Title: White Lies
Warning: Yet another AU where the Decepticons didn't win the war. There were no last stands. There were no martyrs or hidden rebel cells. There was only defeat and trying to live in the aftermath. Possible dubcon situations. Obviously, the D.J.D. reveal in MTMTE futzed everything in this fic up, so it was rewritten to fit canon. If you haven't read the first four parts since the end of 2016, you should probably reread for the changes.
Rating: PG-13
Continuity: More Than Meets The Eye AU
Characters: Decepticon Justice Division, Jazz, Swerve, and everybody who joins.
Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.
Motivation (Prompt): There was a beautiful picture by FelixFellow, and then I had an idea. It mutated. TwistyRocks got me to write the first two parts, just to see what happened. Vintage-Mechanics got the third and fourth part. Hektorthegecko pushed me into the fifth part. Anonymous fan poked for the sixth one, thank you!
Due to the need to write poverty-level Cybertron, I had to make up monetary amounts less than a shanix.
Shanix
Hanix (half a shanix)
Quanix (quarter shanix)
Einix (eighth of a shanix)
Nix (eight to an einix, sixteen to a quanix, 32 to a hanix, 64 to a shanix)
[* * * * *]
Pt. 6: Ignorance Is Bliss
[* * * * *]
His commline rang the second he stepped into range of the tower's free network.
Startled, Tarn didn't answer at first. Without caller ID, he assumed Kaon was calling to tell him the eviction crew had already arrived. Despair soaked into the grooves of his treads as he stared down at the blinking light on his forearm.
On the fourth ring, he forced himself to answer. "Hello?"
"Yo." Jazz. Relief spun his fans. Self-loathing aside, Tarn knew Jazz calling him was a good sign. "You ready?"
Tarn squashed a flutter of indignation. Reporting to an Autobot was the least of his worries and something he should get used to. "I'm here," he said. "Will Prowl see me?"
"Yep. But there's terms."
Of course there were. He spared a quick thought hoping for the best, a not-prayer addressed vaguely toward fate, or luck, or Lord Megatron. He had no choice but to do whatever Prowl wanted from him. "Tell me."
"He's agreed to see you 'cause I told him you got something he wants, and y'do, but you're gonna have to tell him who y'are."
Shock flattened into a peculiar numbness. Surely he hadn't heard that correctly. "What?"
Jazz's here-and-gone accent disappeared, each word pronounced clear as a judge's final verdict. "Tell. Him. Who. You. Are." The accent returned tinged with humor. "Recently, I mean. You don't gotta go into old history."
Typical Autobot. Anything a Decepticon did before the war was unimportant.
"He knows it already."
Not so unimportant.
Prowl knew who he'd been? He'd met Glitch before the war, of course, but - oh. Yes. A mech one step from taking command of Autobot Special Operations would have as much information at his disposal as Jazz, or he had prior to leaving the position.
Shock receded. The familiar metallic tang of fear took its place. "I can't…"
"Y'can, and y'will," Jazz said. "You tell him who you are, and he's gonna want just one thing from you. All you gotta do is give him an honest answer."
And blow his cover. Confessing his past identity betrayed his entire unit. It put them at the mercy of someone colder than Jazz. Personal amusement and some traded favors had swayed Jazz to the side of keeping the D.J.D. under his tires instead of turning them in. Prowl didn't operate the same way. He enforced rules of black and white, and strict adherence to those rules required turning in any Decepticon registered under a false name. They certainly demanded reporting a high-ranking officer wanted for war crimes who came to his door and announced, 'Hey look, I'm not dead!'
Prowl wouldn't settle for catching one escaped mech when even a half-aft investigation would uncover a whole unit hiding in the block. Tarn couldn't waste the meager safety of anonymity, not for a week's rent. Better to be a bunch of nobodies unable to pay rent than the Decepticon Justice Division.
Shutting off his optics, he tried to resign himself to disappointing his unit, moving back down-level, and living in ever-deepening poverty for years to come. "I won't do it. I'm not," the only one at risk, "a fool. He'll turn me in." Turn them all in. The rest of the Justice Division would make the same decision in his place. They protected each other.
Jazz blew out against his fans, exasperated by his stubborn refusal. "Mech, we're doin' this through old-fashioned networking. You got an answer that somebody real important to him wants. A friend of a friend kinda thing. It's his ticket back into this guy's life, and he wants what you got bad, you hear what I'm sayin'?"
