Halfway there. First Aid allowed himself a short break to stretch and take a few swallows of energon, before going back to manually combing through the tiny sparkling's code, line by line, for more viruses. The sparkling was still limp and unresponsive, but as long as the fragile spark continued to beat, First Aid wasn't going to give up either. The fueling problem nagged at him. Without a way to get energy into the little frame, all his efforts would be for naught, but so far no brilliant solutions had come to him.

Tell no one, Ratchet had said, and First Aid intended to follow that order as long as he could, but he needed help. Wheeljack was his first instinct, but he and Perceptor were stashed away on some secret project somewhere, and wouldn't be back until next orn.

Blaster?

He opened a comlink channel to the communications specialist. Maybe Blaster's symbionts would have some sort of record of this type of sparkling, although he wasn't pinning too much hope on it. Constructed during the earliest history of Cybertron as sentient data storage, most cassettes had been deactivated or processor-wiped at the beginning of the war. After discovering Ramhorn barely alive in the frame of his deactivated host, and nursing him along for an orn until they could reach medical care, Blaster had volunteered to receive the modifications necessary to support the symbiont. When two more cassettebots had been rescued from a Decepticon research facility, Blaster had good-naturedly added them to his crew. And when Jazz had shown up at his door after returning from a mission with a wide grin and Steeljaw tucked under one arm, Blaster had only sighed and opened his compartment.

"Ok, but this is the last one, Jazz. Next one gets to stay under your chestplates."

Although anything deemed of value had been wiped or extracted from their data banks long ago, all of Blaster's cassettes still possessed odd bits of information about ancient Cybertron, especially Rewind. Most of it made very little sense, or seemed to involve elaborate debates on the best methods of crystal gardening, but occasionally there was a gem of useful knowledge.

What's up, Aid? Blaster's transmission was crystal clear, as usual.

I have a few questions for your guys, if they're available. He could have contacted Rewind directly, but the cassettes seemed to prefer keeping "the boss" in the loop during their interactions with other mechs.

There was a brief pause, and then friendly greetings from Eject, Rewind and Steeljaw as they joined the transmission, and a grunt from Ramhorn, which Blaster informed him was an unusual pleasantry, coming from Ramhorn.

Do any of you have records on this type of new-spark construction? First Aid sent them a copy of the grainy ancient data file, a small Cybertronian frame covered in umbilical threads.

Hey! I've seen that before, was Rewind's immediate response. Eject and Steeljaw agreed that they, too, found the picture familiar.

But can you tell me anything more about it? Do you remember how they might have functioned or been maintained? There was silence.

Stupid, Ramhorn said finally, although whether he was referring to the other cassettes, to First Aid, or to the file itself, First Aid wasn't sure.

Sorry, Aid, Rewind said apologetically. But did you know that there are over thirty different kinds of gearshift designs hidden in the scrollwork facing on the crystal towers at Polyhex?

I did not know that, thank you, Rewind.

Cyberhounds, Steeljaw suggested. Ask Hound. He raised'm.

First Aid raised his optic ridges and nodded to himself. There were indeed many similarities between the little sparkling and a cyberhound pup, but he'd forgotten that Hound had been a gameskeeper.

That's a very good suggestion, thank you.

Welcome, Steeljaw answered, sounding smugly pleased. It wasn't often that he came up with the answers. First Aid made a mental note to review the cassettebots' medical scans when he got a chance. They had always assumed Rewind and Eject had been constructed in the usual fashion, while Steeljaw and Ramhorn would have originated from processor-upgraded forms of now-extinct Cybertronian wildlife. The two quadrupeds would therefore have been budded construction. After seeing the tiny sparkling, however, First Aid thought some oddities of design that both Eject and Rewind shared with the other two might be explainable with an origin by budding, rather than pre-built frames sparked by Vector Sigma.

That was a question for later though. First Aid debated for a moment, but the gradually weakening sparkbeat decided him. It was a choice between keeping the secret or taking a chance to save the sparkling's life. If things went well, the sparkling's existence would have to come to light eventually, anyway.

Hound? Can you come to the medbay? I could really use your help with a patient.

Hound was happy to assist, but would take a few breems to arrive as he was on the other side of the compound. While he waited, First Aid resumed his painstaking virus scan of the sparkling's systems.

