I'm not reposting all the warnings. If you didn't read them in Pt. 1, then on your head be it.
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Pt. 19
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All Cybertronians had at least two modes: a primary mode and an alternate mode.
Without an extensive rebuild, the primary mode stayed the same. It was the rootmode that the alternate built around. Mechs and femmes couldn't switch core builds, and frametypes stayed the same under surface changes. While technically it was possible to do an entire structure shift, the sheer cost and time involved made it wholly impractical. It wasn't just calling in medics to keep vital systems and the spark stable, or engineers to design and implement protoform-deep changes. It was also the cost to the person on the table.
Cybertronians weren't robots, but there was no denying that ancestry. Take a computer CPU out of its mechanical casing and put it into another, and it was still the same CPU, still trying to operate the original casing. In order to get it to operate a new casing, the CPU would have to be changed as well. Programs would need to be uninstalled and reinstalled, systems upgraded and introduced through new software interfaces, and everything from the spark casing out had to be hooked individually into the transplanted computer. Every sensor suite and line of code had to be tested, checking for compatibility between shell and processor units. One rejection could throw the entire body into potentially lethal malfunction. Imagine the problems to be had when someone was brought online for the first time - and rejected the new frametype's fuel pump.
Ratchet's favorite anecdote for scaring bad patients into line was the rebuilt mech who pestered his medic out of doing a last inspection, only to go into convulsions three orns later. Turned out that part of the original rootmode's self-repair system had slipped under the radar during previous inspections. It'd spent three orns busily 'repairing' what it saw as damage. First it'd reverted the self-repair system itself, then started in on the mech's new body. The mech had been a mess inside and out before he'd been stabilized.
Lesson being: don't tell a medic to leave off work just because it was boring to sit around medbay. Shut up and be thankful the medic was doing his job.
The other lesson, the one Ratchet didn't talk quite so much about, was that core rebuilds didn't often end well for the rebuilt. It wasn't just that different frametypes were rejected by sparks, although it often happened. It wasn't the lack of money, materials, or time, although that certainly was an issue during war. Rebuilds were expensive, but the cost was more than physical. A rebuilt mech wasn't necessarily the same mech as before.
Ratchet's story usually ended before telling about how that particular mech hadn't made it. Someone had been alive inside the body afterward. It just hadn't been the mech who'd been on the table to begin with.
Muck about with a robot's computer, and the robot could end up a drone with a useless, malfunctioning computer no longer capable of higher processing than basic motor skills. Worse, or maybe more mercifully, the computer could be nothing but a defunct lump of metal inside the mechanical shell. That was unfortunate for a machine, but machines could be duplicated. The computer could be torn out and replaced.
Not so much with Cybertronians.
They had computers in their background, but the hardware components being yanked from casing to casing weren't just computer parts. Cybertronians weren't robots, not anymore. Somewhere between spark and processor units, assembly language meshed seamlessly into real thought. Installing new programs or rewriting code to integrate the computer into a new body shell didn't just change the computer: it changed the Cybertronian's mind. More often than not, a rebuild resulted in a different person entirely - and there was no easy 'reset' button to push. That person couldn't revert to the previous model.
Sure, the spark hadn't changed, but the spark was only part of the sentience equation. The resulting person may have similar traits, maybe even the same basic personality, but half the mind had been irrevocably, physically rebuilt. Changing software/hardware and their interface protocols without competent medics and engineers monitoring the rebuild the whole way ended in disaster. Some sparks balked, rejecting primary mode remodels entirely as if the mental differences were too much to recognize.
The humans joked about 'the Blue Screen of Death'when their computers crashed. Cybertronians didn't have the ability to name colors anymore when that final, fatal 'System error: Shutdown imminent: 3…2…1' message came up. They still didn't laugh at the humans' jokes. The blue screens had been enough to freak out some of the Ark crew.
Prowl was one of the few who had seen the actual terminal color so many times he recognized it. Nobody had gotten a clear answer out of him yet, but he had admitted that it wasn't blue.
The Autobots' Executive Officer had a notoriously stolid spark. It got thrown into upset whenever circumstances forced Prowl's self-modification program protocols into activation. His system had strict guidelines to deal with those circumstances. If the situation started modifying his information set architecture enough to affect his tactical processors' logic algorithms, it shut him down.
The alternative was a total crash when Prowl's spark rejected the dissonant ISA changes. Better a quick reboot than a drone named Prowl.
Prowl's situation was extreme, but not unique. There was a risk of mind-alteration every time a mech installed a different ammo-lead for a new gun, or even just scanned a new altmode that didn't quite fit design specifications. At this point in the Great War, there weren't many mechs left who hadn't endured replacement surgery or field-upgrades to their rootmodes. The changes required on the fly happened because they were necessary. A mech either made it, or he didn't, just like with every medical procedure done in lousy war conditions.
The ones with finicky sparks hadn't made it this far. Even those with less-than-stellar medics had bit it. Those whose personalities remained mostly intact were the ones whose medics dragged them through injury-related rebuilds by sheer competence or a stubborn refusal to let details slide.
It was why head wounds were so dangerous. Technically, an unspecific half of a Cybertronian's mind was an electronic machine. Cerebral circuitry could be reconstructed. Processor units and the personality matrix could be re-loaded from a backup. That didn't mean the spark would accept the old hard drive content. The process of updating or downgrading so the hardware/software interface matched backup and body again was notoriously tricky. The mind that came online afterward usually wasn't the same mech who'd taken a head-shot.
They all knew it. They knew the problems and the risks, and they accepted them. Part of life as a Cybertronian was dealing with change. It was what they did, after all: they transformed.
