Caro Transmutata Metallo 28
Files
A Transformers Prime Fanfiction
Bluestreak shifted slightly on the scaffolding of the half-constructed tower and stretched out into a more comfortable position. The smooth feel of the rust-free metal brought a small smile to his faceplates. This was a building going up, being created; that was not something that had been commonplace on Cybertron for far longer than he cared to remember. The sniper cast another wide-ranging scan around the area, letting his audio receptors soak in the sounds. Vermin scampered through the mazes of streets below him, an entire thriving ecosystem. That sent a thrill right through him. He could never recall the planet feeling this alive. The white and grey mech caught a flicker of movement too near his target and instantly focused on it. A flash of silver darted in and out of the shadows, a turbo-fox hunting for its dinner. A wide grin revealed the Autobot's denta and he triggered his comm unit, focusing on the nearly undetectably shimmer in the air on the ledge across from him.
*All clear as far as I can see. Tell the boss bot that if he wants to get started, now is as good a time as any, because the only things moving out here are scraplets and turbo-foxes, and I don't think that the scraplets are going to be any problem at all because it looks like the turbo-foxes are keeping them under control. I think there must be dens of the things around this area, and it might be a good idea to tell –*
*Thank you, Bluestreak. If that is all?*
Somehow the stiffness of the words carried over the comm and the sniper rolled his optics, still too pleased with what he had found on his return to his home world to be truly offended by the brisk dismissal. He laid his helm along his rifle and sighted in on the target one more time. From this position and this position alone a silver form was visible, sitting cross-legged in an alcove created by the damage to an ancient structure. The instability of the place would deter most mechs from attempting to enter, ensuring privacy. However Jazz was not the kind of soldier to leave things to fate, and a sniper stationed in an optimal position went a good ways towards directing fate along the path he wanted.
Though Bluestreak had answered to Ironhide during the war and was one of his officers now, his remarkable skill set had long ago caught the attention of the Special Operations department. This was not the first time that Jazz had requested that the sniper be loaned to his division. The clandestine atmosphere was odd for this sort of operation, though. That the files Jazz was cracking had come from one of Shockwave's labs was common gossip now; why the Special Ops head didn't have the entirety of the department's technical staff working on it was a mystery, if not one the Praxian was going to worry himself over. He and his invisible friend could provide ample backup for the saboteur, and Jazz was far more than competent to hack the files. Bluestreak began to flick his gaze randomly around the section of the building that hid Jazz. He had a job to do.
O
O
Within the confines of the dark alcove Jazz sat so still he might have been offline, or a welded statue. A dampener obscured his spark signal and he had carefully dulled the shine on his plating. Even the energon flow to his outer mesh was diminished, reducing his heat signature to minuscule levels. The majority of his processing power was being channeled into the analysis and initial attack on the coded data he had retrieved from Shockwave.
Back in the Iacon Tower some competent administrative mech had sectioned off a small set of rooms for the use of Special Ops. The offices were clean, sufficient to meet their current staffing levels, and completely useless as far as Jazz was concerned. He had not had nearly enough time to debug the spaces and their associated vents and hardwired communications systems. The same held true for the rest of the structure. Hundreds of mechs and femmes worked and lived in the Tower, every level was interconnected to the next with dozens of support systems, all-in-all it was a security nightmare. Given more time the silver mech would carve out a secure base of operations for him and his staff. Until then, he would get creative.
A second presence flitted at the edge of his awareness, cautious and alert. It was watching him intently, attention divided between the data being examined and the processor examining it. The silver mech would have preferred to have at least two more analysts working on the decryption. However In the special operations division there was really no such thing as 'standard procedure'. Events more often than not transpired far too quickly for one set of protocols, no matter how complex, to cover any situation. They worked with what they had on hand in regards to personnel and location: just as he was doing now.
There were a few other able-bodied agents currently on Cybertron, but they were out on assignments too critical to be recalled. So the Autobot had contented himself with one backup to monitor his progress, and a borrowed sniper to secure the perimeter. Special operations was an inherently dangerous field, and thinking about the small number of his mechs who had survived and filtered back to the homeworld opened a can of pain that Jazz simply did not want to deal with at the moment.
