Recharge, refuel, check the club finances, authorize orders of drink mixes, catch up on news, help Beachcomber chase out two mechs trying to grab his dancer—every time one of them took the shift off, his other dancer had to be on guard from handsy mechs—Jazz finally found time to collapse upstairs and begin planning an assassination.

Senator Decimus, like all high ranking officials, attended the senate in the Comitium, central temple in the middle of the Forum Iaconan, which itself was a compound of smaller satellite buildings. The forum served as the headquarters for the city's branches of the planetary government—the Fuel Arbitration, Mining Direction, Intercity Alliance, Warbuild Affairs, and the Functionist Assembly, along with multiple embassies representing the city states.

And all of the forum compound was securely guarded. It had to be. Protests were permanent fixtures along the wide road surrounding the compound. Mechs of all sizes spent some of their spare shift yelling obscenities toward the distant government, hurling demands that blurred into each other until their voices were impossible to make out. The majority congregated near the high gates—made of heavy steel composite with elaborate, gilded scrollwork, the gates dwarfed all but the tallest mechs.

Motorcades passed through them every shift, carrying senators safely through the protests up to the gates. Multiple guards stood ready, all of them armed.

Jazz studied the compound for weaknesses, ways in, routes through the substructure or ways to arrive as a cargo delivery, a business mech, a low tower mech…but there was nothing. Very little information existed on the groundplan, nothing survived long under the compound, and no one entered without extraordinarily high status. Nothing but the gate and the protests.

He studied the news footage of the protests. Mechs on low rations, mechs who had been sparked without an officially sanctioned function, mechs who could find no work as the mines became fully automated. Increasingly desperate mechs who watched the price of energon slowly rise without any means of paying for it.

Mechs with nothing to lose.

He saw how more guards were posted at the gate. How the gate was bolstered with ugly steel crossbeams for reinforcement. How the crowds grew. The death of Senator Ratbat, Fuel Arbiter of all of Cybertron, had whipped the protests into a frenzy. Mechs carried signs reading "End Fuel Arbitration" and "Burn All the Ratbats" with pictures of the late senator's burned out frame raised high. There was even a Ratbat effigy in flames.

This was no longer a protest. It was a powder keg.

…if he found a way to ignite it without being anywhere nearby.

Mirage, he called on his friend's personal frequency. I need a favor. You in the mood for a party?

Several shifts later, Mirage summoned Jazz to serve as the private entertainment at a "little gala" he was hosting. Very small. Only a dozen or so guests. Please shine up and be ready to…serve. And as always, the invitation to join his harem was cordially extended.

It was the usual summons Mirage sent, and as usual, Jazz didn't comment on the invitation. He was already polished to gleaming, his guitar was strung and tuned, and his voice warmed up. He bid farewell to his mechs, warned Beachcomber to be on the lookout for anything unusual, and headed toward the sector above most of Iacon.

The wealthiest sector of the city was known for its towers. Jazz thought it should be known for its walls.

High barriers cut the elite mechs off from the rest of the city. The first wall was the most imposing—as tall as the city's skyscrapers, it would have been difficult to fly over. It was certainly impossible to slip beneath through the understructure. The wall went twenty levels down with sensors and cameras to find even the sneakiest mech, with regular patrols to gun him down when they found him.

So he did the only logical thing.

He went through the front gate.

Driving the familiar lane along the highway, he went past the exits and turn offs that went to the business district, the capitol building, the senate hall. The highway narrowed to ten lanes, then five, then two wide roads rising up several levels, curving almost a mile as the speed limit dropped from fifty to thirty, to twenty, then the slow roll up to the gates. He came alongside the access lane and transformed, submitting to the brief scans to show that he was unarmed.

"Jazz," he said to identify himself. "At personal request of His Lordship Mirage of Tower SubRosa."

The gate attendant made a show of flipping through the holorolodex. Behind him, five guards stood with rifles unslung, two standing at the ready, two lazily lowered at the pavement, and one scanning the airspace.

"Jazz, Jazz…Jazz…" the attendant mused, scrolling down. "Huh, there you are. Entertainment for the guests. You know the way?"

"Turn right, follow the access lane, fifth left, keep to the staff corridors and use the terminal lift."

"See that you stick to the route—security doesn't like servants who forget themselves." The bot unlocked two key codes, then leaned back for the fifth guard to reach around and type in the last code. "Remember to check out here."

