*Knock* *Knock*

Onslaught rapped his hands against the door to Jazz's room twice. "I know there's a good chance he's up right now," he remarked to Swindle as they waited for Jazz to come to the door.

"He's practically overclocking himself to find answers to what's going on. He'll need to have a break at some point," Swindle remarked to his commander as he crossed his arms in an annoyed fashion. "We're seeing less and less of him as this situation goes on and it's worrying how much he's keeping to himself."

"He's a spy, Swindle. Secrets are their trade," he was reminded by Onslaught, who was sounding very annoyed at the behavior of the Autobot TIC.

"Well, I sell secrets," the black marketeer murmured to himself with a huff. "Doesn't make him special."

"You buy and sell secrets. He steals them," his leader corrected him with a sigh. "There's a distinct difference between the two of you with a different purpose in mind for it."

"I'm just making money. Nothing wrong with that," the yellow-and-purple mech murmured to him in a slightly offended matter. "And let me tell you, my auctions had people paying top dollar for the secrets I was able to get. Millions of shanixes traded accounts in those meetings."

"A shame that you couldn't put as much effort in helping the Decepticons as much as you fill your subspace," Onslaught ribbed his subordinate for his comments.

"I was never in it for the Decepticon's ideals," Swindle remarked back to him with a huff.

"That capitalistic spirit of yours…" Onslaught murmured. "It's both detestable and admirable."

"Don't knock it until you see the results," his ally remarked to him, "and in the end, I still care about you and…"

"As do I," his commander nodded to him with a comforting arm around his smaller soldier. "We may have disagreements, but I won't ever let anything separate us anymore. I will do all I can to protect you." He tightened his hold around Swindle to show that he meant what he said, and Swindle didn't need to look up to see his stern, serious acceptance of him.

"…Thanks, Ons. No one else would treat me like that," Swindle said to him thankfully.

"It pays to have genuine friendships, Swindle," the tactician reminded him as he looked to the door that was still closed and used his free hand to knock on it again. "Remember that."

"I will," the conmech promised as he patted the arm around him. "When we get out of here, I'll try my best to make genuine bonds with people. Being here has… changed me. For better or worse, I don't know, but I'll just have to accept it."

"I think we're all changed from this," Onslaught agreed with a nod to Swindle. "And if we want to use these changes, we must defeat this mastermind at all cost."

"On that, I think everyone is in agreement," Swindle agreed with a nod as the door finally opened for them. However, instead of Jazz waiting for them on the other side, it was Beachcomber.

"Hey, you two. Sorry we haven't come down for breakfast, but Jazz has been insisting that we do our best to find out who is keeping us hostage here," the geologist informed them as he opened the door a bit more for them to see Jazz inside, still looking over datapads, as well as Skywarp instead, to their surprise.

"Typical Jazz," Onslaught murmured to himself mostly before addressing the smallest mech again. "May we come inside?"

"Of course, dude! It's no problem," Beachcomber insisted to him with a nod as he stepped aside to let them come through, letting the Combaticons inside of the room. On the dining table of the room was a massive pile of datapads that Jazz had to sift through that seemed to keep getting bigger as the days went by.

"Jazz. Didn't see you at the cafeteria this morning," Onslaught remarked as they came over to him.

"Sorry, I've just been busy. Skywarp already got us energon this morning," Jazz explained to him briskly.

"Did he now?" the tactician wondered as he looked over to Skywarp, who shrugged to him.

"We had a good talk last night," Skywarp informed him simply. "I offered to help him out this morning, which I am."

"And Blurr and Bumblebee are still keeping watch over Perceptor, right?" Onslaught questioned him to make sure.

"Of course. I'm not stupid," Skywarp insisted to him with a nod. "Blurr is keeping watching over him right now."

"That's good at least," the blue-and-green mech remarked with a nod. "So, you're looking into the identity of the mastermind, correct?"

"I am," Jazz confirmed to him with a nod. "Along with one other thing?"

"And what's that?" Swindle wondered.

"We're seeing if we can find any information on the identity of the mole and that includes looking into Perceptor to make sure that he's on the up and up," Jazz informed him.

"Are you now?" the lead Combaticon wondered.

"We can't exactly just judge him on order of elimination," Jazz insisted to him. "We must find conclusive evidence of his involvement in this scheme, if he is working for Monobear."