"Hang in there," he murmured, brushing a small-digit over the sparkling where it was cradled in one hand. To his consternation the umbilical threads detached in the wake of wherever he touched, leaving behind the hundreds of clear attachment bases to each thread all along the sparkling's body. He carefully rolled the sparkling over and the remaining threads detached as well, falling in a silvery cascade to the floor.

"I hope that's not a bad sign, little one." The sparkling remained unresponsive, sparkbeat continuing a microfraction weaker than before. First Aid started on the next block of coding, ignoring the beginning of an ache in his processor and softly humming one of Jazz's old, many-versed ballads to keep himself focused on the tedious procedure. The overhead lighting in the medbay caught the remnants of the umbilical threads, giving the sparkling a fuzzy outline. The sparkling now reminded him a little of an energon bee, First Aid decided, one of the energy scavengers that, like most Cybertronian wildlife, had all but disappeared in recent vorns.

First Aid looked up as the swish of medbay doors announced Hound's arrival. "Where's this patient of yours?" Hound asked, looking curiously around the empty medbay.

"Right here." First Aid gestured with his free hand. Hound came over and peered down at the tiny sparkling.

"Aid…" Hound looked at the medic in wonder and then back down at the sparkling. "Holy slag. That's…"

"Budded, like a cyberhound pup, but way too early. He didn't have any firewalls, but I managed to get in a hardline connection and I'm taking care of the virus infections now. My main problem is I can't figure out how to get any fuel into him, and he's getting weaker."

"Where in the name of Vector Sigma did he come from?"

"I…can't tell you, Hound. I'm sorry."

Hound looked over at him again, frowning. "Aid, who else knows about this? Optimus? Ratchet? Prowl?" First Aid looked at him mutely, and Hound sighed. "I'm going to have to report him to Prowl, at the very least, if Optimus is still off base. Do you know what this could mean?"

First Aid nodded. "I know about the Allspark." It wasn't common knowledge, but he wasn't surprised Hound knew too, that all lifeforms generated from the Allspark since it had been retrieved from the Decepticons so long ago had been…broken. Tormented and insane, with no cure that could be found other than merciful deactivation. Cybertron was dying; he had known that long before Optimus had recruited him for the Ark mission.

"The last one," Perceptor had murmured, looking at First Aid with optics weary and sad from the frustrating, unsuccessful, and spark-breaking vorns of attempting to unravel the Allspark's secrets. First Aid didn't know how he felt about that, but it seemed Perceptor had been wrong. If the little sparkling lived, he would no longer be the youngest Cybertronian. He would be the older brother, as the Aerialbots had been his.

"Whatever you have to do, Hound, but if we don't do something soon to get him fueled he's not going to survive. I was hoping there would be something…since you used to raise cyberhounds…do you have any ideas at all?"

Hound crossed his arms and frowned again, this time in thought as he reviewed his memory banks. "My old master would have whipped me with an electro whip for suggesting it. It's nothing we ever did, but some of the new-fangled estates that wanted to build up their hunting hound numbers quickly would extract the newsparks and grow them in hatching vats, so the breeder hounds could bud again. Maybe something like that would work here?"

"Vats," First Aid mused. "Energon uptake through the dermal layer? If the thread bases haven't fused shut…can you hand me that empty cube?"

Hound handed it over and watched as First Aid tucked the sparkling away in one of his arm panels and then filled the cube with processed energon from one of his own secondary system lines. He then retrieved the sparkling, still attached to his arm port by the smallest uplink cable Hound had ever seen, and gently lowered most of him into the iridescent pink liquid. Only the tiny helm and top set of vents were still exposed.

"Is it working?" Hound asked, crowding in as close as he dared without disturbing the whole set up. First Aid shook his head.

"I can't tell yet."

They both watched the motionless little frame, Hound marveling at the tiny, perfect hands as they drifted aimlessly in the energon.

"Whipped you?" First Aid asked after a few kliks.

"Ah, well." Hound shrugged. "The good old days weren't as always as good as us old 'bots would have you think. It wasn't so bad, on the whole, and my old master really did take good care of the hounds, if not always the mechs that worked for him."