It was why defectors from either side were usually pressured into undergoing at least a partial primary mode reformat. It was a literal change of mind under the new faction. It was an undeniable statement of commitment to the opposition: 'I have changed my mind' made physical.
The humans argued that artificial intelligence could never equal living thought because computers couldn't change without outside input. The Autobots looked upon that statement as unrealistically simplified. What was considered outside input? When did a computer begin to learn instead of gather data? Could artificial intelligence change itself based on prior data? Could that prior data be considered experience?
Choice was one of the key defining factors of sentience. The debate about the difference between artificial and actual intelligence could take many angles, but the ability to make a choice without someone else pulling the strings was a pretty obvious one. Advanced drones could operate on their own, but they had to be programmed with decision-making routines.
The drone said, "My programming dictates."
The living being said, "I think."
It was a frustratingly thin line, and still the largest source of contention between organic and mechanical beings. The organics argued that 'mechanical organisms' was an oxymoron. Those mechanical organisms questioned why there was a sliding scale of sentience defining, say, a human as somehow better than a dog. A dog could choose to preserve its own life against all previous training, just as an advanced enough A.I. could make that rationalize and make that same decision against all its programming human. Where was the line drawn where humans were more sentient than a dog, or a Cybertronian more than a well-programmed drone?
The arguments could and did go on for days. Years, in the case of Cybertron and Earth. The Autobots who hadn't been on the Ark mission had initially met the Earth ambassadors with trepidation, not xenophobia, but it'd been a close call considering Cybertron's historical precedent with organic species. The sentience argument had caused war between Cybertron and aliens before.
Despite any and all expectations and conflicts, however, Earth and Cybertron were getting on like a house on fire. It helped that human popular culture changed so quickly it hooked the long-lived Cybertronians before they even knew what was going on. Even the Decepticons were getting addicted.
All external differences aside, humans and Cybertronians had far more in common than they didn't. It didn't seem like it, but under their respective squishy or metallic surfaces? There was a meeting of minds happening between their two worlds.
Most sentient beings changed through time and experience. Humans evolved their minds through self-reflection and outside pressure, and their bodies adapted on a very slow timeline. To counter that, their minds came up with ways to facilitate physical adaptation. Cybertronians as a species simply had their own way to do it. Their way could be measured by lines of code like a robot - right up until it couldn't. Because Cybertronians had sparks, and sparks could not be predicted or measured.
Humans could relate. The human soul screwed up every projected behavior model, too.
Autobot X should have worked. The theory of implanting a human into a robotic form was sound. But nobody had ever or would ever try the process again after Spike Witwicky. There was an unknown factor in humans and Cybertronians, but only the Cybertronians' unreadable flux could be seen. Medics could open up a mech, point at the spark, and say, "That's why the rebuild didn't work." The human soul? Not so much. Even Wheeljack shied from testing something invisible to every sensor scan known to Cybertron or Earth.
Skyfire's social studies and Perceptor's cross-sectioning of engineering and psychology had yielded an interesting after-action report for the Ark mission. It indicated that encountering such a short-lived, highly reactive species had boosted the Autobots' self-modification program protocols into hyperdrive. Encountering the humans hadn't caused protoform-out rebuilds, but the core-level alterations had been neither slow nor minor. While every Autobot had the ability to change internally on that scale, it was rather telling that none of the Ark crew had seized up from major differences between CPU and spark.
Prowl had rebooted so many times on Earth it'd become a running gag, but he hadn't locked up. That said quite a bit about relations between humankind and Cybertronians.
Landing on a new world always resulted in the contact team emerging not quite the same as when they'd arrived. Earth had taken that adjustment allowance and accelerated it wildly. Cybertronians were a species who thought little of coming out of the medbay with minor personality changes from a weapon's upgrade, much less the programming imperatives installed by scanning a new altmode. Earth hadn't caused primary mode shifts, but it'd pushed the envelope on how far those 'minor' changes went.
There were mechs returning from Earth who looked only a little different but were nearly unrecognizable under the surface. Prowl used terms like 'diva tendencies' now, and he hadn't missed a beat when applying it to Starscream. It'd boggled Springer the first time Red Alert threatened to get the flyswatter out. The Scale of Ridiculous made regular appearances when the Autobots rated situation reports now, although none of the Ark crew would explain why it went from 1 to Purple Griffin.
Humor on the job, especially during war? That was a jarring change for many. It was made even stranger because the prominent officers who'd returned from Earth showed the effects so strongly.
It certainly wasn't just the Autobots who'd been affected. Blaster reported that Blitzwing had three separate online accounts on Earth for 'Fantasy Football: Ultimate Team Match', and not one of them reflected the triple-changer's pre-Earth psych-profile. Astrotrain had only left Earth after an expensive online order of model trains went through and was delivered to one of the Decepticons' dummy addresses. The Autobots had tracked, intercepted, and then bemusedly let the tiny train sets through to be picked up on time.
Even accounting for the 'deception' part of 'Decepticon,' that was out of the ordinary. Jazz would argue that Megatron had returned from Earth changed, too. The Decepticon leader wasn't precisely a sane mech, but he'd become noticeably more…stable.
Others on Earth had undergone similar personality changes. For instance, Sunstreaker had left Cybertron a narcissistic sociopathic bastard of a frontliner. He'd returned as a narcissistic sociopathic bastard of a frontliner, of course. He'd also utterly unsettled members of his former unit, who had watched their emotionless, self-absorbed killer trip over himself to answer a call from some little human girl surnamed 'Chase.' The sociopathic tendencies remained, but the golden Autobot had changed.