Jazz gave him a nod, already transforming and rolling through the gate that opened just wide enough to let him through.

The long lanes of the tower district were polished crystal lined by glowing lights. The towers rose into the clouds, scoured clean of grime by the rain, and the tallest of them loomed dozens of levels high. The towers also stretched down into Cybertron itself, widening foundations that provided structure and support to the workers and staff that served in the grime and dust. But here, up in the sky, the walls and struts shone like mirrors.

Jazz took a hard right turn and followed the servant's lane around the edge, behind the curling crystal undergrowth. He kept a slow pace, keenly aware of the turrets perched on the top of the wall, no less than three canons aimed on his aft. At the proper turn, he transformed and walked up to the staff entrance, checked in again, and was escorted to the elevator.

"His Lordship Mirage," said the femme taking him along. "He is on the fortieth floor. Please wait to be allowed entrance."

He nodded. The doors closed as the elevator began rising, programmed to take him up exactly forty flights.

It stopped in the space between the second and third, and the doors opened to the maintenance shaft. Jazz saw heavy pipes, insulation, labeled wiring panels, and Hound leaning against the wall, arms folded, pedes crossed.

A hologram of Jazz flashed from the projector on Hound's shoulder. Under cover of that beam, Jazz and Hound switched places silent, and Hound took his place, a perfect image of Jazz as the elevator began to rise again.

Five minutes.

As his frame turned black and his visor colored silver, Jazz transformed and drove through the maintenance shaft, found the ladder that went all the way to the top of the tower. He began climbing, cursing in a whisper when the lights suddenly went dark. The systems around him went silent.

A power outage? Did Mirage think that was helpful? Whatever—the outage gave him precious seconds as Hound waited in the elevator. Jazz kept climbing—one minute, two—

Three minutes in, he reached a hatch and lifted it wide. Anyone watching might have seen the tiniest movement and a shadow against the catwalk that ringed the tower. The ledge was specifically for maintenance bots repairing the surface from small comet strikes, rain that found a crack, and changing the lights when bulbs went out every thousand years or so.

And now the catwalk served for an assassin pulling five components from his armor. The barrel from his forearm, the spring and trigger mechanism from his coolant system. The stock came from the support under his pede. And the battery pack…

He carefully reached beneath his hood, running his fingers along the center of his protoform. He found the switch, traced a key swipe, and was granted access to his spark case. Attached on the side was a redundant battery pack to keep his spark regulated when it pulsed irregularly. He pulled the battery and slid it into place.

A rifle with one shot.

There was no time to waste. The tower was still dark, but the ground floors one by one were beginning to light up again.

He dropped to one knee and steadied the barrel on the railing. His visor showed the targeting solution, magnified, recalculated, magnified, recalculated, magnified. The shot had to travel past the towers, down past the highway, down into the business sector, past the busy traffic, past the protesting mechs holding signs and yelling, right into the heavy lock of the Senatorial Portico gate.

There were too many mechs walking by, too much jostling and sign waving and guards behind barricades holding the crowd back.

Jazz waited.

Held his vents.

Stilled.

The guards began to move, drawing rifles, blasters, and energy swords. As one, they began to push the crowd back. The motorcade carrying Senator Decimus was coming down the long road, lights flashing, and the guards prepared to receive him safely through the crowd of screaming mechs. There were punches thrown, rounds fired into the air to startle mechs back.

The space cleared.

Jazz fired.

He had just enough time to confirm that he'd shot through the latch of the gate before he dissembled the rifle. The battery pack went back under his hood. The rest of the rifle he took apart as he ran, holding it in pieces in his compartment as he transformed and drove to where the lift would arrive.

He came to a halt just as the doors opened. His mirror image smiled to see him venting hard.

Five minutes, huh? Hound asked as they traded places again.

Hard to aim past a mob, Jazz grumbled, standing in the elevator, hands folded in front of himself again.

The power outage was m'lord's idea, Hound said. If you thought he was insufferable before…

Jazz groaned deep inside himself as the elevator rose and the hologram faded. Two floors up, and the doors opened.

The funny thing was, for a tower mech, Mirage was restrained in his tastes.

Steel polished to a mirror's reflection covered the floor. White quartz lined the seams of the walls, highlighting silver scrollwork etched into the domed ceiling. The deep blue banners of Tower Subrosa waved and billowed along the floor-length arches—allowing in the clean, unpolluted breeze.

Through the arches, the planet sparkled, quiet so far below them.

