"Go get some recharge. You know we've got a mission next orn, right?"
"It's all right," Jazz said. He couldn't recharge. He didn't know if he'd ever be able to recharge again.
"I'm not your femme creator," Talon said. "I'm just saying…"
"I'm fine."
"Ok," Talon got up and walked away. "I'll see you next orn."
Jazz watched him go. It was the middle of the off-cycle now, but he didn't want to be in his room alone.
He looked down at the table. Something about it didn't seem real, like this place was somehow not truly part of his life, like he was just acting. Those hands resting on the flat surface in front of him weren't really his hands. Despite being almost too loud for conversation, the music seemed distant and muffled.
Jazz shuttered his optics.
"Don't," the mech sobbed. "Please don't kill me, please don't…"
He took a deep vent. He needed to find someone else to talk to. Or more high grade. That might help.
Jazz was being dragged away in a crowd of happy, excited mecha, all clamoring to congratulate him and welcome him to the team. He gave in to the celebrating, and let himself be herded out of the building.
He got to his pedes and stumbled over to the bar. Spotlight wasn't here at the moment, but the mech who was running the place shook his helm.
"I don't think so. You've had plenty. Get out, I won't have you recharging on my floor."
"But…"
"Nope. I said out, or do I need to have someone get rid of you?"
Jazz stared at him, hurt and not exactly sure what to do. His vision fuzzed for a moment.
"Please…"
He pushed away from the bar and headed for the door instead. Maybe he ought to be alone. He didn't deserve to talk to anyone anyway. He made it out, but he was shaking. He felt like someone inside him, some small part of him, was screaming.
The mech screamed. One long, desperate wail…
No. Jazz leaned against the wall. Where was he going? Was he going to his room? He couldn't stop here, out in the hall.
He made it around the corner, but then sank to the ground, trembling. He felt like he was going to empty his tanks.
Don't," the mech sobbed. "Please don't kill me, please don't…"
"I'm sorry." Jazz brought the knife down.
The mech screamed…
And went limp.
Jazz yanked the knife back out and spark energy flowed out of the wound. The Alpha team cheered again and the circle closed, and suddenly, Jazz was being dragged away in a crowd of happy, excited mecha. He dropped the energon-stained blade and gave in to the celebrating, feeling a sickening sense of euphoria.
It didn't last long enough. By the time they'd all driven back to headquarters, he felt like the world was ending. He felt cold.
It was over.
No turning back.
Jazz wrapped his arms around his knees. Even sitting down he felt dizzy. High grade made you forget things sometimes. He'd had enough that maybe next orn, all the details would be gone. He didn't want the details. He didn't want to keep hearing that mech scream, over and over in his helm.
His hands still smelled like internally processed energon, or maybe that was his imagination. He hadn't gotten much on him. He shuddered, curling up more tightly and wished he was anyone or anywhere else.
"Don't… Please don't kill me, please don't…"
A sob escaped him. He didn't even care. He didn't care about that mech, didn't care about being on Alpha team, didn't care about Quantum. He didn't care about living or dying, or anyone, he just didn't want to be here, right now. He felt like he was caving in on himself. He shuttered his optics again and put his helm down on his knees, giving in.
It was over. No turning back.
Something hit him and he was suddenly online as he flew a pace or two and hit the ground in a tumble.
"Hey!" A deep-voiced mech thundered toward him, and Jazz got to his pedes and scrambled away. "This hallway isn't for napping in! Get the frag out!"
Jazz backed away another step, but the mech didn't seem interested in attacking him. Jazz recognized him after a moment as one of Hegemony's bodyguards.
A group of them walked past, including Hegemony himself and few of the high-ranking members of Quantum. Jazz caught the mech who was third in command watching him with what looked shockingly like pity on his faceplate. Jazz let out a quiet vent once they were past. His spark was still pulsing erratically.
Primus, what was he doing in this hallway?
He…
He remembered.
He put a hand to his faceplate, and found that his visor was in the way.
He had officially joined Midnight's Alpha team last off-cycle.
He had killed someone.
Had he really…?
He walked numbly down the hall, shaking his helm, trying to piece together what had happened the off-cycle before. His internal clock had reset again, so he needed to check the public network to find out what time it was.
Midnight's team had a mission in a few joors. And he'd missed a comm. from Branchbinder.
His processor started to hurt as he entered his room. He sat down at his desk and put his helm in his hands. He needed more recharge. He had only been out for four joors, and he hadn't gotten enough the off-cycle before either.
Why was he thinking about this? Why did he care about how much recharge he'd gotten?
He had killed someone.
