Life didn't get better and Jazz's situation didn't change, but he did. He went on more missions with Midnight's team. He found more traitors for Branchbinder. He killed a few more times—mostly guards on missions, and once when Branchbinder had sent him to bring in a mech who'd tried to leave. He'd caught up to the deserter, but the mech hadn't cooperated.

Jazz felt less awful about that one. If he'd brought the mech in alive, they'd have tortured him.

He practiced moving silently until he could sneak up on Midnight. He trained with Branchbinder until he could hold his own, and his superior couldn't hurt him anymore unless Jazz let him. Swallow tried to teach him to hack, but he was already better than her so that didn't last long. He built up different personas for different situations. In the lounge he was everyone's friend—talkative, a little gossipy, clever, well-liked... On missions, he was focused and determined and obedient. For Branchbinder, he went through different stages. Once the other mech could no longer easily overpower him in a fight, Jazz started talking back to him a little more. It was a dangerous game—provoking Branchbinder—but danger kept life from getting too dull and repetitive.

He got used to it.—used to being here, to pretending for some that he was happy and for others that he cared about his job.

And he avoided being alone, because when there was no one to pretend for he wasn't sure who he was. He wasn't sure he wanted to know who he was. .

He also avoided the twins, because they reminded him of who he had been before all of this. He did keep an optic on them, though. They got into trouble fairly often, but they seemed to at least be trying to keep their helms down. They were a little more open about being unhappy here, which worried Jazz. He didn't want them to do anything really rebellious, because he wasn't sure if he'd be able to turn them in.

Blackangle was another story. This was his element. Jazz was worried about him too, but for different reasons. He had already made it to team leader status, but his hunger for power was strong enough that it would either see him in charge of Quantum or dead. Most likely dead.

And Stonethrow was Stonethrow—as crazy as he'd ever been. He'd made friends, though, and seemed to be doing all right.

Jazz tried to find ways to talk to Lithium as well, but the mech was avoiding him. Eventually, Jazz gave up. He'd never be able to turn him in as a traitor anyway, not without some very solid evidence. He was too powerful, and too close to Hegemony.

Time went on. Quartexes passed. Jazz got used to everything. It was challenging enough that he didn't get bored. It might have gone on like that for vorns—after a while, even being alone stopped bothering him so much as he got used to the mech he was becoming. That mech he'd been before faded to nothing. He was Quantum, part of this great machine that preyed on the weak and protected the strong. He was strong.


"Ok," Midnight said, "This one's going to be tricky."

The gloom of the off-cycle was an old friend now.

"The doors to this place are heavily guarded and fortified, and there are cameras all over. So Beta team will stay back until Alpha team's all the way in. Also, we're going to need to keep radio silence. I think they have a comm. block anyway. Jazz, and Talon are going to sneak into a nearby building that runs on the same power grid. They'll shut the power down, and then the back-up power in the building will come on. Swallow and Murk will use the split astrosecond when the power's off to get a pede in the door of their central computer. Jazz, I want you to come and help with that once you're done with the power. If we get control of the security system we move. If we don't, then we retreat. Got it?"

Jazz nodded.

"Ok, go."

Jazz and Talon split off and headed for the building in question. It was an empty warehouse, though lights in one window bespoke that someone was using it.

Jazz found the back door unlocked and he and Talon crept in. It was dark, and the room was a lot fuller than Jazz had expected, strewn with boxes and large, oddly-shaped objects. Talon tripped over something that jangled loudly, and cursed.

Jazz wanted to pull out a light so he could see what all of this stuff was. Some of the things were taller than him, and covered by tarps. This didn't seem like what you'd normally find in a warehouse.

He picked his way silently through the boxes and racks and wheeled shelves with Talon following.

"What the pit is this slag?" Talon wondered.

Jazz didn't answer. They were already making too much noise.

He heard a gasp and froze, then slowly looked in the direction of the sound. Two figures stood in the dim room, optics glowing brightly.

"Aw, pit," Talon said.

"Who are you?" the larger figure demanded. A femme, by the sound of it.

Jazz saw Talon unsubspace a knife out of the corner of his optic.

"Hang on," he said. If these two screamed and alerted anyone, they'd have to pull out. "No one move." He walked silently toward them and the little one squeaked an stepped back to hide behind the femme.

"Who are you?" she demanded again, but took a step back. She was also pretty small, probably just a two-wheeler. "Don't come any closer." She reached for something on the wall behind her.

"Don't ya open that door—we don't want ta have ta kill anyone," Jazz said.

