2.13: The Brink of Victory

Emirate Xaaron's Suite

The Celestial Temple

Iacon

Cybertron

"We are acting in good faith and with all due deference to the Inter-State Accords. We haven't done anything wrong in offering our assistance to the people of Simfur, and I am getting tired of repeating this." Haccano's face-plates shifted in annoyance and he thumped the edge of Xaaron's desk for emphasis. "I would have thought that protecting innocent civilians would be something even the Council could agree on."

"And if the Council was convinced that that was what Tarn was doing, they probably would." Xaaron shrugged. "Would you accept troops in Simfur if it was Vos putting them there?"

Annoyance became anger. "That is an unjustified comparison. Vos' unscrupulousness has been more than adequately demonstrated by its response to the Mahlex disaster. We, on the other hand, have never behaved with anything less than total honesty with our neighbours."

"I know. That's what's so worrying." Resting his chin on folded hands, Xaaron frowned thoughtfully. "You must understand that doing this will only aggravate your relations with Vos. And I find it hard to believe that is what you really want."

"We have never been the aggressor!" Haccano drove a fist into an open palm. "Vos has tried to undermine Tarn since we were established as a city-state. They have only intensified their efforts now that the Logical Revolution has proven a success."

"And Vos would argue that Tarn is overtly threatening their borders with its extravagant military investment, that its obsessive monitoring of its citizens is the sign of a dangerously oppressive autocracy, and that by moving troops into Simfur it has simply revealed the expansionism that lies at the heart of Viilon's regime. I suspect everyone on the Council knows this argument by rote – look, I did not ask you hear so we could exchange official rants."

With a gesture, Xaaron cut his desk's recording system, then made a show of closing down his in-built third-party recorders. He looked pointedly at Haacono. The big Tarnian scowled, then shut off his own documentation units. They stared at each other in silence for a moment.

"Where is this all going to end, Haacano?" Xaaron asked, optics dimming a little.

"With Vos as a smoking ruin, if I had any say in it."

"I don't mean the feud. I meant Simfur. Are you honestly telling me those soldiers are just there to keep the peace?"

Haccano tilted his head to the side. "They asked for our help, Xaaron. No one else would have listened to them. You think the Prime's Council would ever have agreed to deploy Defence Directorate forces inside a city-state, no matter how wretched? If we hadn't gone in, when we did, thousands more would be dead."

"And now you have gone in, it's just possible that their lives will be ruined anyway." Xaaron hissed in exasperation. "I cannot believe that Viilon would do this out of the goodness of his spark, and neither can anyone else. Is he deliberately trying to provoke his neighbours?"

"I..." Haacano paused, caught between defensiveness and reassurance. "He would never act without good reason."

"No doubt he sees securing territory to bolster Tarn's borders following the damage to its economic superiority as a good reason to launch a military occupation."

"It is not a military occupation!"

"Haacano, there are armed Tarnian troops on the streets of Simfur, carrying out arrests and disabling anyone who causes trouble."

"On behalf of the new Simfur government!"

"A government being heavily 'advised' by Tarnian commanders."

"Damnit – we are not being underhanded about this!"

"No. That's the point. You're doing it openly and without fear of the consequences. And as a result, you are making a lot of people extremely nervous. What are you planning for Simfur? Are you going to stop there? Will you go after the other cities that are now taking their fuel from Vos, not you?"

Making a sound of incoherent fury, Haacano began to rise from his seat, fists clenched. "These are baseless accusations! How dare you use a private conversation to perpetuate Vosian lies in front of me!"

"Sit down." Xaaron's tone was so authoritative that Haacano obeyed before he had time to think about it. "Whether you like it or not, these are very real concerns for the rest of us. If the accusations are baseless, we must see proof of Tarn's good intentions. And if this sounds like I'm patronising you, that is simply because I am astounded that you haven't produced that proof already."

