A/N: Thank you for reviews, alerts, and hits. And most of all, thanks for your patience! ;) I hope the new chapter doesn't disappoint.

Chapter 3
Art

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The second star to the right and straight on till four millions years ago...

The first thing that appeared in Megatron's vision were blinking alarmingly red lights of his own diagnostics. The second one was Optimus Prime, slumped nearby and staring at him dumbly through dimmed optics. Megatron returned the look, matching the blank expression. It took about a breem and several red lights turning green for him to comprehend the situation and scramble painfully to his feet. He aimed his cannon and shot, almost the same moment Optimus did. But, while the Autobot's rifle barked with a series of blasts, Megatron's cannon only made a disappointing whizzing sound. That was a drawback of having your primary weapon wired directly into your bodyshell - it would be cut off from power lines where the damage hit certain level. Megatron growled, refused to clutch at his freshly scorched side, and did the next logical thing. He tackled Prime.
Few punches later he realized that, though he was loathe to admit, he was in no condition to fight. His diagnostics screamed at him about several important components and circuits crushed and shaken out of place. There was only one thing left to do.
"Decepticons," he rasped, and looked around to see if there were any around. Yes, his troops were there, part of them still trying to stand upright. They seemed to have the same problems as he. "Retreat!" Megatron finished his traditional speech.
"Where to?" an unmistakable voice whined. Ah. Valid point. He answered the question by grabbing his second in command and pushing him on the nearest door. It gave easily with a satisfying crunch, and Starscream was first to dash down the corridor it opened to.
Shortly after they found their way outside, Megatron's radio beeped, and oddly happy voice of Astrotrain announced that he had them in visual range. Just a breem later they boarded the triplechanger and were carried away toward Nemesis, hovering peacefully on the orbit.

The second of Mondern, three quarters into the first shift

"That's it," Mirage said pushing himself away from the terminal. "I won't get anything else without logging in as a known user with paid account; I don't think we'd get anything useful in a public net anyway. There is a history department at the War Academy in Kaon; we could try our luck there."
Wheeljack flashed his headfins in denial. "Let's first figure out a way home. This university here, what was the name?"

"Medical Engineering & General Science University, dubbed 'Triple H' for some reason," Mirage said, and disconnected a datapad from the console. "Here, I downloaded everything I thought might be useful." He tossed the pad to the engineer, but miscalculated slightly, and it bounced off of a Lamborghini pile.
"Watch were you toss you scrap," Sideswipe said around a yawn, disentangling himself from his twin. This achieved, he looked around. "So, what's the plan?" he asked brightly.

The plan, it turned out, was to go and visit local science center, and ask for assistance in getting back home. Since the admittance was for stuff and students only, they decided that only a small group (Wheeljack, Perceptor, and Beachcomber for moral support) would try to talk their way in. The rest would just wait outside and keep out of trouble.

The suns were rising when they left the motel, leaving behind a datapad with a message for still absent Skyfire, and headed downtown.

They were nearing the Main Plaza, when Beachcomber stopped and, for the lack of better word, sniffed. "Is it just me, or is the air kind of... energetic?" he asked with a puzzled frown. The other's first reaction was to give him a did-you-loose-few-screws look, but then they felt it too. Perceptor immediately switched to a multispectrum vision.
"Fascinating. There appears to be a suspension of energon particles in the atmosphere. The energon is of very low grade, but finely filtered. Whatever could be the source of such anomaly?"
"Look ahead and up," Sunstreaker advised, his optics already glued to the sight. The others followed his lead. The structure was at least four levels high, and towered over the low buildings in the center of the plaza. The energon cascaded down its esthetically asymmetric components, some flowing smoothly down the sculpted tubes, and some splattering on angled plates, until it was nothing more than a opalescent mist, dancing in the light breeze.

"That would be 'the fountain at the Main Plaza'," Sideswipe guessed. Then he grinned broadly, and slung friendly arms over Wheeljack's and Perceptor's shoulders, drawing them in. "So, why don't you guys go ahead and chat with your fellow scientists, and we will just wait for you rrhight here?" he put so many exaggerated 'r's into 'right', it came out almost as a purr. Sunstreaker shot his brother a suspicious look.

:'Why do I have a feeling it was a quote too?':

:'cause yr 1 paranoid quote hater': Sideswipe sent back, grinning like a Cheshire cat and waving goodbye to departing scientists. Then, aloud, "let's go explore a bit, shall we?"

