Chapter 5: Egress
'This is actually real.'
Jack sat upright on the medical berth, staring at his hands in the dim pre-dawn light that filtered through the few windows in the military hangar. He flexed and curled each finger, turning his servos this way and that, mystified that the metallic appendages responded in the exact same fashion his flesh and bone once had only a day prior. He put his middle digits against his thumbs, then snapped his fingers. Small sparks resulted from the friction of the metal scraping against itself, a subtle metallic ring permeating the air. He had the same number of digits and joints as he always did, and while he took comfort in that fact, he also had to admit that it was strange to not have fingernails anymore.
Not that he'd been particularly attached to having them in the first place, but they were just gone now. It hadn't been something he'd thought of before, but now staring at the places they should be and not seeing any trace that they'd ever been there before… It didn't make sense.
'Like not having individual toes,' he glanced towards his feet, shifting them around somewhat. Again his physical and mental perspectives clashed.
'It feels the same. It shouldn't but…'
A part of his mind still failed to fathom that this was anything more than a dream or hallucination. Almost as if he'd wake up and be in his normal body, in his bed, in his house, and he'd have another day of aches to suffer through. Yet the majority of him was grounded, as if this new form wasn't anything special or different. After all, how could it be when it felt this familiar?
It was all so new.
It was mundane.
He knew he shouldn't have towered over Arcee when he managed to sit up, and he certainly should not have been above eye-level with Ratchet, nevertheless he was. He hadn't been a few hours ago, but now it felt natural. He should have been disturbed by the clarity of his senses; everything from his vision, sense of smell, and his hearing felt like it'd been super-charged. The world seemed like a filter had been removed and he was only now witnessing everything as it really was. However his body seemed to default back on the notion that no, this was, in fact, completely normal, even if he was completely sure that each sensation was inexplicably altered.
The dissonance was surreal.
He was human.
He was not.
His bright gaze flicked towards where Ratchet and Arcee were sleeping in the opposite end of the hangar, both in their alt modes. He focused on the motorcycle, knowing the two-wheeler was deep in recharge; his time with her had taught him to understand when she was alert in her secondary form, and even though it was dark, he could clearly tell she was resting. Something about her just seemed dormant, or peaceful, like how she had been some afternoons in his garage all those years ago. Sometimes she'd drift off after particularly stressful days as Jack shared sparse, light conversation with her. He'd always noticed how the air seemed more calm when she relaxed, and for some reason, he got that same feeling now, but much stronger.
Shifting his eyes to the ambulance, he wasn't so sure about the medic. Something in his gut said that the mech was watching him closely. Jack never really saw Ratchet in this form often, but he'd swear the headlights would brighten a bit whenever he moved too much. It was why he hadn't moved from the berth even though he really wanted to stretch his legs.
A simmering tension permeated the air and rose when he fidgeted too much.
Hopefully he could walk now, his last attempt hadn't been successful.
"Good to see you back in the realm of the living," Ratchet snarked as Jack'd finally roused from his sleep. He was back at his terminal, typing up endless streams of data while occasionally glancing over.
The blue and silver mech sat up, dizziness making the world spin for a brief moment. He wanted to throw up, but he forced himself not to give into the nausea. He wasn't sure if Cybertronians could do that, nor did he want to find out. "God, I feel terrible."
"Wouldn't doubt it, calibrations always take some getting used to," the medic shrugged. "Though I must admit, I hadn't expected you to be so talkative while they were underway."
"I was awake?"
"Awake, but not fully aware," he explained with a wry grin. "I believe a human equivalent would be when someone is affected by anesthesia."
Horror slowly flooded the new mech's mind, "I didn't say anything too embarrassing, did I?"
"I'd say it was more entertaining than anything else."
"Oh no."
"Don't worry, those secrets stay with me."
Jack relaxed a bit at that, "promise?"
"Promise."
Fears allayed, he vented -only to be surprised at the way the sigh felt. Air moved through the multiple pathways evenly, a soft whooshing as it escaped the hidden exits along his body. He glanced downwards at his knees, try to determine where one of those openings were among the metallic plating.
