As soon as Knock Out rolled through the ground bridge, a multi-colored blur of Autobots swarmed him, exclaiming in horror at his condition.
"Primus, how are you still moving?"
"From the state of your chassis, it is obvious that General Bryce did not follow galactic code re: treatment of prisoners, and I will be filing an official complaint."
"Hey Doc, I think I see a scratch." (That was Wheeljack, of course.)
"Haven't you heard? This is the new fashion," Knock Out croaked. They laughed too long at the weak quip.
Warm cloths, damp with solvent, wiped the grime and energon off his hood. He couldn't discern very much of what was in front of him, not with two shattered headlights, but by tilting his side-view mirror he observed Raf getting a similarly warm welcome as he piled out of the driver's seat, receiving tight hugs from the other humans and more careful ones from Bumblebee.
Knock Out transformed before Ratchet could forbid it, forcing his gouged plating to flip, fold, and slot into place; one leg, with dents borrowed from his vehicle mode, buckled under him. But a net of hands caught him and hoisted him to his feet. He gave a little shudder of relief as his visual input switched from his broken vehicular sensors to his thankfully undamaged optics.
Now that he was able to properly observe Swindle 'bridge hangar, he saw the merchant had more ostentatious sensibilities than the Autobots'; the room was styled in stark white with futuristic-modern arches around the walls, while the space bridge was gilded. Still, the scuffed concrete floor and the oversize corrugated metal doors marked the basic utilitarian function of the room as a hub for deliveries.
And then in swooped Ratchet, wielding a med scanner and grumbling about "so-called doctors who ought to know better". ("It proves I'm a proper doctor, everyone knows we make the worst patients," said Knock Out, and everyone laughed, once again, too hard.)
"You need rest," Ratchet scolded, as though Knock Out had ever objected to the idea. Too worn to argue the point, Knock Out just nodded, swaying. Ratchet pursed his lips and dropped a blanket over his shoulders before rounding on Wheeljack, who was sidling up with a cube of high grade.
"Eh-eh-eh, don't even think about it!"
"C'mon Ratch, aren't cha even gonna let him celebrate?"
"Not with high grade!"
Knock Out tuned out their argument, swallowing down a rush of oral lubricant. Ratchet was right, high grade was bad for patients in recovery. But Knock Out's fuel tank was so empty it felt like it was folding in on itself. Surely Swindle would have some medical-grade or plain mid-grade energon stashed away?
He leaned forward, ready to interject the moment there was a lull in the conversation. But a renewed light-headedness made his systems readouts dim until they flickered out, one by one. And to Knock Out's surprise he kept leaning until he was falling, falling, falling into darkness.
"I'm fine, just fine," Knock Out reassured the Autobots a second later. Or he thought it was a second until he realized he was lying down, tucked into a berth under a comfortable metal-fiber blanket woven from heat-reflective material. An IV drip had been set up with a tube running under his shoulder plating, pushing energon into his lines, and when he moved his hand to his chest he could feel bandages and nanite-infused patches all across his chassis.
He took in the room. Small but not crowded. The walls were cream and gold, decorated with prints of famous paintings—Dancer Holding a Turbofox and The Circuit Dealer. As he turned his head to take them in nausea rolled through his systems. It gradually receded when he stayed prone.
For a moment he thought he was alone, but out of the corner of his optic, he spotted June Darby sitting on a chair absurdly oversized for her tiny human frame. Her hair was trying to escape in little flyaway wisps and her clothes were wrinkled. He shifted his helm towards her, ignoring the ache.
Noting the movement, she leaned forward, eyeing him carefully. Her finger was trapped in the book she'd been reading, marking her place. "How are you feeling? You fainted."
"All right. Considering." His fingers crept out from under the covers to brush the finely woven strands of metal. He hadn't seen a blanket this well-made in millennia. "Tired. Where's Ratchet?"
"Searching through Swindle's warehouses, looking for 'proper medical equipment.'" Her fingers made little hooks in the air. "Want me to call him?"
"No, no, I'm okay. This isn't close to the worst I've survived." He offered her a confident (he hoped) smile, but her black optic ridges drew down in a frown.
When her frown persisted, Knock Out cleared his vocalizer. "I suppose you're pondering the best way to eviscerate me," he said, "for stealing away your children."
