A/N: Slight changes-I decided that Knockdown's office is on the same floor as the med bay itself, as that wouldn't require that much space. (His personal quarters are still on one of the floors above.)

I also decided the Citizens / "Decepticon Vehicons" are still "faceless" (like the regular universe ones, with the visors and all), as it seems unlikely that the Autobots would bother to replace their faceplates, and I definitely wanted the Autobot Vehicons to be faceless.

I'll be making the appropriate changes to earlier chapters. :)

Chapter 21: Disassembling and Dissembling

No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renownèd be thy grave!

- William Shakespeare, "Cymbeline"

The lights were on. That was the first thing Knockdown noticed.

The second was Knock Out, asleep at one of the operating tables, his head resting over his folded arms. Steady ventilations breathed out of his shoulder vents and his expression was calm, relaxed. A stack of polishing cloths, some new, some used, and a small container of polish sat at the red mech's elbow, while little curls of organic material—paper?—lay scattered in front of him.

Careful not to disturb the sleeper, Knockdown leaned over to pick up one of the crumpled, brightly colored scraps. It clung to his fingers as he turned it over, the stickiness on the back causing the paper to bunch in on itself. It was a kind of glossy decal showing an abstract interpretation of an Earth flower. Stickers, the Humans called them. Popular decorations with the Citizens, although they weren't really supposed to have any contact with Humans. Airachnid still hadn't figured out how they smuggled them on board . . .

Come to that, how had Knock Out come into possession of them? Reaching for another wadded up sticker, the cyan medic suddenly froze.

Because it was at this point that he noticed the third thing. The head.

With both arms folded around it, Knock Out cuddled it to his chassis, his own gleaming red helm resting sideways against the orange paint of the decapitated Citizen. Dim grey blotches of residue ran down the side of the helm, but the gluey substance had been raised into thin weals in places, pushed back around the edges by an encroaching tide of gloss. About half the helm was still matte, and there was one tiny sticker along the curve of the jaw, shaped like a star, that Knock Out had seemingly missed.

For a few seconds Knockdown simply stared at the scene, so peaceful yet so macabre, not quite believing. Then his optics caught a glimpse of something orange on the far side of the operation table. He didn't want to know. He really, really didn't want to know. He stepped around the table anyway.

Arms. Arms and legs in neat piles, lefts with lefts and rights with rights. Sleek coils of cabling, secured with thin, twisted loops of wire. Empty medicine boxes, devoid of medicine at least, but each filled with gears or bolts, sorted by size. Struts. Hydraulics. Chest armor, shoulder armor, stacked and fitted into interlocking bundles, as though factory new.

In fact, everything gleamed like new, from the chestplates to the tiniest gears. The armor might have had a few scratches and dents, but still it was polished to a shine. It was all pristine, clean . . .

All but the motley tangle of the burnt and fractured components in the corner. A surprisingly small pile, really.

Knockdown kept casting little glances back at Knock Out. Instinctively, he felt the red mech should've been . . . attacking or laughing maniacally. But he slept on, serene, merely sighing a little without opening his optics. As he shifted, a thin thread of silver gleamed between his arm casing and his door. The edge of his buzzsaw.

Knockdown's wings were hiking up; he forcibly pulled them to a calmer position. He crossed his arms, tapping his fingers in a successive row on his armor, then uncrossed them. Sending a message to Trauma and readying an emergency message to Starscream (just in case), Knockdown grabbed his double by the shoulder and shook.

"Hwuh! Wha!" Knock Out jerked upright so fast he almost fell backwards off the stool. Knockdown drew back as both buzzsaws leaped out, but the ruby red grounder only dug the teeth into the table to pull himself forward.

"Where . . . oh. Oh." The saws flipped back into hiding and Knock Out tipped his head as he smiled his charming smile. "Good morning, Doctor." When the blue surgeon didn't respond right away, Knock Out inquired, "It is morning, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Mmmm!" Knock Out stretched luxuriantly. His eyes dropped to the orange helm in front of him before shoving it casually to the side. "Sorry about the mess." He idly impaled a few shriveled stickers on his claws. "I fell asleep midway through, I suppose."

"That seems likely."

"Strange little things." He rubbed his fingers together, rolling and shredding the brightly colored decals.

"Stickers."