"Jazz, life of my party," Mirage said, raising a hand no less imperial for the hard kerosene in the crystal cube. "And not a moment too soon."

Properly acknowledged, Jazz came in on nigh-silent steps. He bowed briefly to the mechs assembled before him, a dozen elites in gleaming armor, flowing silks, and bored optics. They sat on deep cushions around a low table of smooth geode decorated with crystal finely carved to resemble organic leaves and blossoms. And all of them watched Jazz either openly or out of the corner of their optics.

"My Lord," Jazz said, cataloging each attendee as he passed the table. "I dropped everything to answer your call."

Mirage did not sit on a cushion. As host of the party, he reclined on a broad divan, reaching his free hand up to Jazz.

"I hope I didn't inconvenience you," Mirage said. "But you simply won't join my harem, so I have to keep bothering you like this."

Jazz took his hand and kissed the back, dropping to a knee beside him.

"Ain't no bother at all, m'lord. Just ain't shiny enough to fit in 'mong your types."

"Oh, listen to the little thing, 'Rajah," one of the guests said. "He's trying to spare your reputation."

"Can't spare what's barely there," said a femme.

"Well, someone has to care about it," said a third. "Mirage has certainly given up."

"Honestly, 'Raja, bad enough you slum down there—did you have to bring the slum up here?"

Jazz smiled as if he heard nothing.

Mirage's look didn't waver from his tipsy joy.

"Ignore the heretics," Mirage said, pressing a kiss to Jazz's palm. "Nevermind that their harem mechs aren't as shiny as my little hard-to-get. At least entertainment is an actual function in society."

Awkward silence greeted that remark. Jazz didn't dare glance at the rest of Mirage's so-called friends. He saw them only in his peripheral vision, the edge of what his visor could catch. He recognized none of them, tower mechs who never set pede out of their courtyard, running their business from their gilded cages.

Except…

Mirage, you crazy glitch, he thought.

At the far corner, seated closest to Mirage, sat two decidedly non-tower mechs. Oh, they were certainly high end. But the red and gray bot, so small that he could have been carried by any of the mechs at the table, should not have been there. He fit in well enough—polished, bright, as clean as the rest, but he kept his optics on the table and barely moved as if he was afraid to catch anyone's attention.

The other mech was Prowl.

Jazz would have raged at Mirage except he didn't know if the others could catch their conversation on his friend's personal frequency. So he simply quirked a smile and waited.

"You walk on treacherous ground, Mirage," the femme said slowly. "In mixed company, no less."

Prowl didn't smile, and he hadn't touched the cube in front of him. But he did tilt his helm in acknowledgment.

"I have only one function while in Iacon," he assured them. "Everything else falls outside of my jurisdiction. I don't even have my recorder suite engaged."

"What Enforcer does?" said a guest, with a knowing little smile.

Prowl vented in. He flashed a brief, strained smile and finally took a drink, hiding his soured expression behind the cube.

The mood reestablished, the light chatter began again. Jazz permitted Mirage a second kiss, this one at his lips and deeper, insistent, a lord showing the lesser mech that they were there to entertain the master's wants. His hand cupped Jazz's cheek, running a thumb under the visor, teasing at the edge.

"Are you ready to sing for me?" Mirage whispered.

Jazz's answer was a satisfied purr of his engines.

The lights dimmed. The chatter grew soft, then quiet. As the lights continued to drop, the walls revealed tiny points of light. At first it looked like they were twinkling, but it was soon apparent that Jazz had stood and began making his way past the wall, coming to the small dais to one side. As he stepped up, the single light above began to glow, washing him in gold light.

Prowl sat straight.

Something had changed.

This was not Jazz.

At least, it wasn't the Jazz that he'd been shown over the past couple shifts. That Jazz had been guarded, cynical—every word carefully chosen, his demeanor deliberately crafted the same way an actor would.

This mech stood on the dais as if he'd been sparked for it. As if he hadn't heard the slurs. Jazz vented deep as the spotlight separated him out from the room. In his own world, he stood straighter, his doorwings lifted as if buoyed by the spare strings rising from the instrument that appeared in his hands.

There was a seat behind him, a small perch for a bird in a cage. He leaned back against it, one pede shifted up, and he lowered his helm. The strings deepened, found a rhythm.

Long notes. Slow strum.