There were personality-matrix reasons for his artistic dabbling on Earth. Just as Sunstreaker had shifted from artist to warrior at the beginning of the war, he was shifting into someone different now. Only time would tell who this new evolutionary phase would turn him into.
Time, and circumstances. Outside influence came in many forms, and Cybertronians' alternate modes incorporated those outside influences. Altmodes always served a purpose, whether it was for transportation or battle. That purpose came through in the primary mode as the altmode's function wormed through the processor registers and component microarchitecture. But it took time, and internal changes could only be pushed so far before an actual physical root-change had to be done.
A flyer couldn't scan a ground-based altmode; a grounder couldn't scan a flight-based one. A Minibot couldn't take on an altmode larger than his design expansion allowed; Optimus Prime couldn't compress his primary mode into an altmode too small for his frametype. Noncombatants couldn't become warbuilds overnight. An alternate mode had to complement the primary mode, and the primary mode had to be able to incorporate the alternate mode.
Some said that Megatron's erratic rages sprang from an incorrect graft done when the Constructicons had rebuilt him from an industrial equipment altmode into a powerful gunformer. Theory went that adopting the crude technology of an Earth gun as an altmode had re-aligned some of his industrial frametype functions and restored some of his sanity. But who knew, really?
Despite eons of adaptation to war, industry-makes and civilian-function frametypes still struggled to take on alternate forms made specifically for war. Most of the Autobots were still grounders in civilian altmodes. Some of the Decepticons were, too. Swindle still had to scan a noncombatant altmode, even though he'd managed to splice in half an armory. His primary mode accepted the relevant links-in but still wouldn't allow the additional weaponry to fully integrate into his core structure.
Powerglide had scanned an Earth plane, judging it sufficiently within his design specs, only to seize up when his scanner tried to use the data. Powerglide was not a warbuild, and his CPU didn't have the rootmode connections necessary to install and use a machine of war - even a human machine of war - as an alternate form. The massive power consumption difference alone had led to seizures as his protoform tried to purge the data. He'd been determined to stick with the A-10 Thunderbolt II, however, and he'd tried to force the transformation through.
Spark-rejection of his own processor units had very nearly killed the little flyer. It'd glitched him so badly Ratchet had confined him to the Ark medbay for months. Only a combination of Earth's contagious weirdness, Ratchet's ruthless attention to detail, and Powerglide's sheer pig-headedness had slapped enough patches on core and programming to make the altmode stick.
Afterward, nobody mentioned how the spitfire Minibot had changed when he got out of medbay. His odd attachment to Astoria Carlton-Ritz had only been the most obvious tweak. Moonracer never commented. She looked blindly through the affair, just as he accepted what four million years apart had done to her.
That's how it went, when people changed. It was either accept and move on, or fight reality and be left behind.
Most of the Autobots had accepted the truth, and the truth had been that the Great War would not end quickly or easily. The majority of Cybertron had begun the war as civilians. Like Powerglide, time and pressure had changed that. Most of Cybertron's small remaining population couldn't be classified as what they'd started as. Peace had been such an impossible thought for so long that even pacifists had war modifications, now.
These days, meeting someone without war mods tacked onto his primary mode was beyond strange. Skyfire had been made very uncomfortable by the nonstop staring. The weeks after his defrost had been really awkward as the Autobots gradually figured out what they found so strange about him.
The confused stares hadn't stopped even after Ratchet went elbow-deep into his exploration mods, upgrading defensive subroutines and weaponry to combat-ready status. Post-modification upgrades, the shuttle had still only been permitted to run taxi-service for years after getting out of the ice. Entire system rejection had been a real risk. Skyfire was not a fighter. It wasn't his function. Even if he'd wanted it to be, warping his current function parameters to accept the changes would have taken far more time than the Autobots could spare.
The rest of Cybertron had had that time. There'd been a whole war's worth of time and all the reasons therein for it. Many Cybertronians had wanted, however reluctantly, to change their functions. The Decepticons beat the savagery and glory of combat into their ranks, but the Autobots…
They were kinder, perhaps, or understood better the price paid to twist a protoform. No matter Optimus Prime's regret when asking them to fight for him, he still asked. In return, the Autobots did their best to do more than just survive another day. They wanted to win. Where primary modes or alternate forms failed, the Autobots - like Swindle, like the non-warbuild Decepticons - turned to external technology add-ons.
The more specialized an ability or weaponry mod, the more distorted data paths became. Tech-installation required forcing the primary mode into accepting its presence. No other mechs had Mirage's invisibility or Skywarp's teleportation drive. It wasn't because both sides hadn't tried to duplicate the actual mechanisms. That, at least, was possible. It was integrating the technology into living beings that was a waste of time and resources.
The Autobots weren't willing to sacrifice each other for experimentation that consistently ended in failure. The Decepticons kept running out of raw materials and scientists, or just plain lost control of the test subjects. Sunstorm was insanely powerful but prone to crazed rampages that made him an enemy to his own faction, and he was considered a success.
That left non-invasive weaponry as the best option for many. Warbuilds were proud of the fact that they were made for battle. More and more these days, those who modified themselves for war were proud of their changes as well. Arming themselves with the best and most destructive weapons had become a point of pride. Autobots and Decepticons alike were turning into nothing but war machines. War machines all the scarier because they had minds: intelligent weapons.
Which was why Weapon Specialists were so vital. Medics knew sparks and bodies inside and out; engineers knew designs. Weapon technicians knew, well, weaponry. Wheeljack could MacGyver a solution to whatever the problem at hand was using only a roll of duct tape and a tire. Ratchet could repair half the Autobots with a twig and three bolts. Give Ironhide a handful of marshmallows, and he could level a building. Give him the bag, too, and he could probably eradicate a city.
