Blurr woke from the sensation of being tied and held down. He gasped, briefly at odds with how he felt about it, only to find the berth covers twisted around him like a snare. Apparently he had pulled them over himself in his recharge.

Since when did he have berth covers?

Blurr shot up into a sitting position and his processor helpfully supplied a short summary of what had led him to being where he was right now. Tension decreased by a fraction and Blurr fell back on to the berth with a moan. Tiredness still clung to his chassis yet he forced his stiff frame out of the berth. Waking with a start several times in the dead of night due to strange sounds which maybe, possibly, perhaps were incidative of experiments ongoing but most likely were just old building noises had not helped with recharge either.

Lounging in berth was out of question when Blurr's fate was this uncertain; by the time Longarm knocked on his door Blurr was already a pacing mess of nerves.

-"What has you so agitated?"

-"My handlers, I finally reached them but they say they no longer have custody over me. Why would they be doing this, I was good, I was never late or slow, or impolite. I'm, I'm going to be smelted, am I not?!"

Blurr's optics were pale as he wrapped his hands around himself and retreated to the corner of the room, suddenly wary of Longarm. He flinched when the other mech reached out to set a gentle hand on his shoulder strut.

-"Change of handlers does not equal smelting, you know?"

Blurr looked at him dumbstruck. -"What do you mean?"

-"It is as you said. Your performance is beyond reproach and your frametype is not easy to come by. If they are not your handlers anymore, it only makes sense that the handler rights have been passed on to someone else."

Blurr stuttered at how simple Longarm made it sound. Essentially it meant Blurr had been sold, he'd heard of mecha like him being sold but never considered that it would happen to him one day. This Had to be something else, Blurr begged Primus it was something else.

-"But I have not even delivered my last data packet."

-"You will be able to do it tonight when master Shockwave returns; he had been anticipating it for a while now."

Blurr stammered, going ramrod straight. Most data packets he delivered were not conveyed directly to the recipients but passed through receptor mechs - another frametype bred and maintained to filter out any malware which might have been attached to the message, oftentimes to their own detriment.

Moreover Shockwave was not known for entertaining his visitors, even less so - service bots. Blurr had anticipated to pass on the message to whoever took care of reception business in Shockwave's abode, not to Shockwave personally.

-"Can I just do it the way it is normally done?"

Longarm finally managed shooing the spooked mech out of the guest quarters and into the hallway.

-"Not this time, it is too important to be handled by middlemechs."

-"But, after the transfer's done, where will I go? I have no information on my new handlers, could have they just, just disowned me?" Blurr mentally tallied up the mechs he knew and the mechs who could offer him shelter if that was the case.

There had been two other mechs in his litter - Cheetor was faster than Blurr but lacked endurance - more suited for delivering parcels to short destinations and from last Blurr heard, lived in Iacon. Drift had heaps of energy but could not keep his focus - he was eventually employed in racing in Rodion. Blurr was the best representative of his cohort - quick, lightweight and tenacious - perfect for long - distance travel over uneven and treacherous terrain… and hopelessly out of touch with his siblings.

-"Are you needed anywhere else?" Pulled out of his thoughts Blurr realised that Longarm had been studying his features with soft concern.

-"No. But I, I don't have anywhere to go either."

-"Then I'm sure you can stay here until that changes."

Longarm resumed walking and gestured Blurr to follow. His offer was generous and Blurr thanked Longarm but that did not calm him even one bit. Blurr did not mind Longarm but he feared Shockwave in a way any other sane creature who knew about him would.

The hallways were dark and when they passed the row of windows and Blurr chanced a look outside. The acid storm had let up in the morning just enough for him to be able to contact his former handlers but now it gained intensity once more. They did not meet anyone else on their way. Aside from a couple of maintenance drones the place was empty and Blurr got a distinct feeling that no other mechs apart from Longarm and Shockwave inhabited the manor.

Longarm led Blurr to a rather spacious but similarly empty kitchen area where he retrieved some energon from the pantry, Blurr paced because that was all he could do.