Bargaining for information was a reliable method of getting ahead by going under the table, but Prowl wasn't Soundwave. Except Jazz knew that. He'd worked for Prowl during the war. If he knew Prowl that well…
Tarn stomped on the tiny flicker of hope before it reached his voice. "Prowl doesn't negotiate."
"He does. He don't like it, but he'll do it." The open line crackled white noise softly as Jazz hesitated. Air puffed in a sigh, but he added, "Wanting what you got don't mean he won't turn on you, but from what I hear, he's willing to deal. That's more than you got right now."
He heard Jazz's reluctance to warn him. It was oddly reassuring. The enemy of his enemy was still his enemy, but this enemy had invested in this meeting if only by setting it up. He knew full well the canny saboteur would hurt something laughing if Prowl arrested him, but cautioning Tarn to watch his step felt like a genuine warning.
Tarn reconsidered the terms. "What if he turns on me?" he asked as neutral as possible.
"I'm tellin' you what your choices are. You don't wanna risk it, don't do it. You do it, it's on you. Free will's a slagger that way," Jazz said, grudging concern vanishing as if it'd never been. "I'll tell you this, though: guilt does amazing things. Prowl, he feels he owes somebody big time, and your answer might pay off the debt. Use that. I know you're a master at manipulatin' guilt."
And he laughed, carefree as the host he'd played all night.
Tarn's optics popped wide, and he whipped around to look behind himself before he even knew what he was looking for. Survival instinct was strong. Laughter from the dark meant the Autobots' most feared assassin had made a kill. Decepticons knew Jazz was at his most flippant while setting them on fire.
Or setting them up to fall.
Tarn's throat tightened around his vox box the longer he considered his options. None of them were good. Some of them were worse. He was trapped in a situation where the sole positive outcome required taking the chance he'd ruin everything.
"What happens if I answer his question wrong?" he asked out of an innate sense that the situation could somehow be more wretched.
"There ain't a right answer for you."
Wonderful! Just perfect. Tarn repressed a sigh. "Will you at least tell me the question?"
"Nope."
He dragged a hand down his mask, glad no one on the street had time for anyone else's problems. The morning commute absorbed everyone's attention. Nobody cared about one tankformer standing on the sidewalk making rude gestures vaguely in the direction of an Autobot who should have the common decency not to sound so slag-eating cheerful. "You are intentionally being unhelpful."
"Hey, I'm plenty helpful. It's just not gonna help your case if you got time to second-guess your answer."
"I fail to see how giving a well thought-out answer will hurt my chances," he argued, glaring at the tower doors in front of him.
"Don't try lyin'. I'll find out if you lie."
Amazing how a simple statement made every combat protocol in Tarn's cortex sit up and scream. "No! I…meant you say my answer will be wrong, but diplomatic phrasing may help." Which was in and of itself a delicate phrasing of what he meant.
A meaning Jazz diced up and force-fed him using the knife edge on his voice. "Don't lie."
Harmless edging around the truth wasn't exactly lying in Tarn's book, but the message came through sharp and threatening. Tarn swallowed it and hated the aftertaste compliance left in his mouth. "Honesty is as good an answer as any."
Jazz scoffed at his poor recovery. "Yeah, that's 'bout right. He hates owing anybody, and he hates you, but he hates what y' represent even more. Right or wrong, your answer won't change that."
Tarn didn't really want to know, but he asked, "What do I represent?"
Silence filled the line. Static crackled. Far in the background, the distant echo of someone else's commcall murmured over the network.
Jazz sounded thoughtful when he finally spoke, but sadism had the same dark undertone. "I'll think you'll figure it out on y'r own."
The open line clicked shut. The dial tone droned. Tarn stared at nothing. Combat protocols spun through his mind, but the suppression chip fuzzed reaction. At some point in the night he'd grown used to its interference. Maybe he'd eventually adjust to how dread and anticipation had the same base emotion. The whole night had embodied ominous hope.
"Right," he muttered, bracing himself for whatever happened next. Decision made, he tapped the tower door's access panel.
It bleeped, a scanner waking from standby underneath the touchscreen. He offered it his palm credentials. Since he didn't live in this tower, the panel bleeped a second time and brought up an intercom list for the tower flats. Everybody in the block knew where their representative's office was, although Tarn couldn't imagine Prowl lived here. He probably commuted to work from an upper level somewhere. Tarn scrolled through the list to the penthouse number, tapped it, and waited.
