Bumblebee, still goggle-eyed, gave Zero a drastic judder. "Don't fall asleep. Is that true?"

Zero raised her head and tottered to the right. "What's trueeee?"

"What you just mentioned. Can you seriously not (static) remember your own name?"

Zero then tottered to the left. "Nope. The Director said I had a biiiig whack in 2017. Everything gets fuzzy-wuzzy after that. He told me that some Cemetery Wind guys recovered me under some wreckage. My head was cut like a watermelon, apparently. My legs were all spaghetti, too. He said all of the tendons were squeezed out like toothpaste. Oh! A foster home was crushed, I think. I guess I lived there? Who knows. It's not like it matters or anything."

A gut-churning image of a bloodied and battered child-version of Zero with her head split open and her legs shredded like noodles entered Bumblebee's imagination. It disturbed him greatly. "It totally does matter! Why didn't you tell me this sooner?"

The answer came like flying lightning. "'Cause the Director said it didn't matter, and since *hic!* I'm apart of Cemetery Wind, I would be infringing on their data control policy by telling you. All agents are sworn to secrecy."

"And that's it? There's nothing more?"

"I guess not. It's all just a big blank black whenever I try thinking about it."

Bumblebee tried to assert something, but nothing came out. His radio dial had gotten stuck. He withdrew a cunctatory servo from around Zero and started meddling with his throat. Questions were swimming inside of his head like a fish in a bowl, and quickly, he found himself growing more miffed as the nano-kliks ticked on and on with no payoff. He had so much to say, so much to ask, but couldn't because his radio was suddenly acting so preliterate and jumpy.

Finally, after a few keyed up twists and yanks, the device ticked and Bumblebee was able to speak again. But he'd had enough at this stage and put Zero down. He then did something that was profoundly unlike him and, without any regard for the flowers, transformed, and out from his Camaro came his holoform.

Zero's footing waned, making her moonlit shadow look like a wispy eidolon to the people who were watching her from afar. Giving Bumblebee a pleading look, she said, "'Bee, we should go..."

"After I ask you some more things."

"Will it take long? I'm tiiiired."

"That depends on you and your readiness to talk to me. Here-" Bumblebee outstretched his hand and beckoned Zero to join him inside his Camaro form. "Sit down."

Zero grappled for his fingers and slumped into shotgun, her physical fainéance increasing tenfold upon making contact with his cozy leather seats. Bumblebee sat in the driver's side and latched his own door shut, squirming a little. Sitting inside himself always had a way of making him feel extremely uncomfortable.

"Zero… I think it's time we had a decent bull session," he said. "Like about NEST, Cemetery Wind, and most importantly, who this 'Director' is. But first I have to challenge you on something: the timeline. What you told me doesn't make any sense at all. Cemetery Wind demobilized in 2014, but you just said that you were picked up by them after you turned twelve. That was in 2017. How? The TRF replaced them by that point. How did they manage to branch out and go incognito for over a decade without anyone knowing? And why?"

"'Bee, I don't get why you're asking me this. I already said that I'm not allowed to say anythingggg..."

"Zero, please just… Ugh, please just cooperate. I need this. I have to know."

Zero flung her arms up in the air like a dead fish. "But whyyyy? For NEST? For that Major General? For the other Autobots?"

Bumblebee started Rhadamanthine. "No, it's for me." And Sam, he thought. But then he abated. "Zero, I'm begging you."

That seemed to do the trick. The final palisades of Zero's sober veneer fell, and whatever equivocations she still held onto were repressed by Bumblebee's earnest appeal and his somber disposition. In that instance, she was on the same wavelength as Bumblebee, drunken stupor and all. She could empathize with his dubiety and hurt and felt some buried instinct to quell his displeasure emerge from inside her like a freshly born infant, new and ignorant to the world around it. "I just wanna sleepy sleep, but fiiiine. Since you just have to ask annoying questions and bother me like always..."

Bumblebee was wonderstruck; this was happening. Zero was opening up. At long last, after months upon months of verbal and sometimes physical wrangling, he was going to get his replies. And all it took was to get her drunk.