They made all of ten steps into the plaza, when Mirage stopped dead. "This is Goldwing's Lounge," he murmured, staring in disbelieving awe at one of the buildings. "I was sure he'd died in the war."
Pipes looked at him, a little lost. "Who?"
Mirage was still too stunned to talk, so, after giving the building in question a once over, Sideswipe explained. "Goldwing. Disgustingly rich, snooty glitch. Before the war he owned the biggest net of most exclusive restaurants and lounges on the whole Cybertron. Looks like he's back in business." He then slapped Mirage's shoulder companionably. "Unfreeze, golden boy. I doubt you still have their membership card, so no point in staring," he said, and steered the reluctant spy away.

After several breems of navigating among cafeterias and entertainment centers, Sunstreaker picked a bench placed in the most scenic spot and sat down, declaring it a lunch break. Sideswipe took a hint, unsubspaced some energon cubes and distributed them among the present company. Sunstreaker sipped at his cube elegantly, letting his gaze wander around.
He felt strangely at piece, which would probably shock all processing capacity out of most people who only knew Sunstreaker from the time of war.

It was a common belief that the golden twin was a fluid-thirsty warmonger, only happy in the heat of a battle, who would feel lost in a time of peace.
Common believes could go and defrag themselves, as far as Sunstreaker was concerned.
As he would say if anybody bothered to ask, just because he was good at something didn't mean he had to like it. Sure, he enjoyed a good fight just as much as the next bot (usually his brother). However, he preferred his brawls to be just short breaks from normal life. He despised being reduced to nothing more than a 24/7 fighting machine. And even more he despised war.

The trice blasted war, which tore him away from the life of his choosing, and threw him and his brother back into their 'designated' roles of fighters. Sunstreaker hated every single day of it. There were times were he could look around and say, 'hey, it's not so bad, can live with it'. Those were days he was civil, friendly almost. But then were other days, when everywhere he looked, he'd seen the painful echoes of what he'd lost, and the hate would swivel up in him, dark and suffocating, until he could no longer keep it in. He'd take it out on the battlefield, laying in the Decepticons in a blind rage. In the absence of Decepticons, he'd take it out on his fellow Autobots, and the walls of the brig, until his own plating cracked and he became too tired to remember the life he once had. The perfect life that he and Sideswipe had worked long and hard to get, only to have it swiped away in the stupid, stupid war.

And all of a sudden he found himself... here. In a place as surreal as a crack-induced dream, only less agitating. And so he allowed himself to simply kick back and pretend, even if just for a little while, that it was the old times again. He sprawled lazily on the bench, soaking in the views and sunrays like a very big, content cat. Absently, he noted that Hoist and Grapple wandered off to investigate why the heat-absorbing lamps didn't turn the blue sky gray like the one they've seen before. Not long after, Pipes too disappeared in a direction where some novelty shops had caught his optic earlier.

Afterwards, thinking back to this moment, they admitted that they shouldn't have split up like this, but the peaceful city lulled them into an unfounded sense of security, and it simply, well, happened. They probably wouldn't even notice another member of the group drifting away, if it weren't for Hound, who suddenly stirred and looked around. "Where's Mirage?"

There was a soft sigh from few meters away, and the air shimmered slightly.
"I wanted to check if Goldwing's Lounge still has uplink terminals running for the use of customers. I imagine they would have a higher-clearance login than a cheap motel," a disembodied voice of Mirage said.
"Not to mention you're pinning for all the luxury," Sideswipe piped in, but his voice was drown out in Hound's "Good idea. We'll wait for you."
"It won't take long," Mirage promised, and then he... probably was gone. One could never tell, unless the ground was soft enough for footprints to appear. On the elegant paving of the Plaza not even dust betrayed the spy's movement.

For a moment Sideswipe amused himself trying to discern the path of Mirage's passing among the strolling mechs. Then his wandering gaze stopped at something that was very familiar and very out of place. So out of place, in fact, that he stared at it for half a breem before deciding that he wasn't seeing things. He lightly elbowed his brother to get attention.
"Look," he said, gesturing toward four holocanvas sitting innocently in the middle of one of cafe's yards. Sunstreaker turned to look, blinked, and frowned. "Those are not holocanvas," he stated.
Sideswipe tilted his head dubiously. "Look like canvas to me."
"No one leaves something this expensive on a freaking market place where everyone can fiddle with it. Those are not canvas." Sunstreaker said, glaring at the offending painting appliances like he wanted to incinerate them with his gaze alone. He was itching to go and try it, but if it turned out to be phony, he'd probably go into core meltdown from disappointment.

