Part 5

In retrospect, Jazz sometimes wished he was wrong.

The firefight had been quick but brutal, a battle over an oil pipeline through the middle of the United States, with Decepticons vanishing before the Autobots arrived, and then popping up from the very same ravines and plateaus that Prowl had earmarked as good cover. Well, never let it be said that Prowl was wrong. It was very good cover indeed. A shame it had worked entirely for the Decepticons.

Jazz's only real comfort was that he was the only one taken, pinpointed with a powerful electromagnetic pulse that had him waking up over some mech's shoulder. Waking up in an empty steel room, his head still throbbing, he was grateful that at least there wasn't another Autobot lying dead in front of him.

Heavy chain wrapped around his pedes, locking him on his knees, and the same chain bound his wrists and kept his arms wrenched behind his back. It wasn't pleasant but it wasn't the worst predicament he'd ever been in. He'd been caught a handful of times before and every time he managed to escape.

Of course, he hadn't been kneeling in front of Soundwave specifically, but there was a first time for everything.

What truly upset him, however, was not how Soundwave had caught him in front of all of his friends and subordinates. Rather, Jazz felt a mountain of disgust at the datapads piled on the consoles and scattered around the floor, with painfully familiar titles on each one.

"I should've known," Jazz muttered, gazing around the room. "You were writing them, too."

"Affirmative," Soundwave said, checking the chains one more time. "Autobot stories inferior. Soundwave's, superior."

Jazz's sensors tingled to have the larger Decepticon so close. He'd seen Soundwave destroy mechs on the battlefield, and to have his enemy holding his chains, venting air across Jazz's cheek, made the saboteur hyper-aware of how much danger he was in. He jerked reflexively on the chains, tensing as Soundwave's hands swept over his arms, ghosting across his bonds once more.

"Superior trash," Jazz said. "Why'd you do it? To get into the Ark's database?"

Soundwave nodded once. "One infected datapad among many, not easy to discover. Amidst hundreds of uploads and downloads, easier to hide."

"Knew it," Jazz growled. "I knew that filth was gonna bite us in the aft!"

Soundwave chuckled, a sound unnerving in how hollow it was, how lacking in tone and pitch. There was a flare of heat behind Jazz, almost uncomfortable, and he turned away from the Decepticon.

"Torture?" he asked. "Already? You ain't even asked any questions yet."

"Not torture," Soundwave assured him. "Rendering Autobot's bonds permanent."

"What?" Jazz pulled again and found the chains a little tighter and stiffer. With widened optics, he skipped a vent as he realized what had happened. Soundwave had melted the locks and welded his chains, intending to keep him on his knees for...how long?

"I...think you been reading too many of your own stories," Jazz muttered.

"Query," Soundwave said, ignoring Jazz's comment and leaning in close. "What lies beneath your visor? Multiple stories fixate on possible answers."

Without a sound, the Decepticon reached up and touched the blue visor.

Locks snapped in place, sending a tiny vibration up through Soundwave's fingertips. Jazz grinned, and it was impossible to tell if he was staring past Soundwave or straight at him.

"Come on," Jazz chuckled, "you didn't think it'd be that easy, did you?"

"Visor, only thin polycarbon," Soundwave said. "Easily breakable."

"Aw, you really wanna break the shiny robot so quickly?" Jazz asked.

He had little mobility left, locked in place by those chains-and were they really welded back there? He eased his fingers along the chain and hissed. Yup, still hot, too-but chains or no chains, he was mobile enough to just so casually tilt his head away from Soundwave.

"We haven't even gotten through the traditional interrogation posturing," Jazz said. "Y'know, 'you'll never get away with this, you evil fiend' and 'despair, Autobot, for now you shall know the true might of the Decepticons'!"

Soundwave said nothing for several seconds.

"Soundwave, not Starscream."

"Now see," Jazz chuckled, "that's something we should talk about. All our files say you don't have a sense of humor, but clearly you must. You listen to Starscream all day. You gotta have a better sense of humor than me, although that's a pretty tall order."

The Decepticon revealed nothing. Soundwave had to have some kind of facial expression, didn't he? But the visor and the faceplate masked everything. Was Soundwave peering at him in curiosity, or was he glaring in anger? In a way, Jazz preferred dealing with Starscream. At least his emotions were obvious, if screamed in one's audio horn.