"Oh, is that what they are? The paper part is easy enough to get rid of, but then there's this organic goo underneath."He spread one hand over the top of orange helm, picking it up and turning it to show Knockdown.

The Seeker said nothing, and when Knock Out held the helm out, clearly expecting him to take it, he simply didn't move. He did, however, send another message to Trauma.

Knock Out's eyes narrowed just a bit at the lack of response, his optics fixed on Knockdown as he set the head back on the table with a slight thump. Then his carefree expression returned as he shrugged, sauntering around the table to admire the rest of his handiwork.

"Still, things went smoothly overall, I'd say." Walking up and down in front of the disassembled Citizens, the red mech radiated such an air of self-satisfaction that Knockdown could almost feel it rolling over him in an oily wave. "Plenty of salvage. The other cranial units are in that box over there; thought you might want to compare their coding with those Autobot Vehicons and see 'where it all went wrong', so to speak. Unless you'd rather have me break them down?"

"No. No, thank you."

"No, I thought not. Sometimes it's more useful intact, isn't it?" He hooked an arm off the floor and idly tested the elbow joint, flexing the limb between his hands. "Oh! And I also organized the cabinets!" He tossed the arm on the table and trotted over to open a cabinet which, thankfully, contained nothing more sinister than antibiotics, cleansers, and nanites.

"You've been busy." Knockdown's optics kept sliding back to the table.

"Well," Knock Out said modestly. His silver-grey hand flashed in an elaborate gesture, fingertips pressed briefly against his red chassis before flitting sideways and upward. No need to thank me, was the clear meaning, although, given my hard work, you certainly SHOULD.

Knockdown moved over to take a closer look at the cupboard. The bottles and boxes were organized exactly as he would've done, had he ever found the time. Exactly.

"Very . . . good job. With the cabinets." He turned towards the red mech (who looked underwhelmed and slightly disgruntled) and pointed two fingers towards what had not long ago been the bodies of five bots whom Knockdown had sworn to serve and protect. "Move the . . . remains . . . into the back room, please, and then meet me in my office."

Knock Out's eyes went wide at that, then wary. But he picked up the box of "cranial units" and got to work.

Meanwhile Knockdown sequestered himself in his office, allowing him one brief moment to lean against the wall and slide his hand down his face. He vented out a huge breath. No need to call Starscream. Knockdown protected his staff. Even staff members who had only been working for him for one day and thought nothing of desecrating corpses.

What, he wondered, had he gotten himself into?

Soundwave absently petted Laserbeak's wings as she nestled on his chest. He would have liked to have petted Buzzsaw, too, but Buzzsaw was fitted to his back armor, out of reach, and having him there made Soundwave feel . . . protected. He did not really want to think about yesterday, when uncomfortable things had happened and he'd had to visit the medical bay and been bossed into removing his faceplate to drink some unpleasant concoction and when Starscream was so insistent about needing that video clip.

And now here was Starscream at his door and he really wished she wasn't, because he was tired. He hadn't slept well, and he didn't want to think about that, either. He just wanted to draw, or maybe talk with Trauma. He was scheduled to talk with Trauma, later.

"Ah, Soundwave . . . feeling better, I hope?" Starscream asked.

He nodded because he was at least feeling better than he had the day before.

"I wonder if you could look something up for me."

She paused and he nodded again. He could. Just get on with it.

"Thank you, my dear. I would like to know if there are any records of a vessel called the Nemesis."

After a fraction of a second, Soundwave began transmitting data to her. There was a sailboat called the Nemesis in Annapolis, Maryland. There was a fishing boat called the Nemesis in Anchorage, Alaska. There was a—

Starscream cleared her throat. "I am specifically wondering about Cybertronian vessels."

Soundwave initiated another search. There were fifteen different starships called the Nemesis in Cybertronian history; it was a very popular name. There was a Cybertronian shuttle called the Nemesis, eventually refitted and renamed the Avalon five point six millions years before the war. There was a Cybertronian satellite repair craft call the Nemesis, burnt up during re-entry four point four million years before the war. There was—

"Soundwave . . ." Starscream shuttered her optics and massaged her head with her fingers. "Active! Are there any active Cybertronian ships called the Nemesis? Active."

Oh. Why hadn't she asked that to begin with? He shook his head. No. No, there were not.

"Hm. Well, thank you. Carry on." She gave a regal wave of her fingers and walked away, her heels clicking.

