Chapter 25
Rook bid her mechs goodbye at the merchant district, taking Trickflip back to her dojo where she had left both Sideswipe and Sunstreaker with her poor students. The thought only gave her a small part of the amusement she would have normally felt at the idea of the two Autobot twins at the mercy of her gossipy classes, and she only had a half-sparked smirk on her face plate as she let herself into the modified warehouse.
The gold twin had her class surprisingly well in hand, still glowering at nearly everything and every bot, but she supposed wryly that was the reason the class had not degenerated into another mass gabfest yet. She saluted him from the door to let him know she was back, and the mech glared irritably at her and the mech behind her before continuing what he was doing with the beginning class when it became apparent she was going to have him finish before taking over again.
The silver twin was working out of a data pad in the study room, something he never had complaints about seeing as the work she gave him was taken from the missions she had run out in the Milky Way Galaxy and he found all of it fascinating. Especially the unusual manner that she commonly opted to use in order to complete her assigned tasks. He normally took careful notes of his own about how she had set up whatever trap or gotten around some security system as well as working out how he would approach the same thing.
Sideswipe glanced up from his latest story file, smirking wickedly at his SPARTAN mentor. "Ya know, femme? The weirdest slag I've ever heard is in the operation of yours with that incident about the politician, the flickering street lamp, and the 'cat' creature. Did he really process that you were some mutant hybrid cat monster sent out to deactivate him?"
"Yep, damn near broke the record for the fastest fat human right afterwards, too."
The memory file widened her smirk, and she waved to the acid green and black mech following her into the room to take a seat.
"But my orders at the time was to let no one know about the SPARTANs, and that worked. Destroyed his credibility when he tried to explain the incident to anyone, so my work was done with just that." She sat down in her desk chair tiredly as Trickflip dropped onto the couch next to the Autobot. "I take it you've seen the news vids already?"
All humor fled from the room at her quiet question. The swordmech nodded as he set the data pad down. "Yeah, I'm sorry to hear about that, Rook."
She shrugged it off dismissively. "Death happens, Sides'. Including us... rather frequently."
She pressed back with her pedes, leaning the chair back to get a better view of the Autobot mech when she rested her helm on the back of her chair.
"There are a few consequences of that, some of which will affect you and your brother. First off, have you finished the tasks I've assigned you?"
Sideswipe nodded warily, tossing her the data pad that held his data work and notes she asked of him. "Jackknife works for a mech by the name of Innersight, an underground Intel trader and the slum lord of the merchant district. They've been after you because you've been training up what amounts to an entire army out of slum bots, most of which are fiercely loyal to you and the dojo simply because you didn't charge them to learn how to defend themselves. They, the bum bots, haven't been talking to any gang related bots because you refuse to teach them how to extort others better, and as such, neither Innersight nor Jackknife can get much about you without having that same red and gold mech that hang about here and risk annoying you and you offlining him."
"And where are they?" She had already known all of this. As a matter of fact after Jackknife had imposed on her hospitality and Bluestreak had been sparked-napped, she had followed him back out of the slums to find out who he reported to. It was still a good field test for the swordmech, and she had used it as such.
"Merchant's district. Where else could you go to buy anything and everything? Innersight has a store that serves a front to his little base creatively called the Inner Workings," Sideswipe's low opinion of the shop's name was mimicked by the two SPARTANs listening to him, "that sells some shoddily put together frame additions. Times to gain access are always the third and eighteenth joor of the cycle. Any other attempts activates a security measure that locks everything up for a set amount of time, three joors, and open up some escape tunnels to the underground. There are guards at the spots underground, as well as a high ranking prized gladiator fighter guarding the shop front."
"Password to get in?"
"It's 'to see what others may not', spoken in ancient Cybertronian while knocking three times on the shop clerk's counter."
Rook set the pad down, nodding in approval for the swordmech's work of the last few cycles. "Good. How would you get in without getting deactivated?"
Sideswipe hesitated at that question, and carefully asked, "Can I use Sunny, or not?"
"Give me a plan for both. You may not have him with you all the time."
"Right. Well, if I have my brother I would stick him underground, and rewire the alarm to keep it from locking everything up but leave it to open the tunnels. Pick a fight with the gladiator, let the shop clerk hit the alarms, and bolt to join Sunny underground and see what pops out." Smirking proudly at the snickers he earned from the SPARTANs, he continued with the other possible option. "Second, if I don't have my brother or any other bot nearby, Pose as a new informant, possibly by setting upon one of their new contacts allowed to use that shop as an Intel dump and impersonating him or her. Get in, corner whoever it is I'm after or grab whatever it is, trip the alarm to get out."
Rook pursed her lip plates and processed both plans of action. "Not bad, Sides'. Not bad at all. I want you to do so, using either your options or formulate another but run it by me first, and grab everything Innersight has on me. Don't leave a trace, mech. You do this perfectly, and you'll be mostly done here."
"Mostly?"
"Perceptor and Wheeljack are almost done with the upgrades you'll need to operate at levels close to our own." The saboteur laced her finger joints together and laid them on her chassis. "If Ratchet agrees, before you leave here you and Sunstreaker will get them first, come back here for field testing, then... then you'll both go to Polyhex."
Sideswipe sat bolt upright, staring hard at his mentor. "Polyhex? Why in the Unmaker's own name are we going there?"
"Assassination training." Trickflip waved one hand tiredly at the startled Autobot. "Orpheus is with the XO at Gygax at the moment, so you'll go to him there after he's done with what the XO has him tagged for and you're done here. With Markmaker's deactivation, Shadow's no longer willing or content to play nice. Your brother will have his preferred job classification."
He hoisted himself out of his position on the couch and gave his fellow soldiers a salute.
"And that's it for me. Have a good off-cycle, bots."
As the infiltrator sauntered through the doorway again, the swordmech turned back to the femme questioningly. "You haven't said what was so important you had to split in the middle of one of our training exercises. I get that you went to Vos to pay your respects, but that wasn't the way you were heading when you left."
"Your right, it wasn't." Rook frowned thoughtfully at her special student, thinking this new issue over.
Shadowdancer hadn't said what she wanted to tell the two of them about how the Covert Ops operated, or even if she wanted them told what she had gone to do outside of Simfur City. She now sighed, too tired to really muster up the worry she knew the problem rated. Her energy stores were dangerously low from the trip out to Simfur, then back to Praxus, then out and back to Vos.
"You really want to know? Once you do, you can never unask the question."
Sideswipe hesitated only long enough for Sunstreaker to make it up to the study after dismissing the class below. "Yes."
She looked between the two twins, identical to the last nut and bolt except for the paint, spark, and CPUs, and smirked faintly. It wasn't her normal one, the one she gave everything and anything that crossed her path. It was defiantly darker.
