A/N. Well, second-to-last chapter. (And yes, sigh, there is a sequel in which things get even worse for all involved.) Apparently in fanfiction circles one frequently posts the music one was listening to while writing the chapter? For the record, if you're curious, this and Wednesday's chapters were written to Jaya Lakshmi's Jewel of Hari. *blink*
Those of you who have read 'control' will get this stuff faster.
XXXVII.
Over the Atlantic
Barricade awoke to his face hard against a vibrating metal floor. Plane. Must be in a plane. Either that or the Pit is extremely well lit. And vibrated. And full of feet. Not that he'd rule those out. He felt hands working at his head, other weight on his shoulders, his legs. He twisted, trying to get his hands under him.
"HOLD him," a voice said. "Get his head."
Another voice. "Are you sure, Ironhide?"
"Walked around with one of those damn bombs in my own head for how many megacycles? You think I'd lie?"
A new set of hands, hard, on the back of his head, forcing his face against the metal floor. His neck servos whined as he tried to resist. He felt one of his facial plates snap off. "No," he tried to yell—really just pushing sound into the floor. "Get off me." Feeling every humiliating inch of his smaller size and weaker servos. He felt a hatch in the back of his head prised open, the painful rush of air on previously-unexposed circuitry. He hissed. "Get off me," he repeated, weakly.
"Not a chance, 'con." A harsh laugh. "Ratchet'll let you up as soon as he disarms your little deadman-switch in your cortex." That did not sound like things boded well for Barricade's future. The Decepticon squirmed, but the hands on his head—Ironhide's, he guessed—merely ground his face harder against the floor.
"And the disarm code?" Soft voice, over his left shoulder. That must be Ratchet. Barricade felt the little bites of alligator clips as Ratchet attached a disarm decrypter to his cortical relays.
"Key in his alphanumeric designation."
"Which is?" A flavor of impatience in the medic's voice.
"Should be somewhere near the rear spark chamber." A rough hand tapping along Barricade's central dorsal.
The medic's hands shifted. Barricade felt tools against his dorsal armor. He tried to tighten down those servos, but that only sent flares of pain through his sensor net. "All right," the medic's soft voice said. "Can someone read that to me, please?"
"Sure," A new voice, a heavy weight across his legs. "Huh. CC26G643AB. That it?"
Barricade winced as the medic entered the code through his disarm device. He'd expected it to hurt. It didn't. Still. Now they could kill him and…well, what the frag did he really care? He'd be dead anyway. So what if he blew away zero or a hundred with him in the process? Probably no one even notice he was gone. A distant thought bubbled up from his memory. Well, life, nice knowing you. It sucked. And now it's over. Why had he thought anything would have changed? No one cared then: no one cared now. Not Starscream. Not Blackout. Certainly not Megatron. Kind of fitting that disarmed his death would be pretty much a summary of his life: useless. Entirely unremarkable.
"You….!" The hands on his head squeezed against him, as if trying to crush him. Ironhide's breath came thinly, as if someone had punched the air from his ventilators. "I know you. I remember you." He lifted Barricade's head by sheer pressure. Ironhide's hard eyes met his, the Autobot crouched low in front of him. Ironhide filled his entire optical field. "Don't I? I remember you, Meta."
Barricade gritted his eyes closed. Waiting for the inevitable blow. He didn't have long to wait—his head snapped to one side, hard enough to twist his entire body onto one shoulder. The bad shoulder. He gasped, tried to push off the shoulder.
Big splayed feet. "I'm right. Aren't I?' Ironhide bent down, hauling Barricade up with a strong grip under his shoulder gyro. He shoved Barricade back against a rising bulkhead of the plane, fingers digging into Barricade's underarm. "Say it for me. Say it."
The muddy mech who had lain across Barricade's legs rose to his knees—Sideswipe. "Ironhide?" he asked. "What's going on?"
"Ironhide," Ratchet said, his tone warning. "The battle's over."
Ironhide ignored them. "Say it. You know what I want you to say." He backhanded Barricade with the barrel of his pulse cannon. Barricade saw silver and black fragments of his own facial plating scatter in the air, felt the cold drip of energon from his chin. The air still burned the exposed circuitry in the back of his head. "Say it!"
"CC," he gasped, "26G643AB…personal designation Barricade." He tried to bring up a hand to his injured face, to wipe away the leaking energon. Ironhide snatched the hand, driving it back against the side of the plane. Barricade's shoulder servo sparked and went into critical failure.
"That's not all," Ironhide growled. His blue optics were inches from Barricade's.
As Barricade spoke, energon bubbled and spattered from his mouth onto Ironhide's face. "Mish…mission designation Meta." He dropped his eyes.
"And the rest."
"I-I can't." Barricade gritted his eyes closed. He could feel Ironhide's rage like a heat against him. Over the Autobot's shoulder, he heard Optimus command, "Ironhide, stand down."
"In a klik," Ironhide said, over his shoulder. "Just want to make sure." He turned back to Barricade. "Come on, Meta. We'll say it together." Barricade turned his head to the side. He gasped as Ironhide squeezed at his injured wrist. Alarm signals fired over the redline of his shoulder gyro. "Come on. Say it with me. 'Mission designation Meta'," he paused, waiting for Barricade to gasp his way through the phrase. "Good. Now the rest. 'And…'," he let his voice trail off.
Barricade's voice was thin, but managed, it seemed, to echo around the entire plane. "And I am your god."
*****
CentCom
MSG Sternburgh looked up as SGT Mason knocked on the rickety wood frame of his office door. Light spilled in from the hallway outside, gilding Mason's silhouette. "Got something for you." Mason flapped a telex.
"Exciting?" Sternburgh reached over his desk, his elbow bumping the desk lamp that provided the tiny office's only illumination. Wiring had gone out here a few weeks back and…getting S1 his lights back in his private office just wasn't a priority. So he made do. As always. This time by means of a pair of orange extension cords snaking under Mason's boots.
"Part you'll like is at the bottom."
Sternburgh pulled the telex under the pool of light. He looked up. "Come on in, then." Mason stepped in, hesitated, unsure whether or not to close the door. He compromised: half-closed.
Sternburgh mumbled through the headers, "Confirmed 2.5 megaton nuclear blast coordinates, 60*54'06.96"N101*55'44.94"E," he looked up. "Siberia, right?" Mason nodded. "Blah blah blah, five Alliance Autobots, unverified resistance….American troop presence? Are you kidding me?"
He looked up. Mason shrugged. "Good part further down," he prompted.
"Yeah, but you know I like to get a feel of the whole thing first. And this feels…greasy." He dropped his eyes back to the telex. Mason could tell Sternburgh had hit the spot when Sternburgh's spine shot upright.
"EPW: Cybertronian. Affiliation: Decepticon. Designation: Barricade. They have him? They fucking HAVE him?"
Mason's face burst into a wide grin. "Toldja you'd like it."
"USAF flight, right?" Mason nodded. "USAF crew, all of them, too?" Another nod. Sternburgh chortled. "That's the line we'll yank to get him. Get me Yee and tell her to start packing her charm. She's going Stateside."
Mason grinned. "You got it, Master Sergeant." He turned to go, blinking at the corridor's now-bright-seeming light.
Sternburgh called out after him. "Fantastic find, Mason. You are my fucking hero."