Soundwave cleared the search from his processor, including the information on the Nemesis, the sister ship of the Heretic, which had been destroyed while still in drydock.

There was no reason to tell Starscream about it.

She hadn't asked.

Trauma flipped his internal alarm clock off the minute it started blaring, without unshuttering his optics, without fully waking up. Yesterday had been a grueling ordeal—first all the battle injuries, then finishing up with Knock Out's arm, which really could have waited. But Knockdown liked to get things done now now now.

At least they hadn't had any overnight patients, Knock Out aside—really a miracle, considering there'd been a raid. Even better, Trauma's schedule was clear until 11, when he would meet with Soundwave. His current plan was to sleep right up until 10:59 . . .

There was an internal ding as he received a text message. Drowsily he checked the sender. Knockdown. He opened it.

::Come to med bay.::

What? No. Had to be a mistake. Wasn't scheduled to be in the med bay today. Trauma dropped back into recharge.

Thirty minutes later he floated back towards consciousness. He had a vague feeling that he'd received—yes, more incoming messages. All from Knockdown.

::Come to med bay. Immediately.::

::Where are you? Come to med bay.::

::Come to med bay. I'm in my office. Do not disturb. Later we will talk about tardiness.::

"Scraaaaap," Trauma moaned, half rolling, half leaping off his berth. Three messages? Four, including the first one. That added up to a furious boss who would soon be hissing quiet yet ominous reprimands at him. But really, couldn't they take a break just this once?

::Sorry. On my way.:: Trauma sent off the message as he hurried into the corridor. His room was near the original medical bay. Unlike Knockdown, whose quarters were a few floors up from the new medical bay, Trauma had elected to stay in his original suite. It was nice having some physical distance from his workplace. At least, it was nice until you had to run down the halls in the hopes that your perfectionist boss wouldn't kill you for being forty-five minutes late.

Trauma finally reached the medical bay, panting a little as he drew air through his mouth as well as his vents. Knockdown was nowhere in sight, nor were there any patients about. Anyway, Knockdown had said he'd be in his office . . . He certainly wouldn't shut himself in there if a patient needed help.

And speaking of the office . . . Trauma moved closer to the closed door, fascinated. He could hear Knockdown! Given the thickness of the door and the surgeon's normal, quiet tone, that was extraordinary! Wait . . . ah . . . not Knockdown, Knock Out. His indignant tone was interspersed with murmured responses, barely audible, from Knockdown. Trauma couldn't make out what Knockdown was saying, but he caught the occasional phrase from Knock Out when he hit a particularly powerful crescendo.

" . . . whole point of generics! . . . . . . . . . . . aren't using them anymore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . go to waste?"

None of which enlightened Trauma in the least. He sent a message to Knockdown indicating he'd arrived in the medical bay. The response was brief, but puzzling:

::Good. Be with you in a few minutes. Don't look in the back room.::

Knockdown was a skilled medic and highly intelligent. But he had his blind spots. And he was no psychologist.

Trauma's eyes immediately went to the back room.

What could be in there? Not a patient, because the back room, the room behind the one-way mirror, was for watching the operating theater, not for housing patients. And really all they used it for these days was storage. Could something be shut in there? An animal, perhaps? It could happen; back when the ship had still been airborne, they'd ended up with some seagulls in the upper levels and it had been an ordeal to shoo them out. That had been Dreadwing's fault, of course, he'd secretly been feeding them . . . The med bay was in the Towers now, still above water, so maybe another bird . . . ?

It wouldn't hurt, would it, if he just took a peek?

"You're just going to let all those components go to waste?"

Knockdown gazed at his clone over his fingers, which were locked together in a sort of square. His tone was level. "Respect for the dead is not a waste."

Knock Out closed his optics and drew in a deep breath. "Respect for the recently deceased is laudable, of course." Opening his eyes, he gave a strained smile. "But surely . . . in a time of war . . . "

"In a time of war, our obligations are more important than ever. To the dead. To the living who mourn them."

"Mourn them!" Knock Out sounded incredulous.

Knockdown raised an optic ridge. "You don't think they'll be missed?"

"Well . . . I suppose they might be missed by . . . by . . ." The red mech fumbled for an answer, then tossed his hands upward. "All right, fine, they're missed! I'm sorry I broke some sadspark's heart by dissecting their identical, interchangeable chassis!"

