Perceptor and Wheeljack both turned and looked at their visitors when Prowl passed through the doorway to the lab with Sideswipe in front of him. The dark grey space bridge module sat at waist height on a test bench, connected to the control console next to it. They had an array of other test equipment set up around the laboratory with a control area set in the center of everything, where the test specimen sat on a blocky pedestal.
"Hi guys," Prowl greeted them. "I've brought a volunteer to help with your experiment."
"Excellent," Perceptor smiled.
Prowl deactivated the energy bonds. Sideswipe glanced back at Prowl then rubbed his wrists before stepping away from him.
"We sure could use some help," Wheeljack agreed, the grey lamps on either side of his head flashing brightly as he spoke.
"Sideswipe is under orders to stay here until I personally release him," Prowl stated as he looked between the scientist and the engineer. "Put him to good use."
Perceptor and Wheeljack glanced at each other and then looked back at Prowl.
"Very well," Perceptor acknowledged Prowl's order with his characteristic British accent.
"And let me know if he causes you any trouble," Prowl finished then shot Sideswipe a stern look.
Sideswipe did not turn to watch Prowl leave the laboratory. He was just glad that Prowl was leaving. As soon as the door closed behind the strategist, the red warrior's cocky attitude re-emerged in his body language.
"Let's just get this over with," Sideswipe remarked smartly. "I've got more important things to do."
Wheeljack turned to Perceptor. "I get the feeling this is going to be a long day."
Sideswipe was bored. He was stuck in a laboratory with a couple of intellectuals. They discussed their theories and tinkered with their equipment. Nothing happened. When he finally touched something they asked him to sit on a bench, out of the way. Perceptor said they were going to find something for him to do. Sideswipe was not a scientist so he could not contribute to the analysis in any meaningful way. His only use here was as a laborer but all the big equipment was already in place.
Sideswipe's attention wandered and he eventually reclined along the length of the bench. Wheeljack and Perceptor continued to discuss ideas and make modifications to the test equipment. They still had not found anything for him to do. In his right hand, he twirled a soldering needle that he had picked up off a nearby counter to bide his time while he stared up at the deep golden-orange ceiling above him. When he started flipping the needle above him higher and higher to see if he could hit the ceiling and catch it again, the others engaged him.
"Sideswipe?" Perceptor called to him from across the laboratory.
Sideswipe eased himself back up. "Yeah?" the Lamborghini responded.
"I need you to stand over there, by the articulating impedance reactor."
Sideswipe contorted his faceplate "By the what?" he asked, puzzled.
"It's the thing that looks like an imaging depositor with a dome on top," Wheeljack explained, looking over the top of the console next to Perceptor.
The description did not help much, but he managed to figure out which piece of equipment they were talking about because only one had a dome on top.
"Oh, of course," he said mockingly, then went and stood by the piece of equipment. "What do you want me to do with it?" he shrugged with a quizzical expression.
"We're gonna hit the test piece with the magnetic spectrum from this velocitron," Wheeljack explained, patting a machine on top of the console. "If everything works out, the test piece should disappear and reappear on the other pedestal over there."
"We've routed the output from the velocitron through the space bridge controller," Perceptor added. "You are going to control the frequency and the amplitude of the space-time signal generator."
Sideswipe looked down at the strange device and frowned. "I am going to control the what? And the what? How do I operate this thing?"
Perceptor approached Sideswipe and showed him where the frequency and amplitude controls were. "It's not that difficult, actually," the red and blue Autobot scientist explained to Sideswipe. "With this dial you can turn the frequency up or down, and this slide controls the wave amplitude. You can see the output here on this monitor."
Sideswipe's optics glazed over as he stared at the controls. "Okay, so you're going to tell me exactly what to do, right?"
"Of course," Perceptor chimed. "Just follow my instructions." He turned to go back to the main control console then paused to make one final remark. "Oh, Sideswipe. Just one thing - whatever you do, don't touch this switch," he said pointing to a two-position switch. "We don't want to involve the time component of the universal continuum."
"Uh, sure," Sideswipe responded. He looked down at the machine in front of him, not having the slightest idea of what he was actually controlling. But he figured it should be simple enough to follow Perceptor's instructions.
