A/N: Posting an early update because I've had a very stressful day and could do with some distraction. Enjoy
He knew they were doing everything they could. Despite that, Lennox couldn't stop guilt roiling in the pit of his stomach as he walked back towards the control centre towards the end of the second day. Truthfully, despite his best efforts and those of NEST's dedicated team of analysts, the search was winding down, their initial resources all but exhausted. The laborious, manpower-intensive, on-the-ground search now ramping up wouldn't be quick. Judging by the tension Lennox was picking up from his Autobot friends, it almost certainly wasn't going to be quick enough.
Ratchet hadn't been seen since he vanished into medbay with his patient, and there wasn't a human on the base, Lennox included, who would disturb him there. From what he'd overheard of the medic's report to Prime, Ratchet was unwilling to welcome even Cybertronian guests.
Sideswipe was not stasis-locked according to that latest update. At first Lennox had assumed that was a good thing. The few times he'd seen the condition it had looked far too close to offline for comfort. Apparently, delirious – unable to process clearly and with dozens of system failures – was worse. Stasis lock was serious, but it was at least stable. Today was only the second time Lennox had heard Ratchet describe a mech's condition as 'critical' instead. The first had been when Jazz lay bleeding out on Mission City's battlefield. The human commander might not know much about Cybertronian physiognomy but he'd take a guess that was a bad thing.
Lennox frowned at the thought. Then he looked down at the report an analyst had pressed into his hand as he entered the building. He felt the smooth metal surface of the gadget that went with it, and glanced at his shoulder at the young soldier trailing in his footsteps. He was pretty sure the news they were bringing was bad too.
Optimus Prime turned as his human counterpart entered the control room. Blue optics focussed on the small figures, and then irised down to focus on the papers the major held.
"Lennox." The rumbling acknowledgement vibrated through the air.
"Optimus." Lennox called up, voice carrying but level. "One of my guys thinks he has an idea what happened."
He might as well have fired his rifle. The large room stilled. Suddenly every eye and every optic was locked on him, every breath and every vent held in anticipation. Lennox felt the weight of expectations land like a physical blow. He squared his shoulders, not bowing under the weight. Stopping at the base of the gantry, he extended his hand.
The metal box looked innocuous at first sight. About four inches across and perhaps three wide, it could be a minimalist paperweight, or perhaps the plain end-cap of a more extensive device. The innocent façade wouldn't fool the Autobots for a second. Lennox felt his skin crawl, his nerve-ends twitching in response to a dozen sensor scans. Prime's expression didn't change, but the big mech leaned a little forward, his aspect perplexed.
"I do not recognise this device."
Lennox sighed. He brought his free-hand up to run back through his short-clipped hair. Jerking his head, he waved the soldier behind him forward. Gibbs stepped up and snapped to attention, eyes front. Prime's gaze settled on the young man, searching for insight.
"Sir! It's a car-killer, sir!"
The temperature dropped. Behind his Prime, Ironhide took a step forward, his cannons whirring.
"What did you say?"
Gibbs flinched, and Lennox couldn't blame him. The weapons mech's growled demand carried an almost physical threat.
"Sir! A… a car… killer, sir." The marine's adam's apple bobbed, his convulsive swallow forcing his heart back down into his chest. "It… it… disrupts…"
Lennox sighed. He shifted his weight, drawing the Autobots' attention back away from his subordinate. "Gibbs here has a bit of a checkered past. He was in and out of juvie for near a decade before a judge wised up to the kid and sent him our way, but Grand Theft Auto was pretty much the highlight of his rap sheet."
The young marine managed a shadow of a smirk. "Pretty damn good at it too…" His voice choked off, his throat moving again as he intercepted glares from all around. "… Sir."
Lennox looked down at the device in his hand, hefting it up and down a little, still astonished at the potential devastation in so light a toy. "Apparently the smart kids have gone a bit beyond coat hangers." His mouth twisted in distaste. "According to our analysts, this thing takes out the security systems and other electronics on a vehicle."