The speaker chimed a couple of times before the intercom clicked on. "This is Prowl."
The same flat delivery, less a greeting than a mechanical, unwelcoming acknowledgment. How encouraging.
"I'm Tarn. I'm here to speak with you." Shoulders back, optics steady, he gazed into the camera above the speaker. Meanwhile, his mind raced in frantic circles. What if Jazz was wrong, what if Jazz was lying, what if this was a trap, what if what if what if.
Prowl paused long enough for worry to pool like acid in the back of Tarn's mouth, burning to come out, but he didn't know what to say.
"Hmm." The intercom clicked off.
Tarn stared at the access panel in dismay. That was it?!
The door buzzed, unlocked.
Sheer relief switched his fans to high for a few seconds, and he yanked the door open to cover the embarrassing whirr. Nonstop anxiety was going to give him fuel pump failure sooner or later if this kept up. Lobe had clearly had the wrong set of priorities in mind when reconstructing him. Sure, he could survive a battalion of Autobots and one-on-one against Ultra Magnus, but his fuel pressure was scrap after talking with them for ten minutes.
The things Tarn would ask for today in a rebuild would stun anybody who'd known him during the war. Making a wishlist distracted him until he made it to the elevator and selected the top floor. Then there wasn't anything to do but dwell on his worries.
This wasn't going to end well. He shouldn't do this. Telling an Autobot, any Autobot his former identity exposed the D.J.D. to vengeance. For his part, he'd stand trial without shame if he could decry this new Cybertron during it, but a pretty speech wouldn't make a difference in the long run. He knew that. Standing proud to the end hadn't changed anything. The system buried defiant Decepticons' eulogies somewhere no one could read them and deleted their last words. Half the postwar trials had been behind closed doors. Those broadcast had been heavily edited. He'd probably just disappear into a cell somewhere and read his sentence.
A worry for later, however, as he had more immediate concerns. He didn't have the slightest idea how to say what needed to be said. 'Hello, my name is Glitch. Call me Commandant Damus. Go on, guess how many Autobots I've executed.' How about, 'Do I look familiar? I should. Remember that time you backed out of helping us disarm a bomb?'
It wasn't too late for, 'Jazz said to tell you to have a nice day. That's all. I'm sorry to waste your time with his prank, but he's my manager and I couldn't tell him no.'
The last one tempted him more than it should, which likely meant his decision-making capabilities were questionable right now. He needed to recharge and defragment badly. It had been a stressful night.
But regardless of whether or not it was a good decision, he'd go through with it. Tarn was no coward. Any reasonable person would be afraid, but that didn't mean he'd turn turrets and run.
He cycled all of his vents at once, in-venting deeply as the elevator reached the top floor. His systems fell to stand-by. The suppression chip quieted. His head echoed in its absence, emptied of the constant noise and waiting for the next disaster. He'd near forgotten the feeling, but he'd been Glitch. He'd been an empurata victim. He remembered knowing on a level beneath words or thought that circumstances were beyond his control and he was just along for the ride. After a certain point, a mech stopped reacting to looming threat and learned to exist under its presence.
The elevator door opened, and he stopped short just outside it. He clearly wasn't invited inside the penthouse.
At the end of the hallway, Prowl stood facing him as if barring entry. He hadn't changed much. Tarn might not have recognized him on the street, but he looked familiar.
Tarn waited for him to begin as much out of wariness as respect. The conversation belonged to the Autobot from beginning to end, and acknowledging that cost him nothing but the pathetic memory of pride he no longer had. Chilly blue optics swept him from helm to foot, narrowing further as they judged him, but Tarn averted his optics. It was a cheap, subtle submission, but it worked on managers and coworkers. It gave them the illusion of power, letting them gloat that he'd looked away from them.
Prowl took the lead after two increasingly uncomfortable minutes studying him. "Jazz told me you have information I require," he stated bluntly.
Perhaps. Maybe. For a conditional definition of require, and Tarn hoped Prowl needed it enough to bargain. "Yes," he said in a low, subdued voice. Listen to him not be a threat. "I'll tell you what I know in return for a rent extension." He'd ask for more, but he didn't know what he had to offer, much less how much it was worth.
Shut into the small hallway, Prowl's engine was disproportionately loud. "I will consider granting a one-time exception if the information is good," the Autobot said, engine growling. "Start talking."