When Haacano showed no inclination to respond, Xaaron went on, "You must see how reckless this is. The Allspark knows I am the last person to say that the Logical Revolution was, in itself, a bad thing. I was Tarnian before I joined the Defence Directorate, I know how bad it was. But that cannot excuse some of the things Viilon has done. Never mind the moral issues – he scares people, Haacano. Say what you will about the Vosians but at least they attempt to be diplomatic before the act. Viilon simply acts and then, perhaps, will explain himself – if he deems it necessary. He purposefully quashes any real indication of what he will do next. That is terrifying for the rest of us. And it is a hideously dangerous way to behave when your city has a record of disruption and aggressiveness that makes the riots in Simfur look like a slightly excited party."

He thought, for a moment, that he would evoke as little response as before. Then Haacano gave a bass hum and let his hands fall open. "Tarn has existed since ancient times," he said softly, "and Viilon's government has existed for but a few hundred stellar-cycles. The past overshadows us, Xaaron, at every turn. The Vosians call us warmongers and you all half-believe them because the Tarnians have always been aggressively territorial. Viilon saves us from ourselves and you call him a tyrant. You demand proof of our good intentions then give us no time to prove them." The thickset tank looked up and shook his head sadly. "Do you want reassurance? Do you want me to reassure the High Council, the people of Cybertron, the Prime himself that Tarn's intentions are honourable and that our troops are in Simfur to help its people? Because I don't think I can do that. I'm not sure it is possible for a Tarnian to ever reassure the outside world that his city is not the monster you think it is." Still looking sorrowful, he got to his feet and shrugged. "You want something that is impossible to give."

Xaaron regarded him over steepled fingers. "I fear, Haacano, you are going to have to find a way to make it possible."

The tank shrugged again. "We do not have to do anything. Perhaps it is time for the rest of you to start accepting that."

"Perhaps..." Xaaron smiled ruefully and rose to show his guest out. "Perhaps. But if you don't mind, I'll let you be the one to put that to the Council."

'Red Comet' Temporary Housing Block

North District

Praxus

Cybertron

Nightbeat held Hardrive's empty gaze for two micro-cycles. He wondered how much of the blackmailer remained intact, frozen powerless and dead within the severed head. Had he been able to shunt his consciousness to safety in the moments before the blow had been struck? Doubtful. Still, like most civilians, he had probably kept himself mostly inside his head, most of the time. It was the natural way to maximise the speed at which you could process your optical feeds, and something they trained you out of when you joined the forces, civic or military (being in your chest most of the time meant that decapitation was less likely to take you out of a fight). It was just possible that enough remained inside what was left of Hardrive to have him rebuilt with maybe only some minor memory loss, or an inability to turn left in low light or something else inconvenient but non-life destroying. And there were patches for that kind of damage.

Nightbeat looked up and met the red optics of the mech opposite and knew that Hardrive was not going to be coming back, not with all the patches in the world.

He shrugged expansively and batted the head away with a foot. "I only said I'd get him out of the city. And aren't you a little small to be a global criminal brotherhood?"

Behind his sensor baffles, 'The Black Shadow' seemed to smile. "To you, I'm the Black Shadow. All of it. When I speak, we all speak."

"A spokesmech?"

"A voice. And anyway." A gun barrel extended through the distortion field, silver and ugly. "I'm the only bit of the Black Shadow you need to worry about right now."

Nightbeat tilted his head to the side and smiled back. "What do you want?"

"You're the investigator, you tell me."

"People usually find it annoying when I'm insufferably clever."

"I'm willing to be impressed."

"Oh, well, in that case – you're obviously here to find out what I know and then to kill me to prevent me telling anyone else – but only after I've told you who I've already told so you can go and kill them to stop them telling anyone else and if I play this right I can probably get you hunted down on a charge of attempting to murder the entire population of Praxus, but I won't because I think that anyone who can get a black light projector installed in my room without me noticing is probably extremely clever. Especially since it was a black light projector not a bomb. You're cautious and not willing to just blow me up when that could be both evidence I was on to something and a real problem for you if I had somehow managed to get what I know past your surveillance."