The lights flickered on.

"Hey!" Talon growled, and took a step forward, but Jazz waved him back.

"Look, femme," he said. "Believe me when I say we can kill ya, and we will if ya make a fuss. We ain't here for ya, we're just passing through. Let us go and we'll let you live."

She glared at him, but he could see the fear behind her gaze too. She was really pretty—distractingly so—and was wearing all sorts of decorative ornaments.

Talon pulled out a gun "Come here, both of you."

"If you fire that everyone will hear," the femme said.

"And ya'll be dead," Jazz added. "Everymech loses. Look, we ain't gonna hurt ya if ya don't make us. Ya can't fight us and I'm betting…" he glanced around Now that the lights were on, he could see what was in the room. "Ya're an acting troupe aren't ya? None of ya can really fight. I bet ya don't want them ta get hurt."

The femme crossed her arms.

"Come stand in the middle of the room," Jazz said. "Talon watch them, will ya?"

"Yep," he said.

Jazz hesitated. He knew Talon probably expected to kill them. They ought to kill them so as to leave no witnesses who could describe them to the enforcers. But though he'd killed many times now, something stopped him. Maybe it was how scared they were and how the older femme was trying so hard to hide it. Maybe it was the youngling. Jazz really didn't think he could kill a youngling.

Jazz found where the power line was and cut through the floor to see where it reached the main supply line. He built a nasty trap for anyone who tried to mess with it and then turned it off.

The lights went out.

The youngling squeaked again and Jazz heard the older one shushing her. He turned to see Talon pull out his knife again, which he'd half-expected. He ducked in and snatched it from the other mech.

"Hey," Talon hissed.

"They scream, and the others will come," Jazz said.

"You can kill someone without them screaming."

"I know," Jazz said. "But it's too risky. As long as they stay quiet, we don't have to hurt them." He turned to face the older femme. She took an involuntary step back and he followed her until he'd backed her up against a big, covered stage prop of some kind and put the knife to her throat.

"Aria!" the youngling femme whimpered.

"Shhh," the older femme said.

"Now," Jazz leaned in close. Her optics were fascinating. "We're gonna leave now. If ya pretend like ya didn't see us, then this is over, like nothing ever happened. But if ya comm. enforcement, or anything like that, we'll hunt ya down."

She shuttered her optics.

"Got it?"

"Got it."

Jazz backed away, and the youngling ducked in and clung to the older femme's leg.

"No, we should kill them," Talon said.

"Nah, come on, we ain't got time." Jazz led the way out the door, and Talon followed reluctantly.

They crossed the street to meet up with Midnight and the others.

"We in?" Jazz asked.

"Well, I'm in the system," Swallow said. "But it might take a while to hack the security without getting noticed."

"I can try," Jazz said, and she moved over so he could use her datapad.

Branchbinder still kept the datapad he'd originally given to Jazz, but Jazz had managed to get another one. He'd waited until he knew Branchbinder was on a mission and asked someone in the lounge to borrow theirs so he could buy one for himself. He had to be very careful about using it, though, because if Branchbinder found out, he'd be in a whole lot of trouble.

It took him a solid half a joor, but he managed to get control of the security system, put the cameras on loop, and disable all the alarms on the doors and throughout the building.

"Thanks," Swallow said. "I have no idea how you did that."

"No problem," Jazz grinned. "I'll show ya sometime."

He was glad she was warming up to him a little. At the beginning, she'd been pretty unfriendly, probably because she felt threatened by having someone on the team who could do her job better than she could. But she didn't seem to mind him now, and she'd even let him give her advice a couple of times.

"Ok," Midnight said. "Here's how this is going to go. Some rich businessman has offered Quantum a lot of credit if we make trouble for his competition. So we're going to blow this nice little corporate headquarters building to pit."

"This is a business headquarters?" Murk said, crossing his arms. "What exactly is their business? What's all the security for?"

"Doesn't matter," Midnight said.

"Transportation," Swallow smiled at Murk. "Specifically groundbridge engineering and maintenance. So I'm going to stay out here and keep hacking, see if I can snag some blueprints or something. You could probably sell those."

"Huh," Murk said.

"Since we won't have comms once we're in there, Centrifuge has written detailed instructions for each of you," Midnight said. "Follow those instructions and we'll be in and out in ten breems. If you don't get to your target room in time to set your charge, then just bring it back. Better to miss a couple of explosions than to waste valuable time. They've got a couple of guards. Taking them down without alerting the main security room is priority one. Alpha team will go in and do that. Then four breems later, everyone else comes in. If something goes wrong while Beta team is still out here, Swallow will be able to let you know, and you can retreat. Otherwise, head in, do your jobs, and get the pit out of there. Ok, Centrifuge?"

