Content advice: suggestive language
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"I'm coming too!" Perceptor cried. He couldn't let Wheeljack visit Vortex alone; there was no telling what the Decepticon would talk him into.
Wheeljack spun in the doorway, pivoting on the jamb. "Percy! Hey, look at that, you're up! You, uh, you sure you wanna go back in there?"
Perceptor sighed. Hiding in his alt mode hadn't been the best idea he'd ever had. "Yes," he said. "I'm sure." He dropped off the workbench and gestured for Wheeljack to lead the way.
When they got to the brig, Vortex had his back to them; he was still writing. He didn't acknowledge them, although he must have noticed they were there. Especially when Wheeljack leant against the wall with a clank and started to laugh.
Perceptor sighed again and went over to the console. He might as well get some work done while he was here. It wasn't as though the extraction of a personality component was an everyday procedure. He needed to prepare.
"Who's that for?" Wheeljack said. Perceptor glanced up, then realised that Wheeljack was talking to the prisoner.
Vortex didn't bother to turn around. He simply flipped them an obscene gesture and carried on.
Perceptor watched them in the reflection of one of the blank screens. Wheeljack's arms were crossed, his posture guarded, but amused. That was good. Well, it wasn't bad. Meeting psychosis with belligerence, what could possibly go wrong? Perceptor shook his head, actually he'd rather not follow that line of thought.
"I remember that song." Wheeljack's vocal indicators flashed blue in the dim grey of Perceptor's screen. "Always thought it was a bit dumb, all them promises just to get someone to put out. That for Blades?"
Perceptor cringed. What on Earth did Wheeljack think he was doing? Interrogating the interrogator?
He studied Wheeljack's reflection. If there was any hint that this was going in an even worse direction, he'd have to get them both out of there. He didn't want to be responsible for another scene, he felt bad enough about the last one.
"What's the matter," Wheeljack said. "Cyberkitty got your tongue?"
Perceptor tensed as Vortex glanced over his shoulder, the crimson glare of his visor aimed at Wheeljack for just a little too long. The Decepticon turned, slowly, and Wheeljack's vocal indicators lit up.
"Well frag me sideways…"
Perceptor stared at the monitor, then spun his chair around, just to check that what he was seeing was correct.
"What in the pit did you do that for?" Wheeljack said.
"He didn't." Bumblebee stepped through the open door. "Prowl did it. Probably got fed up with his smart mouth, eh copter?"
"No!" Wheeljack sounded impressed. "You serious?"
"Sure." Bee shrugged.
Vortex gave Bee the creepiest grin Perceptor had ever seen, and dropped to his knees. He began sliding his finger over the berth. Words, Perceptor realised. He was pressing words into the soft surface.
'HELLO, HORNY.'
"Frag you," Bee replied cheerfully. "Hey, Wheeljack, is it true. You guys putting him back in stasis?"
"Bumblebee!" Perceptor snapped.
"I was just asking," Bee muttered. But at least he seemed to get the hint. Vortex was still staring at him. Perceptor tried not to be relieved that he wasn't the focus of Vortex's attention.
"Smart," Wheeljack said.
'OH, YOU HAVE NO IDEA,' Vortex wrote. 'HORNY'S QUITE THE DETECTIVE. THOSE THINGS ON YOUR FACE, DO THEY LIGHT UP WHEN YOU OVERLOAD?'
Wheeljack stared and Bee snickered. Perceptor wanted to thump them both. What did they think this was, a circus?
'I'D PAY TO SEE THAT.'
"Bumblebee," Perceptor said. He adopted a level tone, closing off his mind to the unsubtle rev of the copter's engine. "I believe you are required elsewhere."
"Sure am," Bee said. "On my way now. Just thought I'd check in, seeing as I was passing. Can't leave him unguarded, what with-"
"Yes, yes, thank you, Bumblebee!" Perceptor blurted.
In his cell, Vortex grinned.
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It was never a good idea to leave Swindle on his own.
Onslaught had learnt this the hard way, a very long time before. It was, he mused as they entered the cave system five clicks from the Ark, a very useful lesson to have learnt.
Swindle was difficult. Time in the box hadn't changed him. He was still the same selfish, thieving opportunist he'd been back on Cybertron. Only difference was: back then, they hadn't been team.
They'd known each other, done the occasional deal and paired up on the odd heist – Onslaught had even rented Swindle office space, storage, protection when he'd needed it – but they'd been two individuals, two legitimate and respectable businessmechs, meeting over common ground.
Now that Onslaught was responsible for him, everything had changed.
"Keep close," Onslaught snapped.
"I'm here!" Swindle wailed. "For frag sake."
"And keep your voice down."
Swindle huffed, but otherwise kept his discontent to himself.