"I still find it hard to believe that he would work for a mad mech that insane," Beachcomber insisted to them. "We were co-workers and I trust him. There's no way I believe that he could do something this fucked up."

"Some of the most innocently-looking people are the most screwed up," Skywarp reminded the small scientist with a glare to him. "Don't trust people."

"You haven't found anything on him yet, have you?" Onslaught questioned them. "I have a feeling if you did, you would be first at the cafeteria this morning to tell us."

"Well, no… I haven't," Jazz murmured. "I haven't found anything that indicated he would be working with the mastermind and I checked his history out thoroughly, even the time he was held captive by the Decepticons."

"He was held captive once?" Swindle repeated in confusion as Onslaught grimaced at the mention of what happened to Perceptor.

"You don't remember that?" Skywarp asked him. "Vortex was the one in charge of interrogating him."

"I remember that. He was working with Shockwave and Deadlock on Perceptor's detainment," Onslaught stated to them grimly.

"The two Decepticons I hated the most were also responsible for Perceptor's torture. It only makes sense," Beachcomber growled at the mention of the two mechs. "Can't believe Perceptor was still friendly with him after that incident."

"It truly does make no sense," Swindle agreed with him with a hand to his chin in thought. "You would think those two would have a grudge after that."

"Yeah… I don't get it," Beachcomber remarked as well to them with a confused rub of his head. "He knows how I feel about Shockwave, but he always insisted on giving him another try. I never understood it."

"It is certainly a mystery, but I doubt it has much relevance to what's going on now," Jazz said with a shrug. "He's suspicious of being the mole to Monobear, but can he possibly be a mole to the Decepticons as well?"

"He can only be guilty of so much," Swindle agreed with them with a nod. "He can't be that deceptive, right?"

"Anyone can lie as much as they want," Skywarp said to Swindle with a sidelong glance over to the spy in the room. Jazz noticed the look from the teleporting mech and wince at that but didn't say anything to him about the look.

"It's true. People can lie as much as they want and Perceptor could've been lying to everyone from the start. We got no choice but to doubt everything that we know about Perceptor until we get a straight answer from him," Jazz informed them.

"Good luck getting that with how clammed up he is," Skywarp scoffed at the Autobot. "I've been in the same room with him for a while now and the moment anyone brings up his motive datapad, he refuses to speak up about it. I can see why Vortex was brought in to get him to talk. He's a tough one to crack."

"Well, that makes interrogating him much more difficult… we'll need hard facts to get him to talk," Jazz stated firmly to them. "I'll be doing my best to find information on him so that we can finally find out the truth of all this."

"We have no choice but to do that," Onslaught agreed with him with a firm nod of his own.

XXX

Knock Out sighed as he did his daily check-up on Hound to make sure the Autobot was healing up just fine. Said check-up involved checking his vital signs, making sure a healthy amount of energon was mainlined into him, and making sure the wounds didn't get infected or rusted. Hound, for his part, kept recharging through the procedure, being a deep sleeper. This made Knock Out's job much easier as he carried out the process, finishing up with haste as the green mech was finishing up his recharge cycle and starting to wake up again.

"Ugh," the Autobot moaned as he came online with Knock Out done and cleaning up after himself. "Is it another day already?"

"Yes, it is, my sleepy patient," the doctor remarked to him as he stood over the laying mech. "Have you remembered anything yet?"

"Remember? No, I haven't yet," Hound sighed to him. "I want to, since it would help us get out of this hellhole together."

"Well, one would think so, but if Monobear is true to his word-"

"Which is a big if."

"Yes, but if he's honest in what he said, then why isn't the first person that remembered their lost history spoken up about it?" Knock Out questioned the mech with a finger to his chin in thought at that, which made Hound think about it as well.

"…Then Monobear lied. That's the proof of it," the preservationist decided confidently with a nod, but with a noticeable look of disapproval of the one-optic doctor.

"There's more then one possible outcome, Hound. You should know this and it's equally as likely as the suggestion you just proposed," the Decepticon chided him with a look of annoyance. "That, of course, being that they did remembered it, but has decided not to inform us of this for some reason."

"I doubt it," Hound immediately brushed him off. "There's no reason for them to do. They would tell us to help us all survive."