"Plus which, you as good as asked me to come," the red-eyed mech added patiently.

"Plus which I as good as asked you to come," Nigthbeat agreed cheerfully, "But I thought that was too obvious to be worth mentioning. Similarly, you know who blew up the Mahlex district, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Are you going to tell me?"

"Would it make you tell me what I want to know?"

"I doubt it."

"Then I'm just going to start shooting you until you tell me how you found out about Hardrive."

Crossing his arms, Nightbeat paced to and fro for a moment. "You really need me to spell that out? I'd have thought it was obvious."

"Let's pretend I'm stupid."

"You don't want me to do that. I don't like stupid people." He stopped and hummed. "I just hacked into Konntryn's files and found out who'd been in there before. Not exactly awesomely complicated."

"Those files were locked behind a premium grade firewall and a Civic Guard lock-out after the murder."

"I'm very clever and standards are dropping all over the place."

The red optics dimmed and then brightened, the gun never wavering. "That's kind of disappointing. Like cheating."

"So what? You'd have done exactly the same. If you'd had to."

"If I'd not known who did it before, you mean?"

"Obviously. I'm assuming one of the local Black Shadows has decided that usual operating procedures are getting in the way of a little profit on the side?"

"Why would you think that?"

"Because Hardrive said the Black Shadow had made him hand over the dirt on Konntryn and the Black Shadow doesn't do terrorism."

"Why do you think they were really one of us?"

"Because you're here and I haven't found a body conveniently stripped of anything that could connect it to you. You're worried enough to come here and kill me rather than just point me where you want me to go."

"Perhaps we think you're clever too."

"Perhaps you do but that's no reason to not just hand me the culprit and let me take them to Tarn. You'd only act like this if the culprit actually was Black Shadow. Also – you'd have to be insane to pretend you were Black Shadow when you weren't. You might as well just jump in a smelting pool and be done with it."

The voice of the Black Shadow nodded sagely – at least, that was what it looked like. "You're right about us not doing terrorism, too. It's not smart."

Not in comparison to murdering people for their wealth, stealing from honest (ish) merchants and making life miserable for anyone who gets in your way, you mean? Nightbeat kept the obvious sarcastic retort in the privacy of his thoughts. Antagonising this mech would not help.

Out loud, he said, "Of course not. People don't excuse obvious mass-murder. No one really cares if the First Covenant gets broken in private but doing it in public is just plain bad taste. The Black Shadow sticks to theft and generic violence, it's just a menace. It starts taking money to commit acts of grand destruction of life and property, it becomes something to be hunted down and crushed."

"It's easier when no one cares," the Black Shadow confirmed casually.

"Which means when you're done with me, you're going to make one or two of your brothers vanish."

"Something like that."

"Right, well before you get on with that, can I point out a mistake you're making?"

The gun moved, ever so slightly. "I didn't shoot you three cycles ago?"

Nightbeat's expression remained very, very neutral. "No. I mean that you didn't ask me what the box on the wall is."

He did not, even slightly, make any move to point towards the hand-sized, dull grey cube clamped to one of the artistically bare support pillars. All the same, he could tell – just about – that the Black Shadow's gaze had momentarily flickered away from him and towards the cube.

"What is it?"

"A Tarnian military communicator. Specially adapted for long-range reconnaissance. It compresses reports into pico-cycle long bursts and transmits them to high-orbit satellites under the cover of the usual fluctuations in the local power grids. I used it a little while before you arrived to send my latest findings direct to Viilon. He knows all about your involvement."

The Black Shadow was nonplussed by this revelation. "So what? He still won't know who actually blew up his city, will he? Or have you been trying to fool me?"

"Wouldn't dare," Nightbeat answered quickly and accurately, "No, you're right. He won't know precisely. But he knows the Black Shadow was involved."

The mech with the red optics actually laughed at that. "Oh, yeah, that's a real big mistake. Because we're so scared that Tarn might know it was someone saying they were us who hurt them."