His desk was reflective enough that he could sort of see himself in it. He retracted his visor so he could meet his own optics. They glowed up at him, blurry.
It hadn't even been that difficult.
Part of him wanted to lock the door and stay in here all orn and recharge and hide from everything. Another, larger part wanted to go and hang out in the lounge and find mecha to talk to. That was an even better way to hide.
But the longer he put off talking to Branchbinder, the worse it would be. So he commed the other mech. He had to wait several breems for an answer.
"What do you want?"
"Ya commed me," Jazz said.
"Yes. And you didn't respond."
"I was recharging."
"Yeah, I figured. Late off-cycle?"
"Yeah," Jazz said. "An' I'm sorry I missed your comm. What do ya need?"
"I need to train you later this orn. Also, you have two orns left to find a traitor. Just a friendly reminder."
"Ok," Jazz looked up at the ceiling. "Oh… I got a mission with Midnight and her crew later this orn, so depending on when ya want ta train…"
He heard Branchbinder sigh. "Next orn, then. Five joors."
Jazz didn't respond.
Branchbinder cut the comm. and Jazz pushed away from the desk and got to his pedes. He needed to move, he needed to do something.
He needed to find a traitor. He only had a few orns left and he hadn't made much headway. He'd found a couple of leads in the accounting files, but he'd gotten bored of all the dead ends and had given up.
But he couldn't work on it right now. He left the room and headed to the lounge, to find mecha to talk to. On his way, he had a thought. That mech, Hegemony's third in command, had looked at him in a funny sort of way. It had been sad, sympathetic. Midnight had said in Quantum, you didn't protect the weak. You didn't feel sorry for them.
That mech could be a traitor.
Jazz would have to look into it. He could try to talk to the mech as well. It wasn't much of a lead, but it was something. He got to the lounge and sat in a dark corner, pulling his datapad out of subspace. He needed to find more information on that mech, but he wasn't even sure what his designation was. It wasn't like they had some sort of database with a list of everyone's designations and titles—or if they did, Jazz hadn't found it.
Well, actually…
He got up and wandered over to where Spotlight was having an animated conversation with a couple of other femmes.
"Hey!" she said when she saw him. "I hear you got put in Midnight's Alpha Team."
"Whaaat?" One of the other femmes said, staring at him. "Didn't you just barely join Quantum?"
"Yeah," Jazz shrugged.
"It's crazy." Spotlight said. "I mean, no one gets into her Alpha Team that fast… or that young. You doing ok?"
He frowned. She looked sympathetic too. Pit, what was he doing? That mech had shown a tiny bit of empathy, and now Jazz was trying to find evidence that he was a traitor.
"Jazz?"
"Oh, yeah, I'm fine. I just had a question for ya."
"Yeah? What is it?"
"Hegemony's second and third in command… what are their designations?"
Spotlight smiled, tilting her helm to the side. "Oh, that's easy," she said. "That's Feedback and Lithium. Why do you ask?"
"I don't know," Jazz said. "I just realized I didn't know their designations. Thanks."
"No problem," Spotlight said, and Jazz walked away. He could tell they were talking about him, even though they waited until he was far enough away he couldn't hear them very well.
He did a little more research on the mech, but his spark wasn't really in it anymore, so he went back to trying to hunt someone down using Quantum's financial records.
It was the first time Jazz had been on a mission in the on-cycle. He joined the others in a crowded intersection. It was just a few members of Alpha Team. Midnight, Friction, and a mech Jazz didn't know very well whose designation was Arson.
Those three designations went together pretty well, he thought.
It was interesting to walk with them through the city. They were all covering their Quantum brands, but they didn't need those to own the street. Mecha just instinctively got out of their way. It was a certain sort of walk, a certain sort of look.
Jazz was the shortest in the group, and definitely the least intimidating. Midnight was the scariest. She was large for a femme, and moved with a sort of dangerous grace. And when she looked at you, you could somehow see in her optics just how easy it would be for her to kill you—if she cared enough to do so.
Of course, no one could see Jazz's optics. He was starting to like it that way.
Every once in a while, as they went, something would remind him again of the off-cycle before. But he pushed those thoughts away. He needed to get through the next few orns. Yes, that had been terrible, but if he wanted to avoid getting killed himself, he needed to find a traitor and figure out where they'd put a tracker on him.
He realized at a certain point that they were heading toward the part of the sector that he knew. As they got closer to his school, he started worrying that this somehow had something to do with him, but they didn't get that far.
Midnight stopped at a corner Jazz knew well—when they'd all walked home from school, this was the point at which the twins and Stonethrow went one way, while Jazz went the other.
"Ok," Midnight said. "We're going to a power plant. I've got lists of things to do. Mostly, we'll be rigging the place. They're due for an industrial accident or two."