Radio silence was a right royal pain in the aft, but word had it that Blaster had helped upgrade the Ark's defences. If they transmitted as much as a triangulation ping, regardless of encryption, Teletraan One would know about it.
Onslaught couldn't have that.
And so, here he was, leading Swindle through a series of ever-decreasing underground spaces. It was amazing; Swindle's smaller build made him ideal for negotiating the uneven arrangement of geological excretions, and yet somehow he managed to knock himself on everything. Whereas Onslaught – larger, bulkier, and walking with his back bowed simply to avoid scraping his helm on the ceiling – was only scuffed where the passage had been too small to get through otherwise.
"Frag!" Swindle swore, and winced as his echo swore back. "Sorry!"
Onslaught bit back the "Sorry, what?" that formed in his vocaliser. He wasn't about to get a 'Sir' from Swindle. Slag, he hardly ever got it from Vortex (maybe, very occasionally, when they were interfacing) and the copter was a military build, he had respect protocols hardwired into his personality component. Not that you could tell.
Swindle wasn't a military build, and thus didn't have those protocols. Sure, he looked like one, but the army jeep chosen for him by Starscream bore as much resemblance to his pre-Detention Centre Cybertronian alt mode as Thrust did to Powerglide. Similar colours, vaguely similar capabilities, but, when you got down to it, as different as steel and lead.
So, no automatic lip service to his position as commander – let alone any respect. No understanding of the military terminology that Onslaught had picked up as easily as he'd learnt the names and security arrangements of every bar owner in Kaon. No understanding of the subtle genius that underlay his strategies. No understanding of his strategies at all, most of the time. And not because he was unintelligent – Swindle was hardly stupid – but because his vast store of fast-thinking creative potential was always channelled elsewhere.
Usually somewhere inappropriate.
An alarm flashed in Onslaught's HUD, and he paused to check their position. Without bouncing a signal off a satellite – or, more helpfully, off Blast Off – all he had to rely on was the faint energy signatures of the Ark and its crew, and his own log of their journey so far.
"Why've we stopped?" Swindle demanded.
Onslaught raised a hand for silence, then crouched on the gritty floor and double-checked their presumed coordinates. At least Swindle wasn't standing around gawping – as Brawl, who emphatically was a military mech, would have done. No, he was glancing around in that suspicious way of his, his gyro-gun held loosely, ready to aim and fire if necessary.
Impressive. For Swindle. Vortex wouldn't even have bothered asking. He would have melted back into the gloom, out of reach of Onslaught's headlamps, and waited for the signal to move on. But Swindle wasn't Vortex. He didn't have the training, didn't have the mind – thank Sigma – and he didn't have the combat awareness.
When Onslaught spoke, his voice was so quiet it didn't even echo. "Time's up. Diversion's live, we're good to go."
"Huh?" Swindle gave him a look. "I thought we weren't having comms?"
"We're not," Onslaught said. He stood and pushed his way past a large stalagmite. The rock's friable surface pared away at his touch.
"Then how do you know?" Swindle pressed. It was obvious what he meant. How did Onslaught know that Brawl hadn't fragged up and botched setting the explosives. How did he know that Blast Off had made the rendezvous and that Brawl was safely on board the shuttle? How did he know that Brawl had remembered to press the button and activate their diversion?
"Because," Onslaught said. "I trust them. Right, this is the place." He glanced up at the ceiling, his terrain-analysis software mapping the thickness of the rock, while his optics registered the gentle undulations and odd differences in colour, strata laid down long before any of them had been built. Strange how this planet was so young and yet so old.
Strange too, that Swindle hadn't commented on the mention of trust.
"We're going up, then," Swindle said.
Onslaught nodded.
There was a series of soft clicks as Swindle readied his scatter blaster. They could only risk firing the smaller guns down here, but on the surface, and in the Ark, it was a different matter altogether.
Swindle vented long and slow, then flashed Onslaught the briefest of grins. "Suppose Blast Off's there in case Brawl forgets how to press a button."
Onslaught nodded again; no point in coming to Brawl's defence. His survey concluded, he got into position. Knees on the floor, hands too, braced. Gun turrets pointed up, aimed at the slightest of fissures, almost invisible to any ordinary optical scan.
He had time to hope that Blast Off's intel was correct, that even though Wheeljack had extended the security perimeter above ground, the network of caves below the Ark – and indeed below the national park in which it was nested – remained largely undefended. Time to hope that the rock ceiling was as thin as it appeared to be. That his helm would deflect the worst of the rubble. That they would be able to locate Vortex, break him out of the brig, and arrive at the rendezvous at exactly the time Blast Off descended from orbit.
It was a lot to hope. Would have been more to hope had he not planned each stage. But the strategy was simple, all he needed was for his team to do their jobs.
He bowed his head and fired.
