Duty and Deceit
Chapter 14
New Revelations
"Are you feeling better now?" She asked Skyquake as they sat down for midday Energon. It had become habitual to take their break together. The femme was worried for her friend, who had taken considerable damage saving her life on her most recent mission.
"Yes m'lady." He teased her in mock formality. "Your personal bodyguard and pin cushion has been well repaired."
She grinned and punched him in the arm with a laugh. "You are not my 'bodyguard'. I can take care of myself just fine."
"Lady Terabyte!" Skyquake exclaimed, drawing up an offended look. He held his arm as if it were greatly injured, even though he'd probably hardly even felt her friendly punch. His other hand snuck across the table to her plate. "You wound me! To protect you is my highest duty."
"Good sir," She said, playfully adopting the old Cybertronian. She didn't notice until later how sincere Skyquake's last statement was; she later realized that the sincerity in his tone went much deeper than his act. "Would my protection just happen to entail your devouring of my dessert?"
The massive gray hand paused halfway to his mouth, copper biscuit about to be eaten. Ruby optics twinkling, Skyquake shrugged and tossed the treat into his mouth. He chewed long and slow, making hugely exaggerated moans of delight.
"Yes my lady. Your dessert was poison of the worst kind. Had I not acted for your safety, I believe you may have perished of joy; for this copper round must have been a slice of happiness incarnate."
"You. Are. Evil." The spy said cheerfully. "And you now owe me another dessert. But for the moment, I have to get back to my post. See you later, my good bodyguard and pin cushion."
She stood to leave, picking up the empty cubes and plates to put away as she left.
"Terabyte," Skyquake said quickly, making her stop and look at the mech with one optic ridge cocked curiously. "About that dessert... Are you free later today?"
She gave him a puzzled look and her helm fell slightly. She sighed at the long rotation that lay ahead of her. "I'm sorry Sky... I'd love to, really. But the mech that takes over when my shift ends had a medical checkup... this was my only break for the rotation."
"So that means our training session is off too..." He sounded so disappointed about it. His optics were saddened for a moment before his face-plates went back to his usual formal expression that he used with others.
"I'm sorry... Lunch was wonderful, Sky. I - I have to go now. I'll see you next rotation." The femme gently pulled her hand away and turned to leave only to walk straight into the jet twins a little ways away.
"So... what was that about?" Darkshine asked.
"Nothing. I just," The spy shot a glance back at the green jet, who had stood up and left through the door on the opposite side. He was stiff and commanderly again. She noticed that his wings were drooping slightly. "Commander Skyquake took a joke a little more seriously than I'd intended."
"Argument then?" Shadowlight asked with a little smirk.
"No... I don't want to talk about it." She sighed, "I have work to do."
"Not an option, femme. What happened? 'Cause it looked to me like after more than three and a half vorns, the mech's finally worked up the courage to ask you out." Shadowlight said as the twin jets dragged her back to a table.
"And you said no without a second's thought." Darkshine added..
"Look, I just told him he owed me dessert since he ate mine. He offered to pay up later today, but I'm on duty till midnight. That was all." She insisted stubbornly; her face-plates heating slightly. Once again she was grateful for her battle mask.
"You're 'on duty till midnight'. That was your excuse?" Darkshine's optics dimmed as she checked the duty rosters. "Monitor duty!? Really?"
"You spend almost all of your spare time with him, for more than three vorns, and you turned down a date for monitor duty." Shadowlight said flatly.
A small lump of guilt formed in her tanks as she remembered his expression. She looked away and stood up, answering sharply. "Nice talking to you, but if you'll excuse me, I'm late for my shift."
Previously on Duty and Deceit…
She shuddered again, an involuntary whimper coming from her engine as she realized what she'd just done. The Prime was going to beat her to scrap, and she had just given away her only chance of living through it.
The mini-bot sat there, shaking on the floor, as the no doubt furious Prime approached her with long, purposed strides. Her Prussian blue, black, and gray armor was clamped tightly to her frame in the hopes of making herself as small a target as possible. In spite of the huge vents of cold air she was sucking in rapidly, her frame was overheating as she listened to each painfully loud pede-fall.
The footsteps ceased and a large, flat hand landed on her shoulders. Terabyte flinched away, sheer terror preventing her from noticing the distinct lack of pain under the huge hand. Her spark was pounding so hard against her chassis that a tiny portion of her processor wondered if it would leave a dent.
