Nick gazed at the silent black and white police car, a frown on his pale features. Karr was next to him, in his Stealth mode, and the Autobots and the team around Captain Lennox were ready to intervene should something happen. It was the same one he had seen over and over again in the past weeks and months. He recognized the unit number, the quite open but still deceptively hidden faction symbols, and in a way he recognized the unique look.

"He's been following me," Nick murmured.

"We suspected as much," Prime rumbled. "The question is why. Did you ever talk to him?"

"No."

There was a dull pulse in the back of his mind, something he was familiar with. It had begun right after the Allspark incident and it had never faded. Even now it was like an echo of something. Nick had thought it to be the change of the implant. Now he wasn't so sure.

//It has been with us since we left Mission City// Karr agreed.

Nick approached the Saleen Mustang, feeling another pulse. There was a whispering sound, like a very distant voice, a language he didn't understand. Gibberish.

Barricade, he thought. His designation was Barricade. A name translated into English from a Cybertronian one that he would probably never be able to pronounce.

"Nick," Optimus warned.

More whispers. He had no idea what he was hearing. It was foreign. Like electronic interference.

"Your language," Nick said, still looking at the Decepticon. "It's unlike anything we speak, right?"

"That is correct."

"What does it sound like?"

Optimus tilted his head, then a burst of what could only be described as noise could be heard. Nick frowned. The echo inside him was almost the same.

"Do Decepticons and Autobots use different… accents?"

"No. Why are you asking, Nick?"

He was silent, approaching the cruiser again. "Karr and I share a link. A connection brought on by a chip in my head and his ability to pick up impulses from my mind from there. Wilton Knight probably never intended it to work like it did with the two of us, but we have developed our own way of communication. Not verbal, not just emotional, not just energy bursts. It's all of that and more. We can touch each other through the link, we can slide across it to the other mind."
Ratchet was listening with visible fascination. Ironhide just scowled.

"That the link has now become what Ratchet calls a Cybertronian nervous system hasn't changed that. But ever since Mission City and the change, I kept hearing… echoes. Like electronic sounds, bursts, gibberish. I thought it was because of the change."

"Great Cybertron," Ratchet whispered, sounding horrified.

"What's going on?" Sam spoke up. "What's wrong?"

"He kept following us. I knew he was there even when I couldn't see him," MacKenzie conitnued, voice so level, controlled and almost cool. "And now I hear it again. It's there, underneath everything that is Karr and me, and it's… pulsing and humming and… sometimes I hear sounds like what Optimus just said."

"Impossible! It can't be!" Ratchet exclaimed.

"Ratchet?"

"Prime, he can't be accessing the nervous system! It's an impossibility! For that to happen…" The medic fell silent, optics bright. "Frenzy," he then said.

"What about the little rat?" Ironhide demanded. "He was terminated!"

"Yes. And Barricade, like Blackout, has the ability to sustain a smaller bot with his systems. He has an interface link and a special compartment in each mode. Frenzy was lost to him, but the interface stayed open and active. He must have been looking for him and found… another signal."

"Nick? You think he lodged onto Nick?" Sam blurted.

"In a way, yes."

"Holy shit," Sam whispered, looking horrified.

Nick was by now standing next to the chained down Decepticon, head tilted with curiosity, gazing at the enemy warrior.

//Nick?//

//It's like I can sense him, Karr. Not like you. It's different//

A ripple of jealousy raced through him and Nick smiled, wrapping a part of himself around the dark representation of his partner in his mind.

//He took your Cybertronian frequencies as a substitute for what he has lost// Karr snarled, not amused. //I don't like it//

//Neither do I// It was an intrusion and Nick didn't want to think how much further Barricade might be able to infiltrate into the system the Allspark had created.

"So why's the bastard all catatonic?" Nick heard Ironhide demand and he tuned back into the argument that had broken lose.

"He was caught in the backlash," MacKenzie answered before anyone else. "The implant blew my mind, almost drove Karr into insanity, and it probably hit him, too, if your theory is correct."

Blue eyes met blue optics. Captain Lennox, who had kept silent, shifted on his feet, looking wary.

"So he stays like this then?" he wanted to know.

"My implant is fully back online," Nick replied with a shrug that was more casual than he really felt or let on. "He won't be getting any negative feedback from there – if he is listening in."