"Jazz's visor," Soundwave said, prodding at one side. "Has physical locks, or an interface port?"

"You got a real one track mind," Jazz grumbled, turning his head again with a disdainful swish. "All this yummy tactical information stored in my cortex ripe for the picking, and you're stuck on my visor."

"Assertion, incautious interfacing with Autobot specializing in subterfuge not likely to end well."

While he spoke, Soundwave continued to examine the visor, ultimately spotting a tiny interface port near Jazz's temple. He touched one fingertip to the slot, grabbing his prisoner by the chin when he tried to shy away again.

"You feeling lucky?" Jazz said in a tone that promised violence. "You don't even know what nasty little surprises I got in this visor."

Jazz made a tiny sound of surprise when he felt something nudging into the slot. Since when did Soundwave have digital interface jacks?

"Luck unnecessary. Soundwave, superior."

Jazz jerked out of Soundwave's grasp, but not before he felt a wisp of code slip through the interface into his visor. Blocked from the rest of his systems by his immediate quarantine, it slipped like smoke around his visor's anti-viral subroutines, stalling each attempt at deletion as it coaxed the locks with false permissions.

Few mechs with visors bothered with independent systems for them. With so much space used only for more detailed heads up displays, visors normally held no vital data or even much storage memory. Jazz was unusual in that he had two anti-virus programs, one diagnostic tool and a converter to play earth cartoons, but that left no room for a real packet of malware defense. His active programs resided in various other ports, and with his visor quarantined from the rest of his body, he suddenly had no access to them.

"Why do you have to be such a creepy slag?" Jazz muttered. "Just break the damn thing like anyone else."

"Broken visor would lead to broken optics," Soundwave said. "Outcome, undesired."

"You suddenly afraid?" Jazz growled. "You too scared to try to hack my cortex, so you're just gonna bust open my visor? You're supposed to be the best in Megatron's gang of thugs."

The visor's fasteners clicked as they unlocked. Jazz sent command after command, but he was shut out of his own controls. Nothing but the locks were affected, but even as he undid the quarantine, the anti-virus routines trickled into his visor, slow to kill Soundwave's program and repair the damage.

"Force download..." Soundwave hesitated. "Not of immediate importance."

Jazz frowned. Not good. Interrogations had a set routine to them. Break the routine and they were in unknown territory, not where a chained Autobot wanted to be. If secret plans and codes weren't what Soundwave wanted, then what did Jazz have to steal?

"What do you-"

"Release catch is here?" Soundwave lay his hand on Jazz's helm, running his thumb along the rim of his visor.

"Whoa!" Jazz leaned away too fast, losing his balance and landing on his side. "Bad touch!"

He squirmed along the floor, knowing it was useless but trying to shy away, crying out in frustration as Soundwave cupped a hand beside his face.

Soundwave paused, narrowing his optics not in anger but in confusion. "Jazz...in pain?"

"No, I don't want you taking it off!" Jazz jerked hard, managing to roll onto his other side. It was a small victory, getting away from Soundwave's hand. "You don't take off your visor! Leave me mine!"

Long silence followed. Jazz, who'd curled up as much as his chains would allow, felt Soundwave's presence lift away. Did the Decepticon mean to hurt him? With shuddery vents, Jazz chanced looking up, and found Soundwave sitting beside him.

"Condition understood," Soundwave said. "Both visors must be removed."

"Wait, no," Jazz started, shaking his head once. "That ain't what I-"

He fell silent as Soundwave reached up, pressing the sides of his visor until the lock released. Soundwave held either side with both hands, then paused. A moment passed. Soundwave didn't move, except to run his fingertips lightly along the top of the visor.

"I begin to understand your nervousness," Soundwave admitted.

"Ain't so easy, huh?" Jazz said. "Ain't so-"

Soundwave drew his visor down and off, holding it in his lap for a moment. He didn't move, venting for a full cycle. Then he opened his optics, staring steadily at Jazz.

Jazz stared back, chuckling once despite himself.

"S'that why you wear a red visor?" he asked. "'Cause it's a uniform? Gotta have red optics?"

Instead of the usual shade of Decepticon red, burning gold optics looked back at him, as intimidating as his visor but warmer, clear and intently focused. They flicked and turned like any other mech's, but Jazz would have sworn that he felt the strength of Soundwave's gaze as it swept over him. The Decepticon didn't try to hide how he studied him, moving from his bound pedes and wrists up past his hood, lingering on the soft cables of his throat...and finally resting on Jazz's own visor.