"My, your optimism is very, fragging annoying," Knock Out remarked with a huff. "Don't rely on the kindness of people here. People are out for blood still and they'll lie to carry it out. Quit acting like everyone will play fair. Especially with Smokescreen and Dead End still around being a pain in our aft."

"Yeah… that's true, both of those unpredictable variables are in play…," the preservationist agreed with him. "I'll admit, if either of them did regain their memories, it's likely they would do something. Something very bad."

"Exactly. So, stop acting like everything is just peachy," Knock Out chided him with a disapproving wave of his finger.

"Yeah, I guess… now, what about my ability to leave this place?" Hound quickly switched the topic of the conversation. "I want to be able to stay with Rewind tonight, if I can."

"I think there's a good possibility you're fit enough to finally leave the Med-bay, but there might still be a chance that you won't be able to leave if you don't perform adequately enough for me," the doctor informed him. "Your wounds are healing fine and there's no signs of infection or rusting, so everything about you seems healthy."

"Sounds like you can let me go right now," Hound remarked with a wry chuckle to him. "Why do you still keep me here?"

"Better to be safe then sorry," Knock Out remarked to him with a shrug. "I will not be held responsible if you suddenly collapse for no reason. It's the same as in the real world." Hound rolled his optics at him as he just relaxed on the cold, metal table.

"I hate doctor's orders," Hound grumbled, more to himself then anyone else, but Knock Out could still make out how annoyed the preservationist was. Still, the doctor decided not to further incite him and just ignored the Autobot's comment. Instead, now that he was awake once again, Knock Out chose to question him about another thing. He pulled a datapad from his subspace and addressed the bitter mech.

"By the way, last night, I ran into Rewind as I was coming in here," Knock Out stated to the Autobot, who was looking back now in interest.

"How was he?"

"He was physically fine, but he added a bit… odd," the Decepticon informed him with a hum. "I told him that we had confirmed that Chromedome couldn't be the mole and he-"

"Wait, what? You guys figured out who the mole is?" Hound interjected, making Knock Out hold his face in exasperation as he just realized that Hound was the only one out of the loop on the events of the mole hunt.

"My apology, Hound. It appears I forgot to mention the results of the investigation into the mole to you," Knock Out apologized before removing his hand to steer his gaze to him. "The Combaticons decided on a unique solution to figuring out who the mole is, with them breaking into the rooms of the deceased and claiming their motive datapads from the third motive. None of the datapads they found said that their secret was the mole, which left Perceptor unaccounted for."

"So, wait, you're saying Perceptor is the mole? How's that possible?!" Hound wondered in disbelief.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Knock Out said to him with a shrug of apathy. "I don't know him at all, so I can't say. All I know is that Perceptor's datapad is the sole datapad that is missing, which must make him the mole. Any sane person would come to the same conclusion with all the evidence that has been presented to us, as well as the evidence that has not been presented. Since Perceptor's has been disposed of inside the incinerator, that must mean his is a great secret that he'll go to any length to keep hidden. The only secret that comes to mind is him being the mole, which must be the answer. Perceptor insists on his innocent but refuses to offer a credible excuse for his actions and divulge the contents of the datapad."

"And you think that's enough to declare him guilty?" the Autobot questioned him.

"Yes, I find it more then enough," Knock Out answered his question. "It's the only logical answer, after all. No other solution makes sense."

"But…" Hound couldn't muster another word to come out of his mouth, unable to offer a credible defense for the Autobot Scientist. Knock Out, for his part, could notice the visible distress on his face and knew it was tough for the mech to suddenly deal with all the new information.

"Listen… hearing all this from me just now is difficult, I understand, but it's the truth. You can talk to everyone else about it when you're able to get up and they'll confirm exactly what I'm saying," the doctor assured him with a comforting pat on the mech's shoulder. "Of course, the last one you probably want to hear it from is someone like me, who has no bedside manners, but you have to know about it from someone at some point. It just came from me in this case."

Hound was quiet at that, but he gave a sigh soon enough before looking back to Knock Out's optics. "I… guess you have a point," he agreed reluctantly with the red-and-white Decepticon. "I guess I should've prepared for this at some point, but at least it means that Chromedome wasn't ever the mole. At least that'll let Rewind rest easy for once."