Gibbs nodded, his expression sombre. "Got to wipe out the GPS, see? Anyone with half a brain splashes out as much on trackers and comms tech as on the wheels these days. Half the sweet rides out there won't even start without some kind of electric key." He tilted his head towards the device. "So if you're gonna 'jack a car, y'see, sir, you leave one of them on the thing 'till you get it somewhere to strip it down." He glanced up at the screens mounted on the gantry, his expression twisting into a grimace. "Gotta be a dozen teams on the streets, a city that size. Probably ship the wheels out with the c-k in place, get a new box back from their middle man along with the wad they're promised."
Prime's engine rumbled, his expression still doubtful. Lennox could only shrug up at him. He hadn't known about the new tech himself an hour before. Until Gibbs came forward with his own kit, NEST's analysts had never seen one. They could tell the device acted as a short-range interference source, its signals conducted through the metal shell. They couldn't tell what effect it would have on a Cybertronian's systems.
"Don't look like nothin' much."
Lennox started, surprised by the voice of Skids close above his right ear. His half-turn in that direction was purely instinctive. He should have known better; the smaller twins employed distraction and diversion as a matter of course.
With all attention on his brother, Mudflap lifted the small steel case from Lennox's outstretched hand before anyone could react. He hit the ground a moment later, a piercing electronic squeal blending with the ringing impact of metal on concrete. Cries almost masked the rattle of the metal box as it skittered across the floor, jarred loose from the young mech's half-closed grip by the impact. Lennox didn't let them distract him. Judging by the effect the "car-killer" – and even thinking the term made Lennox nauseous – had on Mudflap, and presumably on Sunstreaker too, the last thing they needed was another unwary mech stepping on the thing. Swearing silently at his own mistake, the major followed the device with two quick strides, using the side of his foot to knock it safely under the gantry before turning back to check on the fallen Autobot.
Mudflap was a limp pile of circuits, twitching feebly in Optimus Prime's arms. Skids didn't look much better. The second twin's optics were over-bright, their irises dilated and unfocussed. Only Ironhide's grip on his upper arms seemed to be keeping him upright, and, as Lennox watched, the senior mech lifted Skids off his pedes and hurried after Prime.
Ratchet met them just outside the medical bay, wasting no time in scanning the young mech Prime held before glancing at Skids with the same brisk air of examination. The doctor's angry snarl was oddly reassuring. Cables snaked from his wrist towards Mudflap, slipping between seams and penetrating the orange armour. In the tense silence of the hangar, the clicks and whirs coming from the mech's frame seemed unnaturally loud. Mudflap stirred and groaned. Dim optics flickered and flared into life as Ratchet's cables withdrew. The small mech shifted, rolling out of Optimus Prime's cradling arms and landing on his feet with catlike grace. He blinked up at the senior Autobots surrounding him with frank bewilderment and looked around for his twin.
Ratchet released the second scout in a fraction of the time he'd taken with Mudflap. Skids slipped away from Ironhide's grasp and hit his twin with a forceful embrace.
"What the frag was that, bro?"
"Err… ya gone an' slipped y'r circuits, Skids?" Mudflap's confusion was painfully clear. He cycled his optics, looking back at Ratchet as if in hope of enlightenment.
It came with a thump as Ratchet slapped the helms of both twins with a single economical gesture.
"When will you two aft-heads learn not touch things you don't recognise?" The medic glared, folding his arms across his chest-plate and throwing a glance back towards the medical bay. His sharp optics scanned the room, his scowl deepening as his optics picked out the burglary device under the gantry. The humans stationed upon the metal scaffold gave startled cries, the entire rig rattling under the force of Ratchet's magnets. The 'car-killer' trembled, gravity resisting for a few moments before it slid out along the concrete, leapt into the air and came to rest hovering a few inches above Ratchet's servos. Lennox found himself surprised it didn't ignite under the heat of the medic's glare. "Fair warning, Prime. If I find the pit-spawn responsible for this thing, you'd better be there, or I'm not promising anything."
Ratchet ignored Prime's nod of acknowledgement, his scans flickering again over Mudflap and Skids even as he scowled at them.