"Okay, ready?" Wheeljack asked Perceptor.
"Any time," the scientist answered.
Wheeljack activated the test apparatus and stepped up the power from a bank of glowing energy conductors. The power system hummed in the background as Perceptor alternated his attention between the output screen on the console and the test piece. Perceptor then held up his hand and spoke to Sideswipe while he kept his optics locked on the screen in front of him.
"Okay Sideswipe, tune the frequency to fourteen cycles per second," he instructed.
Sideswipe looked down at the dial and turned it until the display on the monitor in front of him read fourteen. The wave output on the screen shortened in response.
"Look at how it's oscillating. You were right about your theory. That's pretty close to the first mode function," Wheeljack congratulated Perceptor with enthusiasm.
Sideswipe looked over at the test specimen. A white orb of light glowed from within the material of the test piece and pulsed slowly. It was a strange sight to behold. He had never seen the Decepticon space bridge technology work like this before.
"Now let's see what happens when we take it up to its second modal response," Perceptor announced and looked back over at Sideswipe. "Turn the frequency up to twenty-eight cycles per second."
Sideswipe turned the dial up until the output read twenty-eight and removed his hand from the controls. The white light intensified and pulsed even faster, but now a second beat emerged in the pulse, oscillating slower and brighter than the first.
"Ha! It's going to work!" Wheeljack slapped Perceptor's shoulder. "At the third modal response we'll be moving matter!"
"Yes, well, we're not quite there yet," Perceptor responded in a controlled manner. "We must do this next part precisely. "Sideswipe, listen carefully."
Sideswipe looked across the laboratory at Perceptor with no interest in the success the other two were anticipating.
"You need to do two things in quick succession. Do you understand?" Perceptor asked. Sideswipe nodded. "Okay, first you need to turn the frequency up to forty-two cycles per second. Then you have only a few seconds to increase the amplitude to surround the test piece."
"What happens if I don't do it fast enough?" Sideswipe asked.
"Well, we don't really know," Wheeljack answered matter-of-factly.
"Theoretically," Perceptor chanced, "we may only move the center sphere of material out of the test specimen, leaving a void in the middle."
"Like a donut," Wheeljack explained. "You know, those things that Sparkplug eats."
"Okay, so what amplitude do you want this set to?" Sideswipe asked coolly.
"Let's see," Perceptor thought out loud as he rubbed his chin pensively. "If you increase the amplitude to just more than double the current amplitude it should result in a diameter just over twice the size and therefore a sufficient volume to envelop the specimen."
"So, the setting is?" Sideswipe anticipated.
"Fifty centimeters," Perceptor answered with confidence.
Sideswipe acknowledged the setting and waited for Perceptor's nod to go ahead. At the signal, he monitored the display as he turned the dial until it read forty-two cycles per second. The test piece now pulsed with a brilliant white light at all three frequencies. He quickly moved to the amplitude setting, but faltered when he looked at the controls. The amplitude was displayed in inches.
He only had a few seconds to change the amplitude or he would ruin the experiment. Sideswipe struggled to remember the conversion from metric to imperial units. Was it two-and-half inches per centimeter or was it the other way around? Or did you multiply the number of inches by twelve to get centimeters? He had no time to decide - or to ask a question.
There was perhaps another second to react before the test piece would start translating. He decided to multiply the amplitude by twelve because it gave the biggest distance, which had to be right because the other numbers seemed too small. So, after calculating that the product of fifty and twelve was six hundred, he pulled the slide far to the right. The sinusoidal output on the screen immediately grew very tall and thin.
The orb of light pulsed brightly outward from the center of the test piece, jumping in size to the diameter of each third mode pulse as it progressively grew larger. From across the lab, Perceptor and Wheeljack watched at first with surprise then with alarm as the size of the orb quickly grew much larger than they expected.
"Stop!" Perceptor yelled to Sideswipe, waving his arms around. "That's too much!"
Sideswipe looked at Perceptor as the orb pulsed two sizes larger, engulfing him and the controls. The others disappeared in the field of blinding white light. The gyroscopic pulsing destabilized his equilibrium and he became disoriented. Something pinched in his weak knee joint and he lost his balance and collapsed. He fell to the floor, hitting his head against the pedestal on the way down, and knocked himself senseless. There he lay until the bright light subsided and the world seemed to return to normal.