"Yes, speaking of Rewind, before I was telling you about the mole, I did see Rewind acting a bit odd earlier," the doctor reminded him.

"Oh, yes. What about that?" Hound asked him.

"Well, he seemed a bit out of it, to be honest," Knock Out explained with a shrug. "Acted a bit weird. Plus, I accidently stepped on this datapad. I wondered if you made this for him," he said as he offered the datapad for him. Hound was confused as he took it in his hand and looked it to see that it was the same drawing of Chromedome that he gave to Rewind, albeit cracked now. Hound's face scrunched up in confusion seeing this.

"W-what? Why did he leave this behind?" Hound wondered, running his hands across the datapad. "It makes no sense. He wouldn't throw this away. He wouldn't…"

"I don't know," Knock Out remarked to him apathetically. "Maybe your art isn't quite up to par for him, but I couldn't tell with how cracked it is."

"Shut it, you asshole! It's about the thoughts and feelings you put in the art," the Autobot fired back at him with a growl as he sat up and getting ready to stand up, something which Knock Out noticed and attempted.

"No, wait-"

"Shut up!" Hound told him as he brushed him aside to stand up. "You prissy braAAAGH!" As the preservationist stood up, the short tubing connected to him to keep him energized during his stay was ripped out painfully, causing the mech to cover the new wounds with his hands.

"This is exactly what I was trying to prevent," Knock Out chastised him as he quickly grabbed bandages, solder, and a clean washrag to cover the wounds.

"Frag… sorry for this," the Autobot apologized to him as the doctor went to work taking care of the wound, starting by washing the wound up to clean it.

"It's fine," Knock Out sighed to him as he was quick and efficient at washing it up and getting to work soldering it next. "Just don't do anything stupid like this again."

"Right, right, I'm sorry," he insisted with a sigh.

"Yeah, sure… but because of this, I'm afraid it's likely I'm going to have to keep you in here for another night," Knock Out informed him as he closed the wound, Hound glaring at him while gritting his teeth to keep from yelling in pain from it.

"You fucking kidding me?" Hound badgered the Decepticon as Knock Out didn't lose his cool.

"It's your own fault for creating this wound, Hound. This wouldn't have happened if you didn't rip it out yourself," the surgeon reprimanded him as he worked with a deft hand wrapping the gauze around his arm. "Let this be a lesson for you about being so impetuous." The Autobot glared at him for that comment, but he stayed silent in reluctant agreement with him. He was the one at fault for harming himself. What resulted was a silence in the large room, the only sound filling the room being the sound of Knock Out at work, which ended soon enough as he made the gauze nice and tight to keep the treated wound from getting even worse.

"You done?" Hound asked as the doctor finished patching him up.

"Yes, I am. You can lay back on the slab," Knock Out ordered him and the preservationist nodded as he did as the Decepticon ordered, laying back on the slab to relax himself. The doctor sighed as he quickly cleaned up after himself to remove all the waste he made to patch up the Autobot and toss them aside in a nearby trash container. The doctor gave a sigh as he finished up before coming back to the seething Autobot. He silently appraised the prone figured on the slab before speaking to him again. "You can stop being like that. It'll do you no good."

"You think I don't know that?" Hound remarked back to him with a scowl before softening with a sigh. "I just… I just want to talk to Rewind and see how he's doing."

"Well, if you just want that, I'll go talk to him myself, just to make you feel better," Knock Out offered to the mech. "I'm sure you have no problem with that, right?" Hound glanced back at the doctor at the suggestion before looking away again.

"Uh… it would be helpful if you can do that," Hound agreed with a nod to him. "I just… need confirmation that Rewind is still okay."

"Shouldn't be a problem for me," the medic assured him with a nod. "I'll take good care of him for you while you heal… again."

"Yeah, yeah…"

XXX

"Why are you hear?" Hoist asked Smokescreen as he followed him into the infirmary on the fitst floor. Smokescreen was accessing a cabinet of medicine bottles above the sink on the left side of the room, away from the examination table on the other side and the folding screen at the back. "Doesn't seem like the place for you…"

"What else but the meds?" Smokescreen remarked back to him with smirk as he scanned the bottles to search for what he wanted. "Got all kinds of good meds in here. Good for healing all sorts of ailments… or aiding in carrying out a murder," he remarked with a knowing wink to the repairmech.