"I went to Simfur first. Well... just outside of Simfur. You see, the attack on Vos was engineered by this mech named Shockwave, who also had a hand in programming an indoctrination virus that infected our XO, most if not all the seeker frame set, and about half of what population Cybertron has left. Given this was the fifth time our dear Shadowdancer had come across this particular mech working to either capture or hinder our unit in some way, Shadow's patience with the mech snapped. She killed him, ripped his fragging helm off for the deactivation of a mech she owed her spark to. I was there both as a backup, in the unlikely event Shockwave was a bit too much for her, and to keep the guards and loyal fanatics of the mech off her door-wing joints."
The brother's reactions were as different as their personalities. Sideswipe's jaw plate dropped in shock over the information; Sunstreaker nodded in satisfaction and leaned against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest plates. "Good. Was wondering what you all would do about that. Nice to hear that fragger's gone."
The silver swordmech's left optic twitched, but he shook his helm to get it started again. "What do you mean the fifth? I get the virus and Markmaker's incidents, but what else happened?"
"The first time was with Refit." Setting her pedes on her desk, Rook settled back in her chair farther as she calmly gazed at the two Autobots. "She had just landed the ATHENS outside of Kalis, and there was a scouting group of Cons that were looking for a weapon or something for Shockwave who would have encountered Wheeljack, if he had not gone after the ship when he spotted it. Second was Perceptor, if Knightblade hadn't left Iacon when she did, the scientist would have been deactivated that off-cycle. Next was Nitro, the mech had hired bounty hunters to capture or kill a SPARTAN, he identified us by the symbols we all wear. Then the virus he had a hand in writing corrupted a bit of Shadowdancer's base moral coding, then Mark's death."
The saboteur shrugged, rolling her helm on her neck joint as she let her chair's front legs thump back onto the floor.
"Technically, she could have offlined the mech after he attacked her base coding since it is classified as a direct attack to be purposely infected with a virus, but we didn't know it was him at the time."
"The XO's coding?" Sunstreaker scowled a bit. "Was this before or after you all traveled to Iacon the second time?"
"Before. Her programming has been reset, so she's no longer as irritable." Before either could ask, she flatly stated, "Ratchet confirmed it."
It was the most she wanted to say about the incident, Shadowdancer still had not reconnected to the tactical uplink yet so the other SPARTANs were waiting for the CO to emulate her results before they started either worrying or fussing about the issue of what had happened to the XO after Markmaker's death.
Both of them accepted the name of the surly medic at it's face value. Ratchet was damn near legendary at this point.
"Well... both of you have some work to get to. Sides', let me know of what you're going to do before you go out, but for right now, I'm in some desperate need for recharge." She got up to her pedes to follow her brother's example. "We've got a few friends to visit next cycle, so you will aim for that window of opportunity so no bot can pin this to me. Me and Trick' will be in a medical upgrade wing for some of next cycle."
\V/
The four mechs, two femmes, and one youngling reached Gygax late in the cycle. For some reason, Shadowdancer had insisted Soundwave accompany them to her living unit, a place that he had never seen before or even considered visiting.
Zephyr landed on the roof of the building, unlocking the suite for the rest of them before any of the ground bound bots could get anywhere near the top floor where the Praxian lived with both her brothers and her youngling. The tired femme dismissed the helicopter for the cycle and next, remarking that they would reopen the bar next off-cycle before she could leave.
Giving a recharging Kynaite to Silentforce, she waited for the bodyguard to leave the room with her youngling before pinning the Decepticon mechs with a dark look. "I just hope you know what you're doing, Orph'. Cause it's on your helm if this doesn't go well."
Orpheus shrugged, trying to look unconcerned but unable to completely suppress the instinct reaction that had him taking a step back from the irritated femme.
Soundwave tensed as she turned her gold optics to him, but she didn't say anything for a good while, she simply inspected him first.
When the red and black mech reentered the room, she started speaking. "I know your suspicious of me, I would be in your place, and you're not a stupid mech. You've already gathered that I'm not just kicking around Gygax for the fun of it, right?"
"Assumption: Correct." He flicked some quick, leery glances to the two mechs standing in the way of the only escapes in the room, and concluded that whatever he was about to be informed of might just cost him his spark.
"Because I'm not. I, as well as my brothers here and the other siblings you've just saw in Vos, have been through two galaxy spanning wars. We've been taught how to wage war by a race that has explored every possible way to fight it; in wastelands, urban combat, in a council chamber, mountains, you name it we can fight in it; learned the history of several alien races and now we are here." Shadowdancer sighed tiredly, crossing her arms over her chest plates and leaning her hip joint against her couch's back. "I've nearly had my entire left arm assembly blown off in the process, as well as a number of other injuries that I don't care to repeat, fighting in those wars. When I got here, when we arrived outside of what was left of Kalis and got a good look around, I noticed something. While there might be a point in the conflict between the Autobots and your own Decepticons, there is an issue that I don't think the majority of the rest of your faction see. But I'm sure you know what I'm talking about already."
Soundwave blinked his visor, surprised. He tilted his helm at her, inspected her posture, the fact that it seemed like she was being brutally honest with him, and concluded that she was hinting at what he thought she was.
"Megatron is insane." She smirked when what little of his face plate that was visible showed no shock at the bald statement. "He may have had a point, a valid reason to start this in a time long past, but for the moment all he is doing is destroying the bots that Cybertron cannot easily spare without the All-Spark to replace them. He's killing and fracturing the cities, demolishing what refuses to bow to his cracked processors, and will eventually tear this planet apart. He called for change and yes, when the Golden Age ended it was needed, but this is a bit extreme. Don't you think so?"
She didn't even twitch, but the two mechs in the room with her tensed up, waiting for his response.
The 3IC of the Decepticons' spark raced at what he thought the femme was building up to, and nodded slowly to concede the point. He had concluded the same thing, but Megatron had a purpose. The mech was so feared that very few in the Decepticon ranks were willing to challenge the mech for control of the faction, regardless of how wild or contradicting his orders became.
With how chaotic and aggressive the rank and file soldiers in the faction had become, it was the only way to control the destruction that was inevitable with the demented mech in control.
He shot a quick look to both mechs, but addressed the femme. "Question: Purpose to explanation."
"I'm going to save the Decepticons from themselves." She grinned wryly when it was apparent she had gotten his full attention with that statement. "I'm sure you've noticed the rising violence and maybe you already know this, but Shockwave created a virus on Megatron's orders. This virus attacks a bot's moral coding, eroding it away until they don't care if they are killing sparklings or those that can't fight back, because it's the only way they can feel anything once the virus takes hold."
Soundwave stiffened at the news and glared at her. "Present: Evidence of claim."