"From what I've been told," she said, though with evident hesitancy, "Cemetery Wind never went away. They just restructured. A lotta people were afraid *hic!* the government had been infiltrated by the Autobots, so they began gathering under the scenes."

"But again, how? That takes money. Cemetery Wind has made techno-organics, for crying out loud. Who is pledging the funds to develop literal cyborgs and portable ground bridges? And while I'm at it, what was the deal with Windblade's stolen cache pod? I know you know something about that."

"Slow down, 'Bee! My head hurts." Zero rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand, disheveling her already tangled bangs even more. "I guess the Director has connections to some affluent people in other countries? Lots of humans don't like your kind. They want *hic!* you all dead 'cause they think you'll kill us all. But they're afraid. That's why you haven't seen much of them for the past decade. They can't openly challenge NEST, so they do things secretly. But I messed all that up when you captured me. Now everyone knows. And I have no clue about the cache thingy. Sorry."

"Okay, interesting." Bumblebee was still skeptical but wanted to keep the ball rolling, so he chose not to grill Zero about Windblade's cache pod. "How is it that Cemetery Wind has been able to successfully make an average human into, well, a machine hybrid?"

"Oooooh! That's all different. Ya know Lock… Lock… Lockup? Or maybe it was something else…"

Bumblebee's brows snapped together. "Lockdown?" he asked, putting sufficient emphasis on the 'down' portion. "Yeah, I know him. A bit of a crazy fragger, that one. He's deader than a doornail, though. Optimus Prime and Cade made sure of that years ago."

"Lockdown left tonssss of things behind. A lot of dossiers, technology, the works."

"So somehow the leftover Cemetery Wind supporters managed to get their hands on Lockdown's stuff? But that was all seized by the government. I would know, I saw it myself."

"Omigosh, I just said the things he left behind! Like hard-drives and hidden weapons and stuff. He worked with the Director, so the Director knew where to look after he was patched up."

Bumblebee scootched closer to Zero with intent. "The Director. It always comes back to this Director guy with you. But who is he? What's his name? How on Earth does this man have so much influence?"

"'Beeeee," Zero carped in a way that was not unlike a small child bellyaching over their missing blanky. She was steadily getting fed up with all of his questions and her gyrating locale and found that keeping her lids open was becoming more of a workout than anything else. Plus, there was a nasty tingling in the back of her throat that was only getting nastier by the second. She was salivating at an unnatural rate and couldn't make heads or tails as to why. "I dunno, okayyyy? Now can we go already? I'm chilly!"

"No, Zero," Bumblebee replied, clinging to his newfound upper-hand with a little too much vim. He was close. So, so close. Just a bit more prodding and everything would be solved. He was on the cusp of a breakthrough and wasn't about to let it pass him by. "Tell me- who is the Director?"

"'Beeee-"

"Who is he?"

"'Beeeeee! I wanna go!"

"Who is he!?"

Zero shielded her mouth and rushed out the door like a scalded cat. The salivating had achieved its climax, and her throat burned with an execrable brew of John Barleycorn and bile. She kecked in a patch of posies off to the side, leaving Bumblebee in a state of shellshock.

The start of the following morning was just as, if not more chaotic than the previous night's end.

The fallout from Zero's self-indulgence swamped her, and she cursed her past self for not following Jett's rules as she sat before her hotel room's toilet bowl, dry-heaving at random intervals, occasionally succeeding in emptying her guts after every painful fifth heave or so.

Bumblebee paced outside the door, filled with worry over Zero's wellbeing. After her bout in the garden, he had brought her back to their hotel, where she promptly spent a fair portion of the night keeled over, sweating cannonballs and gasping in agony. She had woken up early with the need to throw up again, and he had wanted to give her something to help with the alcohol-induced sickness, but she had bolted to the restroom and latched it shut, leaving him stranded outside with little way of providing assistance.

Zero hacked and hurled a few more times, which prompted Bumblebee to ask if she was doing okay. She obviously wasn't, but he still felt the need to say something. Doing so made him feel slightly less useless.

As he had expected, she didn't grace him with a coherent sentence. Only more grotesque vomiting came his way, which was followed in succession by a clamorous thud.