"Knock Out . . ."

"Sorry. I'm sorry." He sounded more sincerely this time, though there was still an edge underneath it. "I can reassemble them if you want."

Knockdown looked at him for a second. "That's a very ambitious statement. Considering the state they've been reduced to."

"Well, it'll take time, of course. I'm better at breaking them than putting them back together . . . Five Vehicons, completely disassembled—"

"Citizens," Knockdown said sharply. "Not Vehicons."

"—that'd be about five days, a week at most. Though if you want my opinion, it would be much easier to take five of those Autobot Vehicons and paint them orange."

"No, Knock Out."

"We could even swap the heads."

"No, Knock Out."

For a moment the red grounder looked like he was going to argue. Then he brightened a fraction. "What about the Autobot's little troopers? Now there's a good source of parts! No one's going to miss them, hmmm? And they're the same mold as your, ah, Citizens."

"Yes . . . because that's what they used to be before they were kidnapped and reprogrammed," Knockdown said frostily.

"Ah. Riiiight. Right."

"Even if they weren't, we don't scavenge from corpses. Understand?"

Crossing his arms, Knock Out let his head sink forward on his chest as he muttered something. It sounded like, "Even Autobot medics scavenge." Which was no surprise to Knockdown.

"We aren't Autobots. We don't stripmine corpses. Understand?" he repeated.

"Fiiiine, yes, I understand." Knock Out looked resigned rather than enthusiastic, but good enough.

"As for reassembling them—One moment." The cyan medic had just received a message from Trauma.

::I'm in the back room, WHAT IN THE PIT HAPPENED?::

Knockdown repressed a sigh. ::Knock Out happened. I think that's what they trained him for.::

::That's sick!::

::They're Autobots, Trauma. What's your like schedule today?::

::Clear until 11.::

::Good.::

"As for reassembling the bodies," Knockdown said, returning his attention to his doppelganger, who was slouched back in his chair, arms crossed, "I'll let you know. Right now you're going to go with Trauma for your first session. Every two weeks, remember?"

"Doesn't that start next week? I'm sure that's what you said. Next week."

"No. Today. Right now."

" . . . I can hardly wait."

Bumblebee stared up at the ceiling of his habitation suite. He wished another wave of Vehicons would attack or that there'd be an earthquake or something, because suddenly, for the first time since he'd gone through that Pit-spawned portal, he had time to lie back and just think, and oh Primus did he miss his friends. How many days had he been gone? Three? Four? Raf must be worried sick. Optimus and the rest of the Autobots would search for him, but there was nothing to find. Would he ever get back?

He'd given up the idea of telling the Decepticons the truth. They might be good, but there was still something so Decepticon-ish about them, something calculating, far too efficient, maybe even a little ruthless. Trauma had apologized to "the clones" for triggering Soundwave (and provided them with a list of words and phrases to avoid at all costs), but what the scrap kind of plan was that to begin with? To antagonize someone—a friend!—who was clearly half-crazy at the best of times? Optimus would never have done that. Ultra Magnus wouldn't have. It was a plan that had "Decepticon!" written all over it, the kind of Decepticon that Bumblebee was all too familiar with.

And yet . . . Trauma had been trying to save them . . .

Bumblebee groaned, covering his face with his servos as he wished for the familiarity of people he understood.

Instead, a knock on the door brought him face to face with Starscream and . . . hoooo boy . . . Skyquake.

"Hello again, Bumblebee," Starscream greeted him. "I'm pleased to say that Skyquake here has volunteered to show you around the ship."

From the look on Skyquake's face, he had been volunteered, but nevertheless he nodded. "Yeah."

"Oh . . . great," Bumblebee said. Being shown around the ship by Skyquake.

Skyquake, whose brother had been killed by Bumblebee's counterpart in this universe.

Skyquake, whom Bumblebee himself had killed in his own universe.

Yeah, this wouldn't be awkward at all.

"And as far as employing your talents," Starscream was saying, "I'm going to register you as a General Assistant, my dear. You'll be able to try your servo at anything until you find something that's 'you.'"

"All right. Thanks." He couldn't help but feel guilty for not being more genuinely grateful, but he really just wanted to get home . . . "Well." He looked at Skyquake.

"Yeah. C'mon, I'll show you the energon dispensary first."