First Aid gave him a worried look, not entirely convinced.

"How's he doin' now?" Hound asked, giving him a reassuring nudge. First Aid scanned the sparkling's systems and looked over at Hound with optics glowing brightly behind his visor.

"It's not by much yet, but his energy levels are definitely rising," he said, elation clear in his voice. "I think it's working!"

Hound chuckled happily and patted the medic on the shoulder. "That's great, that's just great, Aid."

"I would never have thought of this in time. Thank you so much."

"Aw, you would have come up with something. You're a pretty determined medic, I've noticed. Let's see, you'll need to add growth components to the energon as well. If I recall right they used to use repair grade for hatching out cyberhound pups, but you might need to adjust the formula for this little guy."

"Growth components, that's right. He's supposed to get bigger." First Aid gently adjusted the sparkling in his cube of energon. "I don't know though. There's so much damage from the virus infections, he's just barely hanging on. I can't even put an estimate on his chances."

They both sighed, Hound resting his chin on his hands as they watched the little sparkling fighting so quietly for his life. First Aid rested the cube with his hand and the sparkling inside on a berth and set the berth to warm to operating temperature, while he resumed his virus scan.

"There's hope now, though, isn't there?" Hound asked after awhile.

First Aid nodded. "Yes. Energy levels are up two percent. There's definitely hope."

"I'm due for patrol," Hound said, standing and looking at First Aid uncertainly. "Tell you what. Why don't I give you a few cycles to see if you can get the little guy stabilized before I go to Prowl, that sound ok?"

"That would be most helpful, Hound, thank you," First Aid said gratefully.

After a few moments, First Aid looked up in surprise as Hound poked his helm back in through the medbay doors.

"Would it…uh…bother you too much if I checked in now and then. You know, just to see how he's doing?"

"That would be fine, Hound." First Aid tilted his head fondly at the green scout. "It won't bother me at all." Hound gave him a grin and then headed out to his patrol.

Thirty-seven percent more to go on the virus scans. First Aid set to it with renewed energy. He was interrupted once by Slingshot, coming by to check on him, and a second time by Ironhide, stopping in to pick up his repaired cannons.

"Hurt your hand?" Slingshot had asked off handedly.

"Just working on a project," First Aid had answered, and neither Ironhide nor Slingshot ever noticed that he was soaking a tiny sparkling in his cube of energon.

When the sparkling's energy levels reached twenty-six percent, First Aid was pinged by a request from the sparkling's systems to download a program. Scanning the code told him very little – the sequences were nothing he recognized, although the permissions involved seemed fairly invasive, on the level of higher order medical programming. After a few moments of pondering, and in full awareness that he was doing a Very Stupid Thing, First Aid allowed the download through his firewalls. He sighed a little as his own programming then proceeded to informed him, in no uncertain terms, that he was an absolute idiot.

[Run program override?]

[Yes.]

[Program override medical authorization level ten?]

[Yes.]

[System requirement medical override level six?]

[Yes.]

[Virus trace detected, run program?]

[Yes.]

[Are you sure?]

[Yes.]

He waited, but apparently his systems were finished flailing and griping. After a short pause the unknown program downloaded seamlessly to become part of his own coding. He'd been hoping for neatly arranged instructions on the ancient art of caring for budded sparklings, but no such information appeared. At least the downloaded code seemed to be dormant and well-behaved, for the moment anyway. He might still come down with a case of glitchy vents or some other complaint from any viruses he hadn't managed to clear yet, but his own self-repair systems would handle it eventually. Hopefully. Never download an unknown program. At least he hadn't blown up his spark chamber or started growing an extra pair of optics on his aft, as had been rumored to happen to other, less fortunate mechs.

"Ratchet's going to reassemble me as a surgical sonoscope, when he finds out," he told the sparkling. It made a faint, questioning squeak in reply.

"Well hello there! Welcome back, small fry," he said, using the affectionate term for a mech suspected of having a few burnt out circuits. First Aid scanned the sparkling again. Energy levels at forty-four percent and rising, very promising. He could feel a weak, questing probe through the hardline link and responded with encouragement and warmth. Blue optics lit to look at him briefly, before offlining again, and then the sparkling wriggled around in the energon bath until it could grip his hand with its tiny fingers and burrow into his palm.