Bumblebee grew unsettled by the thud and jiggled the knob. "Zero," he said, trying to sound authoritative, but failing miserably. He recognized the weakness in his voice and tried again. "Zero!" This time he accomplished his goal by not sounding quite as meek.

Zero coughed, then set about dabbing her chin with a nearby strand of toilet paper. She had collapsed, hence the thud, and the tiniest cut had opened up underneath her chin, stinging as a thin stream of ichor dripped down her neck and into the fold of her clavicle. She had heard Bumblebee's shouting of her name, and though her first inclination was to ignore him and keep on writhing in her own misery, her instincts told her that if she didn't say something, then he would keep on yelling, which would exacerbate the intensity of her hangover and make her more miserable in turn.

"Stay quiet," she ordered with no trace of jollity. She sunk against the cold marble of the restroom floor and held her stomach and squeezed her eyes shut. The pain she was experiencing was immense. No wonder why Jett had kept alcohol away from her as if it were the plague; the after effects from consuming too much were nightmarish.

Bumblebee pointlessly tried the knob again. "What's going on in there? What was that noise I just heard?"

Zero rolled over. "It wasn't anything. Go away."

"Can I do anything for you? Anything at all?"

"You can get lost."

"Out of the question."

"I hate you."

"I'm sure you do. Water?"

"That would involve me unlocking the door. I don't want to move."

"I bet you don't, but it might help."

"Unless you mix a pain-reliever into it, I have my doubts."

"At least you're relatively back to normal. Granted, you are acting way meaner than usual, but I prefer it to your weird happy-drunk-self."

Zero covered her head with her arms and wretched. "Die."

"I'll take that as a queue to go get your water. That door better be unlocked when I get back, by the way."

"Uuuuurrrrrrrrrggghhhhhhhhh…"

Bumblebee went into the kitchen area and pulled out a ceramic cup from one of the treen cupboards. Holding the cup under the nozzle of the sink, he turned the water on cold and filled it up to a medium height. When he got back to the door, he found out quickly that it was still locked. "Hey-" he started, but then he heard a click, followed by a slump after.

Bumblebee opened the door. Right off the bat, he was hit with the astringent scent that came with technicolor yawns. Zero was doubled over on the floor like a sack of potatoes, sweating and grimacing, obviously suffering quite a bit. Turning off his nasal receptors, Bumblebee knelt beside her and placed the cup in front of her face. At first, she didn't acknowledge him or the cup, for her eyes were closed, but after opening them, she took his gift of mercy and placed it to her lips.

Bumblebee studied Zero as she drank the water. All sorts of things were wrong. Her hair? Mussed. Her face? It had a deathlike pallor. Her clothes? Wrinkled, and in desperate need of a proper washing. Her neck? A peculiar red line trailed down it and into her shirt. Interesting.

"What's that?" asked Bumblebee, pointing below Zero's chin.

Zero chugged the last bit of water. "It's nothing."

"You're bleeding."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are. Why are you being so argumentative with me?"

Zero placed the cup back down on the floor and laid next to it slowly. "I feel ill. Anyway, you got me the water, so now you can leave."

"But what if you fall again? I'd rather you not bash your head against the floor and get a concussion."

Zero clenched her teeth as she aggressively propped herself up. "Autobot, has anyone ever told you that you worry far too much? Look, I'm nauseous, and I would prefer it if you didn't see me like this."

Surprise overcame Bumblebee. "Why not? You're not in the best state, yeah, but I'm not here to make fun of you for it."

Zero lulled in the direction of the toilet seat. Grabbing at the rim with one hand, she covered her mouth with the other as if to throw up again. Swallowing loudly, she said, "Gosh, do I honestly need to spell it out for you? I don't want you in here because it's...

"It's…?"

"Embarrassing! It's embarrassing!"

With that explanation, the mech understood and began patting the woman on the back, seeing as she was close to having another fit. "It's okay, Zero. It's not like I care."

Zero gagged. "But I care," she replied with much difficulty. "It's gross and shameful and humiliating."

"There's no need for you to feel that way around me. We all have our shortcomings."

"Speak for yourself. It's not like an Autobot can get sick from near alcohol poisoning."