Most units had someone unofficially acting as a weapon technician, but there were relatively few Weapon Specialist officers. The actual titled rank typically fell to noncommissioned officers who ended up in the command cadre by pure knocked-down, dragged-out, battle-torn and age-worn experience. They were usually identified by the fact that they wanted nothing to do with staff meetings and had already been doing all the duties of a senior noncom well before anyone got around to giving them some fancy-nancy promotion. Real Weapon Specialists followed that with a grumble of disgust and a declaration that this was all a waste of time, and "I gotta get back to keeping these scrapheaps from blowing themselves up."
No one knew by what voodoo Kup had avoided the rank. He seemed like he fit the stereotype perfectly. Although it couldn't be said that he looked the part, since weapons technicians didn't look anything alike.
Medics and engineers were usually commissioned into rank by their specialty builds. Weapons technicians weren't built. They just happened. Some of them had inexplicable spark affinities to weapon-tech installations. Some really, really liked guns. Some merely survived long enough that they knew everything and couldn't dodge official rank anymore. The science divisions had at least one Weapon Specialist on call, if not a technician actually on the team. As the war had raged on, it'd become a necessity. They worked closely with - or even were - the unit medics.
Equipment intel had shifted into personnel intel as civilian builds slowly merged closer to warbuilds. A weapon technician nowadays was more of a staff sergeant with a particularly intimate internal perspective on every team member's battle-related capabilities. The soldiers were becoming, upgrade by careful upgrade, living armaments. The lines between engineer, medic, and weapon technician had long ago blurred.
All three made sure the grunts on the battlefield wielded weapons meant to eventually become part of them. An engineer designed mods for a mech, and a medic put him back together to use it. A weapon technician knew down to the ammunition what weapon fit the technical specifications for that mech, before and after modification.
Normal soldiers were dangerous enough, but none more than those assigned to Special Operations. SpecOps didn't need advanced firearms. Everything they were already made them weapons of war.
Before Jazz's promotion to the Head of Special Operations, Ironhide had actually ranked as Autobot Third-in-Command. That had changed when Prowl had assumed control of Tactical after being promoted to Executive Officer. It had been a logical move for a military strategist to also be the Autobot Second-in-Command. It had seemed like an overwhelming amount of responsibility, but both duties called for an overarching awareness of the larger picture.
The descending trio of personnel-centered offices beneath him took on the smaller picture: Weapon Specialist, Chief Medical Officer, and Chief Engineer. Special Operations had been a division under the Weapon Specialist. The whole division was classified an arsenal: an armory instead of a unit. Other Autobots could be disarmed, if only with some difficulty. SpecOps operatives existed in a permanent 'locked and loaded' ready-state, and like every firearm, the Weapon Specialist had to know them inside and out. He had to know how to use them - and disable them, if necessary.
Ironhide had argued for promoting Jazz to the Third position after Prowl's promotion. At that stage of the war, Tactical had needed information sources and professional sneaks more than Ironhide's generalized duties. He had responsibility for the entire faction's personnel, and that had been pulling him more and more into commitments inside Medical and Engineering every orn. He had to focus on restructuring civilian Autobots and then retraining them to use their changed bodies. He was having enough trouble just ensuring all the post-mods got in combat practice before actual battle, much less some personal observation time on the firing range. Ironhide didn't have enough time to split between duties anymore.
The Autobots had needed a duo of officers to stand opposite Starscream's brilliant aerial maneuvers and Soundwave's subtle manipulation. Prowl needed a counterpart, and Ironhide couldn't separate from Medical and Engineering to step fully into that role.
Optimus Prime had agreed. Jazz had gotten himself a spiffy new rank as Third-in-Command.
That had not, no matter the official hierarchy, taken the Special Operations operatives out of Ironhide's hands. They were weapons. Weapons were dangerous things, especially secret ones. They were the hidden landmines, the ones who could be do the most damage if turned against the Autobots. The reason spies and saboteurs were so distrusted was because they weren't just sent out onto a battlefield. They were sent out to disappear and blend in and erase their own existence until, suddenly, they reappeared again. And nobody knew what happened during that missing time.
The spark rejected major distortions of a mech's CPU, but if a hacker didn't care if the hacked mech wouldn't survive too long….there were ways to temporarily mask core-deep reprogramming. Infiltration by corrupted spies had been done by both sides. When it came down to force-downloads and torture anyway, it was only arguing semantics to care if a captured mech went back to his faction with the same mind he started with. Done skillfully enough, the hack-patches could even slide under a medic's examination.
A patch covering a timed compulsion might not last long, but it could last enough for an assassination. Regular 'rescued' soldiers had caused havoc before the poor mechs glitched fatally. Special Operations agents had done worse.
Which was why Jazz outranked Ironhide but the red mech was still the one waiting outside of Autobot not-headquarters when he pulled up. SpecOps operatives reported to Jazz. He was the mech who wielded them, knew them down to smallest details, and could put the safeties back on. Jazz, however, was the best of the best. The only one who could be trusted to break a weapon this dangerous down was the Weapon Specialist himself.
The smaller Autobot rolled to a halt under a heavy blue gaze that gave nothing away. The building was completely dark, windows opaque. The only light other than the dim moonlight came from their headlights and Ironhide's optics. The black-and-white car before him stayed quiet for a moment, engine shutting down and sensor suites winding down from active to passive scans, but the older Autobot just waited.
Ironhide could outwait and outstare stone walls. There was no point in putting off the inevitable.
Jazz transformed and saluted, only half joking. "Reporting for debriefing, sir."
