Cybertron—black towers rose above methane clouds and nitrate haze, and fifty-lane highways between the cities became thoroughfares of commerce and power in the city, slowly branching off into alleys in the worst ghettos of Iacon. The city center blazed with lights that never dimmed, and further out, past the cosmopolitan condos and apartments, mechs rotated through constant shift changes so that Iacon never slept.
Which made it all the easier for an assassin to slip unnoticed through the endless traffic.
Sleek and black, his frame was high-end enough to blend into the background among the elite of the capital, and yet so dark that the light only gleamed along his edges—an anonymous silhouette ghosting through traffic, driving around the block, turning down the access lane. The buildings here were cramped, almost sharing walls, and their fronts were the polished facade of crystal, steel, and neon.
Around the back, however, accessible only by lanes for freight deliveries, cheap service bots that kept the high end restaurants and boutiques functioning. He was in luck—there was a delivery in progress.
Gleaming paint became matte and dull, headlights dimmed, and he stepped up onto the the grimy, rutted dock, waving to the workers that looked like him.
"Need a hand?" he asked, already moving to lift a crate.
"Hey, Meister!" The delivery mech, a red and silver bot taller than Jazz by half a length, smiled down at him. "I didn't know you were hired here."
"Just a couple pickup jobs," Meister said, lifting a lighter box under his free arm. "Ain't much steady work right now."
Orion nodded once in sympathy. "Contract's are drying up left and right. This high end stuff is all I can count on now."
"Well, there's plenty in the, ah, freelance line…"
Orion's engines rumbled in mild displeasure. "I know, but…smuggling's too risky with warbuilds in the sky looking to pick off lone bots. The Armada.."
The smaller black bot shivered. "Ain't gotta remind me. You and your femme keeping out of trouble?"
"Ariel's fine—just inside, actually," Orion said. "Bringing out the empties."
"Then I'ma head on in," he said. "See you later, bot—got a pickup on the inside."
Orion waved once, already transforming to receive the empty crates from the smaller pink mech passing Meister with a smile.
He went through the wide doors to the restaurant storeroom. Tall racks held boxes full of crystals, minerals, alcohols, and synthetics that would be crushed, dusted, and distilled into energon spiked into something pricier than his whole frame. He passed a few moments with the workers inside, helping Dion add his crate to a stack, walking backward to catch Brawn's stack of boxes before they could tumble sideways. Then, when he should have gone into the kitchen for his pickup, he zigged instead of zagged and went into the worker washracks.
Road grime was inevitable but not allowed in the kitchen—workers had to clean off before the start of their shift. However, the restaurant couldn't let staff be seen by the noble customers deigning to come down from their towers. The cooks had a cramped communal stall with splashes of solvent on the walls glistening under a flickering, dying light. He hosed the dust off his pedes, washed his armor with solvent, and subtly adjusted his surface so that the matte finish turned glossy.
The clean, almost seamless edges of his armor now revealed the truth—curves instead of flat panels, rims instead of bare wheels, shiny headlights instead of burned out sockets. No longer Meister, the dockhand, he was a gleaming tower mech that passed through the doors to the elevators and rode up to the dining floor.
When he stepped out, acrylic carpeting greeted his pedes, softening his steps as he picked his way through the crowd. He didn't stop to admire the walls of gold plating textured with hammered copper, nor did he pay attention to the drapes of dangling crystal beads nor the tables seating senators, tower nobles, and business leaders.
He did keep an optic on the warbuilds, two or three to each table, all of them keeping watchful gaze over their masters. He recognized a few—Blackjack, Swindle, Nightracer—all of them servants and bodyguards to their civilian owners. Kaon bots who sold out and put themselves under lease to keep the energon flowing.
But none of them recognized him, and he kept his distance, heading to the far stairwell—
"Maestro! Fancy seeing you here."
"Langton," he said agreeably, pausing to give a polite nod. "I thought you were still working on your nature preserve."
Seated with two other mechs, a gray and green mech rolled his optics, taking a long draught of his cube. Tiny sparks glittered at the edges as nitroglycerin reacted with infinitesimal amounts of kinetic bolides. Langton gave no invitation to sit and join the party, nor introductions to the other mechs who chatted among each other to pretend Maestro didn't exist. Either this was a clandestine meeting or Maestro simply wasn't high enough in the hierarchy, and Langton wouldn't embarrass him by having him stay.