A steady smile stretched across Bumblebee's face. "Sure I can. High grade, remember?"

"Oh, I forgot about that. Hey... Autobot?" Zero's expression suddenly held a strange level of serenity to it- like she had resigned herself to some otherworldly truth.

"What is it?" Bumblebee asked, thinking she had something profound to add.

"I'm going to throw up again."

By the time Zero got herself together, it was a few minutes past twelve.

Crosshairs, Hot Rod, and all of the Yeagers were seated outside the manor on the porch, chatting and enjoying each other's company when Bumblebee pulled into the driveway, Zero his antipathetic passenger. She was still very much affected by the hangover she had acquired, but the sick feeling that had been stuck in the pit of her gut for the whole morning had since ebbed away.

"Ow, my head. The sun is too bright," Zero complained as she drew back from the light like a vampire.

"You didn't have to come. You could've stayed behind (static) at the hotel room."

Zero squinted her eyes closed, then opened them again. Both the light and the heat weren't really helping her with her headache very much. "No, I couldn't have done that. That would've been rude of me. The Yeagers have been kind enough to accommodate my presence for the last few days, and I don't want them to think ill of me by denying them basic courtesy on the second to last day of our stay."

The second to last day of our stay... Bumblebee recapped in his mind. That's right, after today, we have to prepare to go back to NEST. NEST…

"'Bee! Milady!"

The pair's attention diverted from one another and instead drifted onto Cogman, who was beckoning them over with excessive ferocity. Zero clamored out of the Camaro and started meandering up the porch's steps, whereas Bumblebee switched over to his robot mode and took a seat alongside Hot Rod.

"Bienvenue, Bumblebee~"

"Gracious as usual."

"Mon ami, graciousness is my specialty~" Hot Rod practically sung, feeling suave and full of good cheer.

Bumblebee analyzed the milieu and noticed something was amiss. Crosshairs was gone. "...Hey, where's the other one?"

Hot Rod did not fully comprehend the query at first, but had a lightbulb moment after a second and said, "Oh, Crosshairs. He said he didn't want to transform today. According to him, his thumb hurts worse when he's not a Corvette."

"So that's that? He's just gonna (static) ditch out on me?"

"If it counts for anything, he told me it was good seeing you again, and he wanted me to keep you from annoying everyone too much for ze rest of ze day."

Bumblebee maledicted Crosshairs with a few graceless human words and a somnolent flutter of his doorwings. But inside, he couldn't deny feeling a slight sting in his spark. He didn't have much time left to stick around, and even though Crosshairs was fully aware of this, he was still bailing on their planned trip around the city. But Cogman did dislocate his thumb for being clumsy, so perhaps it was not Crosshairs but Bumblebee who was being selfish for wanting him to come along despite his injury.

Feeling an overwhelming urge to comfort the smaller mech, Hod Rod placed a perfectly-buffed servo on Bumblebee's shoulder. The youngling was always terrible at concealing his feelings, and right now, even in broad daylight, his disappointment shined off him like a lighthouse in the dark of the night. "Who needs ze prat anyway? We'll show him what he missed by taking plenty of pictures and rubbing it in his face before you're shipped off again."

Bumblebee's antennas rose, although a bit too slowly for Hot Rod's liking.

"Yo! You guys! We're leaving!"

The two Autobots looked down. The owner of the yell was Cade.

Tessa looked at her father with sad beagle eyes. "So soon? But my phone is only on 50%..."

Cade didn't look pleased. "I told you to have all of your stuff charged before twelve."

Tessa raised her shoulders in a mock shrug. "Sorry, it's not like I spent last night socializing and drinking or anything."

Viviane grinned into her palm, finding much amusement in Tessa's rebellious words.

Cade, in high dudgeon, was about to voice his objections over his daughter's actions but wasn't given the opportunity to after being randomly jostled to the side by Cogman.

"That's enough bickering for now." Cogman clapped to get everyone's full attention. "Now, I want everyone to listen closely."

Cogman proceeded to mull over his plans for the evening, going into minor detail about some of the hotspots and sorting out who was going to be grouped with who. He also made sure to mention that they would switch around at the end of every second hour so that they could cover more ground.