"Who's talking about Tarn? I'm talking about Viilon." Nightbeat paused, as if to try and gather his thoughts for some great effort of explanation. It gave him enough time to see if the Black Shadow would work it out for himself. He didn't. Which was a pity, since he had seemed so intelligent.

"Do you know what they called Viilon when he was in the military – before he took it into his head to depose the old warlords and rebuild Tarn along scientific lines, I mean. Do you know what his nickname was? No? They called him Shockwave." There was no reply but it was just possible, behind all the distortion, that the Black Shadow was looking interested. Encouraged that he was not likely to be shot immediately, Nightbeat went on. "They called him that because once he decided you needed to go down, it was as if the bomb that killed you had already gone off. If he came after you, he would not stop, deviate or turn back until you had been dealt with."

"Oh, I get it. I kill you and I get hunted down by a one-eyed glitch who doesn't know when to give up, is that it?"

Nightbeat shook his head vigorously. "No. You kill me, Viilon decides he doesn't have time to play games any more and he takes the Black Shadow apart piece by piece until he finds out what he wants to know. He might be logical but he can't afford to be patient when there's someone out there willing and able to strike against him. I was the tactful option. The tactical option will involve Tarnian crack troops hunting all of you down and ripping information from what's left of your higher processors." He jerked a thumb at Hardrive's head, lying forgotten by the door. "If you're lucky, when they're finished, there'll be about enough left of you as there is of him."

Silence. The Black Shadow's optics narrowed. Then, "You're not exactly scaring me, here."

Nightbeat twitched, desperate to pace and wave his arms about, frustrated that he could not drive the point home with more theatre. "No, but it's making you hesitate because you know I'm right, or that, at the very least, it's something you should consider before shooting me to death. Are you really willing to risk the destruction of your brotherhood just to make a particularly brilliant and infuriating commercial sneak shut up?"

After an eternity measuring precisely one and three eighth cycles, the Black Shadow cocked his chin and let the barrel of his gun slip ever so slightly off target. "So what? What am I supposed to do instead of killing you?"

The investigator grinned, widely and in triumph. "I was starting to think you'd never ask..."

Train Dock Five

North District

Praxus

Cybertron

Diatrion rolled off the train with his mind full of worst-case scenarios. Really, he had thought of pretty much nothing else throughout the trip, excepting reviewing his case notes over and over again and logging the usual travel permits with border control. Would he find Nightbeat's broken body lying in an alley in the Praxus Underground? His corpse, smashed to bits in a Dead End and stripped clean by ravenous Empties? His head, neatly planted on a spike outside the Civic Guard base? The molten remains of his chaises dredged out of the local smelting pits? Or would he just not find him at all? Would the investigator have simply vanished, never to be seen again?

As was inevitable, Nightbeat was waiting on the platform, perfectly intact, with his engine revving impatiently.

"About time too! I was about to think I'd have to start without you!"

Diatrion – who was, even in truck mode, easily as big again as the other mech – parked himself squarely across the blue car's path. "Start what?"

"To act on information received, of course! Come on! We need to move quickly!"

"Why?" Diatrion asked with practised infinite patience.

"Because," Nightbeat snapped, speaking so fast he was in danger of breaking the sound barrier, "if we don't the murderers will get away, we'll miss the chance to solve the destruction of the Mahlex District and the Black Shadow will hunt down and kill me because I didn't save them from Viilon's perfectly logical wrath. None of these would be good, so can we please just HURRY."

Several responses ran through Diatrion's processors, mingling with genuine relief that Nightbeat had both stayed alive and managed to get somewhere with his investigations, and instinctive suspicion about the validity of his claims. What exactly had he found out? Who were the murderers (murderers, plural)? Where on Cybertron did the Black Shadow come into anything?

But the urgency in Nightbeat's voice was impossible to ignore. And Diatrion had not come all that way to ruin everything at the last moment.

"All right," he said, reversing smoothly to allow Nightbeat to get out, "You can explain on the way."

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