"I do not have time for slagging idiots. Jolt! Take these two to get some recharge. A full cycle. Watch them!"
The blue-armoured young mech jerked to attention and stepped forward, his servos dropping onto the shoulders of the confused young twins. Ratchet didn't wait for the acknowledgement. He was already turning back towards medbay.
"I need to test this thing out. Give me a couple of hours to programme countermeasures, Prime. And tell our idiots to be careful in the meantime!"
Ratchet was gone, taking the device with him as he returned to Sideswipe's side. Jolt herded the younger twins towards the back of the hangar, the optics of their superiors watching them go. Lennox glanced over his shoulder, nodding a dismissal at his gathered soldiers – Gibbs amongst them.
The hush of shock and concern was broken by the scuffing of feet on concrete, and the steadily resuming bustle of NEST's headquarters. Lennox shook himself, feeling his muscles loosen and his chest tighten with weary relief.
"Major."
"Prime?"
"Thank you for drawing this to our attention. There seems little doubt that a device of this kind could be responsible for Sunstreaker's absence and failure to respond."
Lennox nodded, the thanks leaving a bad taste in his mouth. It was little enough progress. The door to the medical bay was once again an impenetrable barrier. The polished steel reflected his face in a distorted mask, his eyes dark shadows in the pale blur. The adrenaline of the moment was fading, leaving him bone weary. Perspiration cooled on his skin. The everyday noise and movement of the NEST hangar held a tense, almost frenetic note. The drama of Mudflap's collapse and the brevity of Ratchet's emergence had made the already-difficult situation all the more real for the close-knit unit Lennox and Prime commanded.
"Will it help?" he asked, voice low and pitched not to carry.
Prime's vents were quiet, only the slightest of breezes betraying his sigh. "I fear that only time will tell." He shifted, his helm tilting a little as he looked down at his human colleague. "I believe our search has acquired a new focus?"
"Tracking the car gangs down won't be easy. The local PD has spent decades and got nowhere fast."
Ironhide's cannon whirred. His expressive face betrayed the depths of his conviction. "Then we'll have to see to their motivation."
Lennox winced but he couldn't disagree. He pulled his cell-phone from his pocket, cycling through the numbers until he got to the contact he'd been assigned in the local police department.
"Detective Frye? Lennox. We need to talk…"
Climbing the gantry with new impetus, he got back to work.
The air of NEST's medical bay was thick and heavy. An acrid odour rose from the still frame, the all-pervading dust of this organic world scorching as it settled on superheated armour. Sideswipe's limbs twitched and turned, the mechanisms convulsing as his frame tried to rid itself of the poison that contaminated it.
A poison Ratchet had inflicted.
The medic had stilled his patient's vocaliser, diverting Sideswipe's unconscious cries to a private com-channel. The other Autobots didn't need to hear their friend's pain. Ratchet himself listened to every scream, every wail wrenched from the damaged systems, knowing that he deserved the punishment.
He had knowingly and deliberately caused harm to a patient. The fact that he'd done it to save another, with the greater good of both in mind, stopped his medic's programming from damaging conflict, but did nothing to relieve the guilt he still felt.
"Easy, Sides." He rested a hand on the dark helm, ignoring the heat there that sent a throbbing pain through his sensitive servo sensors. "Easy there. I've got you."
He didn't expect a response, and only vented a heavy sigh when none came. Weary, but determined, he settled to refining the crude patch he'd worked out for the human disruptor. The device was vicious – its effects not unlike those of Starscream's null-rays, but conducted rather than transmitted, and all the more dangerous for that. As long as the device was in physical contact with a mech's armour, jagged and incoherent waveforms would be transmitted through their circuitry, disrupting both frame and processor. While a null-ray blast would drop a mech into stasis until their fragmented systems could reboot, the on-going assault disrupted the stasis failsafe as it did every other system, and prevented a reboot from starting, let alone reaching its conclusion.
Ops level shielding – such as the surviving officer corps of both armies carried as a matter of routine – would buffer the signals for a few clicks, long enough to shake off a null-ray or remove and destroy this insidious human device. The rank and file though… Ratchet sighed, finishing work on a temporary patch that would neutralise the signal's effects for long enough for a mech to safely achieve stasis. That would have to do for now.