It wasn't much of a deal, and Tarn had no guarantee he'd follow through, but it was what it was. "My name…" His vox box fritzed through reset. He stared hard at the wall, actively avoiding Prowl's gaze. "My name is Tarn. You knew me as Glitch."
"Glitch?" Confusion colored Prowl's emotionless voice. Tarn flicked a glance at him and saw his doors jerk straight up. Sudden shock knocked the impassive façade reeling, and Prowl gaped. "Damus!"
Metal scraped as he took an involuntary step back toward the dubious safety of the room behind him, but something stopped him from retreating further. It might have been the total lack of aggression from Tarn, or how the Decepticon determinedly kept his head turned away. It could have been pride. Tarn didn't know him well enough to take a guess why he stopped, but stop he did.
Stop and repeat himself, stating it aloud to make it real. "Damus. You are - "
"Was," Tarn interrupted without thinking, and his spark constricted. Correcting management types never helped the situation.
Prowl merely watched him more closely. He took the interruption into consideration, factoring it into whatever plans flew through his convoluted mind. Tarn dared another glance down the hall but looked away before meeting that look. Jazz slit cables with his smile, but that look was a gun waiting to go off. He could see a bullet with his name out it out of the corner of his optic.
Jazz was right. Prowl obviously hated bending the rules, and he hated Tarn even more.
"Yes," he said when Prowl didn't speak. "I was the commandant of Grindcore." Bringing buried history up to the surface woke a nervous, jittery tremble underneath his tanks. There, he'd said it aloud. Everything was out in the open.
Metal scraped again as Prowl slowly brought his stance back to neutral. Just as slow, he folded his arms over his chest. Tarn couldn't read his expression, but he could see the rapid flicker of his optics as Prowl's processor overclocked. He didn't know if that was a good or bad sign.
"You kept meticulous records in Grindcore," the Autobot said out of nowhere.
His treads jolted, but Tarn feigned calm. He didn't know what to say. He settled for a nod.
"You pride yourself in being something of an administrator, correct?"
Was this Prowl's question? His optics strayed away from the wall, and Tarn nodded guardedly. He wondered what significance a Decepticon commandant's bureaucratic skills could possibly have here and now.
"Did you log every person you executed throughout the war?"
Him personally, or his command? He'd encouraged all of his mechs to view the war as a means to an end, and as such, kills weren't for self-glory. Battle broke down into a kill count, which in turn became a number on a spreadsheet detailing how each execution furthered the Decepticon Cause. All of his mechs learned how to view enemies of the Cause as less than Cybertronian. Autobots, organics, and traitors weren't people. They were names and dates to be recorded on a form during debriefing, labeled neatly and filed in order with all the others.
A tick mark or commendation on a Decepticon's record meant more in the long run than the temporary high from destroying an Autobot, and it showcased everyone's contributions on an even playing field. Performance appraisals helped Decepticons progress via measurable increments, advancement defined in short sentences noting what their accomplishments. Tarn had prided himself in how many Personal Development Plans he'd coached individual mechs under his command through, teaching them to see everyday tasks as opportunities, rules as valuable guidelines instead of restrictions, and combat as more than a test of physical strength.
So yes, he'd insisted on good recordkeeping. At its root, war was a bureaucracy.
"I kept track of those I could," he said, cautious lest he admit too much. After a few seconds, he added, "I didn't keep copies for myself." He wasn't an archive. He'd had clerks for that.
Prowl regarded him steadily. "Did you execute an Autobot named Dominus Ambus?"
Dominus Ambus? Why did that name -
The founderof anti-Functionalism? "He joined the Autobots?!" Tarn sputtered. "Wh - no! He didn't side with you - "
Prowl's engine downshifted with a loud roar as dangerous as a gunshot, and Tarn clamped his mouth shut. No. Dominus Ambus had been an icon of change, the whole reason a laborer had thought once upon a prewar time that he could be more. Every city's sublevels had teemed with frametypes one Senate vote away from reclassification into Disposable on the Grand Cybertronian Taxonomy, but the lesser classifications had been denied a voice on the Senate floor to argue their own worth. Dominus had spoken on their behalf. He'd defied the Functionalists through research and facts, relentlessly breaking down their nonsense to expose the truth.