Once Cogman finished his spiel, he, Viviane, and Tessa loaded themselves into Hot Rod. Cade, though, decided to ride with Bumblebee so he wouldn't be cramped, and so he could chat a bit more with his old friend.

Bumblebee welcomed this, as did Zero. She hoped that Cade would keep Bumblebee distracted while she drifted off. Whenever she was alone with Bumblebee for a ride, he tended to never to shut up. All she desired was some time to go over the events of the previous night without him incessantly begging her not to ignore him because he was bored.

"Do you know what time it is?" Cade asked Bumblebee, chipper and excited.

Bumblebee was quick to answer, for he was just as excited as Cade. "It's time to rock and roll."

Half the metropolis, it seemed, was under construction. A new tower or ten popped out every few feet or so, competing skyscrapers raced well past the clouds, and a third and then a fourth viaduct stretched across some innocuous rivulet or pedway.

People of all kinds, male and female, young and old, large and small, muscular and bony, and fat and thin were scattered everywhere. Mobile vendors and souvenir shops decorated the streets, many of their teenaged employees nonchalantly sipping at Starbucks lattes or checking their phones for updates on the latest celebrity gossip, unknowingly rousing memories in Zero in some manner or other as they did so.

Speaking of memories, ever since this morning, she had tried to stay as passive as possible. Bumblebee had yet to talk to her about their conversation from the night prior, and it was beginning to bother her. She recalled bits and pieces, most of them being hazy and muddled, but others were clear and sharp in her mind's eye. One such memory was of her admitting to him that she was an amnesiac. Another was of her offering him hairy details about the rationale behind Cemetery Wind's resurgence.

Typically, whenever she confessed something to him, she experienced shame or anger. She had a tendency to keep cold fury boxed up like dry ice, and whenever the lid was lifted, frigid smoke roiled and rose like hot magma within a wroth volcano.

But this time was unusual. She didn't feel shame. Yes, there was a nasty ache in her chest, which she presumed to be guilt or something or other, but there was no shame. She didn't know why this was, and though she was tempted to, she made no effort to decode her emotions. She didn't want to. That whole night had been a blemish on her character, and she just wanted to forget about it.

"Oi, girly!"

Zero felt a tap on her shoulder. She was standing in front of a boxy kiosk and had been browsing through its trinkets on autopilot. She hadn't realized there had been someone waiting behind her. "May I help you, sir?" Calling the person something as prim as sir was a bit of a stretch. He looked like a right chav, as Jett would've said. His shoddy trackies, gym shorts, and Burberry cap were hardly indicative of an average IQ.

"Great, a bloody American," said the chav upon deciphering her accent. "Yeah, you can help me by running along now. You've been standing there forever, and I don't have all sodding week to wait."

Yes- a chav he most definitely was. "No," Zero said as she picked up two different keychains and dangled them in front of her face, inspecting them closely, unsure as to which one was superior in cuteness. "I'm not done yet."

The chav didn't appreciate this and took a bellicose step forward. "What, ya got cotton in your ears? Move it, lady!"

"Hey, you! Who do you think you're yelling at?" a not-so-far-off voice called out.

"Who the-?" The chav jerked around and was met with the sight of a crossed faced Bumblebee storming up to him, Viviane also in tow.

"What is going on here?" Bumblebee demanded once he got to the chav. "And why are you raising your voice at her?"

The chav looked like he had found the legendary pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Bumblebee was far shorter than he was, so he erroneously concluded that he would be an easy target. "Step off, cockwomble. That dumb broad has been here forever now, and I have places to be and things to see."

Zero continued to jingle the keychains. Pink or blue? she thought without any regard to the traction circulating around her.

Bumblebee flared up with anger. Who did this guy think he was, harassing random strangers, let alone Zero, who was microscopic by comparison to him?

"Now, now," said Viviane, feeling the need to interject. People like this were commonplace in London, and she knew just how to deal with them. "I think that's enough, don't you? I bet your mum wouldn't appreciate this type of behavior, especially towards a delightful young woman who's merely minding her own business in peace. Now scram or I'll call a cop over here and cause an even bigger scene."