"How come?" Friction said. "That's Council-run, right? Did they miss a payment or something?"
Midnight shrugged. "This time I don't know. But keep quiet. Avoid guards and technicians, and if someone gets seen, we need to get out. We're supposed to leave something, though, so they know we were there."
"I can find a wall to paint a logo on or something," Arson said.
Midnight nodded. "Do that last." She turned. "Jazz."
"Yeah?"
"You're learning quickly, but you're still too noisy. I want you to stay in the less populated parts of the building."
Jazz nodded.
"And we can't use comms because there's a block in there, and we won't be able to take it down without alerting someone, so everyone just know to get out if you hear the alarms going off. Let's go."
Jazz wondered briefly why he was coming along if they were worried about him ruining the mission, but once they got into the building and he got his list of jobs, he understood. The only other person on Alpha team who was small enough to get into some of the spaces he had to crawl in was Swallow, and she didn't like that sort of thing.
He had to admit sneaking around a power plant sabotaging machinery was a lot of fun. It was like a video game, but a thousand times more exciting because there were real consequences if you got caught.
It went smoothly, and they met up and started heading back just as the sun was setting. Jazz realized as they walked away that when this power plant blew, it would cause power-outages across this part of the sector. His school might be affected. His school, Vibes' apartment, the twins' house, the factory that Stonethrow's creators worked at…
He ought to check on Vibes. He definitely couldn't talk to her, but he could find out how she was doing somehow.
He had killed someone.
"Hey, mechling."
Jazz looked up.
"Good job in there," Friction said.
"Thanks."
The mech nodded, and they kept walking.
He needed to stop thinking about it. He didn't even feel that different. Life went on, no matter what you did or didn't do.
Jazz found himself up late yet again, despite knowing he had a meeting with Branchbinder at five joors. He was pretty sure he'd found a traitor. He had to get a little more evidence, though.
He'd wasted some time trying to find Vibes. She had moved, apparently. He'd panicked a little when he realized she wasn't living at her apartment anymore. He'd been terrified that Branchbinder or someone else associated with Quantum might have made her disappear. But after some frantic searching on the public networks and hacking into various databases, he'd discovered that she was fine. She'd just packed up and moved again. It was pretty smart of her, actually. It would keep her safe if Jazz got into any more trouble.
He checked his chronometer again, and got up from his table, subspacing his datapad. He really needed to get some recharge.
He bid farewell to a few mecha as he went past, and then headed to his room. Once he was there, he lay on his berth and got the datapad out again. He amused himself by scrolling through the camera feeds for a few breems. He was keeping an optic on a few different mecha. It was nice to know where Branchbinder spent most of his time, so Jazz could avoid him like cosmic rust. It was also nice to know where mecha in Midnight's Alpha team were, because sometimes Jazz had questions for them.
Blackingle, Stonethrow, and the twins didn't live on base, but Jazz always watched for them as well. He didn't see any of them very often, even Stonethrow, and he missed them.
He stopped at one camera. There was Hegemony's third in command—Spotlight had said his designation was Lithium. He was standing by himself in a little hallway by one of the secret exits to headquarters. Jazz watched him for a few breems, but he was just standing there.
That could be suspicious.
He put his datapad away and slipped out of his room.
He knew where the cameras were, but he didn't think he could sneak past them, so he didn't try. He walked through the base all the time, so most likely no one would care.
It was a temptation anyway to try and move without being seen. That was probably a good thing, that he was already picking up those habits.
He stopped just around the corner, and listened, but he couldn't hear anything, even the mech's engine. So he checked around the corner to find that Lithium was gone. Maybe he'd gone out the passageway. Jazz crept back around the corner and sat down to wait, listening for the door to open again. He didn't dare go outside. Branchbinder was training him in a few joors, and it would be ten times worse if Jazz had broken a rule.
He shuttered his optics, just for a moment, listening…
"This is the second time this orn I've seen you recharging in a hallway."
Jazz started online and looked up at the mech standing over him. "Pit…"
Lithium shook his helm and backed away. "I wouldn't advise making a habit of it. One of these orns you'll wake up with your subspace empty and your integrated weapons missing."
Jazz got to his pedes, feeling embarrassed. He hadn't been that tired had he? He checked his chronometer and realized that he'd only been recharging for half a joor.
Lithium was still staring at him expectantly.
"Um…" Jazz said.
"Here," Lithium pulled Jazz's datapad out of his own subspace and held it out.
"Oh, thanks," Jazz reached out to take it, but Lithium grabbed his arm and pulled him closer, expression darkening.