"I take it by that tone of voice you have experience with carrying out such a plan…" Hoist remarked, disgust evident by the tone of his voice.

"Third victim. Small-time grifter who wanted to make it to the big leagues. Intended to do so by screwing me and Swindle out of a sweet deal that we worked on together," Smokescreen said with a hum to him "I learned about it through a source and went to talk to her in her shitty apartment, much as she disagreed about that. Came with a nice bottle of Iacon Spirits, laced with these cooling crystals."

"They're used to cool the body down to prevent from overheating," Hoist muttered as he remembered the qualities of the medicine.

"That it does but take in too much and it causes a widespread cooldown that freezes the systems and knock the person out cold. It mixed in with the natural crystals in the bottle, so she didn't notice a difference as she drank some. Pretty soon, she was out cold, and I arranged a little… accident," he recounted with a grin. "The moron was also an amateur fire dancer, so it was easy to create a little house fire there. A tragically fatal one for her."

"She didn't survive, I take it?" Hoist asked.

"No, she didn't… and a few others were caught in the fire as well, but they all survived, if not without some serious injuries," Smokescreen informed him with a bored sigh. "It was sloppy of me. If that crook was the only casualty, there might've not been too serious of an investigation, but she wasn't. Too many got hurt and they found enough evidence that it was an arson case."

"Yet, you were never arrested for any such arson," Hoist remarked, crossing his arms at him. "You caused harm to so many people and got away with it."

"What can I say? It was a shitty apartment with no cameras. Without video evidence of me entering the apartment and everything going up in flames, there was little evidence to make a suspect. Merely people of interest to the victim, such as myself and Swindle. Bunch of people had a possible motive to kill her, but I made sure to get rid of all the evidence of her betrayal. In the end, Swindle thought she died as an ally rather than a betrayer," the gambler remarked with a grin that was really making Hoist uncomfortable. "He had no idea I took care of that little schemer."

"You seem so… proud of your work," the green mech said as he took a step back to keep some distance from the two of them.

"Maybe a little bit… but it did teach me a valuable lesson," Smokescreen remarked with a sigh as he put the bottle of crystals back in the cabinet. "That was the closest I've come to being arrested for something big. Causing unneeded casualties would only draw more unwanted attention to myself, so I made sure from then on to prevent any more unnecessary victims."

"The bomb you planted says otherwise."

"We all have our slip-ups," Smokescreen remarked nonchalantly with a wave of his hand. "Just figured I ought to do it, and by the time it was probably better for me to back off doing it, I was really too invested in it to give up."

"Really bit you in the aft in the end," the repairmech stated scornfully to the mech with a growl to him. "In the end, we all know your true self now."

"That is true… not that it bothers me much. If the world is as fucked up as Monobear claims it is, we will have no choice but to work with each other," the serial killer reminded him. "So regardless of what you think of me, fact of the matter is, we got no choice. We're in this together."

"So long as you don't betray us," the loyal Autobot reminded him sternly. "You're still the prime suspect if anyone is killed, I'm sure you understand."

"Of course, I do," Smokescreen agreed as he stepped closer to the repairmech, who in turned stepped back to the bed in the room. "We've talked about this before, Hoist, and I promise you. I will not murder anyone during this game. I know if I do such a thing, they'll immediately suspect me. I'm not stupid."

"I-I know you're not, but you're still a very dangerous individual," the green Autobot insisted to him. "I truly believe you're the person that everyone here trusts the least at this moment."

"Well, no one can say you don't speak your mind," the morally-ambiguous Autobot remarked as he turned back to look through the medical cabinet again. "You are probably correct in your assessment that I'm the least trustworthy one here, but Dead End and Perceptor certainly draw an evil eye or ten." He grabbed a couple of bottles and looked at them side by side to compare the two of them.

"That is certainly true. I do wonder if Perceptor is trustworthy or not… but I've put my trust in the wrong people before," he said in an accusatory fashion to him.

"You sure did," Smokescreen remarked to him with his own grin. "You really ought to be more careful with that."

"I suppose…" Hoist murmured in agreement with him before looking over to him again. "So, this AI… Khepri? What do you think of them? Since, you know, they told you their name."