The chav's self-assertive smirtle fell into a straight line at the word 'cop.' He had an edible wrapped up in his pocket, and edibles and cops don't exactly mix very well. "Daft cow," he said before striding past Viviane and purposely bumping into Bumblebee's shoulder, eventually disappearing down one of the many city streets.

"Dead from the neck up, that lowlife," Viviane said. "Well, now that that's all said and done with, I'm rather parched. 'Bee, miss, would you like to go get some drinks?"

"No thank you, Mrs. Yeager. I'm not currently thirsty," was Zero's response.

Bumblebee helpfully said, "I think I saw a vending machine at the last intersection. Do you wanna go back real quick?"

"No, no, that's quite alright. I'll go myself. I shouldn't be too long- only a minute or two."

Bumblebee was still a bit tense from their interaction with the chav. "Are you sure about that, Viviane?"

Viviane dismissed the alien with a sumptuous click of her heels. "I'll be back in no time flat."

And with that, she was off.

Bumblebee stared after Viviane as she evanesced into London's human concourse. Once she fully escaped his view, he wiped off his shoulder, disgusted, then stood beside Zero with grim verve. She still had both of the keychains in her hands, and she was still deciding on the better one of the two.

"Autobot, I want your opinion. Pink or blue?"

"Did that jerk hurt you? And what are you even doing?"

Zero grew addled by the first of the two questions. "Hurt me? Autobot, that chav was about as dangerous as a little rubber duck. He would have left me alone, eventually."

"Chav? Rubber duck?" Bumblebee tapped his knuckles against his lips in ambivalence. That whole sentence was so unlike Zero that he had to ask, "Are you good? You didn't accept any dodgy brownies from anyone with dreadlocks, did you?"

As cool as a cucumber, Zero stuck her index finger through the jump ring of the blue keychain and started swinging it in circles. "No! That's what Jett would've said, at least. He would've called that man a chav, insulted his masculinity to some degree, and then probably would have punched him in the face. Actually, while I'm here, should I get something for Jett?"

"Huh?"

"Like a souvenir. But what would he fancy?" Zero fleetingly reflected on this quandary. "Hmm, he probably would just want me to get him some foreign Menthols. He can be so senseless sometimes."

"Okay, okay. Forget I asked that. For real, though, please don't wander off alone in a strange place. Who knows, maybe if Viviane and I hadn't run up and confronted him, he would've done something."

"Like what? There are people everywhere. And I could fracture his skull by stepping on it with my weaker foot."

"You're not understanding me. I'm not insulting your strength. I'm just concerned with how placid you are acting. Why did you ignore the situation? You can't let people treat you like you don't belong. You're not an object to be pushed around."

Zero stopped twiddling with the kiosk's useless bric-a-brac. Bumblebee had involuntarily reminded her of something that had happened long ago, around the time when she had first met Jett. A G.I. had tripped her on her way back to her barracks and had taunted her in front of several other servicemen. The G.I. hadn't viewed Zero as an equal since she had legs of transformium and not flesh.

When Jett had found out about the argy-bargy, he had grown enraged, having said, "Do you think that the universe gives even the most fleeting hint of a fuck that there are not that many people like you? I don't, at least. The only truly weird thing in existence is that things can be weird. Our time on Earth is limited, friend. Laugh in the face of people who deprive you of the feeling that you belong. You do belong. You're a human. The only intelligent lifeform we've ever known of."

"But what about the robots? Am I not an offshoot of them?" Zero had replied.

"Pfft, those things? Puh-lease. Angel, last time I checked, machines acting on zeros and ones don't count as intelligent life. They're an infection, like measles or polio. You aren't. You have compassion."

"Don't call me Angel; my name is Zero-X. In any event, I still kill, and I usually don't feel much of anything when I do, so how is that a show of compassion?"

"You kill so innocents don't have to die. You value human life. The robots, however, kill indiscriminately. Men, women, children, babies- none of it matters to them. They just want to watch the world burn while spreading their plague further and further across the cosmos, ravaging any biological race that just so happens to wander in their footpath. They're aberrations that deserve eradication. Think about it. If they're not terminated on Earth, then they're going to keep on murdering. They literally destroyed their entire planet. Nothing is off limits for them."