"The senate's dragging their pedes, as per usual," Langton said. "I've tried to get ahold of someone, but all the lobbyists are locked up tight with the trouble at Kaon and Vos."
Langton frowned and looked closely at him. "I don't suppose you might have an in with someone, Ratbat maybe…?"
"Afraid I haven't the slightest," Maestro said. "Too caught up in with my own management. But if I get a senator's audio, I'll put in a word. Those turbofoxes are too adorable."
"And too close to extinction," Langton sighed. "Say hello to Mirage for me, if he's come back from slumming."
Maestro gave an appreciative chuckle. "Will do, will do. Ta!"
Out, out, finally out—his spark thrummed heavily in its chamber. He didn't know the two mechs with Langton, but he had recognized the purple decals discretely painted on their shoulder. It came out of Kaon, part of warbuild culture, but the radio broadcasts were heavily expurgated, cleaned and sterilized before being leaving the city. Something was brewing within Kaon…and now it was here among the politicos.
He needed to talk to Blaster later.
But for now, he went into the washracks meant for the customers, opening the door—then holding it politely for a mech coming out.
Platina was one of the nicer restaurants serving the financial district. Their washracks were more spacious and elegant than his whole chambers back home. The window alone was large enough to fit a mech, with a view of the entire city below and a lever to raise the pane and air out the racks after too much steam. There were private stalls with locks and small tables within for the customer needing a little more time for more sensitive business.
Maestro chose the stall in the center, backed in and shut the door. He broke the lock so that it showed that the stall was empty but jammed. And then he waited, peering through the thin slit in the door as patrons came in and out.
Several minutes passed as mechs went about their business. All of them were tower mechs—their fine-tuned engines made little noise as they cleared old oil, washed away traces of grime, and polished any cloudy edges on their frames. One of them opened a small box of powdered nitro that she vented in, then shared with another femme. Then they snapped it shut and left with a lighter bounce in their step.
Half an orn ticked by. Mechs wandered in and out, but there was never any risk of being noticed. Mechs taking illegal stimulants or exchanging data chips nervously focused on their own crimes and missed the bot only meters away.
And then he heard the sounds of his target.
Small scratches on the floor, a distinct cadence of two steps and then two heavier steps—the sound of Fuel Arbitor Ratbat pacing on his wings to the sinks. And the familiar crackle of static on a non-regulated frequency.
"—rations to Vos," Ratbat said. "If they can't stop squabbling with Tarn, they can all starve. Iacon will not support constant skirmishes. ...so let the jets rage. The armada can either starve or yield administrative control."
There was a long pause. Ratbat went to the window, using the distant sound of traffic to partially mask his conversation.
"...you received payment? Then release half a shipment. And tell them twice as much next time—even nobles look up from their kerosene when their rations have been shorted."
Click. Silence. Clearly the conversation was done. Ratbat went to the sink, clearing away the grime borne of having to walk so heavily on the floor—
—Ratbat's optics opened wide as he spotted the door opening and the black mech coming forward, light gleaming on a cold white visor. As Ratbat vented in, too frozen to scream, one dark hand went around his faceplate, the other hand caught his throat, and the smaller bot was yanked back into the stall. A second later, his neck struts and cabling all snapped, turned sharply to one side. As Ratbat fell limp, his consciousness raced down toward his spark chamber, taking shelter in the hope that—
Oblivion. Claws punched through the spark chamber, and Ratbat's frame turned gray.
The killer left the corpse propped up in the private washrack and yanked the broken door shut after himself, making sure it stuck. Then he raised the window, slipped out onto the ledge and gently let it close after himself. Invisible in the darkness, he dug his claws into the cracks and seams of the skyscraper's facade and climbed down to the access road, transforming and quietly driving back onto the main road.
There was no rush. There would be plenty of time before anyone noticed Ratbat was missing, and certainly time before the restaurant stopped panicking and hid their own indiscretions before they contacted the enforcers. And then more time for an investigation to be authorized. And by then—
He was almost home when he heard the news on the radio. Patina had suffered an explosion that had ignited the acetone in the washrack plumbing. Several floors were on fire, but so far only one casualty had been noted—Chief Fuel Arbitor Ratbat, just returned from diplomatic overtures to the warring cities Vos and Tarn.