-"There you go. Would you want any additives to soothe your worries?"

Blurr stammered at the blatant offer but politely refused and received the same resiny energon which he had gotten the night before. Blurr wondered if that was all they had but felt it would be impolite to ask for anything else.

-"Forgive my asking but, are there any other inhabitants here apart from you and master Shockwave?"

-"We seldom have guests and master Shockwave is often out so you could say that we currently are the sole inhabitants here."

Poor mech, on his own with only drones for company. Blurr could relate, delivery service was a lonely business as well which was why when he did meet someone he nearly drowned them in the sea of things which went otherwise unsaid.

-"Does it get lonely sometimes?"

-"Maintaining the house keeps me busy for most part and drones are not such a bad company either when you get to know them. Though, having someone new is always a pleasure." Longarm gave Blurr a meaningful glance and the speedster felt his faceplates heat up.

Suddenly embarrassed, Blurr scrambled to break the uncomfortable silence which had settled between them.

-"Do you get to leave and interact with other mecha sometimes?"

-"Yes and no. I am not tied down but most matters are handled by delivery systems not dissimilar to the one you work for. It is more the remoteness of this area which prevents me from meeting other mecha often."

Blurr settled on looking into space over the rim of his barely-touched energon cube. If Longarm's testimony was anything to go by then working for Shockwave was not that bad after all. Maybe he could convince Shockwave to hire him too, provided he could prove his usefulness. With a new sense of purpose, Blurr set down his cube.

-"I, don't mean to sound ungrateful but I hate being idle and seeing as I have nothing else to do at the moment would you mind greatly if perhaps I could tag along help you out?"

Before Longarm could protest Blurr added -"As a sign of appreciation for letting me stay here and fetching me from the acid storm, I promise I will not get in the way."

And for all his jitteriness Blurr didn't. In fact it was almost ridiculous how acutely aware he was of Longarm's personal space and dimensions - always close, never in the way.

They assessed the energon stocks with Blurr sprinting down the long storage corridor and counting the cubes on his way. To his distress he noted that, yes, the resiny type of energon was the only thing in their stocks. The large engine room which supplied the manor with a surprisingly meager amount of energy was their next destination. Their teamwork did come to a spectacular halt when Blurr in his jitteriness accidentally dropped a glass beaker and almost had a breakdown over it.

-"Blurr, you needn't prove your usefulness at every turn. Rest easy, you will not be mistreated here."

Blurr looked to the side, visibly embarrassed, he hadn't thought that his motives were so obvious. The fact that the time of meeting the owner of the manor was drawing closer only made him more desperate. In vain did he try to reassure himself that his meeting with Shockwave in the evening and the subsequent data transfer would be just that… that his sudden abandonment by his handlers was just a clerical mistake and yet he could not lie to himself. Uncertainty and dread settled in his spark.

Longarm softly cleared his throat to draw Blurr's attention.

-"I'm to leave to Master Shockwave's quarters soon. I am afraid you can't come with me there but feel free to explore other areas. I would have suggested that you visit the crystal gardens but because of the rain that option is void. However the mansion has a rather large library, if that would trigger your fancy."

Experiencing a mild bout of panic about the prospect of being left on his own in a giant empty manor Blurr nodded halfheartedly.

They passed several identical corridors until they reached an area which bore some semblance to other manors Blurr had been to - namely it looked like it had not been copied and pasted several times in a row. Longarm pushed a large door to the side and gestured Blurr to enter first.

Blurr gasped

The low light of the overcast afternoon filtered through the stained crystal panes. Rows and rows of data pads were illuminated by the eerily tinted light.

-" It's extraordinary."

Even in his nervous state Blurr could appreciate the sheer vastness of the area, the high ceiling, the winding expanse of pure data at his fingertips, humming with dormant charge that was palpable enough for his messenger systems to pick up upon. He was in love, more than that, he was charged up.

-"I'll leave you to explore."

Longarm might as well have said it to an empty room, the natural pull Blurr's subroutines had for data emanated from the blue messenger bot and he deemed it best to let the little thing have some fun.

