"This is the song that never ends!"

The first line of the next five hours of torture rang through the Autobot base's speaker system. The speakers were usually reserved for general announcements or emergencies, as the NEST soldiers and occasional civilian on base had no internal comm system. Most often one could hear Epps being called to Will's or Optimus' office to go over something he'd done that had made someone angry. Now it was being used at a volume that was just short of crashing the system entirely, ensuring no mech or human could escape.

"Yes, it goes on and on, my friends!"

Sam looked between his laptop and the port he had just connected it to with horror. The lyrics to the song flashed on his laptop screen in bright white font surrounded by a black background.

Optimus Prime had texted him the day before and asked him to download some things. Sam had done so without question, and had then followed Optimus' instructions by connecting his laptop to the Autobots' fancy computer system, which they nicknamed Teletran II. Optimus had said something about wanting to see how Teletran II handled a human device, and given the way Sam's ears were about to start bleeding he didn't think it was handling it very well.

"Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,"

As soon as the connection to Teletran II had popped up on his laptop screen, the entire thing had seemed to crash and the large screen for Teletran II had turned blue. The mechs in the room had frozen in quite a dramatic fashion, all optics locked onto the screen with disbelief. And then this song had started pouring out of the speakers on the base as the lyrics flashed on Sam's laptop screen and Teletran II's screen, and Sam had paled as all optics turned to him.

"And they'll continue singing it forever just because…"

Out on the firing range, Will and Epps almost lost their lives. Ironhide had just been about to fire off a shot when he had become distracted by the song, and so when he did let loose his plasma blast the two humans had to run for cover to avoid being in the blast radius.

Barricade, who had just been brought to base the day before, was being shown around by Optimus Prime at the time the Prime had Sam connect to Teletran II, and he just watched the ensuing chaos in amused silence. Ratchet and Bumblebee shoved Sam out of the way and nearly slammed into each other in their rush to Teletran II's console in a bid to stop whatever was going on.

"This is the song that never ends!"

The song would continue undisturbed for some time. And just to make it that much more annoying, the voice was high pitched and sped up. No matter what the Autobots or the humans on the base tried, they would not be able to turn it off or turn it down. The song repeated time after time, until Ironhide became so enraged with the belief that it truly would never end that he had to be restrained before he could destroy Teletran II completely. Ratchet had eventually put him into medically induced stasis just so they wouldn't have to listen to him as well.


After five hours of the Autobots and organics bumbling about like a turbomouse that had never received its processor, Barricade broke.

Teletran II was perhaps the biggest farce of the Autobots attempting to create some sense of normalcy for themselves. Barricade had never personally used Teletran I, as it had been on the ARK, an Autobot ship, but it would have been extremely similar to what had been on the Nemesis, the Decepticon ship he'd been on, because all of them had been built with similar schematics. In their bid to get offplanet, time had been of the essence so they had not been able to outfit their space faring ships with the fanciest computers.

At the end of the day, Teletran II was human technology. That meant it could get the same sort of viruses that any human tech could get. He was sure that Sam had accidentally transferred it to Teletran II's main frame, but he wasn't quite sure what the purpose of the virus was. It didn't really matter, in the end.

Barricade made his way back into the Communications and Control room where Teletran II was housed. Bumblebee, Ratchet, Optimus, and Sam were still in there. Epps and Will had also entered the room just to watch what was going on. Sam was sitting on one of Bumblebee's legs with his head in his hands and Barricade almost felt bad for him; the Cybertronains could outright turn off their auditory processing unit or just turn down the volume input, but Sam had no such reprieve. Optimus had decreed that if the humans had to suffer they had to suffer, too, but Barricade hadn't bothered to listen.

"Let me try," Barricade said.

He didn't ask, because he was sure he would have been told no immediately. Ratchet glanced at him and then at Optimus, looking to see what his Prime said. Barricade had been accepted on base, but he would have thought the Autobots stupid if they trusted him just like that. His weapon systems had been temporarily turned off, which was the only reason he was allowed to wander freely at the moment.

Optimus stared at the screen as the next set of lyrics played, "You know what this is?"

"I believe it is a human virus," Barricade explained. "Most likely something Sam picked up, and it moved over to Teletran II when he connected his laptop. He either downloaded it or someone placed it into his laptop by harking."

"Hacking," Optimus corrected absentmindedly. He turned to look at Barricade fully, "You think you can stop it?"