He was not the only commanding officer struggling with a shortage of experienced mechs. Ultra Magnus had had to step back into his former role while Smokescreen was essentially on medical leave tending to Daybreaker. A separate thread tried to break off then. Why was the energetic rookie leading the police force instead of Ultra Magnus? Not that the kid wasn't good – Primus, for his age he was amazing– but the Guard had been Magnus's purview for so long that –
Jazz deliberately shut down the thread and let it twist into a holding pattern. The mech still did not have the raw processing power to maintain too many parallel investigations. He probably should have waited until he did to tackle anything Shockwave had designed, but Ratchet was tucked away in some lab, over-clocking his processor trying to figure out what was wrong with Optimus's sparkling. The medic needed what was in these files, and Jazz was determined that they would be ready when called for.
The silver mech finished his initial investigation and pinged his second. A crisp analysis came back and he compared them critically: all the same conclusions, just a different perspective. Jazz gave a mental nod and without further ado attacked the protected data. He could sense the other processor tense in readiness but paid little attention. He had faith in the backup provided by his mechs. He released a swirling cloud of artificial intelligences that began to swarm the tight coding linkages. The mech watched for a moment, taking in how the defenses reacted to the incursion. They were well-formed firewalls, but somehow less potent than he had expected.
Suddenly seeing a chink in the armor, Jazz pounced. He carefully extracted a file, stored a copy in one of his own sub-cores and handed another off to his second. The next file showed a weakness almost immediately, leaving the mech barley any time to react, and he snatched that one as well, carefully noting the hyperlinks that connected it to the first and others. Functioning in perfect tandem, the two mechs continued the extraction process. Each file was removed from the first layers of firewalls, set carefully back in its place in relation to the others, and reconnected. The project went smoothly and soon each mech carried a complete copy of the data, but without the powerful outer defenses. It was time to take the next step.
Jazz paused a moment to reorient his slightly dizzy processor and check that the other had organized his copy correctly, his backup was skilled enough in this sort of work but it was far from being his specialty. Finding all in readiness, allowing his fury at the one-opticed mech to fuel the attack, the silver mech shredded the defenses on the original. His second followed precisely behind him, noting and countering where the code-traps within the data tried to destroy the file contents on sensing the attack. As they neared fifty-percent completion, a larger defense program activated and the second processor ruthlessly dealt with it. At seventy-five percent completion, alerts sounded at the edge of his awareness. Jazz was beginning to run low on energon. When he flatly ignored them, his second followed suit. At eighty-three percent the second presence received a communication from outside, but declined to pass it on. Nearing ninety-nine percent completion, the saboteur allowed a flicker of doubt to cross his processor. It was not that it had been too easy. The coding had been classic Shockwave, and had required his full attention, but there were certain elements missing and altered. Still, the data itself was forthcoming and he felt a flash of intense satisfaction as the last of the defenses crumbled.
He carefully compared the backup he had made to the revealed structure of the original. It was clear that the file had suffered some corruption from his attack but nothing that could not be easily repaired. His AIs were working diligently away at the secondary firewalling on the individual files and Jazz took the time to analyze the metadata while they worked. The file linking was complex. While he had been right in assuming that this was one large experiment, it was divided in a manner that hinted at a complexity the saboteur had rarely observed. The core file had been initiated almost immediately following the restoration of Cybertron and tied into not only more recent sub-groups but a myriad of subfolders and references stretching back through the entirety of the War to the Golden Age and – Jazz felt his processors hitch ever so slightly. This was odd indeed. The oldest files were marked in a completely different programming scheme and bore official authentication codes. He did not recognize the designations coded in them, but the rank stamps indicated that whatever the files contained had been approved by at least a senator.
One rather unobtrusive file caught his attention on his second pass. From the way it perched on a data node it was likely a well used hyperlink. The access data showed that it had been added some time after the main file was initiated and had gone from being hardly referenced at all to being tied to nearly every file as time wore on. However it was not that which had caught his attention, clearly it had simply gained importance as the experiment had progressed. There were several other such hyperlinks in the data. The code-designation on this particular file was very specific. It had not been used since the Great War began. He should know. It indicated that the file referenced the report of a cultural investigator.