//He is// Karr sent darkly.

"So he might reboot just the same," the captain concluded.

"Yes."

"Well, fuck."

Ironhide looked mildly amused at the expletive, but he probably echoed it. "We should terminate his sorry existence."

"What if his termination affects Nick?" Bumblebee threw in, shooting the man in question a look.

Nick kept his eyes locked on the silent car. Karr was with him, hovering protectively as his partner explored the other presence so far, far back in his mind. He felt no immediate danger, but he recognized the sharp-edged blades that were Barricade's mind. He would be able to strike out and hurt whatever he touched, not unlike Karr had been so many years ago. But Barricade was alien, Nick reminded himself. He wasn't based on human technology, human conditioning, human thinking. His reactions might be completely different from what he expected them to be.

"It could very well have negative consequences," Ratchet agreed. "If Barricade logged the interface circuits onto the Cybertronian nervous system inside Nick, his termination would send shocks of his ceased existence into Nick. I don't know what the hybrid system would make of it."

"Unacceptable," Prime decided.

Nick could only agree. He wasn't inclined to get experimented on. Never again. Wilton Knight had been the last person to ever do that.

"But Prime! He's a Decepticon!" Ironhide exclaimed. "We can't let the scum bag sit here!"

"We do not harm humans," Optimus said firmly.

Nick felt an echo inside him and for the first time he registered it as neither Karr nor a glitch from the implant. It also didn't communicate in words or acknowledge him, but it was strong and rather… settled. Barricade was here to stay.

And then he discovered the thin stretch of something silvery leading from his mind plane to… somewhere else. Coldness raced through him. Another link, another bond, finely woven, deceptively luminescent, and… alien.

Karr grabbed his spark and safely drew him away. Nick let him.

//Shit// he whispered.

His partner readily agreed, eyeing the intruder warily. The connection was flimsy at best, consisting of a few very thin lines, like life-lines, attached to a remote part of the implant. At least it had once been the implant. Now it was a hybrid system that no one understood completely just yet.

Then, before Nick could stop him, Karr lashed out at the alien presence.

A shrill wailing sound emitted from Barricade and everyone in the hangar flinched, ducked or trained a weapon on the Decepticon. Nick staggered, hands coming into contact with the slick metal finish of the black and white car, and the shrieking intensified as Karr lashed out once more. Wheels started to spin crazily, fighting against the restraints. The acrid smell of burning rubber permeated the air and smoke rose in plumes from the rear wheels.

Nick felt himself grabbed by a large hand and lifted away from the police cruiser as it desperately spun its wheels. The red and blue lights began to flash, the headlights adding an eerie white light to that, then the sirens wailed.

Optimus Prime stepped back, Nick still in his gentle grasp, and MacKenzie looked at the huge robot in slight amazement.

"Are you all right?" Prime asked over the cacophony of sound and lights.

"Yeah, I think so."

Barricade was crying, shrieking, wailing, inhuman and frenzied, trying to get away. The engine revved painfully, higher and higher, and the whole frame shook with the pressure.

Karr shot forward, nearly colliding with Bumblebee, and hissed.

"Stop it!" the AI snarled. "He's mine. Leave him! He's mine!"

"Karr!" Nick managed, gritting his teeth. "Set me down!" he demanded of Prime.

Optimus did, though reluctantly. Nick noticed out of the corner of his eyes that Lennox and his team were at a safe distance, but close enough to shoot to kill, and Sam had been hustled away by Bumblebee, who was standing protectively in front of his charge.

Then his attention was back on his partner.

The last blow of Karr against the intruder had severed one of the fine lines of Barricade to the implant and the yell of the Decepticon had the Autobots shiver. It was like a wounded animal, twisting and turning, trying to get away from a tormentor, trying to escape torture. Metal crackled and cracked as Barricade tried to transform but couldn't, the security measures keeping him immobile.

"He has no right!" Karr hissed furiously. "He linked to you! He intruded! He. Has. No. Right!"

Another blow and Barricade howled shrilly, his voice box almost breaking from the sound. Nick's eyes flared with an unnatural light, just another indication that underneath the human skin was more than me the eye, then suddenly Karr rocked like he had received a blow himself.

