By the time Knock Out called back, the Autobots were worried and restless. Ultra Magnus had positioned himself by the space bridge controls to ensure that he could prevent the more headstrong members of the team—mainly Wheeljack—from rushing in without a plan. But as the minutes stretched on and on, Ultra Magnus began to wonder if such recklessness might be necessary.
He and Optimus were conferring, considering which bot they should send to scout, when the communications console finally started beeping. Three Autobots leapt to answer the call at once. Ratchet won, not by virtue of being fastest, but due to his ability to quell Smokescreen and Bumblebee with a glare.
"Well, it's about time," Ratchet said, a subtle edge of relief in his voice. He glanced at the Decepticon symbol and unfamiliar number displayed on the screen. "Got your comm working again, I see. Good."
"Glad to hear you approve!" came an upbeat, slightly nasal voice. "No need to worry about me, though, I always keep my equipment in tiptop shape!"
Ratchet froze in shock. Optimus exchanged a glance with Ultra Magnus, then swept in and displaced Ratchet as easily as the doctor had shooed away Bee and Smokescreen. The voice had a slight metallic reverb, so the speaker had to be a Cybertronian, but Ultra Magnus couldn't put a name to them.
"Identify yourself," Magnus demanded. "Where is Knock Out?"
"Whoa, relax, he's a-okay. Or at least not any worse off than he was. You should be hearing from him any minute. A conference call was best, we figured."
As if on cue, a second call buzzed in, this one incoming from Raf's invention.
"Hello, it's me again." It was Knock Out this time, and he sounded nervous. "Ah, so I wanted to give you a heads up. You're going to be getting a call from—"
"Hey K.O.!"
"Oh," Knock Out said. "There he is. Never mind."
"Knock Out, who is this?" Optimus asked, concerned. "Have the rogue humans captured more Cybertronians than yourself?"
"And is Raf still okay?" Bumblebee asked.
"I'm fine," Raf's voice crackled across the comm. "This is Knock Out's friend. He's in—He's somewhere else."
"Um, yes." Knock Out cleared his vocalizer. "I was just sitting here in the dark when, ah, when it occurred to me that I still had a list of contacts left from . . . the past. So I thought I'd try comming them too—in case."
"I see," Optimus said. "Who answered your call?"
"Hiya, I'm Swindle! Nice to finally meet the one true Prime. All hail the Matrix!"
"Your name's Swindle?" Miko hooted. "Seriously?"
"Maybe it sounds better translated?" Jack said.
Arcee shook her head. "It really doesn't."
"Knock Out." Ultra Magnus snapped, shocked and disappointed. "We can't trust this bot! He is not only a Decepticon, but he's suspected of committing several criminal acts, including selling weapons on the black market, participating in wire fraud, using false identities—"
"I told you this was a rotten idea, K.O.," Swindle murmured. "See ya around, pal."
"No, Swindle, don't you dare hang up! Magnus—sir—I know I'm not CMO anymore, but listen—" Knock Out's voice took on a pleading tone. "Yes, he's a Decepticon, but I'm—I was a Decepticon too. I'm not naive, I know he's shifty as hell. Whatever rumors made it over to your side, trust me, it wasn't the half of it. There was the time he sold Brawl some miracle elixir that had him purging all over . . . When his combiner missed a big battle because its leg was off cutting a deal with some aliens . . . When he sold his own legs for some stupid reason . . ."
"Ah-heh, K.O. buddy, I appreciate you talking me up but you can stop anytime."
"And, yes, you have to read the fine print to make sure he doesn't make off with your still-thumping fuel pump. But once Swindle's made a deal, he won't renege on it; every Decepticon knew that. It's why he had any customers at all. His name's Swindle, for Primus' sake!"
"Hey!"
"Don't you want a place on this planet? To visit your human friends whenever you want? And . . . and don't you want to rescue me? Well, Swindle can help. He has a ground bridge, he has human contacts, and he knows how to get things done in a hurry. You don't have to trust him." Knock Out drew in a vent. "You just have to trust me."
The Autobots exchanged glances. Bulkhead shifted from pede to pede. Wheeljack studied the edge of his blade. And Ultra Magnus clenched his jaw and, with great personal effort, dismissed the warnings flooding his HUD.
"Optimus, I admit Knock Out's idea . . . may . . . perhaps . . . have some modicum of merit."
For some reason Optimus' mouth twitched in a smile. "I am inclined to agree."
"Terrific!" Swindle said. "Looking forward to working with you 'Bots, heh heh."
"Yes, you shall work for us. Provided," Ultra Magnus glared at the comm, "that we go over the aforementioned 'fine print' first."