He'd paid for his work. There had been smear campaigns and assassination attempts. His open conjugation with a memory stick had scandalized the planet. The two of them had left Cybertron before the backlash turned violent, but Dominus' work had been the only blockade preventing the movement from fully controlling the Senate, the basic building blocks of a revolution against the Functionalists.
Dominus Ambus' defense of the lesser classifications had given Damus the courage to apply to the Jhiaxian Academy of Advanced Technology, testing in on merit instead of frametype function. Even punishment by empurata for getting above himself hadn't shaken his belief in Dominus' work. Senator Shockwave had been a fervent believer, too. They had continued the movement in Dominus' absence, but in the end only Lord Megatron had taken anti-Functionalism to the necessary extremes.
No. Prowl lied. "Dominus Ambus," Tarn growled once he untangled his shock and rage, "left Cybertron." And disappeared forever in a search for Luna-1 with his nameless, Functionalism-dismissed lover.
Prowl's optics glittered, a malicious sparkle of thought and suppressed emotion, but his face had fallen into that frustratingly impassive mask. "He returned. He joined the Autobots. Your refusal to believe it," he said, unfolding his arms to hold a hand up and cut off Tarn's automatic protest, "does not change the facts. What you believe is wrong."
The contempt of an Autobot for a Decepticon came through crystal clear, or possibly Tarn heard what he expected in such loaded words. He pressed his lips into a thin, unhappy line, biting back ancient history and expired ideology. Neither mattered anymore.
Prowl refolded his arms when Tarn shut up and looked away. "All I want is an answer, yes or no: did you execute Dominus Ambus?"
Tarn ordered his vox box to betray nothing. "I don't believe so." Metal scraped, an impatient shift of weight from down the hall, and his upper lip peeled up until the scars pulled. The wall failed to incinerate from how hard he glared. Slag Prowl and this petty power game. "No. I did not execute him."
Jazz hadn't lied. There was no right answer to this question, and Prowl's pointed, "Are you certain?" didn't help.
His optics snapped to the Autobot, and his spark thrummed, ready to fill his throat with the inherent talent he'd been notorious for. Just one word, a single painful note, and Prowl would learn what power Tarn still held. He would learn not to question him.
The suppression chip activated in a hiss of white noise.
His fingertips left indents in his palms, but he forced his hands to relax. The knuckles creaked as they unkinked. "Do you have a picture?" he asked a bit snidely. "A serial number, some famous last words? I don't remember killing him, but perhaps my memory is faulty."
Prowl ignored the sarcasm and considered him. "No," he said at last, reaching some sort of decision Tarn wasn't privy to. "No, you would remember him. Interesting," he said almost to himself. He looked down at his own forearm, using his thumb to rub a scuff away while he thought. "Very interesting."
The longer Prowl thought, the quieter the short hallway became. The muted rumble of a midsize groundframe eventually emerged from a tank's more overpowering engine noise as Tarn strained toward calm. He dimmed his optics and ran through all the reasons he was here, what he was doing, and why he had to do it. It was too late to turn back. Nothing to do but clear his head and wait.
"Do you recall Skids?"
Tarn eyed Prowl suspiciously. Skids wasn't a good topic. "I do."
"What you did to him in Grindcore turned him into one of my - the Autobots' most effect agents. He told me all about you, Damus." Well, that was a statement with several nasty connotations. Tarn's optics narrowed into the wariness of a cornered mech, but Prowl didn't follow up with an accusation or condemnation. He cocked his helm to the side and asked in a conversational tone, "Do you regret abandoning your friends?"
Tarn's systems stuttered. The question hit like a suckerpunch, and he didn't even know why. "No. I…no."
"Joining the Decepticons was a mistake."
Red-hot anger burnt the unexpected hurt into a generalized processor ache as the suppression chip kicked in. "It was not a mistake," Tarn said sharply, knowing he should agree with the Autobot before he was labeled violent, unconquered, dangerous, unsalvageable. Knowing he should, but Prowl had crossed a line Tarn had to defend. "They abandoned me. They should have joined me, but they chose to prop up a corrupt government!"
Prowl watched him, waiting for more with the detached patience of a spectator, but Tarn strangled the rest of his tirade. The Autobot waited a minute longer, then continued, "You chose the wrong side. They did not. You abandoned them and have come crawling back to where you started. They have gained much by staying the course, and you've lost everything."