Lightning's flashing overhead
Come, my spark, and find me soon
I've lost myself in all my rain

And this wasn't the usual strong, repetitive beat of the club or of the songs on the state produced radio. This wasn't a mech with a soundboard or the hundred chrys-guitars in unison.

Just one chrys-guitar, just one voice—low, strong, smooth.

Wandering alone on empty roads
Save me from the burning flood
This lying spark ain't know my name

Mirage's friends had fallen silent, held in thrall by that voice reverberating through the dome. Even the faint sounds of their vents through high end filters had gone quiet as they all held their breath. Behind them, Mirage's optics brightened in satisfaction and he sat a little straighter, exchanging a look with the red and gray mech at the table.

Meet me where the highways cross
Or count my spark among the lost
Devil from hell got hold of me
And I can't count this silver cost

And on the dais, Jazz poured himself out, feeling the strings vibrate under his fingers, letting his spark pulse form the beat, lightly drawing out a note and then swinging down again. He counted the rhythm and considered where the senator's motorcade must have been by now, driving through the mob of mechs at the gate.

Clouds swing low rolling overhead
Weary from running under skies all red
Storm wash me clean, ain't no escape

Now the motorcade was transforming into the senator, his body guards, personal driver and entourage. They would form a circle around the senator. He would glare at the mob as less than grime on his pedes. His look whipped the mob into frustrated shrieks. He was so near, and yet with so many bodyguards, his and the planetary guard, actual warbuilds…

Now he turned, and the gate pulled open just enough to allow him in, and then to allow in one or two bodyguards. Just two. The rest would have to join the protective barricade to intimidate the mechs back. They couldn't afford to shoot and ignite this powder keg. Just slam the gate shut and lock it—

Jazz's song turned into a mournful groan for a long moment.

The gate would not lock. It bounced back, bounced back wide, swung open at the worst possible moment. The senator, caught between the safety of the Portico chambers and the wild frenzy of the mob. The bodyguards, spread too thin.

Saint, sinner, all the things I've done
Can't ask forgiveness for the road I run
I set myself down on this way

The mob lunged forward. The guards started to fire, but there were too many, too many—they sank under the mob's hands and pedes, crushed and still. There was no one individual in this attack—the mob was a single machine rolling forward, speeding down the last guard, rolling up on the senator as he ran, hands grabbing, holding, digging down into his armor to pull, pull, pull—

Meet me where the highways cross
Or count my spark among the lost
Devil from hell got hold of me
And I can't count this silver cost

Jazz brought the song to its close, a subtle flourish, as unhurried as oil dripping from a torn cord. As slow as a helm torn from its frame and rolling to a stop. His optics closed. He vented out and stilled.

There was a brief lull. No applause.

Prowl stared with wide optics. He'd never seen anything like that. Was that what private entertainers did? How had Jazz done that? And what exactly had Jazz done to bring out that feeling in him? Prowl turned off his recording suite. He'd started it with the first strings. He would examine it later. It was beyond calculating now.

The guests all sat back, processing what they'd heard.

"Whatever 'Raja's offered you," said the femme, "I'll double it."

Mirage gave a wounded gasp.

"You don't know what I've offered," Mirage said. "Besides, you said it yourself. You don't want a piece of the slum in your pretty gold tower."

She glared at him from the corner of her optic. "Trust a glitched hedonist to find this down there. You wouldn't—"

Prowl suddenly sat straight, receiving a message. And then he was up on his pedes, running to the elevator, pressing against the door as if that could make it open faster, hitting the button too many times, vanishing as he was summoned in a futile attempt to save the senator.

"What on…?" Mirage murmured. "You'd think someone died from the way he ran out."

"I think someone did." One of his friends stood, went to the edge of the dome and pushed aside the banners, looking through the arch to the streets far below. "Turn on your news feed. I think…yes, you can just barely make it out from here."

"Make out what?" the femme asked, taking a long sip without moving. "Another power outage?"

"Indeed," said the mech in front of her. "Truly, there's nothing out there that we don't have in here."

"Not quite true anymore." The mech at the arch looked over his shoulder, a little dazed. "We don't have a riot tearing a senator apart."

In the stunned silence that followed, they tuned into the news feed, listened to the senate reporter's horrified description of what was left of Decimus, the security forces now pouring out of the rest of the compound and firing into the crowd. In the unedited broadcast, the senate guards cut down the mechs closest to the gray frame. A handful of enraged mechs at the very front pushed forward, climbing over the frames of executed protesters, only to be shot and reel backward in broad splashes of oil and sheared steel.

