thought to himself, is why I didn't become a creator.

"I agree wholeheartedly. I just wish it didn't have to be this way." To his credit, the man on the viewscreen did look genuinely remorseful.

"So do I," Optimus Prime nodded sadly. "But for now, I think you are right. It is best we keep a low profile."

"I'm glad you see it that way, Optimus." He sat back in his chair, hands folded on the desk. Unlike his predecessor, this human had proven to be far more reasonable and sympathetic to the unique concerns of Prime's people. Though still rocky at times, it had proven to be a far more beneficial relationship for both sides. It was a shame he would hold this office for only a short time longer. "You're free respond to Decepticon threats at any time, of course, and to patrol your designated area around Mount St. Hilary. Due to our mutual trust in the past, I'm not placing you under official restrictions, you understand ..."

"I do."

"... But we may be prepared to 'escort' any of your people away from potential ... danger zones," he continued. "This is for your safety as well, you understand. Things are ... a little hot out there right now."

"Understandable."

"Quite. And I assure you, this is temporary. Just until it cools down." His friendly drawl was accompanied by a tight smile. "You've been through rough spots with us before. You know we always remember who's who and what's what, in the end."

The Autobot leader rumbled. "You don't have to convince me of anything, Mr. President. You know my desire is to keep both our peoples safe and sound."

The man smiled again, a little more loosely. "That's what I like about talking to you, Prime. You don't mince words. It's a breath of fresh air after all the runabout and mollycoddling I have to deal with every day." He relaxed and straightened in his chair. "The World Government Coalition has voted not to cease or reduce your energy allotment, nor to lift international amnesty to the Autobots, as I'm sure you know. And of course, your activities in any other country are out of my jurisdiction."

"Yes. I appreciate you speaking to me about this yourself."

"Well, that's how it should be done, isn't it? Leader to leader?" He chuckled a little dryly. "Say hello to Ironhide for me, will you, Prime?"

"I will. Optimus out."

The viewscreen went blank. Prowl stepped to his leader's side from where he'd been waiting politely out of sight. "Ironhide was removed from the recovery list as of 1700 hours today," he informed Prime. "However, Ratchet has placed him strictly on light duty for the next orn with a warning that he will, and I repeat, 'reformat him into a rototiller if he so much as touches a weapon, transforms or takes a step out the front door'."

"That's good," Prime murmured. "Have him put on internal security. It's been a while since he's filled that capacity."

"Already done, sir." It was his job, after all, to anticipate one step ahead of his commander.

"What else?"

Prowl pulled a datapad out of subspace. Though he always committed his reports to memory, he preferred to keep a physical checklist as well. "Ratchet also informed me he estimates his current undertaking should be completed by 0600 hours tomorrow. He said that was as precise as he could be at this point." He ticked off the point with his stylus before he went on. "Blaster received an encoded transmission from Jazz precisely on schedule at 1700 hours and 17 minutes today." The wing panels on Prowl's back gave a small twitch. "They are returning to the Ark as previously determined, barring any unforeseen difficulties, and will remain in radio silence until then."

Prime nodded. The Autobot Commander was silent for a moment. "Tell me what you think of the president's suggestion just now," he said finally.

Pulling up the recent memory files of the conversation, Prowl quickly analysed everything from voice inflections to facial expressions to verbal colloquialisms. "I believe he is genuine in his sentiments," he replied, "and I agree his suggestions are the best course of action for the time being."

"And what repercussions do you foresee, Prowl?"

The black and white mech didn't miss a beat. "It may appear to the general public that we are 'hiding our shame', as it were," his wing panels flicked once, as if shrugging. "I doubt any direct violence will result, but we may suffer a further loss of reputation. I do foresee restlessness becoming a problem among certain of our troops." Restlessness was already becoming a problem for certain troops, he amended silently. "Coupled with recent events, it is probable this may cause conflict in the base. I can rearrange the duty roster to keep everyone sufficiently busy, if necessary."

"Good. Do it."

"Yes sir. Is there anything else?"

He already knew there was nothing else. Adding the question signalled the end of the desired report, and was a subtle prompt that if his leader had something he wanted off his chestplate, Prowl was willing to be the foil.

Prime still hadn't moved or even turned away from the blank screen. He let out a deep sigh, the rush of hot air from his ventilation systems disturbing the layer of powdered stone dust that was always present on Teletraan's consoles, a result of half the Ark's command deck being engulfed in four million years of rock formations.

