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He had been stupid.

He'd messed up.

Onlining his visor, the black and white mech smiled as he found himself in a white walled room, the bland colour bright and hurtful to his sensitive sight. The chair they had strapped him to was of the toughest metal they could find, the bindings a nifty set of stasis cuffs that numbed his wrist and ankle joints with gradual but painful jolts of sharp electricity every few clicks.

Yeah, he'd fragged up big time.

"SAB-708," a speaker addressed him from somewhere in the corner, using his star number instead of the details they had surely stripped him of after they had caught him attempting to assassinate one of their own. "You will be questioned in ten breems."

Scowling sourly behind the vocaliser inhibitor, that literally muted him and muzzled him much like one would a dog, he rolled his helm back to stare at the ceiling, tracing the fine cracks from where some poor nutter had gone mad and had tried to ram the roof in an attempt to escape.

"You are much calmer than I expected you to be." A deep rumbling voice jerked him from the fascinating roof, the chains jangling as he shifted his predatory gaze to the giant red, blue and silver mech that had just entered from a hidden door. "For a traitor."

He leaned forward with intrigue as the sheet of metal hissed closed, sealing off his white bubble from the nauseating orange corridor. He bowed his helm in acknowledgement of the Prime that stood before him, a thick data-file held in powerful servos.

"First, I will identify you as SAB-708 correct?" Optimus asked, clearly for the recording or vid feed the Autobots were clearly making of this bizarre and rare situation. "Codename, Jazz."

He nodded with a teasing grin behind the grid of metal shielding his lip plates, the strangle hold that the vice had on his vocaliser painful and cold as he moved. "You are a Contractor that is employed by the Syndicate. Am I correct?"

The black and white mech shrugged cheerfully as if he himself didn't know who he took orders from, the Prime's optics darkening in mild annoyance as he continued. "You are aware that we now know that your 'Scream Pulse' ability can shatter Cybertanium, what we don't know is the Price you pay for such a gift."

The azure visored mech snorted in amusement, stiffening when he felt the vice on his vocaliser tighten painfully. "It isn't a gift." He rasped out, surprising the Matrix Barer as he struggled to force out the words. "It's a fragging curse to regain your emotions just after you've killed someone."

"Interesting, a Contractor who hates his own powers." The giant nodded with a keen note of intrigue.

"Don't hate them. Just. Could do without the Price." The mech stammered back, heavy with static as the vice on his muzzle clamped down ever tighter, like a boa constrictor around its prey.

"What would you say to a deal… Contractor?" The Prime asked, straight to the point, crashing into the real reason he sat in front of the caught mech with all the grace of a cyber bull trying to perform a pirouette. "I want more of your kind in the Autobots for a mission."

Jazz, an experienced Contractor, growled lowly. "I'm no sell out." He hissed through the vocaliser inhibitor his outline shimmering with the electric blue radiation that signalled the use of his power, two pinpricks of bright molten crimson glowing eerily in a field of crystal sapphire behind the glass visor.

"It's either that or we mount your helm on the Iacon gates." Optimus shrugged as the Contractor jerked with the sudden punishing electric shock that ripped through his system, power fading with the sudden pain that wrenched a howl from the muzzled mech. "Your choice, SAB-708."

"Alright!" he croaked, the vice almost snapping his vocaliser. "I'll do it!"

"Good." Optimus nodded, rising from his chair. "You will be set loose to gather and recruit a team of Contractors for Autobot use. But, we will be tracking you all joors of the orn."

Jazz growled darkly as he nodded his consent, his optics narrowing behind his visor as the Prime left him alone in his white bubble. "Watch your back Prime." He managed to warn through the clamp, "Because as soon as you turn away, you'll find my dagger in your spinal strut."

===Two Orns Later===

"Blue, I'm home." He called out to the front room of a rundown house as he snuck in the front door, crushed between two bigger collapsing flat complexes.

"I know." A quiet bland voice replied as he came across a silver-grey and red highlighted mech sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room, doorwings flared, his servos in his lap as he leaned forward, blue optics dim. "My apparition told me you would be back." The Doll commented, looking up as he crossed the floor to crouch in front of him.

"You been good?" Jazz asked softly, reaching up to caress the young mech's chevron.

The usually talkative spirit medium nodded nuzzling into the caress, "I was quiet, nobody seen me."

"Well done." The Contractor commented, lifting a servo to feel the back of his helm where an obvious weld gave away where a tracking chip had been inserted. "I need you to find me a few mechs."

Bluestreak nodded, placing both palms on the floor and letting out a soft hum as a ghostly spark pulsed into life, slinking along the floor, attached to the metal ground by a tendril of lightning that only the Doll and the Contractor could see. "First, look for TAC-200."

The spark zipped off in a flash of glittering light, the Praxian framed mech's optics rolling in their sockets as he searched through the transmitted data from his spirit as it travelled through his medium,. "He's in Iacon."

Jazz jerked in surprise as the Metal Medium doll paused, faceplate frowning, "He's right outside."

The Contractor let the dagger fly even as the door to the house was slammed open. TAC-200 caught the weapon by the blade, a dark smirk on his faceplate.

"Well, well, if it isn't SAB-708." The mech smiled, black and white paint glinting in the gloom as he span the glowing energy dagger between white fingers. "The vorns haven't been kind to you."

"You've changed bodies again." Jazz commented wearily, coming to stand in front of Bluestreak, as the Doll came out of his trance. "Clever."

"Unfortunate actually." TAC-200 said, blue optics narrowing as he fully came into the abandoned home, doorwings flicking dismissively, "My original body is now officially lost, not that the Syndicate cares. This Military Enforcer was the best they could scrounge up for me. I suppose one good thing did come out of losing my body, I now no longer have to give a Price for my powers."

"Can't say I'm sympathetic, Prowl. I liked the old body better." Jazz smirked, fractionally glancing at Bluestreak who was still waiting for his orders gazing between the two complimentary black and whites nervously, "Blue, find WAR-586.1 and WAR-586.2, I can get the location of GMR-430 out of my old friend here."

"Come, Jazz, we were more than just friends once." Prowl chuckled, tossing the dagger between his palms.

The Doll nodded slowly, returning his palms to the floor.

"A metal medium Doll?" the Body Switcher Contractor asked an impressed undertone in his voice as he examined Bluestreak from a distance. "Now how did you of all mechs get your hands on a Doll, Jazz? And one of that calibre no less."

"That's for me to know and you to never find out." Jazz growled, flexing his fingers into fists, before he let out a sigh. "I was hoping you would be the last I had to find… but, I need your help."

"The Syndicate sent me to silence you after GMR-430, Smokescreen, reported you captured by the Autobots an Orn before it happened." Prowl declared bluntly, rolling a shoulder, still breaking in his new body. "He's probably still back at headquarters smoking away his Price, though I'm sure I could convince him to come out and play. My current mission is to resume yours when you were taken out."

"I'll make you a deal then." Jazz promptly declared, knowing he was losing Prowl's interest, "You come and do this mission for me and the Autobots, then you get to complete your original mission, no questions, no catches. Plus, you get Bluestreak."

Prowl tilted his helm, walking forwards so that he was now slightly looming over the other Contractor, leaning in close so that their olfactory sensors were almost touching even as Bluestreak found WAR-586.1 and WAR-586.2, and rattled off the location. "It looks like we will be going to Kaon to pick up the Twin Contractors then… Partner."