Ironhide stood watching him, as if waiting for him to explode. It had, sadly, happened before. And if it did, Jazz knew that the Weapon Specialist's expression wouldn't change from that emotionless mask. Right here and now, they weren't two officers in the same cadre. He was a suspicious package at the airport, and Ironhide was the bomb squad. The Head of SpecOps was nothing but a potentially compromised weapon coming back under a technician's scrutiny.
After a long pause, the red mech turned and led the way inside the dark building.
Resignation twisted Jazz's lips as he followed at a strict 50 mechanometer distance. Just out of projected fatal radius for a suicide bomb. A step closer, a move outside of the rigid guidelines every operative knew to follow exactly, and he'd be dropped where he stood. His sensors repeatedly pinged him. There were enough targeting scopes leveled on him right now that he almost twitched nervously. An intense scanner wave rushed over him as he crossed the threshold, leaving him dizzy as sensors strained to their limits reeled in the sudden pulse.
When his optical feed stabilized again, he was alone in the hall. The lights were off, and the hallway was abandoned. Jazz waited patiently. Ratchet and Red Alert were combing the scanner data for any anomalies. Only once they finished picking his physical status apart would he be deemed safe - well, safe enough - to approach.
Right on cue, Ironhide stood up from behind the fake wall acting as a blast shield. It was conveniently placed in front of the door. Peace negotiations and unofficial headquarters did not gullible idiots make; the Autobots had renovated their makeshift home for war. The old building had been shored up into a bunker.
The Weapon Specialist beckoned, and Jazz obediently followed him down the hall. There were optics still on him. If he turned his sensors back up, he'd probably pick up Mirage's signature ghosting about the vicinity. He wouldn't be able to pinpoint the spy's location even with his sensitive sensor suites, but most scanners couldn't find even that faint signature. The comm. network would be awash with Bluestreak's never-ending chatter, pulling the sharpshooter's thoughts away from his task and leaving his hands rock-steady as he took aim between Jazz's doors. Someone would be watching the Praxian's back, too. Sideswipe, perhaps, or more likely Trailbreaker and his forcefield.
It's what Jazz would have done, anyway, and he'd put together the operative return guidelines. Firearms with unknown fingers on their triggers were distrusted until proven safe.
Ironhide led him to the first door on the right, furthest from anyone's quarters and any important building supports. He palmed it open and stood aside. "In here," he said shortly.
Jazz walked past him and stopped in the middle of the room. He didn't need to look around to see that there was no furniture, just four blank walls. When the door slid closed again, it locked them inside alone. If something went terribly wrong, now, there could be only two casualties. Anyone who tried to open the door without the proper code transmitted to the correct people outside would come down with a fatal disease known as Shot To Slag. Not physically carrying explosives on his body didn't mean that Jazz had been disarmed, and nobody would risk him getting loose.
"You know the drill," Ironhide said gruffly. The Weapon Specialist had no patience for distracting words while working. Jazz had become the weapon, the weapon was Jazz, and the Head of Special Operations was a very, very dangerous weapon, indeed. 'Handle with care.'
The grinding whirl of the red mech's cannons coming online filled the room, and the saboteur didn't need his sensors to know where those cannons were aimed. Ironhide had more at his disposal than mere marshmallows. One wrong move, and Jazz could bid his spark casing, fuel pump, and most of his torso goodbye.
Back to the door, the black-and-white saboteur knelt in the center of the room, one knee after another and no sudden moves. There were two sets of statis cuffs waiting there on the floor. Smooth as oil, Jazz picked the larger pair up and toggled the catches open. Without turning, he reached back and worked the cuffs through the tires on his ankles. Tires could be taken off, but the axles weren't something that could be removed quickly. It took a klik while cannons whirred and Jazz's tank gaskets skreeled shut, but the cuffs snapped shut.
His lower legs and feet immediately went numb as the statis circuit completed. The operative didn't react. He reached for the other set of cuffs. One cuff snapped around his wrist, and then he crossed his wrists behind his back. A practiced flip of his hand, and the free cuff clicked shut. His arms went totally numb as the statis circuits seized current right out of his transmitters and redirected it into an infinite loop through the cuffs.
Jazz knelt, letting his body adjust to the sudden dead weight hanging off his shoulders and knees. There was always a weird moment when his motor control centers tried to force more energy through, convinced that his limbs weren't getting enough current to implement commands. The cuffs absorbed the extra charge, and a second later the surge ebbed.
It suddenly struck him just how he was positioned: kneeling, knees spread for balance, with his arms locked behind his back. Just as every operative knelt for him, waiting to be broken down and reassembled.
Oh. No wonder seeing Thundercracker helpless had -
- uhhh, yeah, now was probably not the best time to be thinking about that. Although now that he'd made the connection, he couldn't unthink it.
Slaggit.
His visor dimmed as he tried to force his thoughts back to duty. Duty, yes. Occasionally Jazz did manage to be serious about it, and this was definitely a time for sobriety. The safeties had to be put back on. He'd been among Decepticons for almost a joor. Even an operative of his caliber could have been hijacked in some way. There was only one way to insure that Jazz was still Jazz.
Jazz took care of his people, and that care wasn't just physical. Ratchet and Red Alert had scanned him for physical problems. They'd snare him for more scans later, but now it was Ironhide's turn. And Ironhide, like Jazz, was exceedingly thorough.
…that really wasn't shutting down that stupid processor and its ribald suggestions. Duty glared at it from the forefront of Jazz's mind until went to lurk behind recent memory. He could feel it just waiting to pop up uninvited.