"Awww, scrap."
"So how long've you known Mr. Windle?" The bearded man (he hadn't given a name yet) didn't wait for an answer. He had grease under his fingernails and his garage, which smelled of turpentine, had no sign out front. Despite his bloodshot eyes, he seemed unperturbed and unsurprised at being pulled out of bed in the middle of the night to meet with a teenager driving a black-and-yellow muscle car. "Me, I've been doing jobs for him for 'bout five years give or take."
"Oh yeah?" Jack said. "Um, not that long."
"How's this? A nice gold chrome."
"That looks nice, but we need them to be matte. Matte yellow."
"Yellow's gonna show dirt real fast. Needs looks of upkeep."
"That's okay."
"Yellow it is." The tiger tattoo on the man's shoulder flexed as he reached for a set of rims.
"Found it!" Smokescreen had the couch tilted up on two legs and was trying to pick up some tiny piece of human paraphernalia, his fingers scraping against the metal of the raised platform.
"Got what?" Ratchet asked. He was hovering by the console, waiting for Knock Out to complete and transmit a self-diagnostic of his current condition.
"A walkie-talkie. See?" Smokescreen settled for pushing the device off the ledge with the couch, knocking it into his waiting servo.
"I fail to see any reason for excitement."
"We're going to do some tinkering," Wheeljack said. He was absently tossing a plastic RV car back and forth between his hands in a way that made Ratchet twitch with annoyance.
"Do you really think a bunch of children's toys are going to help?" The doctor cast a pointed look at the walkie-talkie's casing, which had been molded to look like a calico cat raising its paw.
"Listen, we can make this stuff work!" Smokescreen argued. "Wheeljack says he's invented tons of stuff!"
"Ask him how many spontaneously exploded." Ratchet's cynical snort was drowned out by a cry from the rookie.
"Oh no!" Smokescreen had put a little too much pressure on the cheap toy, the casing cracked beneath his fingers. Loosening his grip, he lost hold completely. The walkie-talkie impacted dramatically with the concrete floor, shattering into its base components. "Oh noooo!"
Wheeljack rubbed his jaw as he surveyed the mess. "We can probably still make this work. Somehow."
Ratchet dragged a hand down his face. "You're shaving years off my life, you realize. Throw that thing away. I'll get you an old communicator. Like you should have been using in the first place."
Raf could not get back soon enough. Then at least there'd be one sensible being to talk to.
"Do you see anyone yet?" Miko whispered.
"Not yet." Bulkhead didn't exactly whisper, but he kept his voice low.
"Me neither." Miko slumped low in her seat. She was wearing her sunglasses and taped-together suit again, although she now questioned both those decisions—the sunglasses because they made it even harder to see in the dark and the suit because it itched horribly. "I'm gonna get out, okay?"
"Sure thing. But be careful." Bulkhead opened his door.
Miko stepped out into a soft, damp fog that immediately clung to her glasses. In New York it was getting towards midnight but she and Bulk had bridged to London, where a faint pre-dawn light was already suffusing through the vapor. A street lined with shops wound away to her left while ducks quacked quietly in the vast park to her right, waiting for the sunrise. She wished she had a chance to explore the city properly. But more than that, she wished something would happen.
Miko was just wondering if they should double-check the address when she straightened out of her lean against Bulkhead's side. A woman with short-cropped hair was coming up the street towards them, carrying a long, flat package under her arm. Miko squashed the urge to run over to meet her, feeling it wouldn't match her way-cool persona. Instead she sauntered, looking over the tops of her sunglasses.
"Is that from Mr. Windle?" she asked, crossing her arms and striking a pose.
"Yep." The woman seemed amused. She handed Miko the package (without asking for a codeword or anything) and made her way back down the street.
"That was kind of lame," Miko complained as she got back in the massive SUV. "I hope no one else got, like, a cool car chase or something."
"Umm, yeah, but you got something like that with Knock Out, didn't you?"
"I guess I did. Yeah." Miko gave a little grin. She pushed her sunglasses into her hair and peeked in the box. Under a layer of tissue paper, decals of a familiar white-to purple crisscrossed pattern were visible. "Yep, it was a pretty good time."
With a serious case of bedhead and a rapidly fading caffeine kick from the two cups of coffee she'd chugged before rushing to the family business, Stephanie Taurino stood with her hand still gripping the keys dangling from the metal fence that folded in front of Taurino's Car Dealership every night.
Of course. Of course the eccentric midnight customer offering the crazy big tip was the crazy lady with the motorcycle. She could see its headlight cutting through the darkened interior, sliding across the sleek luxury cars.