"You may recall that I was paired with Frenzy, one of Soundwave's cassetticons. His main role was intel recon and he learned all about how human systems worked. Was fascinated with them, actually, and if you spend a long enough time with a mech you pick up some things."

"Please try then," Optimus inclined his helm.

Barricade moved up to the console now that he had permission. He brought out his holoform so he could work on Sam's laptop at the same time as his main body worked on Teletran II. He quickly figured out that the bulk of the program was still on Sam's laptop, so he focused his attention on that. He'd have to figure out how to shut it down on Sam's laptop before it stopped broadcasting to Teletran II, or he'd have to find some way to break the connection between the two computers but shutting it down entirely would be faster.

Sam climbed down off of Bumblebee's leg and came over to stand next to his holoform, a guilty frown on his face. Barricade hit a couple of more keys and managed to pull up a control panel for the program, a prompt popping up unbidden.

"You've been lying to someone," Barricade looked directly at Sam.

Sam blinked in surprise, "What?"

"This program is password protected," Barricade turned the laptop screen so Sam could look at it. "It's not a particularly difficult virus. The code was simple to get into, but the Autobots know nothing about human technology, evidently. And I'm guessing none of the soldiers know how to handle these things, either."

"We have a guy who knows stuff like this, but he's on vacation." Epps spoke up, "And I've never been much of a tech guy."

"Who have you been lying to?" Barricade ignored Epps' interruption.

"I…" Sam shook his head, "I don't know!"

"It's a five letter word."

Sam blanched and Bumblebee started to laugh. Everyone looked in between the two.

"I told you he would figure it out!" Bumblebee laughed.

"I am so, so sorry." Sam apologized, "M-I-L-E-S. He's my best friend."

Barricade typed in the five letters and as soon as he entered the last one, Teletran II's screen went dark and then returned to its normal default screen. The screen on Sam's laptop defaulted to his background picture, one of him sitting on Bumblebee's hood, and a prerecorded audio file began to play.

"Sorry to anyone who had to put up with that!" Miles' voice came out, "Figured this would be a funny way to get revenge on Sam for lying and to let you guys know that I know at the same time. I hope the song got played at least once entirely, but I reckon y'all got it off pretty fast. And don't blame Sam, he didn't tell me! He's just a really shitty liar, and Mr. Camaro also isn't as slick as they think." Bumblebee let out an offended warble and Ratchet and Sam both quickly hushed him, "Anyway, I don't plan on telling anyone, so no worries there. It'd totally go against bro-code. Oh, and whoever I licked, you can blame Sam for that. He told me to do it and I wasn't quite sure what was going on just yet, so I went with it."

Barricade snorted, because until he had stepped in neither the Autobots or the soldiers had been of any use. He could see why Miles had assumed it would be a quick fix, but that hadn't been the case at all.

"Also, is there such a thing as space herpes?" Miles pondered. "If so, I'd be careful, Sam. I'd also suggest maybe not getting it on with Mr. Camaro right in the garage given the window that's right there, dumbass." Barricade quickly turned to watch the room's reactions with interest at this little revelation, "Though I gotta admit, their fake human thing is pretty hot, but I never needed to see that much of you, buddy. Also, what the hell is that glowy thing in their chest?"

It was fascinating to watch how everyone reacted. Epps' mouth fell open, Ratchet's optics got wider and wider, Bumblebee let out an embarrassed noise and shuffled his peds nervously, and Sam went bright red. Only Optimus didn't show much of a reaction, though even his optics ridges rose when Bumblebee's spark was mentioned. Barricade hadn't even realized humans could touch their sparks, and given it was their very soul then Bumblebee had to be quite enamored with Sam to let him touch his.

"Wow, I think I found an organic I actually like." Barricade feigned amazement, getting everyone's attention on him. Then he narrowed his optics at Sam, "And now I know just who is to blame for the licking incident."

Sam quickly stuttered out an excuse and fled the room. Ratchet, Optimus, and Bumblebee seemed to be conversing through a private comm channel given how quiet the trio was despite staring right at each other. Ratchet looked furious, but Optimus just looked sad, probably because Bumblebee hadn't felt comfortable enough to tell them. Barricade looked between all of them, realizing this was what he was stuck with if he was turning Autobot. He realized how much fun he could have messing with all of them, especially Bumblebee, and smirked to himself.

He never once noticed the look that Will and Epps had shared when he mentioned being licked.