First Aid shut and locked the medbay door behind him, relieved that things were so quiet. Nothing was on the schedule as far as maintenance and check ups were concerned; barring an accident or emergency, he was unlikely to be disturbed, at least for the rest of this shift.
He went over to his small work area in the back of the medbay, sat down at the desk, resting one hand on the surface. First Aid slowly let his hand uncurl, revealing the tiny silvery being Ratchet had given him in the tunnels. Both of its miniature hands were tightly gripping the masses of umbilical threads that still covered most of its body, and it gave a faint, protesting squeak at the cooler air of the medbay. First Aid channeled more heat to his hands and transformed his smallest manipulating digits on his free hand to delicately brush away the threads from the tiny helm. The optics were tightly shuttered, but First Aid marveled at the diminutive face, every feature perfectly formed.
The young medic sighed. There was no saving him, Ratchet had said, and Ratchet would not say that unless he was certain. The appearance of the tiny sparkling explained many things, and First Aid bowed his head, spark gripping him with sadness. He thought he had known all the ways his spark could ache, but here was yet another one. He let grief make its way through him for another moment and then tucked it away next to all of the other sorrows, old and new, focusing on the need at hand. Keep him comfortable, Ratchet had also said, and he would do his best to see that the sparkling deactivated as peacefully as possible.
"At least," Aid murmured, "I suppose I should call you a sparkling." He knew no other words for a new-spark. Technically he himself was still a sparkling, although he had been created fully developed and programmed, sparked from the Allspark, and had been performing the role of an adult mech for many vorns. This little one was more like a new turbofox pup or cyberhawk chick, budded directly from the creator's body. Like the image capture he had seen once long ago, copy of a copy of a copy, a tiny mech covered with threads. Maybe there had been a term for such a sparkling, but he could not begin to pronounce the strange ancient glyphs that went along with the image, much less translate them.
"Are you a chick then, small one?" he asked softly, "or a pup?" The sparkling stirred at the sound of his voice, one hand loosing its grip on the threads to weakly clasp his manipulating digit. "Auditory sensors are activated I see," Aid smiled a bit, pitching his vocalizer higher. It just seemed like the right thing to do, and the sparkling squeaked and stirred again in response.
First Aid performed a diagnostic scan, not sure he would even be able to read the results, but the information scrolled up obediently on his scanner. He winced at the results. He had no baseline for a normal sparkpulse on a being so small, but the uneven pattern was not a good sign. The scan came up positive for several common viruses, and with no firewalls or antiviral programming they were already wreaking havoc on every system, from fuel pump to processor. He gently freed his small-digit from the sparkling's grasp and searched delicately along the sides of the little frame until he found them. Data ports, rudimentary, incredibly small, but present.
First Aid's optics narrowed in concentration behind his visor, processor sorting through and discarding several possibilities. Even the smallest uplink cable would be larger than the sparkling's entire arm, but maybe one could be modified…he frowned at the barely audible sound of the sparkling's vents. The little one was probably in some pain, given the state of his systems. He didn't even want to think about giving him an injection; he doubted he had a needle small enough, but maybe the sparkling could take a dose of painkillers by mouth? First Aid scanned again. The sparkling did possess a tiny fuel processing tank, as long as the viral infection hadn't compromised its function already.
Keeping the sparkling carefully cradled in his right hand, First Aid dexterously used his left to fill the smallest gauge syringe he could find with a minuscule dose of painkiller. When he tried to squeeze it into the sparkling's mouth, however, the little one squirmed and meeped unhappily, and the liquid ended up missing its target, running all over the little face. First Aid dabbed it away and tried again. This time some of it ended up in the sparkling's mouth, but he didn't seem to know how to swallow. The sparkling mouthed the liquid with a very unhappy frown on the tiny faceplates until he managed to spit it all out again. Mixing the painkiller with energon, and then even pure energon produced the same result. The sparkling was growing weaker and weaker, and reluctantly First Aid gave up the attempt. Unless he got the viruses stopped this little one wasn't going to last much longer. Ratchet's words to him earlier had been thoroughly forgotten. He had a patient. He would find a way to help.
He was going to need both hands to modify an uplink cable. What to do with the sparkling in the meantime? The tiny engine was not generating heat well at all, and the sparkling would cool down quickly without an external heat source. The berths in the medbay could be set to provide heat, but the sparkling became so distressed at being placed in the middle of a broad flat table, vents straining and hands scrabbling for purchase on the smooth surface, that First Aid picked up the little form and cradled it in his hand, speaking to him soothingly until the sparkling quieted again.
First Aid paced for a moment, at a loss. The ancient data files had shown 'bots with modified chestplates and smaller mechs being placed inside for safekeeping, almost like Blaster with his symbiotes. First Aid regarded his own chest armor thoughtfully, but he had no way of modifying it, and at any rate his iridium-alloy armor was very difficult to remold. This sparkling was much much smaller than any of the ones in the grainy image captures, if the proportions were accurate and the ancient mechs were similar in size to himself. He could probably tuck the sparkling under his spark casing even without modifying his armor, although the idea made him squirm uncomfortably. There was a lot of delicate wiring in that area! He had plenty of other spaces though. Struck by sudden inspiration, First Aid used the hand not holding the sparkling to open a storage panel on his other arm, one lined with insulation to protect the more delicate medical supplies. He removed the supplies and lined it with more insulation, until there was just enough space for the little frame. Aid carefully settled his tiny patient inside, and the sparkling sank its tiny hands into the insulation and was still, either content with the arrangement or just too weak to protest anymore. First Aid closed up the panel. As long as he didn't move that arm too much, the sparkling should be fine.
He now turned his attention to problem of modifying an uplink cable to connect to one of the sparkling's minute data ports. He wished Perceptor was here; micro-projects like this would be a piece of energon cake for the scientist. Data ports were all built to standard size, regardless of the overall size of the mech, but they did have uplink cables that were designed for linking to the smaller ports of research and micro-monitoring equipment. First Aid took the smallest of these and removed the endcap. He teased out three wires and rewove and crimped them into a jury-rigged cable connector end, measuring and adjusting the diameter quickly but carefully.
First Aid took a deep intake before inserting the standard end of the cable into the port on his arm where the sparkling was hidden, ignoring the moment of apprehensive dread with the ease of long practice. Almost afraid to look, he opened the panel to reveal the sparkling. "Still alive?" he questioned softly. The sparkling was still alive, but just barely. He offered no resistance, arms and tiny helm dangling limply as First Aid gently eased the other end of the cable into the middle port on the sparkling's left side with his small-digits. He sighed in relief as it slipped in place with no problems. Settling back in his chair, First Aid cradled the arm with the sparkling snuggled inside his storage section and shuttered his optics, making himself comfortable.
The connection was not perfect, flickering intermittently, but it was enough to allow First Aid to access the sparkling's systems. The damage was extensive, much of it already non-reversible. It was much worse than he had expected and for a moment First Aid considered withdrawing and just letting the sparkling continue the process of deactivation. He let his small manipulator digit gently stroke one of the limp little arms while he weighed prolonging the sparkling's suffering over the slim to nonexistent chances of him surviving, let alone having any functionality. A tiny hand suddenly turned and gripped his digit tightly enough to hurt, and an equally strong sense of fierce, clinging determination surged across the link. First Aid blinked and winced. "Message received, small one," he said aloud, a short, surprised laugh escaping him as he sat up straighter with a renewal of hope. "We'll give it a try then. You are certainly a very determined little mechanism."