"Hey!" the crazy lady called from the darkness. "Can we get some lights?"
Stephanie scrubbed at her eyes and slapped the switches for the overhead lights. Out of habit she booted up the cash register, slumping over the counter with her arms over her head as it hummed to life.
After a minute she looked up in response to a soft cough.
"We'll take that one." The crazy lady pointed at the third car from the left. "In red."
Optimus looked up as the comm began buzzing, taking note of the number. "Hello, Swindle. What do you have to report?"
It was strange working with an active and unrepentant Decepticon, but at least Swindle was . . . personable.
"Heya Prime! Everything's hunky-dory. I'm sending someone to drop off some paint with the Darby kid and after that you can start bridging everyone in."
"Paint?"
"Yeah, his hood's a deeper red than the rest."
"Ah." Optimus glanced over at Ultra Magnus, who was now hovering at his elbow, his expression thunderous. But since Magnus didn't seem to have anything he wanted to contribute to the conversation, Optimus continued, "I take it, then, that you've taken care of our . . . scheduling dilemma."
"I tell you, Optimus (I can call you Optimus, right?), it wasn't easy." Swindle gave a dramatic sigh. "My guys had a time of it-hacking into those military email servers, risking detection at every turn—"
Ultra Magnus surged forward. His voice was calm. "I take it that you've failed to complete our agreed-upon contract, then, and will not require payment."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! I got it done, I got it done! Geez. They're gonna meet tomorrow."
"Excellent," Optimus said. "Thank you for your assistance."
"Which you are being paid for," Ultra Magnus muttered.
"Yeah, buddy—by Knock Out and his burger bucks, not you. So don't get cocky!"
Optimus cleared his vocalizer. "Swindle. You said you might be able to get maps of the area in question?"
"You bet!" Swindle was back to his enthusiastic, oily self. "Of course they'll cost extra."
Optimus sighed. Of course they would.
It took more time than Ratchet would have liked to find an old communicator for Smokescreen and Wheeljack to fix up (or destroy in some new way, knowing them). He kept finding ones that were "too nice" and might actually be of use someday.
Not that of them were of use to Bumblebee, now were they? He still felt a pang when he looked at the Scout, even though his vocalizer had been repaired by the Omega Lock. He was just an old, selfish bot, wishing it could have been him who fixed it.
Shaking the thought aside, he cracked open yet another crate of spare parts that had been moved from their old base. In this one he found a battered communicator that was in poor condition but might, might still work.
When he returned to the main room of their headquarters he found a crowd. All the humans had returned, and the bots who'd been escorting them too. Ratchet's shoulders slumped, losing some of the tension he'd been holding in. (Swindle sounded harmless enough but you just never knew.) Now they just need to get Raf and Knock Out back.
"Here." He passed the vocalizer to Wheeljack as he skirted the little crowd, catching tantalizing flashes of red through the bots' legs.
A printout was waiting for him at the console. Knock Out had delivered a summary of his . Ratchet picked it up, reading through it and ticking off the most evident injuries with a stylus.
His frown—already settled firmly on his face—only deepened when an additional piece of paper spewed out of the printer with a loud bzzt bzzt bzzt.
There were three words centered on the paper.
missing front bumper
Bzzt, bzzt, bzzt. Another paper slid out.
dent in left door
Bzzt, bzzt, bzzt.
broken headlights
Ratchet made himself wait, fingers creaking into fists. He couldn't tip their hand. Bryce and his cronies could not discover that Knock Out was in contact with Team Prime.
After seven long minutes, Knock Out commed him.
"Hey." He sounded normal, almost. His voice was a little strained.
"What happened? Do you need to be pulled out?"
"No. Bryce was just . . . He wanted to spur me into transforming. Which I didn't, obviously."
"What about Raf?" Ratchet asked, wincing at how quickly the words came and how callous they sounded.
"He's fine. He wasn't here. He said he had something to do. And he was hungry, I think."
"We're getting you out of there, tomorrow. The humans have moved up their meeting."
"Yes, Swindle told me," Knock Out said. "I think that's why he wanted me to transform so badly. A robot is a more exciting captive than a car, apparently."
Ratchet felt a surge of guilt. "We'll get you out," he repeated.
"Right." Knock Out paused. "But if anything did happen to me—"
"Stop."
"—then someone needs to keep him away from the newsparks."
"Knock Out!" Ratchet gave a shocked stutter of a laugh. He wished he could grab Knock Out by his stupid pointy shoulders and shake some sense into him. "Of course we're not going to let him near the newsparks! For Primus' sake! He's . . . he's bad."
"Yeah," Knock Out said. "I know."