Some Secrets Must Never Be Told
Chapter Two-Secret's Out.
A few weeks later.
Bumblebee delicately trailed the brush down the large sheet of paper lying on the floor before him, watching as the colour bled into the paper, giving the figure before him the same deep green colouration he recalled from his memory.
It was the suggestion of Sunstreaker, himself an artist, that Bumblebee try his hand at painting. His hand was steady, Sunstreaker had assured him, it would be something he could at least try. "Everyone needs a hobby, Bee." The yellow scoundrel had told the scout. "Try it in your room, if you're slagging useless at it, at least you've tried and no-one needs to know."
He wasn't exactly useless at it, he found, at least Sam, the only person he had so far shown his efforts to, had thought they were quite good. Now, as Bumblebee carefully applied the brilliant red colour he recalled from his memory to the picture before him, he was unconcerned.
There were always exceptions to every rule, and maybe the dark green femme he was painting had liked the idea of a green body contrasting with red optics. The optic colour was no sure guarantee of affiliation. Frenzy was ample proof of that, and he had once heard Sunstreaker state the reason he had joined the Autobots despite some of his views leaning more towards the Decepticon side of things:
"What, me, join the 'Cons?" he had said with ample sarcasm. "Not slagging likely, what a fashion disaster that would be with my gorgeous paintwork. I'm not having their symbol blotting my bodywork. Purple just ain't my colour!"
Smiling, Bumblebee sat back to run a critical optic over his work. He compared it with the image in his memory, the smiling femme, one hand raised to the centre of her chest, the optics half-shuttered as she sang a Cybertronian lullaby. It was an incomplete memory, brief, but it was one of his few memories of his maternal unit, the one who had cared for and nurtured him before whatever had happened to her had happened. Who had killed her, he wondered, and why?
He pushed that thought aside, for it was a question he knew he'd probably never get the answers to. The only witnesses who could answer that were the only people left alive afterwards, and that would likely be the perpetrator or perpetrators, and his/her/their leaders and/or followers, if any. The only certainty he had, that Optimus had told him, is that she had been shot in the dataports on full force, by somebody. The reason was unknown. He had been the only survivor, and as the few memory chips he had had were completely full, he had no memory of the attack.
His door chimed, and he received a databurst requesting permission to enter: it was Ironhide. Bumblebee could not cover his creation as the paint was still wet: he gave permission for Ironhide to enter, if he thought the picture awful, Ironhide would say so, as diplomatically as possible.
Ironhide entered.
"Bumblebee, you have not been at the target range for two weeks, I would suggest that you attend to keep your aim straight….oh, so this is what has been taking your time, is it?" Ironhide smiled at Bumblebee encouragingly. He looked at the painting, looked again.
"Hey, I know who she looks like, but I guess it can't be." Ironhide said. "Who, Ironhide?" Bumblebee asked the Autobot Weapons Specialist. "It could be the same person, and I never did know her name. Please?" he asked.
"It looks like a picture of Weaponsmistress Laserfrost." Ironhide stated. "What she didn't know about freezing and laser-based weapons wasn't worth knowing, and she had the most interesting habit of combining both methods. She worked on the prototype for Jazz's hot-and-cold blaster, y'know. She was one of the last innovative weapons-smiths Cybertron produced."
"What happened to her?" Bumblebee asked. Ironhide sighed.
"She heard Megatron's rousing speeches and just like that, upped and left one evening, cleared out her workshop and left. The next thing we knew, she was with the Decepticons, designing and adapting weapons for them. Then her activities just seemed to…slow down. I heard it said she was one of the last people to receive a Sparkling from the AllSpark, but after a few years, nothing more was heard of her." He peered at the picture again, scrutinising it. "I must say, that picture does look like it's her, the shape of her head and face was very distinctive, unmistakeable, I'd say." He brought up a hologram, and it was unmistakeably the same femme, although with her hand lowered, the purple Decepticon insignia on her chest was no longer hidden beneath the upraised hand as it was in Bumblebee's painting. Unaware of the unpleasant shock he had just given the scout, Ironhide blinked the hologram out, and turned to the suddenly-silent scout.
"Where did you see her' Bee, we've heard nothing about her for several thousands of millennia?" he asked.
Bumblebee dropped his head.
"I have reason to believe she died back on Cybertron." He said. He continued speaking before Ironhide could ask anything else. "Look, I'll book some time in the target range later, but for now, could you leave me alone?"
"Bumblebee, what is it?" asked Ironhide, concerned. This was very unlike the usually sociable young scout. He was not as close to Bumblebee as Optimus was, but he had been around Bumblebee long enough to realise that something he'd said had made the young Autobot agitated.
"Just leave me alone! Go away!" Bumblebee said, almost shouting. He realised he was losing control in front of a superior officer.
"I'm sorry, I just need some time alone for an hour or so. Please?" he asked.
"Okay, Bumblebee, I'm going now." Ironhide said, backing out and allowing the door to close behind him. He heard it click as Bumblebee activated the lock. This, again, was unlike Bumblebee.
"Optimus." muttered Ironhide, heading towards the Prime's office. Optimus Prime knew Bumblebee better than anyone else. Perhaps he could help work out what was bothering the little scout?
oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo
Bumblebee didn't move or speak after closing the door on Ironhide. His processors were whirling. One thought kept repeating.
'My mother….was a Decepticon?' After a few moments, it was joined by another.
'What does that make me?'
He shook himself out of it. First things first: he could access the data-net for more pictures, see if he could see anything on any other photographs to suggest that this Weaponsmistress Laserfrost was not his mother. He knew that Optimus had much of Cybertron's history and knowledge stored in an extra hard drive on his body, and had downloaded this onto the computer network the U.S Government had given them for their Base. He also knew that it was all in Cybertronian and double Autobot-cipher encrypted, which although it wouldn't stop the Government from eventually being able to read it, would at least slow them down some.
Accessing the files, he found several pictures showing the person Ironhide had told him about, and after skimming through the information on there, and looking at the images, he had found nothing to contradict the conclusion he'd drawn: nothing in the pictures except the background and some temporary injuries differed from the memory.
He brought up his own memory to compare, and now he knew it was there, and where to look, there it was. He magnified the area encompassing the hand she had up to her chest, and he could just see, so small you'd have to look for it to see it, the end of a tiny purple point – one of the 'ears' of the spiky Decepticon logo – sticking out from under the palm of the raised hand.
The proof was inescapable. Bumblebee's original maternal unit had been a Decepticon femme.
Bumblebee disconnected the computer link and deactivated the hologram he'd projected. Standing, he checked that Ironhide had gone before opening his door and slipping off down the corridor looking for somewhere to hide.
He needed some time to think.