Lockdown quickly paid Swindle and shooed him away. He had no interest in purchasing whatever McGuffin-of-the-week the arms dealer was peddling.

There were things that needed to be done. Most of them involved Prowl.

The Autobot could do with a few customizations. A few cosmetic changes wouldn't hurt, although the phrase, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' sprung to mind. It would be nice if Prowl was completely unrecognisable, but that kind of defeated the point of picking such a pretty 'bot in the first place.

So, the first thing that Lockdown did was try to pry off Prowl's visor. It seemed to be pretty well attached to Prowl's face, so Lockdown gave the visor a hard yank.

There was a rather unpleasant snapping noise as something broke.

Well. That sounded painful. Lockdown sheepishly grabbed a pair of cable cutters and snipped the remaining wires that connected the visor to Prowl's visual processors.

Once the visor was completely free, he examined the device; as he suspected, it seemed to be more than just a protective feature. Probably allowed for infrared perception or whatever. Most visors were basic mods, acting as one large optical sensor to give the wearer a larger field of vision. They also had the added benefit of making the wearer's facial expression slightly harder to read, although Lockdown had never really seen the point in that. He wanted his opponents to see his face while he fought.

Prowl's face seemed oddly naked without the visor on. Despite his state of stasis, the Autobot was still frowning. Lockdown took the corners of Prowl's mouth, and pulled them in to a smile. The expression looked completely ridiculous. Lockdown let go, allowing Prowl's mouth to form its usual pout.

Lockdown clipped the visor to his own face for slag-n-giggles, took a moment to admire himself in the reflection of his hook, then considered Prowl's optics. They looked rather messy, given that the visor had been connected via Prowl's optical sockets, but that was easily remedied. Changing their color from blue to purple would be a simple programming job. Cipher could fix that. In the meantime, he needed to fix Prowl's (still broken) right hand, and possibly give Prowl's audio sensors an upgrade. Not that Prowl's existing audio sensors were anything to scoff at, but Lockdown had a spare pair that he'd 'borrowed' from an overclocked punk back in Iacon, and he might as well put them to good use.

He arranged his tools so that everything he needed was within arm's reach, and got to work. It was good to have a hobby.

There were still plenty of loose ends that'd need tying up. At the very least, Lockdown intended to tell Cipher to delete the serial number from Prowl's CPU. Without a serial number, it was nigh-impossible to officially identify a mech - and they were something of a mixed blessing, anyway. On one hand, mechs without a serial number technically had no legal rights. On the other hand (or hook), the Cybetronian authorities used serial numbers to track the activity of its citizens, 'for their own good'. A Cybertronian might change names a lot, but their serial number would always stay the same.

If Lockdown really wanted to be thorough, he could have hired someone to crack in to the government data banks and delete all mention of Prowl from its records, but there was a limit to how much time and money he was willing to invest in the kid.

Frag it, sometimes he wondered if he was going senile from entropy. The ninjabot seemed like an awful lot of trouble.

And what would he do if Prowl ever found out his real identity? Lockdown would probably just have to kill him.

Still. Be fun while it lasted.


Back on Earth, the Autobots were decidedly less cheerful.

Ratchet had put himself in charge of trying to contact the Elite Guard, using Optimus' encryption key to access their frequency. When he finally managed to get through, he found himself looking at Sentinel Prime.

Sentinel seemed surprised to see him. "What do you want? I assume you're aware of article eighty-two of the Uniform Code, which states that it is verboten for an NCO to use an officer's encryption key without-..."

Ratchet interrupted. "We think the 'Cons have got Optimus."

"How long has he been gone?"

"Two solar cycles."

Sentinel frowned slightly. "I'll inform Ultra Magnus."

Sure, that's exactly what when we first lost Prowl, Ratchet thought. When you contacted us again, you gave us a load of slag about how you couldn't spare the resources, and told us to hang on. That was months ago. Granted, it hadn't helped that the conversation had deteriorated in to a shouting match between Sentinel and Optimus, but...