Sideswipe regarded his twin carefully, and sighed inwardly. Ah, brother's job is never easy... He opened their private link and started teasing, needling, prodding and baiting, until Sunstreaker jumped to his feet and marched toward the canvas just to prove a point.

OoOoO

Damn brothers, damn fake canvas and damn people getting in the way, the yellow warrior thought gloomily, stomping toward the... the dumb piece of junk, probably just standing there as a dubious piece of decoration, or possibly just to spite him and ruin his day. He stopped in front of the platform, glared at it challengingly, and lightly jumped up on it.

The platform went 'ping', the little lights on its edges lit, the mechanism hid under it whizzed... and a cloud of blackness rolled from Sunstreaker's form in all directions.

Back on the bench, Sideswipe smirked and tsk-ed. "Temper, bro."

Sunstreaker froze, less because it actually was a holocanvas, and more because he hadn't realized just how intensely he was broadcasting. But that was just a momentary lapse - a second later Sunstreaker got a grip of himself, and neatly folded his energy fields into himself. Then he uncertainly raised a hand, redirected power flow to long-time not used areas, and made a sweeping motion through the holographic blackness. Strings of golden light trailed his fingertips. For a moment he just looked at them in disbelieve, and then started smiling like an idiot.

:'Hey, Sides, know what? They have holocanvas here.':
:'U don't say? I thought for sure t'was a piece o'scrap rusting around. ;D It's any good? ':
Sunstreaker walked out of the black cloud just so his brother could see him tapping his chin thoughtfully.
:'Well, it seems adequate': he sent, making a dubious face. :'Might even be called a decent piece of equipment.':
:'But I bet it could use a decent test run.':
:'You think?': The yellow twin didn't seem convinced.
:'Absolutely,': The red one nodded decisively. And then he grinned as Sunstreaker dropped any pretence at indifference, and started painting already.

OoOoO

He started simple - a half-scale figure of a random Cybertronian. A basic exercise, well below his abilities and standards, but good to refresh his skills after the long hiatus. Sunstreaker was alarmed with how badly some of the lines blurred, and how the colors escaped their intended place in the spectrum. After almost an hour of corrections modified with adjustments he took a step back and looked at the little bot critically. It ended up looking more like Chase in his exo-suit than a proper mech, but at least the colors and textures were right. The image's head was tilted slightly upward, as if it was looking at something, and Sunstreaker felt compelled to paint that something. Now, what could a human be looking at? He turned, and his gaze fell on the dark cloud still taking up a third of the canvas. The traces of gold glowed slightly within it. It reminded him of sun rays filtered through the leaves, and thus the idea was born. With few wide-spread burst of energy Sunstreaker cleared most of the blackness, and got to work.

OoOoO

Hound watched in wonder at a magnificent oak tree growing under Sunstreaker's hands.
"I didn't know he could do that," he said in awe.
"Of course not," Sideswipe muttered with a hint of bitterness. "One of the first bombs that fell in the war went straight through the middle of Sunstreaker's canvas. And after I worked my aft off to get it for him too. Hard to say which one of us was more pissed."
There weren't many things that could be said to that, so Hound just nodded his understanding, and went back to watching Sunstreaker.

He wasn't the only observer. In a nearby café, a bot leaned forward in his seat, and then stood up and walked to the window to take a closer look. "Impossible," he murmured. And yet, the overall body type was right, the hue of yellow was right (although not as glossy as could be expected), and, most important of all, right was the way the bot moved across the holocanvas, making it sing under his hands. The observing mech shook his head. "Incredible," he murmured. He made a move to go and say his greeting, but stopped himself. It was a terribly bad taste to interrupt an artist at work. So instead he made his way toward the café's manager.

The manager, a slender mech whose pastel frame blended perfectly with the café's decor, eyed the approaching mech and put on a wide smile. On principle, he didn't like aristocrats, but this one was quite okay - not as uptight and snooty like the usual lot of them. Besides, the guy was a known patron of the Art Academy, and since the Fringe Café was AA's property, the manager was always careful to treat him with some extra honors.
"Afternoon, sir. What can I do for you?"
A polite nod. "Is the painting up for sale?"
"Huh?" The caretaker looked out the window and raise optic ridges. "You want to buy a work in progress?" he asked.