"Raf and Miko aren't my children," June reminded him with a sigh. "And yes, I have plenty to say to you—and to Jack, for that matter. But right now I want you to focus on rest and recovery." She paused. "It's really like that for you, isn't it? All the children of your species are the same to you. That's why you can never remember."
"Newsparks," Knock Out corrected automatically. Human children were small, frail, and needed constant feeding; newsparks were large, dangerous, and ate rocks. "And you were worried about Raf; I could hear it in your voice. Isn't that the same thing? It didn't matter that someone else spawned his spark."
"We have DNA, not sparks," June said in a similar tone of correction. "And when you put it like that . . . you have a point. What makes our children ours isn't genetic similarity, it's . . ." She thought for a moment. "It's how much we care for them."
"Our offspring don't need coddling like yours, thank goodness.."
"Care isn't limited physical pampering, Knock Out. You worked hard to get your chil—offspring— something they need. That's care." June paused, pushing a draggled strand of hair out of her face. "I wasn't about to start chewing you out, by the way. I just . . . felt bad. That you'd been through worse."
Knock Out didn't know how to respond to that, so he made a vague hum of acknowledgment, let his optics droop closed, and pretended to be asleep.
The berth was so comfortable and his frame so fatigued that within a few minutes his deception came true. June smiled and shook her head, returning to her reading.
"We've gotta wake him uuuuup!"
"For the fifth time, Miko, we are not going to disturb the bot who fainted from exhaustion," Ratchet scoffed.
"But Ratch, he's missing the good stuff!" Miko said, making a full-armed gesture to where Smokescreen and Wheeljack were snickering over Bryce's disaster of a 'business meeting.' Wheeljack had had the forethought to plant a spy-cam in the Aston Martin that had served as Knock Out's doppelganger.
Ratchet had to admit that there was a certain satisfaction in seeing Bryce's self-inflicted downfall. But Knock Out needed rest.
"Record it for him," he suggested.
"Okaaaay." Miko let her upper body fold forward in a slump of defeat as she walked away. "But it's more fun seeing it live."
The stuttering rhythm of the helicopter's rotors was still audible, if barely, as Bryce slammed open the door to the middle warehouse. The empty cage taunted him. He stormed past it, into the office, and jabbed the round grey power button of the ancient computer.
Nothing happened, of course. The storm had knocked the power out.
Cursing, Bryce unplugged the equipment and lugged everything to his SUV, starting with the bulky, 90s-era monitor. Then came the CPU and finally a snarl of cords, all thrown in the back seat.
He ignored the surreptitious stares and whispers of the Unit E soldiers as he slammed the vehicle's door and sped away in a cloud of dust.
It was a three-hour drive to the nearest motel.
Ultra Magnus was not happy about the current situation. He had two specific gripes.
Firstly, Ratchet had banned everyone "except medical personnel" from Knock Out's room. Preventing a crowd made sense; Ratchet couldn't work efficiently with Bumblebee or Smokescreen hanging over his shoulder. But for some preposterous reason, the ban also applied to Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus. Magnus had been explaining how unreasonable this was when Ratchet shut the door in his face.
Secondly, there was Swindle.
Ultra Magnus didn't have much intel on Swindle. He'd never heard of him before, nor fought him. Physically, the yellow and purple Decepticon turned into a Jeep; in bot mode, he was somewhere between Arcee and Knock Out in height. Short, in other words. Hardly a threatening figure.
Still, he was a Decepticon.
Ultra Magnus acknowledged that Swindle had been helpful. It would have been far more difficult to rescue Knock Out and Raf without his assistance. (Or even—much as Magnus hated to admit it—impossible.) But relying on the charity of a Decepticon still irked him.
But then . . . Knock Out had once been a Decepticon and despite some stumbles, he had proven himself. He'd had the correct instincts about Bryce. And according to Knock Out, they could trust Swindle not to murder them in their sleep.
It was only fair, Magnus admitted grudgingly, to give Swindle a chance.
Ultra Magnus' resolve to ignore Swindle's (probable) disreputable past was tested almost immediately. He had gone in search of Optimus, to see if their leader could force entry into Ratchet's temporary med bay, when he spotted Swindle standing on a table, enthusiastically chattering and gesturing to Smokescreen and Miko, who were entranced, and Wheeljack, who was amused.
