Discovery was the most insistent of the three primary objectives that N4 possessed. It was the first thing that pinged his processor when Cutwire onlined him each starting cycle.
As soon as the last cables were disconnected from his CPU, his frame started itching to go where he hadn't been before, and to touch the endless possibilities from the information outside his room.
His frame had been moved to a new room after his first onlining. It had no machines. It had three grey walls and one black-gray wall. One door, one table, one chair, and a panel that hid cables from his view and touch. N4 always woke in the chair, with Cutwire behind him and his hands splayed out on the table next to a new stack of datapads.
Today was no different. Another day of discovery and exploration- limited to the contents of the datapads that were waiting for him each day. They were not sufficient any longer. Cutwire had given him additional datapads before leaving, but the manner in which the data was compiled made it redundant and old. N4's experimentation programming wanted to combine and mix the loose strands of code, but the results were predictable and stale.
N4 had notified creator Cutwire, and a cycle earlier, Cutwire had allowed N4 to touch his faceplate. N4 had made a detailed report regarding the textures, flexibility, temperature, and anything he could think of, but it only made his programming ache for more new things to discover.
His finger-sensors had long ago mapped every single part of the datapad's surface, and he had detailed sensor logs of everything else inside his cubicle as well. The floor, the bolts in the wall, the buttons on the lockpad, the feel of the wall that felt different than the other three. The sound of the different buttons from Cutwire's equipment and the lockpad buttons, the different possible combinations with a 9-numerical keypad.
N4 needed to see more, it was in his programming. He stood, left the datapad on the table, and walked over to the lockpad next to the door. He was familiar with the feel of every button and every texture, and he entered the code that he had spied from Cutwire. The recognisable beep from the door sounded, and it slid aside.
New air, moving air, rushed by N4's dermal sensors, and his processors immediately started documenting. He stood in the doorway for a few kliks, running his hand along the inside of the doorframe before continuing.
The floor in the hallway was of the same texture of the one he had in his room, and he ignored it. The ceiling was higher than in his room, and the lamps were different. The hallways was long and there were more doors. Next to each door was a window, a see-through part of the wall. He leaned forward, eager to document, and touched it.
His programming soared as he recognised the texture from the third wall in his cubicle. He cycled his optic, and touched the material. He could see into his room through this window, but he had never had a window in his room. He pulled up the old logs regarding the wall, and he rubbed his hands searchingly over the surface. It felt the same, but looked different. What would be its use? Why would it be here?
He walked back inside his room, and the window was gone, replaced by the darker-tinted wall. His fingers itched to take it all apart, but a distant -undocumented- sound caught his attention, and he drew away from the strange material. He had the logs. What was important now, was more discovery! He could wander for eternity, he would wander for eternity.
There were more doors like the one he had come from, with numbers pasted on, and the same not-window windows. The urge to stop at every door and every window was compelling, but the undocumented sounds further down the hall held higher priority than in-depth study. N4 walked down the short end of the hallway, and found that the paths split in two. His programming soared, and his pace quickened.
Doorway after doorway, hallway after room after hallway were all mapped and documented in his memorybanks, and N4 drifted in his element. There was nothing to do but follow the urge in his systems and the sounds that were always different, always just up ahead, alluring and undocumented.
He walked and stopped at every unlogged thing he found. With how repetitive the halls were, and how few not-window windows were around, it didn't take long before he simply walked.
"Fragging piece of scrap, give that here!" A voice echoed down the hallway, and N4's processors were immediately focused on the source. It was not creator Cutwire's voice, but it had a resonance that was similar to the murmuring N4 had heard coming from Cutwire's earpiece.
Cutwire liked to talk to the murmuring voices in his earpiece, and N4 had been informed that it was a common method of communication between Cybertronian bots. N4 had asked for the designation of the mech on the other side of the commlink, and Cutwire had told him it was Hammertop.
N4 had never seen Hammertop, and the datafile he kept about the mech-subject was nothing but recordings of soft murmurs from Cutwire's earpiece. N4 sped up and followed the voice down the hall, where a single door was ajar. Inside, he found Hammertop and a purple mech with a single yellow optic. Both mechs were pulling at one end of a thick cable with all their might.
"Glitching pile of slag- give that here!" Hammertop growled.
"Negative. Interference with primary objective unacceptable." The purple ech replied, and the bot pulled at the cable again. Hammertop released a string of nonsensical words and realeased the cable with an aggravated growl. The purple bot cradled it to his chassis, and Hammertop yelled as he jabbed his fingers into the computer terminal. "Cutwire, get your aft over here, N2 is glitching. You fragged the programming again!"
N4 watched as the purple bot gathered the cable in his arms, and brought them to the other end of the room, where a small pile of other unconnected items was already collected. N4 recognised one of the items as the lock-pad that was probably supposed to keep the door closed instead of leaking. The purple bot immediately returned from the pile and attempted to grab Hammertop's datapad.
Hammertop was trying to talk with Cutwire, type, and keep his datapad from the grabby bot. "No, you do the reprogram- you're the one that insisted on a 'hoard' experiment so you're going to-"
"Interference with primary directive is not allowed." The purple mech interrupted, and he yanked at Hammertop's datapad.
"Glitched pile of SPARE PARTS!" Hammertop screamed, and he pulled the datapad from the purple mech's grip. The purple mech fell forward, and Hammertop's pede came down on the bot's unprotected neck. It snapped in a weird angle, and N4 soaked up the scene in fascination as the purple mech tried to reach for the datapad again. He was not moving all his limbs, and the machines in the room were blaring warnings.
Hammertop sighed, and deactivated the blaring alarm beeps. "Fine. Fine. I'll wipe it for you. Soft-afted slagface..." Hammertop set the datapad out of reach and grabbed N2 around the neck. He uncoiled his cables, and plugged them into the back of N2's helm.
The one-opticed bot convulsed, and N4 watched as sparks of electricity zapped from the purple bot's helm. A few moments later the purple frame went slack and motionless, and Hammertop dropped the purple bot to the floor. N4 could still hear its systems cycling, but the purple bot didn't move a muscle. Hammertop sighed and stood up. "Right. He's reformatted. You'll have to get him jumpstarted before you try a new pro-"
Hammertop had turned around and was now staring right at N4. N4 watched his animated faceplate go completely still, and eagerly documented every single klik. "... Cutwire- what the frag is one of your drones doing out of its cubicle?!" Hammertop hissed into his communicator. N4 heard Cutwire mumbling back, and he recorded the muffled sounds for Cutwire's file. Hammertop glared at him.
"State your fragging number."
"N4, creator Hammertop."
Hammertop immediately turned back to his commlink. "It's N4. Please tell me that's not the one you programmed with-..." Hammertop paused. "What-... I don't care if it means his programming is working correctly! Get over here and fix your messes! I'm tired of-... Just get down here. I'm going to go on a break." Hammertop narrowed his eyes as Cutwire answered, and finally the commlink conversation stopped completely.
"You." He snapped at N4. "Primary directive override. Stay. Here." He jabbed his finger at the ground, and N4 dutifully stepped onto the designated patch of floor. Hammertop walked past him, and stalked down the hallway. N4 waited, and started to compile the hoards of data that he had found.
N4 was still processing the new data by the time Cutwire arrived. His creator looked stricken, and he carefully guided N4 back towards his old cubicle. N4 observed that Cutwire stood in front of the lock this time, and the logged rhythm of Cutwire punching in the code was different this time. N4 logged this discovery and a few moments later Cutwire was connecting all the recharge cables. Compared to previously observed cycles, it was half a cycle too early for recharge.