Shadowdancer flicked a clawed hand, and held a data pad and a few data disks. She held one of the disks up and slotted it into the recess built for it. "I took this from Shockwave's laboratories when I ripped his helm off. Take a look for yourself. The second one is the anti-virus I had our hacker write up that stops it cold. There is another one, which slowly builds back up the moral code with about a twenty five percent modification from the original, but it's not being sent out until this upcoming megacycle with the next round of general anti-virus software boosters through the medics."
The communications officer hesitantly took the pad from her and started reading it with some sidelong glances to the other bots in the room. Halfway down, the file became more important to him than the possibility of being offlined.
He finished the first disk and slipped it out for the next, forcibly keeping himself from grinding his dental plates together in rage as he took an abbreviated look though it before uploading it to his own processors, and by his bond to them his cassettes. "Request: File of next anti-virus."
Nodding her agreement as she took back the pad, and smirking when she realized he had slipped out the disk with the anti-virus out and kept it, the Praxian subspaced her data pad again. "Megatron has been killing off those who don't have a strong moral code, by sending them to attack Autobot bases and getting them wiped out to the last. The fight we participated in near Iacon, it didn't have any real leader or purpose to it. It was just a fragged up fight to get rid of them without killing them himself, regardless of what he may have told anyone that asked though I doubt any bot did. The ones that do have strong coding, will end up twisted mockeries of what they once were. This has to stop before there are only thousands of Cybertronians left, or worse, only those left in the factions fighting each other until the end of the universe."
"Point: Agreed. Inquiry: Method?"
She sighed and sat down on her couch, gesturing for him to take a seat as she dismissed the two mechs for their berths.
"There are a few options I have, some of which you won't like." Waiting until he moved to the chair across from her, Shadowdancer tapped her claws together, watching the Decepticon sitting across from her carefully. "I could kill your entire faction, down to the last bot. I don't want to, you did have a point long ago, but I highly doubt you have anything that could stand up to a force of six bots trained and augmented to do just that. I could destroy those who had anything to do with this virus and go help the Autobots in wiping your faction out of existence, but again, I don't want to."
Soundwave tried to rise to his pedes in protest as she was talking about the bots he worked with, and while he might spy on them and manipulate them, and some might have attacked her, they were still his faction and he would defend them from being wiped out entirely if need be. Even from a war built bot like her.
Operative word there being tried.
Before he could even raise himself an inch off his seat, or even release his suddenly frantic cassettes out of his chest compartment to help him she was sitting on his lap, knee joints on either side of his thigh plating, pinning him to the seat with an twin bladed energy blade held a fraction away from his throat cables and her other clawed hand buried into the padding of the chair back behind him. "Settle down, I just said I don't want to do that. Remember, there are mechs in your faction I genuinely like to talk to on occasion."
He blinked at her in complete shock, at her position so close to him that he could see the inner workings of her gold optics, then at where she had been sitting not even an astrosecond ago. He hadn't seen her move, much less any indication of the blade that emitted from her right wrist joint before this moment.
The sickening feeling that she may be telling the truth about what she could do to the entire Decepticon faction with minimal problems raised up in his spark, and his self-preservation programs froze him solid under her.
After a quiet moment, when the mech didn't try to move in any direction but didn't let go of the tension that would let him move at an astrosecond's notice, Shadowdancer deactivated her sword, but kept her new seat just in case. "Now, what I am going to do is gather together those like you who will still be capable of being horrified and disgusted by this. I'm going to take all I can find, save what I can, and amputate the rest. Some will be too far gone for the anti-viruses to help, so they will have to be deactivated before they destroy themselves and those around them."
She felt him relax beneath her, an odd sensation to say the least for the ex-human SPARTAN who had very little personal contact in her entire function. The mech lowered his helm minutely, and she could almost literally see the cogs in his CPU turn over everything she had said.
"Inquiry: Command."
"That's my problem." Shadowdancer got up to her pedes cautiously, standing before the mech and setting her claws on her hip joints. "I don't want it. I never want to deal with it again. So, I have to find a bot to take it for me. Some bot I can trust not to screw it all up by inevitably doing something stupid with it between now and when the part of the faction I try and save is stable enough to break away from the main ranks. I thought about Blackout, but he gets a little overcharged and all his secrets come spilling out. Bonecrusher is just too stubborn, and part of a gestalt unit so he can't keep quite even if he wanted to."
She raised on claw to rub against her temple.
"Barricade... I'm not all too sure about how stable he will remain, even with the anti-virus. And so far, that limits my list of possible bots to you, as I haven't met any other Decepticons I could trust even with my worst set of energon cubes."
"Suggestion: Vortex."
She raised an optic ridge at him. "Haven't met him yet, so bring him around sometime."
After a moment she shrugged, dismissing the mech from contention.
"I highly doubt there would be another candidate as well fitted as you for it. Shockwave, even if I hated the mech and he might have fallen into the same pit as Megatron, was another. But I just killed him, so..."
He nodded to acknowledge her point, perversely glad she had never approached the scientist about her suggestion. "Gestalt units: Bonded. Function: Impossible without fellow gestalts."
"I know, but I'll have to cross that bridge when I get to it." She took the four steps back to her previous seat, slumping down in exhaustion and not even cringing when her door-wings hit the back of the couch a bit too hard. "You do realize you'll be watched, now that you know what I'm doing, even if I don't settle on you to take this whole slag fest on, right?"
"Obvious: Acknowledged."
Shadowdancer snorted dryly, tapping her claws on the arm of her couch. "You've taken this better than I thought you would. I would have thought I would have to nick you once or twice to get you to listen."
"Inevitable Conclusion: Reached vorns ago." Soundwave shrugged himself, finally letting his cassettes out to stretch out their limbs from the compact forms they took to fit in his chest compartments. "News: Startling but not objectionable. Contradictory Statement: Obliteration of Deceptions not option."
"Of course it's not. Conflict is needed by all forms of life to exist." Shadowdancer idly watched as Frenzy started poking around the other doors in the hall that led off to the left, tiredly snickering when Orpheus threw something at the cassette to get him to shut his door again. "Function without it is rather boring and pointless. Just not this way."
She grinned wider when Frenzy enlisted Rumble and Ravage in helping him get back at the assassin for throwing what looked like a spare cushion at him.
"Have I mentioned I love having your cassettes around? But I wouldn't suggest you let them do that now, Orph' won't be nice at the moment."
"Suggestion: Agreed. Cassettes Frenzy, Rumble, Ravage: Desist." The Decepticon checked his energy levels, internally frowning at how low they had gotten from all the travel that cycle.
"You can stay here, there's an extra room at the very end across from mine. Orpheus said 'Lord' Megatron demanded our presence, so we'll be going to your base next cycle with you."
He considered her and her unexpected offer. The femme looked exhausted, not as bad as the mech designated Orpheus had been but she still had enough energy to effectively threaten him and make him listen before he could have done something that in hindsight had been foolish.