"The artist is a..." the mech paused for a moment, searching for an adequate description. "...old acquaintance."
The caretaker nodded and turned to the console hooked to the canvas controls. "Well, he didn't book it either way, I guess we'll have to wait until he's done?" He made it half a question, because, technically, if someone used the canvas without paying up front, the painting automatically became AA's property and could be sold at any time. It would be only courteous to give the guy a chance to claim his work for himself, but if the customer demanded... The customer didn't. Instead he walked back to the watch the artist, and of the two windows with the best view, he chose the one where the colors of the mural best complimented the blue of his paintjob.
Like a true professional he was, the caretaker hid a smirk.

It wasn't until Sunstreaker started painting the sky that he noticed he had an audience. He splayed his hands above him and sent a gentle wave of energy to fill the whole upper edge of canvas with an even shade of blue, and somebody whistled appreciatively.
"Wow, cool," somebody else said. Sunstreaker glanced to a group of bots leaning on the railings. They were all wearing small badges with two intertwined 'A's, written in a gray, square outlines. Since they didn't do anything beyond staring and commenting, Sunstreaker ignored them and went back to the sky. The shade was one that on Earth would be associated with white clouds, so he added them, and since he didn't have enough space to stuff in the realistic 3D representation, he went for the perspective illusion. In fact, this was even better. Every moron could make a realistic 3D image. Making a flat plane appear tree-dimensional was that much more challenging. As immersed as he was with replicating the play of light and shadow, he didn't miss the stir among his audience. One of the bots was delegated to trot to the other side of the canvas, and reported dutifully that yes, the puffy things looked puffy from other angles too. Sunstreaker didn't even realize that this silly little smile of his made a brake for freedom yet again.

The second of Mondern, beginning of the third shift

Golden hands moved smoothly, conjuring colors out of the thin air. One last line, one last patch, a little smudge of orange added on a mountain on the horizon behind the image-mech's back, one last look at the effect - and Sunstreaker stepped from the canvas. He eyed the unfamiliar layout of the control panel, scrolled through the command lines, and hazarded tapping 'end work'. The painting flickered lightly, and froze. No more corrections to it could be now made without some heavy hacking, and that's how he liked it. Once the painting was done, it was done.

"Well," the caretaker said straightening. "He's done, and he didn't claim it, so it's for the taking. I think five hundreds would be a fair price. The split goes as usual, seventy percent for the AA, fifteen for me and fifteen for the artist."
The aristocrat eyed the painting one more time, and passed his credit card. "Five thousand, and make it twenty percent for the artist." He smiled lightly at the astonished look on the pastel mech's face. "Any less, and he'll take it as an insult," he explained.

The caretaker shook off the surprise and took the offered card. "Sir's wish is my command," he murmured, typing in new transaction settings. Then he sighed at the message the banking system sent him. "It will take a breem or two, sir. His account is only just being activated."

"How'd you made this texture?"

The question stopped Sunstreaker in mid-step, just as he started back toward Sideswipe and Hound. He turned to discover that, while most of his (loving) audience dissipated after dropping a few compliments, one bot remained. And not only remained - he climbed in the middle of the painting, and was ogling the tree bark with his nose almost dipping in it. Sunstreaker recognized him as the one who circled the canvas while he was painting the clouds. The kid's appearance wasn't what one would normally associate with an artist - a large, graceless, bulky frame, clearly a mining vehicle of some kind.
The corners of Sunstreaker's mouth twitched, uncertain whether they should form a smile or a scowl. After a brief argument, they settled for a neutral expression.
"Figure it out for yourself," he said with a gesture toward the other canvas, his tone bordering on dismissing.

Shadowlane sighed inwardly. He'd noticed the taxing look the golden painter gave his frame, and not for the first time he wondered if he should just change his alt mode. People didn't seem to take excavators seriously. But, aside from the fact he couldn't really afford a reformat, he liked having a useful alt mode. Those fancy racers of his classmates couldn't do anything besides looking pretty, and that wouldn't cut it for him. Ah, well. He stepped on the other canvas, and started experimenting, every once in a while stealing a peek at the green construct in the other's painting.

