A/N: This is your educational content of the story. And Optimus, so…oh I can't wait to get hammered by the Optimus fans. Keep in mind: I am an equal-opportunity angster. Of course OP gets his share o' angst. And here's an OC. But he's cool. Right?
IV.
Aircraft Carrier USS Indomitable
Optimus felt several dozen hostile pairs of eyes turn toward him as he entered the impromptu briefing room set up on the wide deck of the carrier. Some of those seated stood in acknowledgement of his entry, but there was none of the 'glad you could make it' chatter like before. Only stony silence. "Gentlemen and ladies," he said, politely, feeling a pinch of nerves. He wasn't a diplomat. This was never his strong suit. He'd been staggering along enough with human/Autobot alliance before when things were easy. Now everyone had heard Ironhide's hostile and defamatory words. What could Optimus do? Apologize. Apologize again. He wasn't making any headway.
Assistant Secretary Galloway stood up at the front of the hastily-erected hut. "All right, gentlemen, now that we're all here," he looked sharply at Optimus as though he had been holding things up, "let us begin." He gestured to a figure in the back of the room, nearly standing alongside Optimus. The figure, in DCUs, strode forward, sweeping a beret off his head as he advanced.
"Master Sergeant Sternburgh," Galloway announced. Apparently the name was impressive to some of the humans. Optimus debated accessing his processor's search function, but didn't want to do anything right now that would jeopardize his attention. He shifted on his feet, listening to some of his new joints creak. They still needed finer machining, but Ratchet had done his best to get Prime presentable and mobile enough already. It hurt, but Prime wasn't going to complain.
"Afternoon, gentlemen, ladies," MSG Sternburgh said, nodding pointedly at the females, highlighting Galloway's rudeness. "DoD called me in to take a look at the footage, as you may know. My task—my team's task—was to verify the authenticity of the transmission and the statement. If you have any questions, please just shout 'em out." He picked up a clicker. The screen behind him burst to life. "I presume by now you have all seen this footage, so I will keep the volume low for the moment. We have it on loop."
Optimus had seen the footage—how could he not?—but still, the damning film drew his eyes. Ironhide, betraying everything Optimus had worked for. It hurt. It had to. He still didn't know what he was going to do, or say, to Ironhide. He still had this to deal with. He hoped he was picking the correct priority. He tore his attention back to the human.
"Our first task was to verify if the sentences themselves were authentic. That means, not a cut and paste, like a YouTube mashup. Our sig-int experts assure me that while the tape is edited—obviously—it's at the end of utterances. The sentences themselves are entire."
He paused. The transmission ran behind him. "Our next task was to determine if perhaps he had been forced to read off of some kind of script. As you know, this happens frequently with hostages in the Middle East. They are expected to read some statement about the evils of the society in which they live.
"That is not the case here. This is no script."
A hand shot up. "How do you know?"
"All right. The scripts normally include the speaker apologizing and renouncing his former life, at the very least, and extolling the power and rightness of his captors. That," he shook his head ruefully, "is not this."
"You said 'normally'."
"We have to consider the purpose of the recording. And the quality of the performance as well. In our usual scripted scenarios, the captives do not try particularly hard to be convincing. Why, then, would this Ironhide give what amounts to an Oscar-worthy acting performance?"
"Depends on what they were doing to me."
Sternburgh turned to face his questioner. He seemed, Optimus thought, to stumble a bit. Or maybe Optimus was just projecting his own injury on the human. It had been…a lot to process. Ratchet had warned him. "That's just it. Torture, right? We all think under torture, we'll say…whatever necessary. While that has been demonstrably proven with physical torture, it has never been conclusively proven with any other sort of pressure. Even setting aside how well you could practice your actorly craft while someone was ripping off your fingernails."
"There was that kid who confessed to murder once." A woman in a skirted suit said, sitting forward.
"Ah, the Allen Chesnet case. Yes. He produced a written confession, you'll remember. That's really more to do with false memory and sleep deprivation than this. Neuroscience and adolescent brain plasticity, you know? Neither of which apply to this scenario. I could go into that later, if you like. But I find the more convincing evidence is here."
He clicked his controller, and the transmission skipped to a blank screen. "Microexpressions, ladies and gentlemen. Brief, fraction-of-a-second facial expressions; hundreds of times more reliable than lasting expressions to determine mood and motivation. You've heard of these? If not, I have a bibliography at the back of my report. I suggest you begin with Ekman." He gestured, and a female soldier in DCUs, with two slim chevrons on her sleeves and blonde hair pulled into a tight braid, began handing out paper packets. She handed one to Optimus as well. The Autobot held it with clumsy fingers. He would have one of the smaller bots look at it later.