"Terabyte." Pure shock at the gentleness and pain in his deep voice made the spy look up. As she locked optics with the Matrix-bearer, Terabyte was once again washed over with the impression of being seen through. Her engine emitted another tiny whine.
'Why, oh why didn't I let the Scraplets eat me when I had the chance?' She thought as she braced herself for the inevitable pain. 'It would have been so much kinder of a fate.'
"Terabyte. I would never harm a fellow Autobot. No matter what the situation." Her expression must have betrayed how thoroughly unconvinced she was. She ignored the doubtlessly faked grief in his voice.
He paused, and in spite of herself, Terabyte whispered, "I am not an Autobot." Fear removed any of the anger and bite that her tone might have held.
"Not yet, but we have promised you that chance. I swore you would come to no harm while you are with us; I will keep my word." Optimus said gently, but firmly. His Cybertronian was strong, calming. His accent spoke of a relatively high lineage before the war.
"By presuming to give a commanding officer orders, I infringed upon the terms you set, Lord Prime." She whispered again in reply. The femme was not about to believe that she wasn't going to be beaten. As soon as she relaxed, the pain would come.
"Your intentions were honest; your reasons for disobedience put our lives before your own. You infringed on my terms with my safety in mind. I will not punish you for that. It is not our way to punish without cause."
With that, the Prime held out his other hand to her, palm up. Terabyte stared at the flat appendage blankly from where she still knelt on the floor, before – afraid of offending the Autobot leader at whose mercy she still sat – she weakly accepted the hand, allowing the Prime to help her to her pedes.
"And Terabyte," Optimus said, now in English. "I am not Megatron. Optimus Prime, or simply one of the two is sufficient. I do not demand extravagant titles and would prefer it if they were not used."
"Yes my lo- Prime." She trembled under his mild rebuke. Even the gentlest tones from the Prime held terrifying amounts of power, and she was still far from comfort.
As soon as she was able, Terabyte fled the Autobots' presence, seeking refuge in the empty bay that was being used as a mess room. The shaken femme sat down in the far corner and stared blankly at the table, trying to regain her composure and figure out what had just happened.
So far as she could tell, she ought to be a smear on the bottom of the Prime's foot by now. But he hadn't even reprimanded her. And he seemed so... sad. As if her fear of him was painful...
Her helm jerked up as an unknown EM field brushed against her own cautiously. Instinctively, Terabyte tightened her field away from...
"Bumblebee." She said slowly, forcing her tone to neutral. She didn't even need to look up to recognize the mech. "Is there something I am required for, sir?"
The scout shifted nervously, plainly discomfited by her formality. He rubbed the back of his helm with one hand. "Uh not really... I just kind of thought you might want to... I don't know, talk?"
"Talk." She parroted suspiciously. "About what?"
He squirmed a little at her obvious and unhidden dislike for him, but sat down in the chair across from her anyway. "I guess what I really mean is… I'm sorry."
"What for?" Terabyte snarled, switching to Cybertronian as her temper spiked. "If it's about earlier, you can just take your sympathy somewhere else. I don't want it."
Bumblebee held his hands up, palms out in a very human gesture, shaking his helm firmly. "No, that's not why I came… I came to apologize… f-for what I – what I did to Skyquake. And through him, what I did to you…"
Terabyte's expression remained stoically blank as she regarded him carefully. The small femme wondered just how long the Autobot had been rehearsing this elaborate string of deception. Although… his tone was just a bit too sincere for her idea of a lie. A sliver of her spark begged her not to dismiss his apology. She earnestly tried to ignore it.
"I-I acted without thinking, and I… what I did was- was brutal and cruel and… I'm so, so sorry." He finished. His unusually large blue optics filled with what appeared to be genuine remorse. He also looked like he had no expectations for forgiveness and as much as it hurt the scout; he was okay with that. Like he thought he deserved the guilt he was feeling.
In that moment, Terabyte realized that Bumblebee was truly sorry. This wasn't part of the Autobot act. This was an honest plea for forgiveness, an attempt to make amends. At the same time, Terabyte realized just how young the yellow scout was. Probably only a little bit older than her. But he carried himself in a way that reminded her so much of Smokey. For just a second she saw her little brother reflected in him, his doorwings tilted just like so...