Now that was unexpected. Never mind the investigation—they had erased the evidence for him.
In the shadows of a long overpass, his dark coloring melted away, leaving gleaming white and dramatic blue and red markings on the side. Iacon roads were a tangle of bridges and ramps, and he took a few more detours than usual before he finally pulled in front of the Neon Eclipse.
He felt the beat from inside the club even as he transformed up onto the curb. The line to get in stretched two buildings down, paused at the door by a blue and gray bouncer.
"Holding down the fort?" he asked, straightening his visor in the polished black window.
"All clear, Jazz," Beachcomber said. "But your favorite bot has descended from on high to grace us with his presence."
Jazz groaned theatrically, patting his bouncer's back. "Thanks for the warning. I'll send Skids out to replace ya in a breem."
"S'all good, bot, s'all good."
Under the sign of blocky blue Cybertronian script for Neon, the liquid pink letters of Eclipse, Jazz pushed wide the double doors of his club, spilling out the pink glow like candy to whet the appetite of the crowd waiting their turn. Bits of silver slivers and tinsel swept past him as the cool climate control blew by. The party was in full frenzy.
For all the lights inside, the club itself was dark—pink track lights along the edges lit the black floor, the black walls, the black ceiling, reflected in highlights that faded to shadow. In the two chambers on either side of the door, mechs met over drinks, watching gladiator battles on large screens, shouting to be heard over the noise. He spotted the twins at work, Sideswipe on one side, Sunstreaker on the other, keeping the crowd under control.
He kept walking. The long corridor was by design, partly to build anticipation, mostly to hide where the kitchens took up space, with polished walls that reflected like mirrors as he stepped into the main chamber.
Dozens of mechs filled the club—a few at the long bar in the back, signaling orders to his bartender who took colorful bottles of kerosene, nitroglycerine, and other synthetics down from the high shelves. A few mechs stood at the stage on the far side, watching the dancers. A pair of sinuous femmes performed a floor show lascivious enough to be illegal, reflectors on their fronts mimicking sparks dipping into each other.
But it was the dj in the corner, elevated above the crowd behind a complex soundboard, that headlined the show—Blaster, with all of his cassettes controlling the lights, arranging the music for his stream and what would inevitably become the next shift's hottest playlist.
I'm falling farther into you
Signal lost and falling fast
Interference fading out
Spiraling a final crash
Jazz came to the elevator. A seamless black door in a black wall noticeable more because Dead End leaned against a table. As always, his security detail drowsed behind half-closed optics.
Any problems? Jazz asked, unlocking the elevator and stepping in.
Be serious, Dead End said. Shift's so quiet, even that hippy outside can handle it.
The elevator doors were opaque on the outside, transparent inside, and Jazz rose to the top floor with a wide view of the party below. The black floor devoured the lights from above—Blaster's laserbeams and glittering sparkles swirled with the rhythm. Wheeljack and Skids handled the bar, and Dead End swept from one end of the club to the other, watchful and bored at once.
On the top floor, clear polymer ran from the ceiling to the kevlar weave carpet, providing a discrete vantage point over the dance floor. In this VIP lounge, micro-acrylic insets on the walls muffled the music. Foam underlays beneath the carpet dulled the sound from below, and padded furniture absorbed lingering noises so that the music was a faint rumble in the walls, accented by the soft pour and clink of kerosene cubes.
"Ah, the life of my party returns…fashionably late, of course."
The blue and white tower mech lay back on the broad divan, idly swirling his drink. Everything Mirage did exuded idleness—his lifted hand, his half-lidded optics, the low roll of his engine. Even his voice drawled with the high accents of the obscenely wealthy.
Behind Mirage, Hound stood at attention, the dutiful bodyguard watching the door, the darkness beyond the windows, the shadows in the corner of the room.
"Didn't know we'd set a time," Jazz said, pausing at the side bar. Up here, the few mechs with access poured their own drinks, and he shook up a mix of energon, ethylene and nitro, slamming it back in one go.
"Your friend want anything?"
The shadows in the corner shifted subtly, and the air turned tense.
"Hardly a friend, he's too quiet," Mirage grumbled, not noticing the way Jazz stared unerringly at the mech hidden in the far corner. "Barely says anything. None of the usual dramatics—this is a raid, you will comply immediately, prepare for download."
