Driver 10

Miner

A Transformers Prime Fanfiction

"Mama? Did the package come today?" Raf rested his hands on the counter and stared entreatingly up at his mother. She smiled down at him and ruffled his spiky hair.

"That it did!" she answered him cheerfully. "It is over by the coffee maker."

Raf trotted over and picked up the heavy package marked with plenty of Canadian postage. Cousin Pedro had pulled some strings at his mine and had gotten the official documentation for the entire mine structure sent to his favorite cousin. The boy grinned as he staggered out toward where Bumblebee waited. His older brother caught him half way and snatched up the parcel. Despite Raf's protests the larger boy insisted on carrying it out to the waiting car. The passenger door swung up and he tossed the package onto the back seat with a cheery wave to the trim blond driver.

"Hey Bee! You remembering to take good care of little Raf?" the older boy called out cheerfully, ruffling his brother's hair.

Raf scowled a little at the gesture. It wasn't bad when Mama did that but he wasn't a baby anymore. The holoform gave a cheerful thumbs-up at Raf's brother and grinned widely.

"Of course you are! Keep it under ninety amigos!"

As soon as Raf was buckled in the car tore out of the drive and the hologram dissipated.

*Your brothers sure watch out for you,* Bee whistled appreciatively.

"Yeah, I guess," Raf muttered.

*Is that package the data Driver requested?* the Autobot asked to change the subject.

"Yes it is," Raf replied, suddenly enthusiastic. "Pedro found the old hard copies and got permission from the boss to send them to me."

*Didn't your mom want to know what you wanted it for?*

"Yes, I told her that a new friend at the computer club was a retired miner and he was interested in the Big Rock mine. Hey, don't you think Driver is looking better these days?"

*I do! His optics are brighter. He still slumps around the cell all the time but at least he gets up and moves occasionally.*

Raf grinned and nodded. Caring for the mech had turned out to be harder work than he thought. Not that the physical part was all that difficult. All he really had to do was bring the trolley of energon and metals to the miner and Driver did the rest himself. It was the entertaining part that turned out to be difficult. He had found a TV and DVD player easy enough. But the mech had only stared listlessly at the DVD's he had brought in. When the mech had finally watched a few Raf suspected it was more to get the human to stop bugging him about it. The same had held true for the books Raf had brought him. The boy was getting quite discouraged with the task when a fortuitous accident had occurred.

Raf's sister Pilar had the rather bad habit of storing important documents in whatever book happened to be handy. The local librarian had a special file for report cards and other sundry items that showed up in the Esquivel family returns. When the latest letter from Pedro containing a glossy photograph of Selene had gone missing a search had been made of the entire house to no avail. Pilar had guiltily slunk off to her room.

Later that week Raf was picking up the books from a table in Driver's cell after another frustrating round of trying to get the listless mech interested in something. The boy was just about to leave in defeat when the miner called him back.

"You dropped something Rafael Esquivel," Driver said as he held out a carefully folded piece of paper.

"Oh! There's the letter!" Raf exclaimed happily. "Is the picture still in it?"

The sudden and pure joy that lit up the boys face brought a small smile to the mech. He scanned the paper and nodded.

"There is a photograph inside."

Raf came forward and took them out of the Decepticon's servos.

"So this Selena is the most visually pleasing human female on your planet?" Driver asked curiously.

Raf blinked up at him in surprise.

"That's what Cousin Pedro says," the boy stated a bit confused, "but how did you know?"

"When I scanned the documents I read the data," the mech explained. "I'm sorry, was it classified?"

"No, no," Raf assured him as he slipped the letter into his backpack. "Not classified at all. Hey, you know, Cousin Pedro is a miner just like you."

"Really?" Driver asked idly.

"Yeah, he just got married to Selena. This is her," Raf said holding up the picture for the mech to examine; which he did out of politeness already having stored the image in his long term memory. It showed a female human slightly younger than Nurse Darby. She had greater skin pigmentation and larger dark eyes. Her hair was left loose to fall around her face and shoulders and a beautiful smile beamed out benevolence on the world in general.