"It's where you had hamstrings," Ratchet noted aloud as he paused typing, sparing the boy a look-over before returning to his work. "Vents clear out the joints, trying to keep debris out so that limbs can properly fold, twist, and, well, you get the idea."
"Oh, that, uh, actually makes sense."
"Of course," the medic rolled his optics. "When a large portion of your life is dedicated to the movement of plating, and switching between root and alt modes, everything needs to be perfect to function. We might be made of metal, but our species evolved these features over time, just as any other life adapts along their own courses of evolution. But," he once again stopped his work, and turned fully to face the young mech. "We also still require medics."
"And thank goodness for that."
The older 'bot gave a soft chuckle.
Jack shifted, sitting with his legs over the side of the berth, and looking down at the floor. 'God, I used to look up at this thing,' he thought absently.
"I wouldn't try walking just yet," Ratchet warned.
"Uh, why?"
"Ever stand too fast and lose your equilibrium?"
"Yes."
"Now, have you done that from this height? Or, can you imagine that on this scale?"
The thought of crashing down onto the hard concrete made the new mech's insides feel like they'd been frozen, "nope, no thank you."
"Your frame isn't used to your weight yet," the red and white mech walked over to his side and put a steady hand on his shoulder. "You can try to stand, but we take it slow, alright?"
"Alright," he agreed. Bit by bit he lowered his pedes to the floor, feeling Ratchet adjust his servo on his arm. The medic's grip was surprisingly strong, though not uncomfortable. Jack wondered if he was being overly cautious. Once his feet were solidly on the floor, he pushed up from the edge of the berth to stand.
He immediately fell, held up only by the older mech's support. Another wave of nausea hit him as he felt himself hoisted back onto the berth. The world seemed to spin for a moment before resettling. "Okay, that sucks."
"Which is why we take it slow. We can try again later, your systems are likely still fine-tuning everything. However, I'd hesitate to put too much pressure on a new frame right away; you risk damaging it, which could lead to far greater stress or complications during the later stages of maturity."
The mechling groaned at the idea of being bed-ridden again. "Isn't it a skeleton though? I should be able to stand at least."
"Jack," Ratchet released him arm. "I mean this in the most ca-"
"Your frame is softer because you're a kid," Arcee's voice cut through the air with a laugh as she slipped into the hangar. "You're basically a child in a suit of armor that you can't quite carry yet."
If he'd still been human, Jack knew his cheeks would have flushed with indignation. "Ouch," he said. "Tell me how you really feel."
The femme simply walked over with a shrug and a grin.
"She's not being facetious, though, a little more tact would have been more appropriate," Ratchet vented with a pointed glare. "Jack, we have centuries to quite literally grow into these forms and sizes. You did this in a couple of hours, I'm not surprised that even a simple action might be too much."
"I'm not going to be stuck sitting down for a hundred years, am I?"
"No," the medic glanced over at the scrawling data on the screen he'd been working on. "Perhaps in the next few hours? I'm unsure as this has not happened before, so I'd been attempting to calculate a time table based upon how long everything has taken so far."
"So that's why you needed the quiet," Arcee murmured. "No wonder you sent me out."
The youngest stared at the screen, a vague part of mind trying to grasp at the glyphs and data to make sense of it all. Some characters were recognizable but most were a wash of Cybertronian symbols. "Why would you need a time table?"
"Realistically, just to be aware of what to expect. Usually Sparklings and younger Cybertronians have certain milestones or features that help denote their age or personal level of development. Some are faster than others, some are much slower, but it's similar to why your physicians here would keep track of similar data for their patients. So far, everything's as expected, well, more or less."
"And what does that mean?" The femme pressed, shifting to face the medic.
"Jack has active weapons systems."
"How?" She sounded stumped. "Even I hadn't had those until I was tr-"
"I don't know," Ratchet cut in and threw up one of his hands. "Thus I was trying to figure out the time-table."
"Is having those bad?"
"Not necessarily, but we will need to be cautious."