Reminded of recent memory, he found there was something that he felt compelled to do. Embarrassment squirmed up from his spark to flutter about in his tanks, but he had to say it. He really didn't want to, but he had to. "For the record," it took some effort to keep his balance, but Jazz managed to ease himself to the floor without falling flat on his face, "I want this."
The ready-sound of active cannons picked up. "What scrap are ya talking?"
He could sympathize with Ironhide's wariness. This wasn't a suspicious action, but it sounded so, so strange.
The fact that it did was so, so wrong. Embarrassment flushed hotly through Jazz's lines, but they chilled right afterward as dread swamped him. How could something so important have become marginalized? The cold bite of fear skipped his fuel pump.
His first impulse was to take it back, but that made fear stab deeper. Social protocols always ran in the back of his processors, part of CPU usage keyed into his information assessment programs, but that one statement had brought them right up front. They urged him to take it back. They demanded he laugh and pass it off as a poor joke. Threat assessment agreed, practically screaming warnings about subconscious social cues from Ironhide. According to what they read off his voice, Jazz's words had been improper, and there would be severe repercussions if he didn't correct himself right away.
Annoyingly, a direct query to the causation models produced nothing but an error message and sense of vague alarm. Jazz's initial reaction had nothing but unplaceable fear fueling it, and trying to sort out the fear for real consequences twinged something approaching pain in his head. That was…bad.
Good in a way, because he recognized the sensation from Earth: self-modification program protocols had activated. Still bad, however, because that meant he'd been following incorrect social cues. Tracing his reaction back to its roots had exposed intrinsically faulty lines in his action/reaction model equations, and now his processors were acting to correct.
Jazz's almost-headache made a weird of sense. For thousands of vorns, the Autobots had been ingraining a cycle of self-perpetuated cause and effect: they thought it was wrong to openly talk about interfacing because they got embarrassed, so ventures into thinking about it further were halted before the illogic registered. Now he was deliberately breaking the cycle, and there were a barrage of little alerts flying up. The resulting processor complaints were demanding enough to border on real pain.
He really needed to run deep defragment to sort out everything that had happened tonight. Dear holy Primus and all His little Primes, how deep did this unease run that he had unfounded program code writing it in?
He couldn't take his words back. Not after tonight. Inertia had gotten the Autobots to this point, and Jazz was responsible for prodding them into motion.
That did not diminish the urge to cringe out of his own armor. Emotions were more volatile than logic. Changes to the computer didn't necessarily change the spark. If it were that easy to change someone's mind, Cybertronians would be able to logic themselves out of deep convictions such as falling in (or out) of love. Megatron's Robo-Smasher would have been more useful than it'd turned out to be if that were true.
Talking bluntly about interfacing was not something to be ashamed of. Jazz should not feel flustered. There was no reason to be embarrassed, but not understanding his reaction was only making it worse because that made him overanalyze it all the more.
The smaller Autobot rocked slightly until he was off his bumper, turning enough on the floor that his hip and shoulder tire took most of his weight. His helm could just barely rest against the floor this way. It still wasn't a comfortable position, but he could hold it longer. "I'm sayin' that I want you to interface with me," Jazz said quietly. Despite how serious he tried to sound, his tone still had a hefty dose of I'm Embarrassed to Exist laced through it.
Ironhide's guns whirr-clunked. Discomfort filled the room like a fart in a box, and it was nearly as awkward. Especially for mechs who didn't have the bodily functions required to fart. Jazz had done something alien and strangely repellent, and Ironhide didn't quite know what to do in response.
Jazz smushed the urge to apologize. He'd done nothing to apologize for, no matter what errant social protocols were yelling at him.
He knew, and it squeezed fear and near-physical hurt around his spark to know, that Ironhide wouldn't ask. Permission was an implicit part of Jazz's job description. Jazz either submitted to the operative guidelines or resigned on the spot. They both knew that, but the shudder of his pump only worsened to think about it. He wasn't afraid of Ironhide. He didn't have any objections to his duty, either. The fear sprang from the fact that at no point had the words been explicitly stated.
Okay, that wasn't a surprise. That hadn't changed in the last joor. Jazz's job was still the same. Ironhide wouldn't ask, and Jazz wouldn't deny him. That did not, however, free Jazz from the other side of the issue. That had changed. Or rather, Jazz had found a different perspective to see what had been there all along.
Asking consent was never wrong. Neither, therefore, was giving it. If the Autobots didn't start talking about this stuff, they were screwed in more ways than one. They had to acknowledge the importance of verbal agreement in interfacing, or the peace negotiations were in jeopardy. Verbal agreements were binding contracts according the Decepticons. If the Autobots didn't start stating things clearly, things could only end badly.
The Decepticons weaseled around wisely chosen words. Jazz could only imagine the trouble they'd cause eeling around the Autobots' current evasive, innuendo-reliant communication methods.
"Trust me," Jazz said softly, curling on the floor to peer over his hood at Ironhide, "it's important. Just…yeah. I wanna cross cables with you, Ironhide. Okay?"
The Weapon Specialist's impassive mask had a strong flavor of hostility. Jazz knew it probably hid confusion. One more whirl of the red mech's cannons, and then they gradually began to slow. "…fine," Ironhide muttered.
Relief flooded his strained subroutines, and Jazz uncurled to lie on his side on the floor. He pulled in a deep vent and exhaled slowly as tensile cables winched loose again. The wrongly-predicted backlash hadn't occurred; information assessment confirmed the logic as faulty and approved the self-modification. He hadn't even realized how stressed he'd become until his temperature gauge started dropping.