"Married?"

"Oh, uh," Raf hesitated a moment. "That's when two humans agree to spend their lives together. 'And the two shall become one flesh,'" he quoted from the ceremony.

"So like a spark bond or forming a gestalt," Driver said his interest growing. "Will she be a part of his mining unit now?"

"Well yes and no," Raf replied earning him a confused look from the mech. "She won't go down into the mines with him, but she will do everything she can to help him. Like she'll pack his lunches and entertain his coworkers, ah the rest of his unit, and just do everything in her power to make sure he's as healthy and strong as can be when he does go down into the mines."

"And humans cannot sense each other as a Cybertronian gestalt can?"

"Well, some say they can but it's never been proven and Selene and Pedro sure can't."

The miner was quiet for a moment as he studied the image of the smiling bride.

"She has a difficult task," he said finally.

"Selene?" Raf asked surprised.

"She must wait alone while her beloved goes below," Driver said. "I have been there. It is far easier to face the dangers of the deep yourself that to stand on the surface listening to the groaning of the crust."

"Oh, I never thought about it that way," Raf whispered. He considered all the times he'd waited for Bee to come back from a dangerous scouting mission. "She did seem a little afraid whenever she talked about him going down; which was odd because the company that runs the mines has one of the best safety ratings on the planet."

"Who rates the mines for safety?"

"I'm not sure. The governments I guess."

"Perhaps I could look over the ratings for this mine," Driver suggested. "I could tell you if it was safe and then you could help ease your cousin's fears."

"That'd be great!"

"What kind of mining is he doing?"

"What? Oh," Raf thought a minute. "The Big Rock mine has a variety of minerals but their biggest one is copper."

What had followed was the longest conversation Raf had ever had with the mech. It had lasted hours while the Decepticon picked the boy's brain for every detail he remembered about the mine in question and Earth mining in general. The human lost all sense of time. When Raf had finally got home he had some explaining to do. His mother was a bit angry at first, but when he explained that a master miner had agreed to assess the safety of Pedro's mine her agitation vanished and she offered to do everything she could to help. This is what led to Raf hauling the heavy package out to the yellow Camero.

Since that conversation the mech had begun to request any and all information he could get on Earth mining and metalworking. The mech had absorbed the data from DVD's, VHS tapes, eight-tracks, and every book in the local library system. Raf had written to his cousin for every detail he could get on the mine and Pedro had cheerfully obliged, even sending semi classified documents. The bundle currently bouncing around Bumblebee's rear seat was the complete history of safety reports for the mine.

Driver met them in the main silo. Optimus had cleared him to be out of his cell when supervised by at least two Autobots. Time and exposure were gradually wearing away the deep distrust between them and the miner. Logically they knew that the Cybertronian had been under duress the entire time he had worked for the enemy, and the Decepticons had lost their hold on him when his last brother had died. But battle is a matter of instinct as much as it is knowledge, and their instincts screamed at them to distrust that purple shield. Nevertheless the miner's gentle spirit was slowly softening their resistance.

Bumblebee, young and eager, had been the first to warm up to the ex-Con. He pulled up beside the white mech and transformed, shifting Raf to his shoulder and holding the packet out to Driver. The mech scanned the packet and began processing the data.

"I wish I could absorb things that fast," Raf commented wistfully.

Driver glanced up at him in confusion.

"Why?"

"Well, so I could learn faster and learn more," Raf explained.

*What are you doing with all this data anyway? And why are you in such a hurry,* Bee asked, as they strode briskly towards Driver's room.

"I am locating ways the mine might be made safer for Rafael's cousin using the human's current technology," the white mech explained. "I have already found several and I would like to complete the study before I off whoa!"

Suddenly the yellow mech tripped and lurched into his companion. Rafael yelped and clung to his shoulder as the Cybertronians regained their balance.

*Sorry about that,* Bumblebee chirped helping Driver to his peds.

The white mech stared at him expressionlessly then started off down the corridor. When they reached the room Driver looked around for a moment and frowned.