//Stop it! Stop tearing him apart!//

//You are mine!// Karr yelled.

//Yes, I'm yours and you are mine, and nothing he can do will ever change that, Karr. Severing the link by brute force might destroy us!//

Karr snarled and growled, still in car mode, rocking on his shocks.

Everyone was watching the display, mouths open in case of the human side, various expression on the Autobots' faces. Barricade had quieted down, but only as far as the cries were concerned. Soft whines echoed all around them, interspersed with fizzing and buzzing noises, as well as tremors throughout the body shell.

"Karr tried to cut the thin line from my implant to the interface unit," Nick explained tiredly.
"His reaction was one of pain, Optimus," Ratchet remarked. "His interface unit is fully focused on the human. I know of bots who, when linked to another unit, began to exhibit mimicry circuitry. Mimicry allowed the partner to merge with the main system of the dominant Cybertronian without intruding. Frenzy was a lower unit and he perished. I believe Barricade's mimicry circuits went haywire and drove him to find a replacement. Since there are no other Decepticons, he couldn't find anyone suitable."

"So when he found Nick and Karr, he latched onto them?" Lennox wanted to know, frowning.

"I believe so. Nick's almost fatal system crash drew him here and probably threw him into this catatonic state."

Ironhide snorted. "The mighty hunter slagged by a mere human. Irony."

Nick rubbed his head. "He's not slagged. He's probably working through the shock of what my mind flooded him with. I don't think he'll stay like this forever."

"Neither do I," Prime concurred, arms folded over a massive chest.

"So we can't kill him, we can't keep him, what do we do?" Ironhide asked darkly.

Barricade was hypersensitive to everything around him. His mind was in pain, pulsing in agony, with spikes of fire racing along his nervous system. Something had attacked him through the finely woven link running from the interface unit to the human mind, and he was still shivering with the echoes. Nothing, nothing at all in his past had ever been like this. No battle injury, no torture, had ever been this bad, had ever invaded so deep. He doubted that even the removal of his spark would ever be that agonizing.

Part of him was aware that he was chained down, surrounded by the enemy, but a much larger part was too busy trying to survive the pain. Survival was always primary. His own survival, of course.

The human's presence was still there, but one of the tendrils had been hacked apart by the hybrid AI, Karr. Barricade snarled at the very thought of this attack, but he was too weak to retaliate. It also meant moving along the connection, into the hybrid nervous system, confronting the human on his own ground. As much as Barricade needed the reassuring pulses of something at the other end of the abandoned and aching interface unit, he wasn't stupid enough to believe he could win anything.

Not on alien territory. And humans were as alien as they came. Their thought processes were chaotic, their behavior erratic, their actions unpredictable at time.

It was pathetic. He hated humans with a passion, but he needed this one because he had grown too attached to Frenzy.

He cursed.

Decepticons didn't rely on anyone. Especially the higher level units. Frenzy had depended on him, not the other way around. In such partnerships there was always an inferior unit. There couldn't be an equal partnership.

By becoming partner to the smaller 'bot, Barricade's circuits had adapted and now they needed input from the interface. Shutting them down had only resulted in him feeling partially deaf and blind. The partnership with the little hacker had weakened him through Frenzy's demise. He had never thought about it before because Frenzy had given him an advantage or two. He had never believed that carrying a drone like Scorponok, whose intelligence level was just above the average home computer in Barricade's eyes, was actually an advantage over having Frenzy. Blackout had never complained about his 'passenger'.

Now the human was Frenzy's replacement and it couldn't have been worse. Barricade was connected to an alien mind, a human mind! And he had no idea how to get out of the situation without harming himself – which was not an option. But the decline of his functions also wasn't one either. There was no best possible way out of this, just a kind of manageable compromise.

Barricade had never been big on compromises. He either killed, destroyed or disabled what got in his way. None of that was possible with the human. He needed MacKenzie and he hated him. He relied on him for his sanity and he despised his mortality and weakness.

Barricade knew he was totally screwed, one way or the other. His neural network had already incorporated the new alien input. He knew he would have to protect this human, come whatever, because MacKenzie was now part of him. Like he was part of Karr.

So utterly screwed, Barricade mused, still shivering. To survive he had to go against everything he had ever believed in. He couldn't independently continue to exist.

There was no other way out of this situation.