From what he had pieced together from the last few cycles; she had been out to Simfur to deal with Shockwave, out somewhere for a medical checkup, to Vos for the strange ritual for the deactivated SPARTAN, and then back to Gygax. He didn't know where she had been, but there was something slightly different about her now than before she had left.
She was more... considerate.
Before she had left, he would have expected her to kick him out after she was done, indifferent to any possible exhaustion of another. Shadowdancer was still violent, as evidence she had just held an energy blade to his throat cables, but it seemed tempered with more restraint than she displayed before.
Unsure of what to make of the change in personality, he nodded to her suggestion and led his cassettes down the only hall lined with doors. At the end there was an open door that he presumed led into the empty room, but he was wrong.
Kynaite was stretched out, deep in his recharge cycle on the berth, there was a few stacks of data pads on a desk next to an external comm device, and very little else that could belong to the femme who more than likely owned the room. The tools in their box on the floor were designed for a youngling's smaller hands, there was a thermal blanket hanging off the youngling's right pede and pooling on the floor, and a number of roughly crafted objects that seemed to have been built by the adoptive creation of the Praxian femme for some reason.
Backing out of the room, he hesitated when Frenzy slipped past him and went up to the berth without even a backwards look. The cassette grabbed the thermal blanket and hoisted himself up, covering both himself and the youngling with it.
"It's fine, leave them."
Shadowdancer had come up behind him, noted only by Ravage and Lazerbeak, smirking tiredly at the sight of the two tiny bots on her berth.
"I rarely get many joors of recharge anyways with the way Kynaite sprawls out. He loves to recharge on my door-wings and I can't recharge like that. The vibrations keep me up." She tilted her helm at the other door. "That's the empty one. Go on, I've got some work to do anyways and I highly doubt you have the energy reserves I do."
\V/
Sideswipe took one last look to ensure every bot was where he scheduled them to be at, before dropping down into the service tunnels of Praxis to rejoin his brother. "Almost set, Sunny. You ready?"
"Call me that one more fragging time and I'll put your helm though the wall, Sides'. I don't care if you are my brother or not." The unfortunately nicknamed 'Sunny' glared at his silver counterpart, cracking his knuckle joints loudly. "You sure about this?"
It was the closest Sunstreaker would get to outright saying anything against what Sideswipe had planned out for their Intel heist, and the swordmech wryly grinned over to his twin. "Are you that worried about me, brother dearest? Just think of this as a preemptive strike for all the worrying you're going to put me through when it's your turn to start learning from a SPARTAN."
Rook herself hadn't said much when the silver Autobot passed his plan past her, other than he 'needed to make sure all your ducks are in a row' first.
Sideswipe took it to mean double checking his work before starting.
The femme did give him a rather surprised look when he opted to leave his brother out of the plan, intending to go in himself and steal the information without any possible immediate backup. She did incline her helm to him before the twins left, giving him on last remark before they exited the dojo.
"Just make sure your exit strategy is set and sound, mech. That's what normally what trips us all up."
The fact that the femme referred to both himself, her, and supposedly Jazz, by saying 'us' instead of 'saboteurs' like she normally did gave the silver mech a good dose of confidence for his plan. Like everything else he had done while in Praxis, it all was building up to gaining a marked amount of respect from bots that had seen multiple brawls, fights, battlefields, wars, military operations, and combat situations.
Which, he supposed if you took out the bots themselves, was the coolest part of 'learning the ropes' from the SPARTANs.
If he hadn't already had some rough idea of what all the unit had seen before even getting to Cybertron, his work with Rook's past missions would have imbued him with a healthy amount of respect for the unit as a whole. The SPARTAN saboteur, who had been one of the class IIs and as such had seen about a stellar cycle more use as a military operative than the class IIIs, had been well traveled even by Cybertronian standards.
Sideswipe sometimes amused himself with trying to figure out who had more experience as a saboteur, Jazz or Rook. The Autobots' saboteur, the one the Prime himself picked for his unit, had more functioning time all together, but it didn't look like the SPARTAN had any down time between her missions. He had noted that the time stamps, once the femme herself had explained how humans kept time, were either bunched together or stated to start right after she got out of that Cryo 'stasis lock' of the humans.
Figuring that he had stalled enough, the silver twin checked over the equipment Rook had given him when he finally told her of what he wanted to do. "Almost time, brother mine. Wish me luck."
"Luck, for whatever its' worth, is less important than skill. Don't screw up."
\V/
Shadowdancer woke up to the resulting vibrations of two small bots recharging on her door-wings.
Sometime during the off-cycle, after she had given up trying to work on the data pads that held her normal orn to orn business work on them, she had put some of her Covert Ops skills to dubious use and crawled into her own berth around the two already there. Now she had Kynaite on her left door-wing, and Frenzy on her right.
It couldn't have been long since they moved, as she had told Soundwave the truth about not being able to recharge like that, but it did raise some issues about the process of getting up for the cycle.
Since going back to her recharge cycle was a lost cause, even if she was still feeling the effects of ignoring her energy levels in order to complete what she needed to do faster than any bot on Cybertron not a SPARTAN could, the tactician decided to spread the pain around. {One-one-four, get your sorry aft in here.}
The assassin responded an astrosecond later, walking into the XO's berth room with a fixed scowl on his face plate. {What the frag do you want?}
{You can't tell by looking?} She raised a sardonic optic ridge at his obtuseness, and gestured to the two small bots lying out on top of her more sensitive appendages with one claw.
Orpheus blinked in surprise in the sleeping arrangement his superior officer found herself in and Silentforce, who had wandered in after the Covert Operations specialists simply to see what was up, snickered quietly to himself as he moved to help the pinned femme move one of the bots on her.
Moving Kynaite wasn't a problem, seeing how his normal schedule ended up, or rather started, by being handled while recharging a lot. Frenzy, on the other hand, bolted to his pedes the moment his systems registered that some bot had a hold of him.
All three SPARTAN-Bots peered down at him, and the cassette felt his systems heating up in embarrassment. "A-ar-re we-w ge-gettin up?"
"I am, you may return to your recharge if you need to." Shadowdancer swung upright, now freed from the pinning forms of both small mechs, and got up. "Keep your vocalizer setting low if you're staying up."
The small cassette hesitated, but all three of the larger bots left the room then, and giving up trying to keep himself online that early he crawled back up to the slight but warm depression the femme had left in the berth.
Shadowdancer hesitated outside the room Soundwave took last off-cycle but passed it with only a brief mention of who was in it to the bodyguard.
Silentforce watched the other two SPARTANs as they readied themselves to travel to the Decepticon base in a few breems, peering at the XO's back plates until she turned to him with a questioning optic ridge raised. "What?"
:Why is Soundwave in the guest berth room?:
"He was as tired as the rest of us, and he's not built to take that kind of abuse like we are." The Praxian shrugged dismissively, sorting through the messages she had gotten while out of the city.