From there the pair had excused themselves to discuss further, and left the young mech to himself. The last few hours had passed with fitful sleep -or recharge, as it was apparently now called. He found it difficult to relax and so rest was not easily achieved.
But he was bored, tired of sitting around and doing nothing; it'd been his life for the past few months at home, and he didn't want to keep up that streak now that he was here. Ugh, why couldn't he even walk?
Jack drummed his digits lightly against the surface of the berth, a quiet metallic tone responding at each touch. He missed how quiet his fingertips were when doing this. The light sound punctuated the silence in the hangar as morning crept through the windows, spilling grey light onto the floor. After a moment he stopped and shuttered his optics, focusing on navigating his own internal systems. If he was going to live like this, he might as well get used to it.
The feeling was akin to forcing yourself to breathe manually, suddenly becoming aware of a bodily function and then try to replicate it. The familiarity with how he went through everything was a bit unsettling. This was his first time doing so, and he was notoriously bad with computers, yet he was easily gliding through sub-systems and his own internal routes as if he'd been doing it all his life.
'What the hell.'
He shuddered a bit, caught between his instincts and his mind actively screaming that this was both the most routine and the weirdest thing he'd done in his life.
He looked through basic data, surprised to find that most of the information was coded in Cybertronian script. Great, he couldn't even read what he found. So he tried to access diagrams, a few propagating at the thought. He still didn't quite know what they meant, but at least it was a start. Pictures, at least, made a little bit of sense.
The one thing he couldn't find were his weapons, or anything hinting that they were there at all. He searched his systems again, and they never appeared.
'Active systems my ass.' He thought. 'Wait.'
Active.
Active.
What had Raf told him? You can toggle between active and inactive, right? Maybe…
He searched his protocols for inactive systems, and there it was.
Locked.
It was like poking a limb when he had slept on it for too long: it didn't respond, there was no feeling whatsoever. He tried to access the sub-system to no avail, it simply, stubbornly, remained closed. A bitter taste filled his mouth. He didn't want to use them, just figure out what they were and how to not accidentally turn them on. He'd always been shy of any tools the 'bots had used, whereas Miko was more than eager to try them. Heck, he'd pulled her away from them more times than he could count. With a huff, he concentrated on the files, not thinking of anything besides where they were on his body.
He felt the plates on his arms become electric, like having goosebumps underneath the armor. They didn't move, and the feeling faded away within a second.
'Okay, I might have guns there,' he figured he should have expected as much. Everyone seemed to have something stowed away in that area as far as he'd seen.
It was then he felt the same sensation at two points on his back. He could tell the plates there wanted to move, to do something. Open? Yeah, open. Something was inside, locked in his extra plating. He could tell that there was something hidden that could disengage or be removed, but what?
Jack paused, awakening from his meditative state and opening his optics. He knew cannons or blasters were common, but what was in his back? Without access to the systems, he wouldn't be able to tell.
Something in his head told him that was the reason everything was shut down. It was dangerous.
He was dangerous.
'Of course,' the thought clicked into place. 'They're not going to let someone with no training run around with weapons. Duh.'
A soft creak pulled his attention to the door atop the hangar's catwalk where Fowler stood, hand still on the brass knob, staring at him with his mouth agape.
"Jackson?" He mouthed, pointing at the new mech with his free hand.
The blue and silver figure nodded slightly, giving a shy smile.
The man drew his hand to his face, likely muttering a string of colorful words, before he shut the door and walked as quietly as he could on the metal catwalk. He rushed over, his suit coat flapping a bit as his shoes clicked against the floor. With a final nervous step, he came to stop in front of the medical berth.
"You free to talk?" He asked in a low rasp, eying the sleeping Autobots on the other side of the hangar. "Want to watch the sunrise?" He shoved his hands in his pockets, fumbling a bit before pulling out some keys to the hangar's doors.
Jack warily stared at his pedes again. He wasn't sure if he could stand yet, and he didn't want to put Fowler in danger. Yet the urge to get out of this hangar was eating at his common sense, and damn it, he might as well try.
