Chapter 10 – Maybes

Deuce was not going to stare. He was not going to stare and he definitely wasn't going to gape. Because he was not seeing this – this was impossible. Oblivious to his host's mental trauma, Hax was buying into it, leaning over and tapping on the fish bowl balanced on the desk.

"Nice place you got here," he complimented. "You even got pets. How come you got a room and I don't?"

Sam shrugged. "Luck of the draw maybe?"

"No."

Both looked up to see Deuce furiously shaking his head, hands tightly clenched.

"No, no, no, no, no!" he snapped. "This is not happening. The last thing I need is another voice in my head. Especially not you!"

The last sentence would have been harsh had it not been said in such a pitiful whine, but Sam glared at him all the same.

"Hey, don't look at me, this is all your doing."

Deuce blinked. "Huh?"

Sam sighed, and turned to look out the windows, focused on something neither mech could quite see.

"I was gonna fade in oblivion – become one big happy entity with the cute little sparking. That is until the cute little sparkling had the mother of all temper tantrums and tried to delete me. The practical upshot of all this is that, not only did you isolate me and the Lookout program from your processor, but we also got split off from each other."

He shrugged suddenly relaxing and smiling. "Or, hey, maybe this was always meant to happen. I get the feeling that stupid cube was a lot smarter than anyone figured."

Hax was piecing it together faster than Deuce. "You woke up round about the same time I did, didn't you? Only you didn't get any control. Least not till recently."

The boy turned back with a lopsided smile. "Not exactly…but we probably have minutes before ol' Doc Hatchet rips us apart, so we need to get down to business."

"What business?" Deuce replied, and the smile seemed to deepen.

"You need to kill me."

The work was frightfully delicate – Ratchet didn't dare split more than a few millimetres at a time. The outer core was less dangerous, but just as important. Too much on either side could send both flying into collapse. So far, though, it was going as the simulations had predicted. The two halves were independent enough here to not be at risk.

"Ratchet," Rhinox warned. "We're ready for you to start on the core."

The tool came up, and Ratchet sighed, trying to force his arms into being less tense.

"Is everything prepared?"

From the sides, eyeing the two stasis containers and sets of monitors, Mikaela and Maggie gave thumbs up, while Bumblebee kept his optics focused on the small frame on the table.

"Everything's ready, Ratchet."

The medic sighed once again, and dived (dove) in.

"Kill you?" Deuce squawked.

"Well, maybe kill is a little over-the-top given that I'm already dead," Sam amended. "And I'm talking more to Lookout here."

The teenager's eyes focused on the mech, staring for an eerily long time.

"When you two separate, I'm gonna get to leave. I don't exactly know where I'll be going, but I can."

He broke contact and stared out the window again. "Or, if I hang around, I can keep you stable."

Deuce perked up, but faltered when he realised Hax wasn't responding. His other was keeping up the staring contest.

"What'll happen to you if you stay?"

Both mechs wondered if he'd even heard the question, before Sam gave a slow shrug.

"Probably what was happening originally. I'll fade out while Hax takes over. Status quo."

Hax sighed. "Then you can't stay. That would make this whole thing pointless."

"You sure?" Sam pressed, and Deuce moved closer, placing a hand on Hax's shoulder. The former program was trying to hide it, but he was trembling.

"Yeah," he finally replied, looking up with a cocky grin. "If I can't stand on my own, then I have no right to exist anyway."

The room started to flicker, and both mechs started, while the only human in the room grinned and stood up, swinging an arm around Hax's shoulders, pushing him towards the door. Deuce found the other arm round his once he came into reach, with Sam keeping them from looking too closely at the now disintegrating room.

"Good to hear. You know, I have a really, really good feeling about all this. You'll be fine."

"That makes one of us," Hax groaned, and received a grin in return.

"Hey, what happened to that confidence you had earlier?"

Both mechs glared at him, and Sam shrugged.

"Fine, fine. If you need a little incentive…"

The hand on Hax's shoulder began to glow, and held tight when Hax tried to move away. Within moments it had passed, and he felt a comfortable weight settle in his mind.

"That's a gift for Bumblebee," Sam explained. "When you wake, make sure he gets it for me."

Hax stilled. "Wait, shouldn't you give that to Deuce?"

Sam's arms slid off their shoulders as they reached the door, now the only solid item in the room. "I was gonna, but no need now. You're gonna make it, remember? Good luck."

And with that, he pushed the two into the darkness beyond, and the boy vanished as the room crumbled into harmless data streams.

"That squishy little slagger!" Deuce shrieked, falling through nothingness.

"Think you just insulted your creator," Hax chimed, and gasped as his own frame went the same way as the bedroom, flickering in and out like a bad hologram. The shout from his right was enough to tell him Deuce was going through the same.

"Looks like we don't have much time!" Deuce shouted. "Ratchet must be nearly finished."

"Yeah," Hax replied, feeling his nerves return.

"You'd better make it!"

He turned to see Deuce glaring at him. "I'm not gonna be the one to explain to Bumblebee why he didn't get his present."

Hax grinned. "Fine. Might take me a while, but I'll get there. Just do me a favour when they wake you up."

"What?"

Hax flickered out of existence, his final words echoing before Deuce did the same.

"Make it blue!"

Ratchet clenched his denta. The two sparks were almost fully separated, and fluctuating wildly.

"And…now!"

The blade swiped clear, forcing both sparks to jerk apart. The larger was pulsing erratically, while the smaller rippled and twisted like a ribbon on the wind. Mikaela and Maggie flew over, bringing both stasis canisters with them.