"You realize I can't forgive you…" She said softly, the revelations stuck too firmly in her mind to allow her to speak harshly. "Not yet, anyway."
She couldn't forgive him, not now, maybe not ever. But she couldn't stay angry at the young mech, not after that. As an Autobot, she would never like him, but he was another one of the few good Autobots; one of those who'd ended up on the wrong side of the war.
The scout looked down sadly and nodded. He gave a series of low blips in the humans' Morse code.
I understand…
The two of them sat in silence for a while, both lost in their own thought processes. According to her chronometer, it was about a quarter of a groon later that Bumblebee spoke again, tentatively.
"Optimus would never hurt you, you know."
The spy shuddered as she thought about her encounter with the huge, powerful mech. It always felt like he was just staring through her, straight to the core of her very being. Like he knew everything about her… who she'd been, who she'd become… It was unnerving to say the least.
The Prime may have spared her – this time. But that was just part of the act. While she was pretending to want to be an Autobot to gain their trust, they were pretending to be good mechs to gain her trust. The circle of deceit was ironic.
She laughed humorlessly, and not without a fearful waver. "Yeah… That's why you're all afraid of him. I've seen how he can subdue each of his best soldiers with a glance." She let out a hot vent. "Harmless, I'm sure."
"Terabyte," Bumblebee smiled wide and laughed. Or at least he let out a string of whirrs and beeps in an imitation of laughter. Terabyte knew that Megatron had severely damaged his vocal processor; the fact that he could even talk - albeit tonelessly - was amazing. "We aren't afraid of Optimus! Not like that anyway. He's almost like a father to me, he and his team have raised me since I was a youngling. No, we love and respect him as our leader; maybe we are a little scared of him, but not because he hurts us, or threatens us with punishment. We are afraid of disappointing him."
"Because of what he'd do to you if you did." Terabyte concluded stubbornly.
"No, because we respect him." Bumblebee gauged the disbelief in her optics before continuing. "It's like… when you were a youngling, you wanted your sire to be happy with you; you didn't want to do something that would disappoint him, right?"
She nodded her pointed black helm slowly, wondering just where the scout was taking this conversation. Memories of Bullwing and all the times she had done something to try and impress him flooded her mind. Mixed among them were the times she'd let down her sire… The sad, grieved optics that told her, 'Terabyte… you knew better than that… I know you knew better than that…'
"It's like that."
Thankfully, the scout chose that moment to leave. Right before he left, he'd laid one black hand gently on her shoulder for a moment. She wasn't sure, but he'd seemed to understand that he'd stirred up memories that she needed to be alone with.
In the silence of the empty bay Terabyte stared unseeing at the table top, her golden optics dimmed as she submerged her mind in the flood of her short younglinghood memories. A single drop of coolant slid from her optics and rolled forlornly over the edge of her battle mask.
Arcee walked towards Optimus's office with long, purposeful strides; the image of the Decepticon femme cowering at his feet with her armor clamped down and trembling foremost in her thoughts. She was determined and nothing he said would change her mind. This was important. With a flourish, the blue and pink two-wheeler burst into the Prime's office and pressed her servos into his desk top.
"Optimus, we need to talk."
He looked up at her with one optic ridge raised. "May I ask what about?"
"The Decepticon." Arcee answered bluntly.
"Arcee, we have had this discussion before and I have not changed my opinion on the matter. We have promised the femme a chance to defect, and we will allow her to do so. We will not withhold our trust unless she proves herself unworthy of it. Have I made myself clear?" He said with a long sigh.
"No, it's not ab- I have kind of been nagging about that haven't I?" Her leader's expression was answer enough. Surely she'd only gone to him once or twice… or three or four times… Arcee stopped counting with a wry smile. "Sorry."
"So if not that, what do you wish to discuss about Terabyte?" Optimus asked, lowering his helm into his hands and massaging his temples.
"Did you see how small she was?" She asked incredulously. She hadn't realized just how tiny the femme was until the incident that afternoon. Terabyte had never before seemed so young and… vulnerable. Arcee felt bad about yelling at the mech; he was obviously tired and stressed, the last thing he needed was to be yelled at. But she couldn't help herself. "This whole time, she's been hiding her size under flared armor. Even in recharge, she hasn't let her guard down. The femme is terrified of us! Pit, Prime, she's still a youngling!"