"Is it right," he asked, "to keep anyone in a place against their will, on the assumption it is for their own good? Or even the greater good?"

Prowl paused to the consider the question. Variables ran through his tactical processor, spitting out statistics and possible replies, before he decided on a suitable answer. "We are a military outpost," he said, "and you are the commander. It is for you to decide what the best course of action is for all of us. That is the chain of command, after all."

"Ah, but if we were not speaking of someone within the chain of command?"

A longer hesitation. Prowl wasn't merely playing along; he knew what Prime was referring to. "I stand with my original answer, sir. It's the most practical course of action I can determine. But," he added, "as you are fond of saying, all have a right to freedom. I assume this freedom includes the choice to put oneself at risk." He paused, considering that. "That's a difficult question to answer, Prime."

"Hmm," Prime finally turned to face his second. "Yes, it is," he said. "I'll have my instructions for everyone within the hour. And if you don't mind," Prime added, "clear your schedule for ... oh, 0800 tomorrow. There's an errand I'd like you to run."

At precisely 0800 hours, the doors to the medbay slid open and Prowl was greeted with the sight of the Ark's CMO grappling with what had previously been, the last time he'd seen it, a pile of green and grey scrap.

"No! I said ... Primus fra– what do YOU want..." Ratchet's head swung towards the 'bay doors. "Oh, it's you. Let go of that!" he barked as the construct on the berth latched onto the stylus in his hand.

"I take it things are going ... well?" the second-in-command asked, one optic ridge twitching.

"You don't have to sound so sla- ... so amused," Ratchet growled. He yanked the stylus out of the little bot's grip and held it out of reach, putting one hand on its head to hold it back while its small arms stretched out insistently.

The optic ridge raised completely. Since when did Ratchet watch his language around any patient in his medbay? The thing let out a tinny little giggle, which he found vaguely unsettling. "Is it ... functioning properly?"

"She's fine," Ratchet grunted. "She's just operating on less than ideal parameters right now. Doesn't exactly have a full set of cogs up there yet, so to speak. Sit still," he ordered it, giving its head a little shove.

Prowl took another, closer look at the bot perched on the edge of the table. Ratchet's preliminary report on its status had stated that it currently had no programming relevant to gender specifics, but Wheeljack's reconstruction did indeed make it look female. At least what had been done so far.

"Prime sent me. I take it she's able to leave the bay?"

"Leave the bay?" Ratchet goggled at the SIC. "She's been awake for nearly two joors! Primus, yes, she can leave the slaggin' ... aw fraggit."

"Slagging!" the little bot chirped happily.

Ratchet groaned. "Do you have any idea how long it took me to get her to stop saying that word?"

"Does she know what it means?"

"Not from any information I gave her. But she knows I don't want her saying it," he glared pointedly at the little femme, who grinned happily back at him. "It's a great big game to her now."

Prowl stared at the medic in surprise. "So she is actually cognisant? She's not just operating on routines?"

"No, she knows exactly what she's doing, fraggit."

"Fraggit!" his patient chimed with delight.

"Stop that," the medic snapped. "Look, here's the shiny stylus. You like that? Good." He looked back at Prowl. "For the love of the Matrix, get her out of here for a bit so I can run a sla... a diagnostic in peace, please?"

The little bot put the stylus in her mouth and experimentally bit down. Why she did that, Prowl couldn't have guessed. "Prime wants to speak with her," he told the medic. "Is that advisable?"

Ratchet tapped the side of his faceplate. "Don't see why not," he said. "Letting her push her boundaries a bit might speed things along. There's a few things you need to be aware of. No stress," he said firmly. "Keep her out of sight and away from crowds. She has trouble focussing on any one thing for very long. You have to speak to her very slowly and clearly. Hey," Ratchet tapped her on the side of her head. "This is Prowl," he said, keeping his voice firm and steady. He pointed at the black-and-white Datsun officer.

The ... protoform seemed to acknowledge him for the first time, as if the Autobot Second-in-Command hadn't existed until Ratchet pointed him out. Her optics dilated and all movement ceased as she examined him.

He did the same in return, taking the opportunity to note some differences in her structure from other basic femme designs. Her optics were far too big for her facial structure. There were exposed cables sprouting from her head which seemed to attach somewhere on her back. They were disconcerting to look at, and he hoped Wheeljack was designing her a proper helm covering. The backs of her shoulders, which he could see through the minimal plating on the front, showed extra rotating gear attachments. Still, she was remarkably well put together considering the previous shape she had been in.

