Mirage could feel Soundwave inside him. He had been interrogated by the Host before in less civil circumstances. Those times had been awful but impersonal. He'd never got the impression the Decepticon had savoured the contact and he didn't now. Soundwave was just there, in his helm, participating in his thoughts.
Images from the Book Club meeting percolated to the forefront of his processor. Mirage didn't feel any pressure or urgency, or any of the vicious abrasive glee that was a signature of Vortex's hardlining. No arousal either, which was a unilateral relief. He stifled any rumination on his relationship with Thundercracker. Nor any reminiscence of prior interfacing. Quite inappropriate.
Little details highlighted themselves; the way SlipLane moved, his casual stance and confidence. His kinetics weren't familiar. Mirage tried to tally his mannerisms with Camiens he had met but there was no plausible cause to assume the Neutral had spent a long time on that planet. The spy had rather got the impression he had not. Perhaps the couple he'd met at the creche had come in on the same ship and might know the red grounder?
::negative:: Soundwave answered the unspoken question, reminding Mirage how much he disliked this sort of communication. It had sometimes been necessary to allow Blaster to filter intel. The Autobot Communication Specialist wasn't a telepath thus had to hardline but he was so adept that with good tech the difference was negligible. The noble preferred being given the courtesy to ask before being answered.
"Is there anything significant?" Mirage spoke out loud, hinting his conversational preference. A frisson ran down his spinal strut as Soundwave rummaged, running scans over the shared data in the background of his own helm. There was a noticeable pause before the Decepticon replied. During the lacuna, the Autobot deliberately did not tense. He vented evenly and waited with the composure expected of his caste.
"Affirmative." Soundwave said after he had disengaged. Another pause. Surely not a hesitation? Mirage wondered at his reticence. If there was something, then it needed discussion and follow-up. Unless of course he didn't have the clearance for a potential security incident.
"Am I dismissed?" The noble inquired placidly after a socially awkward passage of time.
"SlipLane is Jazz." The 'Con 3IC announced bluntly. It was very difficult to interpret his tone, likely one of the reasons why he used a vocal modulator, but Mirage detected a hint of something suspiciously like relief. Or satisfaction. He didn't imagine the Decepticons liked the idea of the Head of Autobot Spec Ops running about making his own fun.
"A rebuild?" He didn't boggle. Jazz was quite capable of reformatting himself if necessary. Usually with temporary prosthetics to disguise his frame for long infiltration missions. He'd never suffered from dysphoria or mode disassociation. But a full frame rebuild? Mirage didn't insult Soundwave by asking if he was sure. Still, he wondered at it.
"SlipLane under prior observation." The Host informed him. "Frame change and new alt-form cannot mask spark resonance."
"We're not amica." Mirage knew the Decepticons knew that. He had been chosen to support Tempest because of his lack of bonds. "And I can assure you Jazz is not a product of any Tower. You know what a storyteller he is. If he'd had any connection with any high caste, he would've told everyone he was the lost heir of House Decimus just for the charge."
"Sparks synchronise." Soundwave stated then expanded on the theme with a datapad pulled from his subspace. He handed it over like they were at a briefing. Mirage scrolled through the index. Thousands of articles, scholarly and not, on sympathetic links between the souls of Cybertronians. Some of it was declassified research into combiners. Extracts from medical treatises on split-sparks. Speculative philosophy on spectra. Romantic drivel about sparkmates. Therapeutic advice for potential creators.
"Primus." This was vorns of research. Simply collating this information would have taken significant work. Significant work barely tangential to the war effort. Mirage kept scrolling. Neutral scientists missing presumed deactivated. Golden Age thinkers whose work had survived in fragments. Stolen Autobot monographs. How long had the Host been looking into this?
"Proximity induced resonance." Soundwave tapped the datapad sharply, selecting an article before the spy could flick past it. "Note sources cited. Particularly results from prolonged stasis."
"Perceptor needs to see this." Mirage read. Much of the details were too specialised, and the jargon was dense but he could follow the premises. The results of the study suggested extended contact could induce harmonic resonance in sparks. The effects were subtle though notable within long-term work groups. Measured in decavorn. The crews of the Ark and the Nemesis had lain dormant together for thousands of vorn! What did this mean?
"Autobot Perceptor still at large." There was more than a hint of grimness in the Decepticon's tone. He knew who they needed and didn't have.
"Have you shown this to your scientists?" The question was rhetorical. What Mirage wanted to ask was 'have they verified this?' but he wasn't sure if Soundwave would answer that question.
His flat look was reply to both.
"Jazz didn't send me here." Mirage sounded defensive to his own audials. He didn't know exactly why he was defending himself. If the Head of Decepticon Intelligence thought he was involved with his former boss, there would be no appeal. He'd back in a cell before shift change.
"Affirmative."
The spy rather got the impression they were missing chunks of the conversation. Mirage wondered if Soundwave was like this with Megatron or some other mech he presumably liked. Did he chat casually with his symbionts? Marshalling himself, the Towerling tried a different tack.
"Jazz didn't trust that you'd keep the terms of the truce. He said we'd be reprogrammed if not executed." Mirage spoke urgently. He didn't want to have betrayed a comrade. "If he's on Cybertron, it's to check up on us. To make sure we're safe. He's not here to restart the war." He meant to stop there but the words forced their way out. "We know you've won."
"Do you really?" Thundercracker asked from the doorway. He had Tempest in his arms, half-awake and fussing. Mirage took the sparkling automatically, venting rhythmically to soothe them both.
"We are far from happy about it." The noble tried not to gripe like Gears. "Some of us were willing to risk coming home." It wasn't as bad as he had feared. "When Jazz sees the rebuilding, the parolees, and the demobilisation, he'll know this isn't a trick."
The Decepticons shared at look. Neither spoke. Thundercracker poured himself a cube, peering ruminatively at the liquid. Rations were well up on what they had been during the war. It was weird to be able to see through the energon. No clots, grit, or half-processed lumps. Soundwave resumed washing dishes.
"He will." Mirage asserted in the face of their silent disbelief. Jazz wasn't an ideologue. He might not leap to trust, it was still early days, but he wasn't delusional. Tempest beeped, tugging at his cowling. The racer sat down to feed him. "If I spoke with him, he'd..."
"Absolutely fragging not!" Thundercracker cut him off. "You are not going anywhere near that slagger."
"Are you going to arrest him?" The noble inquired of Soundwave coolly. He did not rise to his conjunx's ultimatum. There would be no crass public dispute. Perhaps they would discuss the matter civilly at a later time. Perhaps. The Seeker could continue to make all the noise he liked. For the moment Mirage's interest was firmly on the Host's intentions.
"Parolee not authorised." Soundwave did not turn around from the sink. He clearly did not expect a protest.
Mirage coaxed Tempest not to chew on his line and did not protest. He would in fact abide by the strictures of his parole. He would not endanger himself by searching out Jazz or trying to surreptitiously arrange an intel drop. No one would find grounds to complain of his conduct, not even a dictatorial jet agitatedly flaring his wings.
The spy wouldn't need to do a thing. Jazz was more than capable of finding out where he was and if the infiltrator wanted to make contact, he could. All Mirage needed to do was wait. He knew that. Jazz knew that. And Soundwave certainly knew that. What remained to be seen was how the 'Cons behaved while they were waiting.