Sideswipe held his head and carefully lifted himself off the floor. He slowly straightened his right leg as he stood up. The pain in his knee joint had subsided but the pressure in his leg hydraulics was still high, and his leg responded stiffly.
"Whoa, what happened?" he asked as he stood up, still holding his head.
Across the laboratory, Perceptor and Wheeljack stared in utter disbelief at the red warrior. Neither could believe the outcome of their experiment with the space bridge technology.
Sideswipe looked between the two stunned Autobots, perplexed by their silence. "What's the matter with you guys?"
Perceptor fell back into his seat. "Sideswipe?" he asked in amazement. "What…?"
Wheeljack stammered for a moment before finding his vocalizer. "I can't believe I'm seein' this," he shook his head in disbelief.
Sideswipe chuckled. "What are you talking about?" He screwed up his faceplate, thinking that they were playing some sort of joke at his expense.
"You," said Wheeljack emphatically, "are supposed to be dead."
Sideswipe laughed off Wheeljack's nonsensical comment. "No," he retorted, "I'm not." He crossed his arms and waited for the two of them to give up their game.
"Wheeljack, what is going on?" Perceptor implored.
"I wish I knew," Wheeljack mumbled, looking away.
Several feet in front of Sideswipe, the test piece still sat on its original pedestal. "It looks like your experiment didn't work," Sideswipe said as he pointed to the unmoved test piece.
Wheeljack turned back to Perceptor who was still sitting, stunned, next to him. "He must have been watching what we were doing," Wheeljack said softly.
"Of course I was watching," Sideswipe said with frustration. He extended both hands at the console in front of him. "I've been standing at these controls all along. Look, I really don't get your joke." Sideswipe was growing unsettled by their odd behavior. Maybe something was wrong. He remembered being caught in the orb of light, then losing his balance and hitting his head. But none of it explained Perceptor's loss of composure or Wheeljack's comments about his death.
Perceptor shook his head. "This isn't possible."
"Hey, knock it off, Perceptor. And you too, Wheeljack." Sideswipe raised his voice, exasperated. "This isn't funny anymore!" He rested the knuckles of one hand against the side of his hip plate and glanced furtively around the lab. "You guys are really weirding me out."
Wheeljack turned off the power to the test equipment. "I'm graspin' at straws to understand what just happened here," he explained. He approached Sideswipe and put his hand on the Lamborghini's shoulder. Sideswipe stiffened and regarded him suspiciously, but the gesture seemed to confirm something for Wheeljack. "I'm sure glad to see you again. We all missed you."
Realizing it was pointless to argue with the others, Sideswipe mirrored the Lancia's gesture, putting his own hand on Wheeljack's shoulder, and said with mock seriousness, "I missed you too, Wheeljack. Now, can we just get back to the experiment? I want to get out of here sooner rather than later. I've got more important stuff to do."
Wheeljack took his hand off the Lamborghini's shoulder, unsure of what to say.
Perceptor cautiously stood up out of his chair. Evidently the scientist's composure was returning. "Sideswipe," he paused nervously. "May I call you Sideswipe?"
Sideswipe rolled his optics and whispered to himself. "Ugh! I never wanted to be stuck here in the first place."
Perceptor continued undeterred. "What did you mean by 'get back to the experiment'?"
Sideswipe shook his finger skeptically at the scientist. "Now that's just plain weird." He turned back to Wheelack and smirked. "Prowl put you guys up to this, didn't he?"
"Prowl okayed this project," Wheeljack began hesitantly, trying to decipher what Sideswipe meant, "but we never had this result in mind."
"This truly is beyond all of my calculations," Perceptor added.
Sideswipe put his other hand on his hip plate. "So," he muttered quietly to himself, "he is behind this." He stared at the test piece in front of him as he thought about his stash of energon. Prowl could continue to suspect him of smuggling contraband items into the Ark, but unless Prowl found out where the goods were stashed he would not be able to prove anything. Prowl must have been spying on him to have known that he was in maintenance. Now it seemed that the strategist had resorted to a bizarre scheme to fool him into giving away his secrets by getting other Autobots involved. Whatever the nature of Prowl's game, it must be elaborate because Sideswipe could not see where Wheeljack and Perceptor were leading him. As he considered the possibilities, a clever smile spread across the red Lamborghini's lip components. "Hey guys," he began with a cocky flick of his head, "what's in this for you? What are the stakes?"