This time Jazz felt pinned by that gaze, unmoving as Soundwave crept over him again, gently turning up the visor and drawing it away. At the last second, Jazz shut his optics and turned his head, shuddering at the Decepticon's touch.

"Query," Soundwave said softly, "why this fear?"

Ridiculous. Jazz scolded himself, disgusted at how he reacted. He'd withstood broken fingers, torn plating, beatings and ripped cables, even the pain of a forced interface dragging data out of him. But that data had been deliberately corrupted; it had been part of the plan. It wasn't this gentle touching, intimately examining the edges of his armor, touching the vulnerable rims of his optics. This was unpredictable, unplanned. Out of his control.

"Don't make me," Jazz whispered. "I've never looked at anyone like this before."

"Is...Soundwave so inferior?" the other mech asked, a plaintive note coloring his normally empty voice. "That Autobot would prefer standard procedure force download?"

"Hell of an option you're giving me," Jazz said, laughing once again at the sheer insanity of this situation. "Torture or...or whatever this is."

"Plot of Spec-Ops Mission 98, Jazz's Interrogation at Soundwave's Pedes," was the immediate answer.

Shock made Jazz look up. A soft vent rewarded him, and Soundwave's optics widening in surprise.

Light, light blue...Jazz's optics gleamed starry bright, nearly perfectly clear and shiny with a faint blue tint. Soundwave bent closer, enthralled with the glow cast between them, cupping Jazz's face in his hands.

"Jazz...superior," Soundwave murmured.

The compliment rolled off of him, lost as Jazz processed what he'd said earlier.

"You're acting one of those out?" Jazz whispered, aghast. "Are you serious?"

Soundwave frowned. "Soundwave not desirable?"

Jazz opened his mouth to answer...then paused. Here he was, chained up, visorless, under one of the most feared mechs of the entire Decepticon army, and yet Soundwave was waiting for his cue. And if Jazz didn't play this right, he could end up force downloaded and then Primus knew what else.

So. He needed to interface with Soundwave.

Suddenly far too hot, he vented several times, keeping Soundwave's gaze. Why was he so calm and cool in the face of torture, but take off his visor and he suddenly couldn't think straight? Soundwave put his hand on Jazz's pelvic joint and the spy's processors scrambled in a way that had nothing to do with fear of shut down.

"Soundwave..." Jazz closed his optics. "I've never done this before."

The Decepticon nodded once. "This outcome one of several predicted scenarios. Soundwave, proceed with all caution."

"Why you gotta make it sound like..." Jazz groaned, twisting his chains and wincing when they dug into his joints. "Like I ain't tied up and you ain't on top of me?"

Soundwave blinked. "Autobot, never read Spec-Ops Mission 98?"

Jazz frowned. "No."

That seemed to throw a monkeywrench into Soundwave's plans.

"Autobot, read any Spec-Ops missions?"

For such a fearsome mech, Soundwave sounded a little lost. He adjusted his grip on Jazz, no longer so certain of himself.

So Soundwave had a thing for those trash stories. Had even written a few. And while he didn't know what was in those stories, Jazz could see Soundwave's consternation clearly. No wonder the Decepticon kept that visor on. His optics gave away everything.

Jazz almost smiled. There was his angle.

"I usually live Spec-Ops missions," Jazz said slowly. "What exactly was in that story?"

Now Soundwave tensed, growing warmer against Jazz as his cycles sped up. Yes, Jazz thought, self-conscious about our fantasy, are we?

"Decepticon..." Soundwave cleared his filters in a quick cough. "Yields...to Autobot persuasion."

"'Persuasion'?" Jazz echoed, a little disbelieving. "Of...?"

"Ethical considerations," Soundwave said slowly, sounding out the words very carefully as if afraid he was admitting too much. "Of political situation."

Jazz narrowed his optics, looking at him sideways as if Soundwave might make more sense. "You saying that Spec-Ops Mission 98, Jazz Sexes the Decepticon Out of Soundwave is less a fantasy and more a...manual?"

Soundwave made a noise between a hard brake and a kink in his voice processor, as if Jazz had said something terribly improper. But he didn't back off, and his golden optics stared at something on the far wall so he didn't have to look at Jazz.

"Autobot...welcome to experiment and find out."

TBC...