Part 4

By the time Jazz and Prowl had gotten back to the Repair bay, Ratchet was waiting for them with Wheeljack, Perceptor and First Aid. "Alright, let's see it." Ratchet said, holding out one hand. Prowl gave him the scanner. "You got both sensor nodes planted?" The medic asked, somewhat surprised.
"They didn't notice a thing." Jazz replied. "Heck, I didn't even see 'im plant 'em."

Ratchet grunted and fiddled with the scanner for a moment then connected it up to one of the larger units. The screen lit up, split into two separate displays. The medics moved into a rough semicircular formation around the scanner, Prowl and Jazz lurking just around the periphery so that they stayed out of everyone else's way. Ratchet scrutinized the display for a moment then jabbed his finger at the readings displayed on the upper half.

"That one's Sideswipe's readings. The other is Sunstreaker." He announced.
"Are you sure?" Wheeljack asked, head tilted to one side as he read the jittering lines of the neural scans.
Ratchet gave a long suffering sigh. ""Jack, I've been putting those two back together for almost as long as you've been blowing yourself up. I know how to tell 'em apart."

The white medic adjusted something on an adjacent scanner display and a set of new readouts lit up the screen. "These are their normal scans." He explained. "Perceptor, you're our resident neuro-mechanical specialist. What do you see?"

Perceptor leaned back against a repair bed and studied the displays for a moment, one hand rubbing his chin. "They appear to have elevated netrophine levels, and their other systems are displaying signs of unusual activity." He commented. "The sub-neuro cortex is of most interest, these patterns are quite abnormal for their current state."
"Yeah, cog-stim is through the roof, same with mech-stat levels." Wheeljack added.
"And what about their trinary core? Some of these readings are way off the graph." First Aid pointed out. "There's major aberrations in the peaks and curves for both of them. And look at these chemical spikes here, they're almost off the chart."
"Hmm, some of it may be the stims, but I'm not so sure about the rest." Ratchet mused, frowning at the two displays.

"Any idea what they're sayin'?" Jazz murmured to Prowl.
"Not a clue." Prowl quietly replied.

Jazz raised his voice to get the attention of the assembled medics. "Erm, fer those o' us without med trainin', what does all that mean?" He asked.

Ratchet beckoned for the pair to come closer and pointed to a jerky, spasmodically pulsing red line on Sideswipe's half of the display screen. "You see this?" he asked. "It's Sideswipe's subconscious. According to these other readings, he's currently on-line and at full consciousness. But this graph is showing far too much activity for that. Taken together, they seem to indicate that he's in a partially online state."
"Like sleepwalking?" Jazz asked. "'Cause I was watchin' th' two all day an' they didn't seem t' be out of it or anythin'."
"No." Ratchet shook his head. "We don't sleepwalk. You know the REM state humans have while sleeping?"
"Yeah."

"While we're in shut-down, the higher neurological functions are suspended to allow the subconscious to direct maintenance, maintain somatic functions and clear up the data input from the day. REM state is when humans dream. For us, we have NSF- neuro suspension function; that's when data and memories are sorted and filed. Right now, both twins are fully online, but their sub-conscious minds are also active and appear to be, well, stuck on instant reply on one memory." Ratchet explained.

"So what do we do?" Prowl asked.
"Haul 'em both in here before the lack of proper shut down drives them both psychotic." Wheeljack bluntly announced.
"If our previous meeting is any indication of their state, such a task will prove very difficult." Prowl warned.

"No it won't." Ratchet replied. "Wheeljack, First Aid, get the sedatives. Perceptor, you're with me. Prowl, Jazz, see if you can get the twins to come without argument. If they won't, distract them until I get there."

0o0o0

Meanwhile…

Sideswipe paced the room like a caged animal, while his twin was sprawled in one of the chairs, staring dispiritedly at the scuffed decking.

The red warrior suddenly flinched and paused in his restless movements to look at his brother. "Sunny?" he asked, a timid quaver marring his usually strong voice. Sunstreaker looked up; his paint dull and optics a wan, washed out blue. "It didn't work, did it?" Sideswipe asked. Sunstreaker wordlessly shook his head."Should we go to Ratchet?" Again, the head shake in reply. "Then what?" Sunstreaker returned to his contemplation of the floor tiles.

Sideswipe let out a sigh and started pacing again, hoping that the problem would go away on it's own, but knowing that unless someone else did something soon, there would be a whole lot more Autobots with a much bigger problem.

Many thanks to Trueborn Chaos, mobileholmes, HunterBlues, Uftaki, Tirya King, Tiamat 1972, Rose and PuraJazzBot for your reviews :D. Hopefully thishas shed a little light on the situation, but then again, you never know what's really going on with the twins ;)