"You are one amazing lifeform," First Aid murmured wonderingly, although his optics narrowed as he noticed the sparkling didn't seem to be using his lower half at all. Hound checked in a few breems later, and First Aid gave him the encouraging news.

At eighty percent, the sparkling's energy levels seemed to top out. "We'll take it," First Aid told the sparkling as he removed him from the energon and patted him dry. His processor throbbed painfully, but the last of the virus clearance was complete. The sparkling was patched in as a peripheral to his own systems, and under the shelter of his sturdy, medic-grade firewalls he would be safe from further damage for now.

"Now let's see what else is going on here." The sparkling didn't want to let go of the drying towel, so First Aid let him keep it while he went over the tiny frame from helm to pede. He kept up a running commentary as he examined his small patient, the sparkling responding with a series of beeps and chirps for his side of the conversation.

"Optics seem to be functioning fine, can you follow my finger? And you're obviously responding to auditory stimuli, yes, thank you very much, I have no idea what you're saying, but I agree. You've got a nice, strong grip, definitely feeling better, I can tell. Whoops, just where do you think you're going?" The sparkling had transferred his grasp back to First Aid's hand, squirming up in between his fingers. First Aid gently detached him and returned him to the towel.

"Stay here where I can get a good look at you, please. Engine still running pretty rough, but better than it was…hmmm, and still not using those legs much, are you? Considering all of the virus damage, it's amazing you're already this functional. Now, let's see what you've got in that processor…some of the basics, anyway, it looks like, but…" There was damage there, too, with sections of basic programming removed or altered.

"Are you understanding me? It looks like you've lost a lot of your language centers." First Aid tried sending the query through their hardline link as well. The sparkling was silent, peering up at him intently, and then First Aid felt him tentatively reach out through the link, searching for something. First Aid waited patiently while the sparkling explored the surface of his first level memory banks and then guided him to his vocabulary database.

"This what you're looking for?" An excited squeak, and then the sparkling began scrolling through the information in a procedure First Aid recognized, though it was a very patchy file in his memory banks. The sparkling was searching for a designation, although with that rate and random search pattern it would be at least an orn before he made it through the entire vocabulary file.

"There's a lot there…maybe we should start you off with something simpler. No? All right then."

With the sparkling thus occupied, First Aid continued his inventory of the undeveloped processor. "You're probably not supposed to be doing this much work yet, with this little CPU; you should still be curled up in some nice, cozy, dark chest compartment recharging most of the time I'm betting. Rudimentary transformation programs, now that's interesting…I wonder, if Wheeljack could design you an alt mode… with wheels the signal strength to your legs wouldn't be as critical, you could roll around fairly easily…"

The sparkling made a curious chirp, abandoning the vocabulary search and chasing after that last thought.

"What? You like that idea?" The sparkling responded with a long, high-pitched buzz and insistent tugging through the link, and First Aid laughed. "I guess so."

"Now what do you want?" he wondered, as the sparkling continued to tug and prod at him. He made the sparkling a simple image of a small, wheeled alt mode, zipping around, but he still wasn't satisfied. "You want bigger wheels? Wheels? Oh, you like the words – so that's what you're after. Is that your designation? Wheels? You can't have Wheeljack, that's already taken. Wheelie?" The sparkling managed a frustrated squeal. "Nope, definitely not. Got it." The sparkling poked him again, with a wordless push to go back. What you said before.

"You could roll around…Roll? Rollie? Roller?" First Aid's optics crinkled in an amused smile as the sparkling waved its hands at him and squeaked excitedly, a sense of delighted confirmation coming through the link. "Ah ha, I think we have a winner. Roller? Roller it is."

The sparkling, now designated Roller, blinked up at him and heaved a tiny, contented sigh. "Wore yourself out, did you? I'm not surprised. Why don't you take a nice recharge nap, hmmm?" First Aid gently stroked the helm with his small-digit, and Roller's optics soon dimmed and shuttered. First Aid tucked him away back in his arm compartment and then began on his neglected medbay duties. He could do that and figure out what energon formulas might be most suitable for Roller at the same time - might as well get as much done as he could before he had to face the music.