There was a huff. A black and white arm reached out and flipped the switch on the lamp beside him. The mech now bathed in a crystalline glow glared past Mirage to focus in on Jazz. An Enforcer decal graced his hood, along with the designation of Special Investigations on his doorwings.
Jazz raised an optic ridge. Most Praxians kept their wings subspaced, and certainly all Enforcers did. The sensor density made them easy targets in any fight. This mech was making a show of not wanting a fight. Considering Jazz couldn't see any blaster or rifle, that either meant that the Enforcer didn't resort to violence to get the job done…or else he was very confident in his ability to start a fight in a nanosecond.
"Izzat so?" Jazz set out a cube, mixed it up, and carried it to the Enforcer. "Then to what do we owe this courtesy call from Cyberton's finest, Officer…?"
"Prowl," he said, and hesitated, studying Jazz.
Who knew exactly what he presented himself as—a fashionably high end mech, probably not tower build but stylish enough to pass, doorwings safely ensconced in subspace, no visible armaments and both hands taken up with energon cubes. And a faceplate partially obscured by a visor that hid how his smile didn't reach his optics.
Static crackled over Jazz's frame. He recognized the Enforcer scan searching for weapons, hidden data packets, anything odd in his subspace. Jazz was glad he hadn't brought home any souvenirs of the night.
"Designation: Jazz," Prowl said. "There is little about you in the system."
Jazz grinned and said nothing.
"Your function?" Prowl asked.
"Singer, dancer extraordinaire," Jazz said as his grin turned ice cold. "Entertainment, all forms. If that's still allowed."
"…that debate was settled in the last legislature." Prowl took the cube and gazed at the contents.
"Ain't illegal—promise," Jazz said, pulling over the nearest chair with his pede, turning and straddling it so he could lean against the back.
"I'll be able to tell if it is," Prowl warned him, and he took a sip that didn't go down at first, evaluating the mix. His optics widened slightly. "Is that…?"
"Ah, a connoisseur," Mirage said. "Not many mechs have the palate for quartz."
Prowl finished the cube in one go and set it on the table beside himself.
"I'm unaccustomed to luxuries in my line of work," he said. "Usually I only have time for station recharges when I'm on a case."
"'Zat what this is?" Jazz asked.
"…tangentially," Prowl said. "I'm newly assigned from Praxus. I…am looking for information related to a series of incidents there, and one of my sources pointed me in your direction."
"He thought I was you," Mirage said helpfully, slurring his words as the kerosene settled in his systems. "Tower Noble Jazz, slumming in the lower decks."
Neither of them looked at him.
"An' who was this helpful source?" Jazz asked so casually.
"You understand if I want to keep that confidential," Prowl said.
"Maybe I want to stay confidential," Jazz said.
"Understandable," Prowl said. "Although my source also spoke very highly of you."
"Izzat right?"
"He said you're 'one of the good ones'."
Jazz's jaw clicked shut. He grumbled to himself and glanced sideways at the windows along the wall. Pitch black, they allowed for a view of the street below but hid the room from outside optics. He saw the line to his club stretch around the corner, saw the dark roads with burnt out streetlights, saw Iacon's distant glow in the heart of the city.
"Damn it, Ratchet…"
Prowl's faceplate didn't twitch. If Jazz was right, he gave no hint of it.
And Jazz now just wanted the Enforcer out of his business. If this had nothing to do with him, then Jazz wanted even less to do with it.
"Fine. Tell me what you want so you can mosey off to your own work."
No reaction to his change in tone except for Prowl to summon something from subspace.
"I am searching for information regarding this decal."
Jazz expected the strange purple mark that Prowl held in his hand. What he didn't expect was the sigil to be stamped on a sheared fragment of armor. He sat straight, lifting his helm slightly.
"Where…uh, who'd that come from?"
"That is being investigated," Prowl said. "Do you recognize it?"
Oh sure, Jazz thought, no place special, just the fancy joint full'a credits and short on morals. And a few dozen other places I ain't gonna mention.
In fact, the only thing he could say without incriminating himself—
"I seen it on the road from Kaon," Jazz said. "Mechs doing long haul pickups across the wastes."
"Smuggling?" Prowl asked.
"Don't know," Jazz said. "Running my own jobs, ain't asking questions of strange mechs. We're all just trying to avoid jets, if you know what I mean."
