Chapter Five: Wheeljack

I was working on patching the holes in Jackhammer's fuel lines when the commotion from the main area of the base reached my audials. I dropped the next piece of spare metal I had been about to grab, switched off my blowtorch, and hurried out of the storage area and down the hall. I passed Prime dragging Freeloader kicking and shouting to his cell. Wonder what set him off again. Prime didn't seem to need my help, so I continued the way that he and the prisoner were coming from.

Our other prisoner, currently un-cuffed, was sitting on the med bay berth while Ratchet stood talking to her quietly. As I got closer, I could see that she seemed uncharacteristically shaken.

"Upwash," Ratchet was saying, "it's all right. You're in our base, and that makes us responsible for your safety, prisoner or not. As long as you're here, you're safe."

"What's going on here?" I asked.

They looked at me, surprised. Ratchet spoke first.

"Freeloader saw us talking and—correctly—guessed her role in this base."

"And blew a gasket. As would be expected."

"Precisely."

I looked down at Upwash. "And what have you got to say about this?"

Her intakes visibly hitched. "He's right," she said. "I'm a traitor. Whatever information I keep won't make my case any better before Megatron. I've been doomed from the first location I gave."

"That little aft is just trying to scare you," I huffed. "He can't do a thing. Overconfident, rust-driven spawn of the Pit—"

"Don't call him that!" she exclaimed. "You don't know him: not where he comes from, not what he's been through—"

Ratchet put a servo on her shoulder, steadying her.

"Upwash," he began slowly, "I know you didn't want to tell us more than his rank and designation, but I think we need to know what we're dealing with. Please."

She put a servo over his and vented. I had the distinct impression that I was intruding upon something private and potentially intimate. "All right."

Bumblebee walked in as she was about to continue. /Hey, guys, what's with Freeloader's temper tantrum just now? He glitching or something?/

Upwash gave her fellow scout a strained smile. "I was about to explain Freeloader's past."

/Well, don't let me stop you! I'm as curious as the next 'Bot./

Bee sat down on the floor as Upwash started.

"Freeloader was part of the last wave of sparks before the Well disappeared from Cybertron. As you know, those sparklings were raised in the last remaining Youth Center until its destruction in a raid, at which point the surviving sparklings were parceled out to various caretakers."

/I was one of those,/ Bee chimed in. /They sent me to an Autobot medical center with a few others./

Upwash nodded. "About half were sent to Autobot facilities. The rest went to various neutral parties. Freeloader went to a mech by the designation Blindside in Yuss." She paused. "'Loader doesn't talk about his time in the Youth Center. I'm not sure how well he was treated by his peers. I do know that his defect—you saw the scan of his fuel tanks—wasn't benevolently looked upon in most cases. He had to have one tank all the way full before the other would fill, and if one remained empty, he'd have terrible cramps and other fuel-deprivation symptoms. Since he needed more than the allotted amount of energon to live without pain, he was considered a burden by most of the caretakers. I've seen their files on him, so that much is certain. Anyway, he doesn't talk about Blindside much, but he doesn't seem to resent living with him, either, so I think he must have been treated well there. What the Autobots in charge of distributing sparklings didn't know is that Blindside had gotten on the DJD's List for defecting from the 'Cons to become neutral a vorn earlier."

A collective intake went around our little group. The Decepticon Justice Division was ruthless. They hunted down traitors to the Decepticon cause and executed them in the messiest ways possible as examples to the rest. We'd lost a lot of good mechs trying in vain to shelter former 'Cons from their wrath. Luckily, the last known sighting of them had left little doubt that they were all offline now.

"So they showed up at his home," Ratchet stated once we had all vented a few times to calm our circuits.

She nodded. "The aftermath wasn't pretty. I've seen pictures. Energon and armor scraps everywhere, and a terrified sparkling huddled in a corner. The DJD is ruthless, but Freeloader wasn't on the List, and he hadn't done anything to aid their target. They brought him to Shockwave on their way to report to Megatron. Shockwave made the logical decision. We needed more mechs in the field with intelligence and special operations roles. Freeloader's extra tank gave Shockwave the idea for some saboteur modifications. Shockwave added fuel-siphoning lines and rerouted things so that he could have normal rations without leaving one tank empty. With that and the rest of his special ops modifications, Freeloader hit the youngling stage just in time to go into the field.

"He was a natural. Soundwave's favorite charge. Quick-witted, merciless, and loyal. He'd be sent in before and after battles: before to skew the battle in our favor and after to scavenge energon before it dried in the corpses' fuel lines."

Upwash paused. She looked like she was trying to decide how much more to say. "He came to Earth with the rest of us, actually. It surprises me that this was your first direct encounter with him."

"Is there anything else we should know?" Ratchet asked. "How close are you two?"

"Not very. He's really close to Breakdown and Knock Out, Breakdown especially, but that's about it."

I ex-vented sharply. "Breakdown? Since when is Breakdown here?" Although, come to think of it, Freeloader had said something about Breakdown earlier, so it wasn't a total surprise.

"Since about a lunar cycle after your first visit," Ratchet replied.

"That slagger… No wonder the little mech's so messed up with him as a role model."

Upwash raised an optic ridge. "What's that supposed to mean? Breakdown's got it more together than most of the Decepticon officers."

"Yeah, right. That mech's psychotic. He lives for destruction. Some company for younglings."

She shook her helm. "He's a better mech than you, Wheeljack. If you really want to see someone's real self, you look at how they act around their inferiors, not their superiors or peers. Breakdown's probably the only officer who legitimately cares what happens to the lower-ranking Decepticons."

"'Cause you've had so much experience with compassion and morality." My tone, dripping with sarcasm, didn't reflect the uncertainty in my processor.

She looked away. Bumblebee spoke up, trying to alleviate tension.

/You know, I think I'm going to spend some time getting to know Freeloader. I mean, we're the same age, so he might be more open with me./

Upwash ex-vented. "Good luck, I guess."

Bee got up and walked away down the hall. After a moment, I got up and followed. "Hey, Bee, wait up!"

He stopped and looked back at me. I rubbed the back of my helm, suddenly self-conscious. "All right if I hang around and watch? Make sure nothing goes wrong?"

/Suit yourself./ he chirped, putting his servos on his hips, /but don't think I don't know your real reason./

I shrugged. "So the kid's got a sad story. Doesn't mean I give a scrap. I just want to see more of him before I make more judgements that Upwash can yell at me for."

/Whatever. Optimus was going to take him to the wash racks before the freakout. I think I'll start with that if he's calmed down enough./

Freeloader came quietly when we brought him out of his cell. He was more subdued than I'd seen him yet. His posture was hunched, drawn in, making him look small and helpless. It was probably a feint, but I couldn't help thinking about what Upwash had said and seeing a frightened youngling before me rather than a cunning spy. His visor was down again, like he was trying to hide behind it, but his body language was pretty obvious. He turned his helm away as we passed Ratchet and Upwash, shoulders hunching even more when we continued the way Prime had tried to bring him earlier.

"Do your worst," he muttered as we entered the hall leading to the wash racks. "I'm not telling you a thing."

Bee froze mid-step. He turned to Freeloader.

/We're not going to hurt you,/ he said, putting a servo on the prisoner's shoulder. /We're just going to get you cleaned up. Come on./

I swear his optics shuttered in relief behind that visor. He was scared. We took him into the wash racks, and I sat back to let Bee handle things.