The mob hesitated, still taking fire at the edges, trembled on the cusp of charging forward. Withering plasma fire wiped away the front mechs like grime off of steel. As mechs went down without gaining an inch, the mob broke and ran.

In the retreat, more mechs fell before they could escape the compound, gunned down from behind. The rest poured out onto the street, transformed, sped away and scattered in all directions. The security forces went as far as the fence and a few steps beyond, firing into the last stragglers and spectators.

By the time Mirage looked up from the carnage, turning off the feed with a grimace, his tower was nearly empty. The elevator closed over the femme giving him a dazed wave of her hand, and then he was left with Jazz, now subspacing his guitar, and one last mech at the table.

"Well…" Mirage sighed, setting down his empty glass and flopping back on his divan. "An unpleasant end to an unpleasant party."

"If you don't like 'em none," Jazz said, "why'd you invite them?"

"They're not usually this bad," Mirage said. "Please…please don't do anything terrible to them. They really are trying. Other tower mechs would've flounced off in a huff."

Jazz was about to shrug off Mirage's concern when he noticed that the little red and grey mech was still seated, quietly contemplating the untouched cube of kerosene before him. Jazz tilted his helm at the mech, raising an optic ridge.

"Ah. Yes. Um." Mirage sat straight, putting his pedes on the ground. "Jazz, I wanted to introduce you. Please don't be cross. He came to me—"

"RedAlert," the mech said in a tight voice, as if he expected to be hit. "I told Mirage to invite me. I needed to see you."

Jazz frowned, first at Mirage and then, when he only shrugged helplessly, at the mech who wouldn't look at him.

"Because…?" Jazz prompted.

"Because you're doing something good," RedAlert said. "Even if it doesn't seem like it. I don't know who's pulling your strings, but Decimus needed to die, and so did Ratbat, and adding a priest wasn't wasted effort even if it wasn't someone higher up. But you've attracted attention to yourself and—"

RedAlert hadn't looked at him, but he seemed to know that Jazz had stood straight and started walking toward him. He froze, shutting his optics tight.

"If you kill me, my files with all the footage go straight to that Enforcer's private frequency. He gave me his card—it's all primed to go on a killswitch."

Jazz stopped. Flexed his hands. Glowered at Mirage as if to say he was the one who'd gotten them into this mess. And then he went around the table and sat on the broad cushion directly across from him.

"Well then, good thing I got no clue what you're talking about. S'pose you go on with all'a those wild tales—meanwhile, I need me a drink."

"We can speak safely in here," RedAlert nodded once. "Tower security is good, but Mirage is part of Tower SubRosa—openly hedonistic and devoted patrons of the arts, but secretly involves itself in blackmail, political intrigue and now the resistance movement."

Jazz glanced sideways at Mirage, who vented and sunk a little lower in his divan.

"That's how the little glitch messaged me," Mirage grumbled. "All but blackmailed me into inviting him. The nerve! To have me on the other side of a threatening message…"

The elevator dinged. Jazz half-turned, expecting Enforcers to come charging out, but only Hound appeared, nodding once at Jazz and taking his customary place behind Mirage.

"We're on full lockdown," Hound said, then looked at Jazz. "If you want to get out of here any time soon, I'll have to walk you out to the main gate."

"They expect me to sign out," Jazz started.

"I'll call and let them know my guests will be late leaving," Mirage said.

"Great," Jazz said, settling down more comfortably and turning his attention back on RedAlert. "So you think m'lord here is a spy extraordinaire. Who'm I?"

"…I'm not sure," RedAlert said. "I've searched. There are no spark records on you except what's been falsified. Very good fakes, by the way, almost perfect. Your original designation is most likely not Jazz, and while you are clearly high end,, you have managed to hide under the persona of the owner of a night club in the fifth quarter. Watching you is difficult at best and impossible when you use the traffic for cover—it was the drive through the business quarter that shook the cassette."

Jazz stared at him. Reset his optics. He considered feigning ignorance, but—

"The drive?" he echoed. "I did that just to steady my nerves. How'd that scrap follow me that far? I looped all through the city—I changed my paint like five times."

"The business sector has heavy shielding, multiple levels, and overburdened communications lines." RedAlert half-shrugged. "The feed glitched several times. You lucked out."

Jazz pressed his mouth flat.

"Was that cassette yours?"

RedAlert shook his helm. "No. I've seen it before. I've felt its master before. I…"

RedAlert paused, looking down at something. He vented out roughly.