He lightly put his feet back on solid ground, careful to avoid the man. As he did so, he felt the hydraulics engage in his legs, something that hadn't happened before. With a push, he stood up, and oh god he was so high up and Fowler was so far down-
"Whoa," he caught the man murmuring. "How's the view from up there?"
Jack just gave a nervous chuckle, "it's uh, really different."
The agent knit his brows together, "they change- nevermind, let's go." He turned on his heel briskly to open the large door at the front of the hangar. The shutters rattled a bit, but not too loud, though Jack could feel Arcee staring at him now, awakened by the noise. He knew he was going to get an earful from her later, but that could wait.
"Come on," Fowler waved him over, an expectant tone in his voice.
The mechling stood, and without thinking, started walking.
Two things got his attention: how easy the motion was, and he was silent. Here he was, nearly thirty feet tall and made of metal, and he was more quiet than the man who'd gone before him. He felt the hydraulics and dampeners in his legs and waist flexing and contracting just as easily as his muscles once did, but now, feeling them in motion, he realized there were more of them. Much more.
'Huh, makes sense. How else are you going to support a multi-ton robot?'
He reached Fowler, who asked a whispered "how'd you do that" as they went outside into the soft pre-dawn glow.
The base was still, a few patrol jeeps rumbling off in the distance as they did their patrols, but all soldiers were noticeably absent. The warm gold of the sun's rays were inching into the violet sky, chasing away the cool night, and painting the gray buildings with dashes of light on their roofs.
"Your voice is different," the man spoke softly as they looked over the landscape.
"Most of me is different," he grimaced.
"I guess, I just hope not the important things."
"Never."
"Good."
"How's mom?"
"She's not taking this well," Fowler sighed. "We sent her back home a few days ago, when you first were removed from the tank. She just," he looked up at the new mech, and Jack noted the red in his eyes. He looked exhausted, the creases in his face more pronounced than usual. "She wouldn't stop crying."
Jack felt like something inside him broke, and he wondered if Cybertronians cried.
"I think she needs time," he went on. "Heck, I think we all do."
"I'm sorry," the youth replied, unable to think of what else to say. "I'm so fucking sorry."
A warm hand was placed on his leg, "it's okay kid, none of this, we just,-"
"Don't know what to do."
"Yeah." An uneasy pause stretched between them. "And that's why, I uh, damn it," Fowler looked down at the ground. "They want you to go with them back to Cybertron, and I think you should."
Jack said nothing, resisting the urge to scream as if felt like someone just ripped his heart out. "What?"
"Look," Fowler turned back up to face him, but the mechling refused to meet his gaze. "I don't want you drafted as a government agent or war machine, because those are my orders from the Pentagon. You cannot stay here, because they will try to coerce you into doing what they tell you, and I refuse to let that happen to you."
"I was going to join Unit E when I-"
"As an assistant! As council, not a soldier! You were given basic training tests, and quite frankly, you all failed. Now we know you did because of that thing in your chest making you fall behind, but I'd consider it a blessing in disguise."
"So you want me to go live on an alien planet that I do not know-"
"I want you to have a life!" The man raised his voice, which echoed a bit across the concrete landscape. "If you stay, you'll have that taken from you. At least there you can choose what you want to do."
"I don't feel like I have a choice right now."
"You don't, we've already talked with Prime about this."
"What the fuck," Jack hissed through clenched denta. A slight heat building at the two points in his back before he felt it forcibly shut off. "Can I at least say goodbye to everyone?"
"No, you're leaving today," Fowler stated. "We've rigged all of the data Ratchet's collected to be destroyed after you go. The entire base is in on it. Jack, no one wants a kid-"
"I'm a legal adult! I can make my own choices!"
"And would you actively choose to stay knowing you might be sent to foreign countries to kill people?" The man countered, "would you go into a village, looking for terrorists, only to end up shooting civilians? Because that's what I did! And I live with that every goddamn day of my life!" The anger and shame in his words was palpable. "Boy, you do not understand what you'd be getting into, and I do. Prime does, hell, every single one of the 'bots and soldiers on this base does! So yes, right now, you do not have a choice. But believe me, it's not like you'd have one here anyways! You and I both know you wouldn't choose this!"