Swindle's choice of audience raised red flags, as did his light-hearted attitude. Knock Out had been subdued when he first joined the team. Magnus angled towards the group, ready to investigate.
"—yes indeed, you'll be living a life of luxury in Chez Swindle! Fine energon? Yes! Luxury spa? Yes! Room service? Yes! You want it, you got it! And don't worry about keeping track of your expenses, just swipe the barcode on your SwinBand™," the yellow Decepticon raised his arm and gestured to a candy-colored band around his wrist, "and it will add it to your tab! Settle accounts later, with just 2.3% daily interest and associated fees!"
Smokescreen's optics were alight as he flipped through the menu that Swindle was now handing out. "Whoa, this place is awesome! I'm gonna have rust sticks for breakfast every day!"
"And there's a pool—like, one for humans!" Miko said. "Woohoo!"
"Autobots," Ultra Magnus said, drawing their attention as he glared at Swindle, "under no circumstances are you to wear a SwinBand™."
Swindle clicked his tongue and shook his head. "You'll never be a Swinner™ with that attitude."
"What I am is an Autobot."
"Sure, sure! Me too!" Swindle slapped a flimsy magnet of the Autobot insignia over the Decepticon brand on his chest.
The magnet was crooked. Ultra Magnus closed his eyes and wished Knock Out a speedy recovery.
"Come on, come on," Bryce snarled, violently jittering the mouse back and forth. The gesture did nothing to speed up the computer as it ground through its booting sequence, lingering on the Windows 95 logo for an intolerably long time.
Bryce hammered his password in and jammed a USB drive into the machine. He'd kept his research locally stored; he knew there were up-and-comers eager to steal credit for his ideas, oh he knew. But once he copied the data off the hard drive—the pictures, videos, and schematics of that damn red Decepticon and its Autobot brethren—then the brass would believe him. They'd have to.
The transfer bar had barely begun ticking away when the screen abruptly turned an eye-burning shade of blue. Bryce winced, both from eyestrain and from the Pavlovian fear of mechanical failure that came with a bluescreen.
Instead of a simple error message, an Autobot insignia formed from ASCII text filled the screen in front of him. It lingered only a few seconds before scrolling up, up, and away. A message replaced it, white block letters marching across the glaring blue background—
FREEDOM IS THE RIGHT OF ALL SENTIENT BEINGS FREEDOM IS THE RIGHT OF ALL SENTIENT BEINGS FREEDOM IS THE RIGHT OF ALL SENTIENT BEINGS FREEDOM IS THE RIGHT OF ALL SENTIENT BEINGS FREEDOM IS THE RIGHT OF ALL SENTIENT BEINGS FREEDOM IS THE RIGHT OF ALL SENTIENT BEINGS FREEDOM IS THE RIGHT OF
Bryce kept staring at the monitor, his fists clenched and trembling, even after the computer locked up and, with the whirr of an overworked hard drive, powered off for the very last time in its long, long life.
Knock Out woke up in a warm, golden haze. Sunlight streamed across the room, the diamond-like panes of privacy glass giving it a crystalline texture where it hit the wall. Just like last time, he had a visitor, though a different one. Bumblebee sat in the chair, his elbow resting on the table beside him and his fist supporting his cheek. With his other hand, he tapped at a datapad resting on his knee. A colorful bevy of cards stood to attention on the table.
"Hello, stranger," Knock Out said.
Bumblebee looked up, his optics whirring eagerly. "Hey, that's what I should be saying to you. You've been asleep, like, forever."
"I know. I stole your line on purpose." Knock Out smiled. He struggled with the blanket, which had gone from pleasantly warm to oppressively stuffy now that the sun was up. Somehow it had gotten tangled in the wheel struts hanging off his back. "A little help?"
"But you're doing so well on your own," Bumblebee teased, moving over to help nevertheless. He unwound the blanket slowly to avoid jostling Knock Out's injuries. "I'm glad you asked for help." He freed the blanket and let it slide into Knock Out's lap. "You should do that more often."
Something about those big, sincere, Autobot-blue optics dulled the snappy deflection that had been on Knock Out's tongue.
"It's hard." Knock Out became absorbed with folding the blanket. The silver bandage around his finger glinted. Glancing sidelong at Bee, he offered a hesitant smile. "I'll try."
"How are you feeling?"