Perceptor and Wheeljack exchanged grim looks.
"Our survival depends on the success of this," Perceptor stated simply. "If we can't get this to work, we're finished."
The answer surprised Sideswipe. Had Prowl threatened Perceptor and Wheeljack? Would they stop at nothing to get the location of his secret stash? Prowl's words about being arraigned as a traitor for possessing goods traded from the enemy echoed in his mind. Prowl must have scared the others into believing that their security was being sold out for a few luxury items.
"Honestly, Prowl has you all worked up over nothing," Sideswipe coolly dismissed their concerns. "Really, there's nothing to worry about." The other two did not seem interested in experiments anymore, so he returned to the bench where he had been reclining earlier, sat down and relaxed. "He's just trying to get something on me so that he can look like a hero – like he's doing a good job."
"Huh?" both Perceptor and Wheeljack asked at once.
"So with that out of the way, what do I have to do to get out of this lab?" Sideswipe summarized, adjusting his leg.
"I don't understand," Wheeljack replied, looking to Perceptor for clarification.
"Who doyou think is keeping you here?" the scientist asked.
Sideswipe paused and wondered if something had happened to the others to cause them to forget. "Prowl brought me here. He told me to help out. Don't you remember?"
"I am not aware of any dialog with Prowl over bringing or keeping you here," Perceptor answered.
"When did he tell you this?" Wheeljack asked.
"As soon as I got here," Sideswipe answered. The statement was met by a moment of stunned silence. The mystery surrounding his presence in the lab perturbed him.
"This is getting stranger by the moment," Wheeljack said to himself.
"You're telling me!" Sideswipe shot back as he sat fully upright. "I don't know what happened during your experiment, but I think it did something to your memory banks."
His patience had expired. Whatever had happened, it was up to Perceptor and Wheeljack to figure it out. Sideswipe knew that he was fine, and that there seemed to be no further use for him in the lab. Feeling restless, he stood up but was not careful about shifting his weight onto his weak knee and it suddenly pinched again. The pain caught him off guard. His faceplate flinched and he froze momentarily.
"What's wrong?" Wheeljack asked urgently and went over to the Lamborghini.
"It's nothing," Sideswipe answered through the pain as the pressure in his leg peaked.
Wheeljack helped Sideswipe to sit back down on the bench. "But you're injured," he said.
"Don't worry about it, really," Sideswipe explained, trying to mask the pain in the joint.
"I can help," the engineer offered.
Sideswipe took a moment to consider the offer. Wheeljack could fix his knee so he would not need to sneak back into maintenance to retrieve the tools left on Hoist's desk. "This would be off the record, right? No mentioning this to Ratchet?"
Wheeljack's frame sagged. "How could I?"
Sideswipe supposed he could trust him. Wheeljack was not the type to go talking behind someone's back. "Well, okay," Sideswipe conceded and lifted his right leg up onto the bench. The stiffness was diminishing but he still had to be careful with it. "Actually, it's my right knee joint. It keeps giving me shooting pain."
Perceptor opened up a panel to reveal a drawer with tools in it. Wheeljack retrieved a couple of items from the drawer and went back over to Sideswipe. After questioning him about what motions caused him problems and how the pain felt, Wheeljack partially disassembled the joint and began to fix it.
"I never knew you had a problem with your knee," Wheeljack said as he worked.
"It's not something I wanted to make a big deal out of. Ratchet has better things to do than deal with minor stuff like this. Hoist, he'd make fixing it into an ornate project," Sideswipe explained, shrugging. "So, I thought I'd just take care of it myself."
"Sideswipe," Perceptor inquired as he drew near. "When did last you see Ratchet?"
Sideswipe stopped and thought about it for a moment. "I haven't been to medical bay in about five weeks."
Wheeljack and Perceptor glanced at each other, puzzled. Perceptor put a hand over his mouth as he considered everything Sideswipe was saying, and then asked Wheeljack to speak with him privately. Moving a short distance away from Sideswipe, they resumed their conversation.