Zero had said something to the degree of "Understood," and the conversation had ended not long after. Now that she looked at this interaction in retrospect, she found it rather intriguing. Jett had been so sure of himself, so confident in his assertions of the Cybertronian race, and she had believed him. In many respects, she still struggled not to believe him but knew better now. In a lot of ways, it was funny. Here she was, a being assigned with the express purpose of taking out Cybertronians, yet she was fraternizing with them and their allies as if they were lifelong friends. For the lengthiest amount of time, she had deemed them as objects, so having what she used to perceive as an object tell her she was not an object was a unique thing for her to experience.

"I ignored the situation because I am a soldier, Autobot," said Zero. "If someone happens to feel that I do not belong, then that is their opinion, and they are entitled to it. In a way, it makes sense. I don't belong here. I belong in a military facility- nowhere else."

Bumblebee was more than a little taken aback by this. "Why do you think you have to put up with garbage like that just because you are a soldier? Did the Director teach you that as well?"

Zero remained unaffected and said, "The Director is irrelevant to this conversation."

"Believe it or not, he is very relevant to this conversation since he made you like this, and it's wrong."

"Autobot-"

"And why are you calling me Autobot again? What happened to Bumblebee?"

"I was soused. My state of mind was highly ubiquitous."

An uncomfortable silence befell the dyad.

Zero took the merchandise she had been clinging to and placed them back on the kiosk counter, whereas Bumblebee sat down on a bench close by. Zero had no initial intention of joining him, but once he started patting the spot next to him, she decided to do as he wished.

"Zero, what happened to you? Can you tell me that much?"

Zero gave Bumblebee an odd look. "I already told you last night. I suffered several injuries after my place of residence was crushed during the Unicron invasion and forgot half of my preceding lifespan because of it. What else is there for me to tell you?"

"No, not that." Bumblebee smoothed his hair back and bit his lip. "What I mean is after Cemetery Wind found you and took you in, what did they do to you? Did you understand what was going on? How did you feel? I mean, you told me you were a little kid when it all went down."

Zero felt a sudden urge to twitch as if she had ants in her pants. She hated talking about herself with a passion. "It was pretty horrible and gave me way too much to think about at such a young age, but the situation provided me the gift of critical thinking," she said, hoping that what she was going to say next would satiate the mech's curiosity. "Nothing is as it appears and the whole world would rather you not take a look behind the curtain. The lasting impact of the mechanization process on me was to make me eternally inquisitive. Every situation has an alternate angle. Every person has an agenda. Consideration of every variable is paramount in every scenario."

Bumblebee was crestfallen, and it carried on in his cadence. "That's sad, Zero. That's really sad. I'm sorry that had to happen to you."

Zero paused for a long time. "...I'm sorry as well, Bumblebee. I'm sorry that you're now privy to this knowledge. I was supposed to take all of this with me to the grave, but now look at me. I don't even know who or what I'm supposed to be anymore."

Bumblebee opened and closed his mouth several times, unaware of the faint clacking sound of mary janes approaching him until he felt a cold object press against his cheek. "I got my drink," Viviane said with a dignified flip of her hair. "A Pepsi."

The sudden coldness made an artificial chill zip down Bumblebee's back. "Gah! Cut it out," he said, pushing the beverage away firmly, albeit playfully.

Viviane cracked the can open and guzzled a fourth of her drink, happy and completely ignorant to the conversation that had gone on without her.

All three proceeded down the street, going back to their previous musings. But this time, unlike before, Bumblebee noticed when Zero purposely dragged behind him and Viviane.

And this time, he understood the reason why.

A/N:

Chav: Provoking and annoying little cunts that hunt for their prey nightly on the roads of Northern Britain. These territorial little rodents can be seen impregnating thirteen-year-olds, stealing from your garage, walking around in public whilst fondling their testicles, and wearing Burberry caps. (Urban Dictionary)

Cockwomble: A foolish or obnoxious person.

Technicolor yawn: A drawn-out way of saying someone threw up.