AN: Well, it's been a while since my last update. Sorry about that. I hope I haven't disappointed anyone too badly...Anyways, I hope you enjoy, and a big thank you to everyone who reviewed, faved, and alerted this fic. Without your encouragement, this would probably never be updated.
For disclaimers and credits, see any previous six chapters.
Nano-second/astrosecond - .498 seconds
Nano-klik - 1 second
Klik - 1.2 minutes
Breem - 8.3 minutes
Cycle - 1 hour and 15 minutes
Joor - 6.5 hours
Mega-cycle - 1 day
Orn - 13 days
Deca-cycle - 3 weeks
Meta-cycle - 13 months
Vorn - 83 years
Mechanometer - 1 meter
Hic - 1 kilometer
Sam was now wracking his mind for ideas on how to control his ward's telepathy. It wasn't going well. "Okay." 'Great. Brilliant.' Sam took a deep intake. 'How in the world am I gonna do this? I don't know anything about telepathy, how'm I supposed to help Sound...Sound. A really annoying song that gets stuck in your head and you can't get it out or think of anything else.' "Soundwave, we're going to play a game," he decided suddenly, inspiration hitting him like a semi truck. He quickly ran back through his memories and picked a song, 'Momma's Gonna Buy You a Mocking Bird', edited out the vocals-because if the sparkling started asking questions about English it would be awkward-and sent it through the bond.
Soundwave's optics shuttered in confused surprise at the unfamiliar audio track.
"The game is called 'Focus'. We're going to keep that song playing in our hea-processors all joor. You focus on my thoughts and I'll send it to you and then you'll send it to me through your thoughts, like playing catch, except with our processors."
Sam got the feeling that if Soundwave wasn't telepathic and didn't have the bond, he wouldn't have a clue what Sam was talking about. Sam didn't have a clue what he was talking about either, but at least it was a start.
Once they got the hang of it, Soundwave absolutely loved Focus. Sam would send an audio track and they would play 'catch' with it, and then Sam would do something like change a note and Soundwave would change it back once they started to get bored. At the moment, Soundwave's processors weren't equipped to handle multi-tasking very well, so it took him a lot of focus-hence the name of the game-to keep up.
Sam still hadn't gotten used to how fast and how much he could process at the same time. A line of thought that would've taken him five minutes to complete with a human brain took him barely seconds with a Cybertronian processor. It was astounding. His new 'computing prowess' meant he actually had to slow his processing down to Soundwave's level, which was still beyond human capability.
It was, quite frankly, mind-boggling. Humanities capabilities were like a dripping facet compared the Niagra falls of Cybertronian ability. Humanity, for all its technology, when compared to Cybertronians was like comparing a sharpened stick to a nuclear bomb. Sam could easily see how Megatron felt entitled to call humans insects. Maggot. And yet...Will, Epps and the others, how they'd fought back and won against such incredible odds...that was also mind-boggling.
Sam abruptly shook his head and returned his attention to taking inventory of the shipment, checking the tracking codes on the crates his coworkers were transferring against the list on his datapad. Technically, this wasn't his job. He should be helping to load the cargo, except his supervisor had snapped a strut and decided to assign Sam as his temporary replacement before one of the other bots dragged him off to see a medic.
The ex-human had no idea it was possible to scowl when you didn't have lips, but somehow he was managing it. "I didn't even want this job," he complained to no one in particular.
Soundwave poked his back.
Creator upset?
"Eh, not so much upset as annoyed. I mean seriously, I am not-oi! Boltbreaker, that crate belongs in the other pile!-not suited for this at all." Sam had never gotten the hang of talking to kids. As a result, he tended to speak more as equals to the sparkling. Which was alright because Soundwave could get the general gist of what he was saying through the bond. "I really can't wait until shift is over. Boltbreaker, wrong pile! Again. How on Cybertron does Skip deal with this on a constant basis?"
Two mega-cycles later:
"Well, everything looks to be in order."
Sam snorted. "Yeah, everything except Boltbreaker's sense of direction."
Skip looked up from the datapad and deadpanned, "There's nothing wrong with his navigational systems. I had a medic check them."
"...Seriously?"
"Ask Boltbreaker if you don't believe me."
"...And he still can't figure out which one is right and left?"
Skip's 'engine' rumbled in amusement. "How many times did you have to correct him?"
"Forty four."
"...Only forty four? Normally he asks three times as much."
Sam shrugged, rubbing the back of his helm sheepishly. "I eventually just wrote left and right on his servos."
"...I wish I'd thought of that. Tell you what, if it sticks, I'll buy you a cube."
"Unnecessary. I'll be happy if you just never give me your job again."
"You did a good job."
"You do a much better job," the visored mech countered. "Well, I'd best be going. Things to do, sparklings to feed, invisible objects to trip over..."
Focus game: success. Soundwave was distracted the entire shift. Problem solving: success. Boltbreaker only took three more wrong turns after writing the glyphs down. Overall: success.
AN: I figure Cybertronians have longer 'days' than we do, so perhaps an orn for them is the equivalent of a day for us.
Edited: Shockwave decided to sneak in again, had to replace him with Soundwave... *facepalm*