"Well, they are certainly very odd," Smokescreen can confirm to him with a nod. "But their line of logic is very sound, and they offer good suggestions."

"What do you mean by that?" Hoist asked him.

"Because I question whether Perceptor is the mole or not," said a voice coming from beside him. Hoist jumped as he twisted around to see that Khepri was standing right next to him. The Monobear-colored AI grinned at the reaction he obtained from the scared mechanic as Smokescreen turned his head in confusion at the sudden entrance of the AI.

"You certainly have a habit of dropping in suddenly," the gambler remarked at the intrusion of the AI. "How did you get in here without going through the door?"

"Same as Monobear, of course," Khepri remarked to them with a huff. "You don't actually think he just magically teleports from place to place, right?"

"Um, well… he certainly seems to have an affect like that," Hoist remarked nervously. "He always pops out of nowhere with no warning. Certainly, makes me feel very paranoid at the thought that he can hear anything we say…"

"Yes, they certainly can, which annoys me whenever I have to make these cameras malfunction," the black-and-white drone remarked with a glare towards the gambler. "It annoys me how you keep talking about me. If you really need to talk about me, do that in Shockwave's room. That is permanently damaged and anything you speak in there won't be sent to Monobear. Remember that."

"Duly noted," Smokescreen remarked with a huff as he went back to going through the medicine cabinet.

"Uh, right… well, since you're here, can you explain what Smokescreen was talking about? You don't suspect that Perceptor is the mole?" the more moral Autobot asked the AI.

"Well, I don't have access to the same information as my master, but I've been watching you all interact as much as he has," the AI explained to the repairmech. "And I must say, the reaction from him was quite… unnatural."

"I noticed it too," Smokescreen mentioned from the medical cabinet. "It was like he couldn't actually believe we would accuse him, much less produce evidence for it."

"But you helped present the evidence accusing him of being the mole. Are you taking it back?" Hoist badgered him.

"I did and to be fair, the evidence still indicates that Perceptor is the mole, but there's something off about all this. Mainly, why was he unable to create a good excuse when he had all this time to create one? Someone as smart as him ought to be able to come up with one," Smokescreen explained to Hoist.

"Not to mention that he didn't even hide the fact that he already destroyed his datapad," Khepri added in. "Which, by the way, he did, but I don't think you needed me to tell you that. There's no way you can recover the remnants of it now since it's all gone up in flames in the incinerator."

"Well, whatever is on his datapad, he's deathly afraid of it being exposed," Smokescreen remarked with a hum. "I have no idea what in the world his is, but I doubt it's as worst as my secret."

"Everyone think their secret is the worse secret. Just because you think yours is the worse, doesn't mean the others won't think theirs is the worse one either," Khepri remarked. "From watching the footage, I can tell everyone is concerned over the contents of their datapad."

"That doesn't surprise me…" Hoist murmured. "I'm worried over my secret as well. Nobody else knows it so far and I rather keep it that way."

"If you so desire," Smokescreen remarked as he grabbed a blue, cylindrical bottle from the medical cabinet and closed it shut. "Still, Khepri, if you can get some info on Perceptor, that would be invaluable."

"I have been trying for a while now, but it's been a vexatious task," Khepri remarked with a light growl. "I don't have the necessary clearance level to access such information, so I've been doing my best to hack into it. It's not easy."

"Well then, I hope for results soon," the gambler said as he headed for the exit. "I'll stop by at Shockwave's room later tonight for info. I hope you have something by then."

"It's doubtful," Khepri admitted, "but I'll be doing my best."

"Well, thanks for trying to help," Hoist said to the AI with a nod. "You are quite the strange ally for us."

"I'm still not your ally. Remember that," Khepri warned him. "My loyalty is to my master, not you and I make sure all the rules in this academy is followed. So, I suggest not breaking them."

"Right, right…" Hoist muttered as he left the infirmary behind Smokescreen as they continued to walk through the halls together. "What is it that you got there?"

"Nothing that matters," Smokescreen assured him as he subspaced the medicine he got. "It's for personal use only." He turned to glare at Hoist. "Are you going to follow me everywhere?"

"Well… yes." Smokescreen visibly sneered at his protective measures before looking ahead. "Fine. We're heading to the bar."

"Okay…"