A more effective, longer term solution would have to wait – until Ratchet had a few orns to spend on the problem without other distractions, or until Wheeljack finally arrived and had an afternoon to spare.
The thought was bittersweet. The prospect of seeing his friend again after too long apart warmed Ratchet's thoughts. Anticipation of the news the engineer brought with him – that Wheeljack had already hinted at in his advance comms – chilled him through and through.
They'd already lost too damn much in this fragging war. Ratchet was determined that they would lose no more.
Sideswipe shifted. Ratchet reached out once more to pat his patient's smooth armour, frowned, reset his sensors and reached out again. For the first time, a flicker of hope dared to make itself felt against the shadow on his spark.
Sideswipe's temperature was coming down.
Tentatively, careful to keep his own firewalls high, Ratchet jacked into the warrior's systems. They were still a mess. Signals that had to be from Sunstreaker cut through Sideswipe's processor in jagged bursts of noise, shattering anything approaching coherent thought before it could form and sending wild commands to his straining frame. But, as Ratchet watched and prayed, there was the barest semblance of order emerging from the chaos. It was a fragile, intermittent thing, wiped away within microklicks, but a few sparkbeats later it came again, and then again.
Ratchet stayed jacked into Sideswipe's access ports. He watched with a desperate hope in his spark and a quiet keen catching in his vents, as, slowly and laboriously, Sideswipe began to build the antigens he needed to combat the hydrocarbon poisoning. And then, after long breems of struggle, as the stray code from Sunstreaker stopped battling those instructions and started to complement them.
Sideswipe's systems hiccupped, strained, and settled. The disruptor that the humans called a "car-killer" was still at work on Sunstreaker's neural net, sending his brother's systems awry. The most time-critical threat though – that of the hydrocarbons poisoning them both – had abated.
Ratchet dropped his face into his servos, trembling almost as hard as Sideswipe. They had time. Just a bare servo-full of jours – a few of days at the outside – but, just possibly, with Primus's blessing, it could be enough to find Sunstreaker and get to the root of this problem.
Gathering himself, he raised his helm and focussed on the still fragmented signals coming down the hard-line link. Without much hope he sent the officer-level command that should speak to Sideswipe's core programming.
"Sideswipe, executive command: report location Sunstreaker"
With most mechs, the automatic system response would identify their own location alone. Only twins and mechs with strong bonds knew their other half's location with equal precision. Until now, Sideswipe's systems had responded with gibberish, where they'd managed a response at all. This time Ratchet found himself stilling his vents, anticipation building as he waited for an answer.
The signal that pinged back at him was in the correct format at least – the sequence and cadence right for a set of Cybertronian coordinates.
He released his vent with a low sigh, hopes dashed before they could truly develop. His processor had provided the local translation as quickly as it registered the data. The coordinates Sideswipe had transmitted were not only well offshore from the landmass they occupied, but almost three kilometres below the surface of one of this world's oceans. Sideswipe's systems may have recovered enough to provide a coherent answer, but that didn't mean they could provide a correct one.
Sideswipe was tossing and turning on the berth. A murmur broke from him, not quite coherent enough to be described as speech but perhaps an attempt at Sunstreaker's name. His optics flickered online, unfocussed and unseeing, before fading.
Ratchet monitored Sideswipe as he fought almost to consciousness, before descending once more into frame-straining delirium. Sighing he straightened the inert frame, tucking a clenched servo in against his patient's side.
Packaging the coordinates together with an update on Sideswipe's condition, Ratchet pinged both off to Prime. A second transmission loaded the revised patch onto the base network, ready for access by all their people. Optimus Prime acknowledged both signals, his relief at the Sideswipe's improvement as glad, and his interpretation of the location report as resignedly negative, as Ratchet's own. The only real instruction he could offer – 'keep asking' – was one Ratchet hardly needed. The addendum – 'and get some rest yourself' – was one he firmly intended to ignore.