Seething, Tarn choked on every vicious retort he wanted to snap. He wasn't weak. His faith was strong. Only the weak let their doubts turn them from the Cause.
He shut all his vents. Tight and controlled, he said, "History is written by the winners."
"That is true," Prowl inclined his head to concede the point, "but you still lost. Tell me," he said as if only mildly curious, "if you were face-to-face with Skids today, you the loser and he the winner, would you regret your choice? Do you regret what you did to him, now that you know you chose wrong?"
He hadn't chosen wrong. Tarn rejected the entire concept. Win or lose, the Decepticon Cause would always be the right decision, and nothing could change that. "No," he said through gritted teeth.
Prowl tipped his head to the other side, rolling thoughts across his mind. "And if he forgave you?"
Tarn outright laughed, even though it came out thick and guttural. What a stupid question! "He never would."
"I have found nothing is more difficult to predict than forgiveness. Compassion is impossible to measure and defies all logic." Beneath his chevron, Prowl's optic ridges pinched down. A slight frown pulled at the corners of his mouth. He seemed troubled by his inability to calculate these things.
It struck Tarn that he didn't know whose forgiveness Prowl couldn't predict. He couldn't tell if the Autobot even wanted it, although Jazz had said Prowl felt guilty. Guilty? For what? Had Prowl gambled on forgiveness and been denied, or had he been granted an unforeseen second chance?
A profound stillness blanketed Tarn's mind as the pieces fell into place. It made sense, now. Jazz hadn't been cryptic. It was painfully obvious now that Tarn noticed it. Everything meant to manipulate him had exposed Prowl's own thoughts. Every question was self-directed.
The rumors were right. Prowl really had attempted to run from the war. He regretted that decision and resented how the war had humbled him. He blamed himself for how he'd fallen but couldn't accept he'd been wrong. From his perspective, Tarn was his warped mirror image, and Tarn's engine stalled out as the last piece dropped, ripples of emotion he couldn't name spreading from each successive thought.
Prowl hated him because of what the Autobot thought he represented:
The wrong choice.
Abandoning friends.
Losing everything and starting over from the very bottom.
And Dominus Ambus. Somehow this all came back around to Dominus Ambus.
Prowl had killed him. No, he…believed Tarn had killed him, but Prowl was involved. If Tarn was his twisted reflection, were they both responsible? Prowl had brought up Grindcore - no. No, no he'd remember if that name had been on the list. He'd read every list. The prisoners hadn't been executed until he'd approved their recycling. Dominus Ambus hadn't died in the Grindcore smelters. Tarn was sure of it.
Why had Prowl asked him, then? Did Dominus die by his hand, or was Prowl simply eliminating possibilities? Was he even dead?
"You have until this time tomorrow to pay your rent in full," Tarn heard through the questions crowding his processor. He blinked, bringing his attention back to the hall just in time to watch the penthouse door close.
He frowned at it. Being dismissed without explanation was an insult, but it was probably for the best. Tarn wanted answers, but he was in no position to demand them. Attempting to manipulate someone like Prowl required time and information he didn't have access to. The mystery would bother him, and no shady favor ever truly faded. This would come back to haunt him. By tomorrow morning, if he couldn't make rent.
A day. Prowl had given them a day. Exhaustion dragged Tarn's turrets down as it hit him that he'd done it. Prowl had held up his side of the bargain. Tarn felt as though he'd made a pass through Tesarus, but at least he could face his unit.
He turned to press the elevator button. It dinged, and the door slid open right away.
"You survived! Good job."
Tarn fragging well suffered fuel pump failure on the spot. "You!" Okay, not quite, but his cannons whined online in a surge of fuel he hadn't had to spare for longer than he cared to think about. He cut power to them immediately. "Do you have a death wish? I nearly blew a hole in you!" he hissed at the grinning Autobot leaning against the back of the elevator.
Jazz grinned wider. "Not somethin' you wanna tell your manager, tank'Con. Makes me think you might be a mite too jumpy for workin' in a club."
All the replies that came to mind only reinforced that train of thought. Tarn locked his jaw shut through an effort of will. Jazz didn't need more ammunition.
"You gonna murder anybody you meet in an elevator, or am I special?"
"I'm not going to murder you," he muttered, stepping into the elevator because nothing proved a lack of murderous intent like being trapped in a small enclosed room with Jazz, of any Autobot. After the night he'd had, this wouldn't be what broke him. Pressing the button for the ground floor, he stepped back to wait as the numbers counted down.