"I've heard about you. Branchbinder's protégé. I don't know if running into you again is a coincidence or not, but either way I should warn you."
Jazz whispered, "yeah?"
"Keep your olfactory sensor where it belongs."
He definitely didn't seem sympathetic at the moment. Jazz studied the older mech from behind his visor.
"Did Branch ask you to follow me? Tell him to come talk to me in person if he's got a problem."
Jazz decided to try something. He started recording the conversation and then shied away and pitched his voice a little higher, trying to sound scared. "I don't… he didn't…"
Sure enough, Lithium's expression softened a little, and he let go of Jazz's arm and gave him back the datapad with a sigh. "Whether or not he sent you, my advice still applies. Don't go poking around where you haven't been invited. And if you test your boundaries, Branchbinder will tighten the leash, little turbo-pup. So I'd be careful about that too."
He turned and started walking away.
"Hey, wait…" Jazz said
Lithium stopped. "What?" He sounded annoyed again.
"I didn't want ta be here," Jazz said. It wasn't a very difficult act. The words were true. "I was never a good mechling, but I didn't want ta have ta… hurt anyone. And all of this… Branchbinder…"
Lithium sighed and turned around. "Seems like there ought to be a way out, doesn't there?"
"Yeah," Jazz said, letting a little hope creep into his voice.
"Well, there isn't one," Lithium said quietly. "I'm sorry, mechling. Your best bet is to keep your helm down and do what you're told. Understand?"
Jazz nodded and let him leave this time.
Then he subspaced his datapad and walked back to his room. That had gone exactly like he would have expected it to if Lithium was discontent. The mech had practically implied that he didn't want to be part of Quantum.
But Jazz didn't need to use that information against Lithium. There was something there, for certain, and Jazz would keep poking around until he'd found it. He didn't have to say anything to Branchbinder about it though. He might even try to make friends with Lithium. It would be good to have allies in high places, especially if he ever wanted to get out of this place.
He could think about it later. Right now, he needed to get some recharge.
Toward the end of the on-cycle, two orns later, he made his way to Branchbinder's office.
"So," Branchbinder said when he came in. "Time's up. What have you got for me?"
Jazz turned his datapad on and set it down on the assassin's desk. "One traitor," he said. "Designation: Riot. Offense: stealing from Quantum and sellin' stuff for his own enrichment. I've traced some of his deals, he ain't just made pocket change, he's been embezzling big credit."
Branchbinder raised an optic ridge and scrolled through some of Jazz's report. "This is… how did you figure this out?"
"Well," Jazz said. "I mighta gotten inta the financial records. Ya know, ya should keep better accounts."
Branchbinder frowned at him.
"I know ya didn't give me permission."
"I did not."
"I was hopin' that ya wouldn't be too mad, cuz at least I found ya a traitor within the time limit."
Branchbinder actually didn't seem angry, which would have been a nice surprise except that there was something very unsettling about the way he was reading the report.
Jazz waited, not wanting to risk annoying him by talking again.
The last few orns had been interesting. The initial shock of having killed that mech was wearing off, and things were different. Somehow, actually, it had made him less afraid. Less afraid of Branchbinder, less afraid of Midnight, less afraid of the situation in general.
He still heard echoes sometimes, when he was alone. That mech's voice haunted him, begging Jazz to spare him. And that, that was almost worse than anything Midnight or Branchbinder could do to him. But he hoped that would fade too, with time.
"You put me in an interesting position. For this—I should kill you for this. You know more than you're allowed to know, considering how much we trust you. You could do us a lot of damage."
"How?" Jazz asked. "Who would I tell and what'd I get out of it? I could make the Council mad at ya, let enforcement know enough ta stop ya, tell the public about ya and turn them on the Council. But then what? That'd be a big mess, mech, and besides, ya'd probably hunt me down and offline me if I did anything like that. I'm just trying ta look out for my own interests, like any of the rest of us. It wouldn't help me at all ta tell anyone what I know, and so I won't."
He hoped Branchbinder believed him.
The depressing thing was that it was essentially the truth.
He really was just trying to keep himself alive.
He was a coward.
Branchbinder was watching him, studying him. Jazz looked down. If this mech decided he was lying, Jazz could end up dead anyway. He could run, but he probably wouldn't even make it out of Headquarters.
"Lucky for you, you're useful," Branchbinder said. "So here's how this is going to go." He picked up Jazz's datapad. "If you want to use this, you have to ask me for it and you have to stay in my sight when you have it."
Jazz nodded.
"And lucky for me, I've got some spare time right now, and I'm feeling the need to spar. Shall we?"
Jazz looked down. "Yes, sir, looking forward to it."