Centrifuge nodded, and Jazz got his instructions through the comm. He was going to be going with Talon, as usual. He caught the other mech's optics, and both of them nodded.

"Everyone ready?" Midnight asked.

Everyone in Alpha team acknowledged their readiness and they sprinted for the front doors of the building, which Swallow opened for them.

Jazz and Talon ran silently through the halls, breaking off from the rest of the group. They had two separate guards to kill. Jazz let Talon take the lead on the first one, and then killed the second one himself.

The building was quiet and dark. No alarms, no indication that anything had gone wrong. But Jazz couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right. He headed back to the main hallway where they were supposed to gather when they were done with their tasks. Maybe he was just being paranoid. Maybe running into that random femme had thrown him off.

Beta team came in and went to do their part. Jazz had a role there too—this time alone. He planted a bomb in a nearby room that looked like someone's office, and then went back out to meet up with Midnight. Half of Beta team was back, and almost all of Alpha team.

Midnight stood still as a statue, arms crossed, studying the ground.

"Hey," Jazz said quietly.

Midnight didn't react. Silence fell.

Then Jazz heard something that sounded like distant sirens.

And someone running—quietly but not quietly enough.

Midnight's helm shot up, just as Swallow came sprinting around the corner.

"What?" Midnight said as Swallow neared them. "You're supposed to…"

"The enforcers are coming," Swallow leaned against the wall, venting hard.

Mecha gasped and a quiet, anxious murmur swept the hallway.

"I don't know how they knew since I've been monitoring communications leaving the building. Someone must have seen us outside or something."

Jazz glanced at Talon, who glared back at him.

Pit.

A couple more mecha from Beta team joined them, including Stonethrow.

"All right, let's go!" Midnight said. "Everyone out!"

They ran through the building. They'd been gathering close to the front entrance, but apparently not close enough. Almost as soon as they made it to the doors, enforcers started pouring through it from the other side, filling the hallway.

Midnight and everyone else froze.

"You're under arrest," the mech at the front said. "Drop your weapons and come quietly."

"Anyone still got one of those bombs?" Midnight asked calmly.

Stonethrow rushed forward with a wild shout, carrying one of the explosive charges they'd been leaving in the rooms. Enforcers shot at him, but he dodged and threw the box at them.

Midnight pulled a little remote out of subspace and hit a button.

Sound overloaded Jazz's audios and the hallway filled with fire from both ends. She'd detonated all of them.

Something crashed into him from behind, and he realized everyone was moving. As the explosion cleared, he could see that it had given them a way through. He sprinted over the blistered, torn-up ground, and out through the gaping hole in the front of the building. There were enforcers outside too. He saw Midnight and Talon fighting a group of them nearby. Everywhere mecha were running, screaming. The Quantum mecha were trying to get away, and some of the enforcers were trying to apprehend them while others ran for the building, probably to try and help their injured friends.

Jazz made it out into the relatively quiet city and slowed to a stop. He was covered in burns all over, and a big piece of shrapnel had lodged itself in his leg. He was leaking, but he almost couldn't care. He could still feel the heat from those explosions, and see the brilliant flash of light. Mecha had just died. Quantum mecha—mecha he knew.

Had any of them even survived?

Even as he thought that, his comm. beeped. Midnight, on the group comm.

"Everyone who made it out, meet two blocks south of headquarters. We need a helm count."

Jazz took in a deep vent and let it out slowly, then started limping back in the direction of headquarters.

About two thirds of them made it back, but not everyone. Stonethrow wasn't there—he'd probably been too close to that explosion.

"Ok," Midnight said. "Murk's still back there trying to confirm who's offline and who's been arrested. Tell me who's missing? Centrifuge is offline, who's his second?"

A large mech stepped forward, and started listing designations.

Everyone who wasn't offline—everyone who had been captured instead—would probably end up interrogated and then executed. Or, at the very least, they'd be in jail for the rest of their lives.

Once the Beta team mech had finished listing the missing mecha, Midnight dismissed everyone to go to the medical wing. Jazz's leg hurt, but it wasn't bad enough he needed to see Lilac about it right at the moment. He hung around, hoping to find out what had happened to Stonethrow. Swallow was also missing.

Talon approached Midnight and started talking quietly with her. Jazz tried to blend into the shadows—he had a feeling he knew what they were talking about. That fragging femme.