Weird. Taking an elevator with a civilian was awkward dance of reassurance for him most of the time. Taking it with an Autobot made it an exercise in contained hostility. Taking it with Jazz felt strangely companionable.
He glanced down at the saboteur as the floors went by. "Did you intend Prowl to kill me?"
Jazz had his visor offline and his head thrown back to rest against the wall, but he raised one finger in a chiding tick-tock. "Now now, it wouldn't be a surprise if I toldja that. Did you tell him the truth?"
He'd never adjust to the chill that ran down his back every time Jazz's accent disappeared. "For the most part."
"Did you lie." A chill didn't compare to subzero freeze. Some mechs snapped their authority like a whip. Jazz cooled his into a blade of pure ice.
Tarn felt it slide through his internals and fought not to shiver. He didn't bother to ask if he'd eavesdropped on the conversation in the hall. Knowing what he did of Jazz, he wouldn't get a straight answer and it wouldn't matter either way. "I answered his question to the best of my knowledge."
A sliver of blue lit, and Jazz tilted his head to peer up at him. Tarn had no idea what that look meant. After a few seconds, Jazz offlined his visor again and softly drawled, "Y'really did. Ain't that interesting?"
Autobots declaring his answer interesting was beginning to annoy him. "Why is that interesting?" he demanded. He hadn't killed Dominus Ambus! Dominus hadn't even been an Autobot. It was a ridiculous lie from start to finish.
Jazz lit his visor to look up at him again. This time, he searched what he could see of Tarn's face for a moment before pushing off the wall and pressing the stop button for the elevator. Without turning around, he said, "It's interesting 'cause he thought you had the answer but he didn't know. Now he don't know what he knows. And it's…interesting you're tellin' the truth. Means it's true so far's you know it."
"I didn't do it," Tarn insisted, but dread twisted his spark. What did Jazz know that he didn't? Or was this another mindgame? He hadn't killed Dominus. He hadn't. He didn't say he wouldn't have if the mech really had joined the Autobots, but this wasn't about a hypothetical execution.
Jazz looked up, and Tarn followed his gaze to the surveillance camera tucked into the upper corner of the elevator. He recognized the device clipped to its side. Good. Whatever that camera saw, it wasn't the two of them talking. If this conversation turned violent, however, there were no witnesses. The odds were fair as to which of them would win a fight in here, but Tarn knew he wouldn't make it far even if he won.
"Y'know," Jazz said, "I wasn't gonna get int' the middle o' this, but since subtlety's on break this mornin', why not?" His accent vanished. "During the war, you uncovered one of my agents."
Tarn stood motionless. "I uncovered more than one."
"I'm talking one in particular. One of your people." He finally turned to face Tarn. "Ring a bell?"
Dread built into a slippery mass of denial and fear roiling in his tanks. "Yes."
"Let's make sure we're on the same page. Geography?"
What? "What?"
Jazz's smile held no amusement. "What city, Tarn. Where was he?"
"Vos," Tarn said just above a whisper, and his throat hurt. The Decepticon Justice Division had still been an unofficial unit, a concept in the works, but he'd been so proud Lord Megatron approved of his idea. The First Five Cities fallen to the revolution were a powerful symbol of the Cause. Leaving their own names behind when they went on a mission gave the unit a sense of purpose, of unity. Replacing their fallen without changing the name had begun to spread a reputation of invincibility as well. Executing traitors was a dangerous business, and the D.J.D. died like any other mechs during battle. It was the immortal name that mattered in the stories whispered among survivors.
Kaon wasn't the first of his name, nor Tesarus.
Vos, however. Vos hadn't died during a mission.
The narrow blue visor watching him could dissect him where he stood. Jazz blinked and released him from that mercy. He apparently intended to draw out his suffering. "Yeah, right guy. How'd he die?"
Tarn's mouth worked for a moment. Shocked denial drained the strength from his knees. He almost staggered, but he caught himself against the back wall of the elevator. No. No, it couldn't be.
He didn't even know what Jazz thought had happened, and he wouldn't volunteer more information than he had to. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, but he swallowed repeatedly until his aching throat opened. "Melted alive." It was the stark truth. No explanation. No excuses. He hadn't even shot the Pet in the head before throwing it into Helex.