"I know Arcee." Prime answered with a weary sigh. Wise, sorrowful, cobalt optics peered up at her from where he was seated. "I know. In her short vorns, Terabyte has seen more suffering than perhaps any of us ever will. There is more anger and grief in her spark than even yours, Arcee. That is why we must help her if she will allow us."
"The Matrix tell you that?" She asked softly.
"Yes."
Arcee frowned. "Optimus, she's Protihexian isn't she? The neutral city Magnus and the Wreckers blew when they went against your orders to off the trines?"
The femme sincerely hoped that her - as Jack called it - gut feeling would prove wrong.
"Yes, though you should know by now that they were not responsible for the destruction of her home."
Her intuition rarely was wrong, and this time was to be no exception. Arcee jerked backwards at the simple confirmation as she was hit with the full meaning that it held. If that femme was from Protihex...
"Oh... Prime that's-" She trailed off, at a loss for words.
"Indeed."
Once she thought she had calmed down a bit, Terabyte went to the one mech she could trust: Skyquake.
While the Autobots kept the security cameras operating, Ratchet assured her that there was no audio recording and that she would not be disturbed.
Apparently, her complete and utter terror had shaken the Autobots into adding yet another layer of decency to their facade. There was so much falsehood and alternate agendas… She was lying about who she was and what her purpose was and the Autobots were lying about theirs.
She sat down on the edge of the berth and looked down at the mech's peaceful face. Absently she fingered the accessories on her cannon, which surprisingly the Prime had allowed her to keep.
"Skyquake..." She whispered, "I don't know if I can do this. The Autobots destroyed everything I ever loved... maybe even you..."
She brushed her hand against his face gently before dragging it back into her lap. She gazed down at her hands, laced together in her lap. "And now they're acting kind and forgiving… I - I don't know if I can go through with this. Sky... I need you now more than ever."
The femme very nearly lowered her mask, but stopped herself when she remembered the camera. "I've worn this mask for so long... I'm beginning to wonder if I'm forgetting the femme who's underneath it... Skyquake, you taught me how to live again... to trust..."
She laughed sadly. "I think I'll need to review that lesson... I seem to be forgetting... "
"-eem to be forgetting..." A beautiful voice told him with a sad laugh. She was sad again. Skyquake frowned mentally as his unsynced processors rolled slowly into the disharmony that was consciousness. It had been so long since he'd heard that voice... He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Terabyte.
"Skyquake... please wake up." She whispered brokenly. The femme crossed her arms over his chest plates and, laying her helm on her arms, wept. He could feel each cold drop of coolant fall on his armor and slide to the berth. Her EM field was flaring violently against his own.
Though it took a massive amount of energy and effort, Skyquake slowly raised one heavy arm and wrapped it around her gently. He rubbed her dorsal plating as he tried to comfort her. He onlined his optics and captured the weeping femme in his worried gaze.
Skyquake was almost positive she hadn't realized he was awake.
As he sat there, comforting his closest friend, Skyquake tried to make his processors work together. His memories were still blocked. There was one thing of which he was now certain though. This femme, crying into his chassis, was special to him, and it was important that he do whatever he could to make her happy again.
After nearly a breem, she stopped crying. Skyquake's helm felt like it would fall apart, but that didn't matter to him. What mattered was being there for Terabyte.
Just as this thought was painstakingly forming itself in his fragmented processors, she jerked upright and stared into his optics, pink coolant streaking her face, pooled on the edge of her mask. It was almost like her processor had waited until just now to inform her of his awakening.
"Skyquake? You're awake?" She rubbed her golden optics as if wondering if she was dreaming. "D- do you... remember me?"
He blinked. Of course he remembered her! How could he forget? Then again, he'd forgotten everything else, so perhaps she was right to be concerned.
"Tera'... Hi." The army green jet fought to form the words and his voice was strange to him... to be honest, he sounded like an official retard. He struggled to form coherent words. When he thought, it was all arranged properly, but when he opened his mouth, the words were mixed up and wrong. "Where are... I?"
Not answering his question, or seeming to notice his apparent mental deficiency, Terabyte hugged him with more strength than he'd have thought possible from such a little femme.
"Skyquake! Thank goodness you're alright!" She mumbled into his armor as she refused to release her vice-like hug. He ignored the spikes of pain in his chassis, where it felt like he'd been badly wounded, quite recently. "I thought... I was worried that you might not wake up, or that you wouldn't be you..."