If she realized anything being off about her own actions, she was masterful at hiding it. The two SPARTAN mechs exchanged looks, but neither wanted to bring it up to her attention if she hadn't already noticed it.
Shadowdancer finally logged off the messaging program with a dry snort, tossing the data pad that she used to access it to the couch. "Fragging idiots. Remind me to deal with the high-grade distributors once we're back."
Nodding a confirmation to her back, the defensive specialist watched them leave to deal with the Decepticons. He cast a questioning glance at the door that held one such Decepticon behind it questioningly, then shrugged to himself.
If Shadowdancer was extending full curtsies to the mech, the least he could do was pull one or more of the cubes that the ATHENS produced for that cycle's early refuel.
Soundwave exited the room nearly two full joors after the other two SPARTANs had left, his cassettes milling around his pedes. Silentforce listened intently, but the only thing the mech did before showing himself was collect Frenzy from the XO's own room.
The SPARTAN mech got up to his own pedes while casting aside the XO's data pad, he had been looking up the news nets for any hint of the SPARTANs mentioned, as it was around the time to stir Kynaite and get him ready for his Youth Center classes. :Fuel is on the table.:
The non-SPARTAN mech came to a halt, as it was the first time Silentforce had addressed him, peering first in the red and black mech's way before looking to the table in question. Silentforce ignored him entirely after that one transmission, reappearing with the SPARTAN femme's adoptive creation once the youngling had decided he wasn't going to be able to lie in the berth for a while until his carrier came back.
Soundwave had rummaged around for empty cubes, pouring out portions of the mid-grade for his cassettes before taking any for himself.
Kynaite didn't blink over the presence of the mech he normally only got to see every other orn sitting calm as could be in the seat his carrier normally occupied when nothing required her attention that early.
The youngling only took his normal seat, sharing with Frenzy, and beamed up to his silent uncle when the mech set his own cube before him. "Can-n I stay here, unca 'force? I don-n wanna go t-to school."
Blinking at the youngling, Silentforce shrugged to say he didn't really mind. Shadowdancer hadn't said anything to him about whether or not to continue with their normal cycle schedules while she was out trying to pull the wool over the optics of the Decepticons' High Commander.
From a defensive standpoint, staying somewhere he could easily defend was a good idea.
Kynaite clapped his hands together in a habit copied from Refit, then turned to the Decepticon sitting at the table with him. "Can-n Frenz-zy stay t-too?"
\V/
Trickflip's shin plates were attacked by a runaway blur of black and silver the moment he and the femme he called sister entered the medical facility's wing for upgrades.
"Trick'! You came to see me just like you promised!"
Silverbell leaned back to grin up at the infiltrator, wildly happy that the savior that saved her and her creators from the mockery of what had been made out of Kaon's fall was present for her final upgrade to an adult frame.
"Sure I did, Hell's Bells. Said I would, didn't I?" He waved to the two femmes standing with a medical bot; Flashfire waved back but Ruby was a bit distracted by what the medic was saying.
"And what am I? Chopped magnesium?" Rook mocked scowled down to the soon to be adult framed youngling, cracking a grin when the youngling squealed and glomped onto her leg plates in response.
As the three of them made their way over to the other two femmes and medical bot, they caught the tail end of what the medic was saying. "…only seen with military bots. I don't think that any youngling should jump right in and go for those kinds of upgrades. She should at least take a vorn or two exploring other options before getting caught up in all this discontent the Decepticons are spreading around."
Rook perked up at the subject matter. "What kind of upgrades?"
The medic scowled at the lot of them, but when Flashfire gestured for her to hand over the data pad with the features the youngling and her creator picked out, she did so with a huff. "I don't see what these two are doing here; they're not even part of your family unit."
Ruby rounded on the medic with a fierce scowl. "They are the ones that rescued us from Kaon, bot. Knock them again and your fellows will have to several orns putting you back together."
Trickflip, who had been peering over Rook's shoulder joint, raised his optic ridge at the unusually aggressive creator femme. {That's a bit off from what I recall from her, one-two-seven.}
{It was the bots from Vos that evacuated here. The virus the XO found has spread a bit, from the seekers to the ground bound of Vos, then to the other bots of Praxis once they arrived. And although I got the anti-virus from zero-seven-zero and started passing it on as discreetly as I could, Ruby got hit with the virus before I could give it to her.} Rook whistled aloud at all the features the youngling had requested, only half of which the creators had signed off on, and peered down at the youngling herself. "All of this, Hell's Bells? What are you planning on doing?"
Silverbell turned shy suddenly, holding her hands behind her back and grinning covertly up to the femme. "It's a secret, Rook. I want them, though. Think you can change my creator's processors about getting them?"
The two SPARTANs exchanged a look, then parsed through the information displayed again. The more military type upgrades had all been signed off on, from targeting software to mid-grade armor upgrades, and the frame Silverbell would be getting was built for speed rather than the delicate control that normally marked most femme frame types.
The Chaser type frame was well detailed, as it was the frame most courier bots or delivery runners picked out, but there were a few upgrades that the youngling wanted that wouldn't go well with the frame type picked out, such as the speed boosting systems with her mid-grade armor.
To both military bots, nothing really looked out of place, other than the fact the youngling probably picked everything that she could and her creators had narrowed down the results. Trickflip took the pad from his sister and knelt down, starting to explain in terms Silverbell could understand why some of the things she picked out wouldn't go well with her soon to be frame.
Taking a good long look at the disgusted expression on the medic's face plate, Rook shook her helm. "So you want her to be at a deadly disadvantage if the Cons come here? It's just prudence, femme. Don't get your wires in a knot."
"Prudence? For all of that? She'll be the closest I've seen to a purpose built military bot!"
"Um… no, that would be me." Rook sardonically pointed to herself and raised an optic ridge at the medic's suddenly horrified look. "Since my… second upgrade, I think. Got any more questions you don't want answered?"
The medic femme nearly bolted from the room shortly after that, stuttering something about getting the operation room ready.
Trickflip paused in his explanation to Silverbell to give his sister in all but spark signature a wry look himself once the medic was gone. "Are you feeling alright, Rook? That was a bit mean, even for what we are."
The saboteur threw up her hands in some disgust of her own and stalked over to one of the uncomfortable chairs all medical facilities from here to the next galaxy had in surplus.
"I'm getting tired of hearing it. 'Oh, no. Protecting myself is the most horrible thing to think about!' Even back on Earth, some regions had two to three weapons per individual. Why is it such a slagging issue here?" She grimaced, and looked over to the family unit they were here to visit with. "Sorry for the language, Bells."