It was…odd. Relaxing ran counter to his usual reaction. Debriefing could be as difficult as a mission. Despite Jazz's self-confidence, a truly great Decepticon hacker could make him believe capture had never happened, no time had been missed, and nothing was wrong. It was why every operative followed strict return guidelines, even the Jazzmeister. Just because he didn't remember being a prisoner didn't mean he hadn't been. War had taught SpecOps mechs to never, ever trust themselves, and to trust others even less.
Here and now, however, he didn't have to trust. Weapons didn't trust. They simply were. It felt somewhat backward to relax, but he was going to while he could. Things weren't going to get any easier from here on out if his own reactions were anything to go by. For now? For now it was out of his hands.
Jazz laid his helm back on the floor and reveled in just existing.
Impersonal hands opened the tiny hatch tucked up under the back of his helm. Cool air wafted against the cable coiled inside as Ironhide unspooled it. Jazz winced. Cold metal brushed against the little port hidden beneath the cable. It didn't hurt, but exposing a cerebral port felt a bit weird. Vulnerability rarely felt normal.
Data cable ports were usually located somewhere in the chest or arms for convenience, but this port allowed hardline access direct to the cortex. Not many mechs would know what to do if they tried plugging into this port on Jazz. The standard jack was too large, and interface adaptors wouldn't fit. Then again, show a mech this same port somewhere on a firearm, and he'd immediately offer an input cable. Just like Ironhide was doing right now.
Jazz's port wasn't unusual in anything but placement. Typically, helms covered these ports completely. They were uncovered or installed only when primary mode tech-mods were hooked up, and that required surgery. Not so with Special Operations operatives, however. They didn't connect to weapons. They were weapons.
Ironhide plugged into the weapon that was Jazz with no more or less care than he'd betray when starting an inspection in the armory. The saboteur could feel the way the Weapon Specialist tensed, suspicious, when Jazz actually relaxed further. Right now, the smaller Autobot honestly couldn't care. Ironhide would understand later, and that was good enough for him now. His visor dimmed to a dark blue, and the black-and-white mech sighed as he stretched, flaring his armor to make tensile cables unkink.
The jack hit home, and his port latchkeys spiraled down to adjust to Ironhide's adaptor. There was a brief second of waiting as the port snugged shut. Jack and port surfaces came into full contact for ground/return communication. The port's magnetic surface prevented the jack from slipping free, just as the jack base's coupling would keep it in place if Jazz struggled.
And then there was a foreign presence knocking on Jazz's firewalls. There were no medical overrides automatically dropping the physical blocks between port and systems. Ironhide's recognition codes transmitted. Jazz allowed the microscopic gap between wires to close and connect port to computer. The moment the connection established, the old red mech's transmission slipped a program through, dropping it past Jazz's defenses to the machine level and installing before scans caught it. The program initialized and infiltrated in a fraction of a klik. It shook hands with Jazz's primary user permits ('Hey buddy, good to see you again') and casually stole everything ('Don't mind me, just picking your pockets for passcodes').
By the time Jazz's cortex flicked through and reconfirmed Ironhide's access gate, the program had already solidified the connection. It immediately shunted Jazz's authority keys out of the way like a hacker's virus. They were connected through the gate, but the weapon technician had successfully cabled deeper than conscious thought. Jazz was an advanced firearm, and Ironhide had assumed control of the mechanism behind the A.I.
There was a nearly audible shunk, an almost-rattle of joints, and, suddenly, Jazz became a passenger inside his own head. He was still there, still himself, but there was someone else remote-access controlling his hardware components. A moment later, control established, Ironhide slid Jazz's input jack into his own port. A query pinged: 'Remote hardware detected. Connect to access gate?'
Jazz didn't have the user permit to answer the query, but that other presence in his head did. 'Yes.'
The access gate opened, and data began to stream freely. Jazz had remote access to Ironhide's processors, but the connection was a tube connecting hamster cages. It led nowhere, and there were still bars all around him. The gates were closed, and the keys were out of his hands. Without permits to get him through the Weapon Specialist's partitions, he could do nothing more than feel the data packets pass him by.
Even through the partitions keeping their systems separate, however, the sensation of the red mech transmitted. His encoding felt old and familiar. The signal was reassuringly strong. The pulse of energy flowed steadily into Jazz's uplink port, carrying Ironhide's transmissions and pushing the cycle of return information back through Jazz's cable to Ironhide for assessment. Cool as only a professional could be, the Weapon Specialist ran comparison checks between Jazz's pre-mission processor unit backup and his current configuration. The steady rhythm of energy driving the datastream continued through every instruction set, never rushing down the hierarchies. Every line of code received the same consideration.
Meticulous mental hands opened up the weapon and checked every moving part, noting down the condition it'd returned in compared to how it'd been sent out. Software opened and closed, and updated drivers were tested for installation dates. Every change self-modification program protocols had racked up over the course of the last two orns was double-checked against system logs for spikes indicated coercion or outside activation. The Decepticons had some excellent hackers. There weren't many that could fool Ironhide, not at the machine level. Artificial data left tell-tale trails, and he knew exactly where to look for them.
He knelt beside the small black-and-white mech, one hand hard on his upper arm and optics flickering white and blue as he pored through Jazz's processor units. He clicked past the independent firewalls shoring up the saboteur's information archives. He'd leave analyzing Jazz's latest information haul to the others. Ironhide wasn't interested in the ammo, just the weapon. It was up to Red Alert, Prowl, and Blaster to determine if Jazz had brought back blanks or real bullets. Ironhide's responsibility lay in making sure the Autobot's Third had returned in working condition.
So far, so good. The data compiled into packets and went back through the cables to Ironhide. His own threat assessment program received the packets, unpacked them, and ran the data.