"What's going to happen next?" Ratchet asked.

"I need to go through the proper channels." Sentinel's frown deepened. "It's complicated."

Not for the first time, it struck Ratchet that Sentinel had an extremely punchable face.

"Sentinel," Ratchet said, very slowly. He omitted the mech's rank on purpose. "I believe that you are incompetent, mean-spirited, and denser than a block of Osmium. However, I refuse to believe that you are so incompetent, mean spirited, and above all, STUPID that you wouldn't pull your finger out of your exhaust pipe and try to help to rescue a comrade who you've known for centuries."

Sentinel looked as if he couldn't decide whether he should be angry or not. "Now wait a fragging minute, you outdated heap of scrap," he began. "I... You... That's not fair."

Ratchet knew Sentinel's kind: he was a bully, and bullies tended to be cowards. Ratchet doubted that Sentinel would court martial him for being disrespectful to an officer... And if he did, Ratchet was too angry to care.

"We're meant to be waiting on-... I mean, I... I don't have the authority to..." Sentinel was still stuck between guilt and indignation.

"So pull some strings. You're meant to be a Prime."

"I'll see what I can do." Sentinel abruptly terminated the transmission.

Ratchet stared at the blank screen for a few seconds, then started to count to ten. He had to calm himself down before leaving the room, or he'd probably end up scaring Sari.


After what felt like a long trip, Lockdown's ship reached the border of Autobot jurisdiction. Like most criminals, Cipher chose to live on the edge of Cybertronian 'territory', so that he was still within reach of civilisation while avoiding the worst of the Autobot patrols. Decepticon raids were always a problem, so Cipher's lab was aboard a trigger-happy frigate called Delta Zenith.

Delta was bulky, ancient, and paranoid. Self-aware warships were relatively uncommon these days - and if they all shared Delta's temperament, then it was no wonder why.

Lockdown hailed the vessel, before Delta could mistake him for a 'Con scavenger and blast him in to space debris.

"What," Delta said, over a comm channel. For a being of such size, Delta's vocalizer was surprisingly high-pitched. Lockdown had always wondered if the vessel identified as a femme, but there was no way he was ever going to get close enough to Delta's subsystems to find out.

Lockdown made a strained attempt to be polite. "Pardon?"

"What," Delta asked, "Do you want?"

"This is Lockdown, requesting permission to dock. I'm here to see Cipher about business."

"Permission granted. Proceed to docking bay five." The words might have been polite and formal, but Delta's tone was about as welcoming as a kick in the interface port.

Lockdown let the autopilot handle the docking procedures, then carried Prowl, stasis inducer 'n all, to the airlock. As soon as he put one foot on board the frigate, Delta's internal security cameras all swivelled to watch his every movement. It was nice to know he was trusted.

The inside of the ship was grubby and overcrowded. Cipher was hardly the only passenger; Delta also carried a group of cryptovirologists, an unlicensed medic, and a vicious cabal of mini-con pirates. Delta acted as bodyguard, peacekeeper, and interstellar landlord (or landlady?) for the lot of them. From what Lockdown heard, everyone was terribly good about keeping up with the rent.

He found Cipher's lab easily enough. It was situated in the area that used to be the ship's brig. (Delta didn't have much use for a brig. Delta just airlocked people.) Cipher must have been expecting him, as the door was unlocked; Lockdown stepped in, and immediately put a hand over his olfactory sensors. The room smelled like spent energon and dead nanites.

Cipher was in a corner, with a mop. "Sorry about the stink. Some acquaintances of mine wanted me to question a 'bot for them. The 'bot didn't react very well." He gave Lockdown a smile. "How can I help you?"

Lockdown hefted Prowl off his shoulder, and set him down on a nearby workbench. "Alright, bear with me. There's this mech. He's potentially useful. But he's doesn't seem to know what's best for himself. He's had a few bad run-ins with powerful mechs, and I need to ensure that he's not gonna do anything stupid."