"Damn. I'm not going to have enough time. Look, you've attracted attention. I can help, but I can't afford to reveal myself, either. I'll contact you if it's safe—"

"Why?" Jazz said. "Who are you?"

"I think I know what your master unit is playing at," RedAlert said. "And I agree with him. I can't act directly, but I don't want his cybercat's paw being compromised before you finish. Please do not get killed before I can—"

RedAlert's frame shimmered, glitched, and vanished. Something silver glimmered and lay on the cushion where he'd been sitting, beside one of Prowl's cards. Hound stepped close, bent, scanned it, and then picked it up.

"Hard light hologram," Hound said, turning the small projector over in his hand. "Ran outta battery."

"That's why he didn't have a drink," Mirage said. "Oh good. I was afraid the vintage was off."

"Mirage…" Jazz took a long, deep vent, putting his hands on the table. He lowered his helm. "Y'know, y'ain't gotta keep up the act around us."

Mirage shrugged and sank down to the floor across from him, curling up on the cushion. Hound came to stand dutifully behind him.

"After too long, the act starts to become real, I'm afraid. Half espionage, half, ah, hedonist."

As if to prove the point, he lifted the untouched cube.

"So what do we do now?" Mirage asked.

"…you got no clue who he is?" Jazz asked. "RedAlert…you think was his real name?"

"I haven't had time to look. But if I had to guess…probably." Mirage shrugged again. "I'd lay credits that he's wiped every trace of himself. A real ghost in the machine."

"What'd he say to you?" Jazz asked. "To get an invite?"

Mirage quietly swirled his energon, gazing at the purple-pink sparkles.

"He quoted exactly what Langton offered to buy Hound," Mirage said. "And what I said when he offered it."

Jazz looked at Hound, who met his gaze and shrugged.

"What's so threatening about that?" Jazz asked.

Mirage scoffed, his light voice belied by the way his hand tightened around the cube in his hand, tightened to trembling.

"Oh, only that Langton's offer was made here, in my own tower, in my own chambers. There are no transmitters in here. There is nothing letting out a signal. I've checked this room myself, I've searched the walls, the lighting, the—"

Mirage's voice rose higher, and the cube began to groan under the stress. Before it could shatter, Hound reached down and put his hand on Mirage's shoulder.

Mirage vented. And he leaned back against Hound's pedes, shutting his optics.

"Anyway. That means he can hear anything. He could be hearing us right now. And he wanted a 'friendly' meeting with 'that cat's paw'."

He put the glass down and leaned more fully against Hound.

"I'd already called that enforcer in for you. I'm sorry, Jazz. I didn't think…"

"Yeah, but that tends to work for you," Jazz sighed. "And…hell. He ain't wrong. Even if they catch this little cybercat, they still won't catch my master unit."

Mirage opened his optics just enough to see him through the slits.

"Jazz…"

Jazz didn't move.

"I've never asked…because I approve of what you're doing, but…"

Jazz pretended to be enthralled by the sky through the arches.

"…who's pulling your strings?"

Jazz met his look silently.

His refusal was solved by the rising growl of thunder. Overhead, a dozen jets roared overhead, low enough to rattle the walls. The shadows of wings passed across the arches, moving over the three of them.

"Sounds like they scrambled a unit," Hound said. "Coneheads by the sound of 'em. Scaring the protestors back into their holes for awhile."

"How can you tell them apart?" Mirage muttered. "Warbuilds are so loud."

"S'just the different types of engines," Hound said. "Don't worry. I'm here."

Jazz huffed and left the table, heading to the arch and watching as the jets circled the city, coming back down the main thoroughfare, chasing away the last stragglers anywhere near the senate compound. With the chaos cleared and with a little magnification, Jazz saw the gate hanging wide, the dead guards, the dead protesters.

There was a smear of oil and glittering purple energon among tiny dots of steel. What was left of Senator Decimus.

Mission accomplished.

He stared at the mess, his jaw tightening. He put the pieces of the rifle back into their hiding spots. Then he turned away, heading to the elevator. Mirage and Hound said nothing, too caught up in each other. He went down to the first floor, waited for the chamberlain to alert security, then took the long way around to the main entrance, feeling the turrets trained on his hood the whole time. He checked out, submitting to one more scan as all of the guards were now on alert. Finally he could go on his way.

The highways were almost empty. For the first time in ages, he drove in utter silence.