Pointless chapter is pointless. . .
Chapter Text
It was an Energon mine- if the myriad jutting crystals that emanated blue light were anything to go by. They looked like bigger versions of the one the Bots and Optimus had found. Graham had seen the Bots inject syringes of liquid of the same bluish hue into their frames, and once, he had come downstairs to find them each tipping cubes of the stuff into their mouths. High grade energon, Boulder had explained then. A special stash we had saved in the Sigma. Just to celebrate.
"Whoa," he heard Dani say from beside him, climbing out of Blades. "It's beautiful."
Huh. It was pretty. But that wasn't what they needed to be focusing on right now.
"Boulder," he said, "if we go back the way we came, can Blades fly us out of here?" Maybe they could take some crystals and go find the others.
His partner turned and surveyed the helicopter thoughtfully. Blades blinked at him. "Maybe. But we still have to find a way to harvest some of this Energon."
"Can you use your sonar imaging to tell where the team is?"
Boulder folded down to bulldozer mode. "Sure. Let me find a wall and. . ."
As Graham turned to watch his partner begin to lift up the front end of his alt-mode, a familiar-sounding crack rang into his ears, and the engineer in him remembered it instantly.
Oh no.
"Get down!" he yelled at Dani and Blades, jumping for Boulder's door. The earth-shaking rumble followed not an instant sooner than he had scrambled inside, vibrating the ground and Boulder. Graham was sure he felt his brain shaking in his head, and he pressed his hands over his temples reflexively. This was much more intense than what had caused the sinkholes. It went on for what seemed like forever-
When it had stopped, Graham found himself blinking intensely to chase away the shiny, blurry vision that he had for some reason. He took his glasses off and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. "Ow," he said, and meant it. His vision came back in patches, but it came back.
"Ow," he repeated.
"Are you okay?" Oh, this was Boulder. Boulder, still in vehicle mode. He should probably get out.
"I'm okay," he said. He got out.
"Graham!" Dani. This was Dani. "Graham, are you-"
"Okay," he repeated.
Boulder was a robot again- weird- and came over to him. He felt tingly for some reason. Weird.
"I don't know what's wrong with him," Boulder was saying. "I scanned him and his vitals are fine."
"Let me try," Blades said.
"Try what?" Dani asked.
Graham felt the tingly sensation again. Weird. "I was a sort-of medic for a little while on Cybertron," Blades offered.
"A medic for Bots, though, Blades," Boulder said.
"I can still detect neural firings and stuff," Blades said. "My scanners are more refined. Here- look at this, Boulder."
Graham's eyes must have really been not working, because he didn't see Blades give Boulder anything. Boulder nodded, saying, "Ah," like he had just understood something.
Graham was thankful that Dani voiced the confusion for him. "What do you mean? What did you show him?"
"Oh- a file," Blades said. "You guys don't have processors with data storage, do you?"
"No, but you do?" Dani said incredulously. "How much? Like five hundred gigabytes or something? I've been wasting money upgrading my phone."
"I'm not a phone!"
"Okay," Boulder said. "What are you going to do for him, Blades?"
"Oh," Blades said. "I don't- know that much about human biology-"
"Come on, Blades, please," Dani interrupted. "Just try?"
"Okay," Blades said. "Okay. Okay. Ah, Boulder, can you make a- a very small sonar wave- thingie from your hands or something?"
"Because of the-"
"Displacement of the vibrations, yes."
"Well, I'm not pretending to understand that," Dani said, "but whatever you guys are gonna do, we better do it fast."
"Alright," Boulder sighed. "I'll try it, Blades."
Graham saw his partner reach out a finger toward Graham's head, blinked at it, and managed a mumbled "What?" before a seemingly invisible force struck his brain over and over, and he blacked out.
He came back to three worried faces; Blades wringing his hands together, Dani biting her lip as she shook his shoulder, and Boulder, his optics sparking with panic, holding a hand on Graham's torso.
"Hey, guys," he managed.
"Thank Primus you're not dead," Boulder blurted. "I thought-"
"You're not dead," Dani said firmly. "Okay, answer me these questions. What's your name?"
"Graham Kasey Burns."
"How old are you?
"Twenty-two."
"Who are they?" Dani pointed at Boulder and Blades.
"Blades, Boulder; Rescue Bots," Graham recited. "Can I. . . get up now?"
"Oh," Boulder said, lifting his hand up. Graham took Dani's hand and got to his feet.
"So. . . what happened?" he asked.
Dani glanced at Boulder, who said, "The sound that caused the sinkhole happened again. You were inside me when it did, and I think the vibrations may have. . . well, I don't know how to explain it, but you were really disoriented. I hit you with a little. . . little sonar wave." He looked slightly guilty. "But you're okay, right?"
"I guess I am." He rubbed the side of his head. "So. . . do we have any idea what's causing that?"
"The rumble?" Dani said.
"Yeah. Didn't Optimus say he knew what it was?"
"He said it sounded like 'a Decepticon mining drill'," Dani said immediately. "But he didn't tell us what a 'Decepticon' was."
There was a creak, and a thump. Graham and Dani turned to look at Boulder, who had collapsed on the ground. The bulldozer was vibrating, very slightly, a trick of his engine that Graham had learned meant that his partner was anxious or uncomfortable.
"Boulder?" Blades said, very quietly. "Your. . ."
"Oh no," Boulder was saying. "No, no, no. . ."
