On the Freedom of Existence.
Chapter Two.
A/N: Bold type is memories.
WARNING: Non-graphic torture near the end of this chapter.
Prowl?!
Ratchet jerked back, involuntarily severing the connection. He immediately leaned forwards, ready to reconnect to assist with the booting-up process, but it seemed that Barricade (Prowl?) was now booting up as normal. He groaned as his optics unshuttered, tried to raise a hand, but his magnetic restraints stopped him. Barricade – or could it really be Prowl, who had been missing for so long? – looked up in confusion.
"So, I'm still being treated like an enemy, am I?" he said, sounding as hurt and confused as he looked. There was something else there too, in his optics, a shadow of fear.
"Just for now, until we prove or disprove that you are who you say you are. You see, you don't look like Prowl used to, and even your voice sounds different, and Barricade – that's the Decepticon you look like – is an expert at fooling people, in fact takes great pride in being so convincing, at getting people to accept his lies as truth, that we have to be careful, because he is so good, so convincing, that he may even fool me." Ratchet explained. "So, you understand, that we can't just take you at your word."
Prowl nodded: he had himself been in a similar situation many times: trust someone or something, and risk his Autobot companions, or not trust, and risk the potential death of one person, although he knew Ratchet well enough to know that Ratchet would need absolute proof that he was his enemy before allowing him to die, or be killed, and this was not even a situation that would necessarily require that.
"Ratchet, what do you need to do to prove to you who I am?" he asked, although he was sure he knew what most of what it would involve already.
"I need to operate on your head, remove anything damaged, and replace it with new parts, then have a direct interface with you, involving me opening memories that you or your subconscious may prefer to remain secret." Ratchet explained gravely "I'm sorry, but that is the only way."
Mindrape. Without Prowl's permission, that is what Ratchet would be doing if he did this, and what Prowl was certain some Decepticon 'medics' sometimes engaged in with captured Autobots. However, Prowl did have a possible out – if he refused to allow it, he knew that Ratchet would not do it. However, this would also mean that nobody could trust him, because the knowledge – or special 'sleeper' instructions - might be within his processors, either unconsciously or consciously, as far as anyone knew. The very thought of laying bare his feelings, thoughts, memories, and emotions made him feel ill, but the thought of his friends and comrades in arms not trusting him – or worse, trusting him and being betrayed by his own subconscious – was even worse.
"Well, do whatever it'll take to get your proof but please hurry up." Prowl stated. "I want my old life and my friends back."
Ratchet nodded.
"Okay, I'm going to offline you now, I am not going to be physically poking around in your processors while you are activated, that would hurt." Ratchet said. "If you would push your upper abdomen up from the table?" he asked. Prowl did so, allowing Ratchet to slip a hand under the left shoulder plate and activate the offline button concealed beneath.
Prowl/Barricade relaxed, and Ratchet waited a short time to be certain that he was completely offline before carefully removing a side panel so he could access the mech's processors.
A couple of hours later, he had removed several burned-out memory chips, an over-large master processor, and other assorted wires, chips, connections and circuitry that needed replacing. He put them aside for later investigation, for he had his suspicions about that over-large processor, and some of the attached circuitry. Even beneath the slagging and charring, he could tell that the master processor, and the chips that had been attached to it, were newer than the other master processor and chips that still lay inside the mech's head.
He carefully fastened back the plating he'd removed, and brought the black-and-white mech back online. The optics unshuttered and fixed on Ratchet again.
"I need to do the interface while you are aware, and conscious. Are you still willing to allow me to do this?" he asked.
Prowl would have rather not undergone the interface Ratchet needed to do, but nodded.
"Yes, I am ready." He said.
Ratchet took out his interface cable.
"I intend to try and access the last memory you have before you woke here on your original processor chips. I had to remove the newer ones, they were damaged beyond my ability to repair, although I may yet be able to retrieve some of the data on them and transfer it to others." Ratchet said.
Prowl turned his head to expose his data ports. Ratchet carefully raised every firewall he had to guard against dormant viruses his probing might activate, inserted the data lead, and delicately started sifting through the mass of date-information on the memory chips in the head of the mech who said he was their lost comrade, Prowl. He rapidly found the one he sought, started trying to undo the blocks on it – some parts imposed by the mech himself, a method of blocking the memory of unpleasant events, but most imposed by a third party.