Skyquake proved to be a 'Con of few words. "Here's the energon dispensary." "This is the Library." "This is the bridge." (No one on it except a single Vehicon—Citizen?—manning a computer station.)

"And here's the arena." He gestured around a surprisingly spacious room, except "room" didn't really do it justice, it was practically an indoor coliseum. "Shooting range is through that archway. Every couple weeks they have a big event. Big fights, you know. Three bots against Megatron or whatever. He always wins." For a moment his tone was no longer flat, but full of admiration.

"It's gigantic," Bumblebee said, staring around. Huge blocks of metal were scattered around the floor, to serve as obstacles or cover, he guessed.

"Gotta be big for aerial fights," Skyquake explained. Then he looked embarrassed. "But lots of bots fight on the ground too," he assured the car-bot.

Bumblebee just nodded. It was no surprise to him that a ship full of Seekers liked aerial combat. "Hey, you know how I'm looking for, well, a job?"

"Yeah," Skyquake said cautiously.

"Who's in charge of technical stuff like, ohhhh, the ground bridges?"

"Head of Communications. That'd be Soundwave. But I don't think he's really up to having an apprentice right now because, well, you know."

Because he's flipping nuts. Great.

"Communications is a one-bot show," Skyquake went on, "But if you're into building stuff, you should try the Engineering division."

"Who runs that?"

"Ummm. Shockwave, technically, but . . ."

"But?"

Skyquake's whole face seemed to furrow, his frown was so deep. "He's not actually on board," he said at last. "Hasn't been for a while."

Bumblebee wasn't too surprised. He'd heard plenty of references to Shockwave, but always accompanied by a slight tension. "Oh. So . . . where is he?"

"Dunno. He's just . . . out there. Somewhere."

How completely uninformative. "So he just left? What's his deal?"

"You're a nosy little groundpounder, aren't you?" Skyquake growled, then covered his face with his hand. "Sorry, that . . . that was rude. Look, if you ask ten different mechs what went down with Shockwave, you're gonna get ten different answers. No one really knows. No, scratch that—everyone thinks they know. All I know is that something got fragged up between him and Soundwave after he was taken hostage. Fragged up bad. Only Shockwave and Soundwave know exactly what happened, I guess. But for the love of Primus, DON'T go asking Soundwave. That poor bot has been through a lot."

Rightly or wrongly, Bumblebee interpreted this as "Soundwave will go crazy and try to murder you if you ask him." But "taken hostage"? That sounded interesting . . .

"But you said I should look at the Engineering division, and if Shockwave's gone-"

"Oh, there's still engineers. Spool's more or less running the team now. One of the Citizens."

One of the Vehicons, Bumblebee thought. "Thanks, I'll look into it."

They walked in silence for a time.

"Hey, Skyquake," Bumblebee asked suddenly, "are there any Humans aboard the Ne—" Great, now he was doing it. "—aboard the Heretic? Like, Human allies . . . Partners . . ."

"Humans?" Skyquake looked startled. "What would Humans be doin' on board? Human partners? How would that even work? Fraggin' things are tiny. They'd be no good in a fight."

"They can—could—still be a big help," Bumblebee argued.

"Sure, sure, small people are still useful," Skyquake said hastily, misinterpreting Bumblebee's defensiveness. "But no. We steer clear of Humans whenever we can. Don't want 'em getting caught in the crossfire, you know? They're fragile."

"Yeah . . ." Bumblebee tried to keep the depression out of his voice. No Raf. Not even an alternate-universe Raf. "What about the Autobots? They don't have Human allies, do they?" Evil Raf . . .?

"You don't know?" Skyquake looked at him curiously, and Bumblebee's spark flipped nervously as he remembered that, duh, he was supposed to be an Autobot clone. But Skyquake was still speaking. "Guess they really kept you two in the dark, huh? Nah, the Autobots don't have nothin' to do with Humans. They'll squash 'em if they get in their way, but that's about it."

"They'll squash them? Don't you Decepticons defend them? Like you said, Humans are fragile, it's not their fault they're caught up in our war—"

"Nope, best not to get involved. If we showed that we cared, they'd go after Humans all the time just t' spite us. Or take the little guys hostage," Skyquake said indifferently.

And given Bumblebee's experiences in his own universe, it was hard to argue with that.

A/N, Part 2: Soundwave is like the Google search that gives you every result except the one you want.