"Well, we decided to operate on the presumption that our Cybertronian…." For the first time, he seemed to reach for a word, "guests have entirely consistent body language. Meaning, they react exactly as you or I. On a macro scale, this is obvious—they can look happy or sad or surprised. We have mutual intelligibility of these expressions. Based on that, we decided to presume that microexpressions might occur as well. Going back to the notion of is this robot 'acting', well…if he is, he's acting in ways that directly fit human facial expressions. How and why these Decepticons would coach him on these….?" He let the question dangle. It did seem unlikely, even to Optimus. The Decepticons did not seem to care much for the humans. Definitely not enough to train someone to out-act their best actors. And Optimus couldn't think of a less-forthright bot than Ironhide.
The clicker moved the transmission. It crawled into slow motion. "You can see the transcript of this, this is Microexpression Exhibit Alpha, on page 29 of your packet, if you want to follow along with the words. You can see here," he froze the crawling tape. "Contempt. See the curling lip? The wrinkle at the bridge of the nose? Like a bad smell? Classic." He sped the transmission up. Prime heard Ironhide's angry voice, "Slaggin' useless humans. Come along just to keep the illusion that they're still in control." He saw the features that the Master Sergeant described numbly. He absently rubbed the new, unprimered plating of one wrist.
Sternburgh commented, "The contempt is for the humans."
"How do you know it's not toward his interrogator?"
"Good question." Sternburgh beamed at the questioner. "He doesn't like his interrogator. That's," he fumbled with his copy of the report and the clicker. "Here. Exhibit Echo." The transmission skipped and then picked up. Sternburgh froze it. "See the difference? The exposed teeth and the flare of the base of the nostrils, here the nasal plate lifting out. This is a textbook snarl."
"Can't he feel both—contempt and snarl—at his interrogator?"
"Extremely unlikely. The psychodynamics argue against it. Contempt is for something that you feel is not a threat. A snarl is for something that is, quite clearly, a threat. The interrogator threatens his self-concept, thus, the snarl. The subject of the humans' ability in combat is no threat to his self-concept. Complete disdain."
Director Galloway looked pointedly back at Optimus, crossing his legs. The creases of his trousers seemed to point accusingly at the screen.
"He's obviously upset," someone added. "Duress."
"First, you blurt in duress. Probably statistically more likely to blurt the truth than to make up something on the spot." He turned to his script again. "As to what's upsetting him, it's totally unrelated. Watch." He played another clip. Froze it. "See this upside-down U shape of the lower lip? With the forward thrust of the lip? We call that 'Heartbreak Ridge.'" He laughed. "It's a cheezy title, sure. But tells you everything you need to know. He's not getting pressured by rage. He's getting pressured by sorrow. Whatever this interrogator's using on him is not affecting his anger controls. This is him. And his anger."
Galloway shifted, riffling through the report. "We need to move along. Conclusions?"
The Master Sergeant looked crestfallen—he was clearly just warming to his favorite theme. Optimus could respect the soldier's enthusiasm, even though every word he said made Prime heartsick.
"The report is thorough. Only one aspect we were unable to investigate is, of course, the original language. We have the raw feed in Cybertronian as well as several dozen translations into Earth languages. Impressive translation protocols they have, by the way. There is apparently a human expert in the Cybertronian language, but we have been unable to acquire her for our team." He shot a pointed look at Galloway, who pinched his lips. "This is a faultless translation as near as we can tell, which we have had to get from the Autobots." He looked unhappy about having to rely on them. Made sense, Optimus thought. Why trust the Autobots when you were investigating them? "The vocal modulations even match."
Galloway gave him a hostile eye. Sternburgh sighed. "In conclusion, then. Everything this bot, this Ironhide says, is exactly how he feels. He is not reading a script. He is not being forced to say this. The interrogator himself," and he paused for one last clip. Optimus heard Barricade's calm voice, again asking such a reasonable question, "is clearly not using overt or illegal tactics. This is who the bot is and how he feels. End of discussion."
"Anything else?" Galloway asked, standing up to shoo Sternburgh back.
"Yeah. I want this Barricade guy on my team. Yesterday."