35. Ping
Starscream swore. The words were so unusual coming from his normally tightly precise lexicon that Barricade felt the twinge of worry that had been building in his systems fanned itself higher. He looked nervously at the jet out of the corner of his optics. Starscream bent lower over the monitor. Skywarp crowded in behind him.
"Who is that?" Skywarp asked, craning to see.
"Bits of it," Barricade muttered, "ping with Megatron's cis-scan." He felt the hard looks from both pairs of optics.
"Bits of it," Skywarp echoed.
Barricade shrugged. "Bits."
"The Fallen," Starscream breathed. "You cannot see it in the components, but he would be the only one…." One long talon touched the screen, as though it could reach through it and into the mech that was tearing up handfuls of earth and trees, as if determined to dig something out of the ground with huge, hasty swipes. He'd known it wasn't over. He'd known Megatron was planning something. Was this how Megatron had expected things to go?
It was Barricade's turn to swear, but his invective came more naturally.
"What is he after?"
Barricade called up some data. "This thing called the Large Hadron Collider is there. It can create a certain type of sub-atomic particle, that they call Higgs-Boson. One of the particles that's really behind all of the forces of the universe." He glared at Starscream's startled look. "Science Officer?" he reminded him, pointedly. A flicker of amusement on the jet's face. "It can create miniature black holes, this process."
"And that would be a…very bad thing for Megatron to get his hands on."
"Or the Fallen," Skywarp said. "We don't know which is in charge of that thing." The room suddenly seemed to chill.
Starscream straightened. "He must be stopped."
"What?" Skywarp took a step back. "You realize that that would be…."
"What? What would it be, Skywarp?" Starscream's folded wingflaps ruffled.
"Please," Skywarp said. "That is Megatron. Or the Fallen. Both are above us."
"Neither have our cause at heart," Starscream snapped back, irked that Skywarp was reminding him. He knew. He knew. He did not want to know.
"Do you?"
"How dare you?" Starscream's voice skirled up into a shriek. "How dare you question my loyalty. I serve the cause, not a mech. I serve a pure ideal, not a wayward…maniac!"
"Don't do this," Skywarp said, unsteadily. "He's…on our side."
"We have no side anymore," Starscream snarled. "We have Megatron—or what survived his death—serving his own ego, his own aims. We have a reign of fear so long as he is in charge. We have the Fallen. Who has never served our aims, but coopted them for his own. Has since the beginning." He cut himself short, aware he was bordering on incoherence. He had no way to put into words—he'd never previously tried—the frustration he'd felt. Did he think he was a better leader than Megatron? Yes. Did that make him a traitor? Not…yet.
It was an enormous step, and for a klik his toes dug into the deck plating, as though clinging to the edge of a cliff.
"I," he said, quietly, "am going to stop him. Or try to."
Skywarp grabbed his arm. "You can't. He'll kill you!"
"Dying for what I believe," Starscream said evenly, "is preferable to living as a coward who has swallowed too much hypocrisy."
The two looked at each other, the air between them crackling with a mutual sort of despair.
"Can help," Barricade cut in.
"You cannot," Starscream said. "You are too newly repaired. Your systems are fragile. You just recovered from a glitch." He rattled off excuses, throwing them like rounds at Barricade. He hated the flinches as each hit home.
"I can," Barricade said. He tapped his cortex. "Drones."
Starscream hissed. "No. You cannot risk it."
"You can risk yourself."
"It is different. You do not have to suffer for my convictions."
"Alone," Barricade said, around a sudden harsh lump of emotion, "you will die."
"I may die anyway."
"Let me take the same chance."
"No," Starscream said. "And that is an order."
The glare crackled between them now. "Understand," Starscream said, relenting, "that I do this to save you. Skywarp will keep your borderline treason a secret, whatever might happen. As a favor to me." A look between the two jets. Skywarp gave an infinitesimal nod. Starscream turned on his heel, striding out before either of the others could rally another objection. "I do what I must," he murmured, his voice raw with emotion and fear. He hated what he had to do, hated being driven to it. He would not compound his transgression by dragging Skywarp or Barricade down with him.
[***]
Megatron fought for control of the swirling mass of energy around him. He was in here, as though swallowed. It was…repugnant. He served the Fallen faithfully, all these ages. The Fallen had shown him another way, a way of defense. A way of power. He had been promised. And that promise had not been fulfilled. No matter: he would take what had been promised to him. He had served, patiently. He had paid in advance. The Fallen, his 'master' had made a tactical error: this was not the first system Megatron had brought down from the inside.
For the moment, he merely waited, watching, learning, letting the amalgamated frame borrow his strength to tear through the soft soil of the planet's surface, unearthing the collider's underground tunnel. Another consciousness—Flatline's, he supposed—was brought to the fore, evaluating the human scientific machine. Yes, Flatline seemed to say. What we want is here. It needs to be activated. Activated.
The Fallen's superconsciousness, like a cold, damp hand, closed around them. Megatron fought against it, blazing with heat against the clammy weight, as the Fallen pushed energy against the mechanism of the collider. A burst of frustration—this would take too long. Megatron gritted in satisfaction at the delay, at the Fallen's frustration. The Fallen deserved this feeling of helplessness, impotence, frustration. It was time and enough for the Fallen to have felt what Megatron had felt for ages.
More than that, time enough and more for the Fallen to experience the sense of betrayal he had also felt. Megatron was determined to oblige.