"Where is that data pad we were using?" he asked Raf.

The boy glanced around and shook his head.

"I think I left it by the couch. I'll go get it."

Once he was gone Driver slowly turned on Bumblebee.

"What was that about?" he asked calmly.

*What was what about?* Bee replied glancing nervously away.

"You know how Autobots are always spouting on about the importance of the truth? Is that merely because none of you can lie worth scrap?" the white mech demanded. "You tripped into me on purpose back there. Why?"

Bee refused to meet his optics and didn't answer.

"Look Autobot, I may not be the brightest crystal in the garden but I'm not stupid either. You didn't want Raf to hear what I was going to say. Wait! Does he not know that I'm going to offline soon?" The mech's optics narrowed as the idea struck him He had never brought up the subject and neither had the human but Driver had simply assumed the boy was being polite. "Why? What could you gain by keeping him ignorant?"

The scout made an undignified break for the door chirping softly in distress. Driver listened to him flee down the corridor. The Autobots were famous for being soft-sparked. It made a certain kind of sense if they hadn't told the little one about his impending demise. They didn't want to hurt the child. But if that was the case then why assign Raf to him at all? Why not simply isolate him from all the children or assign the more mature Jack? He was certain the Prime was not stupid and reasonably sure he would not show cruelty to an ally and a child. It made no sense.

Driver thrust a drill into the wall in frustration and jumped back in surprise at the amount of damage he caused. The mech reminded himself that this was a human construct with a sigh and went to requisition a bag of concrete from the medic. He should probably run a self diagnostic too or Ratchet would insist on performing a full scan. Driver paused at the door as a stray thought hit him. His faceplates went utter blank as he ran a self diagnostic of his cyber-neural net. Slow rage mingled with cold fear rose in his spark as his processor slowly and methodically ground over the facts.

When a mech was separated from his gestalt what usually caused the final offlining was the degradation of the cyber-neural network. What ultimately caused this decay had been debated fiercely in academic circles in the Golden Age of Cybertron. To the mech in question however, spark-break was usually a sufficient answer. When his gestalt has still numbered close to a thousand mechs Decepticon scientists had experimented on some who were considered expendable. To accomplish this they had done what was previously thought to be impossible; they had broken the gestalt bond without offlining the mech. It was also previously thought to be morally reprehensible and useless but when did that ever stop a determined Decepticon scientist? This allowed them to study the degradation rate under controlled conditions. It also allowed the commander in charge of the gestalt to play the screams of the isolated mechs back to any in the unit who might think of disobeying orders.

The end result was that Driver knew at exactly what rate his cyber-neural net should be degrading. And up till now his mental function had been dutifully following the curve the tests had predicted. But now the degradation had stopped. No, not just stopped; reversed. He was functioning at a higher rate than at any time since he had woken from stasis in that little human village. There was only one thing that could account for that; only one thing that could pull a lone gestalt member back from the brink. Driver saw the welcoming blackness of oblivion snatched from him in that moment and he saw the servos that had snatched it.

With a snarl of rage the battered white mech strode into the silo proper. Optimus Prime was at the main computer. Transforming his hand into a drill Driver swung it at the Autobot in a blind fury. He felt the red and blue mech deflect the blow easily and shift slightly but Optimus did not take up a fighting stance. He simply stood there staring compassionately down at the suffering mech.

"You did this on purpose!" Driver roared out.

"Did what?" a small voice cried out.

Silver optics turned toward the sound. Raf was standing by the human's couch watching the confrontation with a look of fear and confusion on his face. The white mech felt his rage melt away as surely as it had come. Shame boiled up for frightening the little one. He glanced around the base. Bumblebee was standing worriedly by the groundbridge looking guilty. Ratchet was glaring at the two mechs who dared get in a fight over his precious equipment.

"We need to talk," Driver finally growled.

"Indeed," Optimus replied. "Ratchet we may be busy some time. Please brief Agent Fowler when he comes. Driver, follow me."

With that the leader of the Autobots strode back into the depths of the base.