"I can't help but think that this Sideswipe is not the same individual that we knew," the Autobot scientist conjectured.
"I was coming to that conclusion also," Wheeljack agreed. "But if he's not really Sideswipe, then who is he and how did he end up here?"
Perceptor turned to look past his shoulder-mounted microscope barrel at Sideswipe. The red warrior was waiting for Wheeljack to return and finish working on his open knee joint. "I don't know, but he does seem to be an Autobot."
"Right," Wheeljack stated as he looked down at the tools in his hands. "I'll get his knee fixed up. Then we can try to figure out what we did with this space bridge control module to bring him here from… wherever he came from."
"While you do that I'll contact Prowl," Perceptor added and went over to the communications console. He entered a sequence of several keystrokes into the computer, requesting Prowl's presence in the lab. Perceptor was doubtful that the strategist knew anything about the outcome of the experiment – as Sideswipe had suggested – but it was imperative that he be informed of Sideswipe's presence in the Ark.
Wheeljack returned to Sideswipe and quietly finished repairing the deficient joint. After the seal was re-seated, he locked it up and closed its protective cover plate.
"There you go," Wheeljack finished and stood up. "Good as new."
Sideswipe sprung to his feet, eager to try out his mended knee. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, then hopped several times and, raising his right leg to the side, quickly flicked it out in a powerful roundhouse kick.
"Back to normal!" he exclaimed jubilantly.
Perceptor joined the other two Autobots. "Prowl should be here at any moment. He is most interested in this new development."
Just then, the lab doors opened and Prowl strode into the room, flanked by Ironhide and Brawn. When they laid optics on the red warrior, all three halted in disbelief. "By the Primal Algorithm!" exclaimed Prowl.
"What the-?" Ironhide asked incredulously.
"How on Cybertron-?" added Brawn, bewildered.
"Oh c'mon," Sideswipe complained. "What's wrong with everybody?"
"How did this happen?" Prowl asked as he looked to Perceptor and Wheeljack for an explanation. He was clearly unsettled by Sideswipe's presence.
Sideswipe answered before either of them could get a word in edgewise. "What do you mean 'how did this happen?' You're the one who ordered me to work with these two."
Prowl's optic ridges lifted at Sideswipe's remark. "I don't know what he's talking about," the strategist remarked to Wheeljack and Perceptor before turning to address Sideswipe. "You bear a likeness to one of our fallen companions, Autobot. But I do not know who you are, and I certainly gave you no orders."
Sideswipe was concerned by Prowl's strange response but saw an opportunity to turn the situation to his benefit. "So then I am released from here?"
"Released?" inquired Prowl, confused by the question.
"Yeah, can I go now?" Sideswipe clarified with a mischievous smile on his lip components.
Prowl looked to Wheeljack and Perceptor, who shrugged in response.
"What's going on here?" Prowl queried without acknowledging Sideswipe's question.
Wheeljack replied before Perceptor. "We were trying to open up a wormhole with the space bridge control module like we have been for some time now. However, this time when we tried, Sideswipe appeared. I can't explain it."
"Nor can I – at the moment," Perceptor added.
"Wait a minute," Sideswipe interrupted the conversation. "I didn't appear here. I was here all along."
"This isn't making any sense," Brawn said to Ironhide.
Ironhide spoke up from behind Prowl. "Are you sayin' he just appeared outta nowhere?"
"Yes, precisely," confirmed Perceptor.
Prowl looked suspiciously at Sideswipe. "But that's impossible."
Wheeljack turned to Sideswipe. "Maybe," the engineer considered, raising his index finger as he spoke, "just maybe you were at the controls all along, as you said…" He paused for effect then turned to address everyone else, "…and we opened a wormhole to a different plane of reality."
"A parallel universe," Perceptor echoed, considering the idea as he spoke. "Strange. I would have to double-check the calculations to verify this hypothesis."
"Ain't it obvious?" Ironhide interrupted in a plaintive tone. "How else could he exist?"
"Yeah," Brawn agreed. "Our Sideswipe's gone."
Sideswipe chuckled to dispel the anxiety he was feeling. The idea of having been transported from one stream of reality into another was truly bizarre, especially since it seemed that in this reality he no longer existed.