Knock Out took stock, running a self-diagnostic and inspecting his front. Most of the bandages were gone and he had been fitted with two new, unmarred headlights.
"Better," he said. He reached back, feeling behind his shoulders; his rims had been replaced, but he didn't have new tires yet. "I guess I won't be driving for a while, though. And my comm needs recalibrating. How long was I asleep?"
"Almost three days. Ratchet wouldn't let anyone in."
"You're here, though."
"I told him I was just gonna leave one of these." Bumblebee gathered the get-well cards from the table and handed them to Knock Out. "And then I just kinda stayed."
"The perfect crime," Knock Out said as he fanned the cards in his hands, studying them.
The illustrations on the front varied: pretty geometric patterns, colorful Earthen foliage, Cybertronian landscapes (pre-war), and one with a perfectly centered Autobot insignia, embossed in red foil.
"Where did these come from?" Knock Out turned them over in his hands. They were sized for Cybertronians, but— "These are paper."
"Swindle made them for us."
"Ahh. For a fee, I'm sure."
"Well, yeah. But it was still nice of him."
"Mmm," Knock Out agreed as he started flipping through them.
Each card had a short message printed inside, simple variations of 'get well soon'. Bulkhead and Wheeljack had only signed their names, but Miko had added a rough illustration of the three kids riding inside Knock Out—with Miko herself inaccurately in the driver's seat, flipping someone off out the window—and June Darby, in hers, had written "Wishing you a speedy recovery. You're going to make a great 'dad'. ;) P.S. Someone owes me a new wall." Raf appeared to have written a paragraph which he had then erased and replaced with a simple "Hope you feel better". But Jack had branched out and folded an origami car out of red paper.
Most of the other cards had a scrawled line or two urging him, again, to "get well soon!", with a signature underneath. But the card with the bell-like Earth flowers on front had a messy wall of text from top to bottom. As soon as Knock Out realized it was from Agent Fowler, he moved it to the bottom of the pile. The gist of it was that General Bryce was running headlong into a dishonorable discharge and would soon be just plain Bryce, so that was good . . .
Knock Out's fingers twitched against the paper. Later. He'd think about it later.
Optimus' card was mushy. Not romantic-mushy, but painfully earnest. He hoped Knock Out knew he was a valued member of the team, he hoped Knock Out knew he could always come to him, and so on. Every time Knock Out started to read it, embarrassment welled up until it threatened to drown him. Though he did keep rereading that first bit. Eventually he put that one on the bottom of the pile too, though with more care than Fowler's.
Ultra Magnus, bless his big blue boots, had stapled a five-page document into his card, tightly folded. In contrast to the flowery pre-printed get-well message, his blocky handwriting tersely instructed Knock Out to fill out the paperwork "as soon as you are lucid and able, so that we may file a formal complaint against your captors who violated your civil rights. Please note that the attached forms are double-sided."
Knock Out bit back a snort of laughter.
"Found Magnus', huh?" Bumblebee grinned.
"Yep. But what about yours, buzzing Bee?"
"Uhhh, well . . ."
"You did say you brought one, hmm?"
"It's not—I mean—" Bumblebee fumbled a card from his subspace, groaning as Knock Out plucked it from his fingers. "But listen, it's not done."
"You have only yourself to blame, you had three days." Knock Out glanced at the copper-bloom sketched on the front and flipped it open. His optics slid past the generic interior text ("Thinking of you and wishing you well") to see what Bumblebee had written.
But there wasn't much to see:
Sorry,
"Wrong punctuation," Knock Out said after a long moment, his tone light. "What were you sorry for? Did you rent out my room while I was gone? Is there an Insecticon living there now?"
"Ha ha." Bumblebee's optics spiraled shut. "I dunno. I just felt bad. The computer on the Nemesis, and then everyone freaking out about Raf, and then you just ran." Bumblebee's optics zizzed open, wide and pleading. "Knock Out, please don't ever do that again."
"I . . ." Knock Out suspended the card between his hands, making it flex and arch as he pressed inward. "I wasn't trying to. I called! But the newsparks—I needed to make sure things got done. I thought if I got a headstart . . ." He frowned. "And then everything went wrong."
"No kidding."
"I know Raf means a lot to you. I'm sorry I dragged him into trouble."