The mech beneath him tensed, clawed hands gripping at the sides of the table. This was obviously not a pleasant feeling, and maybe it was not a present memory. Ratchet almost withdrew, but unblocking this memory might be key to finding out if this mech really was Prowl, as he said he was, or whether it was Barricade, consciously or otherwise, with a different agenda.
As Ratchet broke through the last block, the mech beneath him cried out and his whole body went tense, but by then, Ratchet was through, in the memory, and seeing it as it had happened, from the mech's point of view.
Prowl had been badly damaged, not badly enough to kill him, but severely enough that the Decepticon party who has attacked had been able to capture him, and now the mech in charge of this small party addressed him.
"You have one chance to save your own miserable life, Autobot. Come, join us, work with us, and take your rightful place as one of those who will rule over all the weak and unworthy creatures in this universe."
Prowl did not recognise any of those who had taken him, but realised why he was being given this chance. Ordinarily, a captured Autobot was killed, or tortured for information, or, if it suited the Decepticons, used for a prisoner exchange or as a bargaining chip. However, this small band numbered only four individuals. With him in their ranks, their chances of surviving being attacked by a band of Decepticons whose loyalties lay with any one of four potential leaders – this band apparently were Megatron supporters in search of their lost leader – were increased.
Prowl gave a short laugh in response, damaged and in pain as he was.
"Go to the Pit, you useless lump of slag, I'd rather die than join with your twisted, Pitspawned group."
"Very well." Said the group leader regretfully. "Someone finish him off. Kill him."
The mech behind him had jammed a narrow cannon barrel up against his dataports, and Prowl had stared at the group leader, determined to go out with defiance in his optics, when another voice spoke.
"I have a better idea."
All optics, including Prowl's, turned to the medium-sized mech who had spoken.
"Tell me your idea, Salvage." Said the leader.
"Let me have him, perhaps I can change his mind for him." The mech addressed as Salvage had said.
"Never!" said Prowl. "Nothing you say will change my mind. You may as well kill me rather than waste the processor space trying to convince me to switch sides. I won't do it!"
Salvage laughed unpleasantly.
"You misunderstand me, Autobot. You will have no choice. I won't be needing to persuade you to change your mind, I'll be changing your mind in such a way that you will believe in our cause. By the time I finish with you, you will have a new belief, a new cause, a new name and a new identity. I used to be a craftsmech, I can totally redesign you, processors and body, you will even end up looking quite different to the way you do now."
Prowl felt a fear greater than any he had felt before. This creature intended to reprogram him!
"Please, just kill me." He managed to whisper. The group leader just laughed.
"We need new soldiers, and Salvage is very good at what he does. Like him, I despise waste. Take him, Salvage, remake him into a fierce Decepticon fighter who will do our side proud."
It had been pure agony.
Salvage had begun by changing his body first, and hadn't bothered with offlining him first. He had been forcibly restrained, his limbs clamped to the table by restraints on his ankles and wrists, as Salvage cut away and re-welded plating, and Prowl had resisted and twisted and screamed...
Ratchet pulled back from the interface abruptly, coming back to himself in a moment.
Prowl's screams still sounded, this time in reality, not just in the mind, and Ratchet looked at the twisting mech, realised, as Ironhide came running in from the corridor outside, that he and Ironhide had unwittingly recreated part of Prowl's real-life nightmare, as Prowl tried to free himself from the magnetic cuffs binding him to Ratchet's worktable.
"Ironhide! Release those cuffs, let him go!" Ratchet snapped.
Ironhide eyed the screaming mech uncertainly.
"Ratch? Are you su-" Ratchet cut him off.
"Do it! For the love of Primus, Ironhide, trust me and just do it!" Ratchet cried. Ironhide released the magnetism of the cuffs on Prowl.
Prowl was off the table and on his feet in an optic-shutter, and then launched himself at Ratchet. He wrapped his arms around Ratchet, who let out a cry as the hands thudded onto his bodywork, the claws dug into his back, and the arms tightened so much that Ratchet feared for his torso's structural integrity.
Ironhide went to grab one of the wrists, but Ratchet yelled "No, Ironhide, don't! He's not attacking me, not intentionally, he just wants to hold me!"
"What?" asked Ironhide.
Ignoring the trickle of coolant running from the punctures created by the claws, Ratchet said "He's not attacking me, he's holding me." Ratchet responded by carefully putting his own arms gently around Prowl. He looked up at Ironhide.
"He's terrified!"