He should have killed her. He really should have killed her.

And that thought, the conviction behind it, shocked some sense into him. He looked down at his energon-stained hands. He had killed mecha this orn. Once, not so long ago, that would have bothered him. But he'd done it without even thinking about it. There was no feeling—no remorse, no sorrow, no tank-churning horror. He was just angry, because that femme had gotten his Quantum brothers and sisters killed.

Even as he thought that, Midnight sent a comm. with the designations of those confirmed offline, and those captured.

Stonethrow was dead. Jazz felt a small twinge of sorrow, but that was it. No real grief, They'd been friends for more than a vorn, and Jazz could barely bring himself to care about the mech's death.

Frag.

He was supposed to be trying to escape. He had completely forgotten about that.

"Jazz," Midnight said

Oh, and he was in trouble.

He should have killed that femme.

No.

Should he have?

He pushed away from the wall, feeling disoriented.

"My office. Come."

He followed her to her office, noting the glare Talon sent in his direction. He'd have to watch out for that.

"So," Midnight said once they were in her office. "You let someone see you, then let them go."

"It was a pretty femme," Jazz said. The excuse was only half fake. She had been pretty, and brave—she'd hid her fear very well… and then she'd actually commed the enforcers on them after he'd threatened to hunt her down and kill her.

But if it had just been her, she would have been dead. He had to be honest. He might be willing to kill guards, enforces, and even random mecha who got in their way, but he would not kill a youngling.

Midnight was silent.

Jazz waited.

"Talon is going to find them and kill them," Midnight said at length.

Jazz looked down. Nothing to do about that.

"You jeopardized our mission and got our mecha killed because you go soft over a pretty faceplate?"

"I thought we'd scared her into keeping quiet."

"Obviously, you aren't taking this seriously," Midnight said.

He looked at her. She stood, staring at her wall of weapons, looking very unhappy.

"I'm sorry. I shoulda killed her."

"I was starting to trust you—as far as I can trust my subordinates here. But if you care more about some random femme than your team, then maybe I don't want you."

Jazz looked down.

"Unfortunately, I'm stuck with you, aren't I? Branchbinder needs you for something, so I probably can't kick you out."

Huh? How much did she know?

"So, I won't do anything. I'll let justice find you some other way. Get out of my office. If you do something like that again, though, I'll kill you and face whatever consequences come."

Jazz hesitantly retreated from her office, feeling very lucky to be alive and relatively uninjured.

He retreated to his room to think for a while. He had caused a lot of deaths and injuries, and it had gotten enforcers offlined too. Enforcement was like it's own gang in a way—they got really mad when their own offlined. The streets were going to be dangerous for Quantum for a while, especially since Swallow was on the custody list. She probably knew a lot, and if they could get her to talk…

Frag, if Murk found out Jazz was responsible for this, Jazz was doomed.

Too many problems. And he was starting to feel worse about Stonethrow. That was his fault. It was his fault his friends had died, his fault for sparing that stupid femme.

He had been numb earlier. He wanted that numbness back. High grade didn't really help enough with that anymore, but he also wanted someone to talk to.

Jazz left his room and headed to the lounge. It was crowded and busy as usual. He saw the twins in a corner and went to sit by them, because he needed to tell them.

"Hey," Sideswipe said. "'Sup?"

Jazz looked down.

"Was that your team that came in all slagged?" Sunstreaker said.

"Yep," Jazz said. "Stonethrow's offline."

"Pit," Sideswipe said, looking down.

"Good riddance," Sunstreaker muttered.

"Sunny!" Sideswipe said.

Sunstreaker shuttered his optics for a moment, and Jazz almost thought he saw regret on the yellow twin's faceplate, but then his expression hardened again.

Jazz looked around the room and caught several hostile glances in his direction.

Great. Talon must have already told Spotlight or something. He jumped a little when Branchbinder commed him and requested him to meet in the storage hold.

"What?" Sideswipe said.

"Nothing," Jazz said, getting up. "I gotta go."

He left the room and headed reluctantly to the storage space where Branchbinder was waiting for him.

"I know I was stupid," Jazz said.

"More than that," Branchbinder threw a knife at him. Jazz dodged. "You were popular and well-liked, and now you'll have turned a bunch of them against you. That wasn't just a mistake, it was a disaster."

Jazz pulled the knife out of the wall and tossed it back to Branchbinder, who caught it. "Yeah."

"What the pit were you thinking?"

"I don't know."

"I don't believe you about the femme."

"Ya got me bugged?"