The youngling hesitantly looked up to her creators, but Ruby waved the apology away. "I'll let it slide, since she is almost old enough to start using it. But Rook, that's a holdover from when the Quintessions were manufacturing us for military purposes. The original Decepticons were nothing but walking pieces of weaponry and fortifications, and when the gladiatorial fights started up for that race's amusement it was one of the worst insults an Autobot, or a service drone for all intents and purposes, could be labeled as. It stuck with the Autobots, who later became the civilians of this age, when the Decepticons started the military units and left to colonize the moons and whatnot out of Cybertron's immediate view."
"Oh." Now Rook was frowning, wondering why Clearsight had never passed that information on the 'Quintessions' to the rest of the SPARTANs. "Well… that makes a bit more sense, but still. Times are changing, you need to change with them or be left in the rust of the past. And speaking of changes… sorry for being a bit irritable on this orn of all orns, Hell's Bells."
A little depressed over what the SPARTAN mech had explained to her, the youngling shrugged at the older femme. "It's okay, Rook. I'm just happy you both are here. I don't get to see you two very often anymore."
"And we're sorry about that too." Trickflip flicked the young femme's audio receptors fondly as he moved to join his sister where she had slumped into a chair. "But to keep you all as safe as Mark' and I did, in both Kaon and Vos, we're needed elsewhere."
Strangely enough, the littlest femme in the room at the moment perked up at that. "I know."
\V/
Orpheus led Shadowdancer straight to Lord Megatron, who was currently sitting in his throne, made up of other bots' parts that he had deactivated during his time as a gladiator.
The massive leader of the Decepticons raised an optic ridge at the SPARTANs now standing before him. "I got your present… Shadowdancer. I take it you didn't look through his memory files before you sent it on?"
The Praxian femme crossed her arms over her chest plates, leaning her weight on her right leg and giving the larger mech a level stare. "I didn't think there was anything I wanted to see in that bit of junk. Was I wrong?"
"No, simply checking." He leaned toward her, letting both hands hang between his knee joints as he inspected her from her chevrons to her pedes. "You don't look anything like I expected… but I suppose looks can be deceiving. What I want to know femme, is what the slag you think you're doing here."
Shadowdancer arched an optic ridge with a dry snort. "This is one of two cities I know of that won't be attacked by Decepticons. Why should you attack your own, after all? Tactically speaking, it's the safest place on Cybertron to raise a youngling, and that just so happens to be what I'm doing."
Megatron narrowed his optics on the femme, but he couldn't dispute what she was saying. Soundwave had already filled him in on the possible motives she might have. "Then why leave the city for his upgrade?"
"Haven't met a medic here yet that I would trust with my systems, much less Kynaite's." Shadowdancer shrugged off the question with a dismissive flap of her door-wings.
"Very well then. The only other problem I wanted to discuss with you is this." The Decepticon High Commander pulled off Shockwave's helm from the stack of them that made up the back of his throne. "There is a little issue with what you have done, Shadowdancer."
"Oh really?" None of the bots watching at that moment, other than the silver mech himself and Bonecrusher, who only had a very general feel of what the two of them could do, could tell that both SPARTANs tensed minutely at the large silver mech's claim.
Lord Megatron smirked wickedly, sensing some type of wariness coming from the two war built bots but misreading why it was there. "I seem to be down a Military Commander… for some odd reason his helm has been separated from his frame. That leaves the problem of who to promote to fill the spot. You're not a Decepticon… you're not even a supporter. Although I would have no objections to taking a bot of your caliber into the faction, I have no reason to trust you."
Shadowdancer's lip plates twisted into a dry smirk of her own, confusing the bots watching the confrontation. "I have no intentions on joining anything until Kynaite is upgraded for the last time… so that does leave us with a slight problem. May I make a suggestion, then?"
Leaning back in his throne, the massive ex-miner arched a questioning optic ridge at the femme standing before him calm as could be. Like he had said, she was nothing like he had expected.
She was composed when others of greater stature had shaken in their armor plates at the simplest sarcastic comment from him, hinted at mocking him when others would only stutter under his gaze, and nearly flat out refused any suggestion that she join his ranks when other bots have and did take him up on the off-hand suggestion and lorded it over their fellow Decepticons. The mech next to her, the other SPARTAN, didn't seemed at all surprised at how the femme was conducting herself, in fact he had an almost too sardonic to be called fond smirk on his own face plate.
"Suggest away, femme."
"Promote one of your gestalt teams to take the slot. Multiple bots means you could operate on a broader level than you can now, and the gestalt bond would let them correlate attacks much more efficiently."
The suggestion threw the Decepticon, who had been expecting a more self-serving answer from her. "Why not you?"
"I don't want command again. Did it once, and I'm never going back to it." Shadowdancer frowned briefly, casting a sidelong look to the mech standing with her before Lord Megatron, before continuing in an only slightly forced tone. "If you want to know about it, ask Orpheus later on."
The assassin blinked at her, surprised at the suggestion. "You sure about that, ma'am?"
"It's not like it's any great secret… well, anymore anyways. He might like to know why it was that I was so… brutal, in my response to this slight."
Any further conversation was stalled when Soundwave made it into the throne room, who silently assumed his spot behind Lord Megatron as he normally did.
Shadowdancer shrugged off any more conversation. "I have a youngling to corral if that is all you wanted from me, Lord Megatron."
"For now. I will be seeing you later, Shadowdancer."
She gave him the same salute the assassin did when he introduced himself, turned around sharply, and left.
Orpheus watched her go until she was out of sight, then turned back to the Decepticon High Commander. "Was that all you wanted from me as well? I need to return before I have to explain my absence to Governor Straxus. I wasn't all too sure about what you wanted me to say to him."
Megatron laced his finger joints before him, holding them before his mouth component, with his optics locked on the door the Praxian femme exited out of. "Say nothing to that so called Governor, but I have nothing further for you either, Orpheus. You're dismissed."
The assassin moonlighting as a shock trooper gave him a more familiar salute, with one hand over his chest plates right above the spark chamber, before leaving himself.
After the second SPARTAN left, the ex-miner turned to his third in command, who with Shockwave's deactivation was now his second. "What was it all about?"
"Purpose of disappearance: Paying respects to fallen member of unit." Soundwave responded with the same tone he used for everything, running the Praxian's plan for the Decepticons through his processors. "Number in SPARTAN-Bot unit: Sixteen functioning active units, one deactivated unit, three non-active units, one starship. Unit Shadowdancer's occupation before bartender: Tactical planning and Psychological warfare."
"Fascinating. Good work Soundwave. Keep an optic on her and whoever else socializes with her, and let me know when this waste of metal she cares for is upgraded to an adult frame." Megatron turned his attention back to the data pad he had been reading before the SPARTANs had entered the throne room, which held the casualty reports that he didn't care to read at any time. "I could use a bot like her."
The masked and visored mech inclined his helm to the Decepticon High Commander in acknowledgement of the order, sardonically thinking about what little use the SPARTAN femme had for the mech he was taking his orders from.