Meanwhile, Jazz existed. He waited inside the cage of code, patiently watching his chronometer tick down. His automatic malware programs weren't connected to his primary user permits because of exactly these circumstances. They were connected to his lock-away processor instead, which only assumed control when his CPU didn't respond to command pings.
Ironhide's bypass meant that it currently wasn't. The lock-away woke, and when it woke, the malware diggers went to work. They scanned, found the false permits Ironhide was using to override control, and started digging out the Weapon Specialist's infiltration program. They weren't exactly stealthy, but they were designed to use trickles of memory and run deep. Their CPU usage tended to be disguised by whatever programs were running on the surface, and their image names were perfectly innocent. Unless someone knew to look for them, they tended to be overlooked.
Right up until they kicked the invasive program right out of his systems, that was. Ironhide had been working against the clock since the second the connection had activated. Jazz had surprised Decepticon hackers with a miraculous recovery more than once this way. There was nothing quite like finding out an Autobot victim really wasn't under total control, especially when that lack of control was communicated via sudden decapitation.
Even without his malware diggers active, he could have fought. Ironhide had seized control, but Cybertronians' minds were more than computers. Oh, Jazz could have fought.
He didn't, however. He just waited. He waited and existed and swam in the sensation of throwing himself open under a fellow Autobot. This was trust. This was what Starscream could shove up his aft and twist on, because the Decepticons were just as wrong about the Autobots' interfacing habits as the Autobots were about the Decepticons'.
Jazz knew down to his struts that he didn't have to struggle. Ironhide would take care of him. Energy pulsed and data flowed, flushing through his cortex and forcing his hardware into hyperawareness as all his software came under scrutiny. Ironhide accessed and examined everything. Every - single - program - file.
Input cables weren't rated the same as an actual interface cable. The transmission speeds were too slow, and the ports couldn't handle data packets beyond a certain size. That didn't stop the pour of attention rushing fluid and hot between them. It mounted in oceanic surges, a syrupy building pressure gradually synching their processors. Even without direct connection to his body, Jazz could feel it. Below cognizant thought, Ironhide bent all his considerable experience on the smaller mech. He held the saboteur helpless and stroked him from the inside.
Assessing his condition, yes. Professional handling, yes. But there were professions older than weapon technician that didn't get this intimate.
The data streamed. Energy zipped back and forth, pushing the flow. Synchronization inched closer, tick by tick.
The files were carefully closed, one by one, and the programs were shut down. A vague impression of approval filtered through the partitions. Whatever changes had happened tonight were legitimate. The Jazzmeister-weapon had passed inspection.
Ultra-aware and practically humming, Jazz's cerebral circuitry thrummed in its slots. The smaller mech couldn't tell where his engine vibrations stopped and Ironhide's began. He couldn't even recall when either of their engines had turned over. All he knew was that the floor under him trembled with all the power of a truck capable of towing recalcitrant Dinobots around, and the deep rumble underbeat the crackle of charge through the cable. It felt so slagging good he wouldn't have moved if he could.
Somewhere in his lock-away processor, a malware program bleeped triumphantly.
Control washed over Jazz, and dear holy Primus his fans blasted full bore trying to dump heat. "Ironhide!" He pressed his forehelm to the floor and moaned in unabashed pleasure. "Oh…frag. Frag me." It was half-curse, half-plea.
The Weapon Specialist's partitions fell; there were no barriers in interfacing. There were only equals here. The cool professional dropped away, letting Jazz in to twine with Ironhide the mech. No longer strictly partitioned, their processors throbbed into a harmonious transmission/reception rhythm through the inadequate cable. A countdown cascaded down Jazz's HUD, flashing toward system synch. Jazz's systems slowed dangerously, and Ironhide's screamed into sudden acceleration. Neither could hold the pace long.
Wires and tensile cables jerked, both mechs' bodies trying to match energy output and data processing. They were machines of dissimilar models clacking into sync, and their temperatures soared with the effort. Gauges protested, and tubing threatened to melt. Frustrated, pent-up charge snapped across peaking processor units, crackling electricity across armor plating. Systems cried out to reset, trying to trip the circuit breakers, ground the charge, and disperse the dangerous, built-up pressure.
Their spark chambers already crawled with excess energy as both mechs climbed toward overload. The countdown continued to fall, and they were so close to synching, resetting, overloading, and it felt good, it felt so blasted good.
The hand on his arm pulled him upright, away from the floor, and the other hand curved fingers under the back of his neck to lift him further. He gasped at the cool metal on hot linkages, but Ironhide's mouth closed over his open mouth. That hardly helped his overworked ventilation system, but Jazz did his part disperse the heat by orally transferring it to the larger Autobot. It probably would have worked better if Ironhide's mouth weren't just as hot. Every panting exhale scorched his already singed taste receptors.
Ironhide's tongue lingered on that damage as their lips parted, and if the saboteur tasted different than when he'd left - well. Change happened. The red mech licked his lips and dipped down for another kiss without comment. He was still Jazz, no matter the current transformation, and Ironhide accepted that.
If Jazz had been awash in sensation before, now he was drowning. And it was okay, because he was bringing Ironhide down with him.
The heads-up number hit zero. Ironhide grunted. Jazz threw his head back so hard his helm would have cracked open against the floor if the other Autobot weren't holding him up. Their systems synched, perfectly matched machine-level data flow running.
They weren't machines. No two Cybertronians were, or could be, completely alike. Almost as soon as they synched, their systems reset back to normal performance parameters.
The torrent of released energy had to go somewhere.
Overload.
[* * * * *]
End Pt. 19
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