Title: A dangerous game
Rating: T

Summary: Games aren't so much fun when someone dies; but is Jazz really responsible or is someone else playing games at Iacon Academy?

Disclaimer: wish they were mine but they're not, and I don't profit from this either

Prowl's logic processors raced as he paced along the halls, approaching his room. What was the point of this unexpected confrontation? Surely Jazz wasn't going to murder him personally, that would be too obvious. But why would Jazz want to talk to him at all, and why now? Was it a reaction to him not charging the night before? Would he be that blunt about what he was doing?

Cursing himself for not submitting a detailed report on his suspicions, Prowl reached the door and paused. How the next breem, the next groon, the next joor played out were going to be critical to his mission. He didn't feel at all prepared for them, he was just going to have to respond as best he could and find his way through this mess.

Steeling himself he went inside and was startled to find the room empty. He did not have long to wonder about it, though, because then the door opened again behind him and Jazz walked in.

"I thought you'd already be here." Prowl blurted.

Jazz looked at him curiously.

"The door was locked, how was I supposed t'get in?"

Prowl bit back the response that he had fully expected his self-invited guest to hack his way in and shook his head, gesturing towards a chair.

"Take a seat."

He pulled the desk chair out for himself, preferring the rigid structure over the comfort of the soft armchair; he needed to be alert for this. Jazz dropped into the offered chair and slouched into the cushioning. Prowl waited, growing more and more uncomfortable as Jazz simply stared at him, but finally the other mech spoke.

"Who are ya?"

"I don't understand the question." Prowl hedged.

"Like slag y'don't." Jazz huffed. "Are ya a player?"

Prowl frowned.

"A what?"

"A player. A gamer."

The words were meaningless.

"What sort of games are you referring to?" he asked, thinking of the strategy scenarios he had been trained on.

"How'd you stop the script from runnin'?" Jazz demanded, clearly meaning for him to understand that the questions were related.

"Script?" he asked helplessly.

"It was still active when I found it - you musta modified it somehow."

"I truly do not understand what you are referring to."

Jazz glared at him.

"Aren't ya mad, now I've admitted it was me? Nasty bit o'script, that. Stop playin' wit' me."

"It sounds considerably more like you are playing with me." Prowl pointed out, belatedly activating an internal recorder and wishing he had caught Jazz's open confession. "Are you saying you are responsible for the bizarre reactions I suffered two orns ago?"

"What d'you think?"

"I don't know what to think. Those reactions were clearly not rational, and they had somehow been imposed on me. But you have barely spoken to me, let alone been in my company; why should I think you were the one responsible?"

"You're sayin' you were affected?" Jazz frowned at him. "You didn't show it."

"I was able to ignore the unbidden response in favour of focusing on rationality. It was irrational to feel fear, thus I did not permit myself to respond to it."

Jazz's jaw dropped wide open.

"You what?"

"I felt the fear, I simply did not show it." Prowl summarised, then tried to steer the conversation back to the confession. "But you are saying you were responsible for that? How?"

Jazz stared at him for a moment, then shook his head sharply.

"Wait a click. How did you hide yourself last night, then, if you're not a gamer?"

"Hide?"

"Yeah. I was up all night lookin' for ya."

"I was here in my room."

"Not physically." Jazz growled. "How'd you charge wit'out the charger authenticatin' ya?"

"I didn't." Prowl admitted.

Jazz's gaze turned sharper.

"Y'don't look tired."

"Looks can be deceiving. You, for example, don't appear dangerous and yet in the short exchanges I've had with you thus far you have threatened me, and then admitted to acting on those threats by using the charging system to install some foreign script into my processor, and then to deleting that code again. Do you deny it?"

Jazz flinched and rubbed at his forehead.

"It's been a rough time." he muttered, frustratingly avoiding a direct answer yet again. "Okay, lets assume for a click that you're tellin' the truth, an' you ain't got a clue what I'm talkin' about or how gamin' works an' you're all innocent in all that. So what about what you did to Slimline, eh?"