Sunstreaker watched the young bot critically for a moment. Then he simply watched for a moment longer. Finally, he spoke.
"Good thinking, but not like that." He offered his hand, palm up. After a moment of surprised silence, the young bot eagerly stretched his hand over Sunstreaker's... and yanked back immediately, shaking it violently. Sunstreaker didn't waver, except for his optic ridge, which traveled upwards. The young bot gave him a sheepish and apologetic look.

"Umm... tickles," he explained weakly, and tried again. He bit his lip and frowned in concentration, trying to ignore the prickling and analyze the wild energy flares shooting from the golden hand. How on Cybertron was he supposed to do that? He started manipulating his own field, until his unexpected teacher nodded.
"You got the hang of it, now try it."
Hesitantly, Shadowlane dragged his hand through the canvas, and felt like melting from embarrassment when instead of a graceful greenish column, a shapeless blob of rich violet appeared.
Sunstreaker eyed it calmly. "The texture looks right," he commented, and the young bot almost sagged in relief. "Now, gently change the frequency --gently!-- until you get the color you want."
Shadowlane nodded vigorously.

OoOoO

Sitting on a Plaza bench, under the light of descending double suns, sipping warm energon and watching his brother tutoring some kid on the art of field-painting, Sideswipe came to the only logical conclusion.
"We have died," he said to the world in general. "We have died and went to Heaven."
Hound tilted his head. "Interesting thought. I didn't know you were familiar with human religious concepts?"
Sideswipe shrugged and waved his hand. "Sunstreaker once asked Chip what that pendant he wore was, and we got a lengthy explanation. A lot of mambo-jambo if you ask me, but I liked the idea of eternal happiness in the afterlife. Beats 'being one' with a bunch of dead guys."
Hound shook his head at the way the warrior trivialized two religions in one breath. He was about to comment, but he stopped mid word, staring into the crowd with a confusion on his face.
Sideswipe looked at him, then followed his gaze to a blue mech making his way toward Sunstreaker, and frowned at the confusing, unfamiliar familiarity. It took him a moment to realize that the mech simply sported a variation of the altmode he'd had when they first met, instead of the one that Sideswipe last seen him with.
"And he said he would never go back to this old model," he sneered automatically, and then the reality caught up with him. "How did HE get here?"

OoOoO

It took Sunstreaker a second or two to realize that someone had called his name. He turned, easily spotting approaching, familiar figure. And, because his fingers still itched with the canvas' static, and his thoughts were wandering way back in the timeline, he answered exactly as he would have all those vorns ago.
"Hey there, Tracks. How's your day?"
The blue bot nodded politely. "Very good thank you. How's yours?"
"Better than I've had in centuries," Sunstreaker replied truthfully, and then the reality caught up with him. He was talking to Tracks. Tracks! In a city of several millions mechs, he just happened to run into one of the Autobot crew. It would surely count as the best strike of luck this side of the galaxy. Or worst - all depending on how exactly Tracks came to be here, free and carefree in the middle of Decepticon city. This situation called for cunning and diplomacy. Sunstreaker smiled one of his 'confuse the enemy' smiles, and forcibly stopped himself from doing something unwise, like opening his mouth and saying something entirely wrong. Instead he glanced toward the table Sideswipe and Hound were occupying. With emphasis on 'were'. Slag it. Fortunately for him, Tracks took it on himself to talk. "I must say I'm rather surprise to see you, I was convinced you were dead."
"Yeah? Whatever made you think that?" Sunstreaker asked a little absently, scanning the place for his brother. :'Sides, where the frell are you?':
"Well," Tracks reset his vocalizer, "apart from the obvious, I have a sculpture Slog made out of your body-shell in my gallery. It's usually hard to be more dead than that."
A second passed. Then, very slowly, Sunstreaker turned to look directly at Tracks. "You what?"

Realizing that the subject was a bit awkward, Tracks made an apologetic face. "I thought it only fitting, considering I have most of your works in my possession." He tactfully didn't mention that he was the second owner of the sculpture in question, and he only managed to buy it after the original owners got bored of abusing it in not very inventive, but vengeful ways. Apparently, Sunstreaker had made a very bad impression on them.

"Hey, Tracks, that you?" a cheerful voice asked nearby. To his credit, Tracks only winced a little, and covered it with a small smile almost immediately. He turned to greet the new comer. "Good afternoon, Sideswipe," he said in a slightly strained tone of a person much too polite to say 'oh not YOU again.'