Cipher wandered over, clearly interested; he was a sort of modified medibot, with dermal plating that was pockmarked with datajack sockets. If Lockdown hadn't been so desensitized, he probably would have found Cipher repulsive; for the love of Primus, the mech was covered in orifices. The sockets gave away Cipher's caste and occupation and occupation as a programmer. Specifically, he was what they called a kleptographer. Cipher dealt in endopsychic interrogation and manipulation - or mind-rape, as it was known in vulgar argot.

Lockdown continued; "I want you to get his head straightened out. Delete the last thousand or so stellar cycles of his memory, and scrap all that superfluous Autobot propaganda drek. Try to leave his base personality and combat skills intact. He's no good to me if you turn him in to a protoform, and he's less than useless if he loses his fighting ability. Also, I need an easy way of subduing him if he ever tries to cause trouble again. Like, a killswitch with a verbal trigger. Y'know. A way of saying, 'down, boy'."

"That's no small request, Lockdown. Erasing data is easy, but selectively editing so that some bits are missing and others are left untouched is a lot more complicated. You're asking for what we refer to as 'laser-guided amnesia', and that's expensive. How much are you willing to pay for all this?"

"You owe me a favor. I'd've thought that counted for something."

"There are limits to my generosity," Cipher said. "I'll quote you for ten thousand credits, and that's with a discount."

"That's... more than I had in mind." Primus, Lockdown thought, I'm too old for this slag. The inside of his optic itched fiercely as the nanoassembers tried to create fresh connections between the new components and the old ones. "I was thinking of around seven thousand credits, maybe."

"I won't go lower than nine thousand. If you don't like it, you could always go to Bombshell."

Lockdown grunted. "Nine thousand is fine." Bombshell wasn't an option. Bombshell was just... unpleasant. Even by Lockdown's standards.

Speaking of unpleasantness...

"I saw Megatron a while back. He says hi." Lockdown knew that mentioning Megatron would sour Cipher's mood. Good.

Cipher froze. "What else did he say?"

"Nothin' much," Lockdown smiled. "Just that he regrets your unwillingness to aid the Decepticon cause."

"Hm. Well. I can't say that I'm too worried about him at the moment, given that he's apparently stuck on some backwater planet. The 'Cons are are dying breed." Cipher tried to sound glib. He failed.

"I dunno. He's up to something." Lockdown scratched at a mark on Prowl's armor. Now that Cipher was suitably intimidated, he changed topic. "...How long do you think hacking this guy'll take, anyhow? Want me to stay here until you're done?" For nine thousand credits, he felt entitled to peer over the kleptographer's shoulder the entire time.

"You might as well hang around and give me pointers while I work." Cipher gave him a level look. "You sure you want to go through with this? I've seen plenty of reprogram jobs turn around and bite people in the aft."

"Yeah, I know; reprogramming is just a quick fix. Nothing beats basic psychological manipulation. I know what I'm getting in to." Oh really? Lockdown absently rubbed at his knee. It was still sore.

Cipher shrugged. "Just saying. I can delete some of his memories and create false ones to fill in the gaps, and I can alter his personality variables here and there, and I can install a 'killswitch' so that you have some defense in case he ever turns against you... But I still can't guarantee infallible loyalty."

"I'll worry about that bit. You just fix his CPU."


His world was darkness without form. There was perfect stillness and lucidity. He was a singularity; he existed everywhere and nowhere. It was the bliss of infinity, and it was all that he had ever known.

Sometimes, he sensed another presence in the darkness, although it was of little consequence to him. The awareness would pass, leaving him in comfortable solitude once again.

Then, out of nowhere, a very troublesome word filled the void:

REBOOTING...

...

Wait, what?

...

Dammit, his infinite peace was ruined.