Black hands clenched into fists. If Tarn hadn't been staring at Jazz like a mech hypnotized, he'd have missed it. Jazz didn't change expression, although he bowed his head a fraction in respect for the dead. "He deserved better than that. He deserved better than you." His gaze fell gradually downward, the expression on his face slightly pained. "Or me, I suppose."
He knew better, but Tarn said it anyway. "I'm not like you."
Jazz snapped his head up, smile fierce. The hot blue fire burning in his visor caught Tarn's optics, scorching him to the spark. "Oh? So you watched every execution to the end, optics open? You listened to the screams? I always wondered - did you play the Empyrean Suite for the prisoners or yourself?" He waited, but wisdom prevailed. Tarn kept his fool mouth shut, and Jazz's smile stretched wide. His voice was the scrape of a knife leaving its sheath. "Yeah. I thought so. War made monsters of us all." The Autobot huffed a contemptuous laugh. "Some of us uglier than others."
Tarn struggled to stop the dizzying reel as his thoughts whirled in frantic circles. "The war's over."
"It is, isn't it." The laughter took on a wild undertone, but Jazz stopped as abruptly as he'd begun. Tarn couldn't look away from the vicious hate pinning him against the elevator wall. "See, last Prowl knew before he high-tailed it outta Command was his hand-picked agent hadn't reported in. He didn't stick around long enough to hear one way or the other, but he thought he knew what a missed report meant. You just nixed that conclusion." The saboteur never lost his smile, hard and cold as a blade cutting into living metal. "Now he thinks he's looking for a 'Bot playing 'Con, but he don't know how to ask you where to look next without blowing his agent's cover."
Each word took a slice out of Tarn, quick but agonizing as denial bled out and left bewildered horror in its place. "He didn't see who I saw tagging after you fraggers. Didn't see what you'd done to him. He didn't have the clearance for that anymore." Jazz showed all of his teeth in a full snarl. "Did you know that? We classified all those pitslag videos you wanted spread. I hunted down every copy not saved directly to a core processor, and your damn legacy's erased. Locked up like the sick scrap it is, and nobody's gonna see it ever again, I get my way. You don't deserve to be remembered."
Tarn couldn't tear his optics away. Jazz glared, visor full of burning anger, mouth overflowing with bitter cold words, and he wasn't done. He didn't move, but he didn't have to. Standing there talking, he had Tarn pressed against the back wall as if to escape from the words reaching up under his chest armor to dig sharp, raking claws into vital beliefs, tear apart treasured hopes, and drag close-held dreams out into the open to fillet in front of him. He'd measured his worth by his accomplishments, just as he'd taught so many Decepticons to do, and he stared in horror verging on panic as the Autobot flung his hands up like a magician, fingers spread out to show thin air. Poof, all gone.
"Everything you did? Undone. Everyone you killed? For nothing. Every city named yourself after? Rebuilt." Jazz twitched his lip, sneering utter contempt up at him. "Your precious Justice Division isn't just forgotten. It never was. It's a stain on Cybertron's history I cleaned up. We've all moved past and left you behind, Tarn. Nobody hears your name and thinks of great beginnings. They think of a bombed-out industrial center six days' drive away, and they think it's pretty fragging dumb you named yourself after a spot on a map."
"Shut up," Tarn said unsteadily.
Jazz laughed. "I did you a favor! Somebody might've linked you to the D.J.D. eventually, right? Word gets around. People talk and share vids, and you were starting to get a rep before it all went to the Pit. Now the awful home videos are gone, and everybody knows witnesses are unreliable. Trauma, y'know. So now you're nice and anonymous."
"Be quiet." He knew, now he knew, and he trembled from anger and something worse. Something far worse. He wouldn't acknowledge it as pain. He knew what he'd done, and he knew this changed nothing of his current life, but what hurt…
What hurt was the difference between hiding behind an assumed name and being nothing but that fake identity. The Justice Division had been erased, written out of history. It seemed like such a small thing, but it made all the difference in the world. His unit was all he had left.
"So here's the riddle for you," Jazz said, turning to restart the elevator. "Who killed Dominus Ambus?" He smirked mirthlessly over his shoulder. "Give up?"
Tarn's mouth shaped the words he couldn't say: 'I did.'
"Nobody, Tarn. Nobody killed him." Jazz turned away. "You'd have to exist to get that kind of credit."
[* * * * *]
[ A/N: Thank you, anonymous fan! Until the curtains rises next time, m'dears.]