Prowl grimaced. "Yes, unfortunately. They call those death flights now."
Jazz didn't change expression. "S'accurate."
"The decal—was it on the cargo they're carrying?"
Jazz shook his helm once. "Nope. Ain't never on anything but mechs—shoulder sometimes, rarely the hood. It's always kinda there on the side, just another bit of gloss and design."
Prowl fell silent, obviously calculating. The minute stretched to two, then three. Four. Jazz's engines rumbled, and he squashed them back down to a steady rpm. He desperately needed a swing around the block, maybe do a turn downstairs downstage. He wasn't built to idle like this.
"Thank you for your cooperation," Prowl said, standing and subspacing the mark. "I may come back if I have any more questions. Here, my frequency—in case you remember anything else."
Jazz startled to see in his hand an actual card with Prowl's serial number and frequency, plus his Enforcer base number and code to directly contact him.
"Now there's something you don't see anymore," Mirage said, vocalizing Jazz's thoughts. "An honest Enforcer. I thought you all burned your cards the moment you rolled off base."
Prowl glanced sideways at him, but it was Jazz that he answered. "I know it's a cliche to say at this point, but I am one of the good ones. At least Ratchet thought so."
Jazz half-smiled, gazing at the card, then storing it away. "Gotcha. If I remember anything."
Halfway to the door, Prowl brought a blaster out from subspace and presented it, handle out, to Hound, who took it with a small nod and clipped it back into his holster.
Then Jazz saw Prowl out, waiting for the elevator to close, watching the number tick until it opened on the floor below. He went to the windows, waiting for Prowl to appear. The Enforcer stepped out, stretched…then looked up and gave a small salute at the dark windows. With that, he transformed and drove down the long road, vanishing toward Iacon.
Snapping his helm around, Jazz turned on Mirage. "What the hell was that, you noble paperweight? Not even a warning?"
Still the picture of a wealthy wastrel, Mirage gave a long vent and set his cube on the floor.
"Have a little sympathy, you peasant—"
"Don't you 'peasant' me nothing," Jazz said, heading to the lounge chair Prowl had sat so rigidly in, instead flopping sideways across. "Primus, you got any idea what kinda night I had? And then I come back to that? What, did your 'invisible' suddenly go poof?"
"Jazz—"
"And no one downstairs warned me, neither!"
"Jazz—"
"Me an' Ratchet gonna have a long chat, ain't no doubt about—"
"He was here when I came," Mirage said over him. "I didn't have time to throw up my shield. And you should be glad I put on the dumb noble act. He thought I was you."
Jazz tapped the lamp with his pede, turning it off. He turned on the large screen on the wall instead, dialing to the news and the talking helms chattering about the footage in the lower corner, the live feed of blue and white flames and smoke still pouring out of the Platina washracks.
"Yeah? And what he'd say?"
"That he just came to talk, and if I cooperated, there'd be no trouble. I think it really threw him for a loop that I wasn't you."
Jazz snorted. "He's a calculator. They don't like surprises. And then he just sat back and waited?"
"And told me to stay put," Mirage said, putting his hand up toward the quiet mech behind him, cupping the bodyguard's faceplate. "Wouldn't even let poor Hound out."
"So you just kicked back overenergizing?" Jazz said. "Tough job there, m'lord."
Hound chuckled.
"I'm not as good as you are," Mirage groaned. "I had to drink to put him off."
"Hm." Jazz vented again. "By the by, Langton says hi. Think he wants funds for his preserve."
Mirage scowled. "Funds, nothing. He wants Hound."
Behind him, Hound shuddered.
"I think we'll keep slumming down here, thank you very much." Mirage nodded at his bodyguard, who understood his look and brought a packet out of subspace.
"That enforcer didn't see you packing?" Jazz asked, sitting up. "Didn't he scan you?"
"He scanned Mirage," Hound said, carrying the packet over. "I'm just a bodyguard. He had my gun, so why worry?"
Hound didn't mention that most mechs couldn't afford a subspace generator—it took credits, a dedicated space in the frame. Nobles didn't bother giving those to bodyguards who needed their weapons immediately on hand. They were too expensive to retrofit into a lower caste mech. There were very few nobles like his master unit.