Sideswipe picked up on the tone and, as usual, found it amusing, so he gave his trademark, head-splitting grin. Behind his back, Hound smiled at the blue bot.
"Nice to see you again, Tracks."

A slight confusion flitted across the crimson face.
"I beg your pardon. I don't believe we've ever met?" The question mark at the end of the sentence was slightly apologetic, implying the unspoken 'I'm sorry if I didn't bother to remember you'.
A short silence followed.
"You don't remember Hound?" Sideswipe asked incredulously.
"I can't say I do. Could you refresh my memory?"
Sunstreaker almost growled, seeing a slightly hurt look on the scouts face, but he kept quiet.
:'Something's wrong here, bro. He said I'm supposed to be dead earlier. Something about my corpse': he texted

"Shame on you, Tracks. It hadn't been that long." Sideswipe teased lightly, at the same time texting back. :'Reprogram? Memory wipe?':
:'Hell if I know. He acts prett-- nor--l pfrttt --what t--frag?':

The twins looked at each other in alarm, barely hearing Tracks startled inquiry if something was wrong. Their internal link was based on a modified self-diagnostic communications, using the nearly identical settings of their systems. As long as both of them were on-line, it was near impossible to block it. And yet, someone managed to litter it with a healthy dose of static, blurring the normally clear letters.
"Someone's jamming our communication," Sideswipe hissed, more as a warning for Hound than an answer for Tracks.

The blue bot raised optic ridges, tried his own radio, and found it full of familiar white noise. "It's just a police sweep," he explained to Sunstreaker. Those were usually taking newcomers by surprise. "Nothing to worry about." Then he realized there was Sideswipe involved. "Unless, of course, your brother was dabbling in something not entirely legal recently," he added. It was meant as a jest, but his smile faltered under the death-glare he received from both twins. And behind their back, he saw several officers clearly heading their way.

"I'll... be over there," Tracks mumbled, discretely backing away. He had no desire to get mixed up in any shady dealings on behalf of a very old acquaintanceship.

The police-bots neared the three Autobots' location, and all hopes of them looking for someone else where blown out the window the moment one of them spotted their insignias. His optics brightened, and almost immediately the rest of the cops changed direction and they closed in on them. From there, it all went almost too fast to follow. It was Hound who slipped up and started a snowball effect. He instinctively tried to surround the three of them with a hologram to allow them to slip away quietly. Only, the hologram failed - instead of the usual, perfect illusion, it conjured a random splash of colors, which instantly singled Hound out and got him cuffed faster than he could blink. To which, of course, Sideswipe reacted with reaching for his gun. Only, the subspace access was scrambled as well, and instead of jumping smoothly into his waiting hand, the gun clattered to the ground a foot away, which got Sideswipe shot with a concussion gun and handcuffed before he could process what just happened. To which, of course, Sunstreaker reacted.

When the dust settled, five officers lay on the ground groaning in various degrees of pain. The sixth one, youngest and least experienced of them, whose only task had been to scan the crowd for the suspects, was gaping with the wide optics at the mass of golden mech sprawled on the ground, still aiming a concussion blaster with shaking hands.

There was a sound of shuttle landing delicately behind him, and someone patted his arm.
"Good work lad."
The youngster lowered the gun and looked at the freshly arrived backup with slightly unfocused gaze of a person who'd been sure he was going to die, and still wasn't one hundred percent certain that he didn't.
"Sir, three of the suspects approached and detained, sir," he reported weakly, and allowed himself to be steered toward the shuttle. He managed not to faint until he was safely sat inside.

OoOoO

Hiding behind holocanvas which still held the beautiful image Sunstreaker had conjured, Tracks watched as the police shuttle took off, taking the artist and his brother away. The white noise in his radio ceased, ended with the customary 'we apologize for inconvenience'. And just like that, it was over. Unless he counted the snippets of conversation he could make out in the background, going on the lines of 'did you SEE that?', there was no trace that anything out of ordinary happened. Drawing in a long breath, Tracks sat on the nearest convenient surface, and absently checked his chronometer. Not even a breem since the twins first mentioned the radio static. In a small part of his CPU, the one which wasn't still mulling over the scene he'd just witnessed, Tracks felt a ping of patriotic pride.
Not for nothing were the Vossian Police considered one of most efficient forces on entire Cybertron.

End of chapter 3