"Rhinox, get Deuce inside," Ratchet ordered. "Bumblebee, grab the electromagnets and help me keep Hax stable."

While Rhinox coaxed the larger, already-starting-to-stabilise spark into one container, the medic and scout kept the smaller from shattering by pinning it with the magnets, forcing it to stay together as it was carefully placed inside the container, which would keep the same effect up for longer. Unfortunately, the spark didn't seem to be calming, pulsing, rippling, looking every bit like an exploding supernova. Compared to the calm spark of Deuce, it was clear something was wrong.

"That's not good is it?" Mikaela asked, the first to admit it

"It's better than most of the simulations would have suggested," Ratchet admitted. "Most had him collapsing before we even got him in the container. All we can do now is wait."

"What about Deuce?" Maggie asked, nodding to the stable spark. "Do we put him back?"

"Not just yet," Ratchet replied, brushing a hand against the container before heading for the door. "Give him a day to recover, just in case. Rhinox, keep an eye on them – I'll debrief Prime."

As Ratchet walked out, Rhinox gave Deuce's body a quick scan for any unexpected discrepancies, and frowned, catching Bumblebees attention.

"Is something wrong?"

"Not exactly…there just appears to be a slight weight miscalculation. Sparks don't weight much, but we must have miscalculated."

"How so?"

Rhinox shrugged and finished the scan.

"Deuce's protoform weighs approximately 21 micrograms less than expected."

"Is that a problem?"

"No," Rhinox replied. "Its not a discrepancy of any merit. I wouldn't worry about it."

Three days later, the situation was still the same. Mikaela walked in to find Hax's spark still hanging on for dear life, but showing no signs of actually stabilising. Leaning against the container in a silent vigil was Deuce, now returned to his body, scribbling something on sheets of paper. A new addition, the toddler Annabelle was with him, doodling with less gusto with thick crayons. Not too far away, Will was watching with the doting smile only a parent can have while speaking with Ratchet and Optimus.

"It's just too cute," the soldier said as a greeting. "Whenever Deuce picks up a different colour, Annie does the same. Watch."

He pointed, and Mikaela followed to see Deuce toss away a black pencil and pick up blue. Moment's later, Annabelle's own black crayon fell to the table while she hunted for her own blue one. Mikaela bit her lip to keep the smile at bay.

"I didn't think Deuce drew."

"That makes two of us," Ratchet replied. "He's trying to design a body for Hax. I asked if he wanted to do it via the computers, but he wanted to spend time with Annabelle."

Mikaela swung her gaze up. "Hax is stable?"

The spark certainly didn't look it, and judging from the look on both Cybertronians' faces, that hope was unfounded.

"No," Optimus replied. "But Deuce believes we should prepare regardless. He says that should Hax's spark fail, we should at least have a body to send off."

"Sparks don't leave much to say 'goodbye' to," Ratchet finished.

"Not that it matters," Deuce called over. "He's gonna make it."

Will sighed. "Wish I was as confident. How's his chances now?"

Ratchet looked over at the canister, regret all over his face. "They get worse by the hour. Two more days, and if he hasn't stabilised…he's not going to. Even if he hasn't self-collapsed, the spark will be too dispersed to ever function."

"Does Deuce know?" Mikaela asked, voice just above a whisper.

"We haven't told him," Optimus answered, just as quietly. "He's been in much better mental state since the operation – we don't want to ruin it. But I suspect he already knows."

The youngling in question showed no signs of hearing the conversation, instead picking up the final pencil and finishing off his work with a flourish.

"Ratchet!" he called, waving the paper in the air while Annabelle kept working. "I'm done."

Taking the cue, the medic walked over, picking up the ridiculously small sheet. It was too high for either of the humans to get a good look, but it was clearly more far more technical than any human child would have created – looking more like a blueprint than a drawing. By the side of the design, dozens of cybertronian symbols were listed, probably specifications.

Annabelle, noticing the commotion, held up her own masterpiece, quickly collected by Will.

"So what's my baby girl been working on? Is that Deuce? And you? And…"

The little pink blob had been easy enough to guess, as had the red and white one. But the blue blob threw him for a loop.

"…Optimus maybe."

Deuce shook his head, and pointed up at Ratchet's hand. "Her version of Hax. He wants to be blue."

Will just looked at him, and then at his daughter, brow furrowed as he tried to understand just how Deuce had managed to explain the concept of Hax to a child that was still surprised by peek a boo. Judging from the grin on Deuce's face, he understood the confusion completely.

"She just copied what I drew. Sort of."

Meanwhile, Optimus had walked over to look at Deuce's drawing, while Ratchet looked over the specifications, handing it over to his curious Prime and staring down at the youngling, raising an optic ridge.

"I noticed most of those specifications are identical to yours…except for one."

Deuce whistled innocently.

"Are you really going to be that petty?"

Deuce grinned.

"Uh huh."

Ratchet sighed. "Fine. I'll start work this afternoon. We have enough materials and on base to construct it pretty quickly."

Just then, both mech's comms activated, and Jazz's voice came through.

"Sorry to be the bearer of bad news," he chimed. "But remember those incoming Decepticons we picked up?"

Optimus tensed. "They've reached Earth's atmosphere?"

"Big time," Jazz replied. "We'll have contact in less than 5 hours. And if wanna catch them on impact, we'd better leave now."

Will sighed and pulled out his phone, fingers pushing in the secure number to Keller. "Never a quiet day around here. Mikaela, my wife's in the monitor room with Maggie, can you tell her to come get Annabelle and head home? Something tells me I'm not coming home tonight."

To be continued . . .