Blurr had been to a library of sorts before - for deliveries and such but not a place where he was allowed to browse at leisure. For that matter he could not recall having a moment to do anything at his leisure. This, this was like having an actual moment for himself. Blurr eyed the data pads hungrily - most looked well-worn with a myriad of hairline scratches on the opaque parts, as if a cybercat had had a go at them.

Tentatively Blurr extended his hand towards the device which had caught his interest, yet hesitated to touch it as if he was an impostor in a place like this. Longarm had said he was free to explore the library, Blurr wanted to do it badly yet the steely boundaries of his standing ingrained in his subroutines held him back.

He decided to take it easy. First he slid a finger down the side of the pad he wanted, then, carefully, he attempted prying it out without disturbing the row or making any noise. Finally the pad came free and Blurr cradled it to his chest. With great care he set the pad on one of the tables and turned it on. It looked like a book of schematics of some older drone frametypes. Blurr canted his helm to the side to better understand what was portrayed in the pad but soon realised that the descriptions were not in a language he knew.

Blurr blinked and tried decyphering the glyphs to see if they bore resemblance to anything familiar. They surely were not Iaconian or Polyhexian but the downward sweeps of the ending glyphs and dot clusters above the main line of writing reminded him of how Tarnish looked like.

So could it be that Shockwave knew Tarnish or was it that he owned the pad only for collector value? A smirk spread over Blurr's face - an idea. Since most of his sources about the mysterious owner of the manor were gossip perhaps reading habits might shine some light on what sort of mech this Shockwave actually was. Blurr would make sure to be prepared for his meeting with the mech tonight.

Methodically he combed through the library in search of the most scruffed and used-looking datapads. It was likely that the more used-looking pads were the ones Shockwave had more interest in.

With a sense of purpose Blurr laid an armful of datapads he had selected on one of the library's desks and categorised his bounty in order of scruffiness - from most worn to the newest-looking. Selecting the pad with most wear and tear Blurr lit it up and browsed the first couple of pages only to slam the off-button once he got to page 10. His faceplates were so hot they almost glowed.

Well, if anything the mech was well-versed in Praxan courtship rituals and techniques. Gingerly setting the tome aside, Blurr eyed another old-looking pad with rising apprehension. This one was on mechanical anatomy, written in what appeared to be a Kaonite-Iaconian pidgin which Blurr could partially decipher only thanks to the Iaconian part of the dialect.

It looked like Shockwave was into linguistic rarities.

Blurr opened another pad, which seemed to contain old maps of the area with long-gone settlements and territories of mecha tribes that no lonter existed. It was like reading fantastic history, Blurr soaked up the information as if it had been the sweetest energon, greedily committing every page to his memory banks and associating what he had seen on field with the information he gleaned from the records.

-"Do you like them?"

The voice made Blurr jump and he whipped about, noticing that the pile of the datapads he had stacked on the table probably looked like poor library behaviour to Longarm.

-"I will put them back, I just got really fascinated by these old maps. They are like nothing I have seen before."

Longarm stepped up to stand by his side and asked Blurr to elaborate.

-"You see, I need to know the terrain I am passing so I have memorised the courrier maps but I never knew the origins of some of the landmarks. We are just told they have been always there and that it is none of our business to know. But this here .." Blurr gestured at the particular point in map -" Used to be an old trade route, and this cairn on the hill used to be a fortification. I did not even know there were entire cities buried under fine rubble and metalloflora."

Blurr stopped abruptly, realising that he had been babbling.

-"You gleaned all this from only comparing maps and your own observations?"

Chewing on his bottom lip Blurr wondered about how he should answer that. -"I did, Sir. I mean, I can't be sure but it makes sense when I look at them."

Longarm smiled.

-"You will be meeding master Shockwave in a cycle. I will be here to guide you to the meeting room ten clicks earlier."


Blurr found the original tome of 'The art of Interface' written by Prowl's great uncle. Prowl himself denies ever being related to the mech whilst Smokescreen proudly flounts his heritage.