Chapter Nineteen: The Hard Part
Walking underwater is the weirdest thing Hunter's ever done. Considering the last few weeks of his life, that says something. He knows the water is fifty-four degrees. He knows he's seventy-three feet down. He feels none of these things, not the temperature, not his ears popping, nothing.
It's hard to move. The bottom of the lake is soft silt. Each step sinks his foot in up to the ankle. He has to take it slow, make sure he doesn't fall over because wallowing around in the muck, trying to get back to his feet on the bottom of a lake when he's a three-ton robot is not fun.
Stupid Sideswipe, he thinks. Why'd he have to park so far from shore?
He doesn't remember the trek being this long last time.
He can't see anything. The sun isn't up and he's too far down and he's kicking up so much mud that the water has turned to soup. He can't even cut through it with headlights.
There's surprisingly little garbage down there. He's run into the occasional soda can or beer bottle and he's stepped on a few tires and a couple of logs and one, lone shopping cart.
((How's it going?)) Sideswipe comms.
((I'm almost there,)) Hunter says.
((Good. What do you do once you're in?))
Hunter rolls his eyes. ((Head to the right, to the bridge. Find a console, plug in, and hope it doesn't fry my brain.))
((It won't,)) Sideswipe says. ((The ship isn't a mech. The programming is different.))
The shimmering lines and puzzle pieces, all shifting and moving around… that had been Sideswipe's mind. That had been a mech's mind. Hunter still can't make any sense out of it.
The data files, however, are much easier, what Sideswipe had passed along during their mind meld. It's a movie Hunter can start or stop, pause or rewind. He can watch himself—with Sideswipe's hands—connect to the ship.
A low vibration hums through the water thrums along the surface of his armor. He can feel it in his teeth. Silt swirls and he catches a glimpse of dirty yellow and then he's there, standing right next to it. The ship is huge. Even with his lights on, the edges curve away into darkness. He reaches up and places a hand on the hull. It's warm.
((I'm there,)) Hunter comms.
((Do you see the hatch?)) Sideswipe says.
It's to his left and down, sunken three or four feet into the mud.
((It's buried,)) he says.
((Doesn't matter. The airlock will scrub everything out.))
There's a panel to the side, about the size of his hand. He leans down and pushes it. The hatch slides in and pulls open. Water rushes in. The ground slips out from beneath his feet. Hunter tumbles in after it.
"Aah!" he says.
He hits something and bounces. The water and mud churn together and he can't see anything. His right hand brushes something hard—the floor, a wall, he doesn't know. Then he slams into it, skids for a second, and stops.
The ship gives off a low, grinding noise. The whole room shakes in a deep, pulsating rumble.
His head breaks the surface. He's lying flat on his back in a few feet of water, getting shallower by the second. Hunter sits up, looks down at himself, and groans.
He's covered head to foot in a grimy coat of lake muck. Something in his chest makes a wet, sputtering noise and then he's hit with the smell: the dank, mustiness of soggy decay.
"Oh gross," he says.
And then the overhead sprinklers come on.
Hunter remembers this place. Three, maybe four days ago he'd been standing on one of the three consoles dotting the room. He'd just been shot, had his brain hacked, and his arm broken. He'd stood there and watched one skyscraper smolder, watched reporters with perfect hair and perfect makeup and perfect, unwrinkled clothes report that eight—then ten—people were dead and that it was his fault.
Four days ago, ten people had been a disaster. Four days ago, ten people had left him feeling sick and small and empty.
Four days ago was another lifetime. Now, he just feels tired.
He steps into the room. The lights come on automatically. He picks the console to the right and walks over.
((Hey Sideswipe,)) he says. ((You'd better be right with this thing, 'cause if my brain melts, you're screwed.))
((You'll be fine,)) Sideswipe says.
Hunter plugs in. At first, there's nothing. He stands there, feeling awkward and a little stupid with his hand stuck into the thing. But then a light on the side of the panel flickers. A soft hum travels up the column and into his hand. The monitor in front of him glows a soft blue around the edges. Suddenly, he's not alone in his head.
It's not like Sideswipe. It's similar—the same, vibrant, shimmering lines threading through massive, asymmetrical puzzle pieces. But while Sideswipe had been right there, all around and consuming, the ship holds itself back. It floats around him, not through him.
"Okay," he says and pulls up Sideswipe's memory.
It's tricky keeping that in his head with the ship all around. It's like rubbing his stomach and patting his head all while hopping on one foot. He has to think about what he's doing, has to pay attention to where his mind is going.
There: a green line brighter than the others. Hunter reaches in and plucks at it. Some of the knobby gears behind it shift. A deep thrum races through the floor. The whole ship shudders. The monitor flares up white and then fades to gray. It's an image from outside. He's started the engines. He's churning up the lake bed.
Easy, he thinks.
((I'm on my way,)) he comms.
The sun has come up. Sideswipe lies on a trailer and watches the lake. Simmons has climbed out of his vehicle and stands next to it. He watches the water. All of the humans do.
The surface hisses and bubbles. The waves climb higher onto the shore.
Come on, he thinks. You can do this.
Something vast moves just beneath the surface. It bulges and the top of the ship breaks through. Water streams along the sides as it rises, engines roaring. The air shakes. Sideswipe can feel the rattling in his spark. Simmons's mouth hangs open.
"Holy shit!" one of the humans says.
The ship hovers for a moment, water cascading off, the engines frothing the lake below. It wobbles, rights itself and begins to creep toward shore.
Come on, Hunter.
The noise is terrific. He cuts power to his audios but he can see the sand shifting, feel the metal beneath him vibrating. He looks over to the humans and their vehicles and finds most of them have their hands over their ears.
Simmons's mouth moves. He points at the lake. The ship is coming in low and fast, way faster than it should be.
((Hunter, slow down,)) he says.
No response.
((Hunter? Hunter, you've got to slow down. You're going to hit us.))
Hunter makes some inarticulate noise. The nose of the ship jerks up. It tilts to the left.
((Whoa!) Sideswipe says. ((No, not so fast! You gotta—))
Too late. The aft of the ship plows into the water. The whole thing jerks. The engines change pitch and the nose drops. The ship slams into the shoreline hard enough to jolt Sideswipe into the air. Four humans fall. Simmons manages to catch himself on the hood of his car. Sideswipe's audios come back on to the whine of dying engines.
((Uh,)) Hunter says. ((Is everyone alright?))
Humans pick themselves back up. Simmons's cheeks puff out as he looks around. Sideswipe tries to sit up to see the damage but a nasty shock of pain forces him back down.
((I think so,)) he says. ((What happened?))
((I… I'm not sure,)) Hunter says. ((You started shouting at me.))
Simmons appears at the edge of the trailer. He drapes his arms over the side.
"So," he says. "You let a teenager drive your spaceship, huh?"
The nose is buried in the sand. The aft drags in the water. The whole thing lists slightly to the right and the cargo bay ramp opens up into the lake.
"Shut up, Simmons," he says.
"This is bullshit!" Simmons says.
Hunter sighs and rubs his face. Simmons's agents mill around. Several of them look at him in a way he doesn't like, their fingers a little too close to the triggers of their guns.
"I can get Sideswipe in by myself," Hunter says. "The ship isn't exactly built for humans. There're a lot of dangerous areas and I'm not going to be able to monitor everyone while I'm in the lab."
"That's horseshit, kid. You and I both know why you don't want me in there and it has nothing to do with personal safety."
Goddamn, sometimes I hate this guy, Hunter thinks.
"Look," he says. "I don't have time to stand around here and argue with you. Sideswipe's bleeding out. So can you please, please for once in your life, not argue with me and just… let me do what I need to?"
Simmons eyes narrow. He stares at Hunter for a full minute. He doesn't even look toward Sideswipe on the trailer some fifty feet to his left.
"Please," Hunter says. "Sideswipe isn't the only one who needs to be patched up."
Because even as he stands there and tries to glare down a fifteen foot robot-boy, Simmons refuses to put his weight on his right leg. His face is a puffy mass of bruises and every time he breathes in, Hunter can hear a high-pitched wheeze.
"Fine," Simmons says. "You win. We won't go in there. But I'm setting up a perimeter around this ship and if you try to bail out on me kid, I will shoot you down. Are we clear?"
"Crystal," Hunter says.
Simmons nods. He turns away and heads back to his convoy, leaving Hunter and Sideswipe and the semi truck.
((Obnoxious little fragger, isn't he?)) Sideswipe says.
Hunter snorts.
It takes him a minute to unhook Sideswipe's trailer from the truck. None of the agents offer to help. None of them speak to him. They just stay out of his way, careful not to make direct eye contact.
((Why are you so anxious to get away from them?)) Sideswipe says.
((What do you mean?))
((You're human. I thought you'd want to be around other humans.))
Hunter doesn't answer right away. He drags the trailer across the shore, the sand squeaking underfoot.
((It's not that,)) he says. ((Simmons is okay, I guess. Sometimes. But the other agents?))
((You don't trust them.))
((No.))
Hunter glances to Sunstreaker's spark container.
((It's just… back in Detroit, Simmons and I found this stash of Headmaster bodies—that's where I got this one. And Simmons wanted to take them, use them to fight the Decepticons. He actually pulled a gun on me. I convinced him to blow them up, instead, but what about the people he works for? What's to stop them from jumping to the same conclusion? What stops them from making their own Headmaster army?))
Because now they know where Hunter and Sideswipe are. They know where the ship is and they know Sideswipe is hurt.
((That won't happen,)) Sideswipe says.
((I don't know. This could get bad real quick. All it takes is one asshole with the right connections to send in the Air Force—))
((Once that hull is sealed, nothing short of a nuclear warhead will get through. If we see one coming, we can just park the ship into high orbit and wait.))
Hunter sighs again. ((If you say so.))
((It'll be fine,)) Sideswipe says. ((Whatever happens, we'll deal with it.))
((You're a lot peppier than usual,)) Hunter says.
Sideswipe looks at the pieces of Sunstreaker clutched to his chest.
((Yeah,)) he says. ((I am.))
Hunter pauses outside the lab. The lights inside are on. He can see the berth across the room, the one he'd woken up on to find Sideswipe looming over him. It smells the same inside, an odd, electric tint to the air. He pulls the trailer in after him.
Sideswipe is dead weight; Hunter has to haul him up. The 'bot winces a few times but doesn't say anything.
"You alright?" Hunter says.
"Yeah," Sideswipe says. He doesn't sound alright. "See that paneling over there?"
His eye flicks up toward the corner of the room. The wall is different, the metal sectioned off.
"There's a handle. Pull it to the side and you'll find a regen-tank. You're going to have to pull that out but it's set up to be mobile. It should move easy."
"Right," Hunter says.
The paneling slides away like a closet door. Lights inside wink on and Hunter finds himself staring at said "regen-tank." It's a metal cylinder taller than he is and almost twice his width. It's got a sheet of whatever Transformers use for plexi-glass on the front. The inside is empty and dark. A series of pipes and tubes attach at the top and the base and they unfold as Hunter slides it out.
"It's a bacta tank," he says.
"A what?" Sideswipe says.
Hunter shakes his head. "Never mind."
He drags it forward another few feet until something inside clicks. The floor hums, he hears a rapid-fire set of whirs and then the thing hisses.
"Good," Sideswipe says. "Put Sunny in there."
He doesn't say "head." He never refers to the different pieces of Sunstreaker as pieces, just "Sunny."
Hunter has spent the whole trip trying not to look at the head. It's worse up close. He can smell it up close, the stale stink of cold, burnt metal. The melted sections are smooth. Hunter reaches for it and pauses. Sideswipe still has it in a death grip.
The 'bot seems to realize what he's thinking, because a moment later he says, "Oh."
His arm twitches. Something up near his shoulder squeals and sparks and the whole thing falls limp. Sideswipe lets out a bark of pain. His voice statics out. Hunter can smell burning wire.
"Are you…" he says.
"Focus on Sunny," Sideswipe says.
Hunter slides Sideswipe's arm away. It's hard. The limb is stiff and it groans as he bends it. Hunter tries not to focus on the way Sideswipe tries not to writhe.
"Sorry," he says.
Sideswipe makes an inarticulate noise.
Then it's off and Hunter slides Sunstreaker's head free. He's careful not to look down at it as he turns back toward the tank.
"Just, just close the door," Sideswipe says, voice fizzing out. "Put him in an' close it. 'S automatic."
The inside of the regen tank smells funny, an old, moist, anti-septic scent with a strange, copper-tasting tinge to it. The walls are bare. There's nothing, no pedestal or anything to set Sunstreaker's head onto. Hunter settles for placing it on the floor of the tank and closing the door. The plexi-glass lights up with a jumble of symbols Hunter doesn't recognize. They flash at him for a moment and then twist around and change too fast for him to keep up with.
The tank makes a low, grinding sound. Another hiss. A glowing, magenta goo seeps in around the bottom. Hunter watches it long enough to realize that's probably what it's supposed to do and turns away.
"What now?" he says.
Sideswipe's remaining eye fixes on him.
"Now," he says with something Hunter is sorely tempted to call a wheeze, "the hard part."
Sunstreaker's spark container. He hasn't said a word about it. Looking at the expression on Sideswipe's face, Hunter knows he's not going to like what's coming.
"Those data files I gave you?" Sideswipe says. "They're not just for piloting. There's another one."
It takes a moment for Hunter to rummage around in his own head to find it. Sideswipe gives what he thinks is supposed to be a bright smile. It comes out more of a horrible grimace.
"Open it," he says.
I really hope this doesn't suck, Hunter thinks.
This isn't a memory. He's not watching a movie in his head. This is more like a collage done in half-formed pictures. It's an idea.
It sucks.
"No," Hunter says.
"Just listen—"
"No way. You can't… I can't… I don't even know where, how—"
"I'll walk you through it," Sideswipe says.
"You're not a medic! You told me that yourself!"
"Just calm down—"
"You want me to cut you open! This… you're asking me to do open heart surgery!"
"Hunter, we need to stabilize Sunny's spark. Normally, with any other 'bot we'd be fragged. It'd take a medic—"
"Which I'm not and neither are you."
"You've done a really good job so far. Except for the part where you crashed the ship. Aside from that, you've done great," Sideswipe says.
Hunter stares.
"I'm his twin," Sideswipe says. "Our signals are the same. You can patch him into my systems. They won't reject him. You can hook his spark case up to mine—"
"This is so not a good idea."
"—and the proximity alone will help. Our sparks don't repel each other. Contact between them won't blow us up."
"Blow up?"
"It's nothing to worry about. It won't happen. Hunter, please. Even if we left right now, by the time we got to a medic, Sunny…"
Won't make it, Hunter finishes. The dead patches on the casing have spread. Sideswipe looks at him with such desperation.
"Son of a bitch," he says. "Fine. But you're telling me how to numb you first because I am not digging around until you can't feel it."
"Deal," Sideswipe says.
Sideswipe isn't sure how long it takes the human to finish what Machination started. As soon as Hunter turns off his pain receptors, it becomes hard to focus. He's tired. Only the faint pulse of Sunny keeps him online.
"Okay," Hunter says. "I'm through,"
He can hear the exhaustion in his voice. Sideswipe's not the only one about to drop.
It's the moment of truth. Sideswipe has never heard of this being done before. Ever. Sunny and his internal systems are similar. Their sparks resonate at the same frequency. If he stands next to his brother, other 'bots can't tell them apart by scanner.
It'll work, he thinks.
It has to.
Hunter stands over him, his hands and arms smeared with energon. His fingers no longer tremble but that might just be because he no longer has the energy. Sunny's spark container still sits nestled in the crook of Sideswipe's right elbow.
"You're going to have to take him out of this thing," he says.
Hunter nods.
"You only need to attach him to a few of the lines," Sideswipe says.
"The silver wires?"
"That's them."
"Which ones?"
"Doesn't matter. Just make sure that when you patch Sunny in you follow the same line and connect the other end in, too. Don't want to have an in-flow on an open-ended line."
"Yeah," Hunter says. He shakes his hands a few times and mutters something about a "brain surgery."
He reaches for Sunny. Sideswipe lifts the container and looks away. He can still see the human moving out of the corner of his vision. He can hear him unscrewing the cap, see the movement as he tilts it up and reaches in and grabs Sunstreaker's spark.
Sideswipe grimaces.
It's wrong on so many levels. The spark is the 'bot. To have someone standing there, holding it cupped in the palm of their hands… and Hunter isn't even Cybertronian. He's an organic alien walking around in the copied body of one.
Hunter leans over him.
"Ready?" he says.
No.
"Do it," Sideswipe says.
He brings his hands up, lowers them into Sideswipe's chest.
Nothing prepares him for it. Sparks don't interact like that. They aren't supposed to be that near to one another. In any other Cybertronian, Autobot or Decepticon, the energy fields would repel each other. Worst case scenario, combining two high-energy sources like that, they go small-scale nuclear.
Sideswipe is not "any" Cybertronian. Neither is Sunstreaker.
Hunter touches Sunny's spark case to Sideswipe's. A jolt of energy races through him. It's almost painful. Sideswipe hears himself yelp. He jerks off the table. Hunter jumps back.
"What the hell was that?" Hunter says.
Sideswipe can't answer. The bond, that small thread which ties the two of them together; it's been quiet for so long he's forgotten what it's like to have a real one and not just a phantom one. After so long, it wakes up. Not fully. Sunny is too weak for that. But there it is, a sliver of Sunstreaker stirs in his mind and Sideswipe isn't sure whether to laugh or scream.
"Sideswipe?"
He's tired. He's tired and weakened and there's a big, ugly wound in his mind and he doesn't know whether it's his twin's or his own and it might just belong to both of them.
"Sideswipe?"
Just a trickle. Just a hint of Sunstreaker. And he's not aware, he's not awake, but he's there. He's there.
"Thank you," Sideswipe says.
"Uh, yeah," Hunter says. "Do I even want to know?"
He doesn't answer. There are no words for it. He lets out a giggle that sounds suspiciously like a sob. This time, Hunter doesn't ask. He just gets back to work hooking Sunny up.
Sideswipe doesn't know how long it is after that that he finally offlines.
On Sunday morning, three and a half days after getting kicked into a wall by a giant, alien robot, Jerri Stephens wakes up in a hospital bed to find someone standing in the doorway of her room. It's a woman. Her hand is raised, ready to knock. When she sees Jerri watching her, her hand drops back to her side.
"Ms. Stephens?" she says.
The woman waits. When Jerri doesn't answer, she straightens up and comes into the room anyway.
"I'm Agent Liz Cantrell," she says, flashing a badge. "I'm with the FBI."
Jerri's eyebrows lift. Cantrell looks the part: black suit, her hair short and well-groomed. But Jerri has a knack for faces. She's seen this one before, underneath a helmet. She'd been at the rest stop three days ago. She's not FBI any more than Jerri is.
"Uh huh," Jerri rasps. Her throat catches. She coughs a few times, tries to clear some of the grittiness. She notices a tray next to her bed and reaches for the paper cup of water sitting on it. It's luke-warm, but she doesn't mind.
Cantrell's lips thin.
"Ms. Stephens, I need go over a few things with you," she says.
"Like what?" Jerri says. She sets down the cup and wipes her mouth, careful not to dislodge the oxygen tube hooked into her nose.
"Your previous employer," Cantrell says.
Movement in the doorway. Jerri looks over. Someone else saunters into her room. The bruises under his eyes have faded to a sick yellow. He's exchanged his tattered, dusty clothes for a sharp, clean suit. He's not wheezing anymore.
"Hey," Agent Simmons says. "How you doing?"
"Oh god," Jerri says.
He flashes a manic grin at her and rubs his hands together.
"I've spoken to my superiors," he says. "And we're ready to work out a deal with you."
"Uh huh."
"You don't serve any time in exchange for information. Provided you have information. If it turns up anything, we let the past be the past and move on with our lives."
"I have three broken ribs and a punctured lung," Jerri says. "What exactly do you want from me?"
Simmons leans down and places both hands on the foot of her bed.
"Machination," he says.
Thanks so much to my reviewers, old and new. Nothing quite beats the nervous excitement of opening my email to see that little "review" tag. Thank you KayDeeBlu for finding most of my typos and stupid mistakes and not letting me discourage myself.
Next chapter: We've Got a Problem