"I have Midnight's office bugged. You know that. Why Jazz?"

Jazz didn't want to tell him it was the youngling. He could see Branchbinder forcing him to kill a youngling as punishment. "I don't know," he said again. "I just… didn't want to kill her. Sometimes you just don't want to do something ya know, and ya don't know why."

"You'd better lose the attitude," Branchbinder said. "You've just become a lot less useful to us."

"I know. I'll find a way ta fix it."

"I'm sure you will," Branchbinder said. "And we'll give you a head start." Two other mecha appeared out of the shadows. High-end assassins. This wasn't a sparring session.

At least it meant Branchbinder wasn't certain he could overpower Jazz on his own anymore.

Jazz didn't fight as Branchbinder's two friends slammed him against the wall. He couldn't beat three of them.


Jazz didn't bother going to Lilac after Branchbinder was done. He understood that this wasn't just punishment. It was an attempt to mitigate the damage, and Jazz didn't want to frustrate that.

When he showed up the next orn to the lounge, dented and limping a little more heavily than he absolutely had to, mecha assumed someone had paid him back for his grievous error the orn before.

Mecha were cold to him for a decaorn or so, which hurt so much more than what Branchbinder had done. He felt dark and empty and he'd have done anything—anything—to get back into everyone's good graces.

But before too long, mecha warmed up to him again.

Not all of them, though. Swallow was still in jail and Murk was definitely not happy with it. He wasn't openly angry, but he hadn't talked to Jazz since the mission. And that was worrying. Branchbinder wanted Jazz alive, at least for now, but if Murk decided to get revenge on him, it would be the kind of revenge where someone ended up offline.

Talon hadn't talked to him either. Jazz had expected him to show up and gloat about offlining that femme, but he hadn't, which either meant the acting troupe had gotten away, or that Talon didn't care anymore.


"Ok," Midnight said. "Beta team, your entrance is to the south. This one shouldn't be too hard, wait for my signal, but you don't have to worry about making noise when you go in. Of course, if this one goes bad, we'll just retreat, probably before I send you in, so be paying attention to your comms."

They were on another simple supply run. It was the first time Jazz had been invited on a mission since he'd gotten everyone killed.

"Why not worry about being quiet?" Talon said. "There are a scrapload of guards in there."

Midnight nodded. "I know." She turned to look at Jazz. "You."

"Yes?" Jazz said, suddenly nervous.

"There are eighteen guards in that building. I want every last one of them dead, starting with the ones at the front door. Get in there, kill them all, and take control of the security system."

Jazz stared at her. That was a suicide misson.

"Those are orders," Midnight said. "And I want to see eighteen corpses or one way or another, one of them will be yours."

Jazz nodded and slipped away into the shadows of the off-cycle. Kill all the guards. Take down the security system. He didn't even know if he could do that without being seen.

Was this a good orn to desert?

Probably not. He had a tracker on him still. He'd figured out where it was, but he wouldn't have time to really make sure he'd gotten it off before he ditched.

Besides…

Besides, where would he go?

He approached the front doors, careful of the cameras he knew were there. Midnight knew, or at least guessed, that he still didn't like killing. That was only a sometimes thing, but this orn was one of those sometimeses.

He didn't let himself hesitate, though. He threw one knife up at the camera, and then a second one at the guards. It found its mark in the farther guard's neck. He tackled the closer one, stunning him.

The first guard struggled and gasped, but his voice box was damaged so he couldn't scream as Jazz pulled the knife out and slammed it into his spark chamer.

He killed the other guard too, then got up and hacked the door.

He was inside in less than a breem. 16 guards left. The camera outside going out would probably bring someone to investigate. He needed to get to the central security room before they figured out just how serious their current problem was.

He didn't have blueprints, but he'd been in this sort of building before. He found the security center quickly, hacked his way in, and left the guards on the floor, lying in pools of their own energon. Then he checked the camera feeds to find where all the guars were, locked all the doors, and went hunting.

It almost felt like it wasn't him doing this—like he was just watching as he stalked the hallways, extinguishing one spark after another, until the building was empty and he was alone. And then he walked back to the control center, hating himself and Midnight and Branchbinder and everyone, and not sure who to blame for the energon on his hands.

He unlocked all the doors and commed Midnight. "Ya're all clear."

There was a moment of hesitation. It had taken him less than ten breems, Jazz realized.

She'd sent him in to die, and he didn't even have a scratch on him.

"Acknowledged," Midnight commed. "Alpha and Beta teams move in."

They came, took what they wanted, and left.