\V/
Rook blew out a sigh, bored beyond tears. The thought snagged her attention, and she wondered if Cybertronians could cry like humans could, or if it was impossible.
She figured it was something to at least ask either Knightblade or Refit the next time they all got around to talking at the same time, now that Optimus Prime wasn't requiring decacycle reports from them anymore.
Raising her helm, the saboteur looked around the waiting room at the other bots with her.
After she and Trickflip had entered the wing of the medical facility and Silverbell and Flashfire went off to have the upgrade done, there had been a few more family units that wandered in for whatever upgrades their own creations were receiving. Much to her amusement, the medics were giving her and Ruby a wide berth as they scurried around.
She had finished what little work she needed to do to run her getto dojo, prepped her next round of work so all she would have to do is turn in the business assessment to the Hall of Records in Praxus before paying her dues at the Government district for that vorn, and mentally planned out the next ten classes for each tier she taught.
About at the point where she was going to stop trying to amuse herself and start bothering Trickflip to do it for her, Flashfire finally came back to the waiting room followed a bit unsteadily by a black and silver femme.
Silverbell was still trying to adjust her stabilizers to the new height and length of her legs, and she nearly stumbled into the infiltrator in consequence of watching the floor instead of where she was going. "Sorry."
"No trouble, Hell's Bells." Trickflip carefully pushed her upright so she could stand on her own, and let go. "Can I ask what it is you intend to do now, or do you still not want to tell me?"
Rook cocked her helm as the sound of the young femme's fans kicking on, wondering at the cause of that reaction.
The femme herself beamed up the small distance that the SPARTAN mech stood above her now. "I'm going to join the Autobots."
"Really?" Blinking in surprise, the acid green and black mech chanced a quick look at the femme's creators, both of who looked resigned to their creation's decision. "Do you know what unit or classification you want to try for?"
Silverbell bounced on her heel stabilizers, checking the new way they moved on her. "Maybe, but I want to see what the recruiters tell me before I decide for myself for sure. After the whole two megacycles I have to get accustomed to my new frame."
With a wide grin, this was something else that was more interesting than her data work, Rook chimed in. "Well, we know of a few of them, so if you want to see how a normal cycle in a base goes, we can arrange it. Personally, I would tell you to try out for the Special Operations Division; you were sly enough in evading your creators when it was berth time."
Trickflip twisted around to glare at the saboteur cheerfully grinning at them all. "Mute it, Rook. There is nothing that said she has to become like us, she could try for weapons specialist or something like that if she wants to."
Blinking, the newly upgraded femme looked from one SPARTAN to another. "What unit are you two out of, anyways?"
"SPARTAN-Bot, Covert Ops Division." Rook bounced up to her pedes, now that the reason they had been waiting was standing before them. "It's not solely an Autobot unit, though."
All but shoving his sister out of the door before she attracted any more attention to them, Trickflip sighed resignedly. "There are more Autobots than Decepticons, we only have that one."
Both Flashfire and Ruby slowed a bit as the three of them got around to talking about military job classes and what was needed for all of them. The hot pink and silver femme sniffed a bit as Rook promised to help the femme learn how to fight before she actually enlisted. "My little femme is all upgraded now."
Patting her bonded on the shoulder plate, the red femme's lip plates quirked up a bit. "We can always try for another, now that Silverbell is fully upgraded and about to become a working soldier bot."
"I think we should wait, given how much unrest is about at the moment." Flashfire gave her silver and black creation a fond smile as the femme waved to her creators excitedly. "There were a few times I almost thought we wouldn't make it, and I don't want to go through that again."
(ooo000ooo)
When she got back to her dojo, Trickflip had been volunteered by Silverbell to take her out for high-grade now that her systems would take it, Sideswipe was sitting in her office with a wide grin on his faceplate even though his brother down stairs was still scowling.
The silver swordmech saluted the femme with a data pad he held, one that was painted green with red stripes. "Got it. All of it, even the slag he had hidden in an external drive behind a portrait of the Seven Primes."
"Well, well." Rook took the pad from the mech and looked it over. It was mostly speculation, but some of it would have done some damage if any bot had thought to try the Intel trader to see what they could see. "Not bad, Sides'. Right well, from here you need to report back to Iacon for Ratchet's tender mercies, then come back for a broad systems test before I sneak you both to Polyhex. But if Jackknife comes around questioning like I think he will, it'll mean you did what I told you to."
"Err… is Ratchet okay with installing it?"
"Refit might be the one to do it, but the medic mech said yeah to Warcry." The saboteur threw herself in her desk chair, tossing the data pad she had taken with her to the medical facility into her out box and rummaging around in her desk drawers for a magnet. "So, although he might be a bit grumpy, all of it should check out even without a generator like ours. You may find you need to refuel more often with the upgrades, but that should be it."
Finally finding the block of mineral stuck to the far back, she pried it loose and drew it over the green and red data pad.
"Where did you get this?"
"Innersight's desk, right side, three drawers down." The newly minted, SPARTAN trained Autobot saboteur raised an optic ridge at his mentor. "Are you going to return it?"
"It's called getting rid of the evidence that could pin you to the crime, mech."
\V/
No bot was particularly surprised when Soundwave entered the bar a full joor before he normally did for his and Shadowdancer's off-cycle game. Zephyr, still clueless about what the Decepticon mech was in on, led him up to the second level of the refurbished warehouse turned bar anyways.
Shadowdancer raised an optic ridge at them both, but refrained from commenting until the helicopter left to check in on Kynaite and Frenzy. "Is this a social visit or simply business?"
"Lord Megatron: Content with information provided. Intent: Methodology for virus infected."
"I said amputation last cycle, right? I meant it." Placing the data pad down on the desk, the SPARTAN-Bots' XO leveled a stern look at the mech across from her. "What is it you're really asking, Soundwave?"
The blue mech spent a breem phrasing what he wanted to say. "Possible option: Reformat."
"That's not something we can do at the moment without attracting attention to ourselves." Lacing her claws together, the femme considered the suggestion from every possible angle her battle computer could predict. "Later on, it might be something to look into, but how would you suggest we hide who we reformat right now?"
"Inquiry: Target?"
"Orpheus has found the main carrier of the virus in Polyhex. Ratbat apparently let Shockwave reprogram a few things in his CPU, and the scientist slipped in a few nasty things." Shadowdancer raised a questioning optic ridge again when Soundwave appeared to stiffen at the name. "Do you know him?"
"Unit Ratbat: Once Polyhex Senator." When the femme did nothing but stare at him, the Decepticon sighed through his vents. "Acquaintance made: Approximately twenty seven vorns ago. This unit: Scientific aid, attached to Polyhex governing council."
"I take it that it wasn't a pleasant acquaintance then?" As the mech was so stiff it rivaled how bad he had gotten last off-cycle, the femme had to assume her guess was correct. "If you want, you can try your reformatting option on him so we can see how it works out, I just don't see how you're going to hide it."