With that, the man turned away and stomped off, rubbing his face as he went.
Jack thought he heard him sniffling as a familiar tingle ran up the back of his head.
"How long have you been standing there?"
"The entire time," Arcee replied as she came to stand beside him. "I'm surprised he didn't wake up the base with his shouting."
"Are we actually leaving?" He hated how his voice cracked at the end of the question.
"Yeah," the femme sighed. "I wish we didn't have to, that it didn't come to this."
"Why? What's going on?"
"He got those orders in the middle of the night a bit ago, when you were still calibrating," she explained. "We were just telling everyone you were okay when he burst into the room, furious and, well, scared. We all were when told us what was going on."
The mech stared at the warming sky, watching the last few stars as they were washed away by the sun's rays.
"You've seen what we do, Jack, you've been in our fights, but could you imagine doing that to your own people?"
"No," he rasped. "I don't want to hurt anyone."
"That's what we thought, you even said as much."
"I did?"
"Yeah, like Ratchet said, you were awake during calibrations," she chuckled. "It was kind of funny that out of everything going on and everyone arguing, you picked up on that fact."
"Oh." He felt a heavy load of guilt settle into his shoulders. "I owe Fowler an apology."
"He knows, he's just worried."
"Guess we're both not good with goodbyes."
"Never been my strong suit either."
He cracked a smile at that. "So, when are we going?"
"As soon as Ratchet's done transferring and backing up the data he's collected."
The pair stood in their usual silence as the base started to come alive. A few strange looks were thrown their way, but they were mostly ignored by the crowds of soldiers and workers as they began their daily duties.
"So, do you know what my weapons are? They're blasters, right?" He eventually asked to fill the air and cut through the tension.
"To be honest, we couldn't figure it out," she shrugged. "Whatever you've got it's operating on a higher intensity and frequency than normal, so it has some serious armor-piercing potential. That also means it'll drain your energy faster. We locked it down until we've got a better set-up to see what they really are. My guess is that they're some sort of cannon, but I'm not an expert like Wheeljack or Ultra Magnus. Light weaponry is more my strong suit, not the bigger stuff like what the Wreckers or heavier frames use."
"I thought I was more along the lines of 'Bee and Smokescreen?"
"Jack, I'm a two-wheeler, so that's still above my grade," she snarked. "And I don't know what you are."
"Makes the both of us."
"I do know one thing though."
"Yeah?"
"I'm going to be the one asking you for rides now."
He couldn't help but laugh at that, and the femme stifled a light snicker.
"Come on," she elbowed his thigh. "Let's see if we're all set to go."
He followed her lead back inside the hangar, where Ratchet was waiting, hands clenching and unclenching as he shifted a bit.
"I heard shouting," he looked at the mechling, who just nodded.
"Yeah, it was a little rough."
"Are you okay?"
"I don't know, but it's not like I have time to figure it all out."
"You will," the reply sounded like a firm promise. "But we have to get there first." With that said, he went over to the Spacebridge and activated it.
The green and white maw of the vortex opened and Jack found his legs frozen. He was leaving.
Leaving.
Gone.
He didn't even get to say goodbye to his mom.
Now wonder she'd been crying non-stop.
She'd known.
"This isn't going to be the last time you see everyone here," Arcee cut through his thoughts.
"I hope that's true."
She took one of his servos in her own, and he idly was distracted by the size difference of their digits. She squeezed lightly, "I promise."
The scout let go and walked over to the dimensional rift, giving him a signal to follow.
Jack looked at Ratchet, who nodded. "The Cybermatter, the data, everything else has already been sent through. It's our turn now."
The mechling vented with a shudder, and wordlessly walked to the portal as the medic fell in step beside him.
The trio entered, and with a flash, they were gone.
The bridge closed behind them.
The sunlight filtered into the empty hangar, tinting the empty space gold as Fowler emerged from where he'd been observing in the shadows. He wiped his face, tears stinging his eyes. "Y'all better take care of that boy," he spoke to himself as he made his way to his office. "Else I'm going there myself to kick your tin-can asses."