He returned her embrace, gently interrupting her relieved rambling. "Ter-yte. What ... happed?" He winced as the ache in his processor grew exponentially. He wished the words would come out straight.
Unfortunately, she caught the motion and once again ignored his question, more concerned with his well-being. She got up and ran from the small room shouting in an odd language that he couldn't understand.
"Medic! He's awake! He's awake!"
Thud. Thud, thump. Thunk.
By the time Terabyte and the medic returned, all Skyquake could hear, feel, or think of was the pounding of his aching processors. Words were being spoken, but he couldn't hear them properly through the pounding in his helm.
Someone, the medic he assumed, slipped something into his wrist and then stood back, watching him expectantly. For a few nanoseconds nothing happened, then without warning, the pounding silenced to a low throb in the back of his processors and the terrible helm-splitting ache melted away to no more than a niggling unpleasantness.
"Skyquake. Can you hear me?" The medic asked impatiently.
"Wha?" Skyquake replied, hating the fact that he sounded so... stupid. There was just no other way to describe it. But with his processors out of sync, there wasn't anything he could do about it either.
"Good, he can hear."
Terabyte glared at the medic and answered angrily in the strange language. "He can't understand you! How is that good? He ought to have downloaded the language by now." She tossed a worried look at him.
Skyquake tried to give her a reassuring smile, but only part of his lip-plates responded, resulting in a doubtlessly hideous mess. Apparently he'd taken a rather hard hit to thee helm and his self-repairs hadn't completely fixed things like motor control and speech yet. Her worried scowl deepened and she yelled at the medic some more in the unknown words.
"There's something wrong with his mind, Ratchet. You're supposed to be a medic! You're supposed to fix him. Not just watch him malfunction and tell me everything's good!"
Skyquake growled in frustration. His processors weren't functioning normally and simple tasks took monumental effort and still came out all wrong. And all the yelling was making his helm hurt again.
"He's killed more mechs than I can count! He doesn't deserve to even live!" The red and white medic shouted in reply.
He sounded pained, but since Skyquake couldn't understand what was being said, he had no idea why. The medic's gestures indicated that it was his (Skyquake's) fault, but he didn't know what he'd done wrong.
"What gives you the right to decide who lives and who dies? If that's how you-"
"Stop!" He yelled at them both. "Stop fight!"
Both turned to stare at him, surprised by his outburst.
"Skyquake's right. Arguing is pointless, we need to find out what's wrong and fix it. We don't even know if the new processor is working." Terabyte agreed, though Skyquake could only guess what she'd said.
The medic nodded and stepped towards him, speaking. "I will need to perform a medical sync to see how well your processors are functioning."
It took him a moment to realize that he could actually understand, then he nodded slowly. "Not."
The medic blinked, confused and impatient. "What do you mean 'not'? Not what?"
After analyzing the question, Skyquake tried to force his vocalizer to form the words correctly. It failed and yet again only one word came out. "Functning."
"Functioning. Not functioning." Terabyte translated. Skyquake let out a grateful sigh. "He's trying to tell us that his processors aren't functioning properly." She turned to the medic and spoke in the other language again.
Whatever she was saying, she obviously didn't want him to hear. Skyquake scowled minutely. Since when did Terabyte try to protect him? It was supposed to be the other way around. "Ratchet… can processor damage even be fixed?"
"That's what this scan is meant to find out." The medic answered with dire tones. He approached Skyquake with a cord and hub extended. "Open your data port and plug into the hub. Let's get this over with."
Skyquake complied as quickly as he could. As soon as he had, the medic pulled up a chair and plugged his own cord in. Moments later the medic's presence filled his processor, causing the tiny fragmented scraps of his firewalls to raise automatically. They did nothing to stop the alien presence in his mind.
The medic was in his helm! Skyquake's disjointed thoughts screamed. His logic centers seized up and crashed, making his thoughts wild and frightened. His processors were running at three different speeds, one of which was now non-functional. Someone was in his mind and he wanted that someone out!
'Go away! Get out of my head!' Skyquake shouted both mentally and physically. 'Get out!'
A.N. I believe this chapter is a pretty good answer to the questions I got in your reviews, beloved and much appreciated readers. More of Skyquake and a teeny bit of romance.
Thanks and credit to enmused for assisting with sorting out the somewhat garbled outline of this chapter especially.