"Yeah, well." Bumblebee wiped his knuckles across his optics. "I'm not. 'Cause if he hadn't been there—"
"I know." Knock Out flexed the card a little too hard; a crease formed, so deep that it didn't flatten out after he forced his hands to relax. He stared at it, irrationally upset by the imperfection.
"Hey." Bumblebee patted his arm, his broad fingers settling on the plating above Knock Out's wrist. "Hey, never mind about that. Want to see something cool?"
Knock Out pushed down the temptation to ask what. He wanted a distraction—something, anything— and he was tired of lying in bed. "Yeah, show me."
The ground bridge, with a little help from Swindle (and a scan of Bumblebee's SwinBand™), flared to life. Knock Out followed Bumblebee through the glowing portal, stepping out into tropical mugginess.
"We're the first ones to see this," Bumblebee said, puffing his chest out self-importantly. "Swindle just told me about it this morning."
"Told you what?" Knock Out turned in a slow circle.
Beneath their pedes, moss and lichen softened the edges of broad rocks. To their right, a dense thicket of trees rose as brightly colored birds flashed between broad leaves. To their left, the land dropped away as though cleaved by a Titan's sword. Seagulls wheeled below them, screaming raucously as they skimmed by the cliffs that dropped away into an endless ocean.
Knock Out took it all in, gazing off to the horizon where the sea and the sky met. "Not much of a vacation spot. No oil bath."
"Oh, you're hilarious. Swindle said we just have to follow the road. So, uh." Bumblebee swung his arms slightly. "Look for a road."
"Can't you comm him and ask for more specific directions?"
"I think he'd want another payment . . ."
"Ah yes, silly me."
The road, when they found it, was overgrown with bushes—just two well-worn ruts overrun by weeds. Humans hadn't driven this road in a long time. Knock Out found himself relaxing under the warm sun, the azure sky.
"What is this place?" he asked.
"Dunno." Bumblebee held a branch out of Knock Out's way. "Just some empty island."
After a half-hour walk (and one pause so Knock Out could sit down and catch his breath), the road opened onto an expanse of weathered concrete crisscrossed with veins of grass and tiny white flowers. In the distance ancient hangars and barracks squatted, rusting and falling apart.
But Knock Out wasn't looking at them. He was staring at the vehicles spread across the airfield, which had become the world's most eclectic parking lot.
Delivery vans sat next to station wagons. A bicycle leaned against a moped, sharing a tender moment. A massive excavator cradled boxes of datasticks in its bucket. Sports cars were present in abundance, scattered across the lot like bright jewels in their slick new paint. But there were industrial drills too . . . helicopters . . . motorcycles . . . a train engine, a bulldozer . . .
A crop-duster sat under the wing of its mentor, an F-16, amongst the other planes; Knock Out knew he was projecting, but he thought they seemed smug, like they knew this place had once been a roost for their kind. And then there were the oddities: a washing machine, a few televisions, a bevy of microscopes, a very small digital clock, an uprooted street light.
Knock Out raised his optics and drew in a deep vent. In the background, like a vision, like a dream, a space shuttle towered. It stood upright, its ceramic white curves and sleek black nose pointed towards the sky. Knock Out looked to Bumblebee and found an awed expression to match his own. Without a word, they began walking towards it.
Almost there, almost there, Knock Out kept thinking as they threaded past lawnmowers and Lamborghinis, rowboats and Rolls-Royce. When they finally reached the shuttle, with its wide wings and hollow black thrusters, it was almost too big to take in.
Knock Out stood in its shadow, spellbound. The sun hid behind the shuttle's massive bulwarks, but a thin line of fire outlined its form, like a planet turning towards the dawn. He was oddly aware of his ventilations expanding and contracting his frame, slow and steady.
"It's real, I promise," Bumblebee murmured. "You can touch it if you want."
Instead Knock Out reached out and caught his hand. Bumblebee gave it a little squeeze.
"Can—" Knock Out cleared his throat. "Can you comm the kids?"
Bumblebee blinked. "The kids?"
"I'd like them to see this."
"Okay." A little smile sprouted on Bumblebee's faceplate and blossomed into a wide beam. "Yeah, I'll do that."
"Good." Knock Out went to sit in the soft grass, gazing across the airfield and its multitude.
After a few minutes, it occurred to him to walk back and tell Bumblebee "thank you."
- Author's note: Just one or two chapters of epilogue left. :)