"What'd ya'll find?" Jazz asked, opening the packet. As he downloaded the video, he listened to Mirage explain what he was seeing.
"It's an underground fight ring," Mirage said. "The crowd's mostly warbuilds. It's hard to see anything with just their spotlights."
The camera feed was shaky, moving between mechs much taller than the bot doing the recording. The bot made his way to the front of the crowd, finding a spot between other small vehicles. Before him, the crowd parted in a wide circle around an arena made of pitted pavement splashed with energon, oil, and steel shavings.
"Yeah, that's underground, all right," Jazz said. "That's gotta be a buncha levels down in the superstructure. Dangerous even to get there."
"Not for warbuilds," Mirage said. "Those brutes have armor plating as thick as me."
Hound glanced aside, watching the city glow.
"Jets, constructor sets, an' army vets…" Jazz mused, studying the different frame types and gathered gestalts. "Laying bets on their own no holds barred fights. So who's…?"
A little Praxian came out, holding a microphone, waving at the audience that easily dwarfed him.
"Thanks for waiting for the cleanup!" he yelled over their applause. "Now the main event—you've seen him on the vids! You've heard him on the city broadcasts! Make noise for our newest challenger all the way from across Cybertron, wielding an ax covered in the energon of a thousand fighters, the Champion of Nyon, the warbuild Drag!"
The mech that appeared towered a length taller than the Praxian at his pedes. Orange and gray, with an axe covered in grime and rust and oil, he laboriously stomped into view, and every step set the level shaking. Scars and dents covered his frame, and his face had been broken and welded down the middle. Jazz guessed that his alt-mode was a monstrous tank, maybe even a heavy gunboat. And Drag was certainly a champion—the senate's sigil lay on his chestpiece, the red decal of Primus's faceplate and symbol of the legislature's approval.
The Praxian announcer, darting aside so the axe wouldn't drip on his red and blue paint job, now began to release a thick smokescreen that drifted dramatically around the arena.
"His opponent needs no introduction, the glory of Tarn—"
It was impossible to hear the other mech's introduction. The crowd roared, crushed close, jostled the recording bot so that he stumbled to one pede.
There was the awful rending of steel. Energon splashed the camera. There were yells, cheers, an impossible endless rage that manifested in the crowd's collective scream.
When the bot could record again, the fight was over.
Drag sat upright, now on his knees, sitting squat on the ground. His helm was gone—no, the recording zoomed in. The helm was crushed down deep into Drag's chest, smashing the senate's seal, and the ruptured spark casing lay bare. The spark inside flickered, showers of white hot steel dripping out as his essence of life touched exposed wiring and circuits. The spark slipped free and dissipated. The frame turned gray, crumbled at the edges, and collapsed in on itself.
The view swung wildly across the arena, trying to focus on the mech who had caused such swift damage. It was impossible to get a good view. The arena started to lurch and sag with the tons of so many jets and heavy warbuilds pressing for a look.
All Jazz saw was a lot of gray, a glowing chain, and a single flash of the purple decal they had seen earlier that night.
"Who is this?" he asked.
"No idea," Hound said. "Just got it today. Mirage has bots looking, but you know Tarn."
Jazz frowned. Yes, he knew Tarn—distracting themselves from starvation by watching duels and gladiators battling to the death. There were legit fights in stadiums that accommodated thousands of mechs, and there were small matches in alleys and underground pit fights. The whole city-state either fought or watched the fights. Finding one arena would be like finding a nut in a sea of bolts.
He sat straight, slumping back in his seat for a moment. It had been a long night, and he needed a recharge before he tried thinking hard about anything. The purple decals, the pit fighting, now an Enforcer… Ultimately it had nothing to do with him, but strange coincidences had a habit of suddenly doing him some violence. Maybe these purple decals were new clients. Maybe they were competition. Color him curious.
"Put a pin in it," he muttered. "Save it for later. Business comes first."
"But…" said Mirage. "Do we tell the Enforcer?"
A moment. Jazz stared at the purple decal a bit longer. Then slowly shook his helm.
"Ain't nothing solid," he said finally. "Maybe if I need something from him."
"Could give him a distraction now?" Mirage offered. "Give him something else to focus on."
Jazz's mouth quirked into a grin. "Oh mech, you wound my spark. I gotta rest and recharge—next shift's all work. He'll have plenty of distraction then."