Ratchet pulled the stylus out of her mouth. "Say hello."

"Hello, Prowl." The greeting was accompanied by a smile that stretched from one side of her face to the other. Her voice was high in pitch and a little squeaky. Perhaps Ratchet could fix that later.

"Hello," Prowl told her. She beamed back at him. Cognisant interaction, he mused. He'd never had the chance to be this close to a protoform other than those from his own creation batch. Most did not interact with the general population until after their first complete upgrade. Of course there were always exceptions like the Aerialbots, who'd been sparked already fully complete. These days, he corrected himself, when it came to Vector Sigma there seemed to be nothing but exceptions.

"Be careful what you say around her," Ratchet grunted. He tapped at his datapad with the stylus, which now bore a set of tiny indents. "She asks a lot of questions, and I'm not sure if she's fully aware what they mean. And as you saw, she does a lot of things that don't make any sense. The databanks I gave her don't seem to be syncing properly with her processor, and they were rudimentary at best. So for now, I think she's learning as she goes."

Prowl felt a little trigger of alarm in his logic centre. A 'bot with the limited ability to adequately connect information with reason was a definite concern. "How long will she be like that?"

"Few days, probably. Like my report said, I'm going to upgrade her programming in stages, and I need complete compatibility or I risk a CPU crash. The next bit is pretty simple: increase datafiles, expand logic parameters, introduce some more complete reasoning and deduction coding and some gender specifics ... so once I've worked out the bugs here, we can proceed." He paused, waving a hand at the strange little 'bot and all her exposed wires and cables. "It'll give Wheeljack some time to finish up on his end, too."

"Perhaps we should wait until then," Prowl suggested.

"No, interaction seems to be good for her," Ratchet flipped his datapad around to give Prowl a glimpse of some scrolling figures. "See? Cognitive function's increased by one-point-two-two-five since you introduced yourself. You should have seen the change once I got her speaking to me. One more thing you should know," he added, "I couldn't root out that little coding problem, but it seems to be dormant for now. I'm going to run some kind of anti-virus with her upgrade and see if that doesn't help, but until then just keep a close eye on her."

The SIC looked dubiously at the little 'bot, who was now staring up at the ceiling in abject fascination. The thing seemed hardly much bigger than a minibot, and certainly had less mass to it. Then again, it had managed quite a bit of damage on its own before they brought it in. And judging by what he'd seen upon entering the medbay, he suspected Ratchet was more concerned at the moment about the sanctity of his medbay than the rest of the base.

Ratchet tapped her on the shoulder and she jerked her attention from the roof to the medic. "Prowl is going to take you to see someone important," he told her. "You're going to behave. Do you understand?"

Her smile, like her optics, seemed too big for her face. "Yes, Ratchet," she singsonged.

"For the love of Primus," the CMO muttered, detaching the cables that connected her to Teletraan's console. He gave the bot a little shove, prompting her to slide off the table. She wobbled on her feet a little, but Ratchet was there to steady her. "Easy there. She can walk fine, she's just getting used to it. Go on," he told her, giving her another, gentler shove towards Prowl. She stumbled, but righted herself easily enough.

"I'm sending a data packet to you and Prime with everything I just told you. I want it passed on to the crew at the soonest convenience." He waved a hand to the door. "Now shoo. I need to run these results through some sims. Make sure she's back in half a joor, tops."

Prowl looked down at the little green and grey femme peering up at him and wished, not for the first time, that Jazz was back in communication range. He was much better at this kind of thing.

"Oh, and since we had to remove some of her components for repairs, she can't use her alt form," Ratchet added. "So if she makes a run for it, I doubt she'll get very far."

"You think she'll try to escape?"

Ratchet snorted. "Slag, no. I meant if she sees something shiny."

End Chapter 1: Bare Basics

A/N: The idea that memories do not exist solely in memory files but also in the spark itself is something I got from reading Vaeru's amazing-beyond-words-with-a-cult-following fanfic Juxtaposition, which is by far one of the most excellent TF fanfics out there and one of the best stories I have ever read. I can't remember what chapter that part is explained in though, so you'll just have to read the whole thing ;D

A note on transformer time:

Klik = less than a second
breem = 8.3 minutes
joor = about 6 hours
orn = 13 days
vorn = 83 years

*The Autobots have been on Earth for many years and have incorporated Earth time into their lexicon as well, so they tend to use a mix of both depending on which works better for the situation.