A respectful nudge at his awareness brought his attention back to his assistant and the silver mech put that thought thread in a holding pattern. Jazz was not alone in thinking that the initial breakdown had gone a bit too smoothly. When protecting his precious data Shockwave was the most paranoid mech it had ever been Jazz's pleasure to counter. His signature defense had always been nasty surprises hidden between the regular coding and firewalls. These highly aggressive AIs would seemingly materialize out of nowhere and could rip a mech's processor to shreds. However, only one had appeared and it had been almost benign, apparently designed to induce a medical power-down.
The two mechs carefully compared their initial analyses, twisting the data structure this way and that. Having come to the conclusion that there were no more surprises waiting for him, Jazz launched into decoding the individual files. From the original file he chose a small one that had had its firewalls heavily weakened by the initial attack. Its time-stamp dated it to near the beginning of the experiment. His second began meticulously taking apart the corresponding backup file; with its undamaged defenses the process would take longer, but the data within would no doubt be intact. The saboteur felt the coding give with a burst of satisfaction which quickly turned to annoyance when an expertly hidden sleeper protocol activated and began to destroy the data. He countered the self-destruct, but noted that it had managed to corrupt nearly a third of the code. Restructuring it would be an option, but it would probably be quicker to simply hack the backup –
"Hey, Boss Bot! Time's up!"
The cheerful declaration pulled the special operations mech out of his task and he shot an annoyed glare at the white and grey Praxian who was striding lightly up to his position.
"I know you two are really busy, and that this file is really important, but Ratchet threatened to weld my rifle to my aft if I let you go for longer than a day without fueling and resting. It has been a little longer than that – "
Jazz shuttered his optics in surprise as he filtered the rest of the sniper's rambling speech. His chronometer confirmed that it had indeed been the better part of a day since he had started hacking the file. The Autobot felt a mix of annoyance and unease even as he sent a jaunty thanks to his assistant for putting up with the long session. Not that such things were unheard of, or even unusual. But the silver mech mentally kicked himself for losing track of the time. Not only was it a blatant symptom of the still damaged state of his processor, but he had meant to check in on Optimus's sparkling before now.
" – and since you know I don't really answer to Special Ops, I figured that it would be better to follow Ironhide's lead, because the rest of my unit that survived has been answering to him, because he being the head of the new planetary security forces and all, and anyway Ratchet gave specific orders on where you are supposed to refuel because he didn't want you driving yourself into the –"
"A break actually sounds great, mech," Jazz interrupted easily as he stood and stretched. "Just give me one more klick ... " The first file fell apart under his tinkering and the saboteur gave a purr of satisfaction, which quickly changed to a click of confusion.
"What's up?" Bluestreak inquired, optics flashing alertly. "Did you manage to get at some of the da –"
Jazz waved for silence and quickly locked down the file. His second indicated that it would still be some time before the backup copy was hacked and the silver mech sent the order for the other to rest and refuel as well. If the saboteur was feeling the energy drain, then his assistant must be even more so. They could return to the task later. For now he had other things to investigate.
"Hey, Blue? Ya know much about binary code?"
The question seemed to startle the sniper and he rocked back on his peds a bit.
"Well, it is a very simple code form using only two indicators. It is usually only found in emergency situations at long distance when comms are compromised. All snipers are trained in a few basic forms to use in case we get separated from our unit and it works really well because we usually have such sharp vision and –"
"Yeah, mech, but have ya ever seen it used as a base code for storing information in a computer system?"
Again the sniper started, but he nodded slowly.
"Once I did, on this organic world I was stationed on for a few cycles. They were just developing real computerized technology and they used this code that was –"
"Great! Well, time ta get that energon before Ratch has my mesh for wall insulation!"
Bluestreak smiled and nodded and continued chattering unabated about the planet he had spent some time on. Jazz returned the smile and nodded at appropriate points as they walked together back towards the budding city. The cool atmosphere stirred around them as something invisible glided past, but neither mech showed any reaction. Eventually the ragged landscape gave way to a smooth, maintained road. Jazz felt the familiar lust for speed rising in his spark and flashing a wide and challenging grin at Bluestreak he transformed and shot off down the road. The sniper gave a laugh of joy and had soon caught up and surpassed him. The younger mech playfully teased him all the way back to the outer limits of Iacon; keeping just ahead of the tired saboteur as they approached the outer ring.