Self-awareness hit him like a supernova, and he was flooded with names, definitions, abstractions, boundaries, concepts. Everything was illuminated, making some things clear while casting others in to shadow. His sensory systems crackled back online... And he realized that he was on his back, staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling.

Two strange faces were peering over at him.

He peered back.


"Ah, there he is," Cipher told Lockdown, just as Prowl's optics came back online and fixed them both with a blank stare. "Give him a moment, it can take them a few cycles to come 'round, and they can be morose and disorientated for megacycles afterw-..."

Prowl sprang up and made a bolt for the nearest exit. They hadn't bothered to restrain him. They hadn't thought they'd have needed to.

"Primus FRAG," Lockdown shouted, and lunged after the fleeing ninjabot. He was just quick enough to tackle Prowl to the ground, and after a bit of clumsy wrestling, he finally managed to get him pinned. "..I swear, this guy doesn't give up."

Prowl fell still, and studiously looked around. There was a sort of simple, animal intelligence to his gaze.

Lockdown kept a firm grip on him. "You know where you are?" he asked, warily.

Prowl regarded him without comprehension, then frowned, deep in thought. When he eventually replied, it was as if he had never spoken before. The words were awkward and flat. "I don't know."

"Do you know what your name is?"

Prowl's expression brightened momentarily, then became unreadable again. "...My name is Prowl?" he said, almost hopefully. Lockdown had let Cipher keep that bit untouched, at least. It was hardly an uncommon name.

"Alright, good. What's my name?"

"I don't know."

"What's the last thing you remember, before waking up?"

"I don't know."

"What's your faction?"

"I don't know."

"If I let you go, do you promise that you won't run away or try to attack me?

"I don't... Alright."

Lockdown let go of Prowl, allowing him to stand up.

Prowl leaned against a table, to steady himself. "Where am I?"

"You're in a medbay." Alright, Cipher's lab sort of looked like a medbay, with its diagnostic machines and tools everywhere. And Cipher had been a qualified medic. A long time ago. Lockdown continued, "You've just recovered from a very dangerous nanovirus that attacked your CPU. We've tried to restore some of your memories, but there's only so much we could do." He shrugged, as if to say, them's the breaks.

Prowl looked thoughtful, likely trying to understand the significance of this. "...Oh."

Lockdown couldn't resist it; he had to ask. "How do you feel?"

Prowl replied, earnestly, "Like I should be sad about something, but I'm not."

"My name's Lockdown. You sure that doesn't ring any bells?"

Prowl just shook his head.

Lockdown feigned disappointment.

Cipher made sure that he was behind Prowl, so that the ninjabot couldn't see him, and discreetly gave Lockdown a thumbs-up.


Getting Prowl out of the lab and back towards the docking bay took longer than expected. En route, the mech asked a constant stream of questions. Where are we going? What year is this? What why have you got a hook on the end of your arm? Why are we here? Why do I have a headache? Et cetera. If this was what a protoform was like, then Lockdown had a pretty valid excuse for hating the little slaggers. (Not that he'd ever really needed a valid excuse for hating protoforms before.)

Gradually, as Prowl started to get his faculties back, the questions became more complicated. "What's my purpose?"

"I'll explain it to you once we're out of this place."

Prowl hesitated. "Why should I go with you?"

"What? You want to stay here?" Lockdown asked. A group of minicons crossed their path, dragging the dismembered torso of a deactivated mech behind them.

Prowl appeared to reconsider things, and shrugged.

The only time Prowl stopped was when he caught his reflection as they passed a polished surface. He squinted at his mirror-image for a few seconds, and absently ran a hand over his face, feeling the patch of dull metal around his optics where his visor had been. His fingers wandered to the tapered antennae of his new audio sensors, and he looked thoughtful.

Lockdown cleared his vocalizer. "...Will you stop preening and hurry up?"

Prowl shot him a wary glance, and quickened his pace to walk by Lockdown's side. He didn't look back.