"Intent: Hide in plain sight."
\V/
Warcry knew he couldn't stall for any longer, his work was done and so was most of the Prime's, so he finally wandered over near the end of the working joors to the medical bay where both Refit and Ratchet were waiting a bit impatiently for him to show up. Knightblade had to be called up from where she had wandered off to with her two Crystal City mechs, as they were playing with some of the demolitions stored in the Autobot base, and once the sniper turned scientist's assistant showed herself with Perceptor in tow they got to work.
Stretched out on one of the medical repair berths, the tank had a good view of both the former AI and the Head Medic of Iacon as they went over the steps of a medical initiated reboot again. For something that had once been human, listening to what the two of them were discussing was a bit disturbing.
Knightblade finished what she was doing at the back of his helm with the same device she had used on the XO and took it over to where the other scientist was standing as Refit finally bounced over to the CO's side. "Are you ready, sir?"
"Not really, but you can start anyways."
With a slight grin for the tank's seemingly permanent wary expression, the medic in training rounded the repair berth to where the opening in his helm was. Her digits were warm as she carefully picked through his processors to ensure nothing had been disturbed before she closed up the panel and reached for the SPARTAN's emergency stasis lock switch, using the tiny tool all medics apparently had in their hands to activate it.
Refit grinned a bit wryly as the tank went still. "That's going to be one of the more difficult problems to do to the others if this works."
"The slagging lock? Why?" Ratchet stopped in handing her the medical monitor they were going to attach to the SPARTAN-Bots' Commander to see what it was that would go on during the reboot.
"Some of them know how to get around it. They didn't like the idea that some medic could put them offline if they didn't want to be."
A sudden cough of some bot's systems made both medics turn to the suddenly sheepish looking sniper. She peered back at them warily. "You weren't supposed to tell him that, 'fit."
Refit shot her a wicked looking grin before taking the monitor and attaching it. "Who all can do it? I know you can by your reaction, and most of the Covert Ops Division as well."
"Clearsight, Nitro, the SPARTAN you happen to be working on, and Spotter… and in essence the rest of his trine might be able to as well but I've never asked." Knightblade tapped her finger joints against the data pad that held the copy of the tank's current processing programs. "I think Shadow' told the others of her Division not to inform Orpheus of how it was done."
Perceptor narrowed his optics on the femme next to him, who grew a bit guiltier looking under his stern stare.
"It was a bit before we got to Iacon the first time, we didn't really know what the medics would do with us."
Refit giggled as Ratchet huffed irritably at the sniper, who quickly ducked her helm and turned her attention to the pad before her. "Shall we start?"
(ooo000ooo)
The first thing Warcry noticed when his systems booted up was that he was running less programs that he had before. Then he noted that the programs he was running were much more complex.
The tank cautiously onlined an optic, taking in his immediate view of the AI turned Cybertronian medic peering down at him with a measure of concern. "What is it 'fit?"
"How do you feel?"
"Fine." The tank cautiously raised himself to a sitting position, testing the new responses he was getting from his own systems. "It's a little disquieting, but Shadow' was right, 'fit. A simple reboot should work."
Using one heavy hand to loosen up the stiffened cables in his neck column, looking around.
It seemed that a few joors had passed, not surprising as the medics intended to take it slower than the XO's crash to record everything that happened while his CPU rebooted.
Knightblade was nowhere to be seen, and neither was the scientist shaped shadow she seemed to have acquired recently. Ratchet was dealing with some bot that had wandered in with an energon leak on the other side of the med bay, but other than that, the room was mostly deserted.
"Knight' is in the office with Spotter. They want to see you once you're on your pedes again."
As Refit flitted around him, checking over what she needed to before formally discharging him from the med bay, he ran through a manual systems check. Nothing responded as it used to, the female human voice that had delivered news of his systems for the last vorn since he woke like this had been replaced by a simple feeling that everything was checking out as it should. Warcry supposed it was how normal Cybertronians felt, as opposed to the formal way the SPARTANs were used to with their MJOLINER systems from being human.
Once the ex-AI released him to his own devices, he wandered over to see what it was that the scientist and the hacker wanted from him. Knightblade and Spotter had a copy of some program up on a vid screen, borrowed from Xenon who was watching the goings on instead of dealing with his work. "What is it?"
The sniper started a bit, whirling around to take in the view of the tank on his pedes standing in the doorway. "Sorry sir, but 'fit didn't say when you were getting up."
"It's a delaying program, we think." As the one to answer the SPARTAN-Bots' CO, the silver seeker pointed out some line of incomprehensible techno babble to the other SPARTAN. "Or something similar to a timer, really. Its function was to initiate a reboot on its own, and we are thinking that's what happened to the XO."
"Except that she crashed before it could, setting it all in motion herself instead of having this do it for her." The blue gray femme turned back to the screen with a thoughtful frown. "We've checked through our own CPUs and found comparable programs, all set to happen at different times. This one is mine, and it's got about half a decacycle left on it."
"Why didn't either of you find this before?" Still trying to work out a stubborn kink in his neck cables, the tank took a closer look at the sniper's programming.
"We weren't looking for anything like this, just viruses and incompatible or glitched programming, and it happens to be something that didn't glitch up once or twice." Spotter brought up one clawed digit and started gnawing on it. "Taking a complete look through the programs we onlined with, and as I'm sure you've noticed most of yours are gone just like Shadowdancer's, would have taken just as long as waiting and seeing what was going to happen. Right now, though, we just need to give the rest of us a reboot, and I'll spend the next half a vorn paging through it for any more surprises, one by one."
Warcry sighed as he started to wonder how long it took the hacker to do an in-depth look at one of their CPUs. "Suppose we should also get on the other problems and issues that we've been ignoring."
"Like Knight's spark chamber?"
The sniper in question spared the newly arrived inventor with a half-sparked glare even as the tank nodded to the same mech. "We already know we have sparks, Shadowdancer wouldn't have been able to bond with her youngling if she didn't. The only question is, are they comparable to a Cybertronians' spark or something else entirely?"
Knightblade gritted her dental plates, but gave a grudging nod to the SPARTAN-Bots' CO's stern look. "Under the maximum containment we can devise. I won't risk you, 'jack, or Percy if our spark chambers are not designed to be opened up. I'm not budging on that issue either."
Wheeljack flashed the femme a bright pulse of blue light. "That's fine, Knight'. Caution is probably for the best anyways."
Blinking, the scientist's assistant peered at the inventor, looking for flaws. "Who are you, and what did you do to 'jack?"
"Oh, ha ha ha." The blue shifted to a more teal color, and the inventor rolled his optics at the femme's crack at his normal methods of research. "Like I haven't heard that one from you yet. I know how to be careful… most times."