FWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!
Knockout jumped as the train's whistle rang out, looking up from his hands where they rested in his lap. Was he there already? He checked his systems...Yes, it had indeed been an hour.
"...This is why I chose public transport." He whispered. He'd known his attention was not on the road, but on other things, and driving out here would have been a hazard.
The train car that had once been full when he'd spaced out into his own thoughts was now empty except for him and the pair of security bots that had accompanied him. The train had stopped, dropped off passengers, and gone on again multiple times and he hadn't even noticed...
...Yup. Public transport was the safest option today.
He got up from the bench, wandering out onto the platform and looking up at the massive building he'd been coming to. Towering alone on the outskirts of Kaon City, it was like a spike of black amongst the brightness of the rest of the city. "...Detention Block C-9..."
"That's what I just said..." The engine muttered. "Don't take forever in there."
"Give me sixty cycles."
The medic took another look at the building, and then headed for the door. The guards blocked their way, and Knockout pulled out his tablet. "I'm here for prison cell G-604..."
The guards overlooked the report, and then nodded, allowing him to pass through after checking him for weapons. The inside was as dark and quiet as the exterior, and he overlooked the cells that lined the halls. So many bots who'd wasted their lives committing felonies and crimes...And he could have easily been one of them at one time.
"This place gives me the creeps...!" One of the guards whispered.
Knockout chuckled. "You should've seen the Nemesis when Megatron was running the show..."
"I'd rather not, sir..."
The place was a maze, and the signs were nearly illegible after thousands of years. Knockout could only hope he was going the right direction... In his head he ran over the numbers he saw over the cells. "So many... Here we are."
He'd found it. Out of all of the cells in this corridor, this one and four others were the newest batch. Still clean and lacking the rust others did, Knockout ignored the other four, using a hand to wipe the frost from the capsule's view port. His optics widened as he saw them, the bot he'd been searching for. "...Scrud...You look even more like him than you did the last time I saw you..."
"This it, sir?"
"Yes... Let's get him back to the train before our ride gets impatient."
Getting out of the Detention Center was almost as hard as it was finding the capsule. The engine had transformed into bot mode and was tapping his foot on the track. "Two minutes late."
"Our apologies..." Knockout watched the security guards carry the capsule into the car, and then followed them inside. Within moments, they were moving once more, and Knockout placed a hand on the capsule to steady himself as he found himself back into a sitting position.
"Who is this bot, anyway?" One of the guards pondered.
Knockout sighed. "...Someone I used to know..."
His optics fell once more on the still, stasis-sleeping bot within the capsule, his optics closed but his expression looking slightly pained.
You always have gotten into mischief...I remember that first time...In the library...
He closed his optics and leaned his helm back against the wall as he remembered, his memory banks replaying those moments...
"There it is..."
Knockout looked up at the tower in front of him, lit up in white and red glows. "...The Medical Knowledge Depository."
It was the former Con's best chance at finding answers; the depository was where a copy of every medical discovery was stored: maladies, cures, advances in medical procedure, everything. If there was nothing about what had happened to Knockout inside those files, then it was highly unlikely to be stored anywhere else.
He turned his head as he felt movement, his optics catching a glimpse of the sparkling's helm poking out of the pack strapped to Knockout's back. "No no no..." He hissed, pushing the infant's helm back down and out of sight. "Stay in there, little one. And keep quiet."
A faint coo was the response, and Knockout rolled his eyes. "Primus, what did I do to-"
He ducked further into the alley as a transport passed, and then slipped back out and followed. He grabbed onto the back and rode it up to the door, quickly opening the door and slipping inside before anyone saw him. It was after-hours, and he knew the Autobots wouldn't approve of him snooping around their information without someone to moderate what he was able to see. But he couldn't let anyone know about this...Not yet.
The place was quiet, only the quiet humming of machinery and Knockout's footsteps filled the silence. He moved along as quietly as he could, finding a computer station against one wall and moving to it. "Okay... 'Spontaneous bot-to-bot creation...'"
NO RECORDS MATCH YOUR QUERY.
"Okay then... How about 'bot creating other bots'..."
MULTIPLE RECORDS MATCH YOUR QUERY.
"No, not forging a body for an existing spark, I mean like a 'bot branching off from another bot'..."
ONE RECORD MATCHES YOUR QUERY.
Knockout's optics moved over the single file, and he groaned as he saw the location. "Dah...Restricted area. You have to be a librarian to get that...And the only clerk I'd trust is no longer online..."
He stiffened as he heard a giggle echo off of the walls, and he whipped around. He felt the pack on his back, only to find the sparkling had somehow climbed out without his knowledge. "Scrap...!"
He dropped down onto his hands and knees, looking under shelving units and tables as he moved back towards the door, then heard the giggle again, and turned just in time to see the sparkling disappear behind the doors of the elevator, even having the audacity of waving goodbye. "No no no no...!" He ran to the doors, rapidly pressing the open button, but was unable to stop the elevator from moving on its way up the shaft.
"Primus is punishing me for everything I've ever done, that's it." He decided as he fled to the stairs. Out of the dozens of floors, the little one could be stopping on any of them.
He would pause at every floor, groaning as he'd see the elevator was still rising. Other bots looked up at him, some walking over to the opening to the stairwell and watching him rush back up another floor.
He finally reached the sixth floor and saw the doors open, but the sparkling nowhere in sight. "I swear I'm gonna..."
He paused, taking a moment to calm himself. More than that, he listened. A squeal told him which direction to go, and he ran down the hall. He finally saw his prize, pulling data tablets off of a bottom shelf and scattering them across the floor. "There you are, you little glitch." He scooped up the infant in his arms and held him up to his faceplate. "Now look. You have to stay put, alright? I can't be spending all my energon chasing after a tiny, adventurous..."
He quieted as the sparkling cooed, reaching out and touching his faceplate with wide optics. There was no point in trying to explain things to him, his processor was still too primitive. He didn't understand logic, he learned through touching, feeling...
Wait, he knew that face. He'd learned the meaning of that face the night before!
The medic ran to a window, opening and holding the little bot out as the little mech sent a stream of transmission fluid down towards the surface. He waited until the event was over, and then gave a sigh. "...You...are just...the worst." He slipped the sparkling back into the pack. "Well, there's nothing I can learn here for now... Let's go home, Tiny."
He continued to check and make sure the sparkling stayed put as he used the elevator down to the ground floor, and then stepped back out of the Depository. He slipped around the side and then transformed, the sparkling dropping into his back seat as he sped away, not wanting to be around when someone asked why a puddle of transmission fluid was right outside the front doors.