"As far as I can recall, I did not do anything to her, though it's true that perhaps I should have. I elected to give her the opportunity to confess rather than taking my evidence of her plaigarism immediately to the proper authorities. I doubt very much she took that opportunity at all, but this is hardly likely to be what you want to hear - what is it that you believe I did?"

"She says y'fiddled her while she was offline." Jazz said grimly. "When you two were workin' on a project together."

Prowl stared at him in shock.

"I have never done such a thing!" he blurted. "Besides," he added, trying to stay reasonable, "we never did work on anything together. I'm sure the institute's records will confirm that. Slimline was in the lower stream of our vorngroup while I was in the advanced programme. We barely saw one another, and only spoke once outside of class. It was common practice for the advanced students to sort assignments for the markers, and it was during that task that I came across Slimline's work and recognised it as a copy of that done by another student who had mysteriously failed to submit his paper on time. I recognised it as I had worked with him on the outline of his submission. I confonted him about it and he admitted that he had been paid to sell it and write something else for himself, though he would not admit who had paid him. Then I confronted her and gave her two orns before I went to the administrator with what I knew."

"An' then what happened?" Jazz asked.

Prowl shook his head.

"I do not know. Shortly after that, I had my accident."

"Now wait a minute: you ain't accusin' Liney o'causin' that, are ya?" Jazz frowned.

"Of course not, it was merely an accident." Prowl responded calmly.

The idea was surely ridiculous but he made an internal note to work out the probabilities rather than dismiss the idea out of hand.

"But are you now sugesting yourself that she might be involved in some of this?" he continued. "Is she also a gamer?"

"No. Well... not really. I didn't think she did any of it at all until the other orn."

"What happened the other orn?"

"She gamed me." Jazz answered, then corrected himself. "Nah, she online gamed me. How the frag did she do that?"

"You are unharmed?" Prowl checked.

Jazz waved off his concern.

"I recognised the new code an' took it apart before it could work. An' she didn't mean any harm, she was jus' tryin' t'make me use the medical script I got given t'help me charge after Veneer... did what he did. Still, most wouldn'ta recognised it anymore'n you did. Less, in fact. So she's good at it. Weird. Coulda sworn she couldn't string two commands t'gether wit'out help."

"What if she had help?" Prowl asked.

"Whaddaya mean?"

Prowl shook his head.

"Nothing in particular, I'm merely speculating. What if she had help? Who could have helped her? This mech Icon you mentioned?"

"Yeah, but that's crazy. He doesn't do it anymore."

"Can you be certain of that?"

Jazz stared at him broodingly for a long moment, then scowled.

"Who the frag are you?"

"I answered that question already."

"No ya didn't. An' don't try t'tell me you're jus' some mech who had an accident an' miraculously got all fixed up an' then decide t'travel halfway round the planet t'take courses you're way too smart t'need t'take, cause I ain't buyin'."

Prowl hesitated, considering, then deliberately turned off the recorder.

"You're right. I'm not merely a student." he began, hoping to blur the truth, but Jazz interrupted.

"You're an Enforcer."

Prowl flinched.

"What makes you say that?"

Jazz counted off the reasons on his fingers.

"Everyone says that's what you were gonna be, you ask a lotta questions, you talk like one, how many more reasons do y'need? You're planted here t'find out the truth about Veneer an' Piper, right? Well good because I wanna know too. I wanna know it wasn't my fault. It can'ta been, I didn't game Piper an' what I did t'Veneer wasn't worth nothin', but I wanna know. I wanna know who did because I sure don't believe they both jus' decided t'do this on their own."

"How long have you known?" Prowl asked hoarsely.

"Just guessed right now, wit' all your questions."

"Oh."

"So that whole accident thing - it was all faked?"

Prowl shook his head firmly.

"No, it truly occurred. But what is not generally known is that the state stepped in and paid for a full rebuild along with some processor modifications. I'm bound to the Enforcers until my debt is paid off, though in truth that is no hardship since it is where I wanted to be originally. The main difference is that the accident has left me with some physical frailties that preclude me from joining through the usual processes so they have focused on preparing me for a role in strategy and analysis. The intention was that I should never do any field work at all."

"Then why're you here?"

Prowl gave a weak smile.

"My commander thought I would fit in better than a trained undercover agent."

"Then he was wrong."

"So it would seem."

Jazz sat and stared at the blank wall, trying to get his thoughts in order. Prowl was an Enforcer, and Slimline was... a cheat? And a liar. Prowl's story rang true and Jazz knew himself that Slimline got through classes he was sure she had failed. She had always claimed to have just done enough to scrape through, but maybe she'd done it with a bit of help. But there was another element at play here. He was sure that Veneer wouldn't just have killed himself, so that meant someone else might have gamed him. But the Enforcers didn't know anything about gaming at all so they had no way to trace it back and find the culprit. He could do it himself, but he didn't think they'd let him anywhere near Veneer's shell. Not that he really wanted to go there.

"Check Veneer's processor." he said abruptly. "I never got a chance to remove'em so you'll find two scripts: one that initialised that stopped him chargin' prop'ly, the other that never got started that woulda made him think his energon tasted bad. That's all I did to him."

"I can have someone do that." Prowl agreed. "But I also want to see the system you use for this."

"Sure." Jazz agreed jerkily. "I ain't ever gonna use it again, that's for sure."

"There are other gamers, though?"

Jazz shrugged.

"Yeah, but none of'em know how t'do the online stuff. Me an' Icon figured it out, but Ike gave it up last vorn, he kept messin' up the code, an' so it didn't work. I was the only one who could make it work. Besides, part o'the trouble's findin' your target. The encryption on the chargers is strong. It took me ages to figure out how to crack it. Most gamers just guess an' wait t'see if they guessed right."

"What about Icon?"

"That was half his trouble: he jus' couldn't get his processor around it. I always had to identify the target for him before he tried."

"Could Slimline have done the same for him?"

"Nah, I don't believe that. She struggles wit' th'basics."

"And yet she gamed you."

"Someone gamed me."

"You said it was her."

"She din't deny it. But... oh slag."

"What?" Prowl demanded.

Jazz grimaced.

"Liney. She knows the password t'get inta my gamin' program. She had it runnin' the other orn."

"And that would have told her who her target was?"

"Maybe." Jazz allowed. "It ain't that simple."

"I'll need to see it."

"Sure." Jazz shrugged. "But, uh, you'll be missin' another class."

"As you have already deduced, that is somewhat irrelevant. It should be more of a concern for you."

"Mech, right now I can't focus on nothin' 'cept this. The class'd be totally wasted on me."

"Understood. Lead the way."

Prowl watched as Jazz used several complex authentications to access an innocuous-looking program on his terminal. The program loaded and looked very much like a standard coding suite; even if he had walked in on Jazz using this, he would likely not have recognised it as being of interest. Then Jazz opened a file and scrolled through the list.

"There. That's everyone I've ever gamed. There's Veneer."

"You told me you hadn't gamed Piper." Prowl reminded him flatly, quickly memorising the names he saw for later investigation.

"I didn't."

"Then why is his name in this list?"

Jazz started to argue, then hesitated.

"Oh. Wait. I gamed him a few vorns ago. Just a prank, nothin' serious. See, I'll show you the log."

Prowl looked at him in disbelief.

"You keep a log of your illicit activities."

Jazz winced.

"Uh, yeah. Guess that's not so smart, huh?"

"Not particularly." Prowl responded, but was in fact thinking the opposite.

A log showing date, time and the code applied was evidence all by itself that contributed towards the idea that Jazz had not done any serious harm with this pursuit. If he had been involved in such acts, he would do everything he could to delete all trace of them.

"Do you enter the log manually?" he asked casually as Jazz accessed the archive, quietly taking note of every key stroke.

"Nah I set it up to do it automatically."

"Why?"

Jazz shrugged uncomfortably.

"Proof. Icon an' me, we usedta dare each other t'do stuff. But sometimes it's hard t'be sure if it's really happened, so I set up our systems so it'd track it; that way..."

"Systems." Prowl pounced on the word. "As in, more than one?"

"Yeah?"

"Icon has a similar setup?"

"Sure."

"Can you help me get access to it without him knowing?"

Jazz glared at him.

"I've toldja already: it ain't him."

"Then the log in his system will prove it. Correct?"

"Look jus' cause he's a Towers mech don't make him a bad mech."

"It doesn't make him innocent, either." Prowl countered. "Now please. How do we get to it?"

"Well... okay. Just to prove you're wrong. We'll go now. He'll be in the common room bettin' on the gladiator fights. Won't be home for joors."

"What about his neighbours? There must be no-one who can tell him we were there."

Jazz considered for a long moment, then rose.

"Then we go now. Ev'ryone else in his hall'll be watchin' the match except for Kite who'll be in class for another quarter groon."

"Wait here." Jazz declared, pointing to a spot by an empty wall.

"But his room is in the next corridor." Prowl argued.

"I know that, but just wait here a click."

"We don't have time to waste. And besides, if you go in there without me then you only incriminate yourself once again."

Jazz considered, then gave in.

"Oh frag it. Come on then."

They walked up to the door, and Jazz popped the cover off the keypad.

"What are you doing?" Prowl asked, his voice soft but alarmed.

"Well I don't have the code, now do I?"

A few clicks went by, then Prowl deliberately turned around to face the opposite direction.

"Not gonna say anythin'?"

"I feel it's best to ignore this entirely." Prowl said stiffly.

Jazz chuckled.

"Toldja y'shoulda stayed round there. Ah. Got it."

"Will he recognise the forced entry?" Prowl asked, turning back.

"What forced entry?" Jazz asked lightly. "I'm too good to get caught."

Prowl frowned at him.

"I'm starting to wonder if there's much good about you at all."

"Ouch, mech, that's a cruel thing to say."

Prowl did not apologise, stepping inside.

"Come along, we need to get this done quickly. You said his neighbour's class ended in four breems."

Jazz fitted the cover back into place then stepped in and walked confidently over to Icon's terminal. He had spent so many joors in here it was as familiar as his own room. Still, it had been a little while and there had been some changes. He stiffened a little, spotting some of Slimline's assignments on the desk. How would he have gotten hold of those?

Reminding himself of the task at hand, he accessed the system using Icon's login - the mech never changed a password unless forced to - and brought up the system log. Then choked when he saw the sheer mass of data. It seemed Icon had never stopped gaming after all; if anything he was doing a whole lot more than before.

"Primus."

"It seems we have found our culprit." Prowl murmured, reaching over his shoulder and holding out a datapad. "Are you able to copy the log onto here?"

"What?" Jazz asked, only half-hearing him.

Seeing the high level of activity where he had fully expected to find none at all had shaken him. What was Icon thinking? Was Icon thinking?

"The log. Can you copy it?"

"Oh. Not the whole thing. It'll take too long. I can get the stuff on Piper an' Veneer, though." "Then do so."

Jazz set up the pad, then ran a search query to find anything using Veneer's identity code. When it finally finished copying he did the same for Piper, then opened the copy of Veneer's file.

"Hey. Weird."

"What is?"

"It's been encrypted. I can see he did somethin' an' when he did it, but not what he did. There's a lot of it, though. Should be able t'break it."

"I'll send it to a cryptologist. Just copy it for now."

"That's what I'm doin'."

"Good." Prowl said, though his tone disagreed. "This is taking too long."

"Nearly done."

Going back to the main log in preparation for signing out, another code caught his optic.

"Whoa, hang on. What's this?"

"Jazz, we have to go."

"Just a click, I need t'look at this. This is dated from the other night? Slag, it's encrypted too. What the frag has he done?"

"Far too much, but we have no time to investigate further. We have the evidence we need, now we must leave before we are seen. He may react badly if suspicious."

"Oh I think it's too late for that, mech." Jazz said slowly, staring at the screen. "He's